What have your setting's empire ever done for the people?
>>92536464My setting's empire have built big armies and threw them at the badguys. "The people" (most humans, most dwarves, a lot of elves and halflings) don't really appreciate this, they just appreciate the large-scale conscription and massive casualties, but if not for the imperial muster then "the people" would be fucked.
>>92536464If you mean "the people" as in, the general population, less then nothing.
>>92536464...brought peace?
>>92537032Be honest, anon. Is this peace a desert?
Real world empires at least the long-lasting ones, tend to use their resources to invest in the empire, and thus the people. Rome had the Grain Dole for instance, giving free grain to a number of citizens. Politicians often would use their money to build public works projects like the Colosseum. In China they had to make sure the canals and dykes ere up to code, they built the Great Wall to keep the Mongols out. The Mongols themselves had one of the worlds best post-office programs.
>>92536464Nothing relevant to the game.
>>92536464Cut down the elven forests and booted them off the continent.
>>92538501Wow, they booted entire forests off the continent?
Built a big wall. Kept the land safe and eliminated unemployment, the wall keeps expanding, eventually there will be only wall.
>>92536464There's only one subject in singular form in your sentence (your setting's empire), so it would be "has", not "have". If you meant the subject to be plural, it would be "your setting's empires".Please adjust your posting bot accordingly.
>>92538567In that they made a vast navy with the trees yes (elfwood was as strong as steel and had other advantages, basically their mithril/adamantine - I got it from the Feist books with how the Tsurani use some specially treated super wood instead of steel because they lack much metal) though the people kicked off the continent were the elves.
>>92538567Yes, it ws a living forest.
>>92536464Provided law and order, held off the barbarians at the borders, built roads, aqueducts and canals, operated state-run farms and ranches that provide food at cost to the people, operate schools for children, take a minimum tithe of soldiers from each province so no one community risks losing too many people, provides temples for any faith that's not oppositional to the empire or has harmful practices such as human sacrifice, hires professional monster hunters and patrols for bandits, the usual.
The people? Not much was done, if you only take positive deeds into consideration. If you take negative deeds, they enslaved a TON of people in order to fatten the rulers of the central territories.
>>92536464>What have your setting's empire ever done for the people?Spain? Well, they abolished the brutal and tyrannical cult of ritual murder in Mexico.
>>92538916>the people kicked off the continent were the elvesOh, well you should have just said so earlier; that makes so much more sense.
>>92540143...to install a gentle and democratic cult of ritual murder in the name of profit.
Guaranteed the safety of the roads from the monsdale plateau all the way to the etessin river.
>>92540161You see, it's the sacrificed people's fault for not being profitable enough.
>>92536464The Cyclopean Empire is just one group among the infinite horde of giants destroying all of reality- also known as the Meat Death of the Universe. Where the Empire stands out is how they are uniquely talented at recovering technology and using it for war. The Cyclopean Empire represents the corruption of knowledge and loss of history- they're the only ones who know how old world technology works, and they're going to use it to kill you.
>>92536464Tax them
Bail out the gods when the Unnamed One (personification of the planet itself) tried to kill them. The emperor at the time died in a duel to trap the Unnamed One in a volcano
>>92536464Well they gave in to a demand of elves who are stand in for croats to have an representation in the Imperial diet(even if noble elves that are standin for some NOTaustrian nobility). Unfortuanetelly They somehow igored their elvish diffrences and started beeing butthurt abaut Dwarfs(serbs) getting a representation too.
>>92536464>>92537032
>>92536464They crushed the local earthware industry because its gender structure displeased them.
>>92536464>aqueducts >sanitation >roadsDo you fucks need a song or something??
>>92536464The guaranteed work program for skilled workers.Abolishment of the noble class.Expulsion of foreign companies in the steel industry and returned it to the people.Closing a loophole that allowed multiple politicians to enjoy diplomatic immunity by being "ambassadors" representing nations they had never set foot in.Abolishment of child soldiers.Establishment of unions.Establishment of a proper jury system and strict minimums for the death penalty, the executioner pool made up of those who voted to execute a criminal.Wrote the original draft of the sylvan agreement to create diplomatic ties and non-interference policies between man and fey.The whiskey.
>>92536464roads
I want to have babies...
>>92536464They destroyed a matriarchy, for one.They also instituted slavery.
>>92536464Performed highly ethical things on the entire population.
Railroads, factories, the abolishment of slavery, and the global spread of confusing sports.Also some other things but let's not dwell on those.
