If you'd like to support this kind of educational content, come join the Discord server and chat with me about your worldbuilding and writing! www.patreon.com/hellofutureme QotD: Which historical figure wouldn't you mind being ruled by? I said John F Kennedy in the video, but I honestly have very little idea. Let me know yours down below. Stay nerdy! ~ Tim
CAN U MAKE A VIDEO ABOUT US Special Operations Forces in all kinds of sci fi media?! Moreover, please read my still in production fanfic-> www.wattpad.com/story/126613878-the-ghosts-outsiders-of-mandalore-a-tom-clancy's
um, i got a question, in one of your examples you said that an entire empire is controlled via space cocaine ( don't do drug by the way ) won't people soon find a way to get a better resource which can be extracted somewhere else that isn't just on a single planet?
@@pleaserebootkidicarus4089 Funnily enough, one faction does eventually manage to manufacture an artificial 'spice' in the series, and that has a number of repercussions. ~ Tim
@Ferris Newhall that's extremely reductionist. While all the nations certainly take inspiration from various irl cultures, they are more fleshed out then just "x Asian country with magic"
And the graphic novels just keep coming. I remember geeking out a bit when I found out my library had the big complete story editions with commentaries from the writers in the margins.
@@willieoelkers5568 OOF. LUCKY PANTS. My Library offers: later books for a select few manga. Graphic Novels of books they already own. A random assortment of graphic novels that have nothing to do with anything else in any other media. Such as the Amulet series. It's good, but it's kinda out of nowhere. They have some pokemon manga, but they're spotty and not sequential at all, and honestly, most of the manga series they have start around... 6 or 7? Volume, that is. Volume 6 or 7. Or later. There's one where they have book 3, and then the next book they have is book 12! And then they have like 5 sequential books, and then they skip to the mid-20's! It's absurd! And they don't have anything ATLA related, or really any 'comics'. They have Graphic Novels and Manga. No traditional comics. It SUCKS.
Which us why when I play Civ, I always either destroy Ghandi or dominate him culturally, economically, scientifically, and militarily before he gets nukes.
Funny enough, when i played Russia in Empire: Total War, the first thing i did was annex Crimea so i can have Sevastopol. It's also the first thing the AI players do when they play Russia.
It was brought into existence by Machanorlin, the great wizard of the East, creed cousin of the Western, Northern, and Southern wizards. This empire is from the distant future, after a post societal collapse and reconstruction. Using the time cube, he has brought the empire into this time and fused it with this time period, preventing a paradox.
I don't do a lot of constructive writing, but do I ever like some world building. An actual story arch secondary to the characters and settings most of the time. Someday this information will actually be useful instead of just personally enriching!
The roman empire expanded quickly based largely on its ability to adapt to warfare. It never just simply tries one idea. It tries many ideas to counter its enemies specialized ways of warfare. Rome used to use hoplite phalanx tactics before they abandon such tactics when they faced off the samnites. The phalanx is slow and deploys very slowly and can be hampered by terrain. They later abandon it for the manipular organisation. Another way empires rise is to place a common identity throughout your territories such as language, sense of belonging, patriotism and benefits that come with giving its people roman citizenship and also promoting warfare for professional soldiers.
Great point! Their military adaptability was ironically an amazing outcome of the number 1 cultural power of the Romans: they were so horrifically stubborn that they refused to give up. Get sacked by gauls and have their gold taken and city burn? F it, we will just rebuild. Cant beat the samnites due to bad military formation and lack of baggage train due to Italian swamps? F it, we will reorganize the military and build a big road through the swamp. Don't have a navy capable of defeating Carthage? F it, we will build a canal to the coast and just keep building ships until we win. Suffer a decade of losses to Hannibal and lose 50 thousand troops in the battle of canne? F it, time to invade Carthage itself. On and on until they basically reached their zenith. Literally every failure was turned into a lesson and an extreme case of refusal to lose.
Also they really liked to build walls. Like for Sieges. They would build walls around their camps, walls around the walls of the city they were sieging, at one point one city caught on and tried to wall THEM in. If I were to credit any one thing with roman ascension it would be their Engineering Prowess.
You have honestly became the reason the story I’ve had in my head for ten years is starting to become a reality for me. You inspire me as much as you teach, thank you
In my experiences in Stellaris, having a relatively weak and isolated neighbor is *huge* for building an empire. If you are able to fairly easily absorb your neighbor, effectively doubling your available resources, every group you conquer after that becomes increasingly easier to take. This results in a power snowball that grows bigger and bigger, gaining speed and momentum... until it breaks under its own weight and all comes crashing down. Which is why it is important to restrain yourself and force yourself to expand slowly, ensuring that you fully develop, exploit, and secure your captured resources before making moves to collect more.
Depends. Depends if you uses mods or not. 😅 But apart from that, having a big empire is also a problem. It requires more forces to protect it, more resources to feed it, more people to run it. If you don't do that, then you will have a big empire, sure, but totally exposed to foreign conquests. I saw these things a lot of times. Especially in Stellaris. Now I have 229 mods installed but still there are some problems. Depending also on what kind of empire I play. If democratic, generally I have less problems. If fanatic or authoritarian, then it's a continue race to protect and conquer, conquer and protect. 😑 Not that I don't like war, but I usually wants to build Sn empire, not destroy others. Or conquer a cemetery. Remember also that whatever empire you conquer, then you have to fix it because AI doesn't run empires using logic (how ironic!) but doing it randomly building infrastructures fragmented, often pointless on some planets and colonies, resulting almost always into foreign empires that can crumble apart just by themselves with just a proper economic push of your more organized and logical empire. Those who perform better in this sense are those empires made by machine intelligences or by hiveminds... That's because those empires usually don't need to satisfy some requisites of the game. Like goods and the same morale of the populations.. While other empires just fragmentate and falls apart when they can't satisfy their needs. So... It depends. 🤔😅😁👍
Should also note that not all empires strictly use their military to aggressively conqueror every territory they absorb. If they want to bring in an island state that would be more trouble then it's worth to actually fight. They might just blockade the island and starve it out, rather then an amphibious assault. Sieges could take years, with the longest in history, the Siege of Candia, taking 22 years. Armies can be used for more then just bloody warfare. A military should be thought of more as a way for a nation to impose its will on its neighbors, they are simply tools and can be used as sophisticated or bluntly as the state requires.
Good point. To add to it, the Romans tried three times to conquer all of Britain. After the first, they built Hadrian's Wall. After the second, they built Antonine Wall, which was completely abandoned. The third was also a failure. They just could never keep hold of what today is Scotland. So they used Hadrian's Wall for security, limiting raids, and taxing locals who wanted to visit their families on the other side of the wall. The Romans also used their armies for more than warfare: they were builders who built forts in times of war, and roads and aqueducts in times of peace.
Sometimes expansion is also mercantile. The Caliphate mentioned earlier is actually a good example of an empire that expanded primarily through trade as opposed to military expansion (not that there *wasn't* military expansion, cause of course there was). But sometimes a country is just too enticing for the people who have been offered a chance to join. It's like when a large company tries to absorb a smaller one in that manner - sometimes they're forced to, sometimes the deal is just too good.
@Matthew - That's not quite true. The Romans could hold onto what is modern day Scotland, but there was never a reason for them to fully pacify it so they just never put the effort into doing that. Twas simply more efficient to offer terms of peace and to sit some troops on a defensive wall than it would ever have been to conquer the region.
@Laurie Then why did the Romans try three times to campaign in, conquer, and pacify the area? I've done a lot of research on this. It wasn't that they had no reason to fully pacify it; it was that they weren't able to. 1. We have physical proof of their attempts to pacify Scotland; all abandoned within a generation. We have what were to be more permanent roman forts and the beginnings of roman cities dating before Hadrian's Wall's construction; both abandoned before the construction of Hadrian's Wall. 2. We have evidence of a roman siege to a hill fort south of Antonine's Wall, dating to the time that Antonine's Wall was in use. Antonine's Wall was abandoned within a generation of its construction. 3. Emperor Severus' campaign was cut short when he fell fatally ill, and his successor tried to continue it, but they soon settled for peace. They did put the effort in, but they ultimately gave up after the area and the people in it proved more trouble than it was worth. You were right about it being more efficient, but think about that for one minute: building a wall splitting Britain in half and periodically bribing kings was more efficient than conquest and development, despite winning battles and pushing into the area.
Because the Romas didn't have a consistent policy throughout all of the Empire and various Emperors were constantly doing their own thing. You're correct that effors were made because policy did change but the overall reason the Romans didn't take northern Brittannia was because of a lacking consistency in the belief of its worth. That and lacking resources which made justifying expansion slightly difficult for the more sane of Emperors.
This Empire series is on such a roll!!! I really love how Empires rise, it gives insight and motivation on why they become what they are and what they want. It really gives a lot of background and interesting world building to stories imo. :)
Cf The History Buff's video on 300. The Persian Empire loses to the Greeks despite a massive numerical advantage, plans revenge for 10 years, and instead of upgrading weapons and armour decides to field a bigger army this time...
Even in legends, the only way to defeat Thrawn is to hit him with something out of left field, something he's not aware of and/or can't control, so it still works. Timothy Zahn, the creator of Thrawn, approved of this. Disney still treats the series better then Lucas ever did. This is coming form someone who is old enough to remember a world before the prequels.
PaladinGuy I think it was done well in terms of foreshadowing especially with Ezra’s animal manipulation skill and the Bendu’s warning but I don’t understand how the imperial fleet didn’t slow them down or send a warning
After this video I am sure of it: we NEED "history is complicated, deus vult" shirts! :P The "a wizard did it" shirt is awesome, so please make it happen! As a history nerd, I would kill for such shirt! :3
Nazis aren't fascists, they're national socialists. There's a massive difference between the two systems even if it's convenient for politicians, activists, and war propagandists to lump them together. Also what boxes? The Nazis policies were specifically about promoting Germanic racial supremacy, global world conquest, the annihilation of International Jewry, the destruction of Internationalist Socialism (specifically communism as it was envisaged within the USSR), the removal of usury and capitalism, removal of monarchy, promotion of social welfare, dedication to the Fuhrer, belief in Darwinistic social and racial competition, and competition against 'Jewish' ideas and influence within the public. They also promoted ideas of multiple wives, encouraged pure breeding, violently punished social outcasts, purged undesirable elements such as those with disabilites, and sought to lift burdens off of the German worker (whether imagined or not). For women specifically they promoted (and to some extent enforced) the ideas of Children, Church, and Kitchen (the three Ks in German), took great pride in not needing them in factories or in the military, and saw women as being highly valuable due to their capacity to create the next generation of Germanic heroes. Just being genocidal and militant doesn't make you into a nazi. There's a lot more to it than that.The Fire Nation is militant, imperialist, and genocidal. But that's all it really has in common with nazism. Incidentally, the Romans are also militant, imperialist, and genocial but are also no nazis.
There is another reason for building an empire - because you can. Prestige, glory and a lasting legacy have generally been powerful motivators for rulers to conquer more land. While these often came with other motivations, sometimes simply having the ability to conquer someone has been enough to motivate rulers to do so.
People who speak english like to group things in threes. I'm not sure how much the three thing extends outside of english because I don't speak any other languages although I have noticed other numbers popping up. For example, if you ever read Art of War, Sun Tzu likes to group things in fives which I only noticed because he made reference to the five notes aka a pentatonic scale.
