How to build an Empire to last a 1000 yrs part 1

Which focus is more important to start?


  • Total voters
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This is just for internal factors of development. Think like you're a leader of a country. (in general)
 
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Yes good question .Does my country have easily fortified borders like Switzerland or the UK ?Or are its borders more open and unmarked ,like the United States and Canada border with basically one long line dividing the country .Another example being France who`s border with Germany in particular is rather long and flat with very little to mark it besides the occasional hill or wood .
Plus does it have the resources and population to risk a war and claim an empire ?
 
It's like the old saying goes: you can hang together, or hang separately. That's why despite weakness and regime changes and enemies chewing at it, China is still one country while the Hapsburg monarchy is several small ones.
 
Emulate the Chinese in all things! May the Celestial Emperor live for 10,000 years! But seriously, a mixture of whatever the British, Russians, and Chinese did. Crafty treaties, divide and conquer, strongly encouraged cultural assimilation all backed up by powerful weapons.
 
Yes I agree whatever the circumstances of your nation to make it great you need a combination of all the things on the poll to make it a great and longlasting empire of the ages .As a model I put forth the empire of Romania ,or as modern people call it the Byzantine empire .It had a strong army and navy .Advanced tech for the time and worked to make all it`s people the same people .It also relied on treaties and agreements with it`s neighbors to ensure it did not have to constantly go to war to protects their interests .
Also important for a long lasting empire is the type of government it possesses .For the most part the empires that last the longest tend to be very centralized states with a very powerfull emperor/king/elected ruler of some sort for all the democracies out their .When a nation starts to give more power to outlying regions to make their own decision they to often get ideas and go independent and do lasting harm to the mother country .Spain`s empire being a good example (The US and UK are another yet different example )If you have these as the Byzantine empire did at times then you have an empire that has a chance of lasting a thousand years .
 
Here's another suggestion. Develop an effective means of communications from the capital to the borders. There's a difference between how far a person on foot can travel in one day compared to someone riding a horse. Look at the Aztec and Incan empires and how small they were compared to the empires of Alexander, Rome or even the Mongols.
 

Lunarwolf

Banned
Step One, Look at Rome, Rome as a state in various iterations lasted nearly 2300 years.

Step Two, Figure out a way to get more national unity then Rome had.

Step Three, Win.
 
I went for the forging of cultural unity. A good modern example of an empire that has and will survive is the US. The US started as 13 states on the east coast on North America and spread to encompass a huge chunk of said continent. Each state is a distinct entity, but common cultural bonds and political representation forge a level of unity that would be the envy of all previous empires.

Note, this is the opinion of an outsider from the UK, some of our American cousins may disagree with some or all of my above statements and I would ofc bow to their superior domestic knowledge :D
 
Another good example of a long lasting empire would be that of the Ottoman Turks and unlike the other empires discussed in previous posts during it`s height it never tried to impose one culture or even religion on it`s subject peoples like the Greeks ,Serbs and Armenians .It was only in it`s later years as it`s power declined that they began to attempt to impose one way of doing things on it`s subject peoples .So if you want a long lasting empire made up of different races and languages they would be a good example .Just don`t let feelings of racial and ethnic unity destroy what you have built three hundred years down the line .Hence the Ottomans were a good example of what to do ,and what not to do at the same time .
 
Another good example of a long lasting empire would be that of the Ottoman Turks and unlike the other empires discussed in previous posts during it`s height it never tried to impose one culture or even religion on it`s subject peoples like the Greeks ,Serbs and Armenians .It was only in it`s later years as it`s power declined that they began to attempt to impose one way of doing things on it`s subject peoples .So if you want a long lasting empire made up of different races and languages they would be a good example .Just don`t let feelings of racial and ethnic unity destroy what you have built three hundred years down the line .Hence the Ottomans were a good example of what to do ,and what not to do at the same time .

tell this to the treatment of the balkan peoples beetween 1500 and 1700, those jannisaries didnt appear magically you know. Not to mention persecution was also high. The ottomans were not a special snowflake. Like their contemporaries they were a state that actively persecuted beliefs different to theirs like how england did with protestants or germans with the different christian denominations or france and its hugenots, etc. Also the ottos really only lasted 600 years, ancine reigme france lasted form 800s-1789, venice from 6th century to 1801 I think, romans as mentioned above, england too from the 11th century.
 
Economics. Spain had all the national unity you could want, but underdeveloped middle classes.

Not quite. Early Modern Spain (the height of its power) was a confederation of culturally and legally distinct Iberian kingdoms and principalities, not a nation-state in any meaningful sense of the term.
 
I could see Portugal rising to become a long lasting a major empire .Starting in the 1300`s ? They began to explore and chart the African coast and once Columbus stumbled upon the new world they were quick to claim colonies in the islands and southern continent there .Plus they held a total monopoly on the Indies trade for quite awhile .If they had a slightly larger population and were better led with a larger navy they might have been able to last for far longer than OTL against the new powers of the United Provinces and United Kingdom .While they could not overshadow the British or Dutch they might become an equal member of the colonial community rather than one which was past it`s prime by the time of the Napoleonic wars .
 
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