The First Age of Empires

When an empire is formed, there are certain things that are needed for it to flourish. Food and water supplies. A strong central government with a good leader to direct that government. Relations with other empires. Another thing is the military. Without a military, the empire can't grow and expand. So how can the empire do well in the world without a military, or with a weak military? Well, firstly, the empire would stay how it is. In other words, it would not expand, especially if there were neighboring empires near it. Another danger of having a weak military is the danger of a rebellion. A civil war is the last thing that you want when you have a weak military. The main government would most likely be attacked, and would have nobody to defend them. However, an empire could also have a strong military. They could have a strong one that protects them from the other empires nearby, but also stops the people inside from starting a rebellion. This flow chart should help you visualize what I am talking about:

So, lets go a little bit more in depth about what we are talking about here to give you a better idea of how important a military is to a growing empire.
Firstly, lets go in depth about how a military would affect an economy and affect an empire's relations with other empires. So lets make a hypothetical scenario here. Lets call the empire in question, "empire X." Empire X has just gotten a strong leader, has a constant source of food and water, and even has a nearby source of minerals and ores. Empire X is doing great, until one day, the people of this empire decide that they want to expand their land more so that overpopulation can't become a possibility one day. The government of Empire X sends out scouts to the north, south, east, and west, to see how the land is in each direction. All four scouting parties come back, and have the same report. "There are already people there, living in their own communities and empires." Empire X can attempt to expand peacefully, however, this would make it so that there is a risk that the parties sent to have peaceful relations with the people could be killed. So what do the people living in Empire X doe? Empire X made one mistake, and that is that they didn't have a military. If they had a military, then they could have taken the chance that these new people didn't want to or wanted to fight.
So lets start a new scenario. Empire X is once again trying to expand, but this time, they have a small army beginning to form. They have a bunch of soldiers, with camps throughout their empire. Once again, they sound out the scouts, and the scouts say, "There are already people there." Empire X can now send out scouts to the new empire, with the reassurance that they have a small army ready in case of violence. Lets call this new empire, "empire Z." Empire Z sees the scouts and soldiers coming, take it as a threat, and attack. Empire Z, unlike Empire X, has a large army, which took many years to make. They then raid the capital of Empire X and take over. (If you are having a hard time finding what is happening, here are a few images to help):

So, lets start a third, final scenario. In this time, Empire X has built up a military more, and has a very large army ready. They have many soldiers, ready to die for their empire. So, once again, the scouts go, the scouts return, the soldiers and scouts go. But this time, Empire Z does not realize that Empire X has a large army. Empire X attacks, takes over most of Empire Z, and this is where the our final battle scenario ends.

So. Empire X has now grown to a great size. But what we haven't talked about is how this all relates back to the economics of the empire, like we said before the battle scenarios. Economics are something that are of great importance to most people, so how do these two important things, economics and military, get intertwined? Well, it starts with how Empire X deals with Empire Z back in the scenarios. They have three choices:
1: Kick the people that are in Empire Z out of the land that they took
2: Make the people that Empire X took from Empire Z into slaves and have them work for Empire X
3: Live with the people of Empire Z and combine cultures with them.
Looking at these three, its hard to tell which one would benefit the economics of our growing empire. But if you think about it, all three of these have promising benefits. Lets start with option one. Option one states that the people of Empire Z will be kicked out of the land that was taken. This will cause only the inhabitants of Empire X to live there. At first glance, this seems like a good choice, but then you realize that this causes no change in economics, and only gets rid of the risk of overpopulation. Option two states that the people of Empire Z will be slaves for Empire X. This looks like it would be the best, and it would benefit Empire X by not having to worry about spying in option three. On top of that, it is free labor for the people of Empire X. However, if Empire X goes with option three, they will have more people in their empire, and while they will have to pay for the labor occurring, there are two more things happening. There is cultural diffusion, or the spread of ideas, and there is also new trade routes being opened to Empire X. They now know the trade routes that Empire Z had, and can interact better with other empires.
So there you have it. Empire X's land is bigger, they have more people, and more trade routes. And it all leads back to the fact that they had a better army. But how could Empire X have improved their empire more? Could it be an even greater military? Or could it be a better education? Or even a better government system? Some of these things we may never find out the answer to. But one thing is for sure. A better military can lead to the rise of great empires, and lead to them doing amazing things.