Save the Romans!

Would it be plausible for Rome to survive if it was divided into 'sub governments' underneath the Imperial one? This could rapidly destroy Rome if these 'sub governments' decide they can take care of themselves and Rome breaks up into different countries, but if the Emporer can command the 'sub governments' loyalty (or at least obedience) then could it possibly maintain itself? If I have too I can butterfly away the German's little coalition with some well placed assassins, but I'd prefer to have them around to conquer all at once. I'm just not very informed of the effectiveness of government types and have no idea if this will make the Empire more manageable or just give too many people too much power and then break away, collapsing the Empire.

I plan on the main POD being Emporer/General Dio-...cletius? I'll google it after this. Anyway, I'll have him get the idea to set up the sub-governments instead of splitting the Empire in two. I'm trying to think of it as the HRE, except the various nations would be 'mega provinces' in charge of the little provinces in their domain and answering to the Emporer.
 
What exactly would these sub-governments be? And what is imperial authority drawing from? If there's no lands directly under imperial control, you've pretty much broken up the Roman Empire by definition.
 
The Imperial government would draw resources from the entire empire through the underlings, like a CEO makes all the money, but the employee will have a share too. I haven't decided where to base the government yet, Rome is too far away from Britain and, well, everything else, especially in this time zone, good roads or no. The Emperor would have total control of whichever mega province the government is set up in. I'm toying with the idea that officially Rome remains the Capitol so as not to upset the Romans and maybe Switzerland could be where all the real politics happen. Switzerland is awfully close to the unconquered Germany which could be incentive to conquer it. Or just get a warmonger emperor. In that case the Emperor would have direct control of Italy and Switzerland and the surrounding areas. I'm looking at maps to see how I want to divide it up. I've already decided Britannia and, if conquered, Caledonia would be mega provinces.

These sub governments would either be a run by a group of overseers, each with their own province or provinces, or just one overseer with ruling over the people. The Imperial government will make all the laws, deciding whether or not a law would be for the entire nation or just for individual provinces is up to the Emperor or his aid(s) if he has them. The aid would just be used for the unimportant work while the Emperor does all the important stuff.

An example for the law thing might: all provinces are banned from looting villages in and out of Rome. Or: the provinces in the Moroccan Sector (will not be it's name) are banned from practicing Islam.
 
The Imperial government would draw resources from the entire empire through the underlings, like a CEO makes all the money, but the employee will have a share too.

And how is the Imperial government doing that? What does it have that enables it to say that those who decide not to cooperate will be persuaded to?

A big corporation is not comparable.

These sub governments would either be a run by a group of overseers, each with their own province or provinces, or just one overseer with ruling over the people. The Imperial government will make all the laws, deciding whether or not a law would be for the entire nation or just for individual provinces is up to the Emperor or his aid(s) if he has them. The aid would just be used for the unimportant work while the Emperor does all the important stuff.

And how will this be enforced?

An example for the law thing might: all provinces are banned from looting villages in and out of Rome. Or: the provinces in the Moroccan Sector (will not be it's name) are banned from practicing Islam.

Same as above.

I'm really not seeing this as a gain to anything except local powers-that-be, at the expense of the empire on the whole.
 
Rome would control the armies, and the provinces would have a smaller militia to take care of provincial stuff. This is my last card, not that I said UNO, but yeah. If you shoot the plausibility of this one down then I'm going to have to do a lot more research on governments in antiquity. They just don't do politics like they do now, it's more of whoever has a bigger army or better assassins owns everything. Actually that sounds about right.

How about you give me some better ideas? Edit my ideas so they work better? Your clearly more knowledgeable about this.
 
Rome would control the armies, and the provinces would have a smaller militia to take care of provincial stuff. This is my last card, not that I said UNO, but yeah. If you shoot the plausibility of this one down then I'm going to have to do a lot more research on governments in antiquity. They just don't do politics like they do now, it's more of whoever has a bigger army or better assassins owns everything. Actually that sounds about right.

How about you give me some better ideas? Edit my ideas so they work better? Your clearly more knowledgeable about this.

But how is it controlling the armies when the taxes and manpower are under the control of the sub-governments?

As for your ideas working better, I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to achieve. Rome survived in the East OTL - do you want a surviving united (as in both halves, governed however) empire? Longer lasting West?
 
Is this in any way inspired by Westeros' political system? Serious question out of curiosity. Or are you more interested in a system similar to early Imperial China?
 
