# Government



## Johnny Cosmo (Aug 20, 2011)

For those of you who like to consider the politics of your world, which forms of government do you favour? Do you create hybrid governments? How do you alter governments as to remove restrictions and limitations, adapting them for your story? I am currently in the process of world-building, and this is one area I am hoping to get down properly as soon as I can, since my story will feed off political events.


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## Codey Amprim (Aug 20, 2011)

Well it all depends what works best for your story and for your world. There is no right or wrong answer. You could have your story revolve around an Anarchist Barbarian tribe or a series of Dukedoms overwatched by a monarch. Whichever works for you!

Mine is, since you asked, something similar to the dukedom concept I just mentioned. Every Kingdom of my world serves one throne and is watched over by the Order the throne has created. That is all I shall hint to with my system, don't want to give everything away!


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## Ravana (Aug 20, 2011)

To avoid repeating everything that was said earlier (particularly since I said much of it, and don't feel like retyping it  ):

http://mythicscribes.com/forums/world-building/310-forms-government.html

As for what I use, I generally stick to forms that reflect European history–a stratified society with (largely) hereditary heads, though I also have considerable fondness for elective monarchies. I'm rarely interested in exploring "alternative" forms of governance in my fantasy… I save that for SF.  Not that I'm unwilling to make some changes, mind you: most of my societies tend to be fairly egalitarian in terms of male and female roles, for instance, and religion is either de-emphasized or totally different from anything the real world has ever seen. But those have far more to do with overall practices than with who's in charge.


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## Shadoe (Aug 21, 2011)

I think the form of government you create is going to depend on what you want to do with the story. In Naphyra, I've created three forms of government - three countries. One country is very religiously-oriented. They have their priests - the doomsayers - declare who is the leader of the tribe or city-state. There, politics is a matter of corrupting the doomsayers. In another country, the form of government is a monarchy with a massively complicated aristocracy with varying levels of power and influence. Their politics consists of everyone jockeying for power and land. There is a lot of behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing there. Yet another country consists of 16 independent provinces with an emperor over them. Since they're fairly stable, politics there consists mostly of politics in the US - everybody trying to one-up everybody else.

So my advice would be to figure out what kind of stories you want to tell, then design a government that lets you tell those stories.


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## Johnny Cosmo (Aug 21, 2011)

Oh don't get me wrong, I have my own ideas for the form of government - I was just curious as to what other people are doing (perhaps in hope that it would inspire me to alter mine a little).


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## Chilari (Aug 21, 2011)

In the story I'm working on at the moment, the government is a monarchy, but with the succession to the most suitable candidate rather than the eldest son of the king. Several people are eligable - the king's sons and nephews for the main part, but a few other individuals connected to the royal line but not directly part of it, such as generals and advisors who have married royal princesses. The successor is chosen by the King and his advisors before his death. He can change his mind at any time, too, provided he can give suitable justification.

In one of the stories I was working on a while back, which is currently on hold, there were three forms of government competing, following a plague that killed three quarters of the population: the existing monarchy, supported by traditionalists and those connected to it; a meritocracy, supported by elements of the army; and a sort of oligarchy, namely the rule of the major settlements by those with the greatest wealth - merchant princes, if you will, like in 17th century Italy. A sizable portion of that story was about how the main characters saw themselves in terms of which form of government they supported, and how this influenced the group dynamic; and also that each form of governance was supported by people who were unscrupulous and in some cases cruel. None of them were "the good guys", they were all flawed and none were really what would have been best for the main character group. The problem with that story, though, was that I was trying to do too much with it and possibly trying to do it in the wrong medium. Maybe it'd work as a TV show.


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## Amanita (Aug 21, 2011)

In my world, there are mainly various forms of democracies which may or may not include everyone. 
That's because my world's magic isn't hereditary and can turn up in anyone with people living under disadvanteged circumstances actually being more likely candidates. For that reason, they're forced to offer those people ways to rise if they don't want to risk severe trouble.
Another option I like to play with are totalitarian dictatorships. They can work quite well under such conditions if the people in power find those people striving to move upwards and put them in powerful situation and I especially like to explore how such systems work, why people accept them or why some do not. 
I know that this is probably more common in Science Fiction but my world probably has some influence from there anyway even though it's a fantasy world and not Earth's future.

In spite of this, one of my countries did have an aristocratic government for quite a while (about 900 years). It worked well, because the magic in question was seen as absolutely evil among them and the majority supported the efforts to get rid of such people.
The fall of this system had other reasons as well.