>>92536464I have actually done based on something I read from Jewish writings from that period: "to whom they built the roads and body temples (sport halls)? Not for our sake, but for theirs. They extend arms, gifts in hand, as the other holds a sword bloodied with our sons. They take your money to build their baths as they raze the mikve (ceremonial bathhouse)". Basically, the empire does everything that looks good on a propaganda pamphlet- but in practice the benefits mostly go to the empire's own people, it destroys legitimate local facilities to cause shortage that they then fix with their own equivalent and all while the real reason for them being there is squeezing maximum taxes.
>>92537032This. They destroy peace to bring another peace.
>>92539280dang, why aren't all empires this magnanimous?I mean, it's the objectively correct choice. The more you invest and the safer your lands the better your returns.
>>92549357Hadrian was right. JVDEA DELENDA EST.
The ancient evil, matriarchic magic empire reigned with cruelty and dark enchantments, practicing ritual sacrifices to maintain their power. Though the empire crumbled millennia ago, its eerie legacy endures through hauntingly beautiful temples adorned with mystical runes, majestic palaces cloaked in shadows, and eerie underground chambers shrouded in mystery. Everyday practices of this empire included secretive rituals performed under a blood-red moon, the chanting of ancient incantations to call upon forbidden powers, and the offering of sacrifices to appease malevolent deities. In present times, echoes of this sinister past can be found in modern ceremonies that pay homage to forgotten traditions, in whispered tales of ghostly apparitions haunting ancient ruins, and in the faint traces of arcane symbols etched into the walls of the empire's abandoned cities.
>>92539280>provides temples for any faith that's not oppositional to the empire or has harmful practices such as human sacrificeThat's actually a very bad idea, because while religion is great to unite people. People from different religions tend to fight each other even more often than people from different villages.So powerful state religion, with others just now being opressed is best choice
>>92536464Thrown overwhelming numbers of soldiers against the foreign invaders while a series of plagues has killed 90% of the population and opportunistic kingdoms and nobles within the empire are siding with the invaders.My setting is an allegory for European and specifically Spanish conquests of the New World
>>92536464Unified the nations, ended wars between them, erased their ethnic identities (which is tragic but removes ethnic wars), brought prosperity, civilized the lands and removed monsters and chaos. Even the pirates have been pacified.mostly...
>>92536464Protected them from humanoids, gnomes gay people, and other eldritch horrors you may find in the wild.Built roads, aqueducts and other infraestructure so populations boomed, spread literacy and the use of magitek.The only bad things was that they were elves, so they also made a ton of half elves which are kind of a plague, and also were very religious intolerant when they were around, which in the setting it was not a bad thing.
>>92556384True, and arguably why monarchy or landed leadership is better than politicians. Even the greeks knew this to a degree.The issue with rulership comes when the rulers can increase their own power / wealth at the cost of their people.For example, A barons wealth is his lands. Therfor to increase his wealth, he improves his lands. It is what he passes to his children who then do the same.A politician holds no such loyalty to a territory they own. In theory, they should provide to ensure they are elected or re-elected. But with political systems being what they are, its 80% partisan nonsense. They are incentivized to not solve problems, at least not totally, so they can campaign on them again as issues.Now this does not mean every politician is a dick, nor every lord a saint.But landed leadership has a far better track record.
The closest thing to an Empire was the Arvingian Kingdom and it was torn down by a VENGEFUL LICH.
>>92557185Citizens brawling in public would not be tolerated, religion is no excuse.>>92556384A lot of writers miss a very important part of a working empire, that the various provinces have to want to remain or you're just sitting on a constant simmering civil war that's ready to break out at any moment. Want to prevent rebellion? Don't give them something to rebel against.
>>92557766Nostalgia for paradise is older than Rome. It's an illusion. There are Muslim countries with higher standards of living than modern western democracies, but it's only because they have fuckloads of oil money, which is why they won't let you in unless you also have fuckloads of money. If I had to bet my future and my kids' futures on a non-democratic country I'd probably pick China but I still don't think China is going to end well.
>>92558177Oh hell no. China is consistently on the verge of collapse. They keep having to print money and building empty cities and other "joke jobs" to keep the bubble from bursting.
>>92558470>Oh hell no. China is consistently on the verge of collapse.No it isn't. It's an ancient bureaucratic hell-state made real in the modern day, you're always going to hear new fruity stories of large-scale craziness (the housing scams, the millions of spies for Uighur families, literally putting Uighurs in cotton fields) and that's just business as usual for them. Right now they're on the upswing and will be for a while.
>>92558470Don't forget they stay afloat with Western money like all communist systems they rely and need funds from the West to stay existing.
>>92542045>the whiskeySay no more, I’m in.
>>92536464Butchered untold thousands for having the audacity to demand better living conditions, providing the impetus for a civil war to return truth, justice and the republic.
>>92558511Not if their majority Han population keeps forgetting how to have children.The one child policy fucked them over so badly that they will barely be able to hold the country together in the next fifty years. We’re likely looking at a nation held together through horrifying oppression of the populace, or the splintering of the CCP into another warring states period.
