Roman Political Factions (Principia Moderni III Map Game)

The Roman Empire enables its citizens to participate in government by electing representatives to the Senate in the form of Senators. Lower Senators are elected to the House of Commoners and Upper Senators are elected to the House of Lords. In order to help elect senators with similar views, political factions have emerged in order to see their respective interests represented and passed through the Senate.

Republican Faction
The Republican Faction is one of the two original factions in the Imperial Roman political system, along with the now defunct Royalist Faction. The Republican Faction was the driving force behind Theodore's Revolution in 1635 and was responsible for the reinstitution of the Senate as a legitimate branch of the Imperial government. Because of this success, the Republican Faction had dominated Roman politics for more than a century with firm control of the unicameral Senate and loyal support from the various states.

This would not last, as Serbia, the main area of Republican support, was lost to the Croatians and the Republicans themselves were defeated in the War of the Three Brothers, where they opposed the reforms advocated by the rising Illuminati Faction. Since that time period, the Republican Faction is little more than a shell of its former glory, serving as tacit opposition against the will of the victorious and much more popular Illuminati. Presently the Republican Faction offers only a minor alternative to the ongoing power struggle between the Illuminati and the Fascists.

The Republican Faction believes very strongly in the ideas of republican government and limiting the power of the Roman Emperor as much as possible. True to its origins, the Republican Faction also believes in the rights of the various states in the Empire and insists that their voice be heard lest they be drowned out by a tyrannical or uncaring majority.

Illuminati Faction
The Illuminati Faction is the main political faction of the Empire. Formed in 1773 by wealthy businessmen and government officials who felt that there needed to be more depth to the representative system at the time, which meant each state in the Empire had equal say regardless of how unequal those states were. The Illuminati Faction were a major party in the War of the Three Brothers, where they battled forces concerned that reforming the electoral system around population size meant that populous states would be able to enact Imperial policy with no concern for the small states. This turned out to not be true, and while the Illuminati Faction did institute their representative reform, they did leave the House of Lords, where each state had equal say, untouched.

In addition to their ideals of representative government, the Illuminati Faction was also keen towards a state-sanctioned system of rights for individual citizens as well as limited religious involvement in the Imperial government. The Illuminati Faction remains dedicated to these ideals as well as others to this day.

The Illuminati Faction got its name by the fact that its early founders considered themselves "enlightened" from God to bring about the changes that they deemed imperative for the Roman Empire.