Some ideas:
- A drastic increase in the number of traits, positive and negative, so that Leaders are more unique, memorable and interesting. In the same vein, more dynamic traits: admirals / generals may receive unique traits when fighting in wars in various circumstances, rulers may receive traits based on things that happen while they are in charge, faction leaders may gain traits based on events (ie. losing an offensive war may cause the militarist faction leader to become more radical, or the pacifist faction leader to become more vocal).
- Leaders should have ethics.
- Remove the requirement that you have to manually assign Leaders. All positions will be automatically filled by an auto-generated Leader. You can override this selection to a preferred candidate from a much larger Leader Pool using Influence.
- The Leader pool for Governors / Rulers should be expanded, and should be generated in a random, weighted way based on the characteristics of your worlds. Having a heavy commercial-focus will tend to generate business-type Leaders, for example.
- Separate Faction Leaders out so that they aren't always randomly picked from your Scientists / Governors / Admirals (although they can be).
- I also firmly believe the Leaders should be generated from real worlds, and have a "homeworld". This could be a dynamic trait that provides them some bonuses based on where they grew up.
What would people like to see reworked?
Interactions, not numbers or traits.
More and bigger numbers aren't what capture interest over time. More traits might offer more min-maxing potential, if traits were something we had some control over rather than RNG, but once the decision is made there's little to care about until the next time you need to choose a leader. Which- in half the government types- is never, and in the other half is almost-never due to the high influence cost.
What would leaders more interesting is if they engaged and interacted in more mechanics- and with eachother- more often. In any internal-politics overhaul, something more than just the current ethics-faction weighting chance, but things like 'Science Leader Y (with these traits) wants you to chance a focus/do something else)', with cost benefits. Like, say, focusing on a specific tech now, but getting a reward later, be it extra science/faction happiness/leader XP etc.
Similarly, a leader-to-leader inter-personal diplomacy mechanic would be nice, seperate from the current Envoy system. Where the Envoys represent your state's diplomatic corps, this would represent an your ruler's personal interest and focus, internally or externally, with occasional events as a result that are tied to the target-leader of your focus.
Internally, Ruler Engagement could be both a leader development program and a faction-management system, since leaders serve as the faction heads. Making anyone the target for Ruler Engagement would provide a bonus to that leader and their job set, representing your ruler's favoritism or focus. These could be various and include common bonuses anyone would get, or specific bonuses only certain rulers in certain systems would get, including things like-
-(All) Increased XP gain, reduced upkeep.
-(If Faction Leader) Increased faction happiness +5;
-(If State Ethics Faction Leader) Increased ethics attraction
-(If non-State Ethics Faction Leader) Faction unhappiness decreased by 5 (negates a penalty, not an addition)
And for specific job types-
(Governor) Increased Ruler Outputs
(Researcher) Minor increase to research boost/mitigation to sprawl penalties
(Science Ship) +1 skill level to all jobs
(Admiral) Increased fleet recovery time
(General) Decreased war weariness from land battles
But also Government-type specific boosts, which could have costs and benefits
(Democracy) - Endorsement: Boosts chance of engaged leader to win election,
but effect depends on planetary happiness and factional considerations (is target ruling coalition ethics, etc.), and creates bigger risk of negative effects if you use Influence to further tip the scales
(Oligarchic) - Scratch-My-Back: Target gets a higher chance of being elected/reduced influence cost to support, and gets bigger bonuses (faction and otherwise),
but 'locks in' your support for much longer and angers the faction if changed before the next election.
(Dictatorship) - Heir-Apparent: Stronger bonuses and makes the target the most likely to win election,
but comes with a coup-risk in which any significant setback or failure (including colony destruction, war loss or even white peace in an aggressive war, etc.) can trigger an unscheduled leadership transition
(Empire) - Co-Emperor: Not only greatly increases XP growth, but allows the Heir's perks/traits to start benefiting the empire,
but has increased risk of ethics deviation (or maybe just increased ethics change rate, but not affecting attraction), and if ethics are too divergent the Heir could spark a civil war akin to a Dictatorship coup but splitting the standing navy and some sectors
(Hive Mind/Machine Gestalts) - Hyper-Focused/Efficient: Greatly increases the benefit of the leader in question, but increases admin sprawl and/or the effect of Admin Sprawl on the entire empire
All of these could/should have some events that pop up every few years- mostly for flavor but some modest choices and rewards for role play
But that would be all internal, since you could
also try external engagement.
External engagement would be like an envoy for diplomatic improvement purposes, but rely more on context-dependent events that provide unique opportunities than number-based boosts. These could/should spark reach-out dialogue (similar to insults, but not insults) framed as between the rulers of empires, offering boosts to diplomacy, increasing the effects of existing diplomatic aggrements, and even influence-free diplomatic agreements or opportunities to affect ethics and governments if relations are high.
Things could include-
(All) Diplomatic Partner: Greatly reduced diplomatic agreement influence costs with target empire
(If Migration Pact) Swap Dissidents: If both parties have pops with ethics opposed to the government but compatible with the other (ie miliarist and pacifist), pay a cost for a 1-for-1 swap
(If Research Agreement) Joint Research: If both parties have a tech the other has researched, can agree to a special project that combines the costs of both, uses the research of both, and gives both techs to both empires
(If Guaranteed Independence) Military Enabler: The weaker power gets a discount to armament, and the stronger power gets Influence
(If Non-Aggression Pact) Trust-Building Measure: The other power may propose another diplomatic agreement even if they wouldn't accept one at this time
(If Defense Pact) Military Sales: Empire offers to sell ships to other empire below cap
But also have events based on differing ethics/governments-
(Facilitating ethics switch): If one empire has enough ethics to embrace a faction aligned with the partner (and if the AI would do so anyway), an event that lets the other partner to support the transition. Agreeing saves the ethics-changer influence, and spending differing amounts of resources provides different effects. IE, spend an envoy for a year, but increase the ethics attraction. Provide energy or minerals, and more pops switch. Etc.
(Facilitating government switch) If the Player or AI would reform government, an event offers an incentive to align with the Ruler-engaging partner, or even opportunities normally not available if the partner is willing to pay the cost. So a player could bribe a civic-reforming AI to match their government, with a cost ranging from energy or favors to influence for things letting a Democracy reform straight into an empire.
(Recruiting Dissidents): Chance to gain Assets for espionage operations from the target's ethics dissidents
Or be based on the empires ethics/government type, with benefits for a time-
Militarist: Military Liasons. Gives military intelligence on each other (bad if they'd attack you), but gives passive military leader XP gain.
Pacifist: Conflict resolution mechanisms. Decreases diplomatic
and faction opinion penalties.
Materialist: Robot schematic exchange. Reduced cost of pop assembly.
Spiritualist: Missionaries. Increases amenities, and spiritualist attraction.
Genocide: Saving you for last. Mechanically raises your perceived power level/lowers the perceived power level of other empires, guiding the AI-genocide civ to prioritize attacking other empires over you (if possible). They'll still kill you, because it's not like they're saving you for last because they like you or anything, baka.
Etc. etc. etc. The key in this isn't the mechanics themselves, but that they serve as flavor-text pop-ups that reward roleplay and engagement.
