Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Need_A_Life 08-05-06, 07:03 AM	Now, my characters primary goal at the moment is: build an empire. I am already a good way on doing that (got a solid foothold and an army of ~26k soldiers), but I want to get some tips. First, I have a rival; someone who is also trying to fulfill the local prophecy and through that claim to be a living god, just like I intend to. I am torn between sending my army against him, simply to destroy my competition and simply struggling to fulfill the last parts of the prophecy. Second, I need to build the empire. I can either use my troops for this (build fortresses and cities) or use my undead slaves for the same purposes. The undead would be more effecient, but also deadly if any of my own come near it. Third, I need to demonstrate something that can convince everyone that I am a worthy leader. I await your help Thank you in advance.
Shaggy_Shaggs 08-05-06, 07:09 AM	The answer to all your questions is the same. Secure your initial kingdom, then expand it. Keep expanding until you run into boundaries, then break out the swords and continue to expand. Each neighbor you conquer is more resources and more work force, to improve your secure areas, strengthen your armies, and demonstrate your competence as a warlord. Basically pretend your territory is a metastasizing tumor and run it accordingly. When the other would-be empire has been overrun and assimilated, how's the other guy going to fulfill the prophecy? Hmmm... I'm in the mood for a game of Civilization 2, now.
Need_A_Life 08-05-06, 07:24 AM	Yeah, that was my initial plan. I just wanted to be warned of any potential pitfalls. how's the other guy going to fulfill the prophecy? "Gathering the people under one banner" is the final part of the prophecy. The parts of the prophecy I need to fulfill is "punish the wicked elves" and "gather the people". I need to do this all the while fighting to destroy the taint that is spreading across the continent, eliminating my rival to the empire and dealing with a millenia old threat. Sounds like I'm in for a busy time.
Shaggy_Shaggs 08-05-06, 07:40 AM	Well, delegation of authority can help some with your workload; trying to micromanage everything personally could lead to ruin. Just remember that in the lieutenant / trusted lieutenant / completely trusted lieutenant heirarchy, promotion to the third category should be awarded posthumously, in case the enemy should try to sneak a mole into your organization. Study up here (http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html). A lot of it is just plain good sense regardless of your good/evil alignment. :D
LCD2YOU 08-05-06, 07:44 AM	Actually Empires are built on the blood, sweat, tears and more than a few bodies of "lesser people".
illiterate 08-05-06, 10:36 AM	Expand the empire as you can, but remember that empires fragment. You will have to appoint viceroys, and they will always be watching for a chance to go into business for themselves. Having a personal military force which scares the hell out of your other armies, and which can cross the empire within a few days? Very good. Also: while you want your underlings to be afraid to cross you, you want the people to love you. Public works. Big ones. Aqueducts, libraries, baths, stadiums.. Make them happy to be part of your team. If you're evil (or neutral, even) you can find a culture that your people don't like and go slave raiding. You can even find them in your own back yard! Gnomes make adorable domestics and their low strength make it easier to subjugate them.
claypigeons 08-05-06, 11:00 AM	You will have to appoint viceroys, and they will always be watching for a chance to go into business for themselves. There's nothing like a contingent spell Teleport to the trap room you have created, acid fog, or a plane shift to the elemental plane of fire to keep your lieutenants in line. :cool:
Need_A_Life 08-05-06, 03:54 PM	Actually Empires are built on the blood, sweat, tears and more than a few bodies of "lesser people". Indeed. Thankfully I never claimed to be good-aligned (though I am not evil either)... not too much anyway. Expand the empire as you can, but remember that empires fragment. You will have to appoint viceroys, and they will always be watching for a chance to go into business for themselves. This is true, however considering that these viceroys will be under the command of powerful mages loyal to me, thy'd better not dare try anything. Having a personal military force which scares the hell out of your other armies, and which can cross the empire within a few days? Very good. My DM scrapped teleport altogether, so it'll be more than a few days... But yes I have an impressive 'strike force' Also: while you want your underlings to be afraid to cross you, you want the people to love you. Public works. Big ones. Aqueducts, libraries, baths, stadiums.. Make them happy to be part of your team. Great idea, I only thought about speeches and free housing (well, taxes would still apply). If you're evil (or neutral, even) you can find a culture that your people don't like and go slave raiding. You can even find them in your own back yard! Gnomes make adorable domestics and their low strength make it easier to subjugate them. This'd be the elves. Hate the arrogant buggers.... There's nothing like a contingent spell Teleport to the trap room you have created, acid fog, or a plane shift to the elemental plane of fire to keep your lieutenants in line. I prefer disintegrate... people can't argue with its power and its power has only failed me twice...
