Senate Voting, Tyranny rework, Parties & Pretenders Rebellions, Families, Holdings and Independence Wars

[IsaacCAT]

Preface: Many players have been vocal about the senate voting mechanics and the missing minor families. The threads about these are multiple and I cannot cite them all here. I want to thank @Bovrick , @Divinas , @Ketchup & friends , @Iosue Yu , @Soot Shade , @Marcus Pica and many others for their ideas and suggestions.

Observation: Character's groups like parties, pretenders supporters or families lack a clear purpose on game. In the case of political parties, the senate voting mechanism can be improved. In addition, I would like to see power struggle from these groups. I have made the following long suggestion instead of many short ones because the elements of this proposal are very much interlinked.

Suggestion: Reform the senate voting system, rework tyranny, allow rebellion from parties and pretender supporters, recuperate minor families tied to new jobs, reform holdings and allow families to wage independence wars.

How:

1. In Republics, senate shall be an actual voting chamber. Political parties exercise their power in Republics in the Senate, through voting. The player will bring proposals and senators will vote following their party agenda. The player could influence some of the parties to try to pass the vote. Doing so, brings the nation up in tyranny but you do not upset anyone. If the vote does not pass, there is no override possible. There is no party approval rating. Every decision is voted through a system I will explain below.
2. In Republics, parties loyalty is the average of all of its characters loyalty. A non loyalty party (below 50) will start immediately a civil war to overthrown the government. The territories and armies of the revolt will depend on all the party characters.
3. In Monarchies, if the average of all pretenders supporters loyalty is below 50, they will start immediately a civil war to overthrown the monarch. The territories and armies of the revolt will depend on all the pretender supporters characters.
4. Families will have jobs outside the government (holdings and trade merchants). There will be Ruling families and minor families. When you conquer a new country, all families with jobs outside the government will integrate in your nation as minor families. Families will disappear if they prestige reaches 0. Thus, families objective is to secure jobs for their members to survive.
5. Disloyal families will immediately start an independence war when the average loyalty of all its members is below 50. The family is disloyal to the nation and will try to form an independent country. The territories and armies raised will depend on all family members.

I am trying to give these groups a raison d'etre and real consequences if they are not loyal to the nation. Nowadays civil wars are easy to avoid as they are announced. Also, civil wars lack a clear purpose. This proposal wants to change this. Power base will work as now to decrease loyalty, but civil war threshold will disappear. Civil wars or independence wars will trigger immediately when parties, pretenders supporters or families average characters loyalty is below 50. The threshold of 50 is coherent with having disloyal characters (<33) that are actively going against the government and preparing the uprising. When the average loyalty is below 50, all characters in the group (loyal and disloyal) are convinced that the only possible action is rebellion.

1.Senate voting

The player will bring to the senate the same actions that now require senate approval. The proposal will be voted by the factions and two possible results could happen:

• The proposal is accepted P(A)
• The proposal is rejected P(B)

P(A) is function of each party objectives and how many seats they have on the senate when the proposal is voted.
P(B) = 1 - P(A). It cannot be negative, if P(A)>1, then P(B) = 0.

This system simulates the probability of the proposal acceptance, not the numbers of votes. If P(A) is 90% but the event is not successful, it means that the numbers of votes in favour are less than the opposition votes.

P(A) = (number of seats oligarchs / total number of seats) * oligarchs attraction to the proposal factor + (number of seats traditionalists / total number of seats) * traditionalists attraction to the proposal factor + (number of seats democrats / total number of seats) * democrats attraction to the proposal factor + 0.3 Player forcing vote to the parties

The attraction to the proposal factor for each party depends on the nature of the proposal. Similar to how the first Senate calculated the support for each decision for the existing parties but much more simpler to avoid the problems that devs identified with the old system. It will look more like a table of types of decisions and faction approval like objectives are right now. This has to be number between 0 and 1 for each party and decision.

Decision	Oligarchs	Traditionalists	Democrats	Optimates	Boni	Populares
Declare War	1	0.4	0.2	1	0.3	0.8
Subjection	1	0.3	0.4	0.5	0.2	0.3
Pass Law (depending on law)
Grant Rights	0	0.1	1	0.1	0	0.3
Revocation	0	1	0.4	1	0	0.3
Etc..

With the table of types of decisions and faction approval, Devs can create as many parties as they want. Their psychological profile can be defined for every decision. For example, we have the Roman Republic parties different from the other Republic parties.

