Imperian has recently revamped its large-scale political systems, putting the ability to customise governments completely in the players' hands.

Citizens of the various cities and forestal councils are now able to create new political positions, assign powers and privileges to those positions, change how those positions are appointed/elected, and set eligibility requirements for each position. With well over fifty different powers and privileges, no city will be the same.

We've opened up a whole new world of play for players interested in politics. Want to be the most powerful political figure? Convince your fellow citizens with your stunning rhetoric and wheeling and dealing to build yourself a powerful dicatorship. Or perhaps you'd prefer to be a member of a ruling family, passing the government seats through generations of your descendants. All forms of government are possible, from aristocracy to theocracy.

Come in and try it out, everyone can be involved in this engaging and dynamic new system.

Could a group of players band together and form their own government? (don't say the word "clan" please, I don't consider that a government)

At this moment no, it is only in our cities and forest councils. However we will be expanding it into our guilds at some point as well.

Interesting. Although I'd really like to know how you've worked out the logistics.

Monarchies tend to be difficult for player-sustained monarchies for two reasons:
* If you have don't have perma-death then the ruling monarch lives forever (or until they get sick of the game)
* Players very rarely have player-children, so heirs to the throne can be troublesome.

You have so apparently you've worked out some solution inherent to mud-families. Care to explain some more how you've done it? Or is this an underused feature in Imperian?

Democracies and Dictatorships are fairly easy in the mud world. Polls are easy to code, and dictatorships have no change of power (or if they do, the dictator simply names his heir).

However changes of state aren't always hunky-dorey. Democracies have a very easy change of state. One person willingly steps down, another willingly takes his place. But what about military coups?

Can the citizens rise up against their Theocratic government, kill them/lock them up/exile them and place a new dictator as the ruler? How is that done code-wise?

How are laws coded into the game (I'm assuming your mud has some sort of coded legal system). For example: Now women may wear a hat. What about: No bad-mouthing the president?

Is there some sort of code involved to keep track of the laws? If so, how does it know when a law has been passed? e.g. Let's say President John suggests law X, congress votes and it has 51% in favor, which is needed in Pretoria for the law to be passed. How does the code realise this has happened?

Can a supreme court abolish a law, like the American one (sorry if I've misunderstood the American system).

It sounds like an interesting feature, that could lead to numerous interesting and unique forms of government. Never know, the next Marx might be playing Imperian as we speak.

Laws are player enforced, as they tend to change from time to time, or exceptions are made, etc.


The monarchy goes by bloodline as I understand it.

Yes, laws are player enforced.

As far as overthrowing governments such as monarchies and the like, it would be a difficult thing to do. Once an organization has taken a plunge like that, they would need to get the majority of the players in an organization to want to reverse it to vote as such in a ‘poll’. Of course, a monarchy would have had total control over the government up until this point, most likely squashing any possible rebellion before it happens. So unless the ruler or rulers themselves actually back the idea, or are total idiots, it would be fairly hard.

Thus far, the players have only made minimal changes to existing organizations. They have been moving some powers around, creating new ministries, nothing too major. Most likely they are nervous at this point to attempt any drastic changes that would put them at risk of losing position in the city.

I totally expect players to slowly add new powers here and there, slowly increasing the power of their positions until they evolve into some of the more extreme government types.

Personally, I find the potential for those that love to play politics incredible. For example, the player that wants total power could slowly work his way up in the ministries, gathering more and more power, manipulating the city members and leaders to add new or remove powers/rights from other players until they alone hold the city in an iron grip. Or perhaps there is the democracy minded player, carefully watching the scene for those who are seeking too much control for themselves. Maybe there is a religious order or guild seeking to place the city under their control, only allowing officials to be elected from their ranks.

Oh, as far as families, they do get used a lot. Some families have managed to basically run some of the cities and guilds for short periods of time. Here are a couple of files that show how it all works.




- Jeremy

One particular event of note was a bloody coup, which was something that was very exciting to be a part of!

Here is a summary of the event:

-H