>>92536464tbf their justification of "we have to control the colonies lest they unleash the singularity" carries some weight and in a rare moment of self-reflection they DID scattered space with back ups which could serve as refugia for sanity if things went south. Whether they were a net possitive is a fraught discussion what with legacy memetic programming, redaction plagues and genal semantic apocalypse. It's agreed that whatever they did do it wasn't enough.>>92538374Amazing to imagine what they'd have looked like without Egypt (though of course the whole mediterranean would be transformed in their abscence). Maybe nomads could have been kicked out of Ukraine if they realised that would do as a breadbasket instead?>>92540694>silent as the grave...
>>92557185Whichever faith picks the fight is a detriment to the empire and gets tossed out.
>>92558511Google tofu drag and gutter oil.
>>92536464they killed all the black people, drove the merchants from the temples and forbid immigration. Needless to say, our group had to stop them
>>92560607>Maybe nomads could have been kicked out of Ukraine if they realised that would do as a breadbasket instead?Asking the Romans to conquer a place without roads and cities is a tall order.
>>92536464My setting's empire eliminated a rouge AI which had completely exterminated a number of worlds and was trying to wipe out all life in the galaxy.
>>92559896They'll go the way of South Korea if they keep it up, but I think they're pushing towards the death spiral already. They've dropped below replacement and it won't get any better, India already passed them.South Korea is far, far worse though. Probably the first naturally inflicted genocide.
>>92559896>>92569954You guys are overlooking the fact that while China is below replament rate -on average- they also have tens of millions in rular cities who are pumping out babies like nothing ever happened (in fact this was even the case during OCP).Their city-dwellers will diminish and age, but the provinces will still provide a constant stream of young workers.South Korea, Europe and US are in much more trouble, since they've gone and emptied, 'developed' or downright disenfranchised their respective high fertility hinterlands from feeding manpower to the cities.
>>92569731True but they have rivers at least. Mud season on the other hand...>>92569872Same-ish.
>>92558470Just because boomers on Youtube have spent the last decade saying it's two weeks away from collapsing doesn't mean it actually is.
The first one achieved perfect wealth disparity to the point where debt was a currency. The second one I don't like to talk about. The fifth Reich was a really really bad time until the liberalization.
>>92570695Eh if we can achieve cultural unity of some degree in another 50 years with the mass immigration I think the US will probably be okay in regards to population decline. We have to survive long enough though without anybody doing anything silly first, and there are many other issues that may hinder that.
>>92577336we can't
Prior to the plague they built roads, guard outposts and trade routes and kept the bands of marauding orcs, and other humanoids in check.Post plague they don’t really have the numbers to do that anymore and increasingly the towns and guardposts have to rely on untrained but hungry adventurers. Also a lot of the old noble families died out during the plague. So there is an opportunity for a strong man to grow in wealth and power and maybe found a new noble dynasty of his own.One other problem, the humanoids (orcs etc.) were not affected by the plague at all. In fact there numbers have increased. And a number of young orphans have turned brigand.
>>92540268>Tax themExactly, they know their place. Pay their fucking money and shut their yapping cock holsters>Don't like it?>Tough shit fucko!>Where you gunna go now?>The 'other empire'?
>>92536464Don't be too hard on them, they're really trying their best.
>>92577336Population decline won't be a problem in first world nations because anti-aging medicine will be available to keep people reasonably young, healthy and thus capable of working. China might also gain access to it, but I'm thinking that a lot of the third-world isn't going to. Which means trouble for them when their baby booms inevitably turn into baby busts.
>>92536464They conquered them to make them part of the empire, subjugated them, made slaves of their women and soldiers of their men to fuel further expansion into more distant territories. All others are inferior to the empire and it's free citizens, so working for the good of the empire is far superior to working against the empire. A far better use of their lives. Or so the empire says.
>>92570695South Korea is literally doomed. They're at or below 0.7. The inevitable end starts at 1.3 and lower.
>>92536464It caused the Great Flood and their descendants colonized another landmass and currently living in bickering merchantile city states.
>>92560607>Maybe nomads could have been kicked out of Ukraine if they realised that would do as a breadbasket instead?not really. the nomads weren't brought to heel until the advent of decent firearms. The pale of civilization is where it is because beyond that, you'd get your investments wiped out by nomadic tribes before they could start paying dividends. and also if the romans could control the nomads in Ukraine, they wouldn't have had to deal with the nomads on the Rhine.>>92577336Mass immigration is a band-aid. Second and third generation immigrants in the United States are still only having one or two kids apiece.
>>92540161I've still yet to see an argument as to what was the objective difference between working to death on the silver mines or being sacrifices by the natives