The feudal system is one thing I would love to see better implemented in games. Often it is reduced to to a power value where if the vassal gets too strong they rebel which is bullshit. In strategy games you often have too much control and domestic affairs are completely nonexistent. It kinda sucks that only games fully focused on politics get even a little bit closer to it
Honestly this is most likely because bureaucracy is boring. most people that play empire building games just wanna create big blob of soilders and *DESTROY ALL THE ENEMIES OF OUR GLORIOUS IMPERIUM* ,you know the usual.
Yes, agreed! Definitely would recommend if you are so blessed to still have an old computer lying around. I still like to play AOE II (We do not speak of III...)
Nice essay. One thing to consider is a tactic that was common among empire builders of the ancient world: forcibly relocating conquered peoples outside their homeland. The Babylonian Exile that is such an important part of the history of the Hebrew people is one such example. This had the effect of reducing the threat that such people posed (you can't fight to defend your homeland when you don't even live in your homeland), dispersing the people so they cannot organize, and also accelerated the assimilation of those people into the empire. It would also make for good seed material for worldbuilding: your protagonist might be a member of one of these displaced peoples.
Oh no there's gonna be a 3rd part. I hate when one of my favorite youtubers put out more content than they expected! Lol I think we're all ecstatic that it'll be a 3 parter!
'There will be a part 3. Hope you don't mind.' Not only do we not mind, we want more and will happily wait for it. Your content is great and it's always something to look forward to! So, when life gets in the way, it's fine - we'll wait. Just take care of yourself first. Hope things get less stressful.
Nah, Marcus Aurelius was a bad enough ruler that he was forced to make Commodus his successor. Meanwhile, Augustus was followed by the Five Good Emperors and glorious Pax Romana.
I think you should take a look at the World Government from One Piece in regards to how an empire maintains and dominates. I would recommend Tekking101's videos on the World Government, he brings up many good and interesting points
Hey, someone else who watches Tekking! I don't really watch him anymore as he has moved onto series I don't watch, but he has some interesting content. Also, when I watched him his videos tended to be long, and I have a short attention span so even if I watched the series I probably didn't watch his video about it.
One Piece is mostly an example of superior control and communication. Transportation is pretty challenging in the One Piece world, so you do get a very decentralized empire. But there are also highways which, if controlled, can grant a singular body quick access to the entire world. The world government makes sense, as they control and centralize around those highways and use them to control the other nations, but only to a certain extent in order to deal with minor issues more readily. In fact, throughout the story of One Piece, there are numerous countries that essentially collapse, and the world government does nothing. Why? It's simply too hard to mobilize and control that region that closely. What they can do, however, is step in after some random rebels took over and re-establish their rule over the country... which is why regardless of who takes over, they tend to cooperate with the world government in one way or another. If the theories about the end of the series are accurate, then it is that control over the highways that will prove the downfall of the world government too. Specifically, some suggest that Luffy might, at one point, destroy a barrier that makes travel difficult, and potentially weaken or destroy the highways as well. This would spell disaster for the world government regardless of whether or not Luffy personally kicks their asses... which he will probably do because shonen protagonist.
You talked about nationalism in Nazi Germany, but there was actually more to it than that. An aspect of fascist doctrine called for a certain level of economic self-sufficiency. That, of course, meant they needed more land and more resources to achieve that. German nationalism pushed the idea of a German or Aryan identity that was superior to all other races, especially those degenerate Slavs to the east. As a result, the Germans felt justified taking the land they needed from their lesser neighbors.
There's another reason an Empire is able to subsume neighboring peoples other than tactical or technological supremacy: superior numbers. Whether that's due to a more populous homeland and greater agricultural productivity, or the large land area conquered by an Empire compared to a smaller neighbor, superior numbers and superior resources can often more than make up for a slight disadvantage in tactics or technology. And, once an Empire conquers a more advanced people, they can potentially absorb those advances into their own military and economy: as the Romans did after conquering the Greeks...
Part of me feels like the four nations would have nothing but benefit from actually studying the substances which they bend. Testing the limits of what someone can or can't bend, even getting all the way down to the molecular level. I feel like science would be a massive boon to bending. If they know what they can and can't bend down to *actual* elements, and they figure out where else those elements are found, then they could see not just a leap in knowledge of the natural world, but potentially also a leap in technology. And on the topic of the waterbenders, cellular science would be fantastic, for they just might discover that you don't even have to be a bloodbender to control people's bodies, as each and every cell in the human body--and in the bodies of all animals and plants--contains vacuoles filled with water, and the hemoglobin of a blood cell contains both oxygen and hydrogen. And on that note, earthbenders could also control the human body--admittedly to a much lesser extent--as the human ody tends to contain between 3.5 and 4 grams of iron, and not just in the aforementioned hemoglobin, but also tissues, muscles, bone marrow, enzymes, and more. But of course, they have mainly been shown to be able to bend chunks of the earth's crust, which is primarily silicate materials. So you've got me there, as the human body doesn't contain silicon. But still, this study could be valuable. Firebenders are a tricky one at first, until you realize that they aren't just bending fire, they're bending energy. Heat energy. They have been shown to be capable of merely raising the temperature of an object without burning it, and seem to produce flame out of nowhere. What other explanation cold there be other than control over heat energy? And the human body naturally produces heat energy of its own when digesting or moving. Every cell in the body produces energy as part of cellular digestion. And then there's airbenders. Most people would figure that this is where control of the human body ends; the only parts of the body that contain air are the following organs: the left lung, the right lung... And that's it. Unless you consider flatulence to be bendable air, that's all the bendable air in the body... Right...? Wrong. Remember blood from a little while ago? Well, when oxygenated, it is carrying air with it into the cells of the body for cellular respiration to take place. Not to mention that controlling the air in the lungs is still pretty useful. But other than that, who says that the airbenders need to bend air inside the body, when they could easily control the air *around* the body. Granted, this would take precision work, but controlling the air that surrounds the human body could accomplish the same effect. Simply raise the pressure of the air in such a way as to control the movements of the body, and there you go. You can suck the air out of their lungs, you can pop the air out of the blood in the body. Hell, you could even crush your opponent under sheer air pressure like as if the enemy were at the bottom of the ocean. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why benders of all strides are far more terrifying than you may have thought. Or at least, they would be, had they simply known the science behind their bending. And from what I can deduce--I do confess that I haven't watched Legend of Korra past season 1, though I have seen the whole of the Last Airbender TV show prior--they don't seem to understand the science of the elements. As far as I can tell, their concepts of the elements are strictly limited to these four basic ideas of fire, air, water, and earth. But if we were to throw a chemist into the setting, then we would most definitely see far more advanced techniques come of it. [EDIT] I just remembered, earthbenders can also manipulate coal, which consists of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. If they were controlling the hydrogen or the oxygen or both, then they would be able to manipulate water or air, which they obviously can't. So they could be controlling the carbon in the coal, and as carbon can be found in much of the earth's crust, crystals, and indeed, living things, then they technically can control the human body as well, as a large amount of the human body is, as we all know, carbon.
Dead Knight If the avatar universe continued evolving past Legend of Korra then we’d presumably see this sort of scientific/alchemical bending at work. It would be inevitable
It's worth noting that Nationalism was originally a Left-wing ideology, stemming from the Enlightenment. Many people decided that they wanted their countries (or nations) to be rooted in the culture, language, and/or ethnicity of the groups who lived there, and not determined by the arbitrary political borders as established by their sovereign. This can lead to empires, sure, but it can also lead to revolution, civil war, secession, and the creation of new countries.
I mean, Nationalism has kind of been around for thousands of years. Ancient Israel comes to mind. They defined their country based off of their culture, the Hebrew language, and ethnicity of their people.
I don’t think Zuko really ever grew out of his nationalism, I think it just changed. Zuko still took pride in his country, loved his country, and seemingly still viewed it as the greatest nation of all but instead of thinking that way because of their strength and ability for conquest I think he recognized his people’s passion and natural strength which motivated him to bring them back to a moral positive they used to hold
A question that popped to my mind at the point of "how does your empire deal with non-conformists?" is "what if your empire is founded by a bunch of misfits who embrace unconventional thinking, so is formed largely from expatriates and exiles of other empires?"
When an empire emerges, subsume individuals in culture and make it seem like you are their emperor. Love for the leader is the greatest castle/ defense. Time to read Machiavelli again haha!
Do I see at 15:33 our 2002 italian-french tv series about Napoleon? I loved it! Great video! You made me think to the Final Empire from the Mistborn trilogy, there plot and resources were strictly intertwined.
I enjoyed parts 1 and 2 of your empire building videos, and look forward to the 3rd part. I feel that referring to one piece's world government, A song of ice and fire's differing forms of government and religions, and Brandon Sanderson's system of governance in the Mistborn trilogy would be exceptional sources to draw parallels from. all three are popular examples within their medium, and are well constructed universes that fit the video's theme. Now i think about it, the Inheritance cycle has an empire that rose to power using the points listed in this video as well.
You can this topic out as much as you want I love this kind of content it’s very very lightening and makes my appreciation for all empires much greater
Oh shit Hitler's in the thumbnail. This should be..... interesting. But seriously I'm writing a story where there is an Empire and this series is really helping me so thank you so much 😁😁😁
Wait, does that mean RUclips will demonitize this video (if it even is)? :O Heard they did that to a video which showed the Swatzika (even though it was for educational purposes).
Historical leader worth following? Emporer Norton the First of San Francisco. He has no power save his pride, dignity his only resource. Yet, he was loved and recognized.
18:32 I think that LoGH was a great example of a story were tactics and strategies beat superior technologies. There are multiple example of pieces of tech that are hailed as unbeatable. But throughout the series they are each presented and beaten.
Yeah well many of those examples were wrong. The Arabs for an example were a bunch of nomadic desert dwellers before they conquered the more advanced Levant. I feel they're trying to squeeze all empires into one box but really colonial empires are a very different beast.
I mean, the US is heavily influential in a lot of foreign nation areas, securing... security... and resources everywhere in the world. It may not be a traditional empire (although it does hold some territories outside the states, and Hawaii's history will tell you American annexation wasn't always wanted), it captures the idea: a single culture with tendrils extending outwards and influencing other nations to its advantage.
@@stealthboy5767 For certain values of "Empire". We have no emperor, but we have annexed foreign nations for the sake of economic gain and control (case in point: our treatment of Japan pre-World Wars, Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines, Puerta Rica, and our military presence in who knows how many countries globally.
The more I watch the On Writing series the more it distracts when you add those super-short jokes that are brought up and down really fast and I sometimes loose just a bit of focus, also sometimes you can get carried away and start talking faster, wich can also get me somewhat lost and distracted, but everything else is awesome, and I love when you say "Ah yah guys, this seems that is going to be a 3 part series, not a 2 part", I don't care, infact I like it, the more videos you make, the better explained the topic will be, and I'll have more things to watch, wich I don't mind.
Nationalism isn't an inherently oppressive ideology. It was actually liberals who embraced nationalism first. Many early nationalistic movements were Republican in nature as opposed to the old Monarchy. Nationalism is the simple idea that each nation (group with common culture) should have their own state and rule themselves. This leads to some states like the German states to believe in a single state ruling over all the other German states and thus you get the German Empire. This unfortunetley often leads to oppression of those who are not part of the nation, but inside the state, like the Poles and Jews inside the German Empire. However, most countries today are what we call nation-states, which are democratic in nature. I felt like you said nationalism was complicated but you didn't show it. According to you it's an ideology which seeks expansion, and oppression, but that's not really the case. Nationalism seeks the nation's freedom from the Empire which rules over them and to be in their own state. An example here is the Hungarians during the revolutions of 1848-9.
