Republics seem worse.

[ringhloth]

Trying out Athens in the new patch, it seems really difficult to get up to 60 votes in the senate when all parties are roughly equal. Most all actions add 10 popularity with one party, but subtract 5 and 5 from the others, so only a net gain when the balance of power tilts to one side. I don't really see how to get to 60% reliably, which is a huge problem for the Athens tree.

 

[Nostalgium]

You can always skew it so that the parties aren't equal. In my own Republic playthroughs I've generally just swallowed the Tyranny hits from doing stuff the Senate disagrees with to get the ball rolling - they will fall in line over time.

 

[ringhloth]

You can always skew it so that the parties aren't equal. In my own Republic playthroughs I've generally just swallowed the Tyranny hits from doing stuff the Senate disagrees with to get the ball rolling - they will fall in line over time.

How do I do this, especially in a short time (you used to be able to blitz through the Athens tree before the Antigonids went to war)?

 

[Nostalgium]

Skew the parties? There's a little button under the portrait of each party leader. Costs some tyranny and a resource related to the party you want to give more seats. Gives approval with that party and reduces with the two others, but since that party now has more seats, overall approval goes up.

 

[Bovrick]

How do I do this, especially in a short time (you used to be able to blitz through the Athens tree before the Antigonids went to war)?

Balance of your Senate should move over time to match the Senate Influence totals of Characters in each party. The main contributor to Senate Influence is the Powerbase held by those Characters, albeit with added modifiers, and large reductions for positions that take them away from the capital (ie Generals). So basically, employ characters from your favourite faction. Most Powerbase will be with the Family Heads though, so making sure they follow your favoured Faction is key.

 

[Nostalgium]

@Bovrick you fantastic person you. I actually hadn't looked up what caused that, but now I know how to fix my Senate crawling with populists! I swear, they're hiding under the very chairs!

 

[Iosue Yu]

How do I do this, especially in a short time (you used to be able to blitz through the Athens tree before the Antigonids went to war)?

For Athens, now they have fixed it so that the war against Macedon is offensive from the Antigonids. So if you're already Disloyal, you don't join the war.

2 Spits of Insults should be enough. And the massive amount of Tyranny you get for disobeying the Senate will give Approval to the Oligarchs which are the majority.

You should be able to get up to 60% support after around 3 years. You'd only join defensive wars from Egypt and Seleucids.

 

[ringhloth]

Skew the parties? There's a little button under the portrait of each party leader. Costs some tyranny and a resource related to the party you want to give more seats. Gives approval with that party and reduces with the two others, but since that party now has more seats, overall approval goes up.

I haven't noticed this really be effective; the net gain in approval is 0.

Balance of your Senate should move over time to match the Senate Influence totals of Characters in each party. The main contributor to Senate Influence is the Powerbase held by those Characters, albeit with added modifiers, and large reductions for positions that take them away from the capital (ie Generals). So basically, employ characters from your favourite faction. Most Powerbase will be with the Family Heads though, so making sure they follow your favoured Faction is key.

The change in seats is not very quick.

 

[Bovrick]

I haven't noticed this really be effective; the net gain in approval is 0.

The change in seats is not very quick.

As far as I know there's no quick way to change the seats, that's a long-term thing only unless you go on a drastic purge, probably with a Civil War. It quickly snowballs for the purpose of Senate Approval, or at least it did for the previous versions.