If you play enough hoi4, you will eventually develop a sixth sense to tell when a fictional government was designed by someone who plays hoi4.

The right way to write politics in story is to make your least favourite politician the villain

I'm willing to cut writers some slack on this topic, we aren't even able to construct decent governments in the real world.

Kudos to JP for recognizing that a majority of Americans have no idea how thier own government works.

Government: "Being dead is no excuse for not paying your taxes."

As a political scientist who likes to read, boy do most writers know NOTHING about government and politics. Good thing JP is here to fix that.

The phrase "Mussolini made the trains run on time" was ironic. His solution to the trains was to eliminate the schedules entirely. No schedule, cant be late!

You missed something when discussing Soft Power: - K-pop is soft power. - Anime is soft power. - Thai restaurants are soft power.

Just make entire governments defined by one or two key traits that also line up with the hats- I mean the culture of their people.

Features: peaceful transition of power Historical examples: The Roman Republic

Hoi4 politics: “i wanna form austria hungry” - world conquest “I wanna form buzantium” - world conquest “I want that one province over my boarder” - world conquest

I love how one of the things you listed as an issue with democracy was "a conversation with the average voter." So true.

Fantasy and isekai have to make it an idealized monarchy, no exceptions

As a small note from a history student: The Seven Kingdoms from ASOIAF is really a feudal monarchy, not an absolutist one. The difference being that local/regional lords have a lot of autonomy and rights that the King must respect to stay in power.

Y’know, some people get home from work, look at the news, then curl up with a fantasy book that is exactly just the world they already live in except everyone wears leather bracers.

There is one type of government that stands above all: The love triangle.

I was so confused about politics, but really it’s simple. Person A wants. Person B wants. Person A wants want more. Person B tries to get person C to want wants more than Person A. Person B maybe wins. Person A still wants want. REPEAT.

A little note on the absolute monarchy - a common misconception is that this was the system in place throughout the feudal era. It was not, and in fact absolutism was a step AWAY from feudalism. In feudalism, the landholding class (nobility, but also church or city councils) held quite a bit of power, in some cases to the point of making the king a mere figurehead. In the late middle ages, this power was gradually stripped away from the landholding class, as the kings consolidated power in their own hands. In many countries, this was accompanied by a creation of robust state bureucracy, professional army etc - a lot of the things that differentiate a medieval government from a modern one. There was even an idea floating around that kings should use this newly attained power for the good of the people, the so-called "enlightened absolutism". Of course, in practice, king being only as enlightened as he well damn pleased was understandably not enough for most people and situations, hence the National Assembly, and the resulting French Revolution. TL;DR Though, say, Richard the Lionheart and Elizabeth I were both monarchs and shared some similarities (for example, the "divine right of kings"), the ways they used and drawn power were vastly different.

for actual anarchy, see: spanish civil war, post ww1 ukraine also: war is politics by other means, and politics is war by other means. I think that is helpful to keep in mind

Republics can also be empires. “Empire” is a purely geopolitical designation. “Republic” has to do with the internal political structure.

Fantasy worlds trying not to make every government a monarchy challenge (impossible)

heres a little tip for your folks: when writing a political villain ,they may end up having politics you dislike,because surprise surprise,you will sometimes disagree with your villain,including whatever views are arbitrarily viewed as political or not. now with that in mind,let's assume you make even the greatest,most well done and nuanced villain you could,this will result in one of two things: 1.your villain will be dismissed as a strawman because you portrayed politics you think are wrong as wrong. OR 2.the very people you criticized will look at your story and adopt them have fun!

I think the reason why theocracy is rare in fantasy is purely because in fantasy the gods usually exist as an undeniable fact, while in science fiction the gods may or may not(and often do exist but as an explainable but unreasearched phenomena). Which means that in fantasy the stability of the government relies entirely on the whims of the god in question, which means the god might just disapreove of the system in general(eg if they're a god of freedom or nature or something non-governmental) or might flip out and break the system the moment they see one of their followers doing something they don't like. This often means that in order to keep that system running the god themselves steps in as actual-factual ruler.

Ah yes paradox games, the true greatest origin for fantasy ideologies that totally aren't just radical caricatures of historical weirdos.

