I understand the title is misleading. I will try to make this post more descriptive with only the mechanical changes, while reasonings have been discussed here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ched-and-reworked-from-the-ground-up.1449290/
I will try to structure the whole hollistic collection of changes into 3 main sections
Please remake Athenian Ostracism. It should happen once a year having an interface like the Olympics. If not interfered, the country will ostracise someone inconsequential, perhaps someone not even shown as a Character. Then the process may be influenced by spending Tyranny and Political Influence so that problematic Characters will be up for voting to be ostracised (Ruler's Rivals only just to simplify). Further investments of Political Influence, Tyranny and Corruption may be spent to cheat the votes so that your target actually gets ostracised.
This, and then, when a Coup is staged, the mastermind may try the same trick, trying to ostracise, for example, his own father so that he seizes power within his Family.
So the yearly pop up of Ostracism will tell you that an unusual nominee has been found. So you may just watch the Scheme unfold or influence that your desired results should be seen.
And guess what, perhaps the Ruler himself may find himself up for Ostracism. The player may just choose to trust the people or spend Influence, Tyranny and Corruption to cheat it. If the Ruler is unfortunately Ostracised, it may trigger a Coup, or may not, depending on whether there is actually a Coup being staged. If no Coup, then the Ruling Party will try to sponsor another Ruler in the Election.
I will try to structure the whole hollistic collection of changes into 3 main sections
- Allegience
- Each Great Family will be the main Patron of a Party, so that 3 Great Families will be the Patron of the 3 Parties correspondingly.
- The 4th and 5th Families for later Country Ranks will have more free will to either ally with another Family to support the same Party, completely neutral or they allow their members to join whichever Party each individual has decided.
- If 2 Families both support the same party and the late comer has overtaken in Prestige, they can displace the original Family as the main Patron.
- Characters will be allowed to be neutral. It means they may have some faith towards a certain ideal but simply may not have joined with the people who are currently running the Parties, perhaps with no other reasons than just disliking the current Party Leader.
- All members of a Party should be sponsored by the Patron Family. So basically if someone is a member of the family, he automatically joins the Party.
- All Minor Characters will be neutral by default. But they can choose to join a Party, and thus will be sponsored by the Party's corresponding Family.
- All Characters will still be allowed to have Convictions. But changing their Party actually needs a trigger through Schemes or Events.
- Since Family Members don't have freedom to choose their Party, while still having Convictions towards different ideas, it may be scandalous. Interesting events should fire to either disown the rebellious son, or to force his loyalty with something.
- Both the Party that one belongs and the Convictions one has should influence one's choice of actions. For example people who believe in Democratic ideals should be more restrained in partaking Corruption, while those from the Oligarches will be more willing to invest in Holdings or some such.
- Each Great Family will be the main Patron of a Party, so that 3 Great Families will be the Patron of the 3 Parties correspondingly.
- Politics
- Changing the Party in Power should be rare. People would want changes only when they are extremely unhappy. A combination of conditions, for example Tyranny, Senate Approval, being the minority Party in the Senate, poor Stability, Aggressive Expansion or poor Legitimacy, will contribute to the probability of changing political climates, thus a shift of the Party in Power.
- Of course, if the elected ruler is simply too incompetent, events may fire that his old allies try to shift to another party wanting to displace him, and eventually he is requested to abdicate and therefore a new Party will be in Power.
- All rulers may come from the same Family, then if this goes long enough your Republic will slowly transform into a Monarchy.
- But it may also be prevented that the Families will try to sponsor Minor Characters to become rulers in their place. So Minor Characters should be more supported and accepted than someone from a Great Family, just to keep the Republican Traditions going. This may tie to Tyranny. Tyrannical countries may be more likely to elect a Family Member. What contributes to it may be discussed.
- Party may also be shifted if the Ruling Party has really become such a Minority. Then they may be voted out. But whom to be elected should generally follow how many actual Support for that Party instead of some seemingly random Supports (and difficult to read in the Tooltips) people get.
