Refunding the definition and effects of political regimes

Attention : I have tried to detail this idea as much as possible, so be ready ! 

During the last weeks, I've played several games, and one thing that has always bothered me is the limited number of government types and their limited effects (I talk about active effects, not passive effects visible only in the numbers). I understand this limited number is meant to keep the things simple and manageable, but I think a little more depth can be beneficial to the whole political system in ES2.

Unfortunately, it would be difficult to better the system by simply adding some new types of government, so I decided to propose a new formula where Density of power and Territorial administration are the two keys allowing the specification of a government type.

Density of power : This parameter is about the way elections are held, the number of law-making parties available and the cost of law-making in general. There are four types of "density" :

 - Participation (citizens are directly tasked to propose laws and vote them) : The number of representatives in a system is equal to its population, all political tendencies have to be represented and  elections are held each few turns (ex. 5 turns) without any direct mean to manipulate them (so building, quests and events, maybe heroes and propaganda, will be the main ways to influence elections). More than one "majority law" can be enacted (we can imagine that any party with 35% of votes or more will trigger one). 

 (in order to not bombard the player with electoral process, elections would have to be held automatically with the results shown to the player)

 - Representation (representatives are elected who propose laws and vote them) : The number of representatives is limited (so one per two population maybe), the elections are held at a normal pace (so every 15 turns maybe) and there are ways to influence the elections (bribing, official support etc). The number of law-making parties is limited to four (knowing that the technology allowing a new party to make laws in democracy, to my mind, should be suppressed).

 - Oligarchy (a limited number of people has the power) : Each system elects one voting representative (representing the dominant ideology in it, but there is still a limited number of uninfluential representatives to represent opposition), only two parties can be law-making, the time gap between elections can be shortened by spending influence (the default delay being around 15 turns) and there are effective (but influence and dust heavy) ways to influence elections. The influence cost of enacting laws is reduced by 33%.

 - Monarchy (one has the power) : There are no voting representatives (but there are some in each system in order to represent opposition), the delay between "elections" is long (maybe 25 turns) but "elections" can be requested (so that they happen immediately) by spending a big amount of influence, choosing an ideology makes it the dominant one at 100% (giving access to 100% laws, which are expensive but powerful) and influence costs are decreased by 50% for enacting laws.

So, to sum up, a little table (I'm sorry in advance if it goes a little off your screen...) :

	Participation	Representation	Oligarchy	Monarchy
Delay between votes	Very short (around 5 turns)	Normal (around 15 turns)	Normal (around 15 turns)	Long (around 25 turns)
Number of law-making parties	6 (so 0 opposition parties)	4 (so 2 opposition parties)	2 (so 4 opposition parties)	1 (so 5 opposition parties)
Ways of manipulating the elections	None	Few ways with normal costs	A lot of ways with normal to heavy  costs	Choosing a party makes it the dominant one at 100%
Number of voting representatives per system during elections	Equal to population	Equal to half the population  (so the minor parties won't be represented easily)	One per system (representing the main ideology in it)	None
Particularity	Two "majority laws" can be enacted (if a party has more than 35% of the votes).	None for now	- Influence can be spent to shorten the delay between two elections. - -33% influence cost for enacting laws	Influence can be spent to make elections happen immediatly (heavy cost) - -50% influence cost for enacting laws
Pros	- Offers a large panel of cheap laws and passive effects ; - No political opposition hinders approval ; - Doesn't cost dust or influence to be of use.	- More balanced regime, causing limited political oppositions while allowing some manipulations of the elections ; - Offers a good panel of cheap laws while allowing you to enact some more powerful ones.	- Adaptable regime allowing effective uses of dual ideologies thanks to easy means of manipulating the elections and possibly shortened delays ; - Allows the use of some powerful laws quite easily.	- Allows the use of the most powerful laws at disposition with ease ; - Can be quite responsive to crisis if you have enough influence.
Cons	- Is impossible to manipulate actively - Rarely gives access to more than the least powerful (but expensive) laws ; - Not having any way to manipulate the elections makes your empire quite manipulable by other factions and events.	- No way to have short delays between elections, contrary to the three others ; - It can be difficult to have access to powerful laws (and they will be expansive).	- Exploiting all the potential of this regime requires large amounts of dust and influence ; - It is required to diminish the influence of other ideologies to avoid some nasty disapproval problems.	- Having only one ideology at a time can make you quite predictable - Without enough influence, you'll be unable to give good response to crisis (since the normal delays between elections is quite long) ; - Diminishing political opposition is necessary when changing the ideology if you want to avoid major disapproval problems.

