Now there's only 3 parties instead of 5.

Party bonuses and Empowerments have changed completely. Conversion speed bonus and discipline are gone :'(

Faction popularity changes are a lot more obvious now. (no more magic hand)

If you have less than 60% senate support, everything you do will incur tyranny.

If you have less than 30% senate support, many of your actions will be locked.

Rome actually has different senate bonuses than the rest of the democratic world now.


I will update everything below eventually but atm ^^^ that's all you really need to know if you're a seasoned veteran returning to I:R.

Many actions that require senate approval have a direct effect on the amount of influence each party has. So for example, declaring war increases the military factions power. If you stack these actions you can dominate the senate with a single faction pretty easily.

So to make sure the faction you want dominates the senate, see below:

Penalty: -33% monthly political influence
Empowerment: -0.05 monthly corruption

Imprison and execute as many characters as possible.

Doing any of these change how much influence the Populists have in the Senate
Character Actions
Appointing a Dictator +5
Banishing any character +5
Executing any character +5
Imprisoning any character +5

Diplomatic Actions
Threatening War +5

Changing any of the following Laws
Military Reform -5
Election Reform +10
Corruption Law +10
Religious Law +5
Integration Law +5
Citizenship Law +10
Land Reform +10

Laws that contribute influence per month
Election Reform 4 +0.2
Corruption Law 4 +0.15
Religious Law 4 +0.1
Integration Law 3 +0.1
Citizenship Law 3 +0.1

These change how much conviction a character has towards Populism every month
+0.01 for Scorned Family
+0.01 per 10 Popularity
+0.01 per 6 corruption

Bonus: +10% morale
Empowerment: +2.5% discipline

Use Support Rebels in as many countries as possible and cancel it straight away. Cancelling it gives you the same amount of Militarist support for free basically.

If that isn't possible then you'll need to spam war declarations and hold as many triumphs as you can afford.

Doing any of these change how much influence the Militarists have in the Senate
Character Actions
Holding a Triumph +5

Diplomatic Actions
Declaring War +5
Intervening in a War +5
Enforcing Peace +5
Threatening War +5
Supporting Rebels +5

Changing any of the following Laws
military reform +5
election reform -5

Laws that give Militarist support each month
None

These change how much conviction a character has towards Militarism every month
+0.01 per 1 Martial
+0.01 if Admiral
+0.01 if General
+0.01 per cohort under characters command (applies to provincial armies for governors)(only applies to cohorts that aren't loyal)
+0.05 if Tribune of the Soldiers
+0.05 if Tribune of the Treasury

Bonus: +20% tax income
Empowerment: -15% build cost

Banish as many characters as possible. You can do this easily after conquering a place and imprisoning their families. Beware of populist influence gain however.

Doing any of these change how much influence the Civics have in the Senate
Character Actions
Banishing any character +5

Diplomatic Actions
Enforcing Peace +5
Supporting Rebels -5

Changing any of the following Laws
Military Reform +5
Election Reform -10
Corruption Law -5
Maritime Law +5
Religious Law -5
Integration Law +5
Citizenship Law +5
Land Reform -5

Laws that contribute influence per month
Corruption Law 2 +0.1
Maritime Law 2 +0.1
Integration Law 2 +0.1
Religious Law 3 +0.1
Land Reform 3 +0.1

These change how much conviction a character has towards Civicism every month
+0.01 per 1 Finesse
+0.02 if they have a holding
+0.05 if Tribune of the Plebs
+0.05 if Physician

Bonus: +10% omen power
Empowerment: +25% pop conversion speed

Put religious faction people into prominent positions of power, especially the Censor role. This faction tends to have a lot more members than other factions.

Doing any of these change how much influence the Populists have in the Senate
Character Actions
None

Diplomatic Actions
None

Changing any of the following Laws
Religious Law +5

Laws that give Religious support each month
Corruption Law 3 +0.1
Maritime Law 3 +0.1
Religious Law 2 +0.1
Integration Law 4 +0.1
Land Reform 4 +0.1

These change how much conviction a character has towards Populism every month
+0.02 per 1 Zeal***
+0.05 if Augur
+0.05 if High Priest

***Note this is TWICE AS MUCH as what each faction gets (they only get +0.01 per Stat)

Bonus: +10% commerce income, +2 diplomatic reputation
Empowerment: -25% create trade route cost

Create a client state and sell territories to them for nothing.

