Introduction

Spoiler Political Factions

Before getting right into my idea, I think we should first reprise how Political Factions might work according to many of the community suggestions that I've seen. The factions system already exists in the game for one country (Ming), and essentially this would be a more fleshed-out version that applies to more different kinds of nations. Essentially, there would be five or six factions for every country, and each would correspond to a particular power base of its society.



Which factions?

For a traditional feudal monarchy, you might have nobility (which gets the most representation in the form of three to four noble houses), clergy, and then commoners.



Each of these factions would have their own agenda; noble houses would compete with one another for influence and generally favor a less centralized realm, whereas clergy would advocate less separation of church and state (or possibly jump on the Reformation bandwagon when that arrives), and finally commoners (probably the least influential of the bunch) might favor a switch to an entirely different, more democratic government type. For other kinds of societies and governments, factions would vary accordingly: merchant guilds for merchant republics, political parties for republics (and perhaps also GB's post-Civil War parliamentary monarchy), elders and warriors for tribal societies, etc. Factions might also favor different diplomatic stances against particular neighbors or expansion in different directions; national decisions might also affect the distribution of influence among the factions.



Influence and its consequences

Influence (the resource over which the various Political Factions compete) could be abstracted as a zero-sum game, with 100 points distributed among the various factions. More specifically, however, the nobility would compete as a unit for Influence with the clergy and commoners, and then the various noble houses would compete amongst each for their share of that Influence. A typical feudal monarchy might have the following distribution: Nobility 65% , Clergy 25%, Commoners 10%, and then the ruling house might have 30% from that 65%, leaving 35% for other noble houses. The noble house with the most Influence would be the most likely to produce the monarchy's next heir. A typical republic, on the other hand, might follow this Influence distribution: Elite 55%, Clergy 15%, Commoners 30%, and that 55% would be distributing among the various competing political parties.



Once any particular faction's influence exceeds a certain threshold a country would gain bonuses associated with that faction, but when a faction's influence is below a particular threshold the faction would be said to be discontent. Being discontent makes factions inclined to form or join a rebellion against the current regime, but particular factions may have greater ability to do this than others depending on government type. In our "generic feudal monarchy" example, noble houses would constitute the largest threat of rebellion; clergy would require the support of at least one other faction to initiate a revolt, and the threshold for commoners initiating rebellions might be lower than the rest so as to prevent excessively frequent peasant revolts. In a republic, however, the nobles may have the least power to initiate a rebellion, with the commoners as the benefactor of this differential distribution of power.



One interesting suggestion (from someone else, but I can't remember who) for further nuance that I came across recently was that the influence distribution in neighboring countries should affect the growth and decay of various factions' influence in one's home country. This would create greater interest in foreign politics and provide actual incentive to use the government form and religious casus belli's, and I support the idea wholeheartedly. At any rate, we now have a general outline of how Political Factions would function, but I think there's still one dimension missing. Before getting right into my idea, I think we should first reprise how Political Factions might work according to many of the community suggestions that I've seen. The factions system already exists in the game for one country (Ming), and essentially this would be a more fleshed-out version that applies to more different kinds of nations. Essentially, there would be five or six factions for every country, and each would correspond to a particular power base of its society.For a traditional feudal monarchy, you might have nobility (which gets the most representation in the form of three to four noble houses), clergy, and then commoners. This mockup by The Valkyrier is similar to what I envision, although it only includes factions for noble houses. For another example, France's factions might be Valois (the ruling dynasty would always constitute one of the noble houses), Bourbon, and Armagnac, along with Clergy and Commoners (or whatever the proper French estate names would be). A more advanced administrative or absolute monarchy might have one less noble house, whose place might be taken by a Merchants faction.Each of these factions would have their own agenda; noble houses would compete with one another for influence and generally favor a less centralized realm, whereas clergy would advocate less separation of church and state (or possibly jump on the Reformation bandwagon when that arrives), and finally commoners (probably the least influential of the bunch) might favor a switch to an entirely different, more democratic government type. For other kinds of societies and governments, factions would vary accordingly: merchant guilds for merchant republics, political parties for republics (and perhaps also GB's post-Civil War parliamentary monarchy), elders and warriors for tribal societies, etc. Factions might also favor different diplomatic stances against particular neighbors or expansion in different directions; national decisions might also affect the distribution of influence among the factions.(the resource over which the various Political Factions compete) could be abstracted as a zero-sum game, with 100 points distributed among the various factions. More specifically, however, the nobility would compete as a unit for Influence with the clergy and commoners, and then the various noble houses would compete amongst each for their share of that Influence. A typical feudal monarchy might have the following distribution: Nobility 65% , Clergy 25%, Commoners 10%, and then the ruling house might have 30% from that 65%, leaving 35% for other noble houses. The noble house with the most Influence would be the most likely to produce the monarchy's next heir. A typical republic, on the other hand, might follow this Influence distribution: Elite 55%, Clergy 15%, Commoners 30%, and that 55% would be distributing among the various competing political parties.Once any particular faction's influence exceeds a certain threshold a country would gain bonuses associated with that faction, but when a faction's influence is below a particular threshold the faction would be said to be. Being discontent makes factions inclined to form or join a rebellion against the current regime, but particular factions may have greater ability to do this than others depending on government type. In our "generic feudal monarchy" example, noble houses would constitute the largest threat of rebellion; clergy would require the support of at least one other faction to initiate a revolt, and the threshold for commoners initiating rebellions might be lower than the rest so as to prevent excessively frequent peasant revolts. In a republic, however, the nobles may have the least power to initiate a rebellion, with the commoners as the benefactor of this differential distribution of power.One interesting suggestion (from someone else, but I can't remember who) for further nuance that I came across recently was that. This would create greater interest in foreign politics and provide actual incentive to use the government form and religious casus belli's, and I support the idea wholeheartedly. At any rate, we now have a general outline of how Political Factions would function, but I think there's still one dimension missing.