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## Ravana (Aug 21, 2011)

Shadoe said:


> In another country, the form of government is a monarchy with a massively complicated aristocracy with varying levels of power and influence. Their politics consists of everyone jockeying for power and land. There is a lot of behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing there. Yet another country consists of 16 independent provinces with an emperor over them. …



Hee hee. You interested in RPGing? Check out the "Machiavel: Ambition" forum if so.…


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## Shadoe (Aug 21, 2011)

Ravana said:


> Hee hee. You interested in RPGing? Check out the "Machiavel: Ambition" forum if so.…


I'll have to check it out.


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## Johnny Cosmo (Aug 21, 2011)

> As for what I use, I generally stick to forms that reflect European history—a stratified society with (largely) hereditary heads, though I also have considerable fondness for elective monarchies.



I'm currently going for an elective monarchy/pseudo-democracy hybrid. Alliances and partnerships play a large part in keeping single families in rule for a large amount of time - until the balance of power shifts. The King's council will put forward heads of Major houses from different cities as candidates. Minor houses pass their votes to major houses, who come to a consensus, then pass their vote to the council who do the same. It leaves a lot of room for corruption and tension, I think.

There are other organisations who can affect the struggle for the throne. A covert organisation that answers only to the current King might be bribed to back a house, carrying out propaganda and assassination missions. If the priesthood backs a house, then it is likely that they will get the capital cities vote.

Chilari: The problem I see with having the King and his advisors choose before his death is that they couldn't really know when he was going to die, could they? Surely, he'd want to have been King for a while before making such an important decision - but what if his life is cut short the day before he comes to a decision? Do the advisors just decide in his place?


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## Chilari (Aug 22, 2011)

Basically, yes. Or if the king dies right after making a decision, but before that decision is publicly known, if the advisors don't like his decision or are the pocket of another candidate, then the decision may be, uh, misreported.


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## Helbrecht (Aug 22, 2011)

The story I'm currently writing doesn't have too much of a political focus, but one I'm planning for certainly does. It's set in something not unlike the Holy Roman Empire in terms of political structure, only with eleven fairly large provinces rather than hundreds of little ones. Each province is formally titled a territory (literally just that) and is governed by a "territor" (going down the same linguistic route as "duchy - duke" and "barony - baron", etc.). Exactly how the office of territor works in each territory is different - some have a limited parliamentary assembly or diet drawn from the nobility, whereas others hold absolute control and others still impart significant executive power in the hands of the local priesthood. The title of territor is hereditary in some provinces and elective by the higher nobles in others. Each territor, however, is scrutinised and supervised by the priesthood, whose worship of language and writing makes them well-suited to bureaucracy.

The empire overall is a theocracy in which the aforementioned priesthood, which worships language (the "Word of Omnar"), forms the spine and central power broker of the whole thing. Whatever they write in a given ink is taken as being sacred truth according to this religion, which grants territors and smaller rulers their legitimacy. The man they declare to be an earthly avatar or host body of their god lords over the whole thing as an emperor (the "Herald of Omnar", or "His Voice"). 

Of course, there's a massive religious and social upheaval when a supposedly divine emperor is revealed to be a leper beneath his garments and armour. It's that sort of story.


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## Johnny Cosmo (Aug 22, 2011)

Chilari said:


> Basically, yes. Or if the king dies right after making a decision, but before that decision is publicly known, if the advisors don't like his decision or are the pocket of another candidate, then the decision may be, uh, misreported.



Like mine, you're story also leaves a lot of space for obvious corruption - which is cool.


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## Ophiucha (Aug 22, 2011)

I never do any one thing twice, really. One of my stories - a political fantasy - is a communist, elective monarchy. One story is anarchy, for the most part, though there are communities aboard large ships (at sea) with various forms of government, though it isn't heavily explored as the setting of the story is not anywhere near the ocean. My current WIP is a monarchy of some sort, but it isn't really touched upon, so besides the fact that it is called the "Kingdom of Vulcamiel", I've got nothing. The story does span about six decades, though, so I might have it change to the "Republic of Vulcamiel", though again with little mention of the new government.


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## sashamerideth (Aug 22, 2011)

I have a couple kingdoms, one democracy, and one group that is either a theocracy or religious anarchists as they are not lawfully controlled by any nation state.  Mostly though it is town council or provincial government.


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## Kevlar (Aug 22, 2011)

Where to start?

