Imperator: Rome – Senate Guide (For Republics)

Senates can be almost cryptic at times if you don’t understand the mechanics at times. In this guide we’ll try to explain some of the mechanics behind it.

Introduction

Please note: all credit goes to Transatlantic Slave Trade!

The senate can be a fickle beast. More often than not it becomes a populist hell hole, which is very undesirable as it gives you a -33% penalty to Political Influence. To understand the senate, you must understand two key concepts: senate influence, & senate approval.

Senate Influence

At any given time the Senate has 100 seats in it. Increasing the influence for a certain faction will directly influence how many seats that faction has. 1 senate influence directly correlates to 1 senate seat.

Monthly senate influence is a bit different. As there is only 100 seats, the seats are determined the weighted average of all the factions monthly influence. So if every faction had exactly 1 influence per month, then with no outside interference the senate would sit at 20 seats per faction perfectly. More often than not, this isn’t the case.

Monthly senate influence is determined by laws, the censor’s charisma (political office that you can change), each faction leader’s charisma, and the charisma of the current rulers (their influence going to the faction they belong to).

Certain actions can add large amounts of influence into the senate. By using and abusing this, you can flip the senate over to any faction you like, although some factions are harder to influence towards. See the list below for actions you can take.

Senate Approval

Senate approval can be fickle and is determined on a case by case basis. Depending on how strongly the faction feels on an issue, you can either lose or gain loyalty with everyone of that faction when you perform an action that requires the senate’s approval. To gain the senates approval of an action, you’ll have to fulfil the criteria for that action. For instance, the religious faction will only approve banishment if the person in question is of a different religion. Another example is the populist faction is more likely to approve if the ruler has above 80 popularity. When in doubt, click the hand next to the action and hover over the approval bars.

Ruler Elections

At the end of every election cycle, or if a ruler dies, an election begins. Each faction will put forward their candidates who have the most (prominence, popularity, & family prestige). A faction can have multiple candidates. If someone has been ruler in the past 10 years, they cannot be a candidate. Afterwards, each faction will decide how many votes to give each candidate (with the number of votes they have determined by the number of seats they have in the senate). Friends and family of faction leaders get bonuses. Faction leaders running as candidates get a huge bonus to votes from their faction. A characters prominence and popularity means a lot in the vote. You can influence the vote by dumping the candidates popularity with smear campaigns, killing or imprisoning the candidate, or influencing their politics away from the faction (party leaders cannot be swayed or imprisoned easily).

Some republic types run with double rulers and use the best of either’s stats. The second ruler being the one who got the second most votes.

Senate Influence Interactions

Civic Faction

Law changes

  • Military reform +5
  • Election reform -10
  • Corruption law -5
  • Maritime law +5
  • Religious law -5
  • Integration law +5
  • Citizenship law +5
  • Land reform -5

Enacted laws (influence per month)

  • Corruption law 2 +0.1
  • Maritime law 2 +0.1
  • Integration law 2 +0.1
  • Religious law 3 +0.1
  • Land reform 3 +0.1

Character interactions

  • Banish +5

Diplomacy

  • Enforce peace +5
  • Support rebels -5

Military Faction

Law changes

  • Military reform +5
  • Election reform -5

Enacted laws (influence per month)

  • None

Character interactions

  • Hold triumph +5

Diplomacy

  • Declare war +5
  • Intervene in war +5
  • Enforce peace +5
  • Threaten war +5
  • Support rebels +5

Mercantile Faction

Law changes

  • Corruption law -10
  • Maritime law +5

Enacted laws (influence per month)

  • Maritime law 4 +0.1

Character interactions

  • None

Diplomacy

  • Sell territory +10

Religious Faction

Law changes

  • Religious law +5

Enacted laws (influence per month)

  • Corruption law 3 +0.1
  • Maritime law 3 +0.1
  • Religious law 2 +0.1
  • Integration law 4 +0.1
  • Land reform 4 +0.1

Character interactions

  • None

Diplomacy

  • None

Populist Faction

Law changes

  • Military reform -5
  • Election reform +10
  • Corruption law +10
  • Religious law +5
  • Integration law +5
  • Citizenship law +10
  • Land reform +10

Enacted laws (influence per month)

  • Election reform 4 +0.2
  • Corruption law 4 +0.15
  • Religious law 4 +0.1
  • Integration law 3 +0.1
  • Citizenship law 3 +0.1

Character interactions

  • Appoint dictator +5
  • Banish +5
  • Execute +5
  • Imprison +5

Diplomacy

  • Threaten war +5

Final Notes

Ultimately you can probably get on just fine without caring about any of this. The downsides being you will probably get the populists in power a lot, and you’ll have to cop tyranny hits from forcing things through the senate. But that’s fine for most players.

If you don’t like the senate mechanics, play a monarchy instead or god forbid a tribe. The ultimate republic is a Dictatorship anyway.

Volodymyr Azimoff
About Volodymyr Azimoff 15056 Articles
I love games and I live games. Video games are my passion, my hobby and my job. My experience with games started back in 1994 with the Metal Mutant game on ZX Spectrum computer. And since then, I’ve been playing on anything from consoles, to mobile devices.

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