Unbalanced factions

[enf91]

I played a couple games as Rome (mostly because it got jacked up when I got it through GG and so bought it again thru Steam, but that's irrelevant), and what always happens is some faction gets about 50 seats and leaves the other 4 with less than 10. One time the Populist Faction had 72. And it had the (2nd) lowest attraction percentage. Eventually it declared a civil war and had its numbers cut in half, but it always happens. Once it was 2 factions, the Religious and the Populists. After the Populists started a civil war, the Mercantilists took about 70 seats. Then I declared a dictatorship . But it keeps happening. Why does one faction swell beyond control? I have no mods; the first one was with 2.2; the second with 2.31 beta.

 

[unmerged(104812)]

Well I think being a fellow hater of the populist i should see if i can get you outta trouble there first. Everybody that dosent have something to do seems to eventually switch over to populist. The trick here is to assign titles ponifex and augar are good ones bc they dont dissappear if youve given them a job then they lost it later so you only have to assign it once. Another thing with the populist is their faction leader is important. If he has a bigger charisma level than 5 id say imprison him bc thats got alot to do with their political attraction. And always use your omen. hope all this this should help you keep down those populist dogs.

Now it does seem that a party always gets the advantage but its always worked like in my games like the senate seems to in real life. a party will have power for maybe even two terms before another party starts to grow and grab power. It can be influanced by how many memebers they have in important places who was popular and prominet enough to get elected. I had a civic heavy senate electe a military counsl just bc i made sure there was no good civic choices. so my counsl was voted in by a grand number of 23 bc none of the civics voted at all.

Oh and remember all those evens where it was a choice between giving the ruling party more seats or giving the populist party some help? those help upset the balance quite a bit but it can be worked around.

In the end do as you did! Kick those good for nothing senators out on their pain in the ass asses! haha

 

[andrew.murphy1]

I don't know about other people's methodology when dealing with populists, but I have a few golden rules when dealing with the likes of them

1) Most importantly, look who your next consul is likely to be. If one of them is a populist, smear his reputation, which should effectively rig the election against him. if this fails send him of with an army you don't like/ is crap, and have him lose a load of battles against barbarians, deep in the wilderness... :rofl:

2) Never, ever let a populist get a position of power (navy, army, governovership, admin post, censor, etc.) if they get prominence and popularity, neither of which is good (for a populist to have ) then you are in deep doodoo, and you could end up with a populist consul

3) Watch their political attraction! That golden information is the first clue you get to knowing if they are about to landslide the senate in their favour... I've seen a Populist Leader who got his faction 20% political attraction alone :wacko: which is insane. He didn't even have any titles or anything, sheer charisma. If such an individual appears for the populists in your game, then imprison him. you may be unlucky and have to imprison a bunch in a row, but with the frequent Consul change, the tyranny hit will be cut down pretty quick (it halves with every new leader, and goes down monthly anyways)

Leave low charisma (less than four) populist leaders in control of their faction. Also watch out for inactive trade-routes, and other problems that increase their political attraction; these can be easily fixed with a little attentiveness. War exhaustion and long periods of peace also increase their political attraction. Just don't let your wars drag on, and if you don't find yourself at war very often, attack someone small, fight a couple of battles, and call a truce (maybe throw in a little gold if the AI is being its usual stubborn self )

4) A good counter to beating the populists is trying to steal their less radical followers (political conviction less than 20) by giving them the job they want (for as little time as possible). this is the ONE AND ONLY time you should consider giving a populist an important job

5) Another way to beat the populists back is to have one faction dominate the senate. Personally, as the 'military republic' romans, por ejemplo, i only let military guys in, but other govt's work with the other parties (they all have good bonuses in my opinion) Basically, just give all the jobs to one political party, occasionally using point no. 4) to win over the senators from other parties who are sitting-on-the-fence.

6) Finally, watch out for people with no titles at all (who aren't massively populist) and give them something to do! particularly with young people you need to pay attention to their political situation, they are the govt. of tomorrow. younglings in your majority party should be particularly taken well care of (make sure jobs are rotated so these guys get known and start moving in the right circles )

Sorry this was so long but i kept thinking of things to add...
Thanks for reading! {thumbs up}

 

[fmurciap]

What about mercantile?

I have never found much difficult in keeping populists at bay. The rules are easy to follow: fill ambitions, get rid (jail, murder, whatelse...) of 5 or over charismatic populists BEFORE they become leader, ALWAYS have a low charisma populist in reserve (besides the leader) just in case, ...
The only situation hard to cope with is a long attrition war. War exhaustion really boosts populists.
What I have never kept real controlled are merchantilists. You build a big empire and you have got a lot of available trade routes. And you have to choose: use them, merchantilists up, or don't use them, populists rule. To worsen things, every chap who wants to be governor of somewhere gets a mercantile bonus of 6 if ambition fulfilled. AFAIK is the only bonus of that size not depending on the faction of the consul, and with faction convictions ususally below 25, it means that 4 times of 5, they will turn "yellow".
In big republics, after 550 or 600 AUC, it's difficult to get a military consul, hard a religious one and almost impossible a civic.

 

[Marcus Scipio]

Well, isn't that about the time to get a dictator in power and proclaim the Empire?

 

[NoodleNaught]

isn't it just easier to start a civil war and change your goverment type through it then to actually deal with all those queers in the senate?

 

[unmerged(189088)]

I have never found much difficult in keeping populists at bay. The rules are easy to follow: fill ambitions, get rid (jail, murder, whatelse...) of 5 or over charismatic populists BEFORE they become leader, ALWAYS have a low charisma populist in reserve (besides the leader) just in case, ...
The only situation hard to cope with is a long attrition war. War exhaustion really boosts populists.
What I have never kept real controlled are merchantilists. You build a big empire and you have got a lot of available trade routes. And you have to choose: use them, merchantilists up, or don't use them, populists rule. To worsen things, every chap who wants to be governor of somewhere gets a mercantile bonus of 6 if ambition fulfilled. AFAIK is the only bonus of that size not depending on the faction of the consul, and with faction convictions ususally below 25, it means that 4 times of 5, they will turn "yellow".
In big republics, after 550 or 600 AUC, it's difficult to get a military consul, hard a religious one and almost impossible a civic.

IMO, the civic party could surely have an additional attraction factor. In my games, I always have to pull them up.

I find populists easy to contain. I usually favor the military and civics (tech positions and censors), while trying to control the religious and mercantile (who have big attraction factors) and ignore (don't give them any positions) the populists. I only use populists for declarations of war, especially the higher charisma characters.