Is it just me or they made it into Diarchy mechanics because they remember how annoyed people were at Imperator: Rome not having Two Consuls?
Also I think this system would actually allow something like the late Merovingian Dynasty to actually work in the game. Puppet-Kings, yo!
Considering how moddable this system is, I think it would be fantastic for ASOIAF mods. Hand of the King, anybody?
I mean it is technically mechanics. But they did the typical Paratrash thing of tons of new systems totally separate from the game and heavily gamey shit because the AI can't handle the game already much less new stuff. Tiers and progress bars and other nonsense.
Separate? It doesn't seem separate to me. Nor that gamey, either.
Reminder its coming to the base game, so they clearly consider it important.
It doesn't seem bad, in theory. I would rather wait to see it working. I'm sure we will see some regency silliness at first - then again, were the Merovingians silly?
I will hand it to you about the AI, but honestly, videogame AI is a neglected field.
The tiers made sense to me, they wanted to allow for short regencies without the player having to come back to a burning house every time he visits a noble on the other side of the border for five minutes. Not all Regencies are powerful. A rando regency doesn't evolve into defacto puppet kingery in five minutes, either.