Alric 08-05-06, 04:31 PM	Ok how evil are you? Anyone can built an empire but they do it very differently depending if your good or evil. You said you have undead so I guess your probably more towards evil. Also is the person your fighting with good or evil? If hes good and your evil then its very easy. You invite him over for a party and he leaves missing his head. If hes evil on the other hand he will expect it and may even plan to get you first so that won't work. If you were good and he was evil you could easily get the people to support you over him but you sound evil so I won't suggest that. I will give you a few suggestion based on a evil person. You can assassinate him. If your a high level character you might consider doing it personally for effect. Since you have undead, you can have them attack towns then have your army come in and drive them out. They don't even have to fight each other, just have them pull out the night before you troops come in. Then everyone will think your the hero, you saved them from the undead. This works even better in the other guys kingdom. That way you can tell them that their king abandon them but were still willing to help. This will really build up your loyality, and you could even combine this with the assassination if you wanted. Then theres always crushing him. If you know you can win then theres no reason not to destroy him. Just make sure he doesn't escape. If he escape you will have all kinds of trouble. If you can have the undead attack and make it look like its not from your forces thats even better. Oh I know! You could bring you army to act like your trying to save him from the undead! Oh to bad you got there one day to late to save his life. I guess he wont be needing his kingdom anymore. Maybe you can even declear that even though their king is dead you will stand in his place and protect the people heh.
silvergamgee 08-05-06, 04:50 PM	26k soldiers? And undead? I highly recommend that you set a trap for your enemy. March about 1/3 to 1/2 of your regulars in a direct assault on his kingdom, draw him out. While he manuvers his army to meet yours, you can position your undead on his flank. They can move at night and require no rest. Fight defensively, draw him in. Then collapse his entire army by having the undead attack the flanks. Let them rip into the undead for a while, let casualties pile up for a while, then charge with your regular army. If you rout him badly enough, He won't have much of an army anymore and if you fight conservatively with your normal troops, you won't lose too many. Or if you are at a numbers disadvantage, just send the waves of undead in skirmish lines at their front and line up a few thousand troops with bows and a line of readied longspears at the front. Unleash volley after volley of arrows just past your skirmish lines. Prepare cavalry in case they try to bow you to death and sweep past the outer edge to slay their archers. The handfuls of soldiers who break through to charge your archers positions will be stomped by the longspears, and any cavalry charge would also meet a nasty end.
NightBreeze 08-05-06, 05:40 PM	Good roads. There's nothing more effective than a good road network to keep your army fast and manage to be everywhere and get your attacker by surprise.
taradusis 08-05-06, 06:33 PM	THEOCRACY-have a state religion,they can build temple fortresses to secure your borders and levy a local tax to pay for it.have them collect their tax after you collect yours,the last tax man the people see tends to garner the most hatred.MAGOCRACY-have a high level wizard go around creating walls with 20-1st level spells on them(pg 186 complete arcane).With increased access to 1st level spells more mages will survive their first years as a mage.Fund a yearly magical competion for the best new spells and reserve the right to make copy of a spellbook with all the new spells in it to spread magical knowledge to your magic acadamies.BIG DOG IN THE YARD-try to recruit a dragon,sphinx,shedu,lammasu or other mega-dice monster to be the watchdog of each of your cities,serving as the protector of wyrmling gold and silver dragons who have leadership roles in your society gives you valuable allies.RANDOM THOUGHTS.
RadicalTaoist 08-05-06, 10:42 PM	If you'd like to laugh, or cower in terror, learn how to be a feudal lord the Wal-Mart way. And then keep your kingdom. Seriously, though, if you can own the wealth of kingdoms (via means which don't irritate your DM, possibly excluding the above links and most of the infinite-wealth spell loopholes) it's astonishingly easy to conquer a lot of things. Cut off your enemy's trade. Inundate his economy with forgeries of his coins (a tactic the U.S. used to shoot the German economy in the chest during WWII) and buy up the resources of his businesses. Undersell his farmers and cause starvation, or buy all their food yourself and just starve his army.
taradusis 08-05-06, 10:48 PM	Find an oracle to help clean up the prophecy as well,I can't quess if you're evil punishing the elves or supposed to be rallying a resistance to the drow?
