Slaists
11-07-2013, 20:55
Update for EE edition
According to CA (see these posts by Craig (http://forums.totalwar.com/showthread.php/137123-Civil-wars-are-broken...../page4#40) in totalwar.com), in a republic (such as GC Rome and Carthage), civil war risk appears after your party's influence is higher than 49%; the risk grows as your imperium and power increases. In a GC monarchy (a 2 party faction), a civil war risk appears at 70% and grows from there in a similar fashion as for republics. Civil wars have zero chance to start before Imperium level V though. In Augustus campaign, the same principles apply (unlike GC, the Roman factions are treated as monarchies in IA).
In order for the new CW system to kick in a new campaign should be started. Mods can have unpredictable effects on the CW system.
Also, the gravitas/influence system seems to be quite revamped. Promotions no longer have influence costs attached to them. Political sabotage actions have their influence costs reduced. All in all, high influence is much easier to attain now and it seems harder to avoid gaining higher influence past the Civil War risk points (49% for republics, 69% for monarchies).
Mini-update (Patch 15 beta)
I feel with many questions floating around due to patch 15, this needs a little update. The biggest change introduced with this patch seems that military (the first branch of authority, cunning, zeal) and political promotions now give +1 gravitas/turn. So generals now can can earn gravitas while idling in the field. Before patch 15, they could earn gravitas only if they won battles, sat in the capital or had a trait/ancillary giving gravitas each turn.
With this change, having your party members sit in the capital no longer has as pronounced an effect as it used to. Generals in the field can easily accumulate promotions that give +10 or so gravitas per turn while doing nothing in the field. Moving them to the city would only improve the gain by +1.
If your goal is to maximize your party's power, you should still avoid the opposition sitting in the capital or winning battles for that matter. Especially the latter part. Nothing hurts your party's influence as much as an opposition leader soaking up +10 gravitas/turn (after the opposition promotes him to the max).
Illustration, republican game, Junia, legendary, post-victory screen game, started with patch 15, still no civil war:
http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/538500745626479625/2AA6D902E26B53E11F98B29B11C7DED200BAFBB0/
Original Guide
I have been playing around with politics for a couple weeks and have come up with some (undocumented) recipes that seem to work both for republics and monarchies. Maybe folks here find them useful. I have been preaching these ideas in other threads in bits and pieces but decided to put them together in one place here.
Disclaimer: civil war will still happen, the question is when and where
Managing your politics well, does not mean you will not get the civil war.
Unless you already have gotten a civil war, you're bound to get one when you reach the fourth level of imperium. This was true before patch 7; now, we have to figure out when the default CW happens and for how long it is possible to delay it. However, managing politics well, can give you the luxury of getting the civil war when you're ready for it rather than it catching you with your pants down.
There is also the question of where the rebel stacks spawn in a civil war. If your party's influence is low, the rebel stacks of doom spawn in the heart of your empire (for monarchies, "low influence" seems to be around 60%). On the other hand, if your party's influence is high, rebels spawn somewhere on the edge. Rebels can wreck quite some havoc if they spawn in the capital, the highly developed center of the empire, whereas them showing up on the edge gives the player more time to react. Edges of empires also usually are less developed. Thus, the economic shock of rebels capturing provinces is not as significant.
Another positive side effect of managing influence is that you tend to get very highly promoted generals. High stars generals can get some very hefty battle perks. For example, the highest general's promotion in zeal can give you a monster that steals whooping 30% of your opponents morale in battles. Hit the target army with a champion and you can reduce morale by around 50% total; add an ambush and they're running before the battle starts. This does not happen exactly that way on legendary and VH difficulties where the AI gets difficulty significant morale boosts, but the underlying idea stays the same.
Yet another benefit of playing the politics is that your major generals are never really exposed to the AI agents. Opposition assassins is a different matter but they can get to your general anywhere, in the capital or the field, or while he traveling back to the capital.
Government systems: monarchies versus republics
Republics and monarchies have different political goals. In republics, you do not want to let your influence go too high or fall it too low. Influence being excessively high or very low can trigger a civil war in republics. Influence also appears to be much more sensitive to changes in gravitas in republics than in monarchies. Because of this, in republics, you can have huge swings in influence every turn.
