[Any] How to conquer the world

[The Mormegil]

I've got a problem with my new campaign. I'm the DM, and the setting is a post-Apocalyptic world. See Rifts for the main idea (magic energy unleashed, natural and supernatural disasters...), but in a fantasy world instead of our beloved Earth.
My players want to conquer the world. Well, not now (they are still level 1...), but they are working towards that goal and therefore that's where the campaign is going. With a couple twists, maybe, but in the end they should be able to do it.

Now, my problem is a simple one: how do you conquer a world?

They are starting with... well, nothing. I can give you details if you need.

[Allerdyce]

It really depends on how you want to go about it. The two simplest are probably big nuke/artifact/thing other people can't realistically oppose and then forcing them to acquiese to your control, or building an army slowly but surely and then conquering people as you go. You could also manipulate a current regime and take control, work through merit to get elected to the position, and probably a hojillion I'm not even thinking of. But initial conditions are usually pretty important.

[Neo]

Well tha main problem is with the post-apoc setting, as most people would be scattered everywhere and therefore hard to conquer.

Though if you wanted to follow a sort of linear progression and assuming there are power groups like in settings such as Fallout, the players can start off trying to work their way into one, and then when they take over one they begin to subvert or conquer the next.

Failing that they could always try to create somekind of mass mind control.

[The Mormegil]

The two simplest are probably big nuke/artifact/thing other people can't realistically oppose and then forcing them to acquiese to your control, or building an army slowly but surely and then conquering people as you go.

They don't want to force the world under their dominion. They want to build the "perfect nation". So compelling people under their dominion with an artifact won't really work. They need something stable.
The part about building an army is ok, but there are two problems: first, the setting is post-Apocalyptic, which means that it's not easy to just "conquer" the world, nor to "build" an army. The second problem is that I've got no clue about how to DM such a thing...


You could also manipulate a current regime and take control, work through merit to get elected to the position, and probably a hojillion I'm not even thinking of. But initial conditions are usually pretty important.

There's no real "regime" right now, since the world was pretty much destroyed in the past weeks or so...
So this won't work.


Though if you wanted to follow a sort of linear progression and assuming there are power groups like in settings such as Fallout, the players can start off trying to work their way into one, and then when they take over one they begin to subvert or conquer the next.

The setting is still unclear about this (read: I haven't yet decided) so if it helps, I could create power groups. But then? What would you do to conquer the world in such a situation?


Failing that they could always try to create somekind of mass mind control.

I strongly dislike such a solution.

[mostlyharmful]

They don't want to force the world under their dominion. They want to build the "perfect nation". So compelling people under their dominion with an artifact won't really work. They need something stable.
The part about building an army is ok, but there are two problems: first, the setting is post-Apocalyptic, which means that it's not easy to just "conquer" the world, nor to "build" an army. The second problem is that I've got no clue about how to DM such a thing...

That makes it a whol lot easier. If you don't have to conquer the world you can just hole up in some inaccessable place and build a small city that's self sustaining (not a bad idea in general in a post appoc setting). After that you just start cranking your self-sustaining, breeding and education/research for a few generations while everyone else wallows in the dark. bing, nice little utopia grows from a hidden underdark/mountaintop city into a small expansionist nation into a huge expansionist empire on the basis of there being several genereations of weapons ahead of their opposite numbers. The timy little island of Britain ruled a quarter of the globe on the basis of this one, ok it didn't last but that's mostly because other people caught up and started playing the same game.

[Halaster]

Well, first off you should define why and how the power groups in your world hold their power. In a post-apoc setting that is usually access to a scarce resource - water, food, women, energy (electricity or magic or so). By distributing this to people who lack it, a group can gain control over other people, who help this group conquer more resources and thus more power.

You could just have your characters come across such a scarce resource. People will flock to them because they want what they have. Of course, some will try to take it by force rather than submit - a perfect adventure. Once their control over their dependents is firmly established, they can be the ones robbing others of their control - preferably those others should be manipulative bastards who oppress their subordinates. As their zone of control expands, other problems will crop up, such as who to trust with those areas they cannot run themselves, how to integrate people into a coherent whole without continually depending on scarcity and so on.

DMing this should not be so different from any other campaign. Your heroes quest not for treasure but for whatever resource their power is built on, raiding petrol stores or wells instead of dungeons.
The one issue that arises is always the same: give people power, and they will delegate dangerous work. That is just logical, but may take the tension out of your campaign. I'd solve this by focusing on the internal issues, once your heroes reach this level. They must ferret out traitors, avoid attempts at usurping their power, and generally stay on their toes around the people closest to them.

[Allerdyce]

Well, the doomsday approach is usually used to initially garner a large following, and then you actually win them over to your side, whether via good leadership or the 1984 mindrape method. Considering the setting though, they might want to just pick up random stragglers, set up some kind of city/semblance of civilization, and get people to come to them until they're at the point they can claim territory effectively.

[Crazy Scot]

Another thing to look at would be something along the lines of the Leadership feat from D&D, with modifications for your setting. Basically, you build up a group of followers, develop a stronghold (see Mostlyharmful's suggestion), and go from there. If they don't want to force the issue, but want people to want to join them, then they need something to offer that nobody else has. In a setting like yours, safety, food, shelter, and other basic things should be a good starting point. Build a small settlement, and let it grow. Create a "government" (start out small), and build from there. As more people come in, the government will have to change to adapt to the population (of course), but if your group is the one starting it out, they should be at the top of the pecking order from the get-go making "ruling the world" (conquering probably isn't the best word) more realistic and accessible. Again, start small (they are level 1), build a following and let it grow from there. Your "campaign" will probably end up more as a knife-and-dagger / diplomatic campaign as opposed to the generic I-go-hit-____-in-the-face campaign. But it can be fun too. Good luck, and be sure to let us know how it turns out.

[The Mormegil]

That makes it a whol lot easier. If you don't have to conquer the world you can just hole up in some inaccessable place and build a small city that's self sustaining (not a bad idea in general in a post appoc setting). After that you just start cranking your self-sustaining, breeding and education/research for a few generations while everyone else wallows in the dark. bing, nice little utopia grows from a hidden underdark/mountaintop city into a small expansionist nation into a huge expansionist empire on the basis of there being several genereations of weapons ahead of their opposite numbers. The timy little island of Britain ruled a quarter of the globe on the basis of this one, ok it didn't last but that's mostly because other people caught up and started playing the same game.