Leave it to TWA to make anything related to politics interesting

My favorite example of world building politics comes from the TTRPG Lancer. In Lancer, the galaxy is run by a federation called Union. This Union is so decentralized that it doesn’t even have an executive branch, instead only having a legislative branch (CentComm) and a judicial branch (the Department of Justice and Human Rights). The reason Union is so decentralized is for both practical and moral reason. As far as practical reasons, Union exists on such a massive scale that it simply would not be practical for the government to have a presence on every single world. Instead, Union delegates to local leaders on individual planets, moons, stations, etc. while the Union itself is mostly concerned with maintaining galactic infrastructure and occasionally intervening if one of the local leaders gets a little dictator-y. As for the moral reasons, the Union used to be ruled by a space fascist “Anthrochauvinist” party which was highly centralized, oppressive, militarized, and by the end outright genocidal. The new government lives with the fear that if they use their power too much, they will relapse and destroy the fragile democracy they have built. However, this means the Union ends up severely over correcting and letting several of its constituent systems get away with a lot of fucked up stuff because they’re scared of the political backlash that will come with militarily intervening. I like Lancer’s take on government and politics because it shows how, once you reach a large enough scale, concepts like nation states and even the very notion of centralized government start to break down, in favor of a loose federation whose job is to keep the lights on and leave everyone else to their business

How to write the "Good guy" Nation Step 1. Make sure they have every (insert problem the author has with society) solved. Step 2. Everyone only says good things about them. Even though the story will show other cultures thriving without them, and having valid complaints about them. Step 3. Talk about how "good" and "prosperous" they are without waging war or having meaningful contact outside themselves. Step 4. Present every other nation that disagrees with them as bad, even the neutral ones that have their own wars, they hate the good guy nation too for some reason. Step 5. Don't show suffering women and children. Congratulations the "Perfect" Nation

In my (fantasy) universe,I made it so the Empire is rapidly industrializing throughout the series, but there is a big problem in the way - lack of funds. So to get the funds, they create a MASIVE public debt that only grows as the series progresses. Since the Emperor basically invented the concept of public debt in universe, not many people really understand what is happening so they do not care about it, but in fact everything is not collapsing solely because the Emperor carefully created and maintained his reputation of extreme reliability and loyalty that in the public eyes border on fanaticism, so people are willing to accept payment in government obligations and even buy new obligations with expired obligations. But the Emperor himself (and his wife who is a state treasurer) are terrified of what would happen if that 700% debt popped for whatever reason. This forces him to consider every policy - both domestic and foreign - extremely carefully to not damage his reputation, which from the outside seem irrational. The silver lining to the eventual collapse would be that the infrastructure won't magically disappear, but that won't exactly help with mass riots.

Remember to completely vilify the government systems that you don't understand, and make it vividly clear that you do not see them in good eyes! And sell the one you simp for as the clearly superior one that is totally flawless!

One of things i've noticed in fiction when it comes to monarchy is that it's always, almost exclusively a European medieval style monarchy. Even if the world is completely fictional the monarchy is based upon that system. I've yet to meet a fictional fantasy world with a government based upon the Roman Empire or some of ancient Middle eastern civilizations like Hammurabi's babylon for example. Now that'd be an interesting thing to see

Politics 101: Be attractive, Be confident, and Be Wealthy. And never Be Wrong!

Broke: The republic gets jobbed by the evil empire Woke: The republic turns into the evil empire Bespoke: The republic and evil empire are both evil empires

Also all the governments of different fantasy races, regions, ideologies, etc should all team up to face the bad guy army, all because the hero party suggested it and maybe went on a few fetch quests for them. This being against all longstanding rivalries which go back hundreds of years. In addition, said military armies should all also get along and even be able to fill in gaps in each other's fighting styles.

You could take the most benevolent government in history and be guaranteed they committed at least one awful act. You could take the worst government to exist and chances are they have benefitted the world in at least one way. If it was easy to discern what was good and bad then we wouldn't have politics.

I really want someone to do a story where the good guys are an Empire with an emperor but have civil rights and liberties while the villains are a democratic republic that is incredibly racist and imperialistic, but everyone can vote. I honestly think a lot of audiences would just assume 'empire bad, democracy good' and not comprehend it.

Man, I feel called out in that first part since I typically worldbuild entirely for its own sake, not even being sure I really _want_ a story anymore, I just plain like doing worldbuilding.