On the other side of the token, in monarchies, you want your party's influence to be as high as possible at all times. In my experience, anything below 60% is a danger zone for civil war. CW is not a sure thing to happen when the party's influence is in the 50-60% range but is highly likely in higher levels of imperium. Being in high 70s, 80s have allowed me to cruise all the way to the 4th (12 army allowance) imperium. Again, this was true before patch 7; now, with the new imperium scale, the safe point is still to be found.
My experience mostly lies with monarchies so far and most tips here are better suited for this government type.
Earning and losing gravitas
Gravitas (in particular, party-wide change in gravitas per turn) is the underlying fuel for influence in the game. Gravitas (and, by implication, influence) is earned by winning battles, through good traits, good household members & good wives, by sitting in the capital (in the statesman status) and through promotions. Promotions are a double edged sword though; in the case of monarchies, promotions tend to cost you more outright influence than what you gain from the extra gravitas gained by the promotee. This is different for republics. There, promotions almost always seem to result in influence gains as long as the party's influence is not very high to start with. Once the party's influence gets very high, new gains become much harder.
Gravitas is also earned while traveling "back to the capital". So, if you send a general back to the capital, he will be earning a gravitas point for being a "traveling statesman". If you sent a statesman to lead an army in a battle and he wins, he will earn a gravitas point for that. If you send him back to the capital on the same turn, he will also be earning an extra gravitas point for traveling.
Generals joining the battle as reinforcements earn gravitas too. This is something I noticed recently. The generals who join your battle as reinforcements earn battle experience and gravitas. Thus, if your main general wins the battle and earns gravitas, yet your reinforcing army was led by an opposition general who also gained gravitas, the total impact of this win on your party's influence could be nil. Both party's earned +1 gravitas creating a wash situation unless the ambition differential of generals skews it one way or another. In order to maximize influence gain, it is better to have your own party's general leading the reinforcing army.
Earning and losing influence
Influence gains seem to come from a relationship stemming from losing/gaining gravitas each turn and comparing this loss/gain against the other party's cumulative gain/loss of gravitas. All characters supposedly help the party to gain influence, but characters sitting in the capital appear to earn influence the fastest. On top of that, highly ambitious characters tend to gain more influence for their respective change in gravitas.
Influence can also be earned (or lost) through promotions. Each promotion costs some influence, but adds some back (sometimes more than what was lost in the outright cost) through the resulting change in gravitas of the affected character. In the case of monarchies, it is advisable to promote only ambition 3 characters. Anyone lower than ambition 3 appears to cost more influence points in promotion than what is gained through the resulting gravitas boost. In republics, promoting lower level characters can result in an influence gain too. This is likely to be due to some "diminishing returns" mechanism in place described in more details a couple paragraphs below.
In addition to adding gravitas, one of the higher level promotion adds an outright +2% influence gain per turn/faction wide. This seems to work as 2% of whatever influence your party has (not outright +2%). So, for example, if your party's influence is 60%, you'd be gaining 1.2% influence per turn, unless this is offset by influence gain by the opposition. It is possible too, that there is some decay factor in play. For example, less is gained if your influence is already high. I still have to determine if this bonus applies only if the general is in the field or also applies while he is traveling or sitting in the capital.
It appears to be easier to gain influence while there are just a few generals (across all parties) around. As the imperium (and the number of generals, admirals) grows, per turn gains/loss seem to diminish. The imperium gain/loss also becomes less drastic as the party's influence grows to high levels. There appears to be some 'averaging' or diminishing returns mechanism in place.
You lose (outright) influence through most political actions (assassinations, blackmail, etc.); hiring from your own party (however, you can end up gaining the influence "cost" right back if the new hireling has a combination of high gravitas and high ambition; it's a game of luck in a sense), bad traits and wives, badly lost battles, bad random events, etc. For monarchies, you probably want to limit your use of political actions (unless your goal is to trigger an early civil war). For republics: there might be cases where you want to use it in order to quickly reduce influence that has run too high.
How Slaists deals with it
To each their own: opposition generals serve as drill sergeants, own party's generals serve as fighters and politicians. I keep all the opposition members busy leading my armies/navies that are not directly fighting (minimize the time opposition generals sit in the capital as statesmen, ideally, there is nobody from the opposition in the capital at the end of any turn). If possible, I fight with only my own generals. I do this religiously. I prefer to fight with my high ambition generals rather than low ambition generals however, there are cases when I am forced to use my low ambition guys as well. In defense, sometimes you are forced to use an opposition general too.