They want the whole world to be part of this perfect society...


Things about managing resources.

This sounds like a rather strange campaign, even by my standards. I might use this. Thanks a lot, and keep them coming!

[mostlyharmful]

They want the whole world to be part of this perfect society...

'Yes, and I'd like to be the king of all Londinium and wear a shiny hat.' What they want and what they can achieve at level 1 are two very different kettles of post appocalyptic zombie infestations. All I'm saying is start small and work up, think longterm and invest. If you've got ultimate world cracking power just lying around then sure, go for it but if you're throwing around sleep and glitterdust don't expect them to take seriously that they can conquer the world.

[The Mormegil]

If you've got ultimate world cracking power just lying around then sure, go for it but if you're throwing around sleep and glitterdust don't expect me, the DM, to take seriously that you, the PCs, can conquer the world.

So basically you are suggesting to quit the campaign and start another one? No, thanks. I'd rather find a way to make it work. I don't care if they'll need to invest the first 25 levels of their progression in acquiring power, but if you think they should, then list it in your plan as step 1.

So far we had:
1) Search for a resource that people lack, such as food, water or protection.
2) Let people come to you attracted by that rescource, then start ruling them.
3) Start your conquest on a larger scale.

[Jack_Simth]

They want the whole world to be part of this perfect society...

Yeah. Umm... perfect societies can't work that way. There's *aways* sects that wants to secede (or take over and do it their way, instead) and try violence to do it. If you take the entire world (and thus, rule out the option of exiling such groups), you will either need to forcibly get rid of such sects, or find a way to mind-control them. Neither of which really works out to being a "perfect society" by most definitions.

[The Mormegil]

Yeah. Umm... perfect societies can't work that way. There's *aways* sects that wants to secede (or take over and do it their way, instead) and try violence to do it. If you take the entire world (and thus, rule out the option of exiling such groups), you will either need to forcibly get rid of such sects, or find a way to mind-control them. Neither of which really works out to being a "perfect society" by most definitions.

Yeah, well, this is why we're not trying to pull this off in the real world but rather in a fantasy RPG setting where it could actually be cool and fun... :smallwink:

[Allerdyce]

Well, I don't think anyone's saying "This is impossible". I think people are just pointing out that they're going to have to start small if they want to do this from first level. The first obvious step would be to set up a small town with what people they can gather, offering protection. They're not gonna be worth anyone big going after at that point, so they'll contend with bandits, animals, what have you.

After news gets out of their providing safety, people will naturally head to them, and their place can expand. With more people, you have more skills, can gather more resources, and grow even more, attracting more people. Eventually, you can take over other cities (likely because they attacked first, from what I'm getting of the players' mentalities) and they slowly but surely get people to join them and gain more and more land, until they rule the world and people are happy. Perfectly feasible, if requiring quite the bit of work on everyone's part.

[Tsotha-lanti]

This all seems pretty obvious to me...

First, they need a power base: people. They need food production to support them (farming, fishing, picking mushrooms, whatever), they need either incredible personal power (D&D PCs can pretty much make up for armies, what with scrying, teleport, and being able to defeat infinite amounts of common people) or a military to first protect what they have, and later expand it, and they need an infrastructure.

They can start out in multiple ways:
- Become the chosen/elected/self-appointed leaders of an existing community.
- Conquer an existing community.
- Find a good spot (good resources; a river valley with good ground, a coast with fish, the ruins of an old city or town) and settle it by enticing people from other regions to come there, and initially escorting them to make sure they arrive.

Then, they need to make the place grow. This means one of:
- Conquering neighboring regions. This won't be easy, as habitation is likely to be scattered, and they'd have to scout, map, and patrol large areas per person. On the other hand, if they're patient, habitation will congregate in the best places. They just need to find them, monitor them, and strike when the situation is optimal: once the target is juicy but still not strong enough to repel them. They could also use some of the tricks from above: they could replace the old leaders by showing themselves superior, and get the others to join them voluntarily.
- Attracting people to their region. This will require a great choice of location, and securing surrounding areas with similarly abundant resources before anyone else settles them. They'll need a lot of food production, excellent infrastructure (roads, homes, services), and so on. They'll also need to be able to secure all this land against bandits, raiders, monsters, and whatnot.

Eventually, they'll need to establish proper government, with taxation and either conscription (if they can move past a medieval agrarian society, so that a majority of the people will be freed up to do other things), feudalism (each farm has to send one person to the military per so-and-so much land or people, etc.), or a paid military (probably easier to pay off with resources than cash, at least until they are able to establish enough trade to re-create a fiat economy; fiat here meaning anything where they say "this coin is worth so much", because most precious metals and gems have absolutely no inherent value in a post-apocalyptic society, and useful metals are too useful to turn into coins).

None of this requires actual GMing of warfare, building, bureaucracy, and the like; it's easy to abstract. Just focus on whether their ideas are good, and whether their missions and fights are successful (although only if the ideas are good; if they're fighting the wrong people in the wrong place for the wrong reason, it shouldn't help them get ahead). If they do everything right on a personal level, and don't do anything spectacularly stupid ("Let's have our 100 militiamen make a frontal assault on that city of 10,000 people!"), their venture will chug along, growing slowly.

The above is basically continued and expanded ad nauseam. They'll have to keep either conquering new regions or enlarging their own region (probably a combination of both), and establishing an infrastructure between these places (easy if you've got magic; teleportation circles and such are a great way to reduce distances of thousands of miles to one step).

Along the way, they'll face crises from within and without; other would-be leaders or world conquerors, monsters, natural disasters, rebellion, war, banditry, scarcity of resources, failure of crops and other existing resources, corruption, coups, and so on.


Edit: Having written all that, I realize that while it answers your questions, it's a plan to conquer the world. Shouldn't your players be coming up with their plan? Make them sit down and hatch a basic plan, and then you can prepare for it.

[SolkaTruesilver]

I remember once discussing a campaign with similar objective, with a somewhat similar concept. In short, it was about settling the nation for Humanorcs. the similitude is starting with disseminated people and having them gather to create a society from scratch. Then, you'd have to work toward helping that society, gaining allies in the world, foiling ennemies, etc...

