A spicy idea to flavor up the game a bit

[TheScoob]

Just an idea I've been toying with off and on. I have no idea the feasibility of adding it, but I do like the tone of it.

As it stands currently, it seems to be too easy to replace less than desirable characters with no down side to speak of. My idea is that there would be a lead type to each category. Just tossed in some names for ideas:
the actual faction leader (duh)
Field Marshall (generals)
Grand Admiral (navy/admirals/captains)
Spymaster
Head of Science
Speaker of the House (ambassadors)
Governors too? (maybe? probably)

The idea being that these would provide mild boons/banes for their respective branches, or the entire empire. The implementation of my idea would be that you can't simply "hit remove" to be rid of them. In order to remove them you would have to initiate a plan of some sort to be rid of them. And it would be able to involve more than just your spy network to do so.

The spy network obviously could, but would be an assassination plot. Or they could incite a revolution type removal (but this could lead to more than just the intended target being removed from office. also this would be jarring and would likely lead to other downsides as well - happiness/growth loss?).

Military involvement would initiate more of a coup type removal (but again, could lead to removal of more than just the intended target. also this would be jarring and would likely lead to other downsides as well - happiness/growth loss?).

Ambassador involvement could be a type of "smear campaign" possibly, or fabricated claims (which also may in turn spread to more than the intended target).

BUT, if discovered, would be a massive crisis of faith in the government (happiness penalty obviously, others as well?). This would lead to more interesting decisions to be made. Yes, this XXXX character is causing me to lose a bit of YYYY currently. And ideally, they would be removed. BUT, if the plot is uncovered, would it be worth the bit of loss in the long run if we just dealt with them being in their position?
And maybe too many removals of the subordinates from each branch could also be a small loss of faith in leadership and lead to some penalties as well? (other than the ones the game itself removes for "lack of ability".

Anyhow, it was just some thoughts bouncing around in my noggin for a while. It's done me some good to jot it all down and get it out of there to make room for more nonsense!

Cheers,
TheScoob

[AKicebear]

My 2 cents - every 4X should copy the internal politics/bureaucracy model from Shadow Empire. That game does it so well.

A less well done, but still decent version of this is in Stellar Monarch 2.

[HugsAndSnuggles]

The implementation of my idea would be that you can't simply "hit remove" to be rid of them.

But that's the core of DW2 character treatment: game periodically deletes a random idle character (gets pretty silly where game insists on removing spies that just got out of jail).