Positions consist of the major jobs and offices involved in the command and administration of a country and its military. They are filled by the characters of a realm and are one of the main mechanics by which the country and its characters interact, as not only the means by which characters can contribute their skills and attributes towards the betterment of the realm but also the most important source and easily controlled source of power base and loyalty. Proper character and position management requires a fine balance between choosing office holders who are the best and most competent at their jobs and the requirements of family loyalty and realm stability.
Mechanics
Most positions are filled by appointment and can generally be filled and dismissed freely by the player. Appointing a character to a position gives the loyalty modifier Granted Office, increasing loyalty by +15 for 5 years, while revoking an office gives the Revoked Offices modifier decreasing loyalty by -5 for 2.5 years. In general, a character can only hold one position at any given time, with the exception of certain ruler-related positions, and cannot be dismissed or replaced from their position if they become unloyal. Only adult citizens can be appointed to a position, with any gender restrictions also applied if relevant to the country.
Characters in positions are usually paid a certain percentage of the country's income as their wage, which is by modified country-wide with the Monthly Wages for Characters modifier and per character by the Monthly Wage modifier. Notably, each point of a character's corruption increases the wage paid by 2.5%, which can make wages unmanageably large if allowed to spiral out of control. Depending on the exact position, position holders may also get a certain amount of popularity, prominence, family prestige, and/or statesmanship each month. All positions also give their holder +2 power base, which depending on the position can then be increased based on the size of armies and navies commanded or regions governed.
Each major family will expect that their members hold a certain proportion of all currently held assignable positions, calculated as:
- [math]\displaystyle{ \text{Expected Positions}=\text{round}\left(\frac{\text{Total Number of Positions}\cdot 0.7}{\text{Number of Major Families}}\right) }[/math]
This includes positions such as government offices, governors, generals, and researchers, but not those that are chosen or elected outside of direct player control such as rulers or party leaders.
Any family that does not hold its expected number of positions is considered scorned and receives the following stacking modifiers to all its members for each missing expected position:
For instance, a family that expects to get 4 positions but only has 1 will get -15 Loyalty, -0.06 Monthly Optimates Conviction, and -0.06 Monthly Oligarchs Conviction.
A family that instead holds at least double the number of expected positions is grateful and receives the following modifiers to all its members:
- +15 Loyalty
- -20% Monthly Wage
- +0.10% Monthly Statesmanship
- +0.01 Monthly Optimates Conviction
- +0.01 Monthly Oligarchs Conviction
It is usually important to balance positions between families, even if this results in suboptimal office holders, in order to ensure that families are not scorned. Alternatively, it may also be feasible to completely sideline a family and ensuring that it has no positions and little power base in order to appease the other families and more easily give them enough positions to get the grateful family bonuses.
Ruler
Each state is headed by a ruler, prominently visible on the Government tab of the government panel, and their traits, attributes, and relationships have a significant effect on state modifiers, character loyalty, and Senate support, among other things. Rulers with high attributes can be a considerable boon to their country, significantly strengthening the state and allowing the nation to punch well above its weight, while corrupt, low attribute rulers can inflict major penalties that a state must struggle through. However, depending on the government form, it may be possible to cover weak areas with a co-ruler or consort that has appropriately complementary attributes.
Unlike most positions, rulers are not appointed and dismissed at the whim of the player. The succession of power is instead determined by the type of government - dynastic inheritance in a monarchy, Senatorial election in republics, and rotation between Clan Chiefs in tribal nations, with rulers either reigning until death (as in monarchies and tribes) or for a certain fixed term (as in republics). Monarchies and Tribes tend to stay with the same ruler for much longer and so while the nation will enjoy prosperity under great rulers for a much longer period of time they will also have to suffer for extended periods of misrule by poor rulers, while the relatively rapid elections of Republics mean that their ruler attributes are on the whole more even. The lessened level of control over the choice of ruler, particularly in monarchies, means that countries must be prepared to deal with incompetent or problematic rulers more often than with other positions.
