A User’s Guide to ROME II GRAND CAMPAIGN POLITICS - Beginning

A Brief Overview The first thing to know is that whether or not you choose to give it attention, party politics will always have some degree of overall consequence for your campaign. By carefully managing characters of political importance and engaging in the various political actions available to you, it is possible to control the constant sway of power that occurs between the parties within your faction. Ultimately, balance is the key – your political goal is to maintain inner stability, ensuring that no single party dominates the political arena. As a general rule, too much or too little Influence held by any one party, whether ruling or not, will always equate to political imbalance, potentially planting the seeds of insurrection. Affecting the Influence that each party possesses really boils down to the choices you make throughout the course of your campaign. This includes military and civil choices that might not seem to be directly political, such as which generals to appoint, which skills or ancillaries to upgrade them with, and even the order in which technologies are researched.
There is no single approach; political non-involvement (in other words, letting the political situation unfold on its own while concentrating on civil and military matters) is not necessarily a bad thing, at least in the short term. However, in the long term, inaction will likely result in certain parties gaining or losing Influence excessively without you knowing.  On the other hand, a player who is active in politics will be able to maintain good levels of political stability for as long as possible, prolonging the amount of time before a challenge is made to their leadership. When such a challenge occurs, a rival political party will break off and appear as a new enemy faction, initiating a civil war. Players who choose not to pay attention to Influence levels run the risk of having this occur when they least expect it, especially in the late game as their Imperium level reaches the latter tiers.
The civil war event is essentially the political end game, which will be talked about in greater detail later in this guide.