To achieve this: I rotate my high ambition generals between the city office and the field. I send them back to the city right after they done fighting (the same turn) unless more fights are foreseeable in the same location in the next turn. If I can, I prefer ALL my generals sitting in the capital waiting for an opportunity to grab some glory wherever in my empire it would appear the next turn. In an ideal peaceful turn, before the end-turn click, all my generals are sitting in the capital (or traveling to the capital), while all my opposition generals are drilling troops in the field. This of course, never really happens that way.
There is another caveat to rotating which makes it a game of its own. Your general gets +1 gravitas for a battle won. However, if it was an opposition member who was replaced by your general, he will also be earning +1 gravitas for sitting in the capital for a turn. So, it will be a wash in terms of influence gain. However, influence gain scale will be skewed more towards the opposition since he'll be the one sitting in the capital (more influence gained there). How can you counter this? By insuring your winning general has higher ambition than the opposition one (ambition works as a multiplier for gravitas). On top of that, sending your gen back to the capital allows him to earn +1 more gravitas on the same turn.
Note that the above works well for monarchies since maxing influence is what we want. For republics a more touch-and-go approach is recommended since you might want to give some influence to your opposition parties in order to avoid the civil war trigger that stems from growing your influence too high.
A fine touch approach should also account for the balance of ambition and gravitas earned per battle and traveling back to the capital. You do not want any high ambition opposition generals leading your armies in areas with busy AI enemy traffic.
For one, you might get attacked. A battle won with the opposition general of high ambition will lead to him gaining gravitas and levels. Once that happens, the opposition is likely to promote the general, resulting in your party losing influence. Since your influence would tend to be high due to management, you'd lose a lot from the opposition promoting their guy. Second, when sending an opposition general back to the capital, he would be earning gravitas while traveling (in the role of a statesman). Better this traveler be someone with low ambition (less impact on party's influence) or someone of your own party. I prefer the drill sergeants near the action to be of my own party.
How to rotate generals. Some might have missed this interface feature so I will add it here. When you open the properties window for a selected army there are three tabs: one for the army, one for the general, one for the embedded agent (if you have one). On the general's tab there is a button called "replace". This will open an interface which allows one to send the active general to the capital so he becomes a politician the next turn. Actually, he will be shown as a traveling politician right away. You can replace your general either with any of the politicians active in the capital at the time or any of the candidates. The arrows next to the candidates list (by default showing 6 max) allows one to scroll through all the politicians in the capital even if they're hidden in the default selection of 6.
Embedding leadership clues in army names. I have found it useful to indicate the general's party affiliation and ambition in the army titles. So, before each fight, even if I did not initiate the battle, I know what I have to play with. The naming system I use is simple. All I really care about is whether the army is led by my own party or the opposition and the general's ambition level. So, .p1 suffix for my own party with 1 ambition; .p2 suffix for my own party with 2 ambition; .p3 suffix for my own party with 3 ambition; .o1 for opposition with ambition of 1; .o2 for opposition with ambition of 1; .o3 for opposition with ambition of 3.
Example: "I.o3 Bite of the Basilisk" name would tell me that the army is lead by an opposition general with ambition of 3. Most unfortunately, my seers foresee, this general would die from stray javelins during the heat of the battle. It is also possible that his troops would route on the first sight of the enemy (a truly shameful display indeed).
Evil mothers in law (and other ancillaries). You will learn to appreciate evil mothers in law. Try this: attach an evil mother in law to the opposition leader. Do this only if he is young though, below 50, for the fear of losing this treasured camp follower as a collateral to an untimely death of the general. The general will be losing 2 gravitas each turn. Once the opposition leader is no longer the "leader", attach the evil mother in law to the next opposition chump drilling fresh recruits in the swamps next to your capital.
Evil mothers in law come in handy also if you have a young, attractive 3 ambition opposition general but you cannot afford to adopt him (yet) because he is their leader or adopting him costs too much influence. Attach the camp follower, wait a few turns. Voila: the prospective son is ripe for adoption. On the opposite side of the token: watch out for tutors, etc., who give +1 to gravitas. Confiscate tutors from the opposition and your own guys with ambition of 1. Attach the gravitas boosting tutors to your own party members with level 3 ambition.
