My personal list for this niche genre of novels - will be adding as I read. Charisma and leadership do not come easy, but they sure as hell come naturally for these protagonists. Charismatic MCs with significant focus on character and ability growth, kingdom / army / career development & management, and/or wholesome friendships / brotherhood. Romance (if any) will only be subplots, not the main focus. I've put short descriptions and summaries of every novel, plus my thoughts on them.... more>>

Arranged from best > worst > boring reading experience. I change my ratings often. Feel free to recommend more or point out any mistakes in my sorting of this list. Cheers!

*[CC] - Collecting Companions, aka collecting and raising loyal companions. Brotherhood, friendship, blablabla. [CC] focuses more on picking up and raising companions without necessarily having to develop a full kingdom/empire.

*[KB] - Kingdom Building. I'll use this abbreviation as a general umbrella term for anything to do with (insert noun)-building and management. [KB] by association would also include raising the people in that empire/kingdom, but the novels focus more on the development/management part. <<less

Just novels that I've liked. Mostly story driven with minimal romance.

I have re-read some of them and still enjoy them

Been in a hunt for similar premise ever since I read that novel, so here we go

Collection of kingdom buildings that  I read or intend to read till the end 

Not sorted  ranking,

MC has an extraordinary journey, as ordinary people to become the ruler of a country or organization. Only one female protagonist or at least no... more>> more than two girlfriends, many little brothers, kingdom and empire, knight and soldier, experimental object and s*ave, master and disciple, god and demon, and so on. <<less

This contains the bottom of the main list, All Novels I've Read Sorted By Rating! It was reaching the max limit so I've moved the stories rated 3 Stars and below and all the dropped novels here.... more>>

I have made a review and rating for every novel I've read on novelupdates. Since they don't have the user friendly capability of sorting a user's read list by rank I made one for myself ordered by best/enjoyed the most to least. The ranking within the same number of stars may not be right because it is usually from different genres, too different to compare with each other haha. Also, I didn't bother to ranked the dropped stories because I don't want to waste brainpower on that. So if I didn't give a rating, I won't sort it.

The other weaker alternative is the Reviews section in my profile but it can only be sorted by likes and date of review not by rank. The reason I want to put my rating and reviews straight in the list is because you can't search for a specific user's review in the novel page if there are too many reviews. You will have to search one by one. Its easier to straight up  see why I put the novel in a particular list plus my review in the list itself. Sigh, novelupdates is really not user friendly. <<less

List of novels in my To Read list for my favourite trope, rags to riches! To my best guess anyway since I haven't read them XD. Also usually slice of life. ... more>>

I'll also put what made me want to pick the story up. Just be warned that I will delete the story from the list after I've read so the list will frequently change. I like to view the cover art of the book, and be able to see a lot of novel details on the list in one place instead of having to click to the web novel page. I also include any translation detail like where to find them if they aren't on novelupdates so I can read the whole story without getting stuck halfway because of no translations. Not in any particular order but I try to put similar novels, either in expected tropes or vibes together. And the incompleted ones at the back.  Recommendations are very welcome! <<less

BL novels where there is a focus on creating infrastructure!

I have made a review and rating for every novel I've read on novelupdates. Since they don't have the user friendly capability of sorting a user's read list by rank I made one for myself ordered by best/enjoyed the most to least. The ranking within the same number of stars may not be right because it is usually from different genres, too different to compare with each other haha. All in one spot. The bottom of the list that are my lower rated and unranked/dropped novels, I have moved to  a new list "All Novels I've Read Sorted By Rating (3 Stars & Below + Dropped)" due to a list only having a max of 100. The... more>> other weaker alternative is the Reviews section in my profile but it can only be sorted by likes and date of review not by rank. The reason I want to put my rating and reviews straight in the list is because you can't search for a specific user's review in the novel page if there are too many reviews. You will have to search one by one. Its easier to straight up  see why I put the novel in a particular list plus my review in the list itself. Sigh, novelupdates is really not user friendly.

PS: I've made another list to put all the novels I've read rated 3 Stars and below and all the dropped novels because this list is getting long. In the future, this will be basically my Top 100 list. The others will be from ranked 101 onwards. <<less

All about farming, kingdom building, good foods- + romance. This type of novels you won't get tired of reading and makes me hungry asf.

This is a list of all the kingdom building novels I have read over the years.  To be clear, this list can include building a... more>> town, army, clan, or other forms that fit the kingdom building concept.  I will give some quick thoughts, how far I have read, and a rating so far. <<less

Novels which are still in MTL (high-readability, guaranteed minimum brain cell mortality) and not yet translated:... more>>

- Bulgarian Empire (same author of Holy Roman Empire)
- Holy Roman Empire (60 chapters translated, the rest just go to MTL, high quality MTL is the reason translators didn't bother to translate it in the first place)
- Rise of Rurik (thank you Zurdonx for recommendation)
(More will be updated later) <<less

Any recommendations are very welcome! All the family/village/kingdom building poor to rich, wealth making business type of stories I've read because this is one of... more>> my favourite tropes of all time! Including any business management! (Just discovered there is a tag for it haha) Its just that usually its not done very well or only the kingdom building is good and the characters and scaling is so bad its not enjoyable to read anymore. The stories included will have things like improving the quality of life of the village/kingdom, introducing modern advancements into an ancient/medieval culture type of place. And with likeable characters to keep you going. I'll only include the novels where I read 100% of it or most of it. Probably won't include any dropped novels. <<less

Are you interested in reading novels with a great plot and have no romance or harem? ... more>>

Then, this is the place you are looking for! I can guarantee you that the novel in this recommendation list is what you are looking for!

Also, if you want, you can also follow this list for more new stories that will be added here in the future! 

Btw, you can also recommend to me a shounen story without romance and harem in the comment section if you want. <<less

Amazing reads that wil stay with u forever. Enjoy!!

No description.

Any kind of influence building like kingdom, clan ,buisness, gang,  secret organisation, etc, is considered.... more>>

Novels aren't ranked, so ignore the ranking. <<less

Works that I've read and recommend for interesting moments or examples of worldbuilding in their chosen setting, mostly fantasy or xianxia. How do people live and do work there? How does magic shape society, politics, logistics and the environment? What are the consequences that magic and users of it have on the world around them?... more>>

I'll be adding to it as I continue to read. <<less

No description.

Best world/kingdom/empire/clan building I've read so far.... more>>

No harem/gl/bl/smut/ecchi.

Not Ranked. <<less

These are the novels I like with male protagonists. ... more>>

No romance so far. Once it has, I'll remove it from the list.

Feel free to recommend one.

PS. Not ranked. <<less

Another story is: "Tyranny of Steel" The story progress something like Release That Witch. MC makes Austria become a power house by introducing gun technology... more>> in an era of cold weapon. Some reader says its unacceptable since MC does not have super power like the witches in Release That Witch but the author keep mentioning the MC have an almost photographic memory and he is an engineering soldier who focus on technology knowledge. Warning: MC is grooming his teenage fiancé to be his wife. There are s*x scenes too. (Recommended but with warning: Adult/Mature tag.)  <<less

Plot heavy