Hello
I really like the 4 different forms of governments in GC2 and for those of you who know EU3 I really like the form of governments in that one also.
That got me thinking about Elemental, right now we are looking at a ruling system that is based on a dictatorship of the channeler and that is it, but as we all know different forms of governments are suited to different situations.
Within the limits of the game premise (i.e. all powerful channeler leading its people) I came up with some basic guide line for different forms of governments in Elemental.
The basic dictatorship, this is the early game method, basically if your channeler is within a certain radius of a city than that city will suffer no penalties, OTOH if your channeler is too far from a city than that city will become more rebellious/unhappy/less productive/etc etc. if the channeler is within a certain radius (that is smaller than the above mentioned one) the city will get some bonuses. This is one method to control early uber expansion.
From here we got 2 branches of government, we can move toward a more totalitarian one or a more democratic one. Both options should allow you to expand your borders farther than if you were still at the basic dictatorship rule but both should have certain bonuses and certain penalties.
Just to be clear, I'm thinking more toward a system where your governing system grow as you play, so for example at the start you change move toward feudal system to bolster your ability to train elite soldiers cheaper and for less upkeep (i.e. the nobles) and later you add serfdom to bolster your economy and give you quick bursts of cheap manufacturing powers or maybe instead of serfs you go toward yeoman and free people, on a different game you start with going toward big guilds or the thing that Rome had (sorry forgot the name 
)
I mentioned before EU3, I really like the "National Ideas" system that they got there, when after X research in government technology field you get a National Idea slot and can pick one, for example in warfare you could pick "National Conscripts" to get a +50% to manpower or "National Trade Policy" in State Business to get a +10% from trade etc (for a full list look here)
I think that this is something that would fit well with in elemental, each time you research one of the 5 fields (Civ, warfare, magic, adventure, diplomacy) if you pick the generic breakthrough, apart from receiving the normal bonus it will give you points toward getting a new slot for "Kingdom Idea", this ideas should be unique enough and offer new options to the faction that picks them and 50% of the should be have preconditions to unlock them ( research X and Y, have high enough diplomatic ratings with X% of the other nations, have X inns in each city, etc.)
There should be a hard cap of Idea slots per faction and it should be something like 40% of the ideas to chose from in game, so if we got 10 ideas per research field for a total of 50 ideas the hard cap should be on 20 slots.
A player would be able to change an idea for a different one any time for some sort of penalty.
Here are some quick ones from the top of My head:
Civilization
1. Forest People- allow to build cities in forested areas without any penalty add production bonus to cities in forests
2. Mountain People – same as forest people only for mountains thos two are mutually exclusive.
3. Great builders – production bonus for stone buildings, +20% stone buildings Attributes (require research masonry).
Warfare
1. Military Tradition - -10% to army upkeep.
2. Great horsemen's - +10% to cavalry attack and defense +10% cost to foot soldiers.
Magic
1. Everyday cantrips - +10% production -15% mana.
2. Fire/Water/Eart/Air affinity – sound cool, should think about what it does.
Etc… you get the picture.
Sorry for the messy post, I think about this stuff while I write them down, I would love to see if you got some Ideas for Kingdome Ideas.
Warder