I think you should look at examples like the New Californian Republic. They are probably the best example of a workable federation of gatherings - which is the only unifying concept you'd want if you really want to go into country-scales.

In the meanwhile, work on settlements. Have them develop cooperations. Increase their security, secure magical items for their protection, recruit magical gifted people to have them trained, etc... that should cover between lvl 1 and 5. Starting then, have them doing relation with other big settlements, and work on your way there.

Do it 1 session at the time, and don't be afraid to let the players take the initiative about what they'd like to do to help their powerbase. If they want to go treasure-hunting, fine (have such a quest ready). Maybe they want to go in explorations, setting up a base... etc...

[Crazy Scot]

I think that Tsotha-lanti basically covered it with, "Having written all that, I realize that while it answers your questions, it's a plan to conquer the world. Shouldn't your players be coming up with their plan? Make them sit down and hatch a basic plan, and then you can prepare for it."

I don't think you should be worried about the details, you need to focus on the bigger picture (you're the DM after all). Let the players determine their course of action, and you get to decide the outcome.

Plot ideas to consider:
1) first few levels [getting started]
--a) location - let the PCs find a location, it may require some exploring or maybe clearing out a location so they can set up shop
--b) base of operations - they will need to build, or find someone else who can build, a base of operations (a town/village, remember to start small)
--c) resources - if they are going to try to entice people to join them, rather than by force, what is the "sugar" that will entice the "ants"? let them try to develop something that they can use to make their settlement grow

2) lower-levels [small expansion]
--a) what is over the next hillside? - knowing what is around the corner provides some modicum of protection as you can prepare. also might provide communications with neighbors.
--b) the in-laws - what is their plan when the neighbors come to visit? what is their plan when they like it, and decide to stay permanently? how do they feed / house / cloth / etc their settlement when it doubles overnight? triples? (at early stages when numbers are small, this is probably quite possible)
--c) the obnoxious neighbors - what do they intend to do if they meet people they would rather not? what if the neighbors over the hill aren't nice? will the neighbors ignore you since you are small? what happens as you grow?

3) mid-levels [getting there slowly]
--a) "you're not welcome here" - what happens if the original land-owner decides to show up again? oh, and he wants the land back? what if the original owner was the local shaman, and that would explain the mass profusion of "natural" events that keep hitting your settlement (earthquakes, tornadoes, monsters)? how do you pacify them when they only want you gone?
--b) bored yet? - so your PCs are bored with running a city...okay, they decide to do a little bit of exploring. what happens when they are gone? how do the townsfolk proceed when their leaders are gone? what happens if they are invaded while the PCs are out galavanting around the local area? ...
--c) not in my house - so the PCs decide to stay home and keep an eye on things? okay, how are they gonna spread the word with their neighbors? who will pay the explorers to go find what is over the next hill? how do you intend to provide some sort of payment for this? ...enter the financial side of running a settlement.

4) higher levels [on the scene]
--a) a player now - you've managed to set up a thriving community, and now the neighbors are definitely aware of your presence. how do you deal with the neighbor that just wants your goods. wants your people as slaves. And is willing to take it by force? you want peace, but he won't have it (peace is for wimps).
--b) there and back again - travelling from place to place is long and tedious. how do they intend to make travel faster? safer? if they can't do this, why are people coming to their city? how do you trade/meet new neighbors? again, supply and demand, if they provide safe travel, then people will want to travel to your area. if not, trade will probably quickly disappear. oh, and now would be a good time to throw in some pirates (water trade routes), robber mobs (forest trade routes), or pillaging armies (land routes on the borders of their settlement).

Well, these are just some ideas, but you get the idea. It may not be a "normal" campaign by any measure, but there should be plenty of other stuff to keep them busy. Managing a settlement will be a big job, but there should be some time for other things too. Oh, and if they decide to sit back and develop so as to provide better ____ than the neighbors, just remember that the neighbors aren't just sitting there doing nothing. They are progressing as well. So the PCs should probably be trying to juggle everything at the same time (development, exploration, supplies, finances). If they let something slip, give them a gentle "reminder" (read: problem that comes up) that they shouldn't be neglecting these other things. As their settlement evolves, new things should come into play (diplomacy with other groups, warfare (at least defensive if not offensive), trade, etc).

Also, if you can get your hands on a copy it, there is a whole book (Stronghold Builder's Guidebook) about building and running castles. Again, you will probably want to modify it for your setting, but it could give you whole groups of ideas for running / managing settlements. It could also give you a few ideas about encounters that might spring up from time to time. Modifications will definitely be needed, but any book that provides that kind of theme could come in handy.

[Learnedguy]

Whelp, the Palpatine route is usually easiest (by pushing away the established order and replacing it with yourself), but if that's not possible (because there is no established order), then the easiest way should be by getting allies.

Lots and lots of allies, until people gets the point on who's bossing who around in this place:smallcool:

So yeah, being homicidal maniacs ain't going to help in case they are trying to conquer the world. Being suave politicians might though (it's a flavor difference)

[Person_Man]

The problem is not conquering the world. Any sufficiently advanced technology should be able to do that. The problem is administering the world. You might be able to destroy all of your enemies, but what do you do with them once they're defeated? Unless you're a complete nihilist, you have to set up a government. The larger any organization becomes, the less efficient it is. The bureaucrats and officials that run your government will become corrupt with power, and as that power multiplies, so will their avarice. Without huge strides in communication/oversight coupled with a unifying ideology (religion, nationalism, esprit de corps, etc) ruling the world would be impossible.

[Yakk]

Pull out a fantasy gaming system like "Reign" that includes the concept of large power groups that the PCs control.

Steal ideas on how to adjudicate the actions of huge power groups in a way that generates adventure seeds.

[Radar]

A lot of good things have already been said. As it is, setting up a nation will require a lot of paperwork for DM and PCs - as their settlement will grow, they will have to set up administration, take care of building important structures (roads, bridges, walls and plain houses), keep track of resources avaliable at hand (food, water, wood, stone, metals etc.) and how many people are avaliable to do the job. This all should be carefully written down.
The whole game will be very different from regular RPG - more like "Civilisation meets Settlers".