If you give some institutions checks on the monarchy all of a sudden you have a story when the monarch tries to circumvent those checks.

This is why I love Arachnos - Super villains government, they don’t even try to hide the fact they’re evil. “Pay your taxes and you’re on the white-list” Darwinian Republic.

For the Anarchy section, for anyone interested in attempting to include the ideology in their worldbuilding you could look at the Spanish Anarchists during the Spanish civil war or the Black Army of Ukraine during the Russian Revolution. For examples which I believe are considered somewhat close to Anarchist ideology but not exactly, Rojava in Syria and the Zapatistas in Central America may be a good place to get some ideas.

I love how the ocean is labelled “also not freedom”. Took me a couple of seconds of looking for the light blue countries to realise that.

There's this book series I like called Henderson's Boys, which is a teen spy drama set mainly in WWII France, and it does a fairly good job showing the politics of the various European countries during the time. One bit I especially remember is the book where the protagonist Marc gets sent to a POW camp in Germany and lands a desk job due to his ability to speak French and German, and the guy he works under specifically complains that skilled doctors are being sent to death camps because they're Jewish while German soldiers are dying in droves on the front lines, and later gets fired for sending the French-born Marc (who, again, has an irreplacable skillset) to a decent hospital after he gets critically injured.

This reminds me of a joke I once heard. A monarchy, a republic, a democracy, a corporatocracy, an oligarchy, a fascistic state, a theocracy, and an anarchic state walk into a bar. These eight government types were arguing over who was the best type of government until they asked the bar tender who was the best government type. When the bar tender replied, "Not any of you." the government types were so angry that they killed the bar tender and everyone in the bar, committed mass genocide on everyone in the region, and then forced the dead's loved ones to pay taxes for it. The End

The biggest flaw with making governments in stories is people see to forget most IRL governments are mixes of several governmental styles example: the USA is a Federation, a republic, and a democracy

Absolutist monarchy actually wasn't that common in the middle ages since feudalism is a decentralized system that often leaves a lot of power with the king's vassals. Louis XIV is definitely the posterchild for absolutism, but he reigned in the 1600s, well after the high medieval era. Absolutism is actually way more common in the 1700-1800s than in the medieval ages (ca 500-1500s).

It's incredible how the extended TWA sequences really cut to the heart of what it's like dealing with KZfaq as a creator. Never expected a channel powered by love triangle jokes to keep it this real, excellent work as always.

Every government must be a generic absolute monarchy

One thing about the simplification of governments in writing. If your story isn't specifically about that government and it's just a background entity you dont want to get bogged down in the plethora of interconections, power struggles and constantly changing alliances and intrigues so simplification is the often the best route to follow.

The constitutional monarchies seem to gravitate towards the teen and romcom genre. I'm thinking of the Princess Diaries, any of the Hallmark Christmas movies where the small-town girl marries a prince, and some of the stories I remember reading as a kid where the new exchange student turns out to be an undercover royal. It works for the light and fluffy story lines because you get the glamour or royalty without the story being weighed down with the heavier government issues that come with an absolute monarchy.

WE MAKING IT OUT OF SOCIAL STUDIES WITH THIS ONE 🗣🔥🔥🔥

How to write a politician villain: Step 1: Identify your least favorite political party Step 2: Use the straw man, overblown, exaggerated version of every policy of that party you disagree with Step 3: Make everyone in universe who agrees with the villain either also a villain, or too stupid to see that they are the villain. Step 4: ignore any and all backlash from people actually in that party IRL If this happens to blow up on you, good, all publicity is good publicity

What I can truly respect here is how well JP actually writes a good villain motive here - even for an ad read, greed is probably better written than most modern media villains

The best way to write politics is to make a "morally grey" (but secretly not so secretly black and white) setting where my irl poltical views are the good guys and my opposition are the bad guys

Most medieval monarchies were not absolute, there are dozens of examples of the nobility killing, replacing, controlling and overthrowing kings.

I may be illiterate, but I'll definitely still use this .

I love starting my stories with an in deph 50 page explanation of how the government works. Brcause you know what they say: Can't have too much exposition!

I actually think corporate politics is interesting and leaves a lot of room for creativity. Like a corporation might own an entire star system or sth, but they are still subservient to their shareholders.

