Is civil war inevitable?

[Charles]

I have a great family who has really high prestige. The problem is that the head of the family gets a -30 to loyalty because of that. Is there any way to deal with prestige bloat, or is civil war inevitable regardless of player actions? I have noticed the following issues.

1. Prestige increases power base, and that in turn reduces loyalty.

2. Prestige effectively always grows no matter what. There are no meaningful ways to decrease it.

3. The constant growth of prestige and lack of ways to decrease it means eventually heads of families will always have low loyalty.

4. Family heads are also are very likely to make up a great proportion of your power base due to prestige increasing power base. This results in inevitable civil war.

I should also note that I am playing Rome as a republic. A monarchy might be different, but republics seemed doomed to civil war. I would love any feedback I could get on this.

[Menkerot]

You can always take their holdings from them and damage reputation but yes, it's done that way to simulate fall of republic in Rome, even though in reality that was pretty much rare. Less they have holdings and positions, weaker they are. But monarchies also struggle with this, it's a game premise after all.

[galadon3]

There are techs to increase loyality also you can bribe and you can give a family head a job that doesn't come with a power-increase (never make them legate or governor) wich allows you to give them "free hands".

And no family prestige isnt a flat bonus to the powerbase

https://imperator.paradoxwikis.com/Characters#Power_base

Originally posted by wiki:

+1.2 to heads of family for each percentage of the total Family prestige family prestige in the country their family has

So they get a bonus to powerbase depending on how much of the total family prestige of all great families theirs controls.
The problem is ONE family having too much prestige in comparison to the others since that gives that family head a lot of powerbase.
So what you should do is actually boost the other families prestige and try to keep them somewhat balanced.
(the same goes for the holdings, but usually there its only a real problem for small realms since they tend to equal out in bigger ones somewhat anyway)

Its actually a very good representation of ancient romes system, the republic worked as long as the central senatorial families (the ones that actually had enough standing to regularly have consuls from their ranks) were kinda balanced. The problems for the republican system started when single individuals (Marius, Sulla, Pompeji, Cesar etc..) got too far ahead in power over the rest of the senate.

[Charles]

Does damaging their reputation reduce their prestige income?

[Charles]

Originally posted by galadon3:

There are techs to increase loyality also you can bribe and you can give a family head a job that doesn't come with a power-increase (never make them legate or governor) wich allows you to give them "free hands".

And no family prestige isnt a flat bonus to the powerbase

https://imperator.paradoxwikis.com/Characters#Power_base

Originally posted by wiki:

+1.2 to heads of family for each percentage of the total Family prestige family prestige in the country their family has

So they get a bonus to powerbase depending on how much of the total family prestige of all great families theirs controls.
The problem is ONE family having too much prestige in comparison to the others since that gives that family head a lot of powerbase.
So what you should do is actually boost the other families prestige and try to keep them somewhat balanced.
(the same goes for the holdings, but usually there its only a real problem for small realms since they tend to equal out in bigger ones somewhat anyway)

Its actually a very good representation of ancient romes system, the republic worked as long as the central senatorial families (the ones that actually had enough standing to regularly have consuls from their ranks) were kinda balanced. The problems for the republican system started when single individuals (Marius, Sulla, Pompeji, Cesar etc..) got too far ahead in power over the rest of the senate.

Ahh okay, that actually makes it more manageable. I guess I need to find out how to boost the other families.

[Feynrik]

The prestige points per months are dependent on the positions that character holds (highest for the high populated Governors and the seats in the ruling advisors (8 of them), but lower for Admirals and scientists and of course unemployed. Also check for the holdings of heads of families. If they grow out of control (like 20 and more) you must deduct from them some of the holdings (in the character menu).

If you play republic I usually turn the strong family around for like say yellow family holding the 8 advicors positions, then after election I go for the family that contain the color of my spouse (as it gets all family member +10 opinion) those all 8 positions advisors (lmportant to get the satisfyed family boost of +20) and work my four positions friends.

Herefore I always calm out any warnings of civil war.

One more important aspect towards civil war is the tyranny level.
Never change from tribal to republic/monarchy before lowered the tyranny below like 5.
othervice the civil war is like mail in the box.

hope this helped.

[Charles]

Yeah, that certainly helps. I think I need to cycle out the higher value positions between the families. I usually appoint based on skill and just send bad characters on a one way espionage mission. It is like imprisoning them but costs a tiny bit of gold and some popularity instead of massive senate loss and tyranny.

[galadon3]

The advice on positions is sound but on the holdings isn't really, with those its the same as with Prestige, its not about the absolute number its about the percentage of all holdings in the realm they control.
So make sure you keep the families kinda balanced. The ruling family will usually not really increase the holding number by themselves, in a republic if the ruling family changes often enough that usually isn't much of a problem (can be if one family clings to rule for too long), in monarchies you usually want to add a holding to the royal family every now and then (costs money and more importantly in later game: corruption, so its better not to overdo it and give the corruption time to go away before grabbing the next holding).

[Feynrik]

One cheesy almost cheating way to grab holdings as Monarch is to when health is bad and or high age (80+ years) I go take up a bunch of holdings and higher personal corruption to about 50, then the heir get abundance of income by those holdings reaped earlier.

[Feynrik]

about the skill for offices it comes with experience in the game. When I was beginner I went for high skilled taxator, but now I rarely go for skill, but instead highest possible 100 opinion to cheese out the PI to do stuffs (build Metropolis, gain CB etc.)
The skill for gov office is also dependent on the experience, so a 6 skilled martial is late in aged better than a 20 yo 9 martial skilled.
I train them sometimes for scientists if I need the boost for expecially important position.
But mostly I have scientists that I recruited from another country with another culture and religion (so their opinion does not reach even 90).

[Charles]

Does anyone know where I can find the prestige gain for positions? I noticed that wealth has a huge impact and that any governorship size seem to grant a base of .25, but I still cant figure them all out.

Also I found out you can just completely eliminate a troublesome family by removing all their characters.

[Feynrik]

you can root out a whole family by the tyrranny major option called SUBSCRIBE in the character interaction menu for the family head. I did this but was on the brink of tearing up the whole Imperial Rome by this as it get the heaviest of tyrranny impact in the game (like 40 tyrranny if i not misremembered). So better have that family that is obstructing only as Science/Admiral family (not one legate, governor or gov office to that family). Only to the lowest limit to get them content.

[Feynrik]

Google search: "Imperator rome Wiki government offices"
there you find the cencor gets 0,10 monthly prestige while other offices gets the 0,05 prestige points.

[Feynrik]

Google search: "Imperator rome Wiki characters"
under the submenu go to 4.2 family prestige;
Head of family gets +1,2 Power Base

[Feynrik]

under the same page characters is the "power base" list that all positions are added +2

[Feynrik]

my personal experience is that i neglect the ratio between family prestiges. The prestige of the most prominent family is sometimes as high as six times stronger than the weakest of the (5 for Great Power) families.
The only thing when I play is to hold the head of each family over 40 by either the stipends, make friend option, or when threatened with civil was (almost almost only then) with bribes.
Bribe takes 5 PI and gets your leader a punishment of +1 corruption (that fast add up to the lowering of total montly political influence).

if there are any potential good aire I always go for the super character trait of "silver tounge" that get instead of bribe the persuade option (+15 opinion without the PI straff).

hope these helps and gets you thinking.