Before the voting takes place, the game will inform the player about the chances of passing the proposal. The player has an option before the vote to force the parties to accept the proposal. This option increases the chances 30% but increases Tyranny 10 points.

Party Membership and senate influence will work as they do now. Also parties will keep their objectives. The party will bring forward its objective to the Senate as a vote. If the nation, through senate voting, chooses not to implement the objective brought by one party, then loyalty of all characters from that party will be affected.

Tyranny rework

Tyranny will not represent the level of oppression within the country, but the imposition of will of the nation to all others. Tyranny work as stability, runs from 0 to 100 with a base value of 50 that tyranny will naturally decay to. At level 50 there are no modifiers.

Positive tyranny (above 50) each point of tyranny gives the following modifiers:

• -0.004 Aggressive Expansion Change
• +0.20% Cohort Loyalty Gain Chance
• -0.30 Loyalty of Characters
• +0.50% National Slave Output
• -1.00% Imprison Cost
• -1.00% Execute Cost

Negative tyranny (below 50) each point of tyranny gives the following modifiers:

• +0.004 Aggressive Expansion Change
• -0.20% Cohort Loyalty Gain Chance
• +0.30 Loyalty of Characters
• -0.50% National Slave Output
• +1.00% Imprison Cost
• +1.00% Execute Cost

As a rule, whenever the nation gives a benefit to their population/characters instead of their own benefit, tyranny should decrease. An example to decrease tyranny is to accept characters proposals in events.

Example of Senate Voting

In my game with Carthage, I want to declare war to Rome. I bring the proposal to the senate with the following composition:

Oligarchs have 44 seats, traditionalists 26 seats and Democrats 30 seats.

The Declare War decision has 1 attraction for oligarchs, 0.4 for traditionalists and 0.2 for democrats.

Thus, my chances to win the vote are:

• P(A) = 44/100*1+26/100*0.4+30/100*0.2 = 0,604

If I want to increase my chances I can use some arm twisting in exchange for 10 tyranny and then:

• P(A)= 0,604 + 0,3 = 0,90

Party average loyalty before passing the vote should be displayed on the Government Window where the approval ratio is now.


2. Republican coups

When the average loyalty of a political faction characters is below 50 a civil war will start. All characters from that faction will be part of the rebellion and their territories and armies will join the rebellion:

• Armies will immediately raise following the new levies system in 2.0 in those regions where the governor is from the rebel faction. The region will also flip sides to the rebellion.
• Regions under a loyal governor will raise two levies, one from loyal territories and another from those territories with holdings from the rebel characters. These territories will also flip sides to the rebellion.
• Legions will be under the command of the Legate and rebel if the Legate is from the rebel faction.

If there are less than 10 territories joining the rebellion, e.g. small nations, or less of 1/4 of the country then no civil war can happen. But there are consequences for the player nonetheless. An event will describe a senate coup where the current leader is assassinated or replaced by the rebel faction, increasing the faction characters loyalty temporary.

The rebellion will design a capital territory and a timer of 24 months will start for both the loyal troops or the rebel armies to conquer the opposite capital.

• If before 24 months the rebels conquer the capital of the loyalist, it is game over for the player.
• If before 24 months the loyalist conquer the capital of the rebels, the country is reunited and the player can decide the fate of the rebel characters:
  • Killing a rebel character will decrease loyalty of their family
  • Pardoning a rebel character will give him a temporary loyalty bonus
• If none of the parties can conquer the other capital, then a new country is formed with the type of government favored by the rebel party:
  • Democrats will want to change to a Democratic Republic
  • Oligarchs to a Oligarch Republic
  • Traditionalists to an Aristocratic Republic
  • If already in one of this types of governments, the rebel party will form a Dictatorship.

Example:

As said, Party average loyalty should be displayed on the Government Window where the approval ratio is now. Using the previous case, before having the vote the party average loyalty can be calculated from the Character & Families window in the current version of the game:

If we add all the loyalty values of all character's members of each party and we divide the number between the quantity of members we obtain the following:

• Traditionalists: 2151 divided 28 members = 77
• Oligarchs: 2164 divided 31 members = 70
• Democrats: 2787 divided 42 members = 66

If we choose to use the tyranny option, this will imply a -3 loyalty to all characters, thus after the vote we will have the following loyalty per party:

• Traditionalists: 2067 divided 28 members = 74
• Oligarchs: 2071 divided 31 members = 67
• Democrats: 2661 divided 42 members = 63

No party will revolt because this action.

