Senate: playing the political game with laws

[IsaacCAT]

Preface: Back in January this year I made a suggestion to rework the senate and many other things. I want to update that suggestion with a new idea for the senate and how laws are enacted.

Observation: now it is too simple to achieve senate approval by supporting only one party all the time. The trick is to designate your preferred party characters in government positions and wait for them to achieve enough senatorial influence to control the senate. Then, to get a high party approval is enough to satisfy that party requests (faction objectives) and their preferences (Monthly Approval Modifiers). In addition, laws have an effect on party approval after they have been enacted that is not shown in the Imperator Wiki (Laws effect) but it is present in the game:

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Suggestion: in Republics you do not spend stability to enact laws but you require to have a senate majority (*) of the relevant party and the senate approval (**) to enact the laws. Laws that are not incompatible do not cancel each other and the player can enact a complete set of laws in different governments if the player can reach enough support from the required party.

(*) senate majority is achieved by one party if their control is greater than the other parties combined:

In this case, Oligarchs have 66 seats that are greater than the 28 + 6 = 34 seats from the other two parties.
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(**) senate approval is to have at least 50 percent support in the senate:

Examples:

In the Maritime Laws the senate will be able to approve all laws in a Republic without losing stability or having any effect on any party approval:

• Grain Shipment Law: normal conditions + DEMOCRAT senate control and approval​
• Lowered Import Tariffs: normal conditions + OLIGARCHS senate control and approval​
• Institute Wealth Levy: normal conditions + TRADITIONALISTS senate control and approval​
• Anti-Piracy Statues: normal conditions + ANY PARTY senate control and approval​

In the Electoral Reforms a Republic will start with the Electoral Model and will be able to add only one of the following laws that are incompatible without losing stability or having any effect on any party approval:

• Extended Terms: normal conditions + OLIGARCHS senate control and approval​
• Shortened Terms: normal conditions + DEMOCRAT senate control and approval​
• Lifetime Elections: normal conditions + OLIGARCHS senate control and approval​

Why:

In a republic the cost to enact laws should be the political game. The player will have to play the parties to enact multiple laws that will greatly benefit their nation. To achieve all laws' benefits the player will have to achieve senate control and approval for different parties at different governments, thus paying attention to the political game of the nation.

The result is that Republics will be more powerful than monarchies/tribes. This is historical as Kings/Leaders were continuously busy extracting wealth from their country to maintain power while Republics could concentrate in developing their nation through laws by sharing power.

 

[Nevars]

The result is that Republics will be more powerful than monarchies/tribes. This is historical as Kings/Leaders were continuously busy extracting wealth from their country to maintain power while Republics could concentrate in developing their nation through laws by sharing power.

Is there actually any evidence that republic is superior to monarchy in antiquity?

 

[IsaacCAT]

Is there actually any evidence that republic is superior to monarchy in antiquity?

Depends on which sense you define powerful. My point was intended on governments and their laws.

I wil try to find some sources for that.

About powerful as big or military successful, I do not think so.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Is there actually any evidence that republic is superior to monarchy in antiquity?

“Republican governance in of itself embodied a major infrastructural advantage, facilitating political communication and negotiation between masses and elites and reaffirming the legitimacy of the aristocratic political class with repeated votes of the Roman people.47 This infrastructure ultimately allowed the Roman state to
a. incorporate an exceptionally large citizen body into a republican city-state;
b. engage in the mass mobilization of citizens and socii, superior to rivals;
c. pay citizen troops at a lower rate compared with peer rivals;
d. endure military defeats and demographically significant casualties; and
e. maintain the state on a war footing on a continual basis over generations.
These were things that no Hellenistic king was capable of doing, with the occasional exception of the last enumerated”
Excerpt From
Soldiers and Silver
Michael J. Taylor

Soldiers and Silver

History · 2020

books.apple.com

This material may be protected by copyright.

 

[Nevars]

“Republican governance in of itself embodied a major infrastructural advantage, facilitating political communication and negotiation between masses and elites and reaffirming the legitimacy of the aristocratic political class with repeated votes of the Roman people.47 This infrastructure ultimately allowed the Roman state to
a. incorporate an exceptionally large citizen body into a republican city-state;
b. engage in the mass mobilization of citizens and socii, superior to rivals;
c. pay citizen troops at a lower rate compared with peer rivals;
d. endure military defeats and demographically significant casualties; and
e. maintain the state on a war footing on a continual basis over generations.
These were things that no Hellenistic king was capable of doing, with the occasional exception of the last enumerated”
Excerpt From
Soldiers and Silver
Michael J. Taylor

Soldiers and Silver

History · 2020

books.apple.com

This material may be protected by copyright.