Indeed, it's important to remember that the world we live in today is shaped by nationalism. Before nationalism became popular Europe was divided into many imperial states with many different ethnic groups who were often repressed. It's fundamentally a good instinct that every group of people should have the right to rule themselves. Unfortunately this also tends to lead to sharper divisions along ethnic lines. If it wasn't for the rise of nationalism Europe would probably still be divided between a few large empires. Nationalist sentiments also helped lead to decolonisation as people felt it wasn't right that people all across the world were ruled from European capitols but deserved a chance to rule themselves.
I must agree, but it wasn't really what the video wanted to portray, as it was about empires, or imperialism, which can be nationalistic as well. And don't forget that you were ours before 1905.
The Major I understand that part perfectly, but it is still misleading to call out nationalism as an ideology of Empires when it has been an antagonist to Empires. What happened was that once a nation was free, then they sometimes wanted to expand and become their own Empire for the glory of the nation. This happened to countries like Germany and Japan. Also, no, Norway has been our own country since th 9th century. During the 1300s after the black plague, Norway entered into a union with Denmark and Sweden and then, centuries after Sweden left, we entered into a union with Sweden. During all this time, the Kingdom of Norway never dissapeared like Poland, but was under the stewardship of different kings. Sweden did not own us, we governed ourselves with our kings who happened to be Swedish until 1905. Never during the union of Denmark or Sweden did Norway cease to be our own kingdom, especially not during the union with Sweden.
On the point of Nazi, if you ask any lowly grunt and even some of the NCO and mid rank commander in the POW, the majority of them would answer they fought to protect Germany, not to protect Hitler ideology and the idea of Nazism. They fought due to the reason that "Germany is being invaded and occupied by the allied invader and thus I must protect her". There will be some exception but if we just assume the majority of German soldiers fought due to politics idea is just taking the easy route to history. Edit: Some think I am justifying the German war crime and dismissed their aggressive action before they were on the defensive. Nationalism is both a good and bad thing depend on how you use it. It can make you do heroic thing for your country but also enable to you justified your action against the people whom you believe to be "the enemy". The Wehrmacht for example, some think they are the equivalent of a modern army that would not commit war crime against civilian and the such. Well at least you can't find any in most of the sources written about the Wehrmacht by the German general in their memo after WW2. The Wehrmacht commit tons of atrocity against the Russian people under what the believe is their "national right" as a superior human species. And while I can't say if most of the soldier followed Hitler political ideas, the Wehrmacht action is most likely stem from their nationalism as to expand the German living space and secure more resources for their homeland. Same thing can be said for the US Manifest destiny movement.
That's only kinda true because they were eventually loosing the war. Case in point: Poland (among many other countries that were attacked by Nazi Germany) You can kinda argue about the Treaty of Versailles pushing them to it (though that's muddied waters as well once you get deeper), but it _was_ an offensive war and that fact shouldn't be ignored.
You have to remember that France tried to enforce the Treaty of Versailles by invading Germany before to "defend" its interests so the Germans had more than an example in what they were doing.
I have a new favourite thing when it comes to empires, diplomatic conquest. Which was a thing, that the romans did. You can nestle yourself into the local power structure, you can convince someone to overthrow the current regime or you can just offer them representation, infrastructure and military protection. Stellaris is fantastic in that regards. Although a federation can't start war unless every member agree, the sheer military might increases rapidly when a new federation is formed. A former superpower might find themselves dwarfed as several of their neighbours band together. Another interesting thing is the New California Republic in New Vegas. It was formed through diplomatic means when the weakest of the five original member states reached out to the others and offered to form a nation, the increasing security and trade made it worth it. And the sleepy town of Shady Sands became the heart of the NCR. In time they would wipe out raider tribe after raider tribe, bring down the Enclave and overwhelm the Brotherhood of Steel. By the time of New Vegas they have a functional rail network with trains all across the nation, actual industry and a medical university. Yet their backbone is something as simple as farming on a large scale, and the enormous army the country can afford to have standing ready at all times.
11:47 Well to be fair, classical Fascism and National Socialism (Nazism) isn't exactly the same when you take a look at it from political science studies.
Reminds me of that Al Murray joke, where he talks about why the moon was never going to be part of the British Empire, paraphrasing "No-one to give it back to once we'd done with it" "No point going there installing railways and parliamentary democracy, there's no bastard living there!" "Nothing to be gained in the way of HOT and spicy food, or Olympic quality athletes. A waste of a journey" The way he says it brings it all together, but it does make me smile!
I'd like to mention how I really appreciate that you don't sprinkle your videos with jabs at current world politics. This seems to have become so rare on RUclips these days.
Cyrus the Great, for sure. His empire was pretty cush, even for the conquered. Also, FANTASTIC series, has been giving me so much to think about in developing my empire and the reasons for the expansion that kicks off the plot.
Watching this serie make me feel good, because my main antagonist empire in my novel project mostly fit into the patterns described in part one and two.
On the History is Complicated tip: It’s important to note that, in general, Islam did not spread for ideological reasons, at least not in the way you represented it. To wit, early on-particularly in the spread of the Umayyad and Abbasid Empires-conversion was generally discouraged. This was due to the fact that non-Muslims, by virtue of not having to offer military service, were required to pay higher taxes* than Muslims. This, of course, passively encouraged conversion. This is not to suggest that there weren’t forced conversions, only to note that over the course of history these were rather the exception than the rule. And it’s not to suggest that there wasn’t a sort of nationalism at play. However, even on this score that nationalism, particularly during the Umayyad Empire, was more Arab vs. Non-Arab, regardless of religious affiliation. There was a sort of Muslim vs. Non-Muslim nationalism, as well, of course. But again, this often took the shape of a sort of triumphalism with strong Arab-supremacy leanings in which Islam, as a complex set of ideologies, was more of a secondary concern or a placeholder for Arab-supremacy. This is part of the reason why both Shi’ism and Sufism were often (and generally remain) stronger outside of the Arab heartlands: they were / are interpretations of Islam that, at their root, question imperial or nationalistic interpretations of Islam. Though, again, history is complicated: the Turkish Ottoman Empire leaned heavily on (Sunni-)Sufism, while the Persian Safavid Empire leaned heavily on Shi’ism. But even these empires, in their formation, saw themselves as revolutions against imperialist agendas that othered them, and saw themselves as a restoration of a truer Islam. According to their propaganda, anyway. *The rate of the difference in taxes between non-Muslims and Muslims generally varied from relatively slight to rather extreme, depending on the particular emperor in question and their policies. (Pretty much any reputable sourcebook on Islamic history-peer reviewed, written by a trained scholar, whether Muslim or not, theist or not-has this info. It felt important to bring up owing to the hyper-Islamophobic environments often found these days, and particularly online.)
Passively encouraged as in "if you weren't Jewish or Christian and you decided not to convert you were slaughtered" and if you wouldn't pay the taxes (or more specifically, if the person in charge of your village refused) you were also slaughtered. Also would kind of suck if you were gay. Or a woman who didn't dress like a bin bag. Or disagreed that a creepy pedophile was actually the ideal role model. But sure whatever.
@@lokenontherange Eh, no? I live in country formerly conquered by Ottoman Empire, and I can say with certainty that after the initial slaughter, people were allowed to practice their religion freely (with caveats like high taxes, but still freely) and lived normally. Don't confuse history and religious dogma.
The Ottoman Empire was, of the islamic empires, probably the least fanatical when it came to their intepretation and use of islamic law when it came to enforcement. But even then, freely is a bit of a stretch. The Persian Empire and Alexander's Empire actually allowed for people to freely practice their religions. The Ottomans only allowed free practice of islam, and tolerated to an extent christianity and judaism but even then you couldn't practice in public. Nor could you safely discuss your religion with a muslim and were religiously inspired complaints weren't tolerated in the slightest. So you're really going to need to define free because you and I apparently have very different definitions of freedom. There was, on the other hand, absolutely no tolerance of paganism or polytheism within islam and because of that hindus, pagans, and so on were pretty much universally wiped out in the middle east and there was considerable attempt to wipe them out in India and in Africa. The Ottomans only come off okay here because by the time the Ottoman Empire rolled around the pagans in Africa and the Middle East were largely already exterminated and they never reached far enough into Russia or into India to gain control over polytheistic populations. They just didn't have the targets avaliable to them.
Just want to say, the length of these videos is not an issue for me, and I have a hunch that a large amount of your viewers feel the same. You've mentioned it a few times now and I just hope it isn't a serious concern of yours moving forward. Keep it up, man. This kind of stuff is what drew me to your channel and why I keep coming back. Great work. It is not done in vain.
One of the best examples of nationalism was the state of Prussia, almost as nationalistic as nazi Germany. Britain was very nationalistic as it was France. The key points are pride and a distinguible social, cultural or religious group.
On Technology v. Tactics. I recommend looking Tex Talks Battletech and the Battle of Tukkyaid (probably misspelled that). In that story, two groups had roughly equivalent technology, but one lost because the other had a superior strategy, one which took advantage of the loser’s culture (que that clip of Zuko going “Honor, honor, honor, honor!) as well as their lack of readily-available replacement troops and supplies. Also in Tex’s discussion of the Madcat/Timber Wolf mech, he mentions that the Clans has little real hope of conquering the Inner Sphere due to the vast advantage the Inner Sphere has in terms of population and industrial capacity.
16:44 “What happens to those who are part of the homeland but don’t conform?” *Suddenly an Ad* “Kill them all!” Edit: On occasions, it’s fun to have an ad 😂
Land can be its own resource as a means of eliminating overpopulation, acquiring space for farming, or as a means to travel easier. Like if you conquer a river for the sole purpose it makes travel easier than going around it by sea. Or if you just need a spare port. Portugal did this a lot with its fortresses everywhere.
I see that there might be some misunderstanding of the terms so I would like to explain some terms according to what I was thought. 1) Nationalism is an ideology(or rather collective of various ideologies) that tell about rights of certain nation to be self-govern. The nation )in this case) is a group of people that is connected by the same(or similar) language, culture and sometimes religion. Moreover a certain nation to develop nationalism needs to be in contact(and most likely in conflict) with other distinct nation. It developed mostly in Europe since 15 century and especially in 19th century. 2)Patriotism is an ideologi that require loyalty to certain certain country/state/land area. So differently than nationalism the subject of loyalty is not a grup of people but a place(which might be inhabited by various nations). 3) And with these definitions ideology of nazis is neither of those. Instead it should be called national chauvinism. And similarly like men chauvinism( which does exist but is not so widely spread as some feminists want to believe)... and similarly as men chauvinism see women as inferior beings national chauvinism see other nations as inferior.
11:50 Googled it and chuckled the funniest thing is that, even though nazism is often described as one of the forms of fascism, they are so much different. Yet people tend to see and describe them as one and the same kind of regime, and use these two words completely interchangeably. It bugs me to see people just throw around such words, especially in politics and newspapers. Thank you for the AoE2 references all over the videos, btw. I don't need to sleep anymore, need to make my fictional empires prosper again, at least in games.
As far as I know Nazism and fascism are the same thing. The one very important difference being that nazism inherently has a racist element on top of the fascist foundation.
