Alright, so this is not a dev diary per se, but i just wanted to let you guys know what we stand on. Right now we are working on fully featured and complex parliamentary system, with different ethos based parties running for both executive (ruler elections, as in vanilla but instead of the generic Loyalists factions) and legislative (completely new mechanic) elections. Pops will join parties based on their ethos and other factors. Each party will have two unique mandates (and the generic ones as well). The legislative system will make it so that policy changes, war declarations and federation joining will need to be accepted by the parliament composed of MPs elected by your pops (we are planning 3 different election systems). Each party will of course have their own agenda - for example, the Traditionalist party will oppose you giving citizen rights to AI, and the Internationalist party will push for greater rights for non-primary species pops. Furthermore, when the power balance is tipped in favor of the parliament, the parties will not only vote on the policy changes proposed by the player, but also will propose their own changes - players will have to agree with the vote results, which will make governing a democratic country harder and more interesting. The player will have some tools to limit the power of the parliament, but each of them has their drawbacks - we wouldn't want to fall into a dictatorship, would we? Not all democracies will have the parliament (eg. the Direct Democracy will have the Direct Vote mechanics, which is 100% finished, instead), and the parliament mechanic won't be the same for each democracy - the Indirect Democracy will have the most robust version.
Progress is being made, with 10 out of 16 parties finished and with groundwork laid for the other systems. I expect to finish in a couple of weeks, provided that I won't be buried under schoolwork.
Take care guys
