Give Democracy a chance

[Ololorium]

Currently, every country except Athens is strongly pushed into the direction of dismantling democratic institutions. Democratic Republic is the weakest type of Republic in the game (it only gives +15 Civilization level, compared to other Republics giving +20, and it has only one bonus: +8% Freeman happiness, while other Republics have two, for example, Aristocratic giving +5 character loyalty or Oligarchic giving -10% wage costs in addition to pop type happiness bonus). So, it makes sense to convert to another type of Republic to get better bonuses. This is fine gameplay-wise, but role-playing suffers because all other Republics concentrate power in the hands of a few. Then, the most lucrative Imperial government form removes elections altogether.
This creates pretty dark determinism where we have a progression from involving all citizens in the government to disenfranchising most of them and finally getting rid of the republican government form, and at each step becoming more "effective". Again, it's not a problem from the gameplay point of view, it's good to have government form progression. And historically, this is pretty much what happened. However, it's sad that no one except Athens can make democracy "work". The game is about alt-history, after all.
The easiest solution would be to make Athenian Republic (maybe renamed) accessible to every Republic, but locked behind an invention. When the invention is taken, a mission tree similar to the Athenian should become available, and by completing it you would get the new government form.
It also might be possible to get a little creative here, for example, create a Great League government type, representing a huge federalized Republic, with special mechanics centered around provinces or regions.

 

[Nostalgium]

If Empire is made a separate government form with differentials, like Theocratic and Martial Empire, I would like seeing something akin to a Republican Empire as well. Or rather, a Republican government form at this fourth level, focused on controlling broad swathes of land, like the Empire government of my ideals would be. But in lieu of that, unlocking somehting like Athenian Democracy as a late-stage Republic would do for now.

 

[DukeLeto42]

But in lieu of that, unlocking somehting like Athenian Democracy as a late-stage Republic would do for now.

Athenian Democracy was a direct democracy (citizens directly voting on issues, people in positions of authority elected by lot, etc.). Being honest, it wasn't a republic, and it's hard to argue that their system of polis government would scale well without explicitly disenfranchising all who were not within the bounds of the original polis.

 

[Nostalgium]

Athenian Democracy was a direct democracy (citizens directly voting on issues, people in positions of authority elected by lot, etc.). Being honest, it wasn't a republic, and it's hard to argue that their system of polis government would scale well without explicitly disenfranchising all who were not within the bounds of the original polis.

Sure, but in terms of game mechanics, it's the only Republican government with four idea slots.

 

[IsaacCAT]

We can keep the Athenian Democracy only for small nations as Empire should have a requirement (as it has) for larger nations.