The ruler is always considered the governor of the capital region and thus will command any levy raised in that region, but cannot be appointed to any other position (in particular, rulers cannot ever command legions or navies). Despite this, rulers do not count towards the number of positions that a family holds. Many events also take the point of view of the ruler, and different options may become available or unavailable based on the ruler's traits and attributes. Rulers of other states are prominently displayed in the Diplomacy screen, and building friends with foreign rulers can be a useful way to improve relations with another country.
Stat/Attribute | Bonuses |
---|---|
Martial | |
Finesse | |
Charisma | |
Zeal | |
Popularity | For every point of popularity above 50:
For every point of popularity below 50: |
Corruption |
Note that does not include modifiers on the capital region and levies that a ruler gives by virtue of being the governor of the capital region.
In addition, the ruler gets the following character modifiers:
- +4% Monthly Wage
- +0.20 Monthly Popularity
- +2.00 Monthly Character Prominence
- +0.40 Monthly Family Prestige
- +2 Max Rivals
- +2 Max Friends
- +90 Prominence
- +0.80% Monthly Statesmanship
- +100 Loyalty
Note that in addition to the loyalty modifier, a ruler's loyalty is always fixed to 100 regardless of any other modifiers.
Co-Ruler
Aristocratic Republics are distinguished by power-sharing between two rulers who collectively co-head the government, the second of which is represented ingame by the co-ruler. Co-rulers are considered equivalent to the ruler for most ingame mechanics, contributing any of their four main attributes that they are more skilled in than the ruler (effectively providing a bonus to ruler attributes), averaging ruler popularity between the ruler and co-ruler, and adding their corruption to that of the ruler for the purposes of country modifiers. Unlike rulers, the co-ruler does not always have 100 loyalty, but instead gives a -1% political influence gain malus for every point of below 50. The co-ruler is elected alongside the ruler in each election at the end of the term, with the second place candidate being elected with the same term and requirements as the main ruler. It is possible and common for the two co-rulers to be of different factions.
Like rulers, co-rulers do not count towards the number of positions that a family holds unless they also hold another position, of which they can only be appointed as army commanders (legates, tribunes, generals) and admirals.
Co-rulers get the following character modifiers:
- +3% Monthly Wage
- +0.20 Monthly Popularity
- +2.00 Monthly Character Prominence
- +0.40 Monthly Family Prestige
- +2 Max Rivals
- +2 Max Friends
- +85 Prominence
- +0.50% Monthly Statesmanship
Consort
In monarchies, the ruler can instead be supported by the consort, who is the spouse of the ruler. Like co-rulers, consorts will replace a ruler's attributes with their own for the purposes of running the country in any category where they are more skilled, and give a -1% political influence gain malus for every point of loyalty below 50. It can therefore be very useful to marry rulers and potential heirs to spouses whose attributes can compensate for any weak points in their attributes. Unlike in a co-rulership, a consort's popularity and corruption do not count towards ruler popularity and corruption for the purposes of calculating country modifiers.
Like rulers and co-rulers, consorts do not count towards the number of positions that a family holds unless they also hold another position. However, unlike them, consorts can be assigned to any other position as long as the gender rules allow for it. In addition, by marrying into the royal family, consorts expect their children or descendants will eventually take the throne; if a consort has any living children, they will get a -15 loyalty malus if the primary heir is not one of their children or descendants.
Consorts get the following character modifiers:
- +2% Monthly Wage
- +0.05 Monthly Popularity
- +0.20 Monthly Character Prominence
- +0.30 Monthly Family Prestige
- +30 Prominence
Primary Heir
A monarchy also has a special title for the primary heir who is first in line to inherit the throne. There are no mechanics or country modifiers associated with the primary heir, but the heir is still paid a monthly wage and gets bonuses to popularity, prominence, statesmanship, and loyalty. As with consorts, primary heirs do not count towards the number of positions that a family holds unless they also hold another position, but they can be assigned to any other position as long as the gender rules allow for it.