NB : One of the main aspect I want to point out is the interest of extending the approval malus effect the game currently has for the autocratic regime to all regimes : all parties that are not considered as "law-making" (so 5 for the monarchy, 4 for the oligarchy, 2 for the representative system and 0 for the participative system) will generate disapproval (it will be a minor inconvenience most of the time, but can be dangerous for monarchies and oligarchies, and act as a counterbalance to the more direct control they have on their "senate", even during a crisis or after an event ; on the other hand, it gives more interest to the representative and participative systems, which have access to less powerful laws most of the time).

Territorial administration : (I haven't found a better appellation yet) : This parameter has effects on economy and the cohesion of the empire (so effects on colonization-approval, adjacency effects maybe) : 

 - Federate empire : +100% speed of transformation of an outpost in a colony ; -33% colonization disapproval in the empire ; bonus to trade.

 - Centralized empire : No disapproval for colonization or overpopulation in the systems adjacent (linked by a lane) to your home system and in your home system ; bonus to influence in all systems.

Adjective according to the attribute of the state : 

ex. : Raian Ummah, Sophon Republic of Hekim, Lumerian Ouranoteia of Jenes etc

NB : Maybe adding a minor unique bonus for each one of these regimes could add even more interest in the system.

ex. : The Commonwealth could provide even more bonus to trade, the Gathering a bonus to food production etc

NB : Naturally, the current Commonwealth isn't a real monarchy since the queen doesn't have political power ; the Ummah, Muslim term, has the same linguistic origins than home of Heimat and can be used to describe a community dispersed but having a common history etc) ; the Ouranoteia is an adaptation of the concept of Politeia from the Spartan Oligarchy (with polis, the city, replaced by ouranos, the sky) ; the United Systems is obviously inspired by the USAmerica ; the System-States system is inspired by the Mesoamerican empires (for example the Aztec Triple Alliance) and the Gathering is a self-made appelation (but I find it corresponds well to what it wants to correspond to).

NB : Since each faction currently in the game have a specific name to its type of regime (like the Church of the Virtual Saints for the Vodyani or the Federal Anocracy for the Lumeris), I think we could have specific appellations for some types of regime.

ex. : the United Republics of Raia instead of Raian Ouranoteia, the Church of the Virtual Saints instead of the Vodyani Commonwealth, the Lumerian Federal Anocracy instead of the Lumeris System-States, the Stratocracy of Hives instead of the Cravers Commonwealth/Kingdom (this specie is on a whole new level ) and the Geniocratic Demarchy of Hekim instead of the Sophon Gathering.

Change of regime : In the current version of the game, changing the type of regime only costs amounts of influence and provokes turns of anarchy depending on the "distance" between the targeted regime and the one currently in place (the ones with the most differences are more costly). 

My wish would be to replace a part of the influence cost by something like a quest or a dilemma with possibilities to remove the anarchy or obtain some key bonus in the new regime (similar to what a minor faction could provide when assimilated).

Thank you for reading this much ! 

Don't hesitate to criticize or add new elements in the comment. Even all of this seems a little unrealistic, the goal is to give ideas to the developers about this particular topic, since it is meant to be one of the main mechanics of ES2.