Proposal(s) for Victoria 3
- Thread starter Pellaken
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One thing I would like to see is more political action in Africa, including more African states. To get around the "period of empire and nation building cut short by the Euros" problem, I'd say that protectorates ala Botswana should be represented as vassals, and that African states who are in the line of fire can seek this status out proactively. Although if you have loftier ambitions, the Ethiopians managed to turn things around to the point of holding off the Europeans within the game's timeframe. For the other side of the equation, an "abolition of slavery" CB to make annexing African countries politically. No, this won't have give you any actual obligation to abolish slavery in the territory you conquer.
More African states is definitely something that Victoria 3 needs to add, as there is only like 7 independent nations in Western, Eastern and Southern Africa, with only Sokoto and Liberia in Western Africa. I see an issue being how they display nations that are smaller than 1 state, possibly bringing back a system to display OPM's.
That sounds like a good idea but I worry this would then just turn into endless vassal management for the European Powers.
I would definitely would would back expanded options for un-westernised nations that do westernise, as aside from Japan, Victoria 2 doesn't have much content for uncivs to work with post westernisation. I'd say that what CB's these nations get would depend on how the justification system and infamy work in Victoria 3. Just justifying a make concession CB gives little infamy for the land you would take. Also, I can't find any wars that were fought to abolish slavery outside the American Civil War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slavery_and_serfdom#1830–1849
That being said, fleshing out treaties and allowing treaties on the banning of the slave trade could be interesting, as many nations signed them during the Victorian Era.
Oh, I never said they were actually fought to abolish slavery. Just that King Leopold II, among others, used the continued existence of African slavery to justify their landgrabs in Africa as a humanitarian campaign to free those poor Africans from bondage.
To minimise vassal management Vic3 could let large vassals, like dominions, manage small vassals, like protectorates. Players could conquer protectorates but then assign them to dominions to keep things manageable.
Eg. Britain would start with the British East India Company as a vassal, and the British East India Company has dozens of Indian Princely States as vassals.
Eg. Britain would start with the British East India Company as a vassal, and the British East India Company has dozens of Indian Princely States as vassals.
Good point. Missed that as one of his reasons. Just though he'd conned the African tribes into signing over their land by getting them to sign documents in Flemmish, a language none of them spoke.
That sounds like an interesting idea but I'm just concerned that this would cause issues that I couldn't fix easily, such as my vassals AI messing up and causing issues in their vassals. One idea would be to pass the interactions with vassals and satellites to the sphering system, as I'd back more nuance and control with what happens in my nations sphere.
Yes, the relationship between protectorate and dominion would need to be constrained to prevent the AI from causing headaches for the player's mother country. You could make protectorates an end point in the sphering process. e.g. protectorates can't DOW or join any other alliances than yours, they territory is considered your territory for the purpose of military access, etc. Maintaining protectorates and dominions could use up influence but you get an influence discount depending how integrated they are. That sort of thing.
I don't think colonial protectorates would be that common. Full annexation and direct rule was the usual approach.
A fair point, for Paradox Games I think that "it's historical" is an overrated as a reason to make a gameplay mechanic (the reason should first and foremost be that it makes the game better!) However, I wouldn't say that indirect rule was uncommon. The British and French maintained protectorates of many large, nominally sovereign states. In Victoria II these states would be represented best as sitting at the end of the sphering process rather than annexed states or territories.
