The political, diplomatic, and economic system while simple leave a great many things to be desired. Heck the amount of thought I put into all of this you could make a whole expansion out of it to deepen the game even further.



I think Endless Space 2 needs it to be reworked as the Democratic political system and Republic system seem to be the most over powered given how simple it all is, and how easily they have the ability to gain the most laws or have the most senate leaders with positive powers.



First off for economic minded people, there should be the ability to set tax levels that correspond and alter the disposition of each system indpendently, and based on minor and major races within your empire. I prupose 7 different levels of taxation.



Going from lowest to highest tax level would be like so:
1: No taxation whatsoever 0% Dust from system, +15 happiness accross the system, +15% Industry (if under chance of rebellion -2 per turn until system is stable), and +15% fertility rate

2: Light Level taxation +15% Dust from the system, +10 happiness across system (rebellion choice same as above except -1 per turn until stable)

3: Low Level taxation +30% Dust from system, +5 happiness across system

4: Normal Level Taxation +45% Dust from system

5: High Level taxation +60% Dust from system, -5 happiness across system

6: Harsh Level taxation +75% Dust from system, -10 happiness across system, if under chance of rebellion +extra 1 per turn until fully rebels

7: Extreme Level taxation +90% Dust from system, -15 happiness across system, if under chance of rebellion + extra 2 per turn until system fully rebels, and every 2 turns one population leaves the system



Now Taxation levels can be upped to 100% only under certain political decisions which I'll get to later down the line.



But to continue on for taxation, each race should be affected by the tax choice differently. For example ALL major races that belong to their respective side, i.e. UE Imperials under a normal tax level don't suffer or gain anything and the bonuses or detractions of each level correspond exactly as written for them. Same would be for the Horatios only for Horatio; Sophons only for the Sophons, Vaulters only for the Vaulters, etc etc.



But if say a Major race of a different faction is populating and producing in one of your systems for example: Cravers are populating and producing in one of your systems under a normal taxation level for the United Empire, then they will have an additional -5 Happiness for each level of taxation as they are being taxed by a different race of people, and thus their racial bonus could be lowered, or raised depending on if it hurts the system or benefits it and they are not happy, although that might be too much in addition to the -5 happiness, maybe only on the extreme ends of the taxation levels.

Now an idea to use that lowered/raised racial bonus based on disposition can be for when their preferred political party isn't in charge they won't work as hard on the system they inhabit.



A lot of this can apply for minor races as well.



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The ability to choose an official leader should be implemented. To use the United Empire as an example(and I probably will to maintain consistency throughout my idea), and this does contain a spoiler to one of the quests for it. The ability to depose Emperor Zelevas and replace him with Petra, Hadri, or Lena and depending on the political system in question for a duration.



To start off

-The leader of any political system should be able to be officially changed to one of the four or more main people, Zelevas, Petra, Hadri, or Lena permanently or for a set amount of time depending on the political system chosen.

Each would obviously give Empire wide bonuses separate from the faction. Each of these can be the main leader not affected by the outcome of the quest to turn the UE into Sheredyn, Mezari, or leave it as UE.

Zelevas gives Industrial bonuses, Petra - Science, Hadri - Military, Lena - Religious, and for the sake of adding ideas  I prupose a fifth choice, Vens Kestrel, a leader based on a mercentilistic ideal, and a sixth leader choice, Herman Spavius, a leader based on the food and fertility choice. The idea comes from the whole FIDSI economy choice idea. (Obviously new character names are based to change but those are my two cents for characters of the UE.)



This could all be used for each faction actually with the main leader being based on the main outputs and specialties.

Food, Industry, Dust, Science, Religion, War and with each main leader getting a varying amount of interest based on how well they manage the empire, for example +10 Interest per every system above happy. I also propose 3 levels to the leader so the longer they stay in charge the more positives they add to the empire, but if removed they lose all the levels gained and have to start from square one. So in order to reach the first level of bonus traits the leader has to be in charge for 25 turns, level 2 would require 50 turns, level 3 would require 100 turns. This means in total the leader would need to stay in power for 175 turns total to unlock all 3 levels of upgrades.