Kresalak 08-05-06, 11:19 PM	There are a few tactics that are really effective for building an empire. For one, roads are tech. The support of your people->win. Ruining the morale of your enemy is also good. Ruin their economy, poison their armies, and overall just %$#@ them up. Remember, you have a prophecy on your side. Remind people of that. Constantly. It doesn't matter if the prophecy is real-what matters is if people believe it is.
DarkLiChNeaZur 08-05-06, 11:37 PM	i have alot of exp with empire building, 26k soldiers is a pretty good amount i would leave 8k to guard your borders and expand with the other 18k. small towns are a risky buisness, to assimilate them there are levels to attemps always start at lvl 1 here they all are 1:ask politely 2:show a SLIGHT ammount of immpressive force, DONOT HARM THEM 3:push and tug a little, show them how much they need your protection 4take it by force. if they refuse go up a level, earning thier trust. large cities are much the same, but often will push back. i would use undead forces to build and as slaves, make sure the only living near them are necromancers who can control them if they get out of hand. use the dead from the battles, that you cant save to help this workforce, it places where you cant use undead use convicts or criminals, if there are none pay the local pop. small wages, or if your evil make em do it on pain of death ;) i would recommend a gentle expansion when possible, use diplomacy and negotiation, when words fail use war, try to avoid mass slaughtering of peoples, some get ****** when it happens. as for the rival, move faster than him, a spy to anticipate his movement, make sure you beat him to the most stratigic points first, if he gains more territory it will be for naught without economic centers, coastal forts, and bottelnecked positions that offer industrial and territorial strategin superiority. use idustry centers and the resaurces you have to fuel your machine of war, make sure you balance might and magic equally. and if you can try and kill your rival to end the war, fast, an assasination essentially. if you have a map of the area i might be able to better understand the military tactics that would be best, good luck and remember, the romans fell because they grew to heavy for their bones and muscles to maintain. NEVER over expand untill you have to men and economy to do it
Kyle_the_wizard 08-06-06, 12:17 AM	Kick your enemy in the ass and when he turns around to see what happens castrate him. ;) This means basically. Send covert troops into his kingdom as trade caravans (coming from some other place) in small #s of below 100, as well as road travellers, even if they have to molest other travellers to keep suspicion down (heck do it in your enemies name) Undead to strike borders opposite yours on your enemies or neutral parties and leave enough to link it to your enemy. Than once they're there light your torch and throw it on the food, barracks and other useful resources. Stop all trade if you can and than when his army comes back to check the disturbers charge in, in a spread out force. Harm no civies and tell them if they do not fight they will not be harmed and that you can fix they're hunger problem(if there is one) Than start assimilating by strcit orders for no solider crimes and to stop others by policing the streets, be fair. After the resistance is done take all nobles/ other kingdoms to tact, offer them all a joinment treaty. And make sure they won't be slaves but people under 1 rule. All outstanding armies are under your command and no 1 may have forces at arms execpt for the empires. This is just the basic start.
DarkLiChNeaZur 08-06-06, 12:57 AM	highly flawed highly flawed idea kyle. i know that most empires put a HEAVY enphesis on borderchecks, traveler info, tough security, kind of like international airports after 9/11 in the US. this thing gets even tighter during times of war because NO ruler, well most arent stupid enough to NOT suspect a sneak attack. perhaps a diversion but a sneak attack on the scale that you are proposing would takes months, maybe even years to engineer, if it worked at all.
Kyle_the_wizard 08-06-06, 01:14 AM	Caution is all thats required and it would take a few months but it would get the job done. I'm talking about litterally revamping your soliders into merchants than having them carry no weapons (buying them in other country) selling wares that burning the country to the ground. If you don't like that idea just get the neighbors to do it for you a few hundred undead on the borders to get both sides riled up than take em while they fight each other.
illiterate 08-06-06, 01:36 AM	I agree with whoever commented about roads. Roads make for commerce, and make it easy to hold an empire together. You know why egypt was so stable? Because no-one could live more than a few miles away from the nile. He with the best navy could go visit anyone thinking about causing trouble.
mimic2000 08-06-06, 07:05 AM	Sounds like someone should pick up a copy of "The Prince"
Rotipher 08-06-06, 12:40 PM	I'm astonished that nobody's mentioned that tried-and-true strategy of covertly supporting whatever resistance-movements or upstart nobles are already present within enemy nations' borders. Why pass up a strategy that's worked for thousands of years IRL?
illiterate 08-06-06, 12:43 PM	I'm astonished that nobody's mentioned that tried-and-true strategy of covertly supporting whatever resistance-movements or upstart nobles are already present within enemy nations' borders. Why pass up a strategy that's worked for thousands of years IRL? effective, but as recent IRL events have shown, there is a risk of creating a golem of sorts. In D&D, the risk of creating golems is even greater.