Also good diplomacy can be more powerful tool then military. Uniting various groups peacefuly is always better then conquering them - they are less likely to rebel and killing potential citizens is never a good idea. If you wage wars too often your citizens can get very unhappy with your reign and you can easily run short of resources - war costs a lot (foods get eaten, equipment breaks).

PCs rule over their nation will (at least at first) based on authority - keep in mind, how they treat their subordinates and what sort of political system they are aiming for. Will they listen to peoples complains and advices or stick always stick to the plan of their own? How will they punish different crimes and how in general will they enforce law? How will thay treat captives and prisoners? As the nation will grow, PCs will have to delegate administration to other people - will it be one person, or will they set up local councils? The list of questions can go on.

All in all it will definately an interesting campaing - i would really want to know, how it went. :smallsmile:

It could be helpful to read "Evil Overlord List" as well. :smallwink:

[InaVegt]

Also good diplomacy can be more powerful tool then military. Uniting various groups peacefuly is always better then conquering them - they are less likely to rebel and killing potential citizens is never a good idea. If you wage wars too often your citizens can get very unhappy with your reign and you can easily run short of resources - war costs a lot (foods get eaten, equipment breaks).

Real World Example: the EU is much more tight knit and cooperative than pre-European Community europe ever was. The chances of another big war in the near future in Europe are unlikely, while before that, something like that happened about every other decade. (The violent history of Europe is one of the biggest reasons Europe got to become so powerful, there was an eternal weaponry race in Europe, and as such, weapon development went much faster than any other region in the world.)

[Halaster]

Before I forget, there are several good resources for "running a kingdom"-style gaming. AD&D had the Castle Guide, Rolemaster had Castles and Ruins and Pendragon had Lordly Domains, all concerned with how much income (in the form of food and goods mostly) a lord can derive from a domain. Rolemaster, in its usual meticulousness even lists various forms of society, from hunter-gatherer to full agriculture. Pendragon is aimed at high feudal society but offers maximum playability for the money. AD&D is probably most easily converted to D&D3+, but was meant to tie in with some obscure D&D-based warfare system, although you could use or ignore that.
I suggest you get yourself one of these, they might help with the paperwork, not so much by diminishing it, but by helping you realize what needs to be discussed and written down.

On another note, later on things might be hard to handle with dice rolls, you might get a tennis elbow from rolling so much. A friend of mine suggested the following as a framework for a tabletop campaign, but I think a campaign like yours might use it too.
Whenever an action is planned, the player planning it must state three good reasons for it coming out the way he expects. He may only invent one reason of the three out of thin air, and the GM can reject it. The other two must be a) established facts (we know that the General of the East is a drunk) or b) a logical conclusion from things we know, with the GM as the final judge of "logical" (the General of the East is rarely at home, so his wife is probably having an affair, which is why he drinks). The GM then rules all three reasons presented either convincing, not so convincing or unconvincing in the context of the action planned, and rolls a d6 with a target number equal to two per convincing reason, one per not so convincing reason and zero per unconvincing reason. That's relatively quick and covers large things like empires better than even the most elaborate simulationist approach. It also means you players actually might take note of some of the detail you develop, because they might use it as an explanation later.

[TheOOB]

Well, read The Prince and The Art of War to start.

Really though, you need to, more then anything else, make people want you to be their leader. You can do this any number of ways, divine mandate being a popular one in the olds days. But no matter what you do, you need a significant portion of the population to want you to be their leader, even if it is for all the wrong reasons.

[Oracle_Hunter]

So basically you are suggesting to quit the campaign and start another one? No, thanks. I'd rather find a way to make it work. I don't care if they'll need to invest the first 25 levels of their progression in acquiring power, but if you think they should, then list it in your plan as step 1.

So far we had:
1) Search for a resource that people lack, such as food, water or protection.
2) Let people come to you attracted by that rescource, then start ruling them.
3) Start your conquest on a larger scale.

OK, here's Oracle Hunter's Guide to Conquering the Wastelands

(1) Gather Followers
These kinds of worlds are full of weak bands of survivors who are barely clinging to life, deathly afraid of bandits and such. Find such a town and take care of local threats - radscorpions, raiders, Tandi, etc.
(2) Find Tech/Magic
Next you're going to need power projection capabilities. This can be acquired by improving your Followers' infrastructure, gaining mechanized transport, and similar measures. In general, this means you're going to have to find some lost tech/magic, fix it, and put it into service. If possible, find an Automated Factory or some similar creative device - get it under your control and re-establish your town around it.
(3) Gather More Followers
By now, you should have a well-fortified town filled with shiny weapons and lost technology. Leave your chief lieutenant in charge, and start finding other bands of survivors. Move them into you fortress if possible, or have them take up purified land nearby. In general, they should be happy enough to have some security that you won't have to worry about rebellion - but watch out!

If possible, invest in mind control devices for your lieutenants and omnipresent sensors to train on other elites. You don't have to use them now, but you will need them in the next step. If you can't find any such tech/magic, start training up a Secret Police. Make sure they are loyal veterans who have personally served with the PCs and, if possible, are trained in covert operations. Actually, always train the Secret Police - they're pretty useful.
(4) Establish a Nation
Now you have the manpower to establish patrols to maintain some sort of borders, and technological superiority over all adjacent threats. If not, get more manpower and stomp out more threats.

At this point, you are a regional power. Send out scouts to find other power centers in the world and to report back on your opposition. Send diplomats to weaker power centers to establish relations, and to convince them to ally themselves with your Nation. Eventually you will annex them - but now, you merely need good relations. Hide yourself from other regional powers which may prove a challenging fight. Trade technologies and resources and encourage more people to emigrate to your Nation.
(5) Train a Kickass Army
By now you will have incredible access to resources (hooray capitalism!), a large amount of manpower, and decent manufacturing capabilities. Start arming and outfitting an honest-to-god army; infantry first and foremost, and an airforce if you can. Navies can wait, unless there is a lot of coastline nearby.

While training the army, try to keep word of it down. It'll be hard, but hopefully your diplomats with your allies (and the spies with your peer competitors) can keep your profile low.
(6) Take Out Regional Threats
Even though you have a fairly secure nucleus of a Nation, there will probably be large, entrenched banditry organizations around and/or peer competitors with bad PR.

