I'm presenting to you: The Atlas Feature
Atlas bears the weight of the sky upon his shoulders, and has become a symbol of endurance. In the game, this would be a way of presenting graphically to the player how well the leader and his government manages to bear all the worries and responsibilities of the realm. The celestial spheres upon his shoulders would actually grow and shrink with the size of the responsibilities, and the size of Atlas would grow and shrink depending on the strength of the government. If Atlas easily manages to bear the weight, he would hold the spheres high above his head, and if it becomes too heavy he would fall on his knees and then be pressed to the ground.
The celestial spheres would consist of three dynamic areas: Military, Economy and Administration. The size of each area would grow and shrink with its specific responsibilities, so that you could see at a glance which area caused the most weight.
The military area would grow with the size of the army/navy, the level of maintenance and the number of reinforcements that was needed. Certain government types, ideas, decisions and advisors would help reduce the area. This will encourage the player to have a leaner but meaner military. And if a player builds his army out of proportion he will have to bear the weight of it. This will reward tactical skill, if you can do the job with a smaller army you will be rewarded.
The economy area would grow with your income. High income comes with high responsibilites. If you have high trade income, you have to worry about protecting your traders, guarding goods, taxing the traders, uphold tariffs. If you have high production income you will have to worry about weather, mining accidents, transporting goods to markets and theft. Your tax income is a lot of worries, with bailiffs, embezzlement and angry peasants. When you have finally collected all your taxes, you will get more worries, what will you do with it, what should you invest in, and then you have corruption and jealousy. For the player, to grow the economy will always be a wise move, but this will underline that you need to grow your goverment and your centralized institutions as well to take full advantage of the riches. Certain government types, ideas, decisions and advisors would help reduce the area.
The administration area will grow with the number and size of your provinces. All provinces need administration, and that is the responsibility of the gorvernment. Some provinces doesn't need much, if they are small in population and doesn't cause problems. Other provinces need a lot of administration, if they have a large population for example, an important city or a trade hub. Then you have provinces that you haven't cored yet, and wrong culture provinces, and wrong religion provinces, these kind of provinces really can cause a lot of worries and comes with a lot of weight. To build certain buildings in provinces would be a way to reduce the size of the area.
These three areas would together form the celestial spheres that Atlas bear on his shoulders. The strength of Atlas would depend on government type, slider position, ideas, decisions and above all ruler competence. An incompetent ruler with an early government type would look like Gandhi, while a competent ruler with a great government would look like Hercules.
The rewards and penalties that come with this should be gradient and multifaceted. When your Atlas can bear your realm easily everything should be a little easier and you should have a lot of ruler points to spend when it comes to war, diplomacy and development. If your Atlas is pressed down to the ground you will find everything a little bit harder to do, and you should have fewer ruler points to spend. The graphic presentation should come with handy information about what you could do to shrink the different areas. For example, reduce the maintenance level of your army, lower taxes, hire a production advisor, send a missionary to Novgorod, build a courthouse in Soumi.
Okey, I got a little carried away with this feature, and I don't know if it will fit in EU4. But there are some new perspectives in here I think, so perhaps it could inspire further discusisons.
