I am looking for some kingdom building novel, something close to The World Online / Tales of the Reincarnated Lord / A Step into the Past. Well A Step into the Past isn't kingdom building, but I am looking for something simmiliar to those, preffer ancient china and armies.
https://www.novelupdates.com/series/i-am-the-monarch/ https://www.novelupdates.com/series/release-that-witch/
The Empress' Gigolo The name looks bad for what you're looking for, I know. But don't worry, the novel has a good Kingdom Building plot. The MC knows a lot about that stuff and he travels between both worlds with knowledge and technology. The Empress' helps him on his world with her strength while he helps her to properly build her kingdom, which is the weakest one in terms of technology, science, etc. The early chapters are kinda slow, because the MC is trying to get the Empress' trust, but it develops well later on.
I am the Monarch, but that one's problematic in other ways. Don't get me started on Release that Witch. They don't do (technological) development well at all. Or The Human Emperor. These are highly rated novels yet they're dumpster fire in some aspects. Can't take the kingdom building/developing part seriously. RoyalRoad has a few of them, The Eagle's Flight, Rise of the Lord. Those are nice but not finished, especially the second one. And they're Western. Western fantasy ... doesn't have much of it either unfortunately. It's not a traditional focus. Daughter of the Empire by Feist was good! There's Ken Liu's Grace of Kings, which apparently (haven't read it) reads like a history book, because it actually is. It's a dramatization of a certain part of Chinese history.
Cohen of the Rebellion Everlasting Immortal Firmament The Amber Sword The Human Emperor Hail the King Genjitsushugi Yuusha no Oukoku Saikenki and The Lord’s Empire
Whelp, The Lord's Empire is an obvious one to try if you liked The World Online. It's not fully kingdom-building, but I would maybe glance at Marquis of Grand Xia or Pivot of the Sky, although both are currently dropped.
Well I tried to read The Lord's Empire, but it was after I started The World Online, and truly, I regretted it. I tried 100 chaps of it and didn't like it, don't know how is it after that. And thanks for the recommendations so far, there were few that got my eye, so I will try them.
Mind me asking what the issue with rtw is? I didn't particularly catch anything other than his plans for electricity.
Been a year, so I don't remember specifics: Roland's knowledge is beyond ridiculous. Like, too much. Too spread out over different domains. My bullshit meter went off constantly. The word engineer being used in this novel is an insult. Everyone who has worked on real-life projects knows things aren't easy, and Roland here is trying to do the entire Industrial and Scientific Revolution by himself. No, he has help from newly educated civilians? Bullshit, knowledge can't be spread and especially understood that fast. Development needs time. Don't cram too much advancement in too short of a time frame. Development should have been kept simpler. Less different elements to it, each element impactful. The more of it an author puts in, the more difficult it becomes to paint a concise, believable picture of the developed realm. Drastic societal changes are one of the most unrealistic aspects of the kingdom building webnovels I've read. You can't suddenly give people a Victorian or even modern mindset starting from a Medieval one. That's not how humans work. I get it, the author wanted to build the ideal society with benevolent dictator Roland on top of it, cumming all over his own pants in self-satisfactory intellectual masturbation. It's Roland's wet dream, not an actual, serious kingdom building story. I wasn't sold on the characterization either, oh boy. Neither on the prose for that matter. Release that Witch read like a wish fulfillment novel with some wacky sides to it. It's just so bad at one of it's main selling points ... the development. The plot I don't remember much about, I was a few hundred chapters in. Saw some factions getting introduced. The story was breaking in the larger picture but I didn't feel very motivated to read on. Also, I didn't think the witches were particularly well done. Don't remember why. When I want to read a kingdom building novel, I don't want it to resemble eleven year old me playing with Legos. I want to be able to buy into it, as if it could have happened in an alternative line of history. I mean, you've got to draw the line somewhere but Release that Witch puts the bar pretty low. It's a story off the fucking hinges.
Yeah, I guess the pacing was a little bit off. Unfortunately I don't think there was much the author could do about that without making it slower than Otoko Nara Ikkokuichijou no Aruji o Mezasa Nakya, ne?
