This is from a well thought out analysis years ago:
CKIII China government theory
I know this is a question that's been discussed many times before, but I did just have an idea that I don't think I've heard before: bureaucratic ministries in the imperial capital as a modified implementation of CK2 societies.
Just as a background matter, we've discussed on this board how landholding in China and the ERE as a basis for power is somewhat precarious - the positions are in theory non-hereditary and can be revoked, and civil and military power were often separate in a given province. One route for a non-emperor player can be to get their hands on a provincial appointment and use that as a power base to either a) launch a bid to become emperor, or b) exploit weaknesses in the empire to get extra concessions and make your holdings more hereditary and feudal-style, culminating in being a fully feudal vassal of your imperial liege.
The above options, that rely on players getting provincial power and using it to either push towards feudalism or mount a bid to be emperor, I think could be somewhat good gameplay, but they still leave something missing. Namely, I think it should be possible to pursue a career in the central administration too - you'd rise up in the ranks and gain power, gold, and prestige along the way.
Presenting: Ministries
How would this work? Well in China starting with the Sui and Tang dynasties, the central bureaucracy had the Three Departments and Six Ministries. (Korea, Vietnam, and I believe Liao, Jin, and Xixia had them as well.) Could these perhaps be put in the game through an adapted form of the CK2 societies, and then linked to the council positions? Here's my proposal:
In each realm with a Confucian government type, each of the top liege's council positions is linked to a ministry. (Instead of the whole 9 bodies, I'd be simplifying it down to 5.) These would be, in order, the Chancellory, Ministry of War, Ministry of Works, the Censorate, and the Ministry of Rites. (Side note: I know that this is not entirely accurate, but it works for gameplay and best parallels existing CK systems.) Each ministry has a membership of characters of different ranks, like a CK2 society. Characters (except for the ruler) can join a ministry at the lowest rank, perhaps with an education or stat requirement, and/or a requirement that they pass the imperial examination if the game ends up implementing that system. If they don't meet the requirements, the character can still join if they pay a bribe, use a hook on a high rank ministry member, or have a dynasty member already in the ministry who can pull strings. (In real life an official wouldn't have a posting out in the provinces at the same time as being in a ministry, but I think for gameplay sake in CK3 characters should be able to do both simultaneously.)
Once they join a ministry, a character will begin accumulating Merit according to their stats, traits, and decisions & missions, like in a CK2 society. Merit is used to rank up in the ministry and to use certain ministry-related character abilities, like in CK2. Ministry members also draw a modest gold salary and gain prestige in amounts that increase per rank. Regular promotions stop at the 2nd-highest rank; the minister is selected by the emperor when a vacancy arises. The emperor can select from member of the 2nd-highest rank of the ministry with no penalty, or can take a hit to prestige/ministry performance (or some other penalty I haven't thought up yet - perhaps Mandate if that's something that is used?) in order to pick someone else in the realm he thinks is more competent or trustworthy than the natural candidates.
I mention trustworthiness because a big part of the fun of being in a ministry is the opportunity to use your position for selfish ends. Many of the missions and events that come along with being in a ministry will present you with a choice to benefit yourself at the expense of the realm. For instance, if you're in the Ministry of Works and a building is being constructed in a holding, you could dynamically be tasked with securing building materials. You can act dutifully and generate some Merit, but you could also skim the funds and get some gold. So long as you're not caught red-handed, you'll still get the Merit, but you'll also have a Secret now and also the owner of that holding gets an event losing money because someone at the Ministry of Works stole funds. Maybe if you've got high stewardship, you can save money on the task and only pocket the difference, so that there's no loss to the owner and no secret generated for you. And if you're unlucky or low-intrigue and get caught in the act by the holding owner, they'll have the choice to turn you in or to get a hook on you.
At higher ranks in the ministry, the heist opportunities get bigger and so do the consequences for the realm. For instance, a low level member of the Ministry of War might intercept shipments of materials and cause a malus in morale and levy regeneration rate in a given county. However, a Minister of War may have been creating fake soldier registries and pocketing funds, and the emperor will only find out about this when he next goes to war and all of a sudden thousands of supposedly available levies vanish into thin air. (I would probably make it so that the Minister and all the members of the 2nd highest rank have the same opportunities for corruption, so it's not always obvious who the culprit is when there's top-level corruption.)
Once you get to the very top and become a minister, you're a very powerful person in the realm. Beyond just corruptly benefiting yourself or performing your duties blamelessly and taking in prestige and salary, you can also use this position as a springboard to make a bid for the throne. My idea is that only the ministers can be regents, and during a regency the regent can attempt to seize the throne by decision or faction.