In my world every country has its own specific government. One might have some things in common with another, but nothing is exactly the same. For instance, in the main setting, Felesia, (mind the -ia ending, its a little clichÃ©) the whole thing is mostly feudal: the king gives land (provinces) to lords (marks), who give land (banneries) to lords (bans), who give land (daneholds) to lords (danes), who give land (baronries) to barons, who give land (estates) to knights or freeholders, all for swearing your fealty to the guy one up from you. Even within this country there are exceptions, in the provinces of the Highlands and Ã‰oma, as well as in the Marches, which are to the south and east. In the Highlands, instead of a mark there is the teyrn, and then the next rank is dane (often, to differentiate from the rest of danes, they are called high-danes; you can make a joke about great danes now if you like.) which is followed by knight, which is a little bit of a bigger deal than in Felesia. It shares these titles with the rest of Felesia because that's where the guy that conquered Felesia came from. In Ã‰oma, they are ruled by a king, who accepts the King of Felesia as his overlord. The next rank is manthar, and then edyr, and then Ã©o, which is like a cavalry captain. Everything revolves around horses in Ã‰oma. Each march has a warden (Warden of the North or Warden of the East) instead of a mark. Also, the position of Warden is assigned by the king, not inherited.

A country in some nearby mountains, Amnar, has a system called the Clave. Their king is elected, but by the lords, not the people. There are 64 houses in the Clave, derived from their 8-based number system. So 64 is like their 100. They also have the High Clave, which is the eight most powerful houses, each owning one of the countries eight cities besides the capital. Its usually one of these guys who ends up being king, and therefore owning the capital until death. No terms of office: death or renouncing claim releases a king. Lordship of a house usually passes to the eldest son of the lord, but the lord can choose his heir ,and often does. If his sons (or daughters) still don't like it, they can bring it up before the rest of the clave, and then commences the pay-offs and threats.

An independent city (state-ish), called Fort Paragon, or simply Paragon in those same mountains allows the people to choose their king or queen. No public elections, simply public favour. The most popular choice leads, no matter of heritage, race (as in black/white, etc.), or sex. They have a bastard king at the moment.

The country to the north, Telmarill, used to have an emperor, but now it's a republic. The magisters are the lords, each ruling over a state. They can also have their vassals, though its rare, most only having knights. Anybody with vassals creates their own system, as there is no standardized one in Telmarill. Anyway, the magisters form a sort of senate, the Magistrate, but it does little and each magister basically makes his own decisions.

In slightly distant Bevaine there is an emperor, who is basically a useless figurehead. Despite the country truly being ruled by all the assassin, mercenary and merchant princes, the crime rate is extremely low, because these guys don't like disorder. Also, with no army this "empire" is the most militarily secure country on the continent. Because the assassins, mercenaries and merchants like their freedom. Bevanirs hired to invade Bevaine would just turn around and kill the man who bought them.

I'll stop now before I regurgitate the whole 40 some countries' governments, or those of the countries outside of AltheÃ¤. Plus some are extremely WIP anyway. Hopefully nobody minds too much that I'll take up so much screen space.


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## Johnny Cosmo (Aug 22, 2011)

It sounds like you've thought about this a lot. I do wonder though, how come you _have_ thought out over 40+ governments? Do you ever get to writing your stories? If it were my world I'd feel a little worried that I wasn't focusing on getting the most out of just a smaller detailed area, but I guess everybody is different.


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## Leuco (Aug 22, 2011)

This is a great thread! Looks like everyone put a lot of thought into this concept. It's cool checking out what everyone's come up with.

I noticed someone used the term _political fantasy_. I had no idea it was a real sub genre! I thought I was doing something original. Oops!

In my books, I focus mostly on American politics, but you know, if you break it down to its fundamental conflict, I think you'll find the conservative/liberal argument everywhere. I tried to create an allegory of sorts for the American extremes, but so far, I've only introduced three radical ideologies. They're mostly based on the conflicting stereotypes from cable news networks. The heroes in the story mostly try to stay out of the way, but eventually they get sucked into what builds up to be civil war. If that sounds familiar, that's because Primary elections are just around the corner.

I apologize in advance if this post leads to trolling.


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## Johnny Cosmo (Aug 22, 2011)

Leuco - that sound's very interesting. At the moment I'm trying to work in a parallel to the Christianisation of the Germanic peoples by a newly converted collection of co-operating recently-converted theocratic city-states that are rivals to my norse-inspired Kingdom of Men. it's not that similar other than using real world tension to fill out a backstory. Mine being a very old real world tension though, your's seems more striking since it's more relevant. 