It is... a bit more complicated than just that. I'm honestly not very prepared to discuss this topic in youtube comments when the last time I thoroughly studied it was a few years ago. I'll just say that yes, you're right, this is one of the differences: nazism is race-centered while fascism is state-centered. And nazism is a bastard child of fascism. And they are very similar. But also: nazi hated socialism way more than fascists, for example :'D The simple fact that these were the ideolodies in different countries give so many little sides to each of them: fascism gave way more artistic freedom to its people, for instance. Even though I do not support either of ideologies I really wish people knew a bit more about this topic than just fascism = nazism, especially when it comes to irl politicians. (Though here there's at least some truth in it, unlike when people say that nazism = socialism :D)
GeanAmiraku Nazism hated Communism, not socialism. The fundamentals of the Nazi economy were a sort of odd neo-Feudalism (which, if the ruler is seen as the embodiment of the state, is actually a form of socialism). Hitler's own belief was essentially that private property was ok, as long as the government was ultimately in charge of it. Nazi Germany was characterised by enormous state works programs and establishing private monopolies which were essentially beholden to the state if not owned by it on paper, and Hitler was massively opposed to concepts like the stock market and disliked people working for personal profit. Everything was ultimately supposed to serve the interests of the state above the individual. Even his anti trade union policies were essentially the same as those enacted by the Soviet Union (ie, state-run trade unions or GTFO). Also it would be more correct to say that Nazism is motivated by identity rather than "racism," specifically the idea that the German (and by extension Western European) cultural identity was innately good and besieged by those who wished to destroy it. Hitler's views on other races were directly proportional to their perceived threat to the German cultural identity: the Slavic peoples were bad because Russians were Slavic and threatened Germany with cultural destruction through Communism, the Jews because they threatened Germany with cultural destruction and enslavement though international capitalism. When it came to races that a threat to the German identity could not easily be attached to such as Arabs or the Japanese, he didn't really seem to care all that much.
This is so wrong it's not even funny. There was nothing socialist about Nazi Germany. The people at large did not control the means of production. The military state did. This is typically referred to as state capitalist or corporatist if not stratocratic. Nazism was indeed motivated by identity.... the identity of the Aryan *Race*. I don't think you know what the word feudalism means because if you did, you would never think neo-feudalism was anything socialist at all. Fascism and Nazism are alike in that one is a variation of the other, and both are considered extreme and negative forms of nationalism.
As long as the content is good (which it totally is), I'll watch as many parts as you make! This was super helpful for my own work, identifying which of these motivations my story's empire primarily has, and which secondary motivations I might need to better develop.
Just like to correct one thing; the early Kalifates didn't have a academic culture, the arabs were in the most part illiterate until the need to memorize the new, forced, best seller. The academia came later, after the empire, which was formed because the arabs were very unified and their opponents were not. And the fall of Istanbul was an economic, the forger of the massive bombards first went to the Emperor, but was too expensive, so the Bulgar went to the Sultan who made it rain on the man, then the guards left a door open, no bombard needed beyond intimatation. Btw I would choose Germanidius, first king of Lithuania, multicultural/ethnic, allowed free worship, self rule within, and had a one legal system, no extra court for the nobles
In terms of the “early Khalifates,” it depends on what you mean by “academic culture,” and which of the Arab empires you’re referring to. By historical evidence, pre-Islamic Arabs were on the whole no more or less illiterate than folks in most places. Which is to say, most of the wealthy were literate and many jobs (particularly in trade) required an at least functional level of literacy. There are plenty of texts left in the archeological record, inside and outside of the Arabic cultural spheres, to show this adequately. If by “academic” we mean colleges or universities and the like, it is true that these don’t show up until the Umayyad Empire. However, pre-Islamic Arabic society did have highly literate scholars dealing with particular specialties (e.g. the material sciences relevant to desert travel and agriculture, cultural and religious scholars, etc.). The evidence we have suggests this took a sharp turn upward after the Islamic community moved to Yathib (later renamed Madina), when literacy spread among the non-wealthy, women, etc. And that this trend continued through the end of the Rashidun Caliphate where we can see the formation of what we might call proto-colleges during the reigns of Umar, Uthman, and Ali. When a specifically academic culture really develops in all of this is hard to say, as academic culture tends to be what leads to the formation of colleges and universities (not the other way around). It’s just important to point out, in terms of the fact that “history is complicated,” that the idea that the pre-Islamic Arabs were illiterate-an idea maintained by hyper-conservative Muslims and Islamophobes alike-does not appear to hold water when we look at the archeological record.
@@jeffmiller6025 I think your confusing the middle east and Arabia, the first major empire in Arabia was from the prophet. I say this because contemporary sources, being Eastern Rome, Persian, and Greek sources, all have very little to say about the relatively unorganized people of that peninsula. Muhammad literally brought unity and the building blocks of "civilization" to the arabs (note; I'm not insulting arabs just the arbitrary definition of civilization), by giving something to organize around; a unified religion with him as its head
Darkfireice, Agreed about “empires.” The first Arab empire was undoubtably the Umayyad Empire. Whether or not the Rashidun Caliphate constituted an empire is a much contested point within both Arab Studies and Islamic Studies, so I personally leave a question mark on it as I just don’t know where I stand. On the question of whether the Prophet’s government was imperialist or not, the evidence suggests to me that it wasn’t. But I would agree that there is room for debate there. However, when talking about specifically Arab levels of literacy or scholarship prior to the advent of Islam (which was the core concern on my comment) we have archeological and textual evidence that demonstrates that there were relatively normal levels of both. A lot of interesting work has been done in this area in recent years within the Arab and Islamic Studies fields, with some scholars specifically specializing in pre-Islamic Arab culture. A fun entry into all this biz, if you’re interested, is Michael Sells’ work on pre-Islamic Arabic poetry; he often covers all of this kind of stuff in the supplementary material (introductions, notes, appendices, etc.) in his texts. His bibliographies are rich with a who’s who among folks working on pre-Islamic Arab culture. Whether there was an “academic” culture is, I think, up in the air. Though, by the time of the Rashidun Caliphate one was certainly developing, and, again, by the time of the Umayyad Empire there was a full-blown academic culture.
The Islamic Arabs were more academic than the none-islamic arabs, although perhaps you may think it is unnoticeable, the Islamic Arabs had a higher literacy rate for one. I would argue the initial advancement was security, bordering two superpowers who don't agree with you is not the best way to stay a thing
Summarizing Jeff, Arab scholars have existed since the Persians converted from Zoroastrianism to Islam during early caliphates, and Arab also refers to the Jews, and smaller sub-groups existing throughout India, so I think your anti-Islamist worldview might be blinding you.
😗🖐🏾 I need you to talk dumb to me 😩💦😂 because I understood 80% of ALL this but there are some words or parts that my small brain is just like “😃😃😃😶🧐 huh?” Lol I’m about to start writing this incredible story that I have and I just wanna say thank you so much. For making this, now I know my boy (one of the main characters) is actually a Nationalist Emperor 🤯 I had no idea I was making a Nationalist character until you broke it down to me.
![On Worldbuilding: How do Empires Work? [ Fire Nation l Roman l Mongols ] PART 1](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/51MWp0Hgo90/mqdefault.jpg)
![On Worldbuilding: How do Empires Work? [ Fire Nation l Roman l Mongols ] PART 1](/img/tr.png)
![On Worldbuilding: How an Empire Falls? [ Game of Thrones l Avatar l Byzantine ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/jAKfs0TaOR4/mqdefault.jpg)
![On Worldbuilding: Religions [ polytheistic l Avatar TLA l Game of Thrones l Cthulhu ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Wz2H1t5XvP8/mqdefault.jpg)
If you'd like to support this kind of educational content, come join the Discord server and chat with me about your worldbuilding and writing! www.patreon.com/hellofutureme QotD: Which historical figure wouldn't you mind being ruled by? I said John F Kennedy in the video, but I honestly have very little idea. Let me know yours down below. Stay nerdy!
~ Tim
CAN U MAKE A VIDEO ABOUT US Special Operations Forces in all kinds of sci fi media?! Moreover, please read my still in production fanfic-> www.wattpad.com/story/126613878-the-ghosts-outsiders-of-mandalore-a-tom-clancy's
um, i got a question, in one of your examples you said that an entire empire is controlled via space cocaine ( don't do drug by the way ) won't people soon find a way to get a better resource which can be extracted somewhere else that isn't just on a single planet?
@@pleaserebootkidicarus4089 Funnily enough, one faction does eventually manage to manufacture an artificial 'spice' in the series, and that has a number of repercussions.
~ Tim
Hello Future Me, Will u answer my question?
oh, i feel dumb now.
10:30 "Empires don't just conquer places randomly"
Damn right! Most of my EU4 empires are formed the way they are for aesthetically pleasing reasons.
You made a penis on the map didn't You?
@@Aries13XIII Who doesn’t?
@@thisduud8852 true, so true
@@Aries13XIII You can't call yourself a true gamer if you've never tried to draw a pp in the game
@@itsnotpaul8548 Or you could take the easy way out an conquer Africa. Free vertical pp.
"A great example of this is the Fire Nation."
I'm noticing a pattern here.
I mean, the fire nation is written well.
It's a really well constructed universe. Or, was at least.
@Afqwa the earth nation is just that big
@Ferris Newhall that's extremely reductionist. While all the nations certainly take inspiration from various irl cultures, they are more fleshed out then just "x Asian country with magic"
@Ferris Newhall all of those are super common themes throughout human history, but nice try 👌
I like how the Avatar is a good example of literally EVERYTHING.
It's a genuinely well thought out universe and yes, as flawed as it is, I'm including LoK in that statement too.
@@PaladinGuy The storyline of LOK is worse written than ATLA, but it is as good at worldbuilding
And the graphic novels just keep coming. I remember geeking out a bit when I found out my library had the big complete story editions with commentaries from the writers in the margins.
@@willieoelkers5568 OOF. LUCKY PANTS. My Library offers: later books for a select few manga. Graphic Novels of books they already own. A random assortment of graphic novels that have nothing to do with anything else in any other media. Such as the Amulet series. It's good, but it's kinda out of nowhere. They have some pokemon manga, but they're spotty and not sequential at all, and honestly, most of the manga series they have start around... 6 or 7? Volume, that is. Volume 6 or 7. Or later. There's one where they have book 3, and then the next book they have is book 12! And then they have like 5 sequential books, and then they skip to the mid-20's! It's absurd! And they don't have anything ATLA related, or really any 'comics'. They have Graphic Novels and Manga. No traditional comics. It SUCKS.
@conan263 No need to use a misogynistic insult. We know LoK is a lackluster show.
Greetings from M.Gandhi, ruler and King of the Indians... Our words are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS!
Nothing quite like the Smiling Buddah.
Smiling Buddha with a nuke
@@SingingSpock Smiling Buddah was the name of India's nuke project. 😑
Is this a Civilization reference?
Which us why when I play Civ, I always either destroy Ghandi or dominate him culturally, economically, scientifically, and militarily before he gets nukes.
My Mom (who switched from being a Soviet Studies major) says that the entire history of Russia is the search for a warm water port.
Warmer vodka
@@ihavepermissiontospamracia7794 More like access to trade in a place where your sailors won't freeze to death.
@@jagnestormskull3178 also so that ships can actually use it all year round
Funny enough, when i played Russia in Empire: Total War, the first thing i did was annex Crimea so i can have Sevastopol. It's also the first thing the AI players do when they play Russia.
@@BvousBrainSystems ayyy a fellow ETW player
My fictional empire just appears.
How?
A wizard did it.
Ah yes that's my favourite spell.
@@thescottishanimeguy9946 it is a wonderful plot given spell
genius
Lol I know right, now I have a reason
It was brought into existence by Machanorlin, the great wizard of the East, creed cousin of the Western, Northern, and Southern wizards. This empire is from the distant future, after a post societal collapse and reconstruction. Using the time cube, he has brought the empire into this time and fused it with this time period, preventing a paradox.