Political actions. Be wary of using political actions. These cost outright influence and tend to have little reward. An exception to this rule for me is adoption of a 3 ambition opposition member. Also, in the case of republics, there might be situations when it is advisable to "give" some influence away (by assassinating an opposition leader, for example).
Be careful with you hires. Finally, but not least: hire from your own party sparingly (especially, if playing as a monarchy). Each time you hire from your own party, it costs you influence. Better, hire from the opposition. See how the fresh general is. If he has ambition of 3, he might be a good candidate for adoption (as soon as possible). It will cost you influence, but so would a blind hire from your own party's pool. This time though, you will know exactly what you will be paying for (an ambition 3 general).
An exception to losing influence from hiring from your own party seems the case when some general dies or is wounded. In that case, when, right before the turn start, you get the message inviting you to replace the affected general, if you choose one from your own party, this does not seem to cost any influence. Rather, in these cases, I tend to gain some influence from hiring from my own party. This might be a bug related to the fact that this hiring happens during the AI's turn technically and probably has something to do with how and when influence changes are accounted for.
While getting the hang of the political system I would recommend to use the quick-save feature (unless playing on Legendary). Quick-save before you hire a new general, promote your own, adopt someone or execute a political action. See how your decision affects your party's influence. Load the quick-save and see how going in another direction changes the influence effect. Soon you'll develop a feel for which choices will lead to influence gain and which ones are likely to result in a loss.
An easily accessible in-game 5 turn sand-box "tutorial" for the political system
Roll as Suebi. Check your general roster. Your party starts with one general and one statesman. The opposition has 1 general. There should be an opposition candidate available. Swap your general in the field with the opposition candidate and send your general to the capital. Observe your total influence. Click through end-turn a few times, not doing anything. The opposition would be sitting in the field, doing nothing. Your generals would be sitting in the capital gaining gravitas and influence. On turn 5, check your party's influence. It should be significantly higher now. That pretty much sums up the process.
According to CA (see these posts by Craig (http://forums.totalwar.com/showthread.php/137123-Civil-wars-are-broken...../page4#40) in totalwar.com), in a republic (such as GC Rome and Carthage), civil war risk appears after your party's influence is higher than 49%; the risk grows as your imperium and power increases. In a GC monarchy (a 2 party faction), a civil war risk appears at 70% and grows from there in a similar fashion as for republics. Civil wars have zero chance to start before Imperium level V though. In Augustus campaign, the same principles apply (unlike GC, the Roman factions are treated as monarchies in IA).
In order for the new CW system to kick in a new campaign should be started. Mods can have unpredictable effects on the CW system.
Also, the gravitas/influence system seems to be quite revamped. Promotions no longer have influence costs attached to them. Political sabotage actions have their influence costs reduced. All in all, high influence is much easier to attain now and it seems harder to avoid gaining higher influence past the Civil War risk points (49% for republics, 69% for monarchies).
Mini-update (Patch 15 beta)
I feel with many questions floating around due to patch 15, this needs a little update. The biggest change introduced with this patch seems that military (the first branch of authority, cunning, zeal) and political promotions now give +1 gravitas/turn. So generals now can can earn gravitas while idling in the field. Before patch 15, they could earn gravitas only if they won battles, sat in the capital or had a trait/ancillary giving gravitas each turn.
With this change, having your party members sit in the capital no longer has as pronounced an effect as it used to. Generals in the field can easily accumulate promotions that give +10 or so gravitas per turn while doing nothing in the field. Moving them to the city would only improve the gain by +1.
If your goal is to maximize your party's power, you should still avoid the opposition sitting in the capital or winning battles for that matter. Especially the latter part. Nothing hurts your party's influence as much as an opposition leader soaking up +10 gravitas/turn (after the opposition promotes him to the max).
Illustration, republican game, Junia, legendary, post-victory screen game, started with patch 15, still no civil war:
http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/538500745626479625/2AA6D902E26B53E11F98B29B11C7DED200BAFBB0/
Original Guide
I have been playing around with politics for a couple weeks and have come up with some (undocumented) recipes that seem to work both for republics and monarchies. Maybe folks here find them useful. I have been preaching these ideas in other threads in bits and pieces but decided to put them together in one place here.