Start small, and work your way up - offer your "assistance" at taking out an allies' persistent bandit problem, liberate the bandit's resources and establish a "defensive" base in your allies' town. After you have your friendlies covered, take out a particularly unpopular enemy ruler, liberate his people and add them into your kingdom. Presumably you'll be somewhat less oppressive than those bastards, so their serfs will be happy to work for you.

This is when you need that mind control. Now you have armed and scattered a large force of heavily armed and well-trained soldiers across a large region; all you need is one regional commander who is a little too popular with his troops to find yourself facing a coup. Even with reliable, speed-of-light communication you can't keep tabs on everyone, all the time.

As Machiavelli said, "It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both." This goes double for your military command. Make sure you have at least one overt loyalist (and one covert loyalist) stationed with any individual who controls enough force to be a problem and listen to them. Execute plotters publicly and quickly - always be sure to reveal the plot, if possible, or doctor up evidence to fill the holes. By earning a reputation for being both just and merciless you can keep most of your military in line without undue expense.
(7) Establish National Infrastructure
Now that you have a good chunk of land, it is important to make it dependent on central authority. Build roads between trading posts, power plants and electrical grids, and other large projects that can only be maintained by a large and functioning central government.

This will not only increase your power projection abilities, but it should also make your more far-flung settlements appreciative of the Nation.

I am assuming that the Nation will still be governed by the PCs as a Council of Peers - don't do democracy or something silly like that right now. That can wait until after you conquer the world.
(8) Conquer your landmass
By now, you should be, by far, the strongest power in the continent. If not, check the Balance of Power:
- 2 Great Powers (you and someone else)
Gather as many Lesser Powers as possible under your banner and begin a campaign of containment on the opposing power - stifle it's expansion, thwart its military projects, etc. Eventually, you should be able to wear them down into submission, or make them weak enough to be conquered.

- 3 Great Powers (you and two others)
Ally with one, crush the other. The see above.

- 4 or More Great Powers
Worst case scenario. Keep an eye on all the other powers, forming alliances and breaking up alliances against you. Eventually one or more powers will drop out due to war/disease/magical bug invasion. Once there are only 3 Great Powers, See Above.
IMPORTANT: make sure that nobody from another continent (or island) has made contact with your continent. If they have, drive them out at once. Yes, even if they are friendly - they will be a pain in the ass when you're trying to conquer your landmass, trust me.
(9) Consolidate Power
Do #7, but for the whole continent. If there is a popular insurgency, build first, crush later. As long as you can keep giving everyone incremental improvements, they're unlikely to get pissed off.

At this point, you're going to have to have regional governors. Ideally, appoint them yourself and give them no direct authority over military resources. And always keep a rapid strike force to take out rebellious governors.
(10) Find a quick, cheap, and safe way to cross water
This is the hardest step. Land-based defenses are always stronger than whatever you can mount on sea or flying fortresses. Establishing beach-heads is terrifically hard to do.

If you're lucky, there are no other Nations in the world. If you can find a landmass without any sort of organization larger than a few towns, establish a beach-head, seduce the local survivors as in #1 and go from there. But eventually you will run into organized resistance. This is bad. Don't talk, trade or anything with them - just say "hi, we're just passing through" and leave. You don't want them to organize some sort of defense before you're ready.

Now, what are some good ways to defeat water? The absolute best is Space. If you can get a Space Elevator or rebuild a Moon Colony, you are set. Take command of Space and you can either drop your forces anywhere you want, or you can drop chunks of rock on opposing military forces without opposition.

Failing Space, some manner of Teleportation would be good. Instantly transporting materiel across water to a small facility allows you to reinforce your position and attack as if you were actually on the same land mass.

If you can't get those, Airships are all that's left. Take dominance of the skies and build massive transport ships that can move entire cities if they have to. With any luck you won't have to face much in the way of anti-air defenses, but you never no - that's why this is the worst option.

A Navy with Arks is also a possibility, but anti-sea defenses are far more likely to exist, and sub-hunting is a lot harder than fighter-hunting.

IMPORTANT: If you find someone else has access to any of these technologies, peacefully acquire the tech and then kill them all. You don't want to take over Europe only to find out that Neo-Japan just occupied your west coast with a surprise assault via drop pod.
(11) Repeat Step 8
Once you can quickly cross water, start doing it, using the same strategies described above. Provided you don't suffer a rebellion or die, you will conquer the world.

Oh, and if you start running short on men, try to find a way to grow them faster. Either cloning Supersoldiers or Drone Armies are your best bet.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? :smallamused:

EDIT:
Note that, even if there is no tech in your world, "any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from Science." (http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20081205) The general principles remain the same, even if you have to build ley lines rather than power lines. :smallcool:

[Pronounceable]

A bunch of people conquering the world (even a DnD world) is, frankly, ridiculous. The inherent stupidity of the idea aside, it's cool.

That said, let them worry about the details. You are to make the setting, not play the game for them. Just steer the campaign to get them into a position of power. At which point there should be stuff around their conquered territory (neighbors, monsters, bandits, Brotherhood of Steel, etc), and let them have it. Ruling/conquering isn't easy, they gotta do it themselves.

One neat little point would be to have PCs spend their whole life on it. Then they die, and their descendants/heirs/successors keep going. That way players can get new PCs (or identical grandsons if they're too attached to their PCs), PCs will've spent their lives for the cause they believe in, and the conquering of the world by a bunch of guys takes a somewhat believable (instead of totally stupid) amount of time.


As for Oracle Hunter's suggestion: It's good (as in logical and feasible), but what you're describing is a Civ game win after the initial steps. I suppose that's inevitable when you're out to conquer the world, but as a RPG campaign it'd be boring as hell (not to mention inevitable interparty conflicts if/when they start to have success about how to rule their land [and even more not to mention the possibility of PCcide: imaginary or not, power corrupts]).

Actually, that's a good point regardless, what if once they're controlling a big enough nation one PC/player decides things'd be better off if he had total control?

[Thrud]

Enough people have had good ideas here so that I don't feel the need to repeat things already said, so I would like to bring up something else that may or may not be an issue.