Care to expand?


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## Kevlar (Aug 23, 2011)

Johnny Cosmo said:


> It sounds like you've thought about this a lot. I do wonder though, how come you _have_ thought out over 40+ governments? Do you ever get to writing your stories? If it were my world I'd feel a little worried that I wasn't focusing on getting the most out of just a smaller detailed area, but I guess everybody is different.



I've only thoought of names for most. Beyond that maybe half have a specific 'flavour' that I've thought of. Only about half of those I've actually gone into any farther. Only one has a map, the rest are just roughly plopped on a map of the continent, still subject to change. I find it just adds depth to have so many places to reference. Who's to doubt me when I say that man has the accent of a Hallolander, or that man's golden eyes and dark skin show him as a man of Haman, while a man alike to him but with brown eyes must be from Nebesaf or the Ageos continent? Who's to say any different when I say that sword has a Bevanish crosspiece, or that voulge is carved with the likenesses of the gods most worshipped in Teryl?

When I have things like this to reference to, even if the referenced culture is really just a shell, I feel that my world grows in depth tenfold. Plus all the countries I talked about in my last post will be important to the story sooner or later.


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## Johnny Cosmo (Aug 23, 2011)

Ah, I thought you meant that you had detailed the government for most of them, but it doesn't seem to strange now.


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## Leuco (Aug 23, 2011)

Johnny Cosmo said:


> Leuco - that sound's very interesting. At the moment I'm trying to work in a parallel to the Christianisation of the Germanic peoples by a newly converted collection of co-operating recently-converted theocratic city-states that are rivals to my norse-inspired Kingdom of Men. it's not that similar other than using real world tension to fill out a backstory. Mine being a very old real world tension though, your's seems more striking since it's more relevant.
> Care to expand?



When I think about the northern Holy Roman Empire, I never really think much about how they became the Holy part. From the bits I've read in school, it just seems like Constantine becomes Christian, and then all of sudden everyone in Europe converts too. Kind of a mysterious history-- at least to me anyway. Is that why you picked it? I can tell there's a lot of cultural conflict in your project. From which group does your main character belong? Norseman? Christian? Not yet Christian?

In my books, when the King dies, his Guardians assume control of the realm. They've divided the land into quarters and two of the kingdoms end up going to war. These two rulers are supposed to represent the far left and far right. I tried to make them both corrupt. Think sort of Mussolini (right) versus sort of Stalin (left). I won't go so far as to say it's a true allegory, but there's certainly A LOT of symbolism that I hope adds something different to my work. If you can stomach young adult fiction, you should check it out. 40% of it is free on smashwords, hopefully soon on amazon too.

By the way, as much as I LOVE to talk about my book, which I clearly do (I mean, who doesn't?), I'm trying not to get too political. Everyone here is so friendly, and I'd like to do my part to help keep it that way.


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## Johnny Cosmo (Aug 23, 2011)

Whilst Christianisation would have been easier at the heart of the Empire, it would have been considerable slower with the Germanic and Celtic tribes. I guess that it managed to eventually become so popular even with those, is that it offered a better version of the afterlife - a more accessible one that didn't require courage, bravery and skill - just faith. 

My group's are not set on Earth, they're parallels - but for lack of better terms, the Kingdom of Men would mostly identify as Norse, but the King-to-be converts to the 'Christianity' of my world, declaring it the official religion. He disapproves of the head of the largest city-state adopting the title of the 'Holy King' to unite the other city-states militarily - and so he plans to go to war, removing the threat, and effectively claiming the title for himself.

Sounds interesting. And you're right; there's not many things that spark heated debate quite like politics and religion - but as long as we keep it civil, I don't think anybody will take offence. My worlds political and religious parallels are not used as a vessel for my own views at all, it's just to give the backstory a bit of tension - and to draw from events from history.

Have you got a link to your stuff on smashwords?


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## Ravana (Aug 23, 2011)

Leuco said:


> When I think about the northern Holy Roman Empire, I never really think much about how they became the Holy part. From the bits I've read in school, it just seems like Constantine becomes Christian, and then all of sudden everyone in Europe converts too.