Administrative Divisions

Vassals

Obtaining fiefs would be one of the primary goals of noble house factions, and possessing fiefs (i.e. the vassal state is ruled by a monarch of the noble house faction's dynasty) would increase their influence over time.

Administrative Regions

Just as vassals are ruled by a particular lord (which affects the balance of influence among noble house factions), an administrative region would be ruled by a bureaucrat who would likewise have his own allegiances (in republics for example, his position of power might increase the influence of a particular political party).

A brief interlude discussing strategic significance

Other kinds of administrative divisions

"The Crown" and Composite Monarchies

Confederations and Federal Republics

Quick Reference

Conclusion

For one of the first times I can recall on this forum, it seems there is a relative consensus about how EU4 could be changed, or more particularly in what areas the game can be improved. Namely, most posters appear to agree that the internal administration side of things is a bit lacking at the moment, and adding Political Factions is the popular suggestion to remedy this shortcoming. I personally think that factions would add a lot to the experience of playing most countries, but the problem is then how to tie them into the rest of the game. I have had one idea about how to do this for quite a while, and this post serves as a mock-proposal for a feature I call "Administrative Divisions".Disclaimer: Administrative Divisions are designed to have interesting interplay with the Political Factions mechanic other people have suggested (and my own take on which I present below), but the true point of this thread is the Administrative Divisions part. I designed this feature to function and contribute to gameplay/narrative with or without the implementation of Political Factions, so don't assume the former requires the latter or vice versa. If you're not into the factions stuff, feel free to skip down to the Administrative Divisions section.[EDIT: The Political Factions section has now been spoiler-ed to minimize the distraction it poses from the true focus of the thread]To me, even if we add factions as described above, large monolithic blobs will remain just that as far as the map view is concerned, and that's something I'd like to rectify. While history is definitely the main subject matter of the game, geography is the means by which that content is delivered to the audience, and I think the latter is just important to the EU4 experience. EU4 is said to be a game about empire building, but its narrative for the triumph of national identities over various regional identities is decidedly thin. Along these lines, I propose a simplistic system for designating/assigning custom administrative divisions to transform the unrealistic unitary states that currently plague the map into something much more historically palatable. Needless to say, this would necessitate an entirely new map mode, but for all that it would add I think that's a fair cost.I would envision that again different governments would have access to different kinds of administrative divisions; for example, perhaps the only such option available to a simple feudal monarchy would be. Of course, a system for vassalage already exists within the game, but it appears that the game will soon feature protectorates as well, which would allow vassalage to be better purposed to a more feudal-inspired implementation. Obviously, EU4's simulation of feudalism will never have the depth of CK2's, but I think it would be better if vassals were treated as a type of administrative division than just a particular step along the process of absorbing other nations into your own.So then, what would be the other kinds of administrative divisions available to more advanced states? Since the term "province" is already used to describe the "atomic" divisions of the map, for lack of any better name I will submit "administrative regions" as the bread and butter of administrative monarchies and (relatively) unitary republics. Essentially, the player designates a particular set of 2-8 provinces as comprising an, and one of the constituent provinces is designated as the. Depending on how many other provinces make up the administrative region, a regional capital province receives small bonuses to various income statistics similar to a national capital.The strategy with administrative regions would be to manage how culturally and religiously uniform they are; perhaps one might want to group similar culture provinces together for somewhat larger bonuses while risking the possibility that the region will end up desiring independence, or maybe one might decide it is in one's better interest to break up cultures across the boundaries of administrative regions for somewhat smaller bonuses to ensure the stability of one's regime. Perhaps one might designate the former capital as the regional capital for territorial areas gained by diplomatic means, but maybe one might benefit from choosing a new capital for regions conquered militarily (or maybe one couldn't afford that luxury because the former capital is simply the most financially logical choice).Furthermore, thought should be given to how many divisions one's administrative sophistication can support; I propose the introduction of a newstatistic that affects a variety of other statistics in the same manner as Prestige, Stability, and Legitimacy. A less advanced monarchy that tries to rule too much of its territory directly would find itself over-encumbered, leading to penalties due to administrative inefficiency; however, as one switches to more advanced forms of government over time one would find that one's ability to rule territory directly has increased. Upgrading the level of one's administrative technology could also affect the maximum number of administrative divisions one's government can withstand without running into any administrative inefficiency penalties.As such, there would exist an equilibrium for most countries regarding how divided their realm should be, and this would change over time due to conquests and technology increases. This allows the player to take a much more active and strategic role in administrating their