Government

Overview
Government in Axiom is a major and unique system. Government is not hard coded with a couple bonuses as is the case in the Civilization games, Galactic Civilizations, or Paradox grand strategy games. Government deals with characters, integration, population, politics, diplomacy, espionage, and religion as well as other major systems.

Governments are basically giant agreements for the administration of a nation.

Tiers of officials
Each government can have one or more tiers of officials. Individual officials have a strongly increased opinion of the government the higher their tier. All government officials with actual powers must be existing characters. Populations have increased opinion of the government the more characters of similar demographics control things. Populations have happiness/opinion boosts for governments with more officials in a tier. Higher tiers give better bonuses. However allowing other characters who you don't control to have power is the trade off.

Types of member states
Governments also deal with the obligations and rights of member states. You can think of the Holy Roman Empire as an example. It has 3 tiers. The ruler, the electors, and the princes. It also had imperial free cities.

You could also think of something more complex. Consider a triumvirate as the top tier. Below that are potential triumvirs. Below that are voting members who can't be voted triumvir. Below that are non-voting members. All tiers can have their own internal structure. Perhaps some nations but not others are limited in diplomatic options such as not being allowed to wage independent wars. There are many other potential options as well.

Other possibilities
Consider the Roman Republic. It had powerful civil and military officials. It also had the Senate. Many officials had great power but without their own land.