Doing any of these change how much influence the Mercantilists have in the Senate
Character Actions
None

Diplomatic Actions
Selling a territory +10

Changing any of the following Laws
Corruption Law -10
Maritime Law +5

Laws that give Mercantilist support each month
Maritime Law 4 +0.1

These change how much conviction a character has towards Mercantilism every month
+0.01 per 1 Charisma
+0.01 per 100 wealth
+0.02 if they have a holding
+0.05 if Magistrate

Characters are considered loyal towards the faction with which they have the most conviction. In smaller countries, sometimes you can have a faction that has no members eligible to be ruler. Most people will turn into the religious faction because they gain twice the conviction for zeal.

While someone is a party leader or a ruler, their conviction cannot be changed.

Every faction has the following additional modifiers:
+0.10 for ruler's faction (if friends with ruler)
-0.10 for ruler's faction (if rivaled with ruler)
+0.10 for party leader's faction (if friends with party leader)
+0.10 for party leader's faction (if rivaled with party leader)

At any given time the Senate has 100 seats in it. Increasing the influence for a certain faction will directly influence how many seats that faction has, proportional to the current influence of every other faction.

Monthly senate influence adjusts the seats by the weighted average of all every factions monthly influence. So if every faction had exactly 1 influence per month, then eventually with no outside interference the senate would sit at 20 seats per faction.

The monthly senate influence is determined by laws, the censor's charisma (political office that you can change), each faction leader's charisma, and the charisma of the current rulers (their influence going to the faction they belong to).

Each faction receives monthly influence from: enacted laws, their faction leaders charisma, as well as the censor's charisma and the ruler's charisma, depending if they're part of the faction.


At the end of every election cycle, or if a ruler dies, an election begins.

Each faction will put forward their candidates who have the most prominence, popularity, & family prestige.

A faction can have multiple candidates.

If someone has been ruler in the past 10 years, they cannot be a candidate.

Afterwards, each faction will decide how many votes to give each candidate (with the number of votes they have determined by the number of seats they have in the senate). Friends and family of faction leaders get bonuses. Faction leaders running as candidates get a huge bonus to votes from their faction.

A characters prominence and popularity means a lot in the vote.

You can influence the vote by dumping the candidates popularity with smear campaigns, killing or imprisoning the candidate, or influencing their politics away from the faction (party leaders cannot be swayed or imprisoned easily).

Aristocratic republics run with double rulers and use the best of either's stats. The second ruler being the one who got the second most votes.

Many actions require the Senate's approval, and this is determined on a case-by-case basis.

Additionally, every time you perform an action that requires Senate Approval, you gain or lose loyalty for every character depending on how their Faction feels.

To gain the senates approval of an action, you'll have to fulfil the criteria for that action. For instance, the religious faction will only approve banishment if the person in question is of a different religion. However you can circumvent this by filling the senate with factions that don't care about that particular action.

For most actions each point of Tyranny increases every factions approval by 1% (Populists get double). Use this to pass laws or declare wars.

When in doubt, click the hand next to the action and hover over the approval bars.

Sometimes it's possible to have a faction that has the Faction Leader as it's only member. Considering people can't run for rulership twice in a row, this can be kinda annoying.

One common example of this happening is trying to keep the Military Faction in power as Carthage, as the few male members they start with flip convictions pretty quickly.

To fix this, you need to cultivate convictions in the people for the faction you want to keep in power. If your ruler is of the correct faction, make sure he befriends as many men as possible. Otherwise look for the "Factors that influence a characters decision to join the faction" sections above.

Unfortunately there's no quick way to fix this, aside from annexing a country and integrating their families.

If you don't like the senate mechanics, play a monarchy instead. The ultimate republic is a Dictatorship anyway.

Thanks for reading.

[10/12/2019] updated the guide to hopefully make it more readable for people :)