Primary Heirs get the following character modifiers:
- +1% Monthly Wage
- +0.20 Monthly Popularity
- +0.30 Monthly Character Prominence
- +40 Prominence
- +0.10% Monthly Statesmanship
- +20 Loyalty
Consider giving the primary heir positions that come with a large power base as they are more loyal than most characters. Examples include a governorship over a large region, or a general commanding many cohorts. A position that gives extra popularity, such as command over a legion, is particularly useful as high popularity increases succession support for the heir and reduces the province loyalty loss on succession.
Government offices
Every country has a set of eight major government offices that can be filled, representing important posts in the administration of the country. Every office is associated with a particular country modifier, the strength of which depends on the effective rating of the office holder. The effective rating is determined by multiplying the attribute of the office holder that is associated with the office by the holder's statesmanship, which means that more experienced characters may be more effective at an office than a younger neophyte even if their innate skill is not as high. Furthermore, there are various events that can fire regularly affecting ruler popularity and stability depending on the statesmanship of various office holders. This means that maintaining an officer for longer periods of time is more effective than constantly switching them out for newer characters with better attributes (but lower statesmanship), and as the main source of increasing statesmanship is itself being employed in an office this encourages appointing new up-and-coming characters to less important posts (including other offices but also research and governor posts, as their effectiveness does not depend on statesmanship) first in order to build up their experience and statesmanship before promoting them to higher and more crucial offices. Office holders also get bonuses to prominence and family prestige, which makes them more favoured to be elected to ruling office.
Government offices are also the main source of monthly political influence generation. Every office holder generates +0.25 monthly political influence, scaled by their loyalty as a fraction out of 100; this means that filling offices highly loyal officers will ensure a high level of political influence to use on all sorts of different projects, while a administration that is constantly working to block and undermine itself will find it difficult to gain the capital to do anything at all. Therefore, while officers do not have the increased power base of governors or generals that makes maintaining their loyalty important for avoiding civil wars, it is still important to keep an eye on the loyalty of office holders to ensure an adequate supply of political power for government actions.
With the exception of the consort and primary heir positions, government offices are mutually exclusive with all other positions. Office holders can generally be freely appointed and dismissed, but like all other appointed positions officers will refuse to leave their post if they are unloyal.
The offices available to a country depend on the government type. All governments have an office dedicated to aggressive expansion change, military experience, tax income, omen power, and health, while the other three vary, but usually have an office that affects happiness directly or indirectly, a second office with military bonuses, and a modifier for a government-specific mechanic. Note that only the generic names are given below; many cultures have unique localisations for each of the offices.
Republic offices
In addition to the usual three offices, republics have offices for party approval, divine sacrifice cost, and monthly civilization change.
Monarchy offices
The unique monarchy offices give modifiers for legitimacy, a military bonus for mercenary army maintenance, as well as monthly civilization change, but have a weaker national tax modifier office than other government types.
Tribal offices
Tribes offices give a military bonus in manpower recovery speed and have happiness modifiers for tribesmen and citizens. Notably, their aggressive expansion office is weaker than in republics or monarchies, which is compensated for by a stronger national tax modifier.
Governors
Governors are appointed to lead the administration of provinces too far from the capital to be effectively controlled from the capital, effectively ruling a particular region on behalf of the central government. A governor can be appointed to any non-capital region that the country owns territories in, though they may only administer a single region at a time. Typically, finesse is the most important attribute for determining a governor's skill, giving a +1.5% population output modifier for each point. Changing the governor policy of a province requires that its region has a governor; a policy will be automatically selected and set or reset each time a new governor is appointed, and the effects of a governor policy are also scaled to the governor's finesse according to the following formula:
- [math]\displaystyle{ \text{Effective Policy Modifier}=\frac{\text{Governor Finesse} + 1}{10} \cdot \text{Base Policy Modifier} }[/math]
In addition to heading the regional administration, governors also command any levies raised from their governorships. Just as with all other commanders, governors that are currently commanding levies will contribute their martial to the army's modifiers and gain power base based on the proportion of all cohorts in all the armies they have under their command, which means that martial skill is also an important consideration for governorships with a large levy that is expected to make up a significant part of the country's army. Note that governors will always command all levies raised from their governorships and cannot be replaced as commander (unless the position of governor itself is revoked), even if they are split; this is the only case where a single character can have command over multiple different armies.