A well-functioning ministry should help the realm run smoothly, and dutiful ministry members will cause various bonuses to pop up in the realm. On the other hand though, corruption run amok can really weaken the realm. The emperor is obviously going to want to curb corruption in the Ministries. Appointing decent, loyal ministers is one step towards this, but a lot of that task will be left up to the Censorate (the Intrigue ministry). When corrupt acts happen in other ministries, members of the Censorate will get dynamically generated missions to investigate. If they succeed in the event chain and are themselves honest, they will expose the corrupt act, and depending on the severity the culprit can be fired from his ministry and/or imprisoned, and maybe the associated malus to the realm can be ameliorated. If you're a censor who catches a minister, you've just had a career-making success and will be rolling in Merit! Of course, the censors can themselves be corrupt though. They can find the culprit but choose to generate a hook on them instead of turning them in. They can attempt to frame a personal rival instead. Or, they can be honest in their efforts but be unable to unmask or report the culprit because he has friends or fellow dynasty member in higher places in the ministry who block the censor. I can imagine twists and turns in the event chains, where the censor takes risks or does some skullduggery to try to get the truth out about a well-connected corrupt official. (I'd also want some intrigue like this to come up in events within the other ministries too, to keep things spicy.)
In conclusion (the tl;dr summary):
As a board, we've discussed a lot about imperial government dynamics when you're playing as a "landed" vassal, with ideas such as estates in the provinces and a distinction between civilian and military government of provinces. I think there's been less discussion on making sure it's fun and interesting to take part in the central government as well. For China and Chinese-style bureaucratic realms, I propose expanding the top liege's council into a set of ministries. (I haven't focused on the ERE in this post, but I bet a similar system could work there too.) The ministries would function a bit like CK2 societies, with players entering them and getting decisions, event chains, and powers along the way. There would be plenty of opportunities to corruptly benefit themselves, at the expense of the realm and with the risk of being caught. Players would have an incentive to make friends and install relatives in their ministry in order to avoid being caught for misdeeds. The intrigue ministry would involve members trying to track down and expose corrupt members of other ministries. If players make it to the top of the ministry, they're in contention to potentially make a bid for the throne.
CKIII China government theory
I know this is a question that's been discussed many times before, but I did just have an idea that I don't think I've heard before: bureaucratic ministries in the imperial capital as a modified implementation of CK2 societies.
Just as a background matter, we've discussed on this board how landholding in China and the ERE as a basis for power is somewhat precarious - the positions are in theory non-hereditary and can be revoked, and civil and military power were often separate in a given province. One route for a non-emperor player can be to get their hands on a provincial appointment and use that as a power base to either a) launch a bid to become emperor, or b) exploit weaknesses in the empire to get extra concessions and make your holdings more hereditary and feudal-style, culminating in being a fully feudal vassal of your imperial liege.
The above options, that rely on players getting provincial power and using it to either push towards feudalism or mount a bid to be emperor, I think could be somewhat good gameplay, but they still leave something missing. Namely, I think it should be possible to pursue a career in the central administration too - you'd rise up in the ranks and gain power, gold, and prestige along the way.
Presenting: Ministries
How would this work? Well in China starting with the Sui and Tang dynasties, the central bureaucracy had the Three Departments and Six Ministries. (Korea, Vietnam, and I believe Liao, Jin, and Xixia had them as well.) Could these perhaps be put in the game through an adapted form of the CK2 societies, and then linked to the council positions? Here's my proposal:
In each realm with a Confucian government type, each of the top liege's council positions is linked to a ministry. (Instead of the whole 9 bodies, I'd be simplifying it down to 5.) These would be, in order, the Chancellory, Ministry of War, Ministry of Works, the Censorate, and the Ministry of Rites. (Side note: I know that this is not entirely accurate, but it works for gameplay and best parallels existing CK systems.) Each ministry has a membership of characters of different ranks, like a CK2 society. Characters (except for the ruler) can join a ministry at the lowest rank, perhaps with an education or stat requirement, and/or a requirement that they pass the imperial examination if the game ends up implementing that system. If they don't meet the requirements, the character can still join if they pay a bribe, use a hook on a high rank ministry member, or have a dynasty member already in the ministry who can pull strings. (In real life an official wouldn't have a posting out in the provinces at the same time as being in a ministry, but I think for gameplay sake in CK3 characters should be able to do both simultaneously.)