Issues galore. The pacing a little off, that's what you took from it? No other possibility? I'll quote myself. It's possible. It requires effort from the author to select the pieces he wants in the story and put in together in a coherent manner. Tales of the Reincarnated Lord, while not perfect, did this part pretty well. Resources, supply and economy in general, education, a slight mentality shift and a tad of military innovation can be put together in a way that makes sense. Going too much into detail can hurt a story. Yet certain things cannot be omitted; supply lines are essential for armies and seem boring at first, but can play an important role in the plot. Example: TotRL shoves the development of carroballistae/cannons onto engineers, not himself. Lorist doesn't make weapon designs himself. He does make military research policy though! Because that's what an actual ruler does. In an actual kingdom. Which he's developing in a somewhat realistic way. The author shot himself in the foot in every possible way with the amount of development he wanted to push through. It can't be taken seriously. Quantity does not magically create quality. And Release that Witch doesn't show quality in any respect I know of. Let me phrase it this way. If I took this setting and GM'd a tabletop session in it, my players would look for a new GM. Then why is an author building a supposedly serious story in it? Or is it the author playing with his Legos?
Meh. What release that which was good for was displaying the various stages of industrialization in a short amount of time with some basic action added to the mix to keep a need to develop various things. The reason you I'm understanding you to dislike it for is the fact that everyone has a sudden shift in mentality as soon as they look at Roland to suddenly understand science and engineering, and totally give up their old way of living. The author just put enough explanation in to give you the idea that everyone is changing so quickly cause of various threats to them and whatnot. If the author were to have made everything happen at a slower pace, and make Roland an immortal god-king like he was playing civilization then I think you'd be okay with it. However, the issue comes back to the fact that everything happens too quickly. He makes advancements too quickly, he gains renown too quickly, he changes the population too quickly. The pacing is off. I think you read too little into what people are saying on the internet. I don't particularly have time to regurgitate every single point you make in your random paragraph when I'm trying to go home after work. But if you are an engineer, do you mind if I ask you some questions about certain things? Just let me know what field you are in so I can ask something within your area of expertise.
I'm saying it's terrible at portraying industrializaton. It does not reflect real life and history at all, in its practicalities. This alone is a dealbreaker for me, let alone everything else. It breaks immersion. Pacing is one part. You could call it the horizontal problem. Only, he shoves in hundreds of years of societal development through in like years. That's not a small pacing problem anymore. TotRL does way less advancement, spread out over tens of years and it feels more natural for it. The sheer breadth of the changes is the vertical problem. You can't let one character dabble in everything from chemistry to sociology to war. You can't expect to address every single aspect of a society in a novel. Again, this is the author making it impossible from the start. I can't see this story about building a nation as a success in any way. Then there's the way the protagonist handles the knowledge and tries to pass it on. It didn't feel realistic at all and slowing the pace wouldn't help. Apart from the premise being problematic already, this novel has a problem with execution on all fronts. What people are saying on the internet? That doesn't have anything to do with my opinion? What's this for? If you have a specific question to ask, ask. Maybe I know, maybe I don't. But chances are you'd be better off finding a historian if it's related to technology in the novel.
History doesn't really have too much to do with the second round of industrialization, other than as a guidebook. Getting society back to the level of the 1900's would only require a few decades if you had enough information stored to reference. As for what Roland himself did, he only designed a few machines that he remembered studying in post-secondary. Everything else was just given to the brightest minds he could find, and then he just gave them vague orders based on what he had studied in school. Personnel management was carried out by his minions, and he could skip a lot of steps due to the witches. To situation is too far away from earth's history to force it to match the timeline. The specific question I asked was what field of engineer are you? What is your specialization? I don't really care about the tech in the novel since I've already done quite a bit of research on it. Since you're an engineer I figured you'd be a good person to talk to for my other research topics.
A subfield of applied (numerical) mathematics. That is something I absolutely cannot agree on. You severely underestimate classical physics. The indigenous people in the novel miss all of the math, scientific concepts, context, mindset, etc. Knowledge does not mean understanding. The physical principles needed to design a steam engine encompass thermodynamics, mechanics, gas and fluid laws. Designing an efficient steam engine from scratch is something you could put decades into if starting from some vague instructions. If you had all relevant laws on paper, a nice textbook about it, but had to learn physics and most math from scratch, you wouldn't fare much better. There's multiple sorts of steam engines. You'd be stuck on material science. What will you use for grease? You can't just use any sort of grease. What sort of metal? Thickness of plates? How are the metal components made? Material science will play an essential role, practical experience is essential for reliable high-powered steam engines. And a steam engine is only one of the multiple technological advancements pushed through. Electricity is yet on another scale. It's insane to think it can be done in a few decades, let alone a few years. Practical problems everywhere. Not a problem in a novel like TotRL because it introduces less technology in the world over a longer period of time. Anyway, RtW makes light of science and technology. Makes light of resource procurement, management and supply.