Governors also have a significant impact on provincial loyalty. Every province in a governorship will get +0.004 local provincial loyalty for each point of governor loyalty above 50 (to a maximum of +0.20), so it is quite useful to appoint more loyal governors to troublesome regions (note that there is no loyalty malus for having an unloyal governor). There are also a number of traits governors can have that give various bonuses or maluses to territories in their governorship.
A region that does not have a governor appointed will have a severe malus for each of its territories:
In addition, any levies raised from a region with no governor will have no commander, significantly reducing their effectiveness in battle.
Unlike most other positions, a governor is usually paid only a very small wage directly from the treasury. Instead, governors are permitted to collect a portion of the region's income as the main part of their wage, with the exact amount adjusted by the country's governor wage modifier. A governor's wage is therefore mostly proportional to the overall wealth of their region, and every territory in a governor's region will get a base malus of -25% local tax and -25% local commerce modifier. Note that governor corruption only affects the wage they draw from the treasury, not the wage they draw from their region, which means that corrupt governors generally do not have as significant an impact on income as other office holders. However, governor corruption does decrease province loyalty by -0.0025 per point up to -0.25 loyalty at 100 corruption, which means that highly corrupt governors can be very detrimental to the stability of the realm if not handled properly - either by imposing sanctions or removing them from their post altogether.
In addition to the +2 power base from the governor office, all governors will also gain +0.7 power base for every percentage of the country's population in the governor's region, and if their governorship's levies are raised they will gain further power base by virtue of the cohorts they command. Governors will therefore take up a significant portion of the country's total power base, particularly if the country is relatively small and/or expanded beyond its capital region without consolidating that region first; those of large, populous regions especially must be kept (or appointed to be) content and loyal. However, in republics the needs of being away from the capital to run the provincial administration means that governors have a vastly reduced senate influence which could be used to sway the balance of power in the Senate, though appointing a powerful character as a governor could easily become a problem in of itself. The loyalty of governors modifier applies loyalty modifiers specifically to governors, and is largely given as a bonus by a few wonder effects, national ideas, inventions, and military traditions that can help keep governors under control. Note that governors are not affected by the loyalty of generals modifier, even when leading a levy army.
Like all other appointed positions, governors can be assigned and dismissed at will (unless they are disloyal, at which point they will refuse to leave their post). The post of governor is mutually exclusive with most other positions, though there are some cases where there is overlap between the responsibilities of governors and other position holders. Rulers are considered the governor of the capital region for all intents and purposes, including pop output bonuses from finesse, unrest from corruption, and most importantly commanding the levy of the capital region. The main exception is that rulers do not collect their wage from the capital region (as it is collected directly from the treasury), and so territories in the capital region do not get the -25% income malus that all other regions do. Note that this automatic governorship is not considered an assignable office that counts towards a family's number of held positions.
Each governor gets the following character modifiers:
- +0.20% Monthly Wage
- +0.05 Monthly Popularity
- +0.10 Monthly Character Prominence
- +0.25 Monthly Family Prestige
- +10 Prominence
- +0.35% Monthly Statesmanship
- -100% Senate Influence
While commanding levies, a governor gets an additional modifier that increases the wage they are paid from the treasury:
Military positions
Army commanders
- 参见:Commander
While levies are commanded by governors, permanent standing armies are instead led by characters holding dedicated military positions, without any need to pay attention to administrative matters as well. All characters holding these types of positions are affected by the loyalty of generals modifier if they are currently in command of an army (which is not necessarily always the case).