"A princely state, also called native state, feudatory state or Indian state (for those states on the subcontinent), was a vassal state under a local or indigenous or regional ruler in a subsidiary alliance with the British Raj.... At the time of the British withdrawal, 565 princely states were officially recognised in the Indian subcontinent, apart from thousands of zamindari estates and jagirs. In 1947, princely states covered 40% of the area of pre-independence India and constituted 23% of its population."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princely_state
"The first period of British rule (1882–1914) is often called the "veiled protectorate". During this time the Khedivate of Egypt remained an autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire, and the British occupation had no legal basis but constituted a de facto protectorate over the country. Egypt was thus not part of the British Empire."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Egypt_under_the_British
"In 1886, Britain embarked on a slow formalisation of protection arrangements that included over 30 major treaties of protection with the last signed only in 1954... Aden with its harbour was the only area under full British sovereignty"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aden_Protectorate
"The Kenya Protectorate was established on 13 August 1920 when the territories of the former East Africa Protectorate which were not annexed by the UK were established as a British Protectorate."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenya_Colony
"The federation lasted until 21 July 1954. In the four protectorates, the French formally left the local rulers in power, who were the Emperors of Vietnam, Kings of Cambodia, and Kings of Luang Prabang, but in fact gathered all powers in their hands, the local rulers acting only as figureheads."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Indochina
You'd have to make the call individually for a lot of these. I would definitely give it to Egypt and the princely states, Aden seems to basically have operated as a princely state, so it gets it too. Kenya was partially annexed. I'd say French Indochina should be represented as directly annexed, as the local rulers were pure figureheads.
Well, if it's V3 stuff, then having a sliding scale would be good, where we no longer immediately turn a colony into a protectorate 1-2 after the 90 days of colonization is up. It should require more and more influence or cash or military to get higher levels of control - and the balance books need to show if the amount of squeeze is worth the juice that gets made.
Nations can choose to offset costs through less savory means - no need to be specific, but I'm looking at YOU, Belgian Congo and also at the opium concessions throughout SE Asia, Indonesia, and China. It may not be as simple as punching a "Heart of Darkness" button, but a series of policy/decision decision points make players choose between stopping before they cross a line, or knowingly embracing Kurtz' measures to some degree or another.
Connected with this would be the possibility of a balance sheet for non-core states/provinces, showing how much more benefit could be had if they were spun off as puppet states. Give Russia a reason to release Congress Poland, and they'll release Congress Poland...
Nations can choose to offset costs through less savory means - no need to be specific, but I'm looking at YOU, Belgian Congo and also at the opium concessions throughout SE Asia, Indonesia, and China. It may not be as simple as punching a "Heart of Darkness" button, but a series of policy/decision decision points make players choose between stopping before they cross a line, or knowingly embracing Kurtz' measures to some degree or another.
Connected with this would be the possibility of a balance sheet for non-core states/provinces, showing how much more benefit could be had if they were spun off as puppet states. Give Russia a reason to release Congress Poland, and they'll release Congress Poland...
It is necessary in order to differentiate the ways empires chose to administer their colonies. The king of the Tswana made Bechuanaland (Botswanaland) a protectorate of the Crown of his own will, which is part of the reason modern Botswana is very stable and democratic compared to many other nations in Africa. We note also traditional kingdoms still exist. In particular more of the politics of the Raj would be welcome, though I see a lot of British Empire-centric stuff would probably revolve around DLC- like a Great Game DLC that intricately adds to the politics of Russia's "Wild East" in central Asia while Afghanistan attempted to preserve its independence as a buffer between British India and Russian Transoxiana, with Iran being in the mix in varying degrees.
In any case the biggest thing of all V3 needs is to take all of EU4's diplomacy and rebel interaction options, as diplomacy right now is sorely lacking. In particular "war aid/temporary alliances" to simulate the 1836 start date when Russia had a temporary alliance against the Egyptians in support of the Ottomans. In particular the treaty system which pushed WWI to happen and which was also responsible for the Crimean War is inherently necessary in this game instead of the simplistic alliance option. Needless to say other things, such as control of strategic naval routes (the Russians wanted to conquer their way to Constantinople as it would allow them to easily send ships to the mediterranean, which they were barred from doing and which the British feared would upset the British thalassocracy) and the fact the Egyptians were almost a great power in this period and only stopped by a coalition of European great powers demanding they cease their invasion of Ottoman Anatolia instead of the paper tiger that falls apart like wet clay in game. In general the entirety of diplomacy needs expansion to better model the intricacies of the 19th century as well as treaties over resource rights and port usage, instead of the current military access it should be things like trade access granting economic boons to this company or that company and usage of a port for your military bases and so on- such as Germany's interests in the port of Agadir in Morocco which drove up tensions before WWI.
