I can think of a few dozen empires in history that were hereditary, but I can't think of one that wasn't besides the Holy Roman Empire, and even they were essentially hereditary for the most part.

Egypt had a interesting ruler system. If I recall correctly, it was passed between family members, but not from parent to child. It passes from the current ruler, to next oldest sibling of that ruler, and then it passes down to the oldest sibling's oldest child, and goes through his siblings, then it passes back up to the next oldest sibling's oldest child, and so on. Basically the oldest living relative, with older generations getting priority even over older individuals of a younger generation (find oldest generation -> find oldest relative in that generation).

Note that 'sibling' can be male or female. They'd also intermarry to strengthen and consolidate power, and so there would be co-regencies of two people ruling at once with more or less equal authority, or with one (either female or male) wielding more power than their spouse.

I might be mistaken about this though - I never studied the topic and only heard about it from others.

Aside from Dune which was more about planet ecology than interstellar politics there are almost no examples of imperial systems in speculative fiction. Sometimes you have them in role playing IPs but that's because its "cool" and "epic."

Securing alliances/mutual trust with his immediate underlings. Feudal system applies here very well, and insuring loyalty where your eyes can't reach should be important.

In games such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms, you could gift your generals with wifes, horses, riches, etc to insure their loyalties. You might want to include this too.

When I think of Emperor...

I think this is a man who can tell anyone what to do, and they'll do it, because he may not be the definition of a god, but he is damn near the closest thing to a god they've got in their world. People will take him too literally, react strongly in agreement out of excitement and fear, and behave like he's perfect. He has power and wisdom that his subjects can't understand.

To be an effective Emperor, an Emperor needs to know everything there is to tell people what to do. Very much like a high-level managerial position in a corporate business firm, but with more of an instant impact to his entire economy from casual words; this could be shortened to "his word is [our] law." If he's not a genius then he wouldn't be Emperor.

This is the guy who does or says whatever he wants, frivolous or well planned, with huge results. He can also make achievements and mistakes, with huge results. I'd call the Emperor Huge-Results guy but I think maybe it has a bit less of a ring.

Here's an article to help quash the very likely King vs Emperor debate that started, I can see it stirring up from one upward glance.
www.diffen.com/difference/Emperor_vs_King

This isn't true. Feudal systems are useless at large population values and they are not good for any sort of ingenuity based society. Heredity is a fucking terrible system for quality rulers. Its rife with corruption, too.

That's interesting... Technically, the feudal system has the ability to expand at will, whereas centralized systems generally fall short on bureaucracy and their inability to bring a suitable digest of everything to the core-ruling members.

The feudal system is efficient in that it confers local authority to the followers of the king (and down the hierarchy of titles).

Anyone, more ideas/thoughts? It's brainstorming,

He could make a space harem, collecting females from every planet. And he could play a fiddle while the universe explodes.

I like game ideas with the potential for intrigue. An emperor who's having to deal with a potentially scheming mate, siblings or offspring is interesting in a kind of MacBeth sort of way.

You can add a lot of things with a hard SF route. Maybe the future emperor is post-human or the society is heavily into VR, in which case maybe endless amounts of time are spent in simulated realities hunting, adventuring or competing. Maybe the emperor is creating elaborate programmatic constructs, birthing artificial life or creating a legacy for his entire species in the form of a great work like a Dyson Sphere. Or maybe he's engineering his species or himself in order to take the next step in evolution.

I think the space emperor gets interesting when you tweak him enough so that his routines are unexpected. I mean, after all, if he's just like some historical Earth emperor why not set him in the past? But to make his world interesting I think you have to do more world building concerning what kind of society he rules.

If memory serves me in the Warhammer 40K universe the emperor is engaged in a constant mental battle with the forces of chaos. What if the emperors in the SF universe are like that? They engage in the grand game an endless struggle on another plane of existence for the hearts and minds of the galaxy. Their fleets and colonies but pieces in the game.

Emperors can use their mental energy to build hyperspace links between areas connecting their worlds or building bridges to the far flung corners of the galaxy.

They can manipulate the evolution of their subjects making them stronger warriors or smarter scientists.

They can wreak havoc amongst their enemies by causing a wave of mass paranoia to sweep through their empire or sabotage research and grand construction projects. Even destroy whole fleets by collapsing hyperspace bridges.

Emperors compete to spread influence and control over the galaxy claiming planets and civilizations as they go. Which would actually make a really interesting change to the standard 4X format. The galaxy could have numerous inhabited planets and civilizations which you absorb into your empire as you expand. Each with their own distinctive characteristics which are added to your collective. Absorbing other species into your empire being the main expansion method instead of colonization.

Different types of emperors would have their own unique abilities and challenges.

The God Emperor - Can sacrifice his people by the thousand to gain power

The Sentient AI - Can spread to any sufficiently advanced planet but lacks influence on primitive ones.

The Witch Queen - Can influence the interdimensional monsters they prey on mental energy.

The ideal - Can better manipulate planets are unaligned.

A very general "everything welcome" brinstorming about what an emperor of some sort of a space empire can/should do? What are his daily routines what is his job?
Alternatively, you can note what he is not supposed to do.

It's for a strategy game that simulates a space emperor (rather then the space empire), so a game more from the point of view of the person, the emperor.

There is difference between empire and emperor.
The first is more used if some nation is apparently the most sucsesfull . Like kolonial sucses. Like the say the british empire. But it doesn't have a emperor. And it has a form democracy. But not directly ruled by the royal headfigure the king or queen. So its more a symbolic function.

A emperor rulez over it empire. More of a absolute ruler. So simulation of a emperor. Is more communicating with his advisors and military commanders. And anyone who directly reports to the emperor. Wich are a bunch of functions.He would see the space empire in a very high level of abstraction. And would only get lower if it was a very critical mission.


Then you have a choice, of what subgenre to go for. Political? Would fit more a non absolute ruled empire.
And political ath is not my choice and would go for that. But maybe others will.
So I would focus more on handling space empire from the point of view of the emperor. Communicating with his staf of commanders and advisors and special funcion like finance. Tech devision with education. You interact with NPC wich represent someting big.
Like communicating officer of commander runing a campain a war insome region of space. Head of militar technolegy. Top of security. Head of covert operation so critical mission and spying. Ministiry of defence. Also a command center where groups of military assets are representet in a iconic abstract way.


My opinion a emperor who rules the empire does so in a high level abstract way. Would not go into micro managing and command units far down the hiarchy of a battlegroup. A emperor can not multitask like a many 1000 core gpu. So he stick on desision wich go over the bigger picture of ruling empire. Also the empire does not do mission.

Like no ruling from a space fighter in battle. Wenn mobile it wouls be some flag ship battle star with a empirial command center department in it. The emperor controled that ship trough the commander or captain.

My guess is such game would be very AI heavy on different levels. A advisor is a AI agent like a ghost player who give hints or advise instead doing it self. Also option for cooperate play adviser with emperor.