Came for a discussion of worldbuilding of governments, stayed for the free history lesson, loved it for all of the *SASS* being thrown at some points. XD

"Ive played HOI4 so I am an expert in politics!" As someone who used to be in online spaces where HOI4 fans were in Literally Every Corner, this mentality is painfully familiar.......Also Civ 6...........

Honestly JP has reached the level of sarcasm that I can no longer tell when he’s being serious or not

As someone who studied International Relations and political sciences, sometimes I like mixing certain branches of political ideologies and mash them up into some contradicting monstrosities in this or that country and set up a weird chain of events.

Didn't Surprise me that TWA didn't list Anarres from The Dispossed for Fictional examples of anarchy. He's too busy writing his epic love triangle story to read one of the best science fiction book of the 20th century.

There's also weird systems, like Elective Monarchies. Historical Example: The Holy Roman Empire, Poland-Lithuania (which is a fascinating system all on its own). Modern Examples: Malaysia and Cambodia. Fictional examples: The Empire of Man from Warhammer fantasy or the garbage fire that is westeros after season 8 of game of thrones.

I know JP was going for the easy joke at 13:40 but just for the sake of anyone who might genuinely be curious: Historical examples of anarchism: Ukranian Free Territory, Korean People's Association in Manchuria, Catalonia & Aragon during the Spanish Civil War Contemporary examples of anarchism: Rojava, Chiapas Fictional examples of anarchism: The Dispossessed, Parable of the Talents, Woman on the Edge of Time, Red Mars Hope that helps!

"company towns before they screwed everything up" implies that at some point company towns weren't completely screwed up.

"Democracy Issues: Whatever the hell is happening in the United States right now..." I'm in stitches right now! Ha! But also sad because I live here

i was not ready to see the characters in the sponsorship wars animated, theyre so much more expressive now

i think my fave case of politics and governments in worldbuilding and storytelling is Hunter x Hunter. one arc is an entire political election to become the next chairman (essentially president) of a certain political structure in that world, and it's super interesting and entertaining! also, the antagonist of that arc is named Pariston Hill after Paris Hilton, which i think is funny.

the carrot-stick and surgical knife-hammer visual metaphor was on point JP

Man, I just needed this and then JP drops a new video

Thanks for more free lessons in terrible writing after a month

remember the most important part of the bad government: don't explain why they are bad or any of their upsides, even if just internal to them. they are bad because they are bad. and certainly dont express why the government became bad in the first place, treat them as villains through and through and dont explain what happened because then it definitely wont be doomed to repeat when people dont learn from their mistakes. because wiping history and trying to change it or pretend it never happened always works so well...

There's always of course the option to throw a few darts at a political compass and figure it out later.

JP woke up today and chose to be saltier than the snacks at an event with $20 beers. Especially on the slides. (Not that I disagree...)

I remember once having a story in mind that I could not really work out, but the plot revolved around a group of people who lived in an absolute monarchy/hereditary dictatorship that spanned across multiple galaxies. The family in charge had been in power for a few centuries since their forefather had united the empire. The new king, however, was driving the empire into the ground, after his family had been absolutely amazing at running the whole empire at once. They try to find the king, but all they find are strange things like people who would know anything about the king having met him in person being watched and tracked, and unable to say anything about the king for fear of the government killing them and their families. Eventually, the group manage to find the king, only to realise that it is a supercomputer. Turns out that the guy who united the empire had no family, so he had his mind uploaded to a supercomputer and was running the empire as king this whole time, it's why he could perfectly run such a massive empire as well, taking into account far more information than any person could fathom without conceding power, however, after 400 years of running an empire (which for him was more like 400 thousand years) he was sick and tired of it and simply wanted his time existing to end, so, he wanted to bring the empire down in order to collapse the whole system as it was the only way that the people who were using him to maintain their power could be overthrown enough for him to get exposed leading to his termination. There was a whole AI subplot that would tie into the finale as well about how nobody trusted anything intelligent that wasn't biological because of a war that fractured what would become the empire in the first place. People blamed AI for their ability to make ends meet and not be in constant war against rebellious machines costing them their freedom (ie installing and upholding a dictatorship that they all lived under).