You said that you have a fantasy world that has a magical apocalypse, and used rifts as an example, so I have this question for you - Was the world non magical before the apocalypse, i.e. did the apocalyptic events bring magic to an otherwise techological world, disrupting the existing technology and replacing it with magic, or was it always a magical world and the apocalypse just scattered civilizations and destroyed infrastructure?

If there was technology before the apocalypse does any of it still work? I have run a campaign a little like this before (not the taking over the world part, just the post apocalyptic newly magical world part) and I had to spend a lot of time figuring out exactly what tech worked and what didn't, and why, so that I could be consistent across the board.

My choice was that all electronics stopped working, and nuclear reactions no longer appeared to be self sustaining. This was easily enough to bring civilization crashing down (Thank you S.M. Stirling for your excellent series Dies the Fire for some of the basic concept. Which, come to think about it, you might want to read as a very basic source material.) and cause massive death and destruction to the whole world. However, this left gunpowder working which was fine for my game, but might cause problems in yours.

Anyway, when you brought up Rifts I thought I might want to mention this since it seems pretty early days yet in your campaign, and tech levels can be pretty important to figure out ahead of time.

[elliott20]

Am I the only one who thinks that the OP needs to actually, you know, sit down and flesh out the world a bit more before any of this has ANY meaning?

How can there be NO groups out there existing? Even in post apocalyptic worlds, people band together, some older powers survive, and the landscape, while mostly chaotic, should have powers existing try to fill the gap.

The absence of such groups seems highly unrealistic and if you go with that you WILL run out of fun things to do. think about it, how fun do you REALLY think it is to sit around and micro-manage your government budget?

And really, how can any of these plan have any meaning unless you actually know the world that you're operating in? It makes no sense to me.

I suggest you go with a route that basically treats nations and groups as characters with their own set of skills. i.e. economic knowledge, magic, etc, to represent the various strengths and weaknesses of your empire (this also means it'll be a little easier on bookkeeping, since you're basically abstracting everything)

Do this for every possible group, and you'll more or less be set.

i.e. a typical profile would be commerce, technology, magical know how, religion, institution, administration (as a skill), diplomacy, wealth (seperate from commerce since commerce represents your ability to earn while wealth represents how much you actually have), and then you can do things like armies and such. National Hit Points would basically be the stability of the state. when it hits 0, your government structure is basically gone and you're reduced back to scattered populace. Each area you conquer will add to a small number of hit points to the empire, good stable government structure will add to it, and so on so forth. do it this way and you'll have less of a headache trying to gauge your empire's ability to perform.

You can even have your empire inherit skills from your top performers in cases like diplomacy, where your top diplomat is basically handling diplomatic relations, gather info would then be the skill rank of your spymaster network, knowledge (magic) would be the average knowledge of your magical institution, etc, and so on so forth.

(and obviously, certain skills would go out the window like move silently or any "personal" skills)

[Darth Stabber]

AD&D's Birthright was a decent system for political type business, with most of this stuff covered, and I believe that there was an update for 3.X.

Now to pose a different method of world conquering: Religion.

Step 1: Find a lawful god who's credo will keep the masses in check, while giving you you divine authority, or failing that, set one of you players up as a deity, and once you have conquered enough, it might very well become true.
Step 2: Take over the nearest settlement's spirituality,
Step 3: start preaching (subtly), that theocracy is the best form of governance.
Step 4: concurrent with step 3, Find other settlements and start hedging out those who worship different gods, and begin step 3 in these villages.
Step 5: Whip your adherents in city one into a fervor and use them to take control of the town.
Step 6: Preach to the other cities the glory and piousness of City ones folks, repeat step 5:
Step 7: Start a crusade to convert the abominable unbelievers of the world, And head out with a holybook in one hand and a sword in the other.
Step 8: To each city not held by your faith, send missionaries to try to win the people over peacefully, If they succeed begin step 3, if they fail move onto to step 9
Step 9: Have your crusading hordes deliver a timely justice to the towns that question you divine mandate to rule, destroy any military forces utterly, and to the civilians: Convert or get Dominate Personed
Step 10: So long as you administer the faith consistently and find ways to outrage your citizenry with the iniquity of those outside the faith, the empire should grow sustainably.

[elliott20]

careful there, buddy, you're gonna get this thread locked.

[Tsotha-lanti]

Fictional religion.

[Oracle_Hunter]

As for Oracle Hunter's suggestion: It's good (as in logical and feasible), but what you're describing is a Civ game win after the initial steps. I suppose that's inevitable when you're out to conquer the world, but as a RPG campaign it'd be boring as hell (not to mention inevitable interparty conflicts if/when they start to have success about how to rule their land [and even more not to mention the possibility of PCcide: imaginary or not, power corrupts]).

Actually, you can run this as a RPG pretty easily. The early stages are obvious, but I shall elaborate:

(1) Gather Followers
Run some early adventures in a single community facing a bunch of problems. Dislodge the ogres from the best source of clean water, prepare the village to drive off the annual bandit raid, make good with the local powers, etc.
(2) Find Tech/Magic
Classic dungeon crawl. Start investigating old legends or have some woodsmen from the village search find ruins nearby. Clean out the dungeons and gather up spells, magical items, and (hopefully) Ancient Lore.
(3) Gather More Followers
Time skip a bit to allow the village to develop, and the go out and find some new villages. Confront their local problems, and find a way to convince them to join you on your nice new clean land. Possibly overthrow some minor tyrants in the process.
(4) Establish a Nation
Time skip again to let your new citizens get established with farms and light industry - have them bring new skills and talents (like mining) to your Capitol.

Here we have a little Civ-action; your players will need to figure out what kind of government they want, who they want to be in charge of what, etc. Or, as the DM you can just write up NPCs for these various jobs.

If the PCs haven't found superior Ancient Lore yet (like how to make Teleportation Gates or Weather Control) they should make a larger quest to find this core magitek. You need to have something better than the surrounding powers in order to make a stab at dominating the region.

Once you have that, establish your Nation - name, flag (very important!), crest, the whole nine yards. The PCs should have fun with this. Next, you can have them travel incognito into a Trading Hub that their scouts have found and go about making a powerful ally. And they can learn about their peer competitors and so forth. You can run this a couple of times, with them running into different difficulties (and possibly organized opposition from Local Powers) before it gets old.