And their following trait would match their main trait and only work on systems that are happy. For example:



-Food/Population specialist leaders

Level 1 - +15% food production for (insert type of planet here)

The secondary and tertiary would be split between war and peace time i.e.

Level 2 -  +10% manpower replenishment during war times, while during peace times +10% faster main race fertility

Level 3 -  During peace time +15% food production per planet with only the main race present on it. During war time +15% extra food resources from enemy or other faction systems encompassed within your border that have not been taken over yet by influence or bought.





-Industry/Tycoon specialist leaders

Level 1 - +15% production for (insert preferred planet type here)

Level 2 - During war time +10% faster production of military vessels, and peace time +10% faster building production.

Level 3 - During war time +15% of each resource production of a planet is filtered into the Industry of a planet. During peace you can dimantle one ship of your fleet over a system to give it anywhere from 5% to 15% production (industry) bonus, depending on the vessel size, for 20 turns



-Dust/Mercantilist specialist leaders

Level 1 - +15% Dust production on (insert preferred type of planet), and pirate fleets can be bought and only they can be turned into privateers if you don't have the privateer tech researched yet (or if you're not a Vaulter)

Level 2 - During war pirate marks can be bought for 50% less and enemy ships of light and medium weights can be bribed to join you, during peace time get the ability to automatically build one company and two subsidiaries regardless of tech.

Level 3 - During war you can take hostage enemy faction heroes that are attached to fleets and ransom them back only, no chance at using them whatsoever. During peace you are able to buy out companies from other factions to accrue more than the original 3 per empire you can build, although they are worth the cost of the company and all the ships bought for it.



-Science/Futurist specialist leaders

Level 1 - +15% Science production on (insert preferred type of planet)

Level 2 - During war +10% military technology research speed, during peace +10% research speed for science technology

Level 3 - During war time gives the ability to use enemy faction populations to feed scientific experiments growing the science resource by 10% science production per opposing factions main population in your empire for 20 turns. During peace time allows the ability to change a trait of your main factions population, for example allowing the ability to change the Imperial populations industry trait to a different choice for a large sum of course and -10% science production for 10 turns.



-Religious/Prophetic specialist leaders

Level 1 - +15% happiness on a planet that is completely filled by your main factions race

Level 2 - During peace allows the ability to send your main race populations to any colonized system, friend or foe thus lowering the opposing factions system happiness causing conversion to your Empire after the system reaches 0%. During war those populations you have sent to a planet will help your invasion force by counting toward your ships total manpower when attacking on the ground.

Level 3 - During war for every system of yours that is conquered by the enemy as long as your population exists there it will be a constant chance of rebellion in that system for the faction that conquered it for 20 turns unless taxes are set to zero or the system is returned to their prime faction. During peace when your empires border encompasses at least 50% of any faction that system is automatically converted to yours but over time for 20 turns that main factions population will flee the system with 1 population leaving per turn.



-Military/Tactician specialist leaders

Level 1 - +15% faster production of military vessels, and a free medium vessel is produced at the home system.

Level 2 - During war your manpower is automatically raised by +1000 (and lowered after war is over) as patriotic people are lining up to fight and die for their empire. During peace docking (disbanding) a ship/fleet at a system you can select a vessel to provide a boost by 5% all the way to 15% (depending on its size) to a single planet of that system and that ship cannot be undocked and will be unusable for 20 turns.

Level 3 - During war you can subjugate (select) as many races that are not your main race which reside in your empire and turn them directly into manpower for war efforts. During peace time any enemy ship that was captured and has not been ransomed can be converted to your use in your fleets.





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Now onto political parties and ways to improve them. but first some minor changes to improve general function and view. The senate graph is nice, BUT it always bothered me that it doesn't show all the senatorial parties that have seats on the senate in the box, the part where it shows the leaders of each party, which it should all of them no matter which is winning out as top party/parties. The only difference is the winning party or parties should simply be highlighted to display that their party and their leaders are the ones that won out the vote. Also senatorial party leaders should be able to be chosen at the behest or the leader, or voted upon by the population depending on political system.



While the graph showing off the diaspora of races within your empire is all nice and dandy it doesn't do much. Race should play a bigger part, and which races get full rights, which don't, and which will be used as slave labor.