I agree completely, also am I detecting a fellow fan of general Aleksey Brusilov?
In war that is not total, holding enemy territory not part of a war goal leads to rapid mounting of war exhaustion and infamy. Naval battles are fine, marching over the landscape to fight battles, just as fine. But take control, TAKE CONTROL of an area not pertinent to the conflict at hand? Uncivilised!
The tradeoff is that taking the territory means you force the opponent's war score up, especially if one of those territories is the capital. Nations with high jingoism or in wars of reunification (looking at YOU Prussia) don't have exhaustion increase as quickly. Infamy is still a thing... and a note about that in a bit.
Types of wars can mean different rates of increase. A territorial conflict should see war limited to the territory and any involvement on a wider scale comes at a huge cost. A conflict over a state with cores means not much infamy increase - it's still there - but neighbouring countries "understand".
Infamy should also be tracked separately for internal and external audiences . Yes, we have CON/MIL, but there are also lines that can be crossed in world affairs that cause the people to absolutely reject the regime and demand its change. At the same time, some nations may not give a whit what other nations think of them, overall, and carry on thinking that grabbing Elsass-Lothringen is the *right* thing to do, no matter what.
So this comes to a final part of this proposal - extend the crisis system to major powers, and allow nations to force resolutions of "questions" that arise over borders. Different government techs increase the speed/type of claims that can be made, and these claims need to be made prior to a corresponding DoW over such claims. For example, claims based on reunification grounds need to have discovery of nationalism. Prior to that, it's just not a thing.
The claim needs to be specific. No more forming a CB to get a state, any state: Pick the state and start cooking up the "question" that will be asked about it. And speaking of states, that's a HUGE grab - let players target a province at a time, less infamy, more chance their claim prevails.
So what would make a proper claim? Adjacency, number one. If Brazil tried to claim Bohemia without already owning Saxony or Silesia, for example, that's a non-starter. But if Brazil claims a slice of Venezuela along the Amazon border, OK, the world is listening. Next part, after nationalism is discovered, is a heavy weighting for the people of the region - are they part of your primary culture? If yes, to what extent? 10 Germans living in Nebraska is not much of a claim for Germany, relative to the much higher - and proximate - population of Germans in bordering nations. If the controlling nation shares the same primary culture, then that cancels out the nationalist claim. If a nation wants to create a puppet instead of taking the territory outright, then the question is of the majority culture in the province/state/region being a primary or accepted culture of the owning nation. If accepted, not much momentum behind that claim. If not accepted, then feel free to support the nationalist movement at the risk of your own nation's minorities starting to itch about doing the same sort of thing.
That above note would keep Russia and Austria firmly in the conservative camp, with exceptions for Ottoman lands. Germany, as well - none of those wants to see Poland on the map! The UK has a huge problem in Ireland waiting to explode, so it's not keen to redraw borders...
There would also be some recalculation for colonial matters, as they have less to do with nationalism and more to do with "errors" on the map.
So the claim is made and the nation now brings up the question of the map/nationalism error/situation. Phase 1 is direct nation-nation interaction: the asking nation sets an aggression level. The more aggressive, the more likely to get one's claim OR start a war. Imagine the USA - it tended to be very aggressive in its claims, which almost put it at war with the UK over parts of the Canadian border and did put it at war with Mexico over half that nation's territory. Low aggression means less likely to get the claim, but more likely that it will be resolved diplomatically.
The responding nation then chooses how to react to the question - it gets to see the claimed area and the aggression that goes with it. The response can be like for like - either a diplomatic solution or a counter-ultimatum. Or it can be unlike for like - a jingoist stance to scare off a less aggressive opponent or a conciliatory stance to hope to get a diplomatic solution that possibly is more toned down than the initial demand. That is Phase 2. Part of the calculation is the overall alliance status, value of the province, and such like considerations. If the province is itself part of that nation's accepted or primary cultures, then it is more likely to respond firmly. If the military scores of that nation and its allies are much lower than the demander, peaceful resolution will be preferred. If greater, then war looms over the issue.