I dont write much, I just find this channel's content super interesting
i do write, but just like contemporary realistic stuff that doesnt really require worldbuilding lmao
I don't do a lot of constructive writing, but do I ever like some world building. An actual story arch secondary to the characters and settings most of the time. Someday this information will actually be useful instead of just personally enriching!
Caleb Olds Yaay~ We need all the interested minds we could get! ^^
I dont write, l just worldbuild for fun.
I world build but with the purpose of eventually writting a story.
The roman empire expanded quickly based largely on its ability to adapt to warfare. It never just simply tries one idea. It tries many ideas to counter its enemies specialized ways of warfare.
Rome used to use hoplite phalanx tactics before they abandon such tactics when they faced off the samnites. The phalanx is slow and deploys very slowly and can be hampered by terrain. They later abandon it for the manipular organisation.
Another way empires rise is to place a common identity throughout your territories such as language, sense of belonging, patriotism and benefits that come with giving its people roman citizenship and also promoting warfare for professional soldiers.
Good job this was useful👏
Great point! Their military adaptability was ironically an amazing outcome of the number 1 cultural power of the Romans: they were so horrifically stubborn that they refused to give up.
Get sacked by gauls and have their gold taken and city burn? F it, we will just rebuild.
Cant beat the samnites due to bad military formation and lack of baggage train due to Italian swamps? F it, we will reorganize the military and build a big road through the swamp.
Don't have a navy capable of defeating Carthage? F it, we will build a canal to the coast and just keep building ships until we win.
Suffer a decade of losses to Hannibal and lose 50 thousand troops in the battle of canne? F it, time to invade Carthage itself.
On and on until they basically reached their zenith. Literally every failure was turned into a lesson and an extreme case of refusal to lose.
Also they really liked to build walls. Like for Sieges. They would build walls around their camps, walls around the walls of the city they were sieging, at one point one city caught on and tried to wall THEM in. If I were to credit any one thing with roman ascension it would be their Engineering Prowess.
@@katmannsson talking about one of the last battles of Julius Caesar fighting the gauls in Northern Gaul! That battle was almost too crazy to be real!
You have honestly became the reason the story I’ve had in my head for ten years is starting to become a reality for me. You inspire me as much as you teach, thank you
In my experiences in Stellaris, having a relatively weak and isolated neighbor is *huge* for building an empire. If you are able to fairly easily absorb your neighbor, effectively doubling your available resources, every group you conquer after that becomes increasingly easier to take. This results in a power snowball that grows bigger and bigger, gaining speed and momentum... until it breaks under its own weight and all comes crashing down. Which is why it is important to restrain yourself and force yourself to expand slowly, ensuring that you fully develop, exploit, and secure your captured resources before making moves to collect more.
Depends. Depends if you uses mods or not. 😅
But apart from that, having a big empire is also a problem.
It requires more forces to protect it, more resources to feed it, more people to run it.
If you don't do that, then you will have a big empire, sure, but totally exposed to foreign conquests.
I saw these things a lot of times. Especially in Stellaris.
Now I have 229 mods installed but still there are some problems.
Depending also on what kind of empire I play. If democratic, generally I have less problems.
If fanatic or authoritarian, then it's a continue race to protect and conquer, conquer and protect. 😑
Not that I don't like war, but I usually wants to build Sn empire, not destroy others. Or conquer a cemetery.
Remember also that whatever empire you conquer, then you have to fix it because AI doesn't run empires using logic (how ironic!) but doing it randomly building infrastructures fragmented, often pointless on some planets and colonies, resulting almost always into foreign empires that can crumble apart just by themselves with just a proper economic push of your more organized and logical empire.
Those who perform better in this sense are those empires made by machine intelligences or by hiveminds... That's because those empires usually don't need to satisfy some requisites of the game. Like goods and the same morale of the populations.. While other empires just fragmentate and falls apart when they can't satisfy their needs.
So... It depends. 🤔😅😁👍
Should also note that not all empires strictly use their military to aggressively conqueror every territory they absorb. If they want to bring in an island state that would be more trouble then it's worth to actually fight. They might just blockade the island and starve it out, rather then an amphibious assault. Sieges could take years, with the longest in history, the Siege of Candia, taking 22 years.
Armies can be used for more then just bloody warfare. A military should be thought of more as a way for a nation to impose its will on its neighbors, they are simply tools and can be used as sophisticated or bluntly as the state requires.
Good point. To add to it, the Romans tried three times to conquer all of Britain. After the first, they built Hadrian's Wall. After the second, they built Antonine Wall, which was completely abandoned. The third was also a failure. They just could never keep hold of what today is Scotland. So they used Hadrian's Wall for security, limiting raids, and taxing locals who wanted to visit their families on the other side of the wall.
The Romans also used their armies for more than warfare: they were builders who built forts in times of war, and roads and aqueducts in times of peace.
Sometimes expansion is also mercantile. The Caliphate mentioned earlier is actually a good example of an empire that expanded primarily through trade as opposed to military expansion (not that there *wasn't* military expansion, cause of course there was). But sometimes a country is just too enticing for the people who have been offered a chance to join. It's like when a large company tries to absorb a smaller one in that manner - sometimes they're forced to, sometimes the deal is just too good.
@Matthew - That's not quite true. The Romans could hold onto what is modern day Scotland, but there was never a reason for them to fully pacify it so they just never put the effort into doing that. Twas simply more efficient to offer terms of peace and to sit some troops on a defensive wall than it would ever have been to conquer the region.
@Laurie Then why did the Romans try three times to campaign in, conquer, and pacify the area?
I've done a lot of research on this. It wasn't that they had no reason to fully pacify it; it was that they weren't able to.
1. We have physical proof of their attempts to pacify Scotland; all abandoned within a generation. We have what were to be more permanent roman forts and the beginnings of roman cities dating before Hadrian's Wall's construction; both abandoned before the construction of Hadrian's Wall.
2. We have evidence of a roman siege to a hill fort south of Antonine's Wall, dating to the time that Antonine's Wall was in use. Antonine's Wall was abandoned within a generation of its construction.
3. Emperor Severus' campaign was cut short when he fell fatally ill, and his successor tried to continue it, but they soon settled for peace.
They did put the effort in, but they ultimately gave up after the area and the people in it proved more trouble than it was worth. You were right about it being more efficient, but think about that for one minute: building a wall splitting Britain in half and periodically bribing kings was more efficient than conquest and development, despite winning battles and pushing into the area.
Because the Romas didn't have a consistent policy throughout all of the Empire and various Emperors were constantly doing their own thing. You're correct that effors were made because policy did change but the overall reason the Romans didn't take northern Brittannia was because of a lacking consistency in the belief of its worth. That and lacking resources which made justifying expansion slightly difficult for the more sane of Emperors.
This Empire series is on such a roll!!! I really love how Empires rise, it gives insight and motivation on why they become what they are and what they want. It really gives a lot of background and interesting world building to stories imo. :)
You love how Empires rise ?
How the mighty have fallen... I thought better of you Luck 😥
“Give that man a raise!”
Cf The History Buff's video on 300. The Persian Empire loses to the Greeks despite a massive numerical advantage, plans revenge for 10 years, and instead of upgrading weapons and armour decides to field a bigger army this time...
Instead of two empire-building videos, THREE empire-building videos? Dude, I don't "mind", I'm cheering!
I love your humor and the amount of detail in these videos. Looking forward to part 3 😊
Me too! The fall of empires is arguably the most interesting part.
~ Tim
Can u do a video about the Santa Blanca Drug Cartel from Ghost Recon: Wildlands?!
Now I’m thinking about magic space whales which caused the defeat of Grand Admiral Thrawn
@@zazi5305 Star Wars Rebels. Thanks Disney. 😑
Gojira intensifies
Even in legends, the only way to defeat Thrawn is to hit him with something out of left field, something he's not aware of and/or can't control, so it still works. Timothy Zahn, the creator of Thrawn, approved of this. Disney still treats the series better then Lucas ever did. This is coming form someone who is old enough to remember a world before the prequels.
PaladinGuy I think it was done well in terms of foreshadowing especially with Ezra’s animal manipulation skill and the Bendu’s warning but I don’t understand how the imperial fleet didn’t slow them down or send a warning
Yeah, I also found the way he was defeated cheap and deus ex macinaed.
After this video I am sure of it: we NEED "history is complicated, deus vult" shirts! :P
The "a wizard did it" shirt is awesome, so please make it happen! As a history nerd, I would kill for such shirt! :3
Thr Fire Nation is more Imperial Japan than Britain.
It is both heavy handed and preachy, it's just not fucking annoying about it.
+Laurie They did go to the effort of humanizing actual nazis. Many supposedly more serious works fail to do that.
You might have forgotten but there aren't actually nazis in ATLA. There aren't even any Germans.
+Laurie The Fire nation are nazis. They tick basically every box. At the very least they are fascist.
Nazis aren't fascists, they're national socialists. There's a massive difference between the two systems even if it's convenient for politicians, activists, and war propagandists to lump them together.
Also what boxes? The Nazis policies were specifically about promoting Germanic racial supremacy, global world conquest, the annihilation of International Jewry, the destruction of Internationalist Socialism (specifically communism as it was envisaged within the USSR), the removal of usury and capitalism, removal of monarchy, promotion of social welfare, dedication to the Fuhrer, belief in Darwinistic social and racial competition, and competition against 'Jewish' ideas and influence within the public. They also promoted ideas of multiple wives, encouraged pure breeding, violently punished social outcasts, purged undesirable elements such as those with disabilites, and sought to lift burdens off of the German worker (whether imagined or not). For women specifically they promoted (and to some extent enforced) the ideas of Children, Church, and Kitchen (the three Ks in German), took great pride in not needing them in factories or in the military, and saw women as being highly valuable due to their capacity to create the next generation of Germanic heroes.
Just being genocidal and militant doesn't make you into a nazi. There's a lot more to it than that.The Fire Nation is militant, imperialist, and genocidal. But that's all it really has in common with nazism. Incidentally, the Romans are also militant, imperialist, and genocial but are also no nazis.
"Gandhi was one example, with Indian nationalism not leading to fascism."
I mean, it took a few decades but 😬
What?NUKES
There is another reason for building an empire - because you can. Prestige, glory and a lasting legacy have generally been powerful motivators for rulers to conquer more land. While these often came with other motivations, sometimes simply having the ability to conquer someone has been enough to motivate rulers to do so.
*What a guy, man. Giving us all the tools necessary to succeed at life with these awesome videos. What. A. Guy.* 👍
What causes the rise of ... trilogies
Because three points are easy to remember. It's why many speech classes teach splitting your speech into three parts.
People who speak english like to group things in threes. I'm not sure how much the three thing extends outside of english because I don't speak any other languages although I have noticed other numbers popping up. For example, if you ever read Art of War, Sun Tzu likes to group things in fives which I only noticed because he made reference to the five notes aka a pentatonic scale.
The feudal system is one thing I would love to see better implemented in games. Often it is reduced to to a power value where if the vassal gets too strong they rebel which is bullshit. In strategy games you often have too much control and domestic affairs are completely nonexistent. It kinda sucks that only games fully focused on politics get even a little bit closer to it
Honestly this is most likely because bureaucracy is boring. most people that play empire building games just wanna create big blob of soilders and *DESTROY ALL THE ENEMIES OF OUR GLORIOUS IMPERIUM* ,you know the usual.
It's weird how not even ck3 did it right
I do love all the Age of Empires 2 references, I grew up on that game!
Thank you. I was wondering what the game was.
