High Porte (ETW building)
| High Porte | |
|---|---|
| Category: | Government |
| Form: | Absolute Monarchy |
| Level: | 5 |
| Turns to build: | 7 |
| Building cost: | 6000 |
| |
| Requires | |
 Sublime Porte | |
A palace that is almost beyond magnificent, intended to be the envy and amazement of the world.
All palaces are intended to overawe and intimidate those who seek an audience. The scale of everything is monumental and slightly inhuman, providing the ultimate stage for the public exercise of absolute power. This palace is the external realisation in marble and gold of the fundamental truth that here is a sovereign lord who has no limits: nothing is beyond his ambition. The entire resources of a state can be spent to create such a palace, if desired; if it costs a thousand lives, no matter. Within the walls, the palace is a world within a world, where official perquisites are jealously guarded and fought over, even as the officials scurry to carry out their master’s every wish.
Historically, buildings such as the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, Russia, and the High Porte, the private court of the Ottoman Sultans, were almost small towns in themselves. Their grandeur still inspires admiration and amazement, even today. From the Tsar and the Sultan downward, there was a strict hierarchy with everyone plotting and counter-plotting to keep or gain status. Even the servants “below stairs” had their own pecking order.
This building can only be built in the faction capital.