Fair Warning! This one definitely became a behemoth of a post. Really sorry about that...
I feel there's a lot of potential with the court advisor part of the game which could model the influence of factions within countries, especially with monarchies, but also merchant republics, tribes, colonies, what have you.
Just to use monarchies as an example, in the beginning of the game, most of Europe would start with a great deal of aristocratic and church power followed by a small amount for the crown. Countries centred around large trading hubs (Northern Italy, Bosphorous, Low Countries) would have a little bit put aside for the merchants. As time goes on, there will be decisions that influence the power of each faction (Bourgeoisie requests privileges, Peasants moving to the cities, Church authorities complaining, blah blah). A monarch could spend points to influence the factions, but that would generally anger the others (higher stability, revolts, something else? Not sure)
This could then influence such things as autonomy, where having high autonomy would decrease the power of the crown, and high aristocratic power would generally increase autonomy. High church power could lead to lower development costs (as monasteries were known to be centres of agricultural innovation) but also lower taxes as more land passed to the Church. Giving the Merchants (or Middles Class or Bourgeoisie) more power would result in lower development costs and higher trade income but would also probably lead to a republican takeover if the country were small enough. Similarly too much aristocratic power would lead to an elective monarchy, most likely on the accession of a weak heir, like Poland.
Now in terms of advisers, there could a court screen with representatives of all of the factions of the realm milling about. The monarch could then pick certain people from within that court to be on the privy council/council of state/great council/whatever fancy name for people that sit around a table. Each person would be assigned a faction, thus increasing that factions power if they're from a weak faction or maintaining that factions power if they are powerful. One person could be placed at the head of this council (Prime Minister anyone?) which lead to a greater increase in power for that faction. So for a country in the 1400s, placing a merchant in charge of the council would lead to a great increase for their power, but piss of the aristocrats greatly who feel they deserve that honour due to their power.
I feel there's a lot of potential with the court advisor part of the game which could model the influence of factions within countries, especially with monarchies, but also merchant republics, tribes, colonies, what have you.
Just to use monarchies as an example, in the beginning of the game, most of Europe would start with a great deal of aristocratic and church power followed by a small amount for the crown. Countries centred around large trading hubs (Northern Italy, Bosphorous, Low Countries) would have a little bit put aside for the merchants. As time goes on, there will be decisions that influence the power of each faction (Bourgeoisie requests privileges, Peasants moving to the cities, Church authorities complaining, blah blah). A monarch could spend points to influence the factions, but that would generally anger the others (higher stability, revolts, something else? Not sure)
This could then influence such things as autonomy, where having high autonomy would decrease the power of the crown, and high aristocratic power would generally increase autonomy. High church power could lead to lower development costs (as monasteries were known to be centres of agricultural innovation) but also lower taxes as more land passed to the Church. Giving the Merchants (or Middles Class or Bourgeoisie) more power would result in lower development costs and higher trade income but would also probably lead to a republican takeover if the country were small enough. Similarly too much aristocratic power would lead to an elective monarchy, most likely on the accession of a weak heir, like Poland.
Now in terms of advisers, there could a court screen with representatives of all of the factions of the realm milling about. The monarch could then pick certain people from within that court to be on the privy council/council of state/great council/whatever fancy name for people that sit around a table. Each person would be assigned a faction, thus increasing that factions power if they're from a weak faction or maintaining that factions power if they are powerful. One person could be placed at the head of this council (Prime Minister anyone?) which lead to a greater increase in power for that faction. So for a country in the 1400s, placing a merchant in charge of the council would lead to a great increase for their power, but piss of the aristocrats greatly who feel they deserve that honour due to their power.
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