I am just curious to know if anyone has any information on wether or not we will be able to engage in the political side of the war. I personally would love to see political debates, and negotiations with other factions. Even power struggles within the factions would be an interesting dynamic. What do you guys/girls think?

That would be fantastic. I'd prefer a much subtler, backstabbery approach to PvP rather than just armies rushing around defending towers, but the MMO audience and their expectations do need to be appeased. Ideally we would have three methods of gaining power: with armies, with words or with a well-placed knife.

since we can't communicate with the other factions in any way, nor can we visit provinces that aren't part of our faction I doubt this will he a focus. It seems that this conflict will mostly focus on militirism, which is sad because those wrre good ideas you had.

There definitely seems to be some internal politicking going on in the Ebonheart Pact. They talk about Jorunn The Skald-King as the "de-facto" rule of the Pact but mention that all of his decisions have to be confirmed by the Moot.

http://elderscrollsonline.com/en/game-guide/alliances/ebonheart-pact

At the very least, there is serious potential for player involvement in politics. Whether they will implement this or not is still an open question.

Player politics won't exist because of the following:

Lack of player / guild owned land
No risk vs. reward
One faction cannot act as one identity
There's no real reason to parley with the enemy factions (its possible that you cannot even communicate with your enemies, the chances are 50/50).

Player politics would be an element the community would have to develop. Building alliances within factions, chopping up territory amongst guilds in a faction, what leadership role and authority the emperor would play for his/her faction, etc. Politics with other factions would be basic and primitive at best resulting in temporary alliances of convenience.

Well, nothing says that you can't communicate with players from another faction outside of official channels, if you want to coordinate for whatever reason. Politics is sly and shifty; where there's a will, there's a way, and anyone who ends up leading a faction (or gains the title of "emperor" over the whole game) will probably have to smart enough to find those ways, or no one will listen to what they have to say, regardless of their statistical advantages.

Maybe. If the game doesn't railroad lesser-ranked players into following their leader's commands, anyway (or if there are terms of service issues regarding giving out contact information to other players). I'm not sure how this kind of negotiation might be prevented, but "where there's a will, there's a way" works for the devs just as well as for the players, I guess.

You mean alliances with x number of players could vote for the next King when the King Selection is going on ?



IF Politics is in the game it might be that faction based player alliances who makes a lot of contributions to the PvP battles (realm). Might have a vote when King is voted/rised up to the platform.



Nom nom, we shall see.

What could be cool is, instead of crowning an emperor immediately, there is a list of notable heroes from the winning faction who could be voted into leadership. This of course would open up the possibility of bribing, campaigning, and backstabbery. Unfortunately, it seems like the title of emperor is something that shift easily, so putting a lot of effort into gaining votes would seem trivial. Maybe they could do this system inside your faction, like a player becomes the battlemaster of the faction and oversees all military action. It could work, so long as you are considered appointed to a position under the npc leaders.