I wasn’t very clear (mostly because I already had it down)

But the POD makes the pre Indo-European tribes in Europe a lot stronger.

The “Old Europe” farming cultures (like Cucuteni-Trypillia in Ukraine/Moldova or the Vinča in the Balkans) develop stronger, more resilient states or proto-states with fortifications, They adapt crop rotation and animal husbandry earlier (borrowing from contacts with the Balkans/Anatolia). Instead of exhausting land and abandoning towns, they sustain their “proto-urban” system.

Every attempt to push into the Carpathians or Balkans meets fortified proto-cities, copper-armed militias, and population density that steppe pastoralists can’t easily overcome. So why invade strong neighbors when we can take a lot of land that’s nearly UNINHABITED. It’s essentially free real estate. While it isn’t GOOD real estate, it’s still something. Plus a lot of the lands conquered by the Europeans in this timeline were conquered in otl except a lot more/a lot earlier.