@@stevenbrawley326 it's a bit dated now, but still a great game if you like real time strategy and town building.
Yes, agreed! Definitely would recommend if you are so blessed to still have an old computer lying around. I still like to play AOE II (We do not speak of III...)
AOE III is great, what are you talking about
@@TheRoseFrontier Old computer? There's a Windows 10 compatibility patch and an HD rerelease.
Nice essay. One thing to consider is a tactic that was common among empire builders of the ancient world: forcibly relocating conquered peoples outside their homeland. The Babylonian Exile that is such an important part of the history of the Hebrew people is one such example. This had the effect of reducing the threat that such people posed (you can't fight to defend your homeland when you don't even live in your homeland), dispersing the people so they cannot organize, and also accelerated the assimilation of those people into the empire. It would also make for good seed material for worldbuilding: your protagonist might be a member of one of these displaced peoples.
Oh no there's gonna be a 3rd part. I hate when one of my favorite youtubers put out more content than they expected! Lol I think we're all ecstatic that it'll be a 3 parter!
'There will be a part 3. Hope you don't mind.' Not only do we not mind, we want more and will happily wait for it. Your content is great and it's always something to look forward to! So, when life gets in the way, it's fine - we'll wait. Just take care of yourself first. Hope things get less stressful.
Note that Napoleon's empire was much more security-motivated by anything else. His main motivation was to avoid combat on French homeland soil.
I love that your taking your time on this subject. It's not a subject that can be rushed.
When it comes to for life leaders, give me Marcus Aurelius. No one else. Only the Philosopher King
Ironic how what was meant to be a republic was ruled by a philosopher king
Nah, Marcus Aurelius was a bad enough ruler that he was forced to make Commodus his successor. Meanwhile, Augustus was followed by the Five Good Emperors and glorious Pax Romana.
I think you should take a look at the World Government from One Piece in regards to how an empire maintains and dominates. I would recommend Tekking101's videos on the World Government, he brings up many good and interesting points
Hey, someone else who watches Tekking! I don't really watch him anymore as he has moved onto series I don't watch, but he has some interesting content. Also, when I watched him his videos tended to be long, and I have a short attention span so even if I watched the series I probably didn't watch his video about it.
I love tekking n i stopped watching one piece 10 years ago haha
One Piece is mostly an example of superior control and communication. Transportation is pretty challenging in the One Piece world, so you do get a very decentralized empire. But there are also highways which, if controlled, can grant a singular body quick access to the entire world.
The world government makes sense, as they control and centralize around those highways and use them to control the other nations, but only to a certain extent in order to deal with minor issues more readily. In fact, throughout the story of One Piece, there are numerous countries that essentially collapse, and the world government does nothing. Why? It's simply too hard to mobilize and control that region that closely. What they can do, however, is step in after some random rebels took over and re-establish their rule over the country... which is why regardless of who takes over, they tend to cooperate with the world government in one way or another.
If the theories about the end of the series are accurate, then it is that control over the highways that will prove the downfall of the world government too. Specifically, some suggest that Luffy might, at one point, destroy a barrier that makes travel difficult, and potentially weaken or destroy the highways as well. This would spell disaster for the world government regardless of whether or not Luffy personally kicks their asses... which he will probably do because shonen protagonist.
*DEUS VULT, INFIDEL*
Bring it
*FOR THE GRACE AND THE MIGHT OF OUR LORD!*
FOR THE HOME OF THE HOLY
الله أكبر ، غير مؤمن
the song is the last stand by sabaton and is about the Stand of the Swiss Guard during the sack of rome during 1527.
You talked about nationalism in Nazi Germany, but there was actually more to it than that. An aspect of fascist doctrine called for a certain level of economic self-sufficiency. That, of course, meant they needed more land and more resources to achieve that. German nationalism pushed the idea of a German or Aryan identity that was superior to all other races, especially those degenerate Slavs to the east. As a result, the Germans felt justified taking the land they needed from their lesser neighbors.
Lebensraum or something
An empire wanted self-sufficiency wouldn't always have to annex territory. They could improve the land they already have.
There's another reason an Empire is able to subsume neighboring peoples other than tactical or technological supremacy: superior numbers. Whether that's due to a more populous homeland and greater agricultural productivity, or the large land area conquered by an Empire compared to a smaller neighbor, superior numbers and superior resources can often more than make up for a slight disadvantage in tactics or technology. And, once an Empire conquers a more advanced people, they can potentially absorb those advances into their own military and economy: as the Romans did after conquering the Greeks...
Read Dune it has a wonderful worldbuilding one of my favorite books
Agreed, it's so good
You're references to AoE 2 are killing me. 😂
Part of me feels like the four nations would have nothing but benefit from actually studying the substances which they bend. Testing the limits of what someone can or can't bend, even getting all the way down to the molecular level. I feel like science would be a massive boon to bending. If they know what they can and can't bend down to *actual* elements, and they figure out where else those elements are found, then they could see not just a leap in knowledge of the natural world, but potentially also a leap in technology.
And on the topic of the waterbenders, cellular science would be fantastic, for they just might discover that you don't even have to be a bloodbender to control people's bodies, as each and every cell in the human body--and in the bodies of all animals and plants--contains vacuoles filled with water, and the hemoglobin of a blood cell contains both oxygen and hydrogen.
And on that note, earthbenders could also control the human body--admittedly to a much lesser extent--as the human ody tends to contain between 3.5 and 4 grams of iron, and not just in the aforementioned hemoglobin, but also tissues, muscles, bone marrow, enzymes, and more. But of course, they have mainly been shown to be able to bend chunks of the earth's crust, which is primarily silicate materials. So you've got me there, as the human body doesn't contain silicon. But still, this study could be valuable.
Firebenders are a tricky one at first, until you realize that they aren't just bending fire, they're bending energy. Heat energy. They have been shown to be capable of merely raising the temperature of an object without burning it, and seem to produce flame out of nowhere. What other explanation cold there be other than control over heat energy? And the human body naturally produces heat energy of its own when digesting or moving. Every cell in the body produces energy as part of cellular digestion.
And then there's airbenders. Most people would figure that this is where control of the human body ends; the only parts of the body that contain air are the following organs: the left lung, the right lung... And that's it. Unless you consider flatulence to be bendable air, that's all the bendable air in the body... Right...? Wrong. Remember blood from a little while ago? Well, when oxygenated, it is carrying air with it into the cells of the body for cellular respiration to take place. Not to mention that controlling the air in the lungs is still pretty useful. But other than that, who says that the airbenders need to bend air inside the body, when they could easily control the air *around* the body. Granted, this would take precision work, but controlling the air that surrounds the human body could accomplish the same effect. Simply raise the pressure of the air in such a way as to control the movements of the body, and there you go. You can suck the air out of their lungs, you can pop the air out of the blood in the body. Hell, you could even crush your opponent under sheer air pressure like as if the enemy were at the bottom of the ocean.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why benders of all strides are far more terrifying than you may have thought. Or at least, they would be, had they simply known the science behind their bending. And from what I can deduce--I do confess that I haven't watched Legend of Korra past season 1, though I have seen the whole of the Last Airbender TV show prior--they don't seem to understand the science of the elements. As far as I can tell, their concepts of the elements are strictly limited to these four basic ideas of fire, air, water, and earth. But if we were to throw a chemist into the setting, then we would most definitely see far more advanced techniques come of it.
[EDIT] I just remembered, earthbenders can also manipulate coal, which consists of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. If they were controlling the hydrogen or the oxygen or both, then they would be able to manipulate water or air, which they obviously can't. So they could be controlling the carbon in the coal, and as carbon can be found in much of the earth's crust, crystals, and indeed, living things, then they technically can control the human body as well, as a large amount of the human body is, as we all know, carbon.
Dead Knight If the avatar universe continued evolving past Legend of Korra then we’d presumably see this sort of scientific/alchemical bending at work. It would be inevitable
Well shit
That is terrifying
Supreme leader Mishka! The ruler I vote for! (Second choice: Queen Victoria)
It's worth noting that Nationalism was originally a Left-wing ideology, stemming from the Enlightenment. Many people decided that they wanted their countries (or nations) to be rooted in the culture, language, and/or ethnicity of the groups who lived there, and not determined by the arbitrary political borders as established by their sovereign.
This can lead to empires, sure, but it can also lead to revolution, civil war, secession, and the creation of new countries.
I mean, Nationalism has kind of been around for thousands of years. Ancient Israel comes to mind. They defined their country based off of their culture, the Hebrew language, and ethnicity of their people.
I don’t think Zuko really ever grew out of his nationalism, I think it just changed. Zuko still took pride in his country, loved his country, and seemingly still viewed it as the greatest nation of all but instead of thinking that way because of their strength and ability for conquest I think he recognized his people’s passion and natural strength which motivated him to bring them back to a moral positive they used to hold
Well bout to start the
American Empire thanks for the help
A question that popped to my mind at the point of "how does your empire deal with non-conformists?" is "what if your empire is founded by a bunch of misfits who embrace unconventional thinking, so is formed largely from expatriates and exiles of other empires?"
I'm curious if you did anything with this idea that you're willing to share
@@LeDingueDeJeuxVideos I mean, this was basically how a certain campaign I played in went down.
I love how in your videos, the best example for everything is always Avatar.
You show a lot of footage of the Covenant without naming them even once.
Shame
I am ok with this being a part 2/3. This is really helpful
Augustus was the best leader, he stabilized Rome very well.
When an empire emerges, subsume individuals in culture and make it seem like you are their emperor. Love for the leader is the greatest castle/ defense. Time to read Machiavelli again haha!
Do I see at 15:33 our 2002 italian-french tv series about Napoleon? I loved it!
Great video! You made me think to the Final Empire from the Mistborn trilogy, there plot and resources were strictly intertwined.
I enjoyed parts 1 and 2 of your empire building videos, and look forward to the 3rd part. I feel that referring to one piece's world government, A song of ice and fire's differing forms of government and religions, and Brandon Sanderson's system of governance in the Mistborn trilogy would be exceptional sources to draw parallels from. all three are popular examples within their medium, and are well constructed universes that fit the video's theme. Now i think about it, the Inheritance cycle has an empire that rose to power using the points listed in this video as well.
When is anyone going to complain about more content?
Should make a part 4
I really like this, so interesting to see why empires form and rise
You can this topic out as much as you want I love this kind of content it’s very very lightening and makes my appreciation for all empires much greater
Oh shit Hitler's in the thumbnail. This should be..... interesting. But seriously I'm writing a story where there is an Empire and this series is really helping me so thank you so much 😁😁😁
Wait, does that mean RUclips will demonitize this video (if it even is)? :O Heard they did that to a video which showed the Swatzika (even though it was for educational purposes).
I bet the story sucks
WE DO NOT MIND
please, I love the depth you go into, and if you need 50 videos for that, DO IT.
you are truly amazing and I thank you
Historical leader worth following? Emporer Norton the First of San Francisco. He has no power save his pride, dignity his only resource. Yet, he was loved and recognized.
Ah yes, Norton I, Emperor of America and Protector of Mexico, he's quite the character.
18:32 I think that LoGH was a great example of a story were tactics and strategies beat superior technologies.
There are multiple example of pieces of tech that are hailed as unbeatable. But throughout the series they are each presented and beaten.
"The Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinople due to a huge technological advantage:" a side door left open
*ftfy*
Yeah well many of those examples were wrong. The Arabs for an example were a bunch of nomadic desert dwellers before they conquered the more advanced Levant. I feel they're trying to squeeze all empires into one box but really colonial empires are a very different beast.