Legates
Each of a country's legions can have a legate appointed to head the legion and and take command of its main army in the Legion tab of the military interface. Unlike governors, a legate can only command one army at a time (with any split off armies commanded by tribunes), but can be detached from his or her command and swapped between armies (within the legion) freely as long as the army is not in combat (though this will incur a temporary -5 loyalty malus) - this includes leaving the legate without any command at all, with all of the legion's armies led by tribunes (or even unled). However, a legate cannot be dismissed from his or her position for the first 12 months after their appointment, and so cannot be easily swapped between legions.
As the commanders of one of the country's stronger and more important armies, martial is by far the most important attribute to consider for legates, with a commander's martial skill giving bonuses to assault ability, enslavement efficiency, and dice rolls in combat, allowing well-lead armies to punch significantly above their weight in combat. In addition to the default power base from holding a position legates will also usually get boosts to power base from commanding cohorts, and as the commanders of semi-permanent legions in particular are one of the main characters that would be expected to gain loyal cohorts and veterans, which usually makes legates among the more powerful characters in a realm.
In addition to the power base from commanded or loyal cohorts, legates that are in command are also affected by the loyalty of generals modifier if they are deployed, given by a few disparate bonuses. As with all other positions, a legate will refuse to leave their post if they become disloyal; as with governors, they are particularly prone to this due to the large power base they can get from the cohorts they command, and their loyalty should be watched with care as a disloyal army commander ignoring all orders from above can be highly problematic. As a commander, however, a legate can be removed from their post at any time, even if disloyal, using the Hold Triumph interaction if they have won a battle in the last 2 years at the cost of political power.
Each legate has the following modifiers:
- +1% Monthly Wage
- +0.20 Monthly Character Prominence
- +0.10 Monthly Family Prestige
- +30 Prominence
- -100% Senate Influence
While legates do not have an especially high wage, it is possible for it to add up to a potentially problematic expense if a country has a large number of legions.
Tribunes
Every legion can have up to 3 tribunes to support their legates and take command of armies split off from the main legion army. Like legates, tribunes can be freely detached from their commands and swapped between different armies within their legion (with a temporary -5 loyalty malus). Note that tribunes can be appointed regardless of how many armies the legion happens to have at that point in time, even if there are currently no uncommanded armies that the tribune could take command of; it is permitted and common for a tribune (or even a legate) to not be in command of an army. Within a legion, tribunes are ordered by their date of appointment; if the legion's legate dies, is dismissed, or otherwise leaves his or her position for any reason, the highest ranking tribune in the legion will be automatically promoted to legate.
As with legates, martial skill is by far the most important attribute for tribunes, as commanding an army is their main and essentially only role, and tribunes are essentially identical to legates in every way (except for their modifiers).
Each tribune, if deployed (i.e. in command of an army), gets the following modifiers:
- +0.2% Monthly Wage
- +0.20 Monthly Character Prominence
- +0.02 Monthly Family Prestige
- +20 Prominence
- -100% Senate Influence
If not deployed, a tribune instead gets the following set of modifiers:
Note that a tribune that is not currently deployed still counts as holding a position, particularly for the purposes of the base +2 power base and calculating the number of positions that a family holds, despite the fact that they do not get a wage and have no responsibilities. This means that tribune slots are especially useful for appointing unskilled and even disloyal characters as a meaningless sinecure position to inflate the number of positions a family holds, as long as they are not actually needed for legions that might need to be split up into multiple armies.
Generals
Mercenaries, migratory armies, and other event armies that are neither levies nor legions are commanded by a general. Unlike legates and tribunes, a general cannot be replaced or dismissed for the first 12 months after their appointment, as the position is tied directly to the command of the army (with the except of mercenary generals, who cannot be replaced at all). Otherwise, generals are much like the other army positions.
