I find it hard to believe you are having a hard time replacing mana when you have designed games like victoria or CK2. Im not saying this has to have same levels of depth and complexity as victoria, but you can take the same philosophical approach, such as many mods do (Gladio et Sale for I:R, Meiou and Taxes for EU4, Stellaris, etc).And I think you should listen to some of the ideas @Lambert2191 has given you on how you could replace many uses of mana with characters. You yourself mention that as agent mechanics. Well, there are very little of those outside the ruler and governors in this game. There should be a lot more. Diplomacy should be replace by characters and done away with mana. You have two amazing feature core systems such as pops and characters and they feel completely underused.Pops are basically development from EU4 that feel dead because you can manipulate it instantly by spending mana that doesnt rely on any type of gameplay you do or strategy of the player, just solely by the luck you get when getting a ruler. And the pop system could be so much more (you could get inspiration from Victoria, Stellaris, Meiou and Taxes mod...). Just to have more deeper and dynamic pop and wealth systems, that feel more like real life to the player, and thus more rewarding if you focus your strategy around them instead of conquering. Clicking on a button and turning a wretched poor freeman into a wealthy citizen feels immersion breaking and not rewarding AT ALL. I want freemen turning into wealthy citizens because Im focusing my game on trade, fullfilling their needs, increasing civilization, urbanizing, staying at peace or at least keeping their lands away from war zones, and get the rewarding feeling overtime of turning all those poor people into wealthy citizens. Or moving pops. Why do it with the click of a button and some mana when you could have a deeper dynamic system where pops from poorer cities move slowly overtime to wealtheier ones? The player could influence how fast this happen with an abstract currency or a policy. Clicking a button depending on an abstract resource I have no say whatsoever in how I get it is no fun at all. That is something Stellaris does much better. Resources are mana. But how you get those resources is up to the player stretagy, and how he plays and what he wants to focus on. And depending on your strategy you will get more or less of each type. THAT is fun. Spending mana you get because your random heir gives you 8 monthly on a button that instantly turns a poor man into a wealthy man or a german into a punic carthagenian is NOT fun at all. And Im glad you acknowledge there needs to be improvement. But I get the feeling you dont understnad the problem I just explained by what you gave us in the last Dev Diary. Giving the players buttons to spend mana on and get some modifiers is not fun even if you put a fixed timer of 2 years for it to come into effect.And moving on to characters. You have inspiration from CK2 on how to make the most of it while you still play the state and not a dynasty. Make more of the characters. Not just some stats that affect how big the modifier is. Give mechanics to the offices. Make the characters feel more alive. Ask things of you, push you around, ask for law changes, I dont know. Many possibilities. The War Council youre introducing in 1.1 is a VERY good step in the right direction. Characters that ask you to do things or you ask of them, and those decisions and petitions affect the world depending on your/their response. But following on that, the abilities for republics are absolutely terrible because of that. Spending some mana to get a bonus with no interaction between characters, you and the world, is not fun at ALL. You mentioned the CK2 council. Why not have mechanic like that in game? The Council/Conclave in CK2 has more depth than the Senate in I:R. Its sad.The game has the potential to be the best of the PDX titles. But it will never be if you keep basing it on mana, buttons, and modifiers. For that, people already have EU4, which has 5 years of development on its back and a much more popular time period.I hope you listen to the people and achieve on reaching the games full potential. People don't want EU4 based on the roman era. People want more, and thats why they are playing CK2 and EU4 instead of I:R. I myself Im not playing I:R anymore, instead Im playing Meiou and Taxes for EU4. Ill give the game another try when 1.1 comes along. Because the mods are fixing all that stuff the team refuses to (the assimilation system of the I:R mod Gladio et Sale is so much better than vanilla I:R system... for instance).Cheers Johan. Im glad youre keeping a somewhat open mind or at least listen to the peoples grievances. Best of luck. I really want I:R to be a success. It has more potential than EU4 or CK2