[Award Winner] Tips for Worldbuilding

[jtougas]

I think these are great. I don't build worlds but I've really learned a lot about the way thing actually work from this series. Thanks so much for taking the time to post these.

[SaberDart]

This is a great thread! Right up the alley of what I'm trying to do with my world! I'll throw in my thoughts as I go, and reading all or yours! So far, very interesting and brain teasing, and I'm only on page 1!

That said, still on page 1, so sorry if this has already been said but I want to get my thoughts down now before I log off.

There are two reasons one tribe will attack another: self-defence, population pressure. Note, this is all probably simplifying these processes enormously, but go with it, it does make sense.

Another issue would be environmental; famine, diease, drought, and earthquakes flooding.

You both have some pretty good reasons for the beginning of Empire, but a few additions/subtractions. War takes a lot of people, and people take a lot of food. Thus disease is not a likely war starter, at least not the kind of war that builds mighty empires. Also famine is unlikely, unless the target is still fertile and/or well stocked. If the latter, then the conquerors run the risk of depleting the reserves and preemptively aborting their empire building potential.

Additional causes are a culture that is based on raiding deciding to put down roots in the acquired territory (Arabs to the Sassanid, Ottomans supplanting Byzantine, Mongols replacing everyone); shortage of some supply or resource needed or strongly desired by the initiating nation; and outside pressure, where a people are forced to flee from some horde that is invading their ancestral lands (the Avars, Magyars, Huns, Turks, Mongols, etc all drove waves of people before them into the lands they hadn't quite gotten to yet).

Hence, the empire rolls on. Historically, every empire has continued to grow until it either meets a stronger opponent than it (Persians v Alexander; Aztecs v Spanish; arguably Napoleon v. Russians/British/Prussians etc) or it overreaches itself, and collapses under the strain (Romans, Ottomans, Islamic caliphates, Mongols). Every new province needs to be secured with troops, administrators, etc. And they all need to be paid.

Just a minor argument here, depends on the Caliphate in question. The Rashidun fell to civil war, and the victorious Omayyad collapsed from internal revolution as well. And the then victorious Abbasid from external pressure in the form of the Mongols. I'll cede the point to you regarding the Ottoman and Fatimid Caliphates though! =)

Also, adding a reason for collapse, internal incoherence/lack of political unity. Alexander's Hellenic Empire became the Diadochi states, Genghis Khan's Mongol empire became the Kipchak, the Chagatai, the Ilkhanate, and the Yuan. With those two examples, thiscause seems to me particularly likely when the Empire is massive and founded quickly by a single great leader with several powerful generals and no clear heir.

Aaaand, that does it for my input from page one. I'll finish the thread tomorrow!