I needed to watch this video yesterday for my AP world history essay on state building... anyway amazing job as always, I love your work!
The USSR was actually a fairly Nationalist Empire, the USA was so nationalistic it ceased being an empire and went full nation
We tried being an empire and then sort of got distracted by the whole "gotta fight them commies" thing. Cuba moved out early, though.
I mean, the US is heavily influential in a lot of foreign nation areas, securing... security... and resources everywhere in the world. It may not be a traditional empire (although it does hold some territories outside the states, and Hawaii's history will tell you American annexation wasn't always wanted), it captures the idea: a single culture with tendrils extending outwards and influencing other nations to its advantage.
We never even tried being an Empire
@@stealthboy5767 For certain values of "Empire". We have no emperor, but we have annexed foreign nations for the sake of economic gain and control (case in point: our treatment of Japan pre-World Wars, Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines, Puerta Rica, and our military presence in who knows how many countries globally.
Don't forget Manifest Destiny, aka: our imperial expansion period
Solid lay out and insights here, this is well thought out.
18:30 Cute Death Star 1, 2 and 3 XD
I am brazilian and I was laughing for at least two minutes after the Joke. Actually, I'm laughing until now
These 3 vids are probably the only things that make me come back, but I'll subscribe anyways mate
"Even if those resources are people."
i c wut u did thar.
5:43 is officially my new favorite moment in most any of these videos
The more I watch the On Writing series the more it distracts when you add those super-short jokes that are brought up and down really fast and I sometimes loose just a bit of focus, also sometimes you can get carried away and start talking faster, wich can also get me somewhat lost and distracted, but everything else is awesome, and I love when you say "Ah yah guys, this seems that is going to be a 3 part series, not a 2 part", I don't care, infact I like it, the more videos you make, the better explained the topic will be, and I'll have more things to watch, wich I don't mind.
I think I speak for everyone, I am GLAD that there will be another video on the topic. Splitting a topic so we get another full video is great news
Nationalism isn't an inherently oppressive ideology. It was actually liberals who embraced nationalism first. Many early nationalistic movements were Republican in nature as opposed to the old Monarchy.
Nationalism is the simple idea that each nation (group with common culture) should have their own state and rule themselves. This leads to some states like the German states to believe in a single state ruling over all the other German states and thus you get the German Empire.
This unfortunetley often leads to oppression of those who are not part of the nation, but inside the state, like the Poles and Jews inside the German Empire.
However, most countries today are what we call nation-states, which are democratic in nature.
I felt like you said nationalism was complicated but you didn't show it. According to you it's an ideology which seeks expansion, and oppression, but that's not really the case. Nationalism seeks the nation's freedom from the Empire which rules over them and to be in their own state. An example here is the Hungarians during the revolutions of 1848-9.
Indeed, it's important to remember that the world we live in today is shaped by nationalism. Before nationalism became popular Europe was divided into many imperial states with many different ethnic groups who were often repressed. It's fundamentally a good instinct that every group of people should have the right to rule themselves. Unfortunately this also tends to lead to sharper divisions along ethnic lines.
If it wasn't for the rise of nationalism Europe would probably still be divided between a few large empires. Nationalist sentiments also helped lead to decolonisation as people felt it wasn't right that people all across the world were ruled from European capitols but deserved a chance to rule themselves.
faarsight
As a nationalist myself, I 100% stand by everything you said
I must agree, but it wasn't really what the video wanted to portray, as it was about empires, or imperialism, which can be nationalistic as well. And don't forget that you were ours before 1905.
The Major
I understand that part perfectly, but it is still misleading to call out nationalism as an ideology of Empires when it has been an antagonist to Empires.
What happened was that once a nation was free, then they sometimes wanted to expand and become their own Empire for the glory of the nation. This happened to countries like Germany and Japan.
Also, no, Norway has been our own country since th 9th century. During the 1300s after the black plague, Norway entered into a union with Denmark and Sweden and then, centuries after Sweden left, we entered into a union with Sweden. During all this time, the Kingdom of Norway never dissapeared like Poland, but was under the stewardship of different kings. Sweden did not own us, we governed ourselves with our kings who happened to be Swedish until 1905.
Never during the union of Denmark or Sweden did Norway cease to be our own kingdom, especially not during the union with Sweden.
If there is going to be a word that means that your country is superior to all others then chauvinism or jingoism would be more appropriate.
These videos are very interesting. Keep it up buddy!
On the point of Nazi, if you ask any lowly grunt and even some of the NCO and mid rank commander in the POW, the majority of them would answer they fought to protect Germany, not to protect Hitler ideology and the idea of Nazism. They fought due to the reason that "Germany is being invaded and occupied by the allied invader and thus I must protect her". There will be some exception but if we just assume the majority of German soldiers fought due to politics idea is just taking the easy route to history.
Edit: Some think I am justifying the German war crime and dismissed their aggressive action before they were on the defensive. Nationalism is both a good and bad thing depend on how you use it. It can make you do heroic thing for your country but also enable to you justified your action against the people whom you believe to be "the enemy". The Wehrmacht for example, some think they are the equivalent of a modern army that would not commit war crime against civilian and the such. Well at least you can't find any in most of the sources written about the Wehrmacht by the German general in their memo after WW2. The Wehrmacht commit tons of atrocity against the Russian people under what the believe is their "national right" as a superior human species. And while I can't say if most of the soldier followed Hitler political ideas, the Wehrmacht action is most likely stem from their nationalism as to expand the German living space and secure more resources for their homeland. Same thing can be said for the US Manifest destiny movement.
Yeah, that's nationalism. Exactly what he was referring to. What's your point?
I think the video had i purposeful leftist tilt, but i forgive him for that because the EU is not exactly a bastean of free speech.
That's only kinda true because they were eventually loosing the war.
Case in point: Poland (among many other countries that were attacked by Nazi Germany)
You can kinda argue about the Treaty of Versailles pushing them to it (though that's muddied waters as well once you get deeper), but it _was_ an offensive war and that fact shouldn't be ignored.
He's not in the EU, he's in New Zealand.
You have to remember that France tried to enforce the Treaty of Versailles by invading Germany before to "defend" its interests so the Germans had more than an example in what they were doing.
I have a new favourite thing when it comes to empires, diplomatic conquest. Which was a thing, that the romans did. You can nestle yourself into the local power structure, you can convince someone to overthrow the current regime or you can just offer them representation, infrastructure and military protection.
Stellaris is fantastic in that regards. Although a federation can't start war unless every member agree, the sheer military might increases rapidly when a new federation is formed. A former superpower might find themselves dwarfed as several of their neighbours band together.
Another interesting thing is the New California Republic in New Vegas. It was formed through diplomatic means when the weakest of the five original member states reached out to the others and offered to form a nation, the increasing security and trade made it worth it. And the sleepy town of Shady Sands became the heart of the NCR. In time they would wipe out raider tribe after raider tribe, bring down the Enclave and overwhelm the Brotherhood of Steel.
By the time of New Vegas they have a functional rail network with trains all across the nation, actual industry and a medical university. Yet their backbone is something as simple as farming on a large scale, and the enormous army the country can afford to have standing ready at all times.
11:47 Well to be fair, classical Fascism and National Socialism (Nazism) isn't exactly the same when you take a look at it from political science studies.
Reminds me of that Al Murray joke, where he talks about why the moon was never going to be part of the British Empire, paraphrasing
"No-one to give it back to once we'd done with it"
"No point going there installing railways and parliamentary democracy, there's no bastard living there!"
"Nothing to be gained in the way of HOT and spicy food, or Olympic quality athletes. A waste of a journey"
The way he says it brings it all together, but it does make me smile!
I'd like to mention how I really appreciate that you don't sprinkle your videos with jabs at current world politics. This seems to have become so rare on RUclips these days.
Cyrus the Great, for sure. His empire was pretty cush, even for the conquered. Also, FANTASTIC series, has been giving me so much to think about in developing my empire and the reasons for the expansion that kicks off the plot.
God emperor mishka lied to me about this being a two! Time to riot! Jk love the vids keep it up buddy
Watching this serie make me feel good, because my main antagonist empire in my novel project mostly fit into the patterns described in part one and two.
On the History is Complicated tip:
It’s important to note that, in general, Islam did not spread for ideological reasons, at least not in the way you represented it. To wit, early on-particularly in the spread of the Umayyad and Abbasid Empires-conversion was generally discouraged. This was due to the fact that non-Muslims, by virtue of not having to offer military service, were required to pay higher taxes* than Muslims. This, of course, passively encouraged conversion.
This is not to suggest that there weren’t forced conversions, only to note that over the course of history these were rather the exception than the rule. And it’s not to suggest that there wasn’t a sort of nationalism at play. However, even on this score that nationalism, particularly during the Umayyad Empire, was more Arab vs. Non-Arab, regardless of religious affiliation. There was a sort of Muslim vs. Non-Muslim nationalism, as well, of course. But again, this often took the shape of a sort of triumphalism with strong Arab-supremacy leanings in which Islam, as a complex set of ideologies, was more of a secondary concern or a placeholder for Arab-supremacy. This is part of the reason why both Shi’ism and Sufism were often (and generally remain) stronger outside of the Arab heartlands: they were / are interpretations of Islam that, at their root, question imperial or nationalistic interpretations of Islam. Though, again, history is complicated: the Turkish Ottoman Empire leaned heavily on (Sunni-)Sufism, while the Persian Safavid Empire leaned heavily on Shi’ism. But even these empires, in their formation, saw themselves as revolutions against imperialist agendas that othered them, and saw themselves as a restoration of a truer Islam. According to their propaganda, anyway.
*The rate of the difference in taxes between non-Muslims and Muslims generally varied from relatively slight to rather extreme, depending on the particular emperor in question and their policies.
(Pretty much any reputable sourcebook on Islamic history-peer reviewed, written by a trained scholar, whether Muslim or not, theist or not-has this info. It felt important to bring up owing to the hyper-Islamophobic environments often found these days, and particularly online.)
Passively encouraged as in "if you weren't Jewish or Christian and you decided not to convert you were slaughtered" and if you wouldn't pay the taxes (or more specifically, if the person in charge of your village refused) you were also slaughtered. Also would kind of suck if you were gay. Or a woman who didn't dress like a bin bag. Or disagreed that a creepy pedophile was actually the ideal role model. But sure whatever.
@@lokenontherange Eh, no? I live in country formerly conquered by Ottoman Empire, and I can say with certainty that after the initial slaughter, people were allowed to practice their religion freely (with caveats like high taxes, but still freely) and lived normally. Don't confuse history and religious dogma.
The Ottoman Empire was, of the islamic empires, probably the least fanatical when it came to their intepretation and use of islamic law when it came to enforcement. But even then, freely is a bit of a stretch. The Persian Empire and Alexander's Empire actually allowed for people to freely practice their religions. The Ottomans only allowed free practice of islam, and tolerated to an extent christianity and judaism but even then you couldn't practice in public. Nor could you safely discuss your religion with a muslim and were religiously inspired complaints weren't tolerated in the slightest. So you're really going to need to define free because you and I apparently have very different definitions of freedom.
There was, on the other hand, absolutely no tolerance of paganism or polytheism within islam and because of that hindus, pagans, and so on were pretty much universally wiped out in the middle east and there was considerable attempt to wipe them out in India and in Africa. The Ottomans only come off okay here because by the time the Ottoman Empire rolled around the pagans in Africa and the Middle East were largely already exterminated and they never reached far enough into Russia or into India to gain control over polytheistic populations. They just didn't have the targets avaliable to them.
I absolutely love these videos. It's exactly the type of thing I need since my school doesn't teach us any of this.