Phase 3 is back in the court of the demanding nation. If the responder went with war, then the demander must either declare war within a short period of time or face a collapse in prestige and higher CON/MIL at home. It's this sort of consequence that should keep things like France demanding Cornwall out of the game - the AI would already have this sort of penalty calculated and then a risk analysis algorithm rules out anything where war is too likely for little or no gain. If the responder went with peace, then there are three options - war is an option for a high aggressive stance, but with massive infamy and that nation goes it alone as all its alliances are dropped. It could choose peace, starting a conference with the responder nation. Finally, it could choose an international conference. If other nations are interested, then there is a chance this produces a better outcome than the straight negotiations.
Peaceful negotiations can be influenced by the "rightfulness" of the claim. Small claims, high prestige, stronger alliances, all these contribute to the rightfulness of the claim. On the table are things such as the territory in question, possible other colonies to balance out claims, non-aggression pacts, demilitarization of borders, cash transactions. If it's a GP conference, more GPs on your side mean more "rightfulness" and increased likelihood of getting the claim without having to make other concessions. Another possible peaceful outcome is the exchange of "villages and acres" - a white peace where the claim is settled, and permanently. The demander is not allowed to go there again and cannot demand against that responder again for a period of years.
Ultimately, it's up to the responder or the biggest GP backing the responder on whether or not to accept the negotiations. If not, there is then a chance for war. The demanding nation either declares war or suffers a massive loss in prestige, CON, and MIL. If the demander declares war, then all other GPs go to war or suffer like penalties.
So, an example could be where Bolivia wants a neighbouring province of Paraguay. Neither nation has allies, and Bolivia has a slightly higher prestige and better overall GP relations than Paraguay. Bolivia demands aggressively, as it has a larger army. Paraguay responds peacefully. Bolivia chooses peaceful resolution and, due to higher military score, gets the province after agreeing to a non-aggression pact for 20 years - it may not attack or claim against Paraguay during that time. Paraguay is now motivated to get an alliance with UK or Germany...
Another example: Both Brazil and Peru tried to colonize Amazonas. Brazil demands peacefully, Peru responds peacefully - Brazil offers money for Amazonas, Peru accepts. Both nations should have a bump in prestige and an increase in relations for such admirable diplomacy. This does also give me an idea of nations offering to make offers to settle borders as they are - the benefit is a bump in prestige along with a prohibition regarding future claims, like the treaty that fixed the border between the USA and Canada. Since then, the USA has not reached for Vancouver and Canada has made no claim to Seattle.
A final example: Serbia demands Serb-populated territory from the Ottoman Empire and it's after Nationalism is discovered. Serbia has an alliance with Russia. Austria and Germany both have low relations with the Ottomans, France and UK are busy racing each other for Africa, and the Ottomans are not a GP. Serbia demands aggressively, Ottomans respond peacefully. Serbia chooses a GP conference. Russia lines up behind Serbia, as do Austria and Germany. UK and France support Serbia, but with a slight prestige penalty so that they won't be asked to be involved in any war that breaks out - prestige sacrificed as insurance is a good use of the stuff, I think. Put on the table are Serb demands for Southern Serbia and Macedonia. Ottomans refuse. War breaks out with Russia and Austria defeating Ottoman armies and the Serbs taking slices of its demands. Ottomans come to the peace table and agree to Serb demands and pay reparations to Russia and Austria and Germany, commensurate with those nations' global standing and war involvement. If the Ottomans don't have enough cash on hand, they can offer corresponding concessions, such as getting sphered, border fixing, the transfer of a province here or there, freeing Bulgaria, things like that.
The tradeoff is that taking the territory means you force the opponent's war score up, especially if one of those territories is the capital. Nations with high jingoism or in wars of reunification (looking at YOU Prussia) don't have exhaustion increase as quickly. Infamy is still a thing... and a note about that in a bit.