Presumably the "sneaky guy" of your party can go about establishing the Secret Police - training them in what he knows and so on. Do this during the Time Skip.
(5) Train a Kickass Army
Time Skip; there is now (hopefully) vibrant trade between your Capitol and the surrounding friendlies, with more wealth and comforts from far away. The Nation's population should be expanding greatly, so the PCs have established a "defensive" force - have the military PC organize this.

Now, if the PCs want to expand outwards they're going to new power projection which means: more quests! Perhaps they can discover the secret to making Mithril Weapons, capture a cache of Griffon eggs to start a Griffon Cavalry force, or what have you - possibly all of them. And more Ancient Lore is always good, as are Magical Devices - large magical items that are difficult to transport but are very powerful. Weather Control devices, a keystone for a Sending Stone network or what have you.

To keep things spicy, have the Secret Police detect spies from a Rival Nation trying to discover your secrets - perhaps have the PCs arrange a sting.
(6) Take Out Regional Threats
Now comes the campaigns. The PCs should know about some major nuisances in the area that need to be eliminated before stability can be established over a larger region. The army is the backing for the PCs - they engage the mooks from these threats while the PCs launch a surgical strike on the BBEG.

Only do this once or twice, and maybe have the PCs have to deal with a rebellion along the way. Rebellions will make them nervous, and make them a little more proactive at maintaining discipline amongst their forces.
(7) Establish National Infrastructure
Big time skip. Now that you've taken care of those regional threats you can start building honest roads to connect the towns in your domain. Let the PCs absorb some of their allies along the way, to show their spreading influence. Have the Nation export some of their Ancient Lore to create greater bonds between the cities - a Sending Stone communication network, Teleportation Circles to facilitate trade or personnel transport, Weather Control Crystals that need a trained wizard to maintain.
(8) Conquer your landmass
Now is the Big Time. The PCs are going to be conducting personal diplomacy with the other Powers (palace intrigue and so forth) in order to eliminate the Rival Power and possibly get some other allies.

Allies can be later peacefully annexed or taken over in "bloodless" coups - either normally or Time Skipped.

Also introduce a Foreign Power that recently arrived on your landmass to provide a hook for future adventures.
(9) Consolidate Power
Mostly internal matters, but this can be a lot of fun. Dealing with insurrections, rebellious governors, covert actions and so forth. All should be tied back to the Foreign Power eventually, but many can be homegrown... just with the backing of that Foreign Power.
(10) Find a quick, cheap, and safe way to cross water
This is easiest done by having the Foreign Power launch an invasion of your Nation. They will have this method and launch a massive war to take you out before you can become too dangerous. Most of the battles can be fought on the periphery (though you can make linchpin events that affect the courses of battles) but in the end the PCs will need to capture the secret of the Method and destroy the Foreign Power's ability to continue attacking the Nation.
(11) Repeat Step 8
Now begins the Invasion of the Foreign Power! New landmass with new people and cultures - the PCs will be the advance force trying to figure out how to topple the Foreign Power and create a beach-head for their own forces. Use much of the hooks above.

Repeat as necessary, until the world is conquered. As a Final Adventure, the PCs should have to face down a Coalition of the Free States which includes a Rival Party made up of champions from each of the remaining Free States. This will be as awesome as it sounds :smallbiggrin:
See? Easy as pie!

EDIT: Religious domination is problematic, because it directly involves The Gods. Under a more "secular" form of domination, no one God is going to object to you expanding your influence - provided you don't try to stamp out a popular religion. But once you start conquering the world in the name of Pelor, the other Gods may ally against you to preserve their own worshipers - and that means everything up to (and including!) Avatars.

Personally, I prefer to take on Men rather than Gods, but YMMV :smalltongue:

[Darth Stabber]

If we follow the assumption that I as a GM follow (that to a certain extent gods are powered by belief), it would stand to reason that a deity that would support this kind of crusade would gain considerable power, while the other gods lost considerable power. Thus as you brought more under your banner, the power of the gods to oppose you would become increasingly limited, and with the added power to the god whom you support would probably feel obliged to help you continue powering his meteoric rise in power, This seems especially true in the case of LE/NE deities, as they would benefit immensely from the massive increase in power, and would love the delicious ability to now crush their former rivals. If deity power is not directly connected to worship, then yeah your up ****creek.

[Rasilak]

We already had something like this in a pretty destabilized fantasy world, tech level of imperial rome (give or take some), coming as visitors from the present (so we knew from a lot of technology - but not necessarily how to build it - and some characters and players had a pretty good grasp of earths history, so they new what worked and what didn't).
Better description of the world:
The continent was an island about the size of central europe (France, Germany, Switzerland, northern Italy and half of Austria), but with a warmer climate (temperate in the north, semi-arid in the south).
When we arrived, there were three main power blocks (let's just call them A, B and C).
Block A was a greek-style loose alliance with lots of city-states intrigating against each other, and controlled roughly 60% in the southeast of the main island.
Block B was a late-migration-period (or very early medieval) nation (think of Charlemagne) which settled in the rest of the island (except for a large wasteland northeast of a volcano, nobody was mad enough to settle there)
Block C resembled the roman republic, and occupied an Island in the southwest, about the size and climate of Sicily.
The groups settled the island some centuries ago (probably from earth). They dind't have any wars in that time, mainly because they had good profit from trade (war is bad for business and military is expensive), so military tradition and weapon technology was largely forgotten, or at least not improved - It still was enough for the occasional gang of bandits.
Some time before we arrived some cult created hordes of strange monsters (something like flesh golems, but smaller, smarter and more aggressive - imagine artificial Uruk-Hai) which went through the countryside and pillaged any village it could find. The main powers totally didn't expect this, and could not motivate anyone to go out and fight, so people who had city walls or something like that holed up behind them once they got word of the problem, leaving anyone without to be massacred and converted to more monsters. It didn't go for very long before we arrived, but the larger cities already had serious issues with getting food - while the villages had issues with becoming food.