Well, when the person in question _rules_ all of Europe, it isn't quite as puzzling.… 

The HRE was, as many observers have stated, neither "Holy" nor "Roman"–and was barely an "Empire." The name was primarily a political contrivance: the Carolingian kings wanted to claim to be the "legitimate successors" of the old Roman Empire, so they claimed the title and got the pope to confirm it. As far as I know, they _never_ actually controlled Rome itself, apart from a couple times they overran it in wars, when one emperor or another got frustrated at having his divine mandate obstructed by the Vicar of God. (The "Holy" part wasn't even tacked on to the name until the 12th Century, by the way.) Keep in mind that during this time, the Byzantine emperors were also claiming to be "Emperor of Rome"–though they hadn't controlled Rome in even longer–so the westerners felt the need to dispute the claim. Shortly after the "empire" was created, the French portions dropped off, leaving mainly the Germanic lands and northern Italy as the "empire"–which got periodically subtracted from in the west and south (the HRE's control over its Italian "possessions" was rarely more than nominal in any event), while expanding in the east into Hungary and the western edges of the Slavic lands. Essentially, when someone refers to the HRE, they mean Germany, along with whatever bordering regions the emperor happened to hold that year.

That's geography. What makes the HRE interesting in the present context is that it's the foremost example of just how convoluted and buggered up the internal politics of a realm can be (it wasn't until 1495 that the empire outlawed the ancient custom of feuding among its subordinate nobles, for instance… and that didn't have much of an effect), as well as the prime example of how, in a pre-technological setting, the more you own, the less control you have… to the point where Charles V (HRE)/I (Spain) "ruled" all of central and western Europe _except_ France–he held Spain and southern Italy courtesy of inheritance, in addition to being crowned HRE–and was all but powerless to "control" any of it. 

To get some sense of how mind-bogglingly intricate the HRE got, check out:
List of states in the Holy Roman Empire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
…if you make it past the intro, where it notes: "In the 18th century the Holy Roman Empire consisted of over 1,800 separate immediate territories governed by distinct authorities." "Immediate" means there is nothing (no "mediate" authority) standing between them and the emperor. Almost two… _thousand_… _*independent*_… political entities. Yeah. Govern _that_. 

It wasn't always _quite_ that fragmented: that represents the peak. Normally it was no more [sic] than a few _hundred_ immediate territories.… (And people think what I'm doing in Machiavel is complex.…  )


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## Johnny Cosmo (Aug 23, 2011)

And Christianisation of Germanic tribes started _before _the 'Holy Roman Empire', I think.


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## Ravana (Aug 23, 2011)

Johnny Cosmo said:


> And Christianisation of Germanic tribes started _before _the 'Holy Roman Empire', I think.



Considerably before. The entire region was fully Christianized (barring perhaps some local survivals) by the time the empire was established… in fact, its eastern border largely represented the extent of the area that had been, as far as continental Europe was concerned, though Christianity continued to spread rapidly eastward thereafter, so the "border" wasn't a border for long.


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## Leuco (Aug 24, 2011)

Thanks for the history lesson!

Sounds like you have a good setting for a book, Johnny. I look forward to checking it out.

Anyway, here's a link for the free download at smashwords. I hope you like it.


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## Johnny Cosmo (Aug 25, 2011)

Thanks, I'll have a look when I have some free time. I was wondering if anybody had any information on the extent of co-operation between the ancient Greek city-states? I know they often warred with each other, but I'm sure they worked together too. It's hard to find information online that discusses relationships other than conflicts.

And when they did work together, who would 'head' their partnerships?


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## Kevlar (Aug 25, 2011)

As far as I know they made loose alliances when it suited both parties. Alternately, those two city-states could be at war a few years later. Don't quote me on that though, I haven't actively studied the subject.

But consider kings like Agamemnon, the King of Kings. According to Homer, he conquered pretty much all of Greece, starting out as king of Mycene. Not that he directly governed them all, as far as I could gather from the various versions of the story I've read he basically just conquered them to use them for military purposes. Technically he was their overlord, but they would still be kings.


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## Johnny Cosmo (Aug 25, 2011)

Well I know they co-operated in the Persian wars... and have heard Spartans led multiple Greek armies. Then not too long after Athens and Sparta had a rivalry.

I've also just read something I sort of already knew, that Athens and Sparta each formed alliances with multiple Greek city-states, called the Dorian League and the Pelopannesian League. I'm still not sure how these leagues were governed though, and I'm not sure where the boundary between city-state and a unified 'nation' starts.


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## Ravana (Aug 26, 2011)

Actually, the Greek states united against Troy courtesy of a deal that _prevented_ a war over Helen among those princes wanting to marry her; I'm not sure how Agamemnon came to lead them (they elected him, I think), but it wasn't because he ruled them. 