Types of wars can mean different rates of increase. A territorial conflict should see war limited to the territory and any involvement on a wider scale comes at a huge cost. A conflict over a state with cores means not much infamy increase - it's still there - but neighbouring countries "understand".
Infamy should also be tracked separately for internal and external audiences . Yes, we have CON/MIL, but there are also lines that can be crossed in world affairs that cause the people to absolutely reject the regime and demand its change. At the same time, some nations may not give a whit what other nations think of them, overall, and carry on thinking that grabbing Elsass-Lothringen is the *right* thing to do, no matter what.
So this comes to a final part of this proposal - extend the crisis system to major powers, and allow nations to force resolutions of "questions" that arise over borders. Different government techs increase the speed/type of claims that can be made, and these claims need to be made prior to a corresponding DoW over such claims. For example, claims based on reunification grounds need to have discovery of nationalism. Prior to that, it's just not a thing.
The claim needs to be specific. No more forming a CB to get a state, any state: Pick the state and start cooking up the "question" that will be asked about it. And speaking of states, that's a HUGE grab - let players target a province at a time, less infamy, more chance their claim prevails.
So what would make a proper claim? Adjacency, number one. If Brazil tried to claim Bohemia without already owning Saxony or Silesia, for example, that's a non-starter. But if Brazil claims a slice of Venezuela along the Amazon border, OK, the world is listening. Next part, after nationalism is discovered, is a heavy weighting for the people of the region - are they part of your primary culture? If yes, to what extent? 10 Germans living in Nebraska is not much of a claim for Germany, relative to the much higher - and proximate - population of Germans in bordering nations. If the controlling nation shares the same primary culture, then that cancels out the nationalist claim. If a nation wants to create a puppet instead of taking the territory outright, then the question is of the majority culture in the province/state/region being a primary or accepted culture of the owning nation. If accepted, not much momentum behind that claim. If not accepted, then feel free to support the nationalist movement at the risk of your own nation's minorities starting to itch about doing the same sort of thing.
That above note would keep Russia and Austria firmly in the conservative camp, with exceptions for Ottoman lands. Germany, as well - none of those wants to see Poland on the map! The UK has a huge problem in Ireland waiting to explode, so it's not keen to redraw borders...
There would also be some recalculation for colonial matters, as they have less to do with nationalism and more to do with "errors" on the map.
So the claim is made and the nation now brings up the question of the map/nationalism error/situation. Phase 1 is direct nation-nation interaction: the asking nation sets an aggression level. The more aggressive, the more likely to get one's claim OR start a war. Imagine the USA - it tended to be very aggressive in its claims, which almost put it at war with the UK over parts of the Canadian border and did put it at war with Mexico over half that nation's territory. Low aggression means less likely to get the claim, but more likely that it will be resolved diplomatically.
The responding nation then chooses how to react to the question - it gets to see the claimed area and the aggression that goes with it. The response can be like for like - either a diplomatic solution or a counter-ultimatum. Or it can be unlike for like - a jingoist stance to scare off a less aggressive opponent or a conciliatory stance to hope to get a diplomatic solution that possibly is more toned down than the initial demand. That is Phase 2. Part of the calculation is the overall alliance status, value of the province, and such like considerations. If the province is itself part of that nation's accepted or primary cultures, then it is more likely to respond firmly. If the military scores of that nation and its allies are much lower than the demander, peaceful resolution will be preferred. If greater, then war looms over the issue.
Phase 3 is back in the court of the demanding nation. If the responder went with war, then the demander must either declare war within a short period of time or face a collapse in prestige and higher CON/MIL at home. It's this sort of consequence that should keep things like France demanding Cornwall out of the game - the AI would already have this sort of penalty calculated and then a risk analysis algorithm rules out anything where war is too likely for little or no gain. If the responder went with peace, then there are three options - war is an option for a high aggressive stance, but with massive infamy and that nation goes it alone as all its alliances are dropped. It could choose peace, starting a conference with the responder nation. Finally, it could choose an international conference. If other nations are interested, then there is a chance this produces a better outcome than the straight negotiations.
