Imperator Rome – Political Changes in Patch 1.1

Hi everyone and welcome back to another development diary! This time we look into some of the political changes for the Pompey update that will be out in June.

Eligibility in Republics

Different republics will have different age-requirements for who can be elected to become ruler. Rome for example, require its rulers to be at least 35 years old.

Co-Ruler/Dual-Rulers

In the Pompey patch (v1.1), Aristocratic Republics will have Consuls & Co-Consuls. When elected, the one with highest support becomes Consul, and the one with the second highest number of votes becomes Co-Consul. This often means that they come from two different parties. When it comes to power generation, the stats of the Consul with the highest attribute will be used, giving a nice benefit to the country. The loyalty of those of the same party as the Co-Consul gets a positive impact if he is loyal, and negative impact if he is disloyal. We simulate the friction between the two consuls by the loyalty of the co-consul. Also, if the Co-Consul gets low loyalty, the power costs increase by up to 25%. The Co-Consus gain popularity by the same factor as the first consul gains popularity, and the ruler popularity that other characters look at is the average of both Consuls. Any ruling trait that a Co-Consul has will also be added to the country. A major drawback for Aristocratic Republics is the fact that impact of ruler corruption could be doubled, as both Consuls corruption is added together for the country.

Consorts

In some types of monarchies, the consorts have some sort of supportive abilities. In such a monarchy, the consorts works like a co-ruler for how you gain power each month, ie the highest score of an attribute of the ruler and his/her consort is the one considered, so the capabilities of who you marry to your ruler is important. Consorts also get a loyalty-hit over time, if they are not the parent of the primary heir of the current ruler, and if they become disloyal, they will increase the power-costs by up to 25%, scaled by how disloyal they are.

Government Abilities

In the Pompey patch we have added some extra abilities for each of the three government forms, where you can strengthen yourself. Republics Each party has a specific action connected to it, where the cost is halved if that party is in power, and also increase the populist popularity.

Civic Party - Pay Civic Power for cheaper building costs.
Military Party - Pay Military Power for more discipline .
Mercantile Party - Pay Oratory Power for cheaper trade routes.
Religious Party - Pay Religious Power for cheaper conversions.
Populist Party - Only if populists are in power, pay money for reduction in corruption and populist support

Monarchies

War Council - You can Summon a War Council once every ten years, where your important courtiers will propose different places where you should start wars, giving you claims on adjacent areas.
Demands Oath of Allegiance - Spend lots of oratory and religious power to increase the support for your Primary Heir over time.
Hold Games - Spends money of both the country and the ruler to increase his or her popularity.
Patronize the Arts - Spend Civic Power to gain Primary Culture Happiness and Civilization Increase over time.

Tribes

War Council - Same as for monarchies
Assemble Raiding Parties - Spend Oratory and Military Power to get a boost in Enslavement Efficiency.
Encourage Tribal Migration - Makes you lose 5 tribesmen pops, for a tick down in centralization.

(And there is more new things for tribes, mentioned in a later development diary.)

Power Base & Civil Wars

In Pompey each character in your realm can have a potential power base. This is both an abstract gauge of how influential they are in a country as well as a meter for how many troops they could raise in a civil war. The total power base in a country will range up to around 300 and it is scaled within that country. Power base is primarily derived from:

Loyal Troops
Owned Holdings
Titles
How much of the country’s population that is ruled by a character who is a Governor or ruler.
Ruler Popularity (for the ruler)
Character Wealth

It can also be modified by interactions, events and other script content... For purposes of Civil Wars the game will no longer count Loyal Cohorts but instead the Power Base of all disloyal characters.

The threshold for civil war is 33%, with positive stability increasing it, and negative decreasing it.

Character Interactions

We will go deeper in a later developer diary about the new abilities we will be adding, we can now mention that we are rebalancing the costs quite heavily for them, removing the power costs, and using the new abilities to impact Aggressive Expansion, Tyranny or Stability from it. Recruiting a character from another nation wlll increase your AE, while bribing will be done with the rulers own personal money.