For example Imperials race will have full rights and will be the only ones to cast a vote if their political party is any of them except Dictatorship.



For races that aren't the main race there should be the choice of giving them full citizenship which would give them a +1 happy modifier per population and to be counted in the voting process when it comes to parties. Let them stay as non citizens which does not grant a modifier and they would not be allowed to vote for whichever party type their race prefers. Or have the option to enslave that particular race which would give a -1 happy modifier, but +4% to all resources production per population on a planet. Obviously this racial function will only be available to Dictatorship from the start, while the other three political parties need to pass general laws to allow such things to happen. And if those laws are not passed alien races will remain as non-citizens, and cannot be used as slave labor.



There should also be more general law types to the already present 7 independent law types.

A few ideas are:



Available from beginning:

1: Arms for all citizens. - This would grant the ability to have each official citizen pop have a count of +50 towards the defensive manpower of a sector but they would only count under the infantry tab, Concription option in system defense is greyed out. The downside is Rebellions can start at Unhappy system level. Requires +5 Influence per citizen pop to maintain.

2: Draft Authorized - Unlocks the option to Conscript an extra 33% to the amount available. The downside is everytime conscription is used the system suffers a -15 happiness. +2 Influence upkeep per citizen

3: Fighting the Cartel: Pirates in your constellation take longer to produce ships. Relations with pirate faction reduces quicker. Requires +3 influence upkeep per pirate ship in your constellation.



Available once established:

4: Elite Training: Your empires military are more than just average soldiers they have been trained and drilled for much longer, and it shows. Your ground forces are 20% more effective on the ground. +2 upkeep per pop

5: Alien Integration: Allows the empire to accept any race as citizens of their respective empire, or to enslave any race in their respective empire. (Law does not exist for Autocracy government system as they get the ability from the start. For Democracies it is limited to Non-citizen and citizen only, slave choice is greyed out.)



Available once entrenched:

6: Flight Officer Corps: Your space faring vessels are lead by smart men who know how to cripple an enemy ship. +20% damage and +15% chance for enemy vessels to be captured instead of destroyed. +4 Influence upkeep



Available once Potent:
7: TOTAL WAR: The engines are running and your empire is at work producing all manners of things. Your warmachine will crush those who oppose you! *Need to be at war for more than 15 turns before law is selectable* +25% manpower recovery, +1000 extra manpower resource, +15% all resources generation. Upkeep -500 influence generation, after 25 turns of Total War -5 Happiness on systems per turn the law persists



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Now for the meaty political bits:



-The weakest political playstyle of all is Dictatorship, which should be renamed to Autocracy first off which I will refer to it as so since it fits much better. Beside a slight early game advantage it is pretty useless later on.

The Autocratic party when electing its leader will elect its leader for life meaning they are stuck for good unless the player uses a high cost of influence to "overthrow" the current leader so their position can be changed, and depending on how well that leader was doing the whole empire will either be happy that the old emperor is deposed and hail the new one if happiness was below happy on the majority of colonies, or they will be angry that the old emperor was replaced. So if a system was above happy they will be angry and if the system was below happy they will be ecstatic, all of this for 10 turns until stability.

Next the Autocratic political party should be allowed to access all of the law spaces and be allowed to use any laws from any senatorial party it wishes regardless of which wins out. Although to mitigate being too over powered the senatorial parties that don't win out will have their law usefulness slashed in half.

The senatorial bit, while showing all the parties in the box only the main one that wins out (the "Voice of the Emperor") will be highlighted to represent the main party that won out and who's skill tree empire wide bonuses will apply fully, and apply a +5% boost to one of the FIDSI choices of the party that wins out in the senate. During the election the Emperors vote will count as a large booster, while also giving the option not to cast a vote. The Autocratic party should also be able to pick right off the bat who can lead each senatorial party, for example you have 3 industrialist heroes you should be able to switch who can lead the main party, OR if none are chosen to lead then after the party gains max experience they get a random hero which is the same race as your chosen empire to lead that particular party.



--The Autocratic governemnt would get the following special hull:

1: A Large hull flagship which a Hero of the empire would use.