I agree with this but one thing I disagree with is that it's an advantage of all republic, all of the mentioned advantage seem to be only unique to Rome, other republic in the same era don't seem to enjoy such an advantage as Rome.

Rome is unique compare to other nation in the same era in that she seem to able to raise really huge amount of troop, sustain it even against horrific lost that should end any other nation and she seem to fought for total war instead of simply term.

So I don't really think that using what Rome had and apply it to all of republic would be accurate or fair.

Also I'm actually more curious about this line of yours

This is historical as Kings/Leaders were continuously busy extracting wealth from their country to maintain power while Republics could concentrate in developing their nation through laws by sharing power.

Sorry if I forgot emphasis about it.

Because I don't really think we can just generalize all of monarchy and republic into these two cuz iirc one of the reason that Roman Republic transform into an empire is because the republic is hopelessly corrupt with massive disparity of wealth.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Because I don't really think we can just generalize all of monarchy and republic into these two cuz iirc one of the reason that Roman Republic transform into an empire is because the republic is hopelessly corrupt with massive disparity of wealth.

Cannot agree with this. Monarchies are extractive governments that do not allow for inequality, because everyone is poor. Republics allow for inequality because there is some distribution of wealth to the citizens.

In this time, inequality is a sign of progress.

The corruption that existed in the Roman Republic is not consequence of the political system.

 

[Samitte]

Monarchies are extractive governments that do not allow for inequality, because everyone is poor. Republics allow for inequality because there is some distribution of wealth to the citizens.

That is simply not true. Even if we discount the "upper classes" of the nobles, princely houses, and religious estates, there were what we'd call the equivalent of "middle classes". We can trace these as far back as Ancient Mespotamia, China, and Egypt in some of our earliest sources in these ancient kingdoms. And even amongst those various layers (including the lower one) there were often sizable differences between the top and bottom. Many different occupations in some cases employing both men and women, made up this layer. It includes managers, overseers, artisans, lower ranked priests, scribes, merchants, landholders, tax collectors, administrators, shopkeepers, artists, educated specialists (demonologists, exorcists, sages, astrologers, legalists, scholars etc), and military personel. Though the specifics change with which part of the world one is looking at. And Im sure that if one was to look at other parts of the world, similar things would arise from Meso- and South America, India, South-East Asia, and parts of Africa.

Republics had their strengths and weaknesses, but they were not inherently "better" then Monarchies.

This is historical as Kings/Leaders were continuously busy extracting wealth from their country to maintain power while Republics could concentrate in developing their nation through laws by sharing power.

This too is very flawed. Republics hardly shared power, the majority of the population was not involved. And Kings had plenty of people to do the wealth extracting for them, enough time to take care of various other diplomatic, economic, military, administrative, political, and religious matters. And while they often did have the final say on things, that doesn't mean they did not have to account for a plethora of other groups in their decision making. A king by himself has no power, and an unpopular or weak king of the greatest empire can find he can get very little done, while lower rulers/governors/satraps/etc reap the benefits.

 

[IsaacCAT]

That is simply not true. Even if we discount the "upper classes" of the nobles, princely houses, and religious estates, there were what we'd call the equivalent of "middle classes". We can trace these as far back as Ancient Mespotamia, China, and Egypt in some of our earliest sources in these ancient kingdoms. And even amongst those various layers (including the lower one) there were often sizable differences between the top and bottom. Many different occupations in some cases employing both men and women, made up this layer. It includes managers, overseers, artisans, lower ranked priests, scribes, merchants, landholders, tax collectors, administrators, shopkeepers, artists, educated specialists (demonologists, exorcists, sages, astrologers, legalists, scholars etc), and military personel. Though the specifics change with which part of the world one is looking at. And Im sure that if one was to look at other parts of the world, similar things would arise from Meso- and South America, India, South-East Asia, and parts of Africa.

Republics had their strengths and weaknesses, but they were not inherently "better" then Monarchies.



This too is very flawed. Republics hardly shared power, the majority of the population was not involved. And Kings had plenty of people to do the wealth extracting for them, enough time to take care of various other diplomatic, economic, military, administrative, political, and religious matters. And while they often did have the final say on things, that doesn't mean they did not have to account for a plethora of other groups in their decision making. A king by himself has no power, and an unpopular or weak king of the greatest empire can find he can get very little done, while lower rulers/governors/satraps/etc reap the benefits.

If you use modern benchmarks you may be right. But we shouldn’t put monarchies and republics in the same level.

From the book The Open Sea, J. G. Manning: