How to get into politics?

[Landshark]

I've played this game a fair amount, but am really clueless on how you get into politics.

Is anyone willing to ELI5 it for me? I have a solid business, etc, but what do I do (and when do I do it) to get into the political part of stuff? It really intrigues me!

Thank you.

[Razorblade]

To begin your political career, you must be at least a Citizen Without Full Civil Rights (2 title upgrades), then go to the town hall, and hit the green Apply for Office button.

In the political tab, bottom right corner of the screen, hovering over a position will tell you how much it costs to apply, its yearly salary, it's unique abilities, what title rank you need to hold it, and who votes on who gets the title.

Only 3 people can apply for any one office, so always make sure to beat the AI to it (most of them apply at 8am, but you can apply at any time).

However, just applying to an office will likely not win you the position. To win the position, you must be liked more than the other candidates by over half of the people voting for you.

There are various negative ways to buy a vote for you, such as blackmail and bribery, but these are temporary, and will likely only win you the election one year, not for the rest of your life. Thus, I suggest you win the love of your voters by flirtation and gifts.

To flirt, just use compliment or beguile on your voters, or their spouses (dynasties share opinions, so if you are a single man trying to win the affection of a man, you can do so by flirting with his wife). However, to flirt successfully, the character must have at least 40-45% opinion of you already.

Gifting, which works at all levels of opinion, is carried out by putting a blue item in your inventory, then using the item on the voter, or another of their dynasts. The two primary blue items are cakes, produced by a level 2 bake shop, and poems, produced by a level 1 church. Use these items to get characters up to 45% opinion of you, so that you can flirt with them.

If you want to become friends with a voter very quickly, have all of your characters ready to flirt with an opposite gendered members of the voter's dynasty every two hours, and make sure they always have a cake or poem on them, ready to be used whenever the cooldown ends.

The end goal is to get to about 100% relation with the other dynasty, after which they will offer you a Mutual Assistance pact, which means they will always vote for you, even at the expense of their own family, as long as they don't have a Mutual Assistance pact with another nominee for the same political office. Once you have a pact with the dynasty, they will not end it until you fall below about 75% opinion with them, so make sure to flirt with them every once in awhile to maintain the pact.

Once you have enough friends to guarantee you are voted in, apply for the office and win. You can now apply for either the left or right office directly above your own, but remember, you may now have a different set of voters, who you'll have to ally the same way you did the last set.

If you ever lose your office, you can reapply to any office that was equal to level to the office you were kicked out of, rather than having to start from the bottom again.

Now for a few extra tips:

-While you can wait as long as you want to run for office, being in office when a town uogrades to the next level will give you a free upgrade to your office level, even if you would not normally be high enough rank to hold it
-this is important for becoming Sovereign or Emperor, as these titles require a high level of nobility normally, and since they are non-democratic positions, you must kill whoever holds the position, and all of their close family in order to take it.

-Try to get all 3 members of your family into the highest levels of politics. This makes it difficult for others to vote you out of office, gives your family a lot of unique powers, and means you have to maintain fewer alliances, since you won't have to flirt with and give gifts to your own family, only the other families that vote on you.

[Landshark]

Wow, I asked and you delivered!

Thank you very much for taking the time to give such a detailed answer. I'm looking forward to applying for my first office!

[Razorblade]

No problem. If you have any other questions about the game, I suggest this guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1556565021
It doesn't cover everything in the game, but it is absolutely the most in depth guide I have ever seen for this game.