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Nov 22, 2020
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3.975
Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule all space!
Britons never, never, never shall lose grace!


*ahem*

The basic gameplay idea is that this civic combines gameplay aspects of elections and hereditary rulers. You get to experience the "fun" parts of democracy, while not having to deal with the constant replacements of leaders that get themselves ceremoniously elected to office, or the hassle of finding them a new job once they get themselves unceremoniously removed from office. The main function of a Stellaris ruler (besides increasing edict duration) is to boost unity production, which is a task that a symbolic but relatively powerless ruler can do just as well as any other.


Requirements
  • Government authority must be either Democratic or Oligarchic
  • May not have fanatic egalitarian ethics
    (those blokes would not tolerate this, they are fanatics)
  • May not have any of the following civics: Corporate Dominion, Technocracy, Exalted Priesthood, Police State

Effects
  • Has a ruler, who rules for life and is succeeded by an heir, as under the imperial government authority.
    • The ruler and the heir cannot be the leader of any faction.
  • Has elections at normal intervals to decide the agenda/mandate of the government, but not replace the ruler.
    • The ruler and the heir are excluded from being election candidates.
    • The winning candidate becomes the governor of the capital sector.
      • This may necessitate limiting candidate eligibility to just governors.
      • It is not possible to fire or replace the capital governor.
      • If the capital governor dies, a new election is triggered.
      • If the capitol is relocated, the capital governor is moved to the new sector.
  • +5% stability
    • Balance reason:
      The civic must offer a tangible benefit for the civic slot investment, otherwise it would be an AI trap.
    • Thematic reason:
      Combining hereditary monarchies with democratically elected governments makes for unexpectedly stable democracies. Revolutionary populists cannot gain total power by just beating the "corrupt" opposition, they would also have to get rid of a beloved, unifying symbol of the nation.
  • Blocks the "Anti-Autocratic" faction approval bonus (+10) for the Egalitarian faction, without giving the penalty associated with failing it.
    • This prevents egalitarian pops potentially getting +10% happiness from faction approval, as the progressive faction can no longer reach 80%.
  • Blocks the "Anti-Democratic" faction approval penalty (-25) for the Totalitarian faction, without fulfilling the "Autocracy" faction approval bonus (+10).
    • This prevents authoritarian pops from dropping to -40% happiness from faction approval (they can still get -10% though).
  • Allows the civic "Philosopher King" to be picked.
  • Cosmectic effects
    • The game picks the same government type as it usually does, but replaces the ruler titles with "King" and "Queen" and the heir titles with "Crown Prince" and "Crown Princess" (from Irenic Monarachy).
    • The capital governor is called "Prime Minister", unless it is feasible to have them use the normal ruler title of the government type.
    • Alternatively, a new "Constitutional Monarchy" government type is added.

Some potential government/civic combinations:
  • Democratic + Constitutional Monarchy + Parliamentary System (the power rests with the people; Space Britain)
  • Oligarchic + Constitutional Monarchy + Aristocratic Elite (the power rests with the nobles, with the ruler essentially being merely first among equals)
  • Democratic + Constitutional Monarchy + Shadow Council (the constitutional division of power is merely a facade to placate the plebs)

Would this be fun?
Would this be balanced?
 
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What if the Prime Minster were the Core Sector Governor?

So it's basically just a locked Leader position -- which can only be filled via election -- but with a special Mandate bonus in addition to the regular Governor benefits.
 
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I like the implication that we should have different layers of government: head of state, executive and legislative (which could be just an alternative representation of the faction screen).

Yeah, I want that, as a prelude to an internal politics overhaul
 
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What if the Prime Minster were the Core Sector Governor?

So it's basically just a locked Leader position -- which can only be filled via election -- but with a special Mandate bonus in addition to the regular Governor benefits.
That would certainly be a neat way of emulating the position.

One issue that would need to be sorted out is what to do in the event of the Prime Minister's death. While the elegant solution would be to just trigger a new election, an option would be to instead allow the player to put another leader in the position to keep the current agenda/mandate going - it is common for governments to have a chain of succession in case of such events. But it would be weird if the successor was someone from an opposition faction, who had run in the last election with a different agenda/mandate, and given the low number of leaders it is likely that such weirdness would be common. Probably best to just hold a new election then.

A trickier issue is one of eligibility - assuming there is no new "Constitutional Monarchy" government type, should scientists, admirals and explorers be able to run for office if the government type allows them to do so? They could then end up effectively holding a governor position, and I am not at all sure how the game would handle that. Leaders get different traits as elected rulers, meaning that they have one set of traits for their main position and one set of traits for the ruler position, but I do not know if this means they have one set of traits for every position or if ruler traits are a special case. If it is the latter, the position of Prime Minister may have to be restricted to governors only.
 
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While the elegant solution would be to just trigger a new election,

That's what Oligarchies and Democracies do in the game right now, isn't it?

Yeah that's probably best.

If you added a new mechanic just for this authority, you'd have people asking why the other authorities didn't also use it.
 
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I'd rather see this as a form of Imperial Authority that gets Democratic traits instead of a Democratic/Oligarchic government that gets Imperial traits. Other than that, not a bad idea. This would arguably be rather powerful, but that is compensated by the opportunity cost of the civic slot so I'm not that concerned about that.
 
Hmm... I had my head somewhere in the Principate era Rome. Perhaps another civic then, like "Imperial Senate" to give imperial/dictatorial authorities the changing government function with changing agendas without the changing of leaders and essentially also to soothe any egalitarian factions. Kind of like the mirror civic for your suggestion ethically.
 
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I like your idea a lot, but I'd consider making a few changes.

  • First, how about naming the civic something like: Hereditary Head of State? Constitutional Monarchy would be the name of the government type you get when choosing this civic.
  • How about a slightly more complicated mechanic where a sub-leader position is created? Maybe something like how the United Kingdom is modeled in HoI4, where the kings are national spirits. Maybe under the government tab you'll find a section for the sub-leader. His traits (which would be actual ruler traits and not governor traits) affect the empire but only at a fraction - half maybe?
  • That been said given I'm not sure the monarch should be the leader and the Prime Minister the sub-leader. Then again, I'm not sure it should be the other way around. I'm just saying it's worth thinking it over.
 
A trickier issue is one of eligibility - assuming there is no new "Constitutional Monarchy" government type, should scientists, admirals and explorers be able to run for office if the government type allows them to do so? They could then end up effectively holding a governor position, and I am not at all sure how the game would handle that. Leaders get different traits as elected rulers, meaning that they have one set of traits for their main position and one set of traits for the ruler position, but I do not know if this means they have one set of traits for every position or if ruler traits are a special case. If it is the latter, the position of Prime Minister may have to be restricted to governors only.

Hm... When playing imperialist, the heir is shown beneath the current ruler. Im not to familia with the source code but how about not forcing the "prime minister" in any position like government, because that leads to some issues what you allready pointed out. Just slap the voted candidate beside the heir so we dont forget about him and let him practicly stay in candidate-pool-limbo for ever. Done! The civic would then only need a smale UI change in addition to the rest.

A and a little question to you dear sir... Why can't i have my police state? Nearly got yourself a "respectfully disagreed" there.
Jokes aside, i like the idea of the civic a lot ^^