Every general has the following modifiers:
Admirals
Admirals are the naval counterparts to army commanders, as the commanders of a nation's fleets, and most mechanics apply analogously (particularly to appointed commanders such as legates and generals). Any adult character (following the country's gender restrictions) that does not already hold another appointed position can be directly appointed to command a single fleet as an admiral (note that this includes the co-ruler and primary heir, but not the ruler as the ruler is considered the governor of the capital region and commands its levies). Like generals, there is a 12 month cooldown before an admiral can be replaced or dismissed, as well as another 12 month cooldown before a dismissed or replaced admiral can be assigned another command. As with armies, a fleet in the middle of battle also cannot have its admiral changed.
An admiral's martial skill gives +0.5% ship capture chance per point and gives a bonus to dice rolls in combat, potentially significantly increasing their fleet's effectiveness during engagements. An navy without a admiral will instead get a -15% naval morale and +1% experience decay modifier, which similarly makes an unled navy highly vulnerable.
As naval commanders admirals also gain power base proportional to how much of the country's navy they have under their command (scaling to a maximum of +10 power base), though the power base of commanded fleets is much less than that of armies. There is no loyalty mechanic for ships or fleets analogous to the cohort loyalty mechanic. Like with army commanders, there is a loyalty of admirals modifier that gives loyalty modifiers specifically to admirals.
Each admiral has the following modifiers:
Like with legates, tribunes, and generals, admirals are also paid a significant amount of the nation's income. This can be problematic if a country appoints too many admirals, though this is usually somewhat less of a problem than with army commanders as a navy's high mobility means that it is rare that more than 2 or 3 are needed. Admirals will also gain popularity from winning battles, though as there are generally fewer naval battles in a war and no cities for admirals to sack, they generally will not reach the same level of popularity as successful army commanders. Unlike governors and legion commanders, however, admirals do not have reduced senate influence.
Researchers
Researchers oversee the progress of technological discovery and advances inside the country. One researcher can be appointed for each of the four fields of advances, providing a +10% tech investment bonus to that field for every point of the researcher's corresponding attribute. In addition, researchers that have the obsessive, intelligent, polymath, or scholar traits also have a small chance each month to generate an extra innovation, on top of the innovations that the country normally gains through advances.
As the main source of tech investment modifiers, a good researcher can considerably speed up the rate of technological advances in the country (and vice versa), and lack of penalties from having an unloyal researcher means that it is generally preferable to appoint the characters with the highest attribute in each field as researcher. However, the traits that let a researcher discover extra innovations should also be taken into consideration, and in many circumstances it may be better to appoint a character that has one (or more) of those traits over another character with somewhat higher skill but no ability to generate extra innovations. Since the extra innovations are generated at a relatively constant rate regardless of how quickly or slowly the country is progressing technologically otherwise, focusing on getting researchers with these traits is particularly useful for countries that do not expect to progress quickly through advances, either because of a low research efficiency or high ahead of time penalties from already being highly advanced. Note, as well, that each researcher can only be appointed to a single field at a time (and cannot currently hold any other assignable position).
Each researcher gets the following modifiers:
- +1% Monthly Wage
- +0.05 Monthly Popularity
- +0.05 Monthly Character Prominence
- +0.30 Monthly Family Prestige
- +30 Prominence
- +0.25% Monthly Statesmanship
Notably, researchers gain statesmanship from their position but their bonuses are not affected by their statesmanship. This makes it possible to appoint high attribute but low statesmanship characters into the researcher office in order to accumulate statesmanship for another more important office later, though depending on how this is used this may come at the cost of optimizing technological progression.
Construction Leaders
Construction leaders oversee the progress of great wonders that are under construction. One construction leader can be appointed for each great wonder that the country currently has under construction, providing a +5% overall workpower bonus for every point of the construction leader's finesse, increasing the speed at which the pops in the territory build the wonder. Certain traits can further modify the amount of workpower that every pop contributes to wonder construction through the general and pop-specific Great Wonder Construction modifiers, as well as increasing or decreasing the wonder's prestige once finished through the Great Wonder completion Prestige modifier. A great wonder that does not have any construction leader assigned will instead get a 25% malus to construction work speed. Once the wonder is finished, the associated construction leader office will be removed.
