How to become a Dictatorship (UPDATED FOR 2.0)

This is a handy guide on destroying the democratic process in your country forever.

Introduction

So you have a populist ruler in power and you really like him. So much in fact you think he should be the ruler forever. Well luckily for you, you can achieve that.

What are the benefits of being a dictatorship anyway? Well you get:
- 4 idea slots instead of 3
- Monarchy laws instead of republic ones (can be very powerful in lategame)
- +15% citizen output (super buff to research)
- +10% freeman happiness
- Don't have to deal with republic politics anymore
- Can become an Empire afterwards

Several changes were made after 1.5 and 2.0. Now instead of the dictatorship being a decision, it's instead passed through a unique Dictatorship innovation tree that only appears when you've appointed a dictator during a war. Becoming a dictatorship is actually pretty easy now!

Also included in this guide is the older sections for historical posterity.

Going from Republic to Dictatorship

Prerequisites:
At least 40 territories
7 innovation points

Steps to become a dictator:
1. Change election laws to 'Extended Term'
2. Build up support with the parties so that you have at least 80 senate support ( see next section )
3. Declare war on a country ( ideally one that you can quickly peace out with )
4. Select your ruler and pick the 'Appoint Dictator' character interaction
5. Peace out with whatever enemy you were fighting
6. Go to the Technology tab and in the Oratory Advances section there should be a new Dictatorship tree
7. Pick the following advances: Legal Patronage - Humane Conduct -> Centralised Comites -> Shady Connections -> Rewrite the constitution -> Ensure National Stability -> Demand a Line of Succession

And voila! You are now king! The catch? You'll have to fight a civil war to get half your territory back.

There is a method to do this without starting a civil war, but the oligarchs need to control 80% of the senate which is hard to do.

Getting Senate Support

So to be able to appoint ourselves as temporary Dictator, we require at least 80 senate support.

Firstly, we must ask: what is senate support?
Senate support is each party's approval weighted by how much of the senate they control.

For example: if the Oligarchs control 100% of the senate, their approval will dictate in a 1:1 relationship how much senate support you have.
Likewise, if the Oligarchs control 50% of the senate and the Democrats control the other 50%, if you have 100% Oligarch support and 0% Democrat support, this will translate to 50 senate support.
Simple enough?

This means to gain senate support, we need to raise approval in the parties with the most control. If a party has little to no control of the senate, there's no point in raising their approval!

Now we must ask: how do we raise their approval?

Most actions you take as a republic will impact party approval. This includes character interactions, changing laws and diplomatic actions with other countries.
If you have political influence, there is a button below each Party in the government screen that will give you an approval boost plus a 5-year ticking approval gain. To see the monthly approval change and the reasons for it, hover over the party approval statistic on each party on the Government screen.

The simplest and quickest way I've found is to push the Party button in the government screen, followed by changing the government Laws. If that isn't enough, try to ensure all the monthly approval ticks are positive. This means changing the Censor or Thesmothete to the party you want to garner approval with, as well as ensuring that you're not doing anything they don't like.

Oligarchs love tyranny and corruption, so an easy way to gain favour is spam Invoke Devotio in the religion tab to boost your tyranny. This will tank your support with the Democrats however. Another method is to grant holdings to fellow party members. They hate scorned families though, and this will tank your approval.

Traditionalists love peace & stability. So remaining at peace for a long time with high stability and no war exhaustion will boost your approval with them. Having all your pantheon deities belong to your main religion also helps. Being in a war with low stab and high exhaustion will tank your support with them.

Democrats are basically the inverse of oligarchs. They love scorned families and hate tyranny & corruption. The more scorned families you have the quicker their approval will climb. Scorned families are also more likely to be democratic as well, increasing their control base.

Lastly, there is an additional method to getting senate support and that involves manipulating the power base of each party. This means finding each parties biggest supporters and either crushing their power base or convincing them to swap party loyalties. For instance, you can stack military and governor positions with the party you want. Or befriend powerful people in the parties you want to convert. Try it and see for yourself! Each character in a republic has a certain amount of devotion for each party, and you can see this on their character page. Note that party leaders are unable to be swayed by anything.

[PUNK]

Good guide

[Coach]

Militarist seats? This must be a very old guide.. There are no longer military seats in the game.

[Sadaurkar]

executing people instantly gives you up to 5 new populist seats. try it yourself.

certain actions that require senate approval can affect certain factions support. for example declaring war increases the military faction up to 5 new militarist seats.

for a full list, go to "Senate Influence Interactions" section here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1899467817

[BloodyCrisis]

Executing people doesn't grant populist support. Just tyranny.

[Sadaurkar]

true, you don't need tyranny to change electoral law. it just so happens it's the easiest way to get it passed reliably.

i'll update the bottom of the guide with a little more explanation.

[Landstander]

this guide is off. you dont NEED to have tyranny to change electoral law. lol this is lacking in terms of how youa ctually did it. this jsut tells you what you need to do to become one.

[Mac]

Wow that was quick! Very nice guide!