Kradlo 08-06-06, 03:36 PM	Sounds like someone should pick up a copy of "The Prince" Ah, someone with sound advice. The immortal words of Niccolo Machiavelli will serve any ruler well. My favorite is when Machiavelli poses the question as to whether it is better for a prince to be loved or feared by his people. Ideally, it is best to be both loved and feared, but if one must choose, then it is better to be feared. Men are fickle and may forget that they love you, but they will not forget that they fear you. It is important that you are not hated, however. One may be feared without being hated, and hatred may make men forget to fear you. If one must visit harm upon a people, it is best to do it all at once rather than a little at a time. If one has rebellious elements within a populace, do not imprison or kill them here and there, but take them all in one fell swoop. Yes, for a time the people will wail and curse you, but in time that will be forgotten. If you imprison or kill a rebel periodically, you remind the people to hate you. A good strategy for quelling a populace with a rebellious element is to appoint a governor that you know to be direct, brutal, and ruthless. Thus he will be in finding and eliminating rebels. This person will arrest, imprison, and execute the rebellious elements within the population without regard for the niceties of law or the normal processes of the courts. Such a person will likely take pleasure in the torture and execution of the rebels, and any that have harbored them. The people will hate this person because of the friends and relatives that have been imprisoned and killed. They will attempt to petition you for relief from this butcher. You will take your time in responding, of course. The duties of empire are many. When you do respond, you will assert that the claims must be false, for the governor is a trusted friend who could not possibly be guilty of the monstrous crimes that are alleged. But, to be fair, you will investigate the claims to clear the name of your friend. You will then be shocked when you learn the charges are true. You will be dumbfounded that your friend committed such wanton acts of depravity. It will be with the most profound sadness that you will order the arrest and execution of your dear friend for crimes against humanity. You will then appoint in his place another governor, one with a more subtle streak. He will have more skill in diplomacy than his predecessor, and be better at demonstrating your benificence by building new roads, improving city works, and making the land prosperous. He will be loved by the people, as will you for appointing him. He'll have an easier time of it, because the rebellious elements were already taken care of by his predecessor. This is how an emperor rules, if he listens to Machiavelli. Look also to Sun Tzu for lessons on warfare.
atog_eater 08-06-06, 03:43 PM	Just my thoughts on how to forfill the porfecy, I assume that the 'wicked elves' are dark elves that have their own empire? If so contact the leaders of all the other nations to form an alliance against the elves to exterminate them once and for all. You march under a new banner, that has nothing to do with any nation (so as to save infighting). The greatest war of the age and the leaders will all have thier names go down in history (that kinda thing usually appeals to rulers of nations). This gets all people marching under one flag, you punsh the elves and you prove yourself to be a worthy leader. When the other guy that is trying to become a living God does not join your crusade you then have a reason to have all the nations turn on him once the elves are dead. If the elves do not have a nation and are spread throughout the lands then do the same thing but instead of an army have an international police force, each with the same insignia. As these forces would be set up by the rulers they would remember the rulers for years to come, again getting the rulers to go down in history. How to build and keep your empire seems to have been coverd by now.
Pandaemoni 08-06-06, 04:47 PM	Read Machiavelli's The Prince, since he was trying to groom Lorenzo the Great to unify the Italian peninsula. It's a great read for anyone, but of particular interest to anyone trying to carve an empire out of states that one doesn't control. Also, one key to building real world empires has always been reverse assimilation. Alexander required his generals to marry locals and adopted local customs (the descendants of one of his generals became the Pharoahs of Egypt until it was absorbed by Rome), and the Mongols likewise greatly interbred with local groups and adopted their customs and languages. The strength of it is that the locals are less likely to rebel against your control if you respect their customs, religions, etc, rather than imposing new ones. That allows you to move on to conquering the next are even more quickly because you do not need as large a garrison to quell unrest. (Then again, whether that strategy works in your game will depend on your DM.)
RadicalTaoist 08-06-06, 07:41 PM	Machiavelli's The Prince, Sun Tzu's The Art of War, Miyamoto Musashi's The Book of Five Rings, Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations (shortened title), and Caesar's account of the Gallic Wars are all good reading. There was also this great book called Lure the Tiger Out of the Mountains: the 36 Stratagems of Ancient China by Gao Yuan. Not in print anymore though. :(