The Grand Duchy of the Grand Duke of Gorgonzola.
I've finally got the plan down on this and am acquiring figures and painting them.
The matter is deciding what sort of army such a ruler would have that would make sense for his position. As a ruler who either owns or has or has pretensions to the contado of Venice, the Dalmation Islands, Naples & Sicilly, Corsica, Tunis or the site of Carthage, The Morea (The Peloponnesus) Crete, Rhodes, the Aegean islands Malta, Pantaleria the Balearics and Constantnople, the army as I see it is really an extension of the navy and the army would therefore be most concerned with defending and taking points of entry, ports, harbors and a little
of the hinterland around them but not much. Grand overland campaigns are not in its ken and I imagine that armies would be made up of a small number of regular regiments, and a large establishment of independent battalions like frei-corps, pontoneers, engineers, artificiers, artillery both field and heavy and siege, and fortress. Mortars and howitzers and Pedreros, so useful in siege work would be ubiquitous, but on the other hand Cavalry would not be needed much except for patrol and scouting and the troopers would most likely be shipped to the point of crisis without their mounts, the idea being to pick up what they needed locally. As realistic as that may be in real life– or not--, that's the way it's gonna be.
It would also require a fair amount of inshore craft, oar, and combination of sail and oar. It might also be good for officers to have double ranks, that is a land or army rank or a naval rank and have training in both as they will be using both modes of transit quite often.
Because of the curious nature of the economy of the state, it is probably good to plan for an "Antiquities battalion" One of the major sources of income is the retrieving and copying of acnient staturary, pottery, and artifacts from various places and the originals are sold to museums and national collections. Therefore there would have to be something like the crew Boney brought to Egypt, Unlike Boney, who brought them along because he believed as all Westerners do
that the East is something of a cross between a 
house and a treasure house, and only wanted them to find gold to pay his troops, this will be a fully equipped permanent archeological expedition. Although the Grand Duke won't snub the value of gold, he realizes there's much more gold to be mined in old gold than can be found in the metal. Thus for example, if he found a million florins in gold he would turn it into five by selling it off to collecters rather than
melting it down.
No one every said an Imagi-Nation has to be tiny though it must be Ruritanian. The Principality of Saxe-Burlap und Schleswig-Beerstein is basically Germany in the 18th century without the major states of Bavaria, Prussia, Hannover, Saxony Wurtmberg and the Bishopric of Wurzburtg, though after the Seven Years war they do get Alsace and Lorraine back. I have that and "Flounce" Which if France, and I have Bad Zu Wurst which is Prussia. While I gave Gulagia knocking around in my head which is Russia, I didn't want to do another thing of the same,
so I decided to do the Grand Duchy.
No one seems to pick the Italian Peninsula for an imagi-Nation, though as far as Ruritanian kingdoms holding on to their last tawdry bits of glory from the Renaissance it is ideal. One also has the added complication of the Papal lands. But the strategic situation of Italy is interesting. In real life people seemed to have had no compunction in fighting over Italy, as in the Wars of the
Austrian and Spanish Succession, and best of all, The Polish Succession, It was not out of the ordinary at all to assume that "Turkish" matters be a factor as well.
Besides there is also the allure of sun-drenched villas, Olive groves with enormous olive trees planted in the days of Augustus, and vast vinyards attended by luscious contadini in off the shoulder dresses. Besides what better place to have an imagi-nation than the Mediterranean where
the fleets can visit Capri, Lemmnos, Crete, Cyprus, Athens, Monte Carlo Naples and Syracusa. If you make one in Northern Europe all you get to visit is Spithead.
I also found a tailor-made "raison d' etre" in my campaign victory conditions. The Grand Duke covets titles and honors, but being quite mad in some ways though Polonius thinks that there be method in it, covets ancient titles as well, such as Pharoh of Egypt, the Shofet of Carthage, The King of Jerusalem, and the Lion of Judah (Ethiopia) and so the filching of this piece of territory here, a bit there, an island here, and island there (he got control of Santorini and was able to stylize himself then as Emperor of Atlantis. Don't speak too loud or he might be looking for a chunk of land on the coast of Mexico to call himself "Heir or Montezuma." The trade implications of such an empire are obvious, but exponentially increased because of the awakening interest in ancient ruins, the artifacts of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and the romance of Greece. It allowed in the next century for whole legions of deluded europeans to think they were
trapsing off to Arcadia to rescue the people of Pericles and Thucydides and come back very, very disenchanted with what they found.
The other thing was that Europeans became aware of huge wonderful creatures that existed milennia before Eden, and their bones and fossils were starting to fetch high prices among the wealthy who collected such "curios" -- "Curies" as they were called at the time. All these entreports around the Mediterranean were a perfect place both for human and jurrasic artifacts to surface and fetch high prices from the "Frengi" (Franks) of the coast.
That's the general back story of the Grand Duke and the strange strategic
necessity of his kingdom.
Finally, yes, the Grand Duke maintains a fleet slightly smaller than the French to defend his domain, and I made the YO!-HO!-HO! game rules to represent both high-seas and inshore combat in a reasonable size relationship to my 28-30mm armies.
The Grand Duke will have a bitter enemy as well. This will not be the Turk nor the Pope, but will in fact be the King of Savoy a sort of Italian Prussia, who in real life did become the King of Italy, but in this world- uh-uh. Verdi will skip that interposition of history in that world.
The color scheme for the troops will be a pale purple coat, lavender mostly.
sails to the Skeleton Seas, and finds inspiration as she goes.