There is one type of government JP forgot to include. The Stratocracy where the military is the government. It doesn’t appear too much in fiction because writers tend to be lazy but the Empire in Star Wars is a notable example in the Post-A New Hope stories as the film established the Senate was replaced by military officers called Moffs serving as sectorial rulers. A historical example would be Imperial Japan in the Showa Era (1926-1945) the IJA and IJN basically were the political parties of the Japanese government during this time. The “perks” is that you can substitute interservice rivalry for political intrigue and ignore how war fatigue would impact the government as the military is in charge. A “bad” writer however, would look at how propaganda and national pride would need to be instilled to ensure a steady supply of troops to serve in the military and instill a culture that would mean no one would attempt to overthrow it like using a monarch as a divine figurehead

I was watching this and weirdly thinking about Final Fantasy 7's "megacorp" government, lol. Only in Remake do we finally get a glimpse that indeed, there are "elected" officials, but they seem to be puppets for Shinra. It's not much, but I appreciated the addition. Also, Cloud sullenly repeating "The mayor" was funny 😅

the thing about Theocracies being rare in fantasy does seem very weird at first, but think about it like this: You're a new DM trying world build by yourself and you get to a country's government and have to go about adding things like: guilds, noble families, the clergy, various religious sects and their interpretations and their struggles to be reconi- Nah, fuck all that im just gonna phone it in and roleplay king for half an hour, government done!

I love writing multiple governments and putting them in a ring and seeing what happens when my wildly different cultures from different continents are forced to be next to each other through a war or magical wtf. Also how similar but different cultures and governments mesh with trade and borders. Discovery writing makes it even more fun.

Monarchy is badass. How else am I supposed to give unrivaled power for my super cool -self insert- main character to wield over all his peers?

You missed the funniest type of monarchy ever - elective monarchy. The best example is the Polish-Lithuenian Commonwealth. The drama and hilariety of elective proceedings were unmatched. Polish-Lithuanian election season was the time for every petty noble in Europe to shine, because you didn't need to be Polish, or Lithuanian, or even speak either of these languages, to take part. One elected king escaped Poland on a horseback under the cover of night after three days of rule. And one time, the nobles didn't like a candidate for a king so much, that they said "I'd rather have a woman be king than this fucking guy", and elected a woman, the old king's widow, to be king. Absolutely under-utilized political system.

oh! I was just working on a story which is centered around several theoretical large scale societies based around anarchist principles (part of the setting is going over a possible gradient of qualities)! It's NOT easy, but if anyone is curious about some ideas: The key is to think of it less as "nobody is in charge" and instead more like an advanced direct democracy with only as much centralization as necessary with emphasis put on settling disputes rather than the letter of the law. In regards to the "everyone votes on everything," not all decisions need everyone, just those involved. As for larger scale decisions, you CAN have representatives, but they serve more as a "my vote goes with them" rather than them being actually in charge, with the ability for voters to revoke or even change their vote manually should they step out of line. And for the largest of scale decisions, depending on the tech level, it may be required to rely on batches of voting, such as cities and whatnot as their own groups and develop some kind of consensus from there/ but counting the votes can be a major struggle at all levels, though that's also true for more typical representative democracies as well. As for law enforcement (well, "law" enforcement), such matters would likely focus more on settling disputes between individuals rather than dictating what actions are and are not allowed; the people on the ground and most affected by a situation are the ones with the most say involving it. For military, one can expect something of a civilian military like Switzerland, and maybe take some notes from the anarchist armies who fought in the Spanish civil war for structure, but if you have other ideas, feel free to explore them. How well this might work can vary wildly, as you're reliant on social pressures, culture, and tradition (religion plays a huge role in this as well, by the way) to set the foundation, rather than an authority threatening violence against those who disagree with them. This means that an advanced anarchist society (or at least anarchist adjacent) could range from idyllic to monstrous, with a lot in between. Especially once one gets into the nature of people within those societies. Economically, based on the history and purpose of money, I imagine a properly large society like this would use a duel credit and monetary system; basically, in close knit circles, "I owe you one" would be the dominant economic exchange forum, as those people would be less likely to run away after a transaction and could be encountered again to pay off favors, but currency of some form would be required to facilitation potential or real one time transactions between people who are not in close proximity due to the limitations of barter. There are many ways one might handle this; the one I settled on was to take the basic structure of a confederacy and implement that through direct democracy, where each rung is checked by the people below them, and thus the management of currency, while centralized, is checked immensely from countless sources. Once could also forgo money entirely, but you then need to facilitate potential one time transactions. Some other challenges come from strong personality figures who gather followings eventually being able to take control, as well as questions of how well information is allowed to spread, both in terms of education and as dangerous myths and rumors potentially convincing large swaths of people to commit to dangerous ideas. The general opinion of expertise is also worth bringing up, as while some might respect experts in fields and default to them, that isn't a guarantee. I can see anarchist societies working, but there is no world in which that guarantees they would be anything close to utopian. Rather, they would have a lot of problems, just different ones, and frankly the ways to arrange them individually can be quite staggering once one gets into it. Hopefully someone who read this found this interesting, inspiring, or helpful!