Peaceful negotiations can be influenced by the "rightfulness" of the claim. Small claims, high prestige, stronger alliances, all these contribute to the rightfulness of the claim. On the table are things such as the territory in question, possible other colonies to balance out claims, non-aggression pacts, demilitarization of borders, cash transactions. If it's a GP conference, more GPs on your side mean more "rightfulness" and increased likelihood of getting the claim without having to make other concessions. Another possible peaceful outcome is the exchange of "villages and acres" - a white peace where the claim is settled, and permanently. The demander is not allowed to go there again and cannot demand against that responder again for a period of years.
Ultimately, it's up to the responder or the biggest GP backing the responder on whether or not to accept the negotiations. If not, there is then a chance for war. The demanding nation either declares war or suffers a massive loss in prestige, CON, and MIL. If the demander declares war, then all other GPs go to war or suffer like penalties.
So, an example could be where Bolivia wants a neighbouring province of Paraguay. Neither nation has allies, and Bolivia has a slightly higher prestige and better overall GP relations than Paraguay. Bolivia demands aggressively, as it has a larger army. Paraguay responds peacefully. Bolivia chooses peaceful resolution and, due to higher military score, gets the province after agreeing to a non-aggression pact for 20 years - it may not attack or claim against Paraguay during that time. Paraguay is now motivated to get an alliance with UK or Germany...
Another example: Both Brazil and Peru tried to colonize Amazonas. Brazil demands peacefully, Peru responds peacefully - Brazil offers money for Amazonas, Peru accepts. Both nations should have a bump in prestige and an increase in relations for such admirable diplomacy. This does also give me an idea of nations offering to make offers to settle borders as they are - the benefit is a bump in prestige along with a prohibition regarding future claims, like the treaty that fixed the border between the USA and Canada. Since then, the USA has not reached for Vancouver and Canada has made no claim to Seattle.
A final example: Serbia demands Serb-populated territory from the Ottoman Empire and it's after Nationalism is discovered. Serbia has an alliance with Russia. Austria and Germany both have low relations with the Ottomans, France and UK are busy racing each other for Africa, and the Ottomans are not a GP. Serbia demands aggressively, Ottomans respond peacefully. Serbia chooses a GP conference. Russia lines up behind Serbia, as do Austria and Germany. UK and France support Serbia, but with a slight prestige penalty so that they won't be asked to be involved in any war that breaks out - prestige sacrificed as insurance is a good use of the stuff, I think. Put on the table are Serb demands for Southern Serbia and Macedonia. Ottomans refuse. War breaks out with Russia and Austria defeating Ottoman armies and the Serbs taking slices of its demands. Ottomans come to the peace table and agree to Serb demands and pay reparations to Russia and Austria and Germany, commensurate with those nations' global standing and war involvement. If the Ottomans don't have enough cash on hand, they can offer corresponding concessions, such as getting sphered, border fixing, the transfer of a province here or there, freeing Bulgaria, things like that.
I can see your reasoning but I feel that this would overly restrict a nations room for manoeuvre, as it would make attacking nations like Russia almost impossible to do, as they can just afford to feed men into the meat grinder a territorial conflict would become, simply due to the logistics of fighting in a limited region. I agree there needs to be improvements to infamy and increasing infamy for taking cores off another nation could be a good idea, although this could cause issues with states that have two nations with cores on it (Alsace Loraine to list one example).
Thats a good idea, I can definitely get behind concepts that flesh out the crisis system and a system that improves your changes with better cultural/governmental tech sounds like a nice way to allow for more depth in the system.
I definitely can support needing to select that state you want before justifying the war but I feel that the idea of a "proper claim" kind of goes out the window for many of the wars fought during this period. Most of the wars that established colonies were not proper claims but the European powers didn't care. The various concessions extracted from China were unfair and unjustified in the modern perspective but were seen as ok in the context of the era.
