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You're a new writer and you just want to tell the story. You don't care about the landscape or politics, and you think it's perfectly acceptable since they won't be mentioned anyway.

WRONG.

Think back to the classics, the books that you love so dearly and want to be able to write like. Narnia. Middle Earth. These places had rich and detailed worlds. Sure, they had original and unique plots and characters, but the major thing in these stories were the places that the characters went to. Everyone remembers Morder.
Don't skimp out on worldbuilding just because it's a bit of extra work. It can make or break a story, especially if your characters travel, and no matter how much work worldbuilding is, it can be incredibly fun and give your work a new sense of depth. Sure, maybe you don't say anywhere in the story that the MC's homeland is on the brink of civil war, but maybe your MC is tenser because of that and their tenseness affects how they react to things. Here are a few things you might want to consider when it comes to building up the world for your story:

idea GEOGRAPHY: Let's start by saying that our world is not built around us. Why should a fictional land be any different? Create the world first. Make mountains, dig valleys, fill oceans, cook deserts, freeze the poles. If it helps, you can draw maps or build scale models. Now that you've got your base world, start setting up the countries. Remember that communication is adjacent to the time period and technology available--if you're writing a medieval setting, then your characters are not going to be able to communicate very well because all they'll have is pen and paper and snail mail takes a while.
Geography affects how a country develops. If there is a mountain range in between two countries, then those two countries may be radically different from each other. Inversely, if two countries have nothing seperating them except a border line, then they may have similar cultures and languages--there's nothing there to prevent the two countries mixing. Which leads us directly into--

idea CULTURE: Every country/ethnicity has their own culture, belief system, mythology, ect. Even ones with mixing will be slightly different--this difference may be something as big as belief in a different god or pantheon of gods or as minor as the style of dress and speech. You need to make sure that these cultures are believable. How does skin color/religious beliefs/language affect how two cultures interact? You can have countries get along politically well and be cultural firebombs at the same time.

idea POLITICS: There are more types of government out there than monarchy and dictatorship. There are republics and democracies and army-states and all sorts of shades inbetween. Why not try picking three or four different governments and seeing how they work together? Sure, maybe one country is a monarchy, but maybe the two next to it are a democracy and a socialist army-state. How does the geography affect how they get along? Political tension can add a whole new aspect to an otherwise mundane and overused plot--what kind of red tape does your traveling band of do-gooders encounter crossing from one country into the next? What are the diplomatic relations at the time and how would this affect how your characters interact?

Finally, please keep in mind that this article is not fact--it is advice. I am not saying that you should or need to do your worldbuilding this way--I am saying that if you are new to this process, here are a few helpful hints to get you started.

Now, just so this doesn't become a closed topic, I'll put up a few things to discuss.
-Why is worldbuilding considered difficult, in your opinion?
-Do you worldbuild at all? If so, how do you do it and is it effective?
-Do you think that the world could be considered a major part of storytelling? If so, what does it rank in importance--high or lower than plot, characters, ect.?
-If you've done it before, what's your favorite part of worldbuilding?

It's not really difficult for me, maybe because I've written so many world-tastic novels before. I do it all the time, and it's horribly important to me -- if I can't get my character's basic society in, it's not going to be realistic.

And, as Riddle already knows, I ******** love politics.

And monocles.

And medicine-induced comas.

THEY'RE TOO AMAZED BY SHINY HAIR AND MONEY TO GIVE OUT A TICKET







Er. *stops spamming up Jazz's thread.*

Worldbuilding is allegedly difficult because to do it, you'll actually have to know a few things. You'll have to understand how other societies have developed to really figure it out. You feel obligated to analyze the effects of government, economy, culture. That just takes too damned long.

I world-build very little, since I'm more of a realist gal, myself. I think that if one is making fantasy, though, they aren't really good at it until they have some form of a world under their feet, but it isn't the top of the list. Characters and plot definitely top it.

When I made my own world, it helped me a lot on dialogue. I played things out, combined existng cultures from now and back then, and ******** with them until they crumbled. It was extremely helpful in characterization as well. And my history class, believe it or not.

Damn tootin'. I'm even willing to accept the not-quite-as-typical Victorian settings, which make me long for people whose idea of the time is a little more advanced than "corsets and outfits out of Rozen Maiden".

It doesn't have to mimic real life exactly, but it's always good to understand how things work. Try researching it a bit.