What we did:
Plan A (failed at conquering the world, but we saved some thousand people - and world domination was not our objective back then anyway)
We toured through the villages in the countryside and asked them to come with us (most refused - we showed them how to build a palisade, wished them good luck and left), until we had like five hundred people with us. Then we led these people to an abandoned city (it was on the fertile southern slopes of the volcano, and probably destroyed by an earthquake) and started to rebuild the city, along with a solid wooden wall. Some of us still wandered around the countryside to get more people to join us, which was easier than before. After some months we had a nice little city and could grow enough grain near the walls (and relatively safe from monsters) that we were able to sustain ourselves. Our plan was then to search the old mage guild for magical artifacts to use against monsters. We never completed the search of the caved in dungeons below it, but found some interesting stuff. One of us, who achieved to become the commander of our newly-founded city watch (our little Machiavelli - he got pissed with everyone only sitting on their hands and found most of our group too naive and good-natured) studied the artifacts (to rebuild them later), pilfered what he could squeeze in his pockets and left the rest all-but-unguarded, so it was (unsurprisingly) stolen. I don't know why he did this, but he probably wanted us to concentrate on the power of our city instead of going for monster-hunting.
Around that time one of the city-states from block A found our city and send in some spies (pretending to be diplomats) to spread propaganda (our Machiavelli and most of the cynics who later formed Team 3 wanted to just slit their throats, but the rest of our group was against it). However, some of us wanted to stage elections (stupid idea anyway, with people who never had anything but monarchy for generations at least), and - surprise, surprise - the people voted for marionettes of the other city's duke. So we cursed, packed up and left - and some of us learned their lesson.
After that plot we travelled to the capital city of faction A.
Short description:
It had around 20000 inhabitants, was built on a river, about 50km from the southern coast and in the wealthiest and most fertile region of the island. It was also one of the few cities with stone walls. The city was pretty close to the border to faction B and had a large minority of them who were constantly blamed for anything that went wrong, including the monsters. The rich people holed up inside the walls and could get fishing boats to the ocean, so they had barely enough to eat. However, the poorer people outside of the city were starving and pretty unhappy - still they didn't do anything - why was everyone there basically just sitting on their hands?
Here the group splitted in three teams with different strategies.
Team 1 (which consisted of the nice-and-friendly people) wanted to find out more about the monsters, but achieved pretty much nothing, so I'm skipping them.
Team 2 (the hotheads of our group) wanted to start a revolution in the city (it was pretty darned close to a full-scale-riot anyway), and semi-succeeded. They gathered an angry mob, killed the duke, burned his palace and tried to form some kind of democratic gouvernment (some people just don't learn it), but failed miserably at this, because nobody had any idea what to do as gouvernor of the city. After some time a bunch of aristocrats took over, but they still had to cope with riots and were busy with themselves for some time.
Team 3 (led by our Machiavelli, and the more cynic guys in our group) finally got on a pretty good path to world domination:
They gathered the poor people around the city, marched about 20km south along the river and some of them build a barricade on it while the others made some simple weapons (read: clubs and pointy sticks). There they claimed 'taxes' of 50% on the fish that was brought to the city (it still worked for the fishermen, since this made the prices in the city explode). Soon the city found out what was going on, but it was still before the aristocrats took over, so they couldn't do anything but starting to empty the granary (the now-deceased duke kept the food in reserve). When the aristocrats took over, they still couldn't send the city watch to us (a lot of them were dead or joined the rioters anyway), so they had to negotiate. We explained them that we're feeding their own people, and made a deal to lower our 'taxes' to 10% in exchange for the right to harvest any of the grain growing in the plains around the city (which we did before anyway), and a peace treaty with the city. (It was actually not very dangerous to harvest the grain, since there were only few marauding monsters in our region, and they wouldn't walk in open terrain during daytime). Soon we had more than enough for ourselves and started supplying the city. At the same time we started to build a fort near the river and made better weapons (we used equipment similar to (very) late roman armies). At one time one of our patrols got attacked by monsters. We won (mainly because the monsters expected us to run, and were badly outnumbered) so that made our little village pretty respected. Our little army was soon bigger than the city watch, and the city was dependend from our grain (and us opening the river) anyway, so we got them into a pretty favorable (for us) alliance. Meanwhile Team 1 sent more people from the villages they came by to our city, and we could make a good part of them to soldiers or smiths, since some renaissance or industrialisation tricks helped us to greatly boost productivity (like, using water power for threshing or speeding up production with some kind of assembly line). We also managed to attract good craftsmen from the larger cities (because we had something to eat, and they didn't) and started to build public schools and healthcare for our citizens (foreigners who wanted to become citizens either had to have some useful talents, or had to go through roman-style military service).
When we tried to rediscover gunpowder and began working on the steam engine, the DM stopped, saying that we'd win anyway sooner or later.

So, Rasilaks condensed tips for conquering worlds:
- Make sure to supply your people with enough food, water, ...
- Do not trust anybody you don't control
- If someone is too powerful to take on now, make sure that he is occupied with himself or dependend from you until you can
- Try to recruit anyone who's neutral and scattered around the countyside
- Be organized and make sure that everyone understands and accepts your command structure
- Technology is the key to power. Scavenge, steal, rediscover and research as much as you can afford.
- If your people are happy, more will join them
- whoever has the strongest army, wins

Also some general tips (mostly derived from AoE and Civ expierience):
- If you're not the strongest, try to ally with anyone against him
- If you are, either take out #2 ASAP (if there is no other threat), or conquer smaller neighbours to extend your empire
- Never, ever, ally with your strongest neighbour - or, if you have to, don't trust him

[Oracle_Hunter]

If we follow the assumption that I as a GM follow (that to a certain extent gods are powered by belief), it would stand to reason that a deity that would support this kind of crusade would gain considerable power, while the other gods lost considerable power. Thus as you brought more under your banner, the power of the gods to oppose you would become increasingly limited, and with the added power to the god whom you support would probably feel obliged to help you continue powering his meteoric rise in power, This seems especially true in the case of LE/NE deities, as they would benefit immensely from the massive increase in power, and would love the delicious ability to now crush their former rivals. If deity power is not directly connected to worship, then yeah your up ****creek.

But that just makes the other Gods balance against you faster. And remember, that while 1 Strong God may be able to beat up one Weakened God, he's screwed when faced by an entire pantheon-1 of Weakened Gods.

And forget about him, we're talking about you mortals, right? Unless you God devotes an inordinate amount of energy to defending your asses, the mortals are going to get fried by an army of Divine Proxies that teleport into their bedroom in the middle of the night.

[FoE]

Master children's card games and the world is yours.