- Being elected Ruler should not make one the Head of Family. Families should have their own hierarchy.
- Power Base should be redistributed more evenly.
- The secondary and tertiary head of each family should at least have 1/4 of the Power Base of the Family they belong, while the Primary Head should have 1/2.
- It means placating the 2nd and 3rd in line of a Family may placate the whole Family instead of always having to please the grumpy old man.
- Characters may themselve seek to increase their own Power Base with various means according to their beliefs:
- Oligarchs would seek to empower themselves by purchasing more land and Holdings;
- Traditionalists would seek to dominate all the Temples and Cults; while
- Democrats would seek to create smaller Guilds, Unions and everything Populist.
- Generally more sources of Power Base should be added:
- More Nobles and Slaves in the country would add Power to Oligarchs;
- More Citizens and Tribesmen (if is Tribe) would add to Traditionalist; and
- More Freemen and Tribesmen (if isn't Tribe) would add to Democrats;
- And of course the Patron Family will be benefitted.
- The secondary and tertiary head of each family should at least have 1/4 of the Power Base of the Family they belong, while the Primary Head should have 1/2.
- Party Leader will always be the Patron Family's Head. But alternatively a Party Champion who is in charge of giving Orations can be chosen by the Party. It should work like what Party Leaders we have right now.
- Party Leader, that's the Head of Family of the Patron Family, will decide their agenda. Their agenda will be a list, since "agenda" is a plural word. So by satisfying more, the Party will be more loyal.
- The Country will no longer has a single Agendum for each Party. Instead the list of agenda will always carry over to next terms.
- The Party Leader's relationship with the ruler, that's his loyalty, will determine how radical he is. If he has really rough relationships (or friendly) with the Ruler, he will be requesting really radical agenda, like declaring Wars or even burning down a certain City.
- If the Party Leader, that's the Head of Family of the Patron Family, has good loyalty, content and basically good natured, then he will just try to be nice and work on his own. For example the Traditionalists may want high Stability, then a loyal Party Leader may just go to the Priests and donate a good amount of Sacrifice so that the Country simply benefits without doing anything, instead of asking the Ruler to fulfill his requests.
- And technically you can shut up a Party by being in good terms with the Party Leader.
- Party Influence, and therefore seats in the Senate, should be more determined by the Party Champions, since the Power Base of the 3 Families may balance out since no 2 Heads of Family should support the same Party, unless 2 Families actually try to form a coalition against the Ruling Family, or the 3rd one trying to be a lapdog in order to pursuit wealth or whatever concessions.
- And what the Country is currently undergoing should also give an Influence for that Party. For example if high Tyranny but Pops are generally happy, then more Senators will support the Oligarchs. But if high Tyranny and Pops are also unhappy, then more Senators will support the Democrats.
- Changing the Party in Power should be rare. People would want changes only when they are extremely unhappy. A combination of conditions, for example Tyranny, Senate Approval, being the minority Party in the Senate, poor Stability, Aggressive Expansion or poor Legitimacy, will contribute to the probability of changing political climates, thus a shift of the Party in Power.
- Civil Wars and Coup d'état
- Coup d'état, well you may try to call it with a nice name "Colaphus Stati", "Kolaphos Kratous", or simply "Blow of State" just to avoid using French in the game.
- Civil Wars should be replaced with the Coup d'état mechanics.
- Driving Forces:
- A Coup is always about the disenfranchised Powers forming a coalition against the dominant Power. In this case, it would be against the ruling Family since we should not see shifting of Power amongst different Parties now as stated in point 2.1.
- When the country has become unbearable to some Characters, they will try to use Schemes to try to unite sympathisers. Events should fire that people are joining up as unusual cronies to show signs of conspiracies. Some conspiracies would lead to petty struggles, like burning someone's house or some such. But some of them actually hints about a coming Coup.
- Rebellious members (that's for example a Democratic son of an Oligarch family) of the Family of the Ruling Party, unpopularity of the ruler, disloyal characters, simply anything out of place will contribute to the probability of staging a Coup.
