ANNEX. Political system of the Roman Empire
Head of State
The Emperor is both the Head of State and the Head of the Roman Church. He has no real powers and his role is merely symbolical; however, he is considered the first representative of the Roman state abroad, so his moral authority regarding some international affairs could be higher than the Roman chancelor. The Emperor usually resides in Rome since 1842, but he has no official residence.
Diet of Pavia
The Empire has no official capital city