More historically: yes, the Greek states were usually only united in the fact of an external threat–and even then, not all of the states, and as far as I know the Persians were the _only_ such threat that managed to get most of them on the same page. Otherwise, it was an ever-shifting series of alliances of convenience. 

The boundary between city-state and nation varies with time (as well as with the definition of "nation")… but, hopefully without sounding too flip about it, that "boundary" was probably about a day's ride from the city. In more technical terms, it would be whether or not the city, and its immediately surrounding environs, answered to a higher political power–or at least whether or not the city's autonomy was seriously affected by such control as that power did or could exercise: as mentioned above, most of the "city-states" of Renaissance Italy were at least nominally part of the HRE or some other kingdom most of the time. Throughout most of the history of Ancient Greece, by contrast, the cities would often be genuinely independent of one another (or anyone else), and where they weren't it was often a very temporary condition.


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## Kevlar (Aug 26, 2011)

I might have to try and find a proper copy of the Illiad. I've read a couple that said Agamemnon ruled them. I didn't question it because it fit, especially with Odysseus not wanting to go. I'd think a free king would just say no, rather than pretend to be crazy.


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## Johnny Cosmo (Aug 26, 2011)

I was under the impression that 'city-state' implied that they were completely independent, in terms of leadership. Of course, it makes sense to elect Agamemnon or the Spartans to lead armies, and of course they interacted, but about those italian city-states (of which I know next to nothing), do they really count as city-states?


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## Ravana (Aug 28, 2011)

The Italian city-states were all effectively independent, even if they theoretically had some other monarch over them: they conducted their internal affairs as they liked, conducted their own foreign relations, and rarely if ever paid taxes to higher authorities. (Most of the northern ones were nominally part of the HRE through much of this period; to give some idea of how much control the emperor actually had over them, look at the history of how many times the empire's (other) forces invaded them to force compliance… or at least tried to, since the empire often lost.)

•

The reason Odysseus tried to get out of going, rather than simply refusing to, was because he was committed to go, courtesy of that same deal about Helen: all the Greek princes who were her suitors were required to swear an oath to defend the eventual husband against any threat—the idea being to neutralize the possibility of those princes fighting over her. The wedding-winner, Menelaus of Sparta, also happened to be Agamemnon of Mycenae's brother (who had not been a suitor, by the way); when Helen was abducted, Agamemnon stuck by his kin, reminded everybody of their oaths, and dragged them, many reluctantly, off across the sea. (Which may explain why he was "leader"—as well as accounting for all the times some hero or contingent _refused_ to fight, even after they were all there… not a likely occurrence, if he was their monarch.) So technically Odysseus wasn't "free": he was king over his lousy little rock (and it was, according to the descriptions), but he had a prior obligation. One that was even his own fault: he was the one who came up with the oath idea in the first place. So much for "clever."  I'd have to dig up an _Iliad_ to see what it said about "ruling" or not; since its narrative doesn't begin until the final year of the war, though, it might not be completely clear on the issue anyway. (Nor, of course, does it necessarily represent any historical reality, no matter what it says.)


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## Johnny Cosmo (Aug 29, 2011)

I like the sound of the italian city-states, as a basis for one of my governments, so I'll do a little more reading on them.


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## SeverinR (Sep 1, 2011)

In my books, 
I try to avoid getting into national or international politics.
There is a king,
Dukedoms control areas,
Barons have land further broken down

So far I deal with three nations,
the main country with a king that isn't a big part of the story.
The enemy of the main country, the evil nation looking to expand or conquer other lands. Tyrant controlled.
Best land is the kings, next his oldest son, believe there will be a daughter too, dukes and barons are given land to care for as long as the king gets his taxes.
There is a sea between the main and this tyrantical nation. (east of main country)
the neutril nation to the north, have not considered this nations goverment, mostly just a border to the main country.

The highest rank my characters have faced is a lower Duke and Duchess.  Barons are more common.


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## Kennith E Perry (Sep 1, 2011)

In the novel I am writing, the government starts at with the Queen (the King was assassinated) but she is advised by a counsel of representatives that are made up of guild masters and speakers appointed by the Lords of the land. I'm not sure I'm explaining it right. I haven't nailed it all down yet.


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## Johnny Cosmo (Sep 1, 2011)

Mine is still taking form. I've spent more time on it than I thought I would, but I think it'll be worth it.


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