Me, a writer that likes worldbuilding and making tons of worlds with different empires: 👁👁 📝📝📝📝
He's operating on the assumption that an empire is always bad. It's not exactly a good approach to take.
Just want to say, the length of these videos is not an issue for me, and I have a hunch that a large amount of your viewers feel the same. You've mentioned it a few times now and I just hope it isn't a serious concern of yours moving forward. Keep it up, man. This kind of stuff is what drew me to your channel and why I keep coming back. Great work. It is not done in vain.
I realy like you painted character =D
I never mind this kind of quality content. :D Love this kind of thing.
One of the best examples of nationalism was the state of Prussia, almost as nationalistic as nazi Germany. Britain was very nationalistic as it was France. The key points are pride and a distinguible social, cultural or religious group.
On Technology v. Tactics. I recommend looking Tex Talks Battletech and the Battle of Tukkyaid (probably misspelled that). In that story, two groups had roughly equivalent technology, but one lost because the other had a superior strategy, one which took advantage of the loser’s culture (que that clip of Zuko going “Honor, honor, honor, honor!) as well as their lack of readily-available replacement troops and supplies. Also in Tex’s discussion of the Madcat/Timber Wolf mech, he mentions that the Clans has little real hope of conquering the Inner Sphere due to the vast advantage the Inner Sphere has in terms of population and industrial capacity.
16:44
“What happens to those who are part of the homeland but don’t conform?”
*Suddenly an Ad*
“Kill them all!”
Edit: On occasions, it’s fun to have an ad 😂
Land can be its own resource as a means of eliminating overpopulation, acquiring space for farming, or as a means to travel easier. Like if you conquer a river for the sole purpose it makes travel easier than going around it by sea. Or if you just need a spare port. Portugal did this a lot with its fortresses everywhere.
I see that there might be some misunderstanding of the terms so I would like to explain some terms according to what I was thought. 1) Nationalism is an ideology(or rather collective of various ideologies) that tell about rights of certain nation to be self-govern. The nation )in this case) is a group of people that is connected by the same(or similar) language, culture and sometimes religion. Moreover a certain nation to develop nationalism needs to be in contact(and most likely in conflict) with other distinct nation. It developed mostly in Europe since 15 century and especially in 19th century.
2)Patriotism is an ideologi that require loyalty to certain certain country/state/land area. So differently than nationalism the subject of loyalty is not a grup of people but a place(which might be inhabited by various nations).
3) And with these definitions ideology of nazis is neither of those. Instead it should be called national chauvinism. And similarly like men chauvinism( which does exist but is not so widely spread as some feminists want to believe)... and similarly as men chauvinism see women as inferior beings national chauvinism see other nations as inferior.
These empire-building videos are really, _really_ giving me a powerful craving to play Twilight Imperium. Been far too long since our last play.
11:50
Googled it and chuckled
the funniest thing is that, even though nazism is often described as one of the forms of fascism, they are so much different. Yet people tend to see and describe them as one and the same kind of regime, and use these two words completely interchangeably. It bugs me to see people just throw around such words, especially in politics and newspapers.
Thank you for the AoE2 references all over the videos, btw. I don't need to sleep anymore, need to make my fictional empires prosper again, at least in games.
As far as I know Nazism and fascism are the same thing. The one very important difference being that nazism inherently has a racist element on top of the fascist foundation.
It is... a bit more complicated than just that. I'm honestly not very prepared to discuss this topic in youtube comments when the last time I thoroughly studied it was a few years ago.
I'll just say that yes, you're right, this is one of the differences: nazism is race-centered while fascism is state-centered. And nazism is a bastard child of fascism. And they are very similar.
But also: nazi hated socialism way more than fascists, for example :'D
The simple fact that these were the ideolodies in different countries give so many little sides to each of them: fascism gave way more artistic freedom to its people, for instance.
Even though I do not support either of ideologies I really wish people knew a bit more about this topic than just fascism = nazism, especially when it comes to irl politicians.
(Though here there's at least some truth in it, unlike when people say that nazism = socialism :D)
@@GeanAmiraku Yeah, the NSDAP had an internal fight about nationalism+raccism Vs socialism and after that they weren't socialist anymore.
GeanAmiraku
Nazism hated Communism, not socialism. The fundamentals of the Nazi economy were a sort of odd neo-Feudalism (which, if the ruler is seen as the embodiment of the state, is actually a form of socialism). Hitler's own belief was essentially that private property was ok, as long as the government was ultimately in charge of it. Nazi Germany was characterised by enormous state works programs and establishing private monopolies which were essentially beholden to the state if not owned by it on paper, and Hitler was massively opposed to concepts like the stock market and disliked people working for personal profit. Everything was ultimately supposed to serve the interests of the state above the individual. Even his anti trade union policies were essentially the same as those enacted by the Soviet Union (ie, state-run trade unions or GTFO).
Also it would be more correct to say that Nazism is motivated by identity rather than "racism," specifically the idea that the German (and by extension Western European) cultural identity was innately good and besieged by those who wished to destroy it. Hitler's views on other races were directly proportional to their perceived threat to the German cultural identity: the Slavic peoples were bad because Russians were Slavic and threatened Germany with cultural destruction through Communism, the Jews because they threatened Germany with cultural destruction and enslavement though international capitalism. When it came to races that a threat to the German identity could not easily be attached to such as Arabs or the Japanese, he didn't really seem to care all that much.
This is so wrong it's not even funny.
There was nothing socialist about Nazi Germany. The people at large did not control the means of production. The military state did. This is typically referred to as state capitalist or corporatist if not stratocratic. Nazism was indeed motivated by identity.... the identity of the Aryan *Race*. I don't think you know what the word feudalism means because if you did, you would never think neo-feudalism was anything socialist at all.
Fascism and Nazism are alike in that one is a variation of the other, and both are considered extreme and negative forms of nationalism.
As long as the content is good (which it totally is), I'll watch as many parts as you make! This was super helpful for my own work, identifying which of these motivations my story's empire primarily has, and which secondary motivations I might need to better develop.
Arrakis....Dune....Desert Planet
Bane of Anakin Skywalker.
Another good job! Looking forward to the 3rd part. Take all the time you need, as these are subtle and complex issues.
Just like to correct one thing; the early Kalifates didn't have a academic culture, the arabs were in the most part illiterate until the need to memorize the new, forced, best seller. The academia came later, after the empire, which was formed because the arabs were very unified and their opponents were not. And the fall of Istanbul was an economic, the forger of the massive bombards first went to the Emperor, but was too expensive, so the Bulgar went to the Sultan who made it rain on the man, then the guards left a door open, no bombard needed beyond intimatation. Btw I would choose Germanidius, first king of Lithuania, multicultural/ethnic, allowed free worship, self rule within, and had a one legal system, no extra court for the nobles
In terms of the “early Khalifates,” it depends on what you mean by “academic culture,” and which of the Arab empires you’re referring to. By historical evidence, pre-Islamic Arabs were on the whole no more or less illiterate than folks in most places. Which is to say, most of the wealthy were literate and many jobs (particularly in trade) required an at least functional level of literacy. There are plenty of texts left in the archeological record, inside and outside of the Arabic cultural spheres, to show this adequately.
If by “academic” we mean colleges or universities and the like, it is true that these don’t show up until the Umayyad Empire. However, pre-Islamic Arabic society did have highly literate scholars dealing with particular specialties (e.g. the material sciences relevant to desert travel and agriculture, cultural and religious scholars, etc.). The evidence we have suggests this took a sharp turn upward after the Islamic community moved to Yathib (later renamed Madina), when literacy spread among the non-wealthy, women, etc. And that this trend continued through the end of the Rashidun Caliphate where we can see the formation of what we might call proto-colleges during the reigns of Umar, Uthman, and Ali.
When a specifically academic culture really develops in all of this is hard to say, as academic culture tends to be what leads to the formation of colleges and universities (not the other way around). It’s just important to point out, in terms of the fact that “history is complicated,” that the idea that the pre-Islamic Arabs were illiterate-an idea maintained by hyper-conservative Muslims and Islamophobes alike-does not appear to hold water when we look at the archeological record.
@@jeffmiller6025 I think your confusing the middle east and Arabia, the first major empire in Arabia was from the prophet. I say this because contemporary sources, being Eastern Rome, Persian, and Greek sources, all have very little to say about the relatively unorganized people of that peninsula. Muhammad literally brought unity and the building blocks of "civilization" to the arabs (note; I'm not insulting arabs just the arbitrary definition of civilization), by giving something to organize around; a unified religion with him as its head
Darkfireice, Agreed about “empires.” The first Arab empire was undoubtably the Umayyad Empire. Whether or not the Rashidun Caliphate constituted an empire is a much contested point within both Arab Studies and Islamic Studies, so I personally leave a question mark on it as I just don’t know where I stand. On the question of whether the Prophet’s government was imperialist or not, the evidence suggests to me that it wasn’t. But I would agree that there is room for debate there.
However, when talking about specifically Arab levels of literacy or scholarship prior to the advent of Islam (which was the core concern on my comment) we have archeological and textual evidence that demonstrates that there were relatively normal levels of both. A lot of interesting work has been done in this area in recent years within the Arab and Islamic Studies fields, with some scholars specifically specializing in pre-Islamic Arab culture. A fun entry into all this biz, if you’re interested, is Michael Sells’ work on pre-Islamic Arabic poetry; he often covers all of this kind of stuff in the supplementary material (introductions, notes, appendices, etc.) in his texts. His bibliographies are rich with a who’s who among folks working on pre-Islamic Arab culture.
Whether there was an “academic” culture is, I think, up in the air. Though, by the time of the Rashidun Caliphate one was certainly developing, and, again, by the time of the Umayyad Empire there was a full-blown academic culture.
The Islamic Arabs were more academic than the none-islamic arabs, although perhaps you may think it is unnoticeable, the Islamic Arabs had a higher literacy rate for one.
I would argue the initial advancement was security, bordering two superpowers who don't agree with you is not the best way to stay a thing
Summarizing Jeff, Arab scholars have existed since the Persians converted from Zoroastrianism to Islam during early caliphates, and Arab also refers to the Jews, and smaller sub-groups existing throughout India, so I think your anti-Islamist worldview might be blinding you.
Nice video i love youre way to explain things.
I hope you never stop having that motivation to make videos c:
Historical Leader: Hmm I gotta go with the big JC, for obvious reasons. Walking on water, water into wine. Resurrections etc.. The standard stuff
Liked for a smart analysis. And inclusion of Full metal Alchemist... mostly for Full metal alchemist... J.K. very nice and educative video series
😗🖐🏾 I need you to talk dumb to me 😩💦😂 because I understood 80% of ALL this but there are some words or parts that my small brain is just like “😃😃😃😶🧐 huh?” Lol I’m about to start writing this incredible story that I have and I just wanna say thank you so much. For making this, now I know my boy (one of the main characters) is actually a Nationalist Emperor 🤯 I had no idea I was making a Nationalist character until you broke it down to me.
Thank you for not linking part 1 in the description you have 80 IQ ily
I mean Patriotism is a form of Nationalism *cough* America
Freedom and Democracy rules! Let's spread that to the whole world!
We know. In school, we start every morning with the Pledge of Allegiance where everyone stands and talks to the flag with their hand over their heart
USA is so nationalistic it’s disgusting
@@mollof7893 please explain. We're content but skeptical
James nationalism isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it can be a slippery slop though.
It's great to hear someone mention the undying mercenary series, it has a lot of interesting ideas that I haven't seen before