Disclaimer: civil war will still happen, the question is when and where
Managing your politics well, does not mean you will not get the civil war.
Unless you already have gotten a civil war, you're bound to get one when you reach the fourth level of imperium. This was true before patch 7; now, we have to figure out when the default CW happens and for how long it is possible to delay it. However, managing politics well, can give you the luxury of getting the civil war when you're ready for it rather than it catching you with your pants down.
There is also the question of where the rebel stacks spawn in a civil war. If your party's influence is low, the rebel stacks of doom spawn in the heart of your empire (for monarchies, "low influence" seems to be around 60%). On the other hand, if your party's influence is high, rebels spawn somewhere on the edge. Rebels can wreck quite some havoc if they spawn in the capital, the highly developed center of the empire, whereas them showing up on the edge gives the player more time to react. Edges of empires also usually are less developed. Thus, the economic shock of rebels capturing provinces is not as significant.
Another positive side effect of managing influence is that you tend to get very highly promoted generals. High stars generals can get some very hefty battle perks. For example, the highest general's promotion in zeal can give you a monster that steals whooping 30% of your opponents morale in battles. Hit the target army with a champion and you can reduce morale by around 50% total; add an ambush and they're running before the battle starts. This does not happen exactly that way on legendary and VH difficulties where the AI gets difficulty significant morale boosts, but the underlying idea stays the same.
Yet another benefit of playing the politics is that your major generals are never really exposed to the AI agents. Opposition assassins is a different matter but they can get to your general anywhere, in the capital or the field, or while he traveling back to the capital.
Government systems: monarchies versus republics
Republics and monarchies have different political goals. In republics, you do not want to let your influence go too high or fall it too low. Influence being excessively high or very low can trigger a civil war in republics. Influence also appears to be much more sensitive to changes in gravitas in republics than in monarchies. Because of this, in republics, you can have huge swings in influence every turn.
On the other side of the token, in monarchies, you want your party's influence to be as high as possible at all times. In my experience, anything below 60% is a danger zone for civil war. CW is not a sure thing to happen when the party's influence is in the 50-60% range but is highly likely in higher levels of imperium. Being in high 70s, 80s have allowed me to cruise all the way to the 4th (12 army allowance) imperium. Again, this was true before patch 7; now, with the new imperium scale, the safe point is still to be found.
My experience mostly lies with monarchies so far and most tips here are better suited for this government type.
Earning and losing gravitas
Gravitas (in particular, party-wide change in gravitas per turn) is the underlying fuel for influence in the game. Gravitas (and, by implication, influence) is earned by winning battles, through good traits, good household members & good wives, by sitting in the capital (in the statesman status) and through promotions. Promotions are a double edged sword though; in the case of monarchies, promotions tend to cost you more outright influence than what you gain from the extra gravitas gained by the promotee. This is different for republics. There, promotions almost always seem to result in influence gains as long as the party's influence is not very high to start with. Once the party's influence gets very high, new gains become much harder.
Gravitas is also earned while traveling "back to the capital". So, if you send a general back to the capital, he will be earning a gravitas point for being a "traveling statesman". If you sent a statesman to lead an army in a battle and he wins, he will earn a gravitas point for that. If you send him back to the capital on the same turn, he will also be earning an extra gravitas point for traveling.
Generals joining the battle as reinforcements earn gravitas too. This is something I noticed recently. The generals who join your battle as reinforcements earn battle experience and gravitas. Thus, if your main general wins the battle and earns gravitas, yet your reinforcing army was led by an opposition general who also gained gravitas, the total impact of this win on your party's influence could be nil. Both party's earned +1 gravitas creating a wash situation unless the ambition differential of generals skews it one way or another. In order to maximize influence gain, it is better to have your own party's general leading the reinforcing army.
Earning and losing influence
Influence gains seem to come from a relationship stemming from losing/gaining gravitas each turn and comparing this loss/gain against the other party's cumulative gain/loss of gravitas. All characters supposedly help the party to gain influence, but characters sitting in the capital appear to earn influence the fastest. On top of that, highly ambitious characters tend to gain more influence for their respective change in gravitas.