--Special laws only avaible to Autocratic party:

Requires Established

1: Ethnic Nationalism: The vile xeno seeks to disperse us and conquer our system through replacement, stay strong and tightly knit in your communities! +5 happiness per system that is only filled by those of your empires main race, +5% production on all resources. Upkeep is -4 influence per pop



Require Entrenched

2: Instilled Patriotism: Keep the Empire afloat and free from those who seek to destroy us from without and within! Any race that counts as a citizen will count as another +10 manpower per pop on a system. Upkeep is -1 influence per pop



Requires Potent

3: National Fertility program: Keep your nation and your empire alive through the future with more children and the less taxes you have to pay too! +40% growth of your empires main race, +20% manpower replenishment, upkeep -20% Dust production -150 Influence flat



--Specialized building that can be contructed:

The Emperors Palace:

An awe inspiring piece where the Leader lives out his daily life. +10 Happiness on system produced and +500 manpower added to system.



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-The Federation seems to be second weakest from my experience.

Their political play style should be much more different than the others as the political party type implies there is multiple factions at play within your empire. Thus when you pick a leader in this type of political government type you are playing as the faction with the most infuential leader in your empire. Obviously changing leaders will work differently. A leader can only be changed officially after 80 turns. If you do not want to wait that long to change a leader then you have to spend influence to demand a vote to be cast by all the senatorial parties and the other leaders you can pick from, and based on your leaders performance they the AI, not the player, will pick the next of the available leaders to be the head of the federation. A third way needs more than 50% of all systems under each of the other leaders controls to be below happy before a vote is called and the player can vote for a new leader of the federation.

To explain that last sentence basically for the Federation government type systems will be split up to be under indirect control of an opposing leader meaning a different sub faction of your empire. Basically if a system produces more industry output than anything else it will be under the indirect control of the industry leader faction. And if the sub faction happiness of these leaders does not bode well then rebellion and secession is more likely. Meaning that which ever systems they hold that are less than happy they will take with them, and those that are more than happy they will switch over to your leaders sub faction control.

For laws the Federation should start with 2 slots and only have the ability to add more law slots until the max by spending strategic and luxury resources, which increases with each unlocked slot.



--The specialized vessel the Federation should get is:

1: Medium vessel flagship that is controlled by a hero of the leading senatorial party of the Federation freeing the hero to move around applying their bonuses to the system he is docked in, while maintaining empire wide bonuses as well due to being the leader of the strongest senatorial party.



--The specialized laws the Federation would get are:

Requires Established

1: Autonomous Systems: Sub-faction leaders have the ability to automatically decide what structures to design next based on its needs, and where to move its population from planet to planet in the system, minimizing the micro managment of the federation leaders. Free, but empire gets -5% production



Requires Entrenched

2: Federative trade: There will be trade between the different sub factions and their self-established minor capitals within your empire. *prerequisite of at least 6 systems with each needing to be assigned as a capital of each subfaction (the leaders not picked)* +10 dust per system traded between systems, +1 of each luxury resource available traded if it is available to the system



Requires Potent

3: Federative Nations United: Through a strong bond between our nations, our great faction grows! All subfactions gain +10 happiness on their systems. +25% faster border expansion *Prerequisite government exclusive building*



--The Specialized building the Federation would get is:

1: Federative Nations Building: This building can be built anywhere and will designate the system it is build on as the new capital of the faction. +10 Happiness on system, +500 manpower on system.



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-The leader of the Republic should be elected to lead, and will stay in power for 40 turns, and every 40 turns an election will be held to either keep or replace the leader. The senate seats will be based on the current system, but the leader of each respective senatorial party will have an election every 20 turns to be replaced by another if there is another otherwise there will be no election for the head of a senatorial party.

The Republic should be able to unlock more law slots every 3 systems colonized. So when it starts with two it will able to gain the max amount of law slots every 3 systems.

--The special hull type the Republic can build is:

1: medium hull ship that is piloted by a hero that shares the same affinity as the leading senatorial party

--Special laws exclusive to the Republic:

Requires Established

1: Legis Actiones: The law is sacred and must be upheld, bring all traitorous cur to justice! +20 dust gained per lost cp against Pirate vessels only. 10% chance to capture a pirate vessel instead. Free, no upkeep



Requires Entrenched

2: Formulary Systems: Enemy vessels that are captured are given a chance to take an oath and fight for your side against whomever you send them against. -5 influence per foreign vessel that takes the pledge.