This way, it is quite easy to know the risks you are taking when imposing your vision to the parties.



3. Monarchies coups

When the average loyalty of a pretenders supporters characters is below 50 a civil war will start. All characters from that faction will be part of the rebellion and their territories and armies will join the rebellion:

• Armies will immediately raise following the new levies system in 2.0 in those regions where the governor is from the rebel faction. The region will also flip sides to the rebellion.
• Regions under a loyal governor will raise two levies, one from loyal territories and another from those territories with holdings from the rebel characters. These territories will also flip sides to the rebellion.
• Legions will be under the command of the Legate and rebel if the Legate is from the rebel faction.

If there are less than 10 territories joining the rebellion, e.g. small nations, or less of 1/4 of the country then no civil war can happen. But there are consequences for the player nonetheless. An event will describe a palace coup where the monarch is assassinated or replaced by the pretender faction, increasing the characters loyalty temporary.

The rebellion will design a capital territory and a timer of 24 months will start for both the loyal troops or the rebel armies to conquer the opposite capital.

• If before 24 months the rebels conquer the capital of the loyalist, it is game over for the player.
• If before 24 months the loyalist conquer the capital of the rebels, the country is reunited and the player can decide the fate of the rebel characters:
  • Killing a rebel character will decrease loyalty of their family
  • Pardoning a rebel character will give him a temporary loyalty bonus
• If none of the parties can conquer the other capital, then a new country is formed with the pretender as a new king.

4. Families

• If a family has a government job, it will become a Ruling Family.
• If a family only has holdings or trade merchant jobs, it will be a minor family.
• If a family reaches prestige 0, it will disappear.

Family prestige will decay with time, thus families will want to have as many jobs as possible, for that they will use their wealth to buy holdings, trade merchant posts or get government jobs (ultimate goal but riskier because they are not inherited). They will interact with the player to get jobs in the government in exchange for money. Not giving them the job for their family member, will make that character and the whole family less loyal.

There will be no more scorned families. However, Ruling Families are elitist, thus having more than a handful of ruling families will decrease their loyalty:

• Migrant Horde, City State, and Local Power more than 3 ruling families will decrease -10 loyalty to all ruling families members
• Regional Power more than 4 ruling families will decrease -10 loyalty to all ruling families members
• Major and Great Power more than 5 ruling families will decrease -10 loyalty to all ruling families members

Couples will have children following their fecundity traits, even if children die, families should have always members available to get a job.

Jobs outside government

Families will get jobs outside government as trade merchants and in holdings.

When you conquer or annex a nation, the families that have jobs outside the government will integrate into your nation. If you conquer only territories, families that have jobs in the new territories will appear in your country as well as in the other country, but they will be marked as foreign family. Foreign families will work as foreign characters.

Adopting foreign families when conquering new lands will introduce a resentful family (disloyal) with many holdings in the new region. That could be managed with different approaches:

• Increase average loyalty of the new family by:
  • bribing some of their members
  • integrating their culture
  • other
• Reclaim some of the family holdings to avoid their rebellion, because If no regions can rebel, then no independence war can happen. Family will keep disloyal with the implication on trade for its characters with holdings and trade merchants
• Or you can provoke the rebellion as @Bovrick suggested and get rid of that family for ever!

Something to remember when provoking the rebellion of a new integrated family is that they will tap levies from POPs of their own culture, as well as the integrated cultures from that region. You could preemptively rise legions to use all manpower available from that region and try to negate levies to the rebel family, but that family will still have available manpower from their own non integrated culture POPs of that region (see point 5 of this proposal).

To calculate the average loyalty to your nation of a family, only characters with jobs in your nation will be counted.

The nationality of a family changes to the nation where it has more than 70% of its jobs. Changing the nationality of a family, changes all nationalities of its characters. They will loose any job on the government if they cannot have it as foreign character.

Holdings

Each holding will be a job to assign to a family member. Only one holding per character, as it is a full day job, and the character will be based on that territory. Each holding will give +1 power base for each POP in the territory to the character having the holding job.

Families can buy/sell holdings between them. For example, families in debt will have to sell their holdings. A family can get in debt to pay ransoms or other misfortunes.

Revoking holdings have the same effect like found a colony cultural decision. The nation will uproot the existing character/family with heavy penalties on the POPs happiness, assimilation and province loyalty and tax as well as the character and family loyalty.

