Sovereign's Guide

"An unlearned King is but a crowned ass." The guide for those who are, or are aspiring to be King.

Introduction to the Sovereign's Guide.
The Sovereign's Guide is in short multiple things, such as a list of objective actions that you may take, and also from time to time annotations that I may give to you which can serve as advice that may freely be taken or refused depending on your circumstances. By no means should my personal advice dictate how you rule and play; I'm fully expecting every sovereign to have their own niches and personal actions. After all, as the ruler you rule yourself. Don't however mistake your rule as absolute, for not even you have direct control over what your subjects' opinions and thoughts. To start off the Sovereign's Guide, we should go as to how one can become a Sovereign.

Becoming King
Unless you are blessed with the most fortunate conditions, it is difficult to become a King. How exactly is it hard, you ask. The road to becoming a King cannot be undertaken alone, you must have supporters and followers who are willing to follow through with your actions. This is further exacerbated in the Claimant Wars, where you are literally required to have supporters campaign with you in order to even be eligible to participate. Even if you were to successfully pull off a miracle, the rest of RFK and Strategus will require for you to constantly have reliable people with you at hand.

Supporters
So how will you manage to gather supporters for your cause? There are multiple ways for this to happen, but if you're someone who has nothing to their name aside from yourself, use yourself! It is impossible to appease everyone based on your personality alone, but take advantage of what you have. For example, if you are someone who is relaxed and also very attuned to memes, you may attract those who appreciate a chill and fun personality. Alternatively, if you have a serious persona, you'll instead be able to attract those who appreciate someone who doesn't goof off all the time.

You can also stylize your cause, an example being standing up against an asshat ruler who no one else is willing to take a stand against simply because they are so well trenched into their position, or instead you might make it all about a shitpost and gather fellow shitposters to well... shitpost.

I digress.

If you already have a sustainable Kingdom, you can instead leverage other things to entice more players to your Kingdom, whether it be what your Kingdom stands for (furthering your personal cause), leverage positions within your government and offer positions to players, have a type of architecture which may appeal to certain builders, or even just simply being the better option out of all the other Kingdoms from the lack of choice otherwise.

Remember that you not only have to focus on gathering more people behind your cause, but you also have to focus on keeping them. Disgruntling someone can happen in any mean whether it be through an unfavorable action you took, taking someone's advice over another, exceeding or lacking in a certain field, or just not being the best choice.

With all of these circumstances requiring supporters, it's understandable that you might not be able to become a Sovereign. But there are other ways of achieving leadership positions outside of being a Sovereign, whether it is to be a trusted official, a Guild/Order Master, a Noble, or even participate as a Tributary/Puppet King. Don't lose hope if you immediately cannot reach your goal, as you might have to prove yourself through other means first. And who knows, you might strike gold when it comes to a sudden opportunity.

Challenging the Throne
If you by now have assembled a sufficient group of followers, the next step is for you to take a spot among the Sovereigns yourself, whether it be by breaking a piece of their throne and building your own from there; or to occupy and unseat a current one.

One of the best opportunities that you have when it comes to claiming a Throne is during a Claimant War. You can further check out the exact details on it's own page; but in short here's what you have to do:

A Claimant War is where multiple Claimants with their own respective groups clash with each other in a succession of battles. In form of a Team Deathmatch with no respawns, it's one of the more simple battles that you can participate in. Whichever Claimant wins three battles first, or alternatively beat every other unique Claimant once without loss will be able to claim the throne for themselves. You can further check out additional annotations and notes that I will have for Claimant Wars on its own page, I recommend that you do so.

Alternatively, another way of claiming a Throne is through Rebellion. There are two types of rebellions that can occur to a Kingdom, Forceful Secession/Partition or a complete Coup d'état. There are differences between the two with their own Pro's and Con's:

Nominal Ruler
The final method doesn't even require for you to challenge an existing throne. Rather instead, an existing King may choose to grant you True Power to formulate another Kingdom which will belong to you in name. In reality however, the Kingdom that you own is but a tributary Kingdom which can be taxed and partially controlled by the parent Kingdom. You will also be expected to fulfill and obey orders from your appointer, lest they decide that it isn't worth it and strip you of your position, placing a more obedient puppet upon the colonial Kingdom.

Being a nominal ruler is a little different from being a Sovereign. You might find yourself at the head of subjects who don't really know you, trust you, or are even openly conspiring against you. Aside with juggling their own needs, you also need to pay heed to your parent Kingdom in order to keep your position. Additionally, you will be faced with limited resources as you are constantly drained (unless otherwise negotiated) of a portion of your revenue, and have a limited amount of True Power that can also be taken from you even if you were able to garner some yourself through successfully winning wars. What's worse is a third factor of foreign Kingdoms who are most likely greedily eyeing your True Power and wanting it for themselves. Which brings the question, is it really worth all that trouble to remain as a Tributary?

It's not all so horrible. On the bright side, if you prove yourself to be a worthy puppet you can always expect auxiliaries from your parent Kingdom to assist you with matters, whether it be warfare betwixt foreign Kingdoms, or to quell a rebellion from any subjects that you may have disgruntled.

If you believe that it isn't, but you would like to keep the throne for yourself; you can choose to secede from your parent Kingdom and declare yourself as an independent nation! It is however not as simple and dry-cut as that, as you will have to face a very likely outraged ex-parent Kingdom who will demand that their precious TP to be restored, as well as foreign powers that no longer have to deal with your protector.

It is very likely that you will be crushed between two unstoppable forces, so you'll have to move quickly to prevent such a fate for yourself! If you are planning to secede, you better be prepared for it. Invest heavily into your military in Strategus, and even perform backdoor dealings with enemies of the state. If you manage to have a fully fledged Kingdom who is willing to declare war on your behalf, you should be set for surviving the initial conflicts until you can stand on your own. Everything has a price however, make sure you make a decision that you can keep without destroying yourself.

If your appointer becomes suspicious, they may choose to do a callback on your Kingdom, ordering for you to dismantle and to hand over your crown. Worry not if your plans were disrupted, since you will still have three days to either fulfill the order or to declare yourself as independent. However, you must remember that if your current subjects don't approve of the move everything will be pointless as you will have no one to back up your forces.

Coronation
Upon successfully becoming King, you will have gained access to certain KP/WP usage unique only to Kings. Additionally, you will be asked several questions (which answers should already be prepared beforehand) which will form some basics around your Kingdom. The questions are as followed:


 * 1) Name of the Kingdom (Under certain limitations, you cannot have the Kingdom of Longlingus Phallius for example) -
 * 2) Kingdom Banner/Emblem (Under certain limitations) -
 * 3) Choice between Domestic Policies -
 * 4) A simple statement on your cause

Lore and otherwise will be filled out overtime depending on the actions that you and your Kingdom take. By being coronated as a King, you will forever memorialize yourself among Notable Figures for the "season". Do your best so you don't end up amongst the "Defunct Rulers" :)

Governing as King
''If you managed to grab the crown for yourself, congratulations! If you aren't a King, read-on so you might understand insights that your own rulers might have, which may better yourself in helping them out, or to complicate and dismantle their rule.'' In general, Kings must interact with three spheres of influence: Domestic, Foreign, and tying in both spheres, Warfare. Though balance is not necessarily required, all should have careful management in order for your Kingdom to not collapse. Rise and Fall: Kingdoms provides a multitude of tools to Kings in order to keep things in check, many which will be covered in the following sections. Do note that while these tools are certainly useful, they cannot completely cover shortcomings that you personally may face while ruling.