Requires Potent

3: Cognitio Extra Ordinem: Interaction costs between major empires factions decreased based on Pressure trend, with 100% pressure on an opposing faction gives 75% off on all diplomatic actions. Factions at war that are losing to your faction can be forced into indentured servitude for up to +1 turn for a war that goes on for more than 40 turns for a total of 50 turns indentured servitude. The indentured faction will give resource tributes and forced to fight any other faction their master faction is at war with.



--The specialized building the Republic gets is:

1: Forum of Elders: The great forum where all political business is held is gigantic and generally full as there are constant talks being held. +10 happiness on the system built,  +500 manpower on the system built



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-The Leader of the Democratic government system is first decided by you, and you have to maintain atleast +51% of all systems to be Happy or more to keep getting your selected leader re-elected. The only way to keep them getting re-elected is to keep more than half of the systems happy, that's it that's the only trick. But if you don't manage to do that and less than half of the systems are happy then during the next election the leader will be chosen solely by the people of the systems being governed with no allowed input from the player of preffered leader.

The Senatorial party choices will remain untouched with 3 parties. The player has input just like the regular decision of being allowed to pick their favored party before a vote. Of course there will also be options for system rigging so voted senatorial seats don't matter and you can constantly get the same parties elected.

The Democratic government will start with 3 law slots, and ONLY gain law slots when a senatorial party in charge has a hero leading it, otherwise the next law slot will not be unlocked.

Laws will also take an extra turn to pass and to be abolished due to the bureaucracy of this government type.

--The specialized hull type that the Democratic party will get is:

1: Small vessel with slots akin to a vessel between a medium and light vessel and it will be piloted by a hero of the Democratic party.

--These specialized laws exclusive to Democrats once enacted cannot be abolished for 40 turns. The laws are:

Requires Established

1: Freedom Rings! - All races, Major and Minor, are attracted to the call of democracy and choose to travel to your systems from far away. Random races will slowly fill up your systems -1 Influence for each foreign population that settles until cancelled.



Requires Entrenched

2: Socialized Services - Give us your poor, your starving, your midguided and we will turn them all into great citizens! +10% Defensive and Offensive manpower replenishment rate due to opposing faction attackers or defenders turning sides due to losing battles. +10% chance of an enemy vessel turning sides after the end of a battle and joining your fleet, or if your fleet cp is full then creating a new fleet.



Requires Potent

3: Fight the Oppressor! - Those poor people in other systems need to be freed from the reigns of tyranny! When your border encompasses 50% of a system owned by any faction not in an alliance with you, then you can spend influence to automatically start a rebellion that will attack its home faction while being at peace with you. -100 influence per system turned into Rebel faction.



--Specialized building pertaining to the Democratic political party is:

1: Central Capitol - The building looks modern and not particularly exquisite or grand, but built to work and not look pretty, this building is where all the political and bureaucratic business is held. +10 happiness on the system where built, +500 manpower on the system where built.





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Now onto Diplomatic ideas



First off after first contact with a faction, friendly diplomatic options should not be possible until an Embassy is contructed on the home system. To construct it you would need to first ask for the right to construct an embassy in that factions home system and by asking it would say you need x amount of resources so you provide the faction with the build cost and production starts automatically once accepted. When finished each faction will know the location of the home system of the other. Each faction would also be able to start a Science and Trade agreement, and talks of peace, and an alliance.



Demand tribute option - which will not only demand from resources but the ability to demand Indentured servitude and the faction in question, if accepting the terms, has to send  the demanding empire the amount of demanded indentured servants which will be working in your empire for 20 turns. After 20 turns all the populations given will be released back to their main faction. Of course the indentured servants in question can be from any given race the opposing faction has and is wanting to give.



Cargo Embargo - A version of closed borders, but only affects trade ways and civilian traffic coming through your factions borders, military ships can still move through but not attack. Any military ships of the opposing faction that are found within your borders at the time of initiating this act are either forced to be dismantled into dust by the opposing faction or to be turned over to your faction.