- A Coup will always be staged by a Major Family, or at least members of it. People who dislike the status quo will contribute to it.
- Other people may choose to sit on the fence. The non-Coup and non-Ruling Family may also choose to sit on the fence. But having their support will greatly influence the power balance.
- Any disloyal Culture that the perpetrators may try to solicit supports. It depends if he has Holdings in foreign land, his Friendships with foreign characters or the governor of the foreign Region, and generally his own personality. And of course, how disloyal the Culture is. Integrating that Culture should completely prevent this from happening.
- Procedures
- When a Coup happens, key members will be either Assassinated or kidnapped. This may include the Ruler, the Heads of Families and other Officials. For example if the Mastermind of the Coup is from another Great Family but his Family's Head doesn't agree with his methods, he may choose to kidnap his grandpa and seize power within his own family. Relationships between Characters should influence both the probability and success rates.
- Civil War:
- A Coup can just be successful and the Country simply changes hands. But then there may be a Loyalist Faction raising up trying to retake the Capital.
- Or it may fail. Then a Plan B is switched to so the Rebels will assemble an Army trying to fight their way into capturing the Capital.
- Whichever case it is, there will be the Rebellion Capital and the actual Capital. Capturing the other's Capital should generally win you the Civil War.
- But if the warring Parties are too large, simply occupying the Capital will make the corresponding Party to be "the new Legitimate" government so that the other side is now the Rebels. Certain other conditions may be put to end a Civil War (and can be discussed).
- Remnants
- Remnants of a Civil Conflict will slowly fade out. But they will be present to influence future chances of breaking out a Coup or the chance to succeed in a Coup.
- Results include
- Purge or Pardon of a Family and their sympathisers
- Purge or Pardon of Pops from the Rebellion Capital, and the Cities which have chosen the wrong side
- Concessions
- From the old Ruling Family: If the Coup has been coorganised from a rebellious son of the old Ruling Family, after the success, then they may give concessions to the state and will generally request milder agenda.
- From the remnants: If the Coup has been extinguished with or without a Civil War, the ruling Party may choose to give partial demands for the unhappy Parties or Families.
- Aftermath
- There should be both good and bad aftermaths after such a major conflict. Generally the Pops will be more happy that it's finally over, but the Political Parties, Families and other players will be less happy about it.
- If a disloyal Culture has been solicited in the Coup attempt, then they may be granted independence, or installed as a seperate country with certain agreed political relationships, for example into a Vassal, an Ally or a Defensive League.
- Driving Forces:
- For smaller Countries:
- Countries below 3 Cities with 20 Pops will be exempt from Civil Wars. Their Coups will just be successful or failing. But modifiers can be added to their Capital indicating the aftermath of the conflict (similar to the Isis Cult Conflicts).
- Also please add Political Parties to Monarchies, although the Ruling Dynasty will always be the Oligarchs, unless they are Theocratic. In the case of Theocratic Monarchy, then the ruling Party will be the Traditionalist.
Please remake Athenian Ostracism. It should happen once a year having an interface like the Olympics. If not interfered, the country will ostracise someone inconsequential, perhaps someone not even shown as a Character. Then the process may be influenced by spending Tyranny and Political Influence so that problematic Characters will be up for voting to be ostracised (Ruler's Rivals only just to simplify). Further investments of Political Influence, Tyranny and Corruption may be spent to cheat the votes so that your target actually gets ostracised.
This, and then, when a Coup is staged, the mastermind may try the same trick, trying to ostracise, for example, his own father so that he seizes power within his Family.
So the yearly pop up of Ostracism will tell you that an unusual nominee has been found. So you may just watch the Scheme unfold or influence that your desired results should be seen.
And guess what, perhaps the Ruler himself may find himself up for Ostracism. The player may just choose to trust the people or spend Influence, Tyranny and Corruption to cheat it. If the Ruler is unfortunately Ostracised, it may trigger a Coup, or may not, depending on whether there is actually a Coup being staged. If no Coup, then the Ruling Party will try to sponsor another Ruler in the Election.
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