This sounds like an offshoot of the tetrarchy Diocletian established-maybe for some reason, instead of having 2 augustus' and 2 Caesar's, he has two augustus' and say 4 Caesar's? Man, if you thought the tetrarchy was a disaster waiting to happen, upon Diocletian's death or retirement, the civil war that will happen will make the OTL one look miniscule in comparison.

Third Century Crisis part 2.
 
I'm not sure I'm really getting the ideas behind this.

My basic view is that the political system of Rome as set up by Diocletian worked perfectly well, as can be seen from the survival of that system in the East largely without modification until the introduction of Maurice's Exarchates three centuries after Diocletian.

The Western Empire fell due to external shocks and bad luck, not internal problems that doomed it from the start.
 
Mostly what I'm trying to create is a united empire in Europe, like China is in Asia. Europe saw quiet a few large nations grow, they usually collapsed. Alexander's Empire, Rome, the Franks, Byzantium, Kievan Rus, and there may be a few others, but the point is, they didn't last very long at all, well Byzantium lasted awhile. It's like Europe's cursed or something. Maybe I'm overestimating it and I just need a small POD to send some bad luck away. What I really want to know is how stable was their government and if it needs improvement. When I looked up a few sites Rome was cast in an 'it was only an amount of time before they collapsed' kind of light. It was portrayed as everyone in the Empire thinking about just how far away Rome was. My idea to fix this was to set up some form of regional authority in what I called the mega provinces. Though looking at it now I do see the problem with that. It would most likely split the Empire. Maybe I should just go with good old fashioned technique the Romans perfected; build more roads, that should make the people feel closer to Rome. A competent Emperor might just butterfly away some bad choices.

No it isn't particularly inspired by anything, and I've never watched ASOIAF nor have I read it. Though I did play a map of it in WC3 which was kind of fun although I died almost immediately.
 
Mostly what I'm trying to create is a united empire in Europe, like China is in Asia. Europe saw quiet a few large nations grow, they usually collapsed. Alexander's Empire, Rome, the Franks, Byzantium, Kievan Rus, and there may be a few others, but the point is, they didn't last very long at all, well Byzantium lasted awhile. It's like Europe's cursed or something. Maybe I'm overestimating it and I just need a small POD to send some bad luck away. What I really want to know is how stable was their government and if it needs improvement. When I looked up a few sites Rome was cast in an 'it was only an amount of time before they collapsed' kind of light.

Empires do collapse when the tides of fortune are no longer with them. This isn't some special curse on Europe, this is that maintaining large empires is immensely difficult when facing competent and determined opposition.

Even China is just periodic empires growing and uniting "all China" for a time before they collapse - sometimes with a new empire coming along shortly, sometimes not.
 
There are many ways you can make the Western half of the Roman Empire survive, it shouldn't be that difficult if we are speaking in the timeline of writing a timeline. China had geography going for it more than anything, whereas Europe has geography going against it.
 
And a better set up of Empire than any of Europe's empires, except maybe the Byzantines (maybe).

As a late member said, Old Rome was governed by "I have the army, therefore I want the throne." screwing the state.

You need more than avoiding "bad luck" with a POD after c. 400 AD - the empire is weakened enough for the events that took place to swamp it (yes, it was facing multiple invasions and all sorts of horrors. So, like the it did in the seventh century, except that the East didn't collapse utterly then).

But there's no inherent reason why it has to fail in the West to begin with - it'll probably decline, but there's a difference between the Germans pushing the borders towards the Atlantic in Gaul and the Germans owning Rome.
 
Geography is definitely against Europe. Mountains and peninsula are good for thwarting invasions and such stopping empires from growing. Do you think Rome would be capable of tunneling through mountains? That sounds like a tall order; expensive and time consuming. Maybe it could work though.

The Germans taking Gaul would be bad for Roman Britannia, but that brings about a setup that I'd be very interested in. However I won't spoil as it has no relevance to Rome's survival. If southern Gaul is taken Iberia will be at a disadvantage, although it's close to Italy, those mountains are good defenses, and this could push more money into the navy. Which is good for my Mediterrainian Empire that I plan to push them into being.

How much would the Germans resist Roman rule? Maybe not Germany, but if Gaul is conquered then they'll move there. I suspect Gaul will be the battlefield for a long time. Germans might try to push into the eastern portion too. If I can defeat them there they'll might try north...why are they migrating again? If it's cause of food then north is doubtable.
 
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