country while also shaping its future in the process (and of course factions would also have to be kept in mind during all of this decision-making); none of these systems are terribly complicated in and of themselves, but I believe they have the potential to create incredibly complex strategy gameplay while also contributing to narrative.Somewhat different from CoP's upcoming implementation, I would envision colonies as just another kind of administrative division formed intentionally from the player, rather than having them automatically formed after a certain number of provinces in a given region have been colonized. Certainly given how little income can be received directly from overseas territory there should be adequate incentive for the player to designate overseas possessions as colonies, without having to take that agency out of the player's hands. Designating areas as(oras their non-overseas counterparts could be called) might have additional benefits as well; provinces adjacent to designated colonies could receive small bonus to the rate of colonization.Since I'm on the topic of CoP, I should mention that I would envision all of the kinds of administrative divisions I'm discussing having a similar kind ofto the colonial nations in CoP; who wouldn't love to see "Breton region", "Region of Provence", "Duchy of Mazovia", "County of Barcelona", or "Siberian Frontier" displayed on the map as well? Of course, custom names- of the player's creation- for such administrative divisions should also be supported.Anyway, back to the different kinds of administrative divisions; the two that I haven't yet discussed might be best reserved for higher levels of administrative technology, and they areand(technically "exclaves" I believe). The latter would be restricted to groupings of just one to three provinces (no bigger) and would receive significant bonuses to local defensiveness, whereas the former would receive more holistic bonuses to combat-related statistics inside their borders. Neither of these military-oriented administrative divisions would have a regional capital or receive any of the accompanying bonuses.I think Personal Unions ought to be recognized by this system as well; I'm surprised that the concept of the "Crown" as a series of variable territorial possessions isn't discussed more in the context of EU4. More specifically, I'm discussing, which arise when a particular monarch holds the title to more than one domain, and these play a very important role in the game's period; Aragon (and by extension Spain) and the Hapsburg empire are two classic examples of composite monarchies. Essentially, while the game currently prevents you from actively controlling PU partners (and thus junior PU partners are trivialized into mindless minions and senior PUs are thoroughly undesirable), I'd like it if you could directly administrate lands and command armies acquired via PU in the same way that you can with the rest of your holdings.However, the major drawback of gaining territory via PUs would be that administrative division between the two would be "stuck" (though each could contain their own vassals and administrative regions). As such, the process of integration would involve merging the kingdoms together such that they could share the same pool of administrative divisions. Otherwise, you would remain as a composite monarchy and lack the ability to get rid of the "permanent" administrative division between your various. Perhaps the most intricate of the composite monarchies could experience slight administrative inefficiency penalties (and thus administrative efficiency would provide another incentive to integrate, along with guaranteeing that the PU doesn't break of course); I haven't really thought the benefits and costs through fully here.I think the aforementioned mechanics would do an excellent job of representing internal politics through most of EU4's timeline, but at the same time I think the system cries out for one final element, even if it technically occurred mostly outside the game's timeline. Namely, federal republics are an incredibly significant form of government that could believably pop up toward the end of an EU4 game; they would certainly require among the highest administrative technology to form. Simplistically speaking, a federal state is a state consisting of multiple other states; these would occur parallel to composite monarchies so as to not give either government type an overwhelming advantage.I think that the key to forming federal republics should lie in leading diplomatic confederations that would work similar to the Native American federations in CoP (and for that matter both confederations and protectorates should fall under the patron nation's sphere of influence). Essentially one would form the confederation amongst one's neighbors and then go through a series of reforms similar to (but simpler than) the Imperial Reforms of the HRE; at the end of that process a federal republic (consisting of multiple, the accompanying administrative division) would emerge. Perhaps trade leagues or something like that could precede the formation of confederations, but obviously that's just an afterthought at this point.For reference, here are the different types of administrative divisions I have proposed:(for feudal monarchies)(for composite monarchies)(for federal republics)In this long (my apologies) post I have proposed two companion systems for greatly improving the internal administration aspect of EU4, with equal importance given to strategically interesting gameplay and historically plausible narrative. I believe that my proposal also achieves a nice balance by adding together relatively simple components to form a complex system without anything becoming too complicated or obtuse. I also tried my best to build off current mechanics along with those planned for implementation in the upcoming Conquest of Paradise expansion. I put a lot of work into this thread, so I hope that someone from Paradox ends up reading this, but at any rate I will now likely begin an investigation into just how feasible these ideas are for modding. Let me know what you think and/or if you're interested in helping these ideas reach fruition via modding, and I hope that you have enjoyed the read.