Trade agreement should be broken down more between the resources available, dust excluded. So once you click on trade agreement you would be able to select which resource type this trade would be pertaining to. For example clicking on food trade would generate an income of food and some dust. Same thing for science, industry, and Manpower. This trade agreement version wouldn't replace the regular asking for x amount of a thing.



To start a trade agreement with another faction you would need to have at least 1 "Trade Company HQ" and the faction you want to trade with needs to also have at least 1 "Trade Company"



To start a science agreement with another faction you would need to have built at least 1 "Research Cities" within your empire.







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Now onto some gameplay features that I feel would benefit the game a bit more.



Pirates, pirates, pirates, pirates... they feel useless some games, annoying some other games, and slightly useful a few games.



Feeding money into the Pirate warmachine gets me wondering, why can I not also hire pirate fleets individually as mercenaries. Hire individual fleets and send them to attack a chosen system through the action of being bought.



The privateer option is quite useful and raising the black flag is fun sometimes, but the only option for ground battles is para-raiders. for your own personal forces that raise the black flag you should be able to have other ground options rather than that single one. The option to incite a rebellion countdown on a system where the privateer fleet is orbiting, and unless that privateer fleet orbiting that system it is inciting is destroyed the rebellion countdown cannot be stopped.



A new winning condition of creating an alliance which encompasses all the factions in play during the game. If any faction is killed then that United Galaxy win condition would be impossible. This would offer and encourage a pacifist play condition.



The construction of a shipyard that needs to be built on a system before allowing that system to construct any vessels. It would slow down the system colonization rush in the beginning for a few turns.



New Battle Tactic ability to cripple ships and capture them instead of destroying them. This would make capturing enemy vessels by equipping ships with boarding pods more possible as from my experience playing with boarding pods does not give me a capture very often, although maybe I'm not using enough boarding pods on my vessels.



A new Battle Tactic card set that can be used exclusively for ground battles to augment the way you are attacking or defending a system. Can be based on distance too and if needed, when clicking watch, shown during the phase as soldiers and tanks and aircraft being far away, in the middle, or really close to the enemy in their position of the ground battle plane.



The ability to offer a system for bid on the marketplace. The bidding process would last 10 turns, final bid gets the system. Starting bid amount is set by the true value of the system without the input of the player or AI controlling that system, and it's price will obviously go up based on bids.



The ability to send heroes into opposing faction systems as spies that will help giving your faction information on that system the spy has been sent to, but which planet that spy is stationed on in that system will be random. If the hero spy is sent to the capital system he ends up revealing the whole border and systems under that factions control. The faction which has the spy problem will be notified through an event chain that there is funky activity going on. The information panel will include the main system that has the spy and a few others around it that do not have that spy. Thus that faction will have to use a hero of their own as a counter-spy to try and find the hero that is causing the problem by sending their counter-spy hero to each planet individually of the number of systems reported in the event chain. If the hero spy is caught then they are captured and can be ransomed back to the faction that sent them.



During invasions when attacking a system planet types should affect invasion policies. Thus if the planets in the system are Terran no positives or negative to invasion policy. If there is a bunch of lava, gas, and ice planets it would mean lower deployments for the attacker and a longer siege as those while having some of the worst living conditions would also mean they would have the strongest natural defenses against invading forces and giving a bonus to your systems protection. To mitigate this feature and enhance planet invasions even further there could also be an extra modules available when deesigning vessels that would let you add specialized infantry battalions to a ship if it is designed soley for troop carrying.

-Thus a module called Expeditionary Forces would be able to conquer the majority of planets that have actual surfaces much more easier than regular troops, but have harder times capturing other planets.

-Planets that are composed of mainly water would need Aquatic Specialized Battalions to take over planets filled with water easier, but have a harder time with others.

-Arctic Specialized Battalions for taking over those cold icey worlds easier, but obviously have more trouble with other planet types.

-And then last but not least, an Extreme Worlds Specialization Battalion that would have an easy time with those Jovian type planets, but not such an easy time with other planets.

-All troop types should also get a bonus from the P.O.W.E.R. Armour tech.