The American Political System

[Zebulon Ecthelion]

There's a little weirdness with how the American political system is portrayed in this game.

Federalism
The first is a bit hard to portray accurately because there really isn't a system in this game that portrays federalism, which is to say a system where your states have a high degree of autonomy and can pass their own laws. The closest we have is the legacy slavery law, where states can either be slave or free. What's more, elections would be less of a national thing and more of each state all holding their own elections and the national outcome is based on the sum of all these mini-elections. And this also has an additional effect of making the incorporation of new states politically complicated, since the addition of new states can potentially have much greater political ramifications on national politics, and consequently incorporating new states should be more like passing a law than just some kind of bureaucratic proceeding. Especially in the early game, there should be a big argument over if incorporated states become free or slave, and you can face serious political ramifications if you side with one or other too much (yet, on the other hand, if you continue trying to placate both sides without resolving the issue, you only build up the inevitable conflict. A house divided against itself cannot stand!)

Interest Groups
There's also some weirdness with the American interest groups. The American Pious faction (the "Evangelicals") support monarchy for some reason. I would give them the trait "American Civil Religion" which makes them support the current political system, viewing it as divinely inspired with a milder slant towards typical Pious issues. And, in general, I would alter a lot of the interest groups to make them less like generic interest groups and more in favor of the American system. Another example would be making the Rural Folk in favor of Migration Controls instead of Closed Borders unless they're being lead by a "Know Nothing" leader.

What's more, there kind if needs to be a mechanic that allows for interest groups to split. Specifically, in the early game there should really be interest groups that are split along pro-slavery and anti-slavery lines. So, pro-slavery Southern Planters vs anti-slavery (northern) Landowners and a split between pro-slavery and anti-slavery Pious. The religious community was actually split on the issue of slavery, and generally by region. In the South, you had pro-slavery clergy that preached that slavery was a part of God's divinely-ordained natural order, while in the North you had anti-slavery abolitionist clergy who preached that slavery was an affront to God.

Slavery
So, slavery was largely THE issue in the United States until its abolition, and, as I've suggested above, it kind of needs more dedicated mechanics, but also there were personalities associated with it. As the issue heats up, obviously you should see more Abolitionist characters, but on the flip side you would have also had radical pro-slavery "Fire-Eaters" who want the absolute expansion of slavery, the reinstatement of the Slave Trade and may also start gunning for a coup or civil war, while normally anti-slave interest groups may occasionally be lead by pro-slavery "Doughfaces," screwing with politics further.

Political Parties
So, outside of the "Era of Good Feelings," where the US was governed by only one party, the US has always sort of had a two party system, and the current way political parties are portrayed is actually a pretty accurate portrayal of how the early two party system worked. They were largely an eclectic mix of various interest groups that joined together on the general principle of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and had no real ideological coherence outside of the occasional single issue (such as slavery). It really wasn't until the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement (well outside of the timeline of this game) that the parties formed anything resembling coherent ideologies. As such, so long as the American Governance Principles law remains unchanged and its Distribution of Power law stays within either Census Suffrage or Universal Suffrage, there should be a modifier placed on the American political system that encourages interest groups to join one of the two parties rather than form their own parties, for the US to have a lower government size (only one party can be in power) and for the US to have much, much lower ideology penalties for legitimacy (reflecting that there is no expectation of ideological coherence) outside of the occasional hot-button issue, like slavery.

In addition, the Whigs were a party formed largely in opposition to president Andrew Jackson and would have been lead by the Petit Bourgeoisie. They were so-named because they viewed the British Whigs as the party in opposition to the king's prerogative, and they viewed Jackson as this strongman figure comparable to a king. The big thing that wound up defining them, though, was a wishy-washiness around the issue of slavery. The Whigs generally tried to keep the peace between the free and slave states and generally kicked the can down the road on any big conflict between them. They were ultimately destroyed by the Republican Party, which was formed as a definitively anti-slavery party. If the Whigs ever become dominated by the Intelligentsia or dominated by Abolitionist leaders, it should really convert over to the Republican Party, simulating this event.

The Monroe Doctrine
Essentially, this was a doctrine set up by President Monroe meant to curb colonial interests in the Americas by the European powers by regarding any intervention in the Americas by the European powers as an act of aggression against the United States. This could be represented by you being heavily incentivized to side with the native country in any diplomatic play in the Americas that involves outside powers.

"Isolationists"
The foreign policy of the United States in this time period is sometime erroneously called "isolationism." The United States was never actually isolationist, but rather had a policy against "foreign entanglements." That is, it refused to take sides or involve itself in the "Great Game" being played between the powers in Europe, instead mostly focusing on the Western Hemisphere and ignoring the politics of Europe outside of economic agreements. The United States should really have a political lobby called the "Isolationists" (for lack of a better name) which is in competition with all political lobbies with the Great Powers, and is pleased when you limit your interaction with the other Great Powers to economic deals and displeased if you engage in any political or military actions with the Great Powers, start or intervene in diplomatic plays with the Great Powers (outside of Monroe Doctrine actions) or go to war with the Great Powers (outside of Monroe Doctrine actions)

[Maximvs]

You have a point. I always think federalism wasn´t even tryed to be implemented, because it will shock the very foundation of the game. Regardless, it would be epic to have different legislation or mini systems by state, like USA, Russia, China, Brasil, Argentina had... Other nations (britain, France) had colonialism to make different legislation by state. Ottomans, and Austria Hungary also had state-laws system,

HOPE to see this in game sometime.

[Lenpi]

You definetly have a point about all of these things. The thing i agree the most is the interest group spliting but i belive in the next patch they will rework them somehow so lets see how it goes. Generally i think at some point, if the game becomes long enough finacially profitable for Paradox, the USA will become some flavour regarding your issues.

[Cabbage]

There is weirdness with everything in the game because it's all abstracted and generalized.