Once they join a ministry, a character will begin accumulating Merit according to their stats, traits, and decisions & missions, like in a CK2 society. Merit is used to rank up in the ministry and to use certain ministry-related character abilities, like in CK2. Ministry members also draw a modest gold salary and gain prestige in amounts that increase per rank. Regular promotions stop at the 2nd-highest rank; the minister is selected by the emperor when a vacancy arises. The emperor can select from member of the 2nd-highest rank of the ministry with no penalty, or can take a hit to prestige/ministry performance (or some other penalty I haven't thought up yet - perhaps Mandate if that's something that is used?) in order to pick someone else in the realm he thinks is more competent or trustworthy than the natural candidates.
I mention trustworthiness because a big part of the fun of being in a ministry is the opportunity to use your position for selfish ends. Many of the missions and events that come along with being in a ministry will present you with a choice to benefit yourself at the expense of the realm. For instance, if you're in the Ministry of Works and a building is being constructed in a holding, you could dynamically be tasked with securing building materials. You can act dutifully and generate some Merit, but you could also skim the funds and get some gold. So long as you're not caught red-handed, you'll still get the Merit, but you'll also have a Secret now and also the owner of that holding gets an event losing money because someone at the Ministry of Works stole funds. Maybe if you've got high stewardship, you can save money on the task and only pocket the difference, so that there's no loss to the owner and no secret generated for you. And if you're unlucky or low-intrigue and get caught in the act by the holding owner, they'll have the choice to turn you in or to get a hook on you.
At higher ranks in the ministry, the heist opportunities get bigger and so do the consequences for the realm. For instance, a low level member of the Ministry of War might intercept shipments of materials and cause a malus in morale and levy regeneration rate in a given county. However, a Minister of War may have been creating fake soldier registries and pocketing funds, and the emperor will only find out about this when he next goes to war and all of a sudden thousands of supposedly available levies vanish into thin air. (I would probably make it so that the Minister and all the members of the 2nd highest rank have the same opportunities for corruption, so it's not always obvious who the culprit is when there's top-level corruption.)
Once you get to the very top and become a minister, you're a very powerful person in the realm. Beyond just corruptly benefiting yourself or performing your duties blamelessly and taking in prestige and salary, you can also use this position as a springboard to make a bid for the throne. My idea is that only the ministers can be regents, and during a regency the regent can attempt to seize the throne by decision or faction.
A well-functioning ministry should help the realm run smoothly, and dutiful ministry members will cause various bonuses to pop up in the realm. On the other hand though, corruption run amok can really weaken the realm. The emperor is obviously going to want to curb corruption in the Ministries. Appointing decent, loyal ministers is one step towards this, but a lot of that task will be left up to the Censorate (the Intrigue ministry). When corrupt acts happen in other ministries, members of the Censorate will get dynamically generated missions to investigate. If they succeed in the event chain and are themselves honest, they will expose the corrupt act, and depending on the severity the culprit can be fired from his ministry and/or imprisoned, and maybe the associated malus to the realm can be ameliorated. If you're a censor who catches a minister, you've just had a career-making success and will be rolling in Merit! Of course, the censors can themselves be corrupt though. They can find the culprit but choose to generate a hook on them instead of turning them in. They can attempt to frame a personal rival instead. Or, they can be honest in their efforts but be unable to unmask or report the culprit because he has friends or fellow dynasty member in higher places in the ministry who block the censor. I can imagine twists and turns in the event chains, where the censor takes risks or does some skullduggery to try to get the truth out about a well-connected corrupt official. (I'd also want some intrigue like this to come up in events within the other ministries too, to keep things spicy.)
In conclusion (the tl;dr summary):
As a board, we've discussed a lot about imperial government dynamics when you're playing as a "landed" vassal, with ideas such as estates in the provinces and a distinction between civilian and military government of provinces. I think there's been less discussion on making sure it's fun and interesting to take part in the central government as well. For China and Chinese-style bureaucratic realms, I propose expanding the top liege's council into a set of ministries. (I haven't focused on the ERE in this post, but I bet a similar system could work there too.) The ministries would function a bit like CK2 societies, with players entering them and getting decisions, event chains, and powers along the way. There would be plenty of opportunities to corruptly benefit themselves, at the expense of the realm and with the risk of being caught. Players would have an incentive to make friends and install relatives in their ministry in order to avoid being caught for misdeeds. The intrigue ministry would involve members trying to track down and expose corrupt members of other ministries. If players make it to the top of the ministry, they're in contention to potentially make a bid for the throne.
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