What exactly does Popularity affect?

[MathyM]

I keep getting events that offer decisions that reduce or increase the popularity of certain characters, but the wiki article on this stat is ridiculous bland, and only re-states the same flavor explanation that the tooltip does.

So what exactly does Popularity do? Is it best to keep it low for everyone except the consul and co-consul? Does it increase power base (which I think decreases loyalty and increases army size in case of civil wars). How does it affect characters in different government positions?

I’m grateful for anyone who can answer this, or at least point me to where I should be reading.

 

[IsaacCAT]

If you look at your government tab, you can see the effect of your ruler popularity. Republics:

Monarchies:

For Republics it is one of the most decisive factors in the election process along with Statesmanship and Family Prestige:

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In Monarchies it helps with pretenders succession support:

You also need your current ruler to be widely popular if you pretend to deify someone in your nation: https://imperator.paradoxwikis.com/Religion#Apotheosis

Also, I am sure there are many events that use popularity to trigger, but I do not know them to list them here. For example, the sinking popularity event requires an ambitious trait politician with at least 10 popularity. Sadly, the wiki page for events is quite depopulated and you should go and read the files to find more of events that contain popularity as a condition to trigger.

At the end, many things happen in I:R that have some hidden triggers that are not explained to the player. It looks all random but there is a rationale behind it. It seems that the design decision to hide all these mechanisms under hood was to prevent overwhelming the player that would feel the need to micromanage everything or maybe they wanted to take it out of control of the player without being complete random. IMHO, it could be better explained, adding optional mechanism for the players that want to use them and the game would be more enjoyable for players.

 

[MathyM]

Many thanks. I thought Prominence was the main factor for consul elections.

So I need popularity to get the guys I like elected, and to unlock the ability to deify rulers, and to trigger certain (presumably good) events, and to increase Integrated Culture happiness. Sounds a lot more
impactful than I had originally thought.

But it’s only important for the leaders of a nation, right? Say, a Pontifex Maximus or Praetor does not need Popularity for their jobs?

 

[IsaacCAT]

Prominence is used for selecting Party leaders: https://imperator.paradoxwikis.com/Position#Party_Leaders and probably other things that we do not know.

It is not that jobs need popularity but that only some jobs give Characters enough popularity. Like some type of Corsus Honorum, you want some characters to hold some positions to get popular so they are able to reach higher positions.

This is most clear in the Republics elections as they happen every five years (or less!) and you want to be able to decide which character will be the next Consul/Archon. For example, the position of Thesmothete will give you +0.10 Family Prestige and +0.80% monthly statesmanship but no popularity:

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Being a governor, you have +0.25 family prestige and +0.35% statesmanship and +0.05 popularity:

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If you want to have a Democrat elected as the next Consul/Archon, you would want a Head of Family with High Power Base to be Thesmothete to sway as much Senate Influence to the Democrats, and another democrat Character to be a Governor to increase its popularity and family prestige to win over the other candidates.

Every position in your nation gives different bonus, you need to appoint your candidate to the best position every time. Researchers can become popular with time:

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Of course being the Archon can make you popular faster:

Being a Party Leader is not bad too:

Although, all your tinkering can be for naught if life gets rough like when your characters loose big on gambling:

For monarchies and the succession game, someone more proficient should explain better as I am not that interested in those.

Except for elective monarchies, it seems family members get preference in the other systems. Although I think you can do something with pretenders’ brothers, besides killing them.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Do not forget the Ruler schemes that use popularity as currency and are very powerful:

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[Josey_Wales]

Popularity below 50 for a tribal leader affects integrated culture happiness and supposedly clan chief loyalty

But it actually has no direct impact on clan chief loyalty, In the 2 images below both of the clan chiefs should be getting a -1.52 malus to their loyalty based on the rulers popularity modifier to clan chief loyalty (as shown in the image above), but as you can see there's no reference to this in the numbers summing up their loyalty. This makes me think it's either bugged or been changed in a patch but not removed from the rulers popularity pop up?

 

[TheBrilliantBoolean]

Popularity also affects how much income characters receive, characters with high popularity have smaller incomes for some reason so having popular commanders and rulers can significantly reduce their wages. I believe up to 10% but I may be mistaken, but its mostly beyond your control. All you need do with your ruler, levy your forces win battles and sack cities/win wars and your popularity rockets up