Influence can also be earned (or lost) through promotions. Each promotion costs some influence, but adds some back (sometimes more than what was lost in the outright cost) through the resulting change in gravitas of the affected character. In the case of monarchies, it is advisable to promote only ambition 3 characters. Anyone lower than ambition 3 appears to cost more influence points in promotion than what is gained through the resulting gravitas boost. In republics, promoting lower level characters can result in an influence gain too. This is likely to be due to some "diminishing returns" mechanism in place described in more details a couple paragraphs below.
In addition to adding gravitas, one of the higher level promotion adds an outright +2% influence gain per turn/faction wide. This seems to work as 2% of whatever influence your party has (not outright +2%). So, for example, if your party's influence is 60%, you'd be gaining 1.2% influence per turn, unless this is offset by influence gain by the opposition. It is possible too, that there is some decay factor in play. For example, less is gained if your influence is already high. I still have to determine if this bonus applies only if the general is in the field or also applies while he is traveling or sitting in the capital.
It appears to be easier to gain influence while there are just a few generals (across all parties) around. As the imperium (and the number of generals, admirals) grows, per turn gains/loss seem to diminish. The imperium gain/loss also becomes less drastic as the party's influence grows to high levels. There appears to be some 'averaging' or diminishing returns mechanism in place.
You lose (outright) influence through most political actions (assassinations, blackmail, etc.); hiring from your own party (however, you can end up gaining the influence "cost" right back if the new hireling has a combination of high gravitas and high ambition; it's a game of luck in a sense), bad traits and wives, badly lost battles, bad random events, etc. For monarchies, you probably want to limit your use of political actions (unless your goal is to trigger an early civil war). For republics: there might be cases where you want to use it in order to quickly reduce influence that has run too high.
How Slaists deals with it
To each their own: opposition generals serve as drill sergeants, own party's generals serve as fighters and politicians. I keep all the opposition members busy leading my armies/navies that are not directly fighting (minimize the time opposition generals sit in the capital as statesmen, ideally, there is nobody from the opposition in the capital at the end of any turn). If possible, I fight with only my own generals. I do this religiously. I prefer to fight with my high ambition generals rather than low ambition generals however, there are cases when I am forced to use my low ambition guys as well. In defense, sometimes you are forced to use an opposition general too.
To achieve this: I rotate my high ambition generals between the city office and the field. I send them back to the city right after they done fighting (the same turn) unless more fights are foreseeable in the same location in the next turn. If I can, I prefer ALL my generals sitting in the capital waiting for an opportunity to grab some glory wherever in my empire it would appear the next turn. In an ideal peaceful turn, before the end-turn click, all my generals are sitting in the capital (or traveling to the capital), while all my opposition generals are drilling troops in the field. This of course, never really happens that way.
There is another caveat to rotating which makes it a game of its own. Your general gets +1 gravitas for a battle won. However, if it was an opposition member who was replaced by your general, he will also be earning +1 gravitas for sitting in the capital for a turn. So, it will be a wash in terms of influence gain. However, influence gain scale will be skewed more towards the opposition since he'll be the one sitting in the capital (more influence gained there). How can you counter this? By insuring your winning general has higher ambition than the opposition one (ambition works as a multiplier for gravitas). On top of that, sending your gen back to the capital allows him to earn +1 more gravitas on the same turn.
Note that the above works well for monarchies since maxing influence is what we want. For republics a more touch-and-go approach is recommended since you might want to give some influence to your opposition parties in order to avoid the civil war trigger that stems from growing your influence too high.
A fine touch approach should also account for the balance of ambition and gravitas earned per battle and traveling back to the capital. You do not want any high ambition opposition generals leading your armies in areas with busy AI enemy traffic.
For one, you might get attacked. A battle won with the opposition general of high ambition will lead to him gaining gravitas and levels. Once that happens, the opposition is likely to promote the general, resulting in your party losing influence. Since your influence would tend to be high due to management, you'd lose a lot from the opposition promoting their guy. Second, when sending an opposition general back to the capital, he would be earning gravitas while traveling (in the role of a statesman). Better this traveler be someone with low ambition (less impact on party's influence) or someone of your own party. I prefer the drill sergeants near the action to be of my own party.