Each construction leader gets the following modifiers:
- +1% Monthly Wage
- +0.01 Monthly Popularity
- +0.10 Monthly Character Prominence
- +0.40 Monthly Family Prestige
- +30 Prominence
- +0.40% Monthly Statesmanship
Like researchers, construction leaders gain statesmanship from their position but their bonuses are not affected by their statesmanship, which makes it possible to use the position to train up inexperienced but highly-skilled characters for promotion to government offices (possibly at the expense of making the great work construction slower).
Party Leaders
In republics, each of the 3 Senate factions has a party leader who heads the faction and wields a large amount of influence among its members. Party leaders get a +100% succession support bonus from their faction, ensuring that they always their faction's full support when calculating succession support. This means that party leaders of larger factions are usually prime candidates to be elected as ruler or co-ruler, as long as they are eligible. Family members of the party leader also get a small +10% succession support bonus from the party, even if they are not actually part of the faction themselves.
When a party leader dies or leaves the country, he or she will be immediately replaced, typically with the most next most prominent member of the faction. Members of other parties may also join the faction and become the leader if a party has too few remaining candidates for party leader. The faction conviction of a party leader does not change and a party leader will never switch factions, even if they do somehow get higher conviction in a faction other than the one they currently lead.
Each party leader has the following modifiers:
- +0.15 Monthly Popularity
- +0.35 Monthly Character Prominence
- +0.05 Monthly Family Prestige
- +5 Prominence
- +15% Senate influence
- +0.05% Monthly Statesmanship
As it is not an appointed position, a party leader title by itself does not count towards the number of held positions that a major family expects to have, but party leaders may be elected or appointed to any other position as long as they meet the requirements. As high prominence characters are more likely to be chosen as party leaders, they will tend to already hold some sort of position in the government.
Clan Chiefs
Tribal nations have a number of clan chiefs that lead their clan/family and represent its interests in the country, taking the place of family heads in other government types. The ruler of a tribal nation is always one of the clan chiefs; when the ruler dies, the next ruler will be elected from the clan chief with the next highest succession support, as determined by their attributes. When a clan chief dies, the title will be assigned to the next head of the family on the next monthly tick, typically the next oldest member of the family. The number of clan chiefs (and clans) in a tribal country is determined by the value of its Number of Clan Chiefs modifier, increasing with the country's rank.
As the representatives of the main clans of the tribe, clan chiefs represent significant interests within the tribe and get a say some of the internal affairs of the country - in particular, all clan chiefs must be loyal in order to change laws and enact certain decisions, particularly those relating to changing government form. In addition, when levies are raised from one of a tribe's regions, they are not put under the command of the local governor, but rather partitioned between each of the clans (including the ruling clan) as clan retinues with the clan chief as commander. These clan retinues are always personally loyal to the clan chief (except for those under the ruler) and contribute to their clan chief's power base correspondingly, which usually significantly increases their power base. However, as they may be called up to command their retinues at any time, unlike heads of family clan chiefs cannot be appointed to any other positions.
Additionally, unlike family heads, clan chiefs do not get power base from their clan's share of the total family prestige within the country, but instead get +1 prominence for each percentage of the country's total family prestige that belongs to their clan. This means that clan chiefs generally have less power base than heads of family in republics and monarchies, save for when their retinues are raised. In addition to the usual loyalty modifiers, the loyalty of clan chiefs modifier will apply loyalty modifiers specifically to clan chiefs only, which is affected by some laws, event modifiers, and ruler popularity.
Like all other non-appointed positions, the clan chief position does not count towards the number of positions a family holds, even when the levies are raised and the chiefs are commanding their retinues.
All clan chiefs have the following modifiers:
- +3% Monthly Wage
- +0.15 Monthly Popularity
- +0.10 Monthly Character Prominence
- +0.35 Monthly Family Prestige
- +40 Prominence