I can see how this could work, but I would ask why wouldn't a player just set their aggressive level to max for everything, as even if there is a war they're probably going to have some great power allies to fight for them, so they're likely to win? Part of the issue I have with Victoria 2's crisis system is that the AI often just goes for the war option every time it doesn't get exactly what it wants, so I'm not sure if an aggression system would benefit this.
Pops should also have some kind of not-so-convoluted mechanic which influences their growth rates, independent of all existing factors. Possibly just straight up call it "fertility", instead of secularism or anything like that. The current system which tries to model the rapid German growth and slow French growth doesn't really fit all that well. Probably should also have something like "healthcare infrastructure" which can increase fertility or provincial life rating.
I have some rapid fire political ideas that could be good:
- Add in reforms for lower houses of government and different ways of each house having compositions. Many 19th century governments had two chambers of government, usually an elected lower house and hereditary upper house. Others only had one chamber, while nations like the USA elected both houses. This could add some interesting mechanics and help flesh out the political mechanics.
- Remove HM Governments ability to change parties at will. I can understand Prussian Constitutionalism retaining this feature but by the 19th Century most democratic constitutional monarchies technically had the power to choose their government but to do so would have been extremely reckless.
- Allow some limited political reforms for partially westernised nations. The Meiji restoration in Japan didn't just encourage western ideas but also dismantled the feudal system that Japan had used for centuries. This, along with other reforms, also incited a number of rebellions by samurai, which could be represented in game by reactionary rebels (although this is dependent on how the rebel system would work in Victoria 3).
- Include political reforms to abolish/re-institute a monarchy. While most Monarchies that came to an end in the 19th Century were forced out by revolutions or coups, both Mexico and Spain had republics established (relatively) peacefully after the monarchs abdicated.
An idea I've had for a while is to make monarchism/republicanism a reform, and monarchism/republicanism into a POP issue.
POPs are more likely to join a republican reform movement if:
- They're socialist or communist
- They're militant
- The nation loses a Great War
- The nation is in the Americas
- Importantly, any time the monarch changes the party of government
Let me unpack the last dot point. If the monarch installs a party in government, then it would increase POPs' republicanism in proportional to how (un)popular the installed party is. So for example, installing the party with a majority in the lower house would generate no republicanism. But installing a party with 49% of the seats in the lower house generates a fraction of 1% republicanism. Installing a party with 10% of the seats in the lower house would increase republicanism substantially, etc.
Being a Prussian Constitutionalist monarch would also reduce the rate that installing parties generates republicanism.
Thats a good idea, although I think that increasing republican sentiment just because a nation is in the americas is a bit unnecessary, as most American nations in a 1815-1836 start would begin as republics (Argentina, Gran Colombia, the USCA, Chile, ECT). Possibly adding in a "Former Colony" modifier to give a boost to Republican sentiment in these regions could work though and make re-establishing a monarchy in those nations difficult.
I personally feel that HM Government still shouldn't get the ability to change parties, as that would either go against the constitution or president set. Prussian Constitutionalism should keep it but it become a trade off between the greater power to chose but with greater republicanism vs less control but more stability.
On a similar note, I'd also tweak the party popularity system to be much more based on issues rather than party loyalty, as Victoria 2 seems to model it. So, for instance, mousing over the party popularity could possibly say "37% of voters support the liberal party, due to 33% support of Laissez-faire, 41% support for Pro Military, 26% support for Full Citizenship and 62% support for Free Trade". Switching the party's support from just loyalty to how different pops view different issues.
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I think that the only curb on a constitutional monarch's power to change governments that is needed is the one that exists in the real world - the vote of no confidence. The UK monarch may still invite anyone they please to form a government, but if that government cannot command a majority in the house then it falls. In game terms, any government must have a plurality in the lower (and upper?) house(s) that prefers them in government to a general election. Smaller parties that are getting a portion of what they want may welll do this; an election is a risk for all...
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