Assigning families to holdings by the nation should be very expensive. The nation should build the holding and then gift it to a family character. Or the nation can help one family to buy it from the existing family for whatever price the family asks.

Disloyal characters with a holding job will stop trading goods through the nation standard channels, going to the black market and negating the access of those goods bonus to the nation.

Trade merchants

See trade merchants thread.


5. Families independence wars

When the average loyalty of a family characters is below 50 an independence war will start. All characters from that family will be part of the rebellion and their territories and armies will join the rebellion:

• Armies will immediately raise following the new levies system in 2.0 in those regions where the governor is from the rebel faction. The region will also flip sides to the rebellion.
• Regions under a loyal governor will raise two levies, one from loyal territories and another from those territories with holdings from the rebel characters. In addition, if the head of family is from a none integrated culture, POPs from that culture will also be counted for the levies. These territories will also flip sides to the rebellion.
• Legions will be under the command of the Legate and rebel if the Legate is from the rebel faction.

If there are less than 10 territories joining the rebellion, e.g. small nations, then no civil war can happen. But there are consequences for the player nonetheless. Family will keep disloyal with the implication on trade for its characters with holdings and trade merchants (see previous point 4 of this proposal).

The rebellion will design a capital territory and a timer of 24 months will start for both the loyal troops or the rebel armies to conquer the opposite capital.

• If before 24 months the rebels conquer the capital of the loyalist, an independent country is formed with the primary culture and religion of the Head of the family.
• If before 24 months the loyalist conquer the capital of the rebels, the country is reunited and the player can decide the fate of the whole family:
  • Exile all characters from that family, repossessing all their holdings and trade merchant posts.
  • Pardoning the family will give all characters a temporary loyalty bonus
• If none of the parties can conquer the other capital, then a an independent country is formed with the primary culture and religion of the Head of the family.

Example:

In this example we will examine the Bodonid Family, in the Characters & Family Window the average loyalty of all members except children should be displayed. We can calculate it by adding all character's loyalty and dividing by the quantity of grown-up family members:

Total loyalty: 1654 diveded 23 grown ups = 72.

This family has the Suffete of Cartaghe and they are quite loyal in average. Also, in this game I have not acquired tyranny.

But in case the average loyalty was below 50, they will try to become independent. Which regions and armies would revolt?

• Contestantia would revolt as the governor is from this family
• Tarraconensis would revolt as the governor is from this family
• Numidia would revolt as the governor is from this family
• And all those territories with holdings from the family will also revolt, for example the Magna Graecia region pink territories are from the Bodonid Family:

Levies from those territories will raise fight on the rebel side.

The regions of Contestania, Tarraconensis and Numidia levies will also join the rebellion.

None of the Bodonid characters are Legates, but If legions were commanded by Bodonid Legates, those legions will revolt. All other legions commanded by loyal Legates, will fight on the unionist side.

The head of the Bodonid Family is Punic and Canaanite, thus this war will levy POPs from all integrated cultures in those regions but none from unintegrated cultures, as he is from one of the integrated cultures.

Carthage domains being:

And the rebel regions being:

The capital of the rebel family will be in Akragas a city of 67 POPs with a Fort level 1 in Magna Grecia, (best city and the rebel region with most soldiers).

Thus, the Player will have to conquer Akragas before 24 months to stop the Bodonid family to claim Contestania, Tarraconensis, Numidia and all territories with holdings held by the Bodonid family. The player will also have to defend the Capital of the nation from the Independentist for this 24th months. The first to take the other capital wins. In case the capitals remain unconquered, after 24h months a new country will be created, Punic and Canaanite, and their form of govern could be an oligarch republic as the Bodonid Head of the family is an Oligarch.

Strategies

The player will know the average loyalty from all the groups consolidated in the Family Window, on the Government Window for Parties average loyalty and on the Government Window for Pretender Supporters average loyalty.

The player can foresee were the rebel capital will be located and place a legion large enough to fight the rebel levies from that region and take the rebel capital after the player make the family go below the 50 average loyalty threshold. The player would like to do that in order to exile all characters from that family, repossessing all their holdings and trade merchant posts.

Normally, the player will play the internal political game and keep as much as you can of your families and parties/pretenders supporters loyal, freeing your legions and levies to enlarge or defend your nation. But If the player abuse on tyranny, the player will have to invest armies to quell rebellions from families and parties/pretender supporters.


Acknowledgements:

I have taken ideas and inspired by these threads:

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