How to rotate generals. Some might have missed this interface feature so I will add it here. When you open the properties window for a selected army there are three tabs: one for the army, one for the general, one for the embedded agent (if you have one). On the general's tab there is a button called "replace". This will open an interface which allows one to send the active general to the capital so he becomes a politician the next turn. Actually, he will be shown as a traveling politician right away. You can replace your general either with any of the politicians active in the capital at the time or any of the candidates. The arrows next to the candidates list (by default showing 6 max) allows one to scroll through all the politicians in the capital even if they're hidden in the default selection of 6.
Embedding leadership clues in army names. I have found it useful to indicate the general's party affiliation and ambition in the army titles. So, before each fight, even if I did not initiate the battle, I know what I have to play with. The naming system I use is simple. All I really care about is whether the army is led by my own party or the opposition and the general's ambition level. So, .p1 suffix for my own party with 1 ambition; .p2 suffix for my own party with 2 ambition; .p3 suffix for my own party with 3 ambition; .o1 for opposition with ambition of 1; .o2 for opposition with ambition of 1; .o3 for opposition with ambition of 3.
Example: "I.o3 Bite of the Basilisk" name would tell me that the army is lead by an opposition general with ambition of 3. Most unfortunately, my seers foresee, this general would die from stray javelins during the heat of the battle. It is also possible that his troops would route on the first sight of the enemy (a truly shameful display indeed).
Evil mothers in law (and other ancillaries). You will learn to appreciate evil mothers in law. Try this: attach an evil mother in law to the opposition leader. Do this only if he is young though, below 50, for the fear of losing this treasured camp follower as a collateral to an untimely death of the general. The general will be losing 2 gravitas each turn. Once the opposition leader is no longer the "leader", attach the evil mother in law to the next opposition chump drilling fresh recruits in the swamps next to your capital.
Evil mothers in law come in handy also if you have a young, attractive 3 ambition opposition general but you cannot afford to adopt him (yet) because he is their leader or adopting him costs too much influence. Attach the camp follower, wait a few turns. Voila: the prospective son is ripe for adoption. On the opposite side of the token: watch out for tutors, etc., who give +1 to gravitas. Confiscate tutors from the opposition and your own guys with ambition of 1. Attach the gravitas boosting tutors to your own party members with level 3 ambition.
Political actions. Be wary of using political actions. These cost outright influence and tend to have little reward. An exception to this rule for me is adoption of a 3 ambition opposition member. Also, in the case of republics, there might be situations when it is advisable to "give" some influence away (by assassinating an opposition leader, for example).
Be careful with you hires. Finally, but not least: hire from your own party sparingly (especially, if playing as a monarchy). Each time you hire from your own party, it costs you influence. Better, hire from the opposition. See how the fresh general is. If he has ambition of 3, he might be a good candidate for adoption (as soon as possible). It will cost you influence, but so would a blind hire from your own party's pool. This time though, you will know exactly what you will be paying for (an ambition 3 general).
An exception to losing influence from hiring from your own party seems the case when some general dies or is wounded. In that case, when, right before the turn start, you get the message inviting you to replace the affected general, if you choose one from your own party, this does not seem to cost any influence. Rather, in these cases, I tend to gain some influence from hiring from my own party. This might be a bug related to the fact that this hiring happens during the AI's turn technically and probably has something to do with how and when influence changes are accounted for.
While getting the hang of the political system I would recommend to use the quick-save feature (unless playing on Legendary). Quick-save before you hire a new general, promote your own, adopt someone or execute a political action. See how your decision affects your party's influence. Load the quick-save and see how going in another direction changes the influence effect. Soon you'll develop a feel for which choices will lead to influence gain and which ones are likely to result in a loss.
An easily accessible in-game 5 turn sand-box "tutorial" for the political system
Roll as Suebi. Check your general roster. Your party starts with one general and one statesman. The opposition has 1 general. There should be an opposition candidate available. Swap your general in the field with the opposition candidate and send your general to the capital. Observe your total influence. Click through end-turn a few times, not doing anything. The opposition would be sitting in the field, doing nothing. Your generals would be sitting in the capital gaining gravitas and influence. On turn 5, check your party's influence. It should be significantly higher now. That pretty much sums up the process.