Carthage and plutocratic republics

[Nominus]

I thought that a plutocratic gouverment would fit Carthage the most initially, but there are mutiple problems:

There are no co-rulers in plutocratic republics, neither are there co-rulers in oligarchic repbulics. Carthage was a trade-republic, mostly ruled by noble citizens and had co-rulers, so I'm not sure which gouverment type fits the most here.

For me eventually senate-approval just spirals to 20-30 and basically stays there. Sometimes I get lucky and manage to get more than 60 approval. This is due to negative modifiers being twice as high as positive ones, also 2/3 factions are not statisfied that the current Suffet is not of their faction. Then the senate has contrary agendas (which is fine): One faction wants to desecrate shrines and demote cultures, the other wants to spam integration of cultures and another one wants to declare wars and sink PI into random investments.
This is also due to a spiral mechanic: High tyranny means less senate approval, which mean lower stability, which mean lower senate approval, which means more tyranny...

Can you help me out here? How can I keep high faction approval/senate approval as plutocratic Carthage and is there a way to have a more "Carthtaginian" gouverment type?

 

[alvaro]

In the senate tab you see the parties and under the picture of the leader their current political goal. Fulfill the goals to get support for each party always looking at the different weights they have in the parliament. Sometimes they come with idiotic goals as segregating some integrated minorities or burning holy places that would piss off your vassals.
and stay away of tirany as much as you can if you do not enjoy civil wars every 5 years I find anything below 5% is safe with a decent stability.

 

[Limbojack]

Rush for the lifetime election law. Once you've got that, you should sit on a comfortable 75+ senatorial approval for the rest of the game while ignoring the faction agendas completely.

 

[olivenkranz]

In the senate tab you see the parties and under the picture of the leader their current political goal. Fulfill the goals to get support for each party always looking at the different weights they have in the parliament. Sometimes they come with idiotic goals as segregating some integrated minorities or burning holy places that would piss off your vassals.
and stay away of tirany as much as you can if you do not enjoy civil wars every 5 years I find anything below 5% is safe with a decent stability.

I thought that a plutocratic gouverment would fit Carthage the most initially, but there are mutiple problems:

There are no co-rulers in plutocratic republics, neither are there co-rulers in oligarchic repbulics. Carthage was a trade-republic, mostly ruled by noble citizens and had co-rulers, so I'm not sure which gouverment type fits the most here.

For me eventually senate-approval just spirals to 20-30 and basically stays there. Sometimes I get lucky and manage to get more than 60 approval. This is due to negative modifiers being twice as high as positive ones, also 2/3 factions are not statisfied that the current Suffet is not of their faction. Then the senate has contrary agendas (which is fine): One faction wants to desecrate shrines and demote cultures, the other wants to spam integration of cultures and another one wants to declare wars and sink PI into random investments.
This is also due to a spiral mechanic: High tyranny means less senate approval, which mean lower stability, which mean lower senate approval, which means more tyranny...

Can you help me out here? How can I keep high faction approval/senate approval as plutocratic Carthage and is there a way to have a more "Carthtaginian" gouverment type?

I actually found (in an Thens run) that going 100% tyranny is amazingly fun. You need the faction that likes tyranny to always have at least 31 seats. Then you can ignore tyranny (which will boost their opinion of you) and if in a pinch just give them holdings. You'll be at 35+-5 approval and gain around 10 Tyranny for aech diplomatic interaction, but who cares. You got the minimal 30 approval to do stuff.

 

[alvaro]

something I haven't quite found out is how to influence the number of seat in the senate

 

[TheBrilliantBoolean]

Making friends and instituting laws can also help and there are government interactions you can use to help you out, typically taking a break from conquest to consolidate your position is worth. Granting holdings and free hands can be used to stabilise support from the oligarchs and traditionalists (or whatever they are called). In general just keep it slow and try to keep the party heads loyal it usually sorts itself out eventually.

 

[Ktqrq]

One faction is supposed to always have around 100~ approval, the 2nd will have it between 30-70 and the 3rd will always have it 0, don't try to appease the 3rd factions, just expand influence and approval of the other 2 at the expense of the 3rd party, which should be either oligarchs or populists because they are mutually exclusive. If you want to increase influence of a party in the senate, you need to increase power base of its members. Make their members governors, grant them offices and make them command armies and navies. Navy in particular can give a lot of power base to a single admiral. When you are small and don't have many territories, most of the powerbase is concentrated in the capital because of how economically developed it is, but the other territories are poor and too tiny to significantly affect the power base. Because of this whoever gets elected gets huge power base boost and thus boosts his party because now he is not only the ruler but also the governor of the richest and most populated part of the nation.

 

[Herennius]

something I haven't quite found out is how to influence the number of seat in the senate

It depends on mainly powerbase (which transforms into senat influence) and who holds them: Make sure that members of faction you want to boost hold offices.

Keep in mind though that there are some special rules:
- Generals get no to only very small senate influence (reason: no Generals with Legions allowed in the capital of Republican Rome historically)
- Governors have a severe penalty to it as well ("being away far from capital too often")
- Admirals OTOH hand have 100% (immersion breaking, but done that way for balance reasons - if they would follow the same rule as Generals, you could easily "dispose" powerbase-heavy characters that way...)

The latter can be also abused together with the fact that mercs with their powerbase aren't exempted from gaining senate influence...just hire some pirate fleet captains supporting the "right" faction...

 

[Reckiario]

Faction politics could use a full rework to make the game reach some of its potential. I like the basic mechanics a lot, but there is lack of depth everywhere. I assume that will come with more dlcs. By the way, i played Epirus and Rhodes like 100 times already since the day the game was out. Some states are not challenging, and some others are just boring. Conquest for the sake of conquest is not fun for me. There has to be much more.

 

[olivenkranz]

Faction politics could use a full rework to make the game reach some of its potential. I like the basic mechanics a lot, but there is lack of depth everywhere. I assume that will come with more dlcs. By the way, i played Epirus and Rhodes like 100 times already since the day the game was out. Some states are not challenging, and some others are just boring. Conquest for the sake of conquest is not fun for me. There has to be much more.

Dont know if you tried, but I personally like Athens and Heracle Pontica. Rhodes is fun too, Epirus I have little experience so far.

 

[juanpacirca]

something I haven't quite found out is how to influence the number of seat in the senate

It depends on mainly powerbase (which transforms into senat influence) and who holds them

The contribution of the characters holding the highest powerbase can be checked when hovering over the number of seats of each faction in the government tab. In my current game, I switched to dictatorship with the peaceful option (Request line of succession) by getting 80 seats for the oligarchs. Basically, to increase the number of seats of one faction, you just need to give all jobs to members of that faction. If you run out of characters, make sure that the powerbase of other faction members with government positions is very low (no family heads). In 1.5 it was more difficult to get rid of these characters, as you needed to bring them to trial. However, now, if you get the espionage invention, you can send them to another country for a mere 100 gold.