You forgot military dictatorships. Where the military takes over after a huge time of civil unrest and violence. Historical examples: Chile, Spain, Greece, Italy, Thailand. Modern example: Sudan.

You forgot to mention that in multi party system coalition building can be an intricate process that can work like a love triangle.

My sci-fi fantasy government is basically a meritocracy in which the High Council consists of people who have to take exams to prove that they are the best for the job. Of course, this just means that only rich insider families can afford the educational materials necessary to ensure a high grade and position. Additionally, they maintain power through the backing of a military corporation which markets itself as the protectors of the nation against the threat of monsters. The general population are kept largely in the dark, and therefore don't know the crimes against humanity going on inside the corporation. The Council receives long term public support, and the corporation receive funding and connections.

I will say this, as Genuine fan of your series, I really like these videos, cause despite being a writer who only does mostly short stories for fun. And your videos just help me a lot, when it comes to genuine large projects, or just othe short stories. Originaly, i wanted to do mockery of these bad tropes you joke about, and i also feared to do a lot of cliches, but soon, i found its much better to go for genuine stories that entertain people, be it full ot cliches and tropes, or not much. And its through watching your content, trying to do some stuff myself, and well, failing sometimes. In many ways, thank you TWA

I literally needed this like, today, for a new D&D campaign I'm making. Thank you!

2:48 I want to point out that absolute monarchies only began to emerge after the black death. Before then, most European states were feudal monarchies which is different because they had to rely on vassals and lords to collect taxes and had their own private armies that could oppose the king. Absolute Monarchies usually had a civil service and a national army, thus having actual complete control over the state.

Oh no! With the addition of video motion, JP can now have Greed look at us ironically whenever he's making a cutting remark that's aimed at us! (Is it irony when Pam and Jim did it on The Office? Maybe not. JP, what would you call that little bit of fourth wall breaking?)

This came at just the right time since my novel’s main plot centers around a succession crisis, intrigue and political fallout from a previous monarch.🎉

Somehow 19:07 is the funniest part of this entire video to me. I will never understand how some people can write humans as hyperrational (all of the time) when they presumably have been around other humans all their lives.

This video has shown me that I am doing pretty much everything right, minus some details I just haven’t fleshed out yet. Thank you

Just saying, super proud of the work you're doing here, JP. I've been around the channel since the earlier days and it's so awesome to see you going from 5 minute videos to ones that are almost half an hour! (and constructing an entire semi-animated universe just for your sponsored content) Keep up the awesome work!!

For anarchy there is Ursula Le Guin story "The Dispossessed" with the main character coming from anarchic society.

A new TWA video, That put a smile on my face .

I love the new animations at the end. This video was well worth the wait. I've been wanting to do some serious world building, with my series.

At this rate, I don't know if JP actually enjoys HoI IV, or if he sunk 410 hours into the game just for the purposes of the video to provide a single screenshot. Funny either way

Never forget: "Power corrupts. Absolute power is pretty freakin' sweet!" This is why we've never had a bad autocracy and thats why you can have a good and noble king without having to worry about it.

Another related thing: For a war story, what does the aggressor actually want to achieve on a tactical and strategic level? Why did they move this army here, what are they supposed to do in that direction? That's another thing that greatly helps making things more believable

Awesome video as always, JP! And thanks for refreshing my history/political studies knowledge. 😉

2:16 Three cheers for David Weber's Honorverse and for TWA for mentioning it! Also kudos for creating what is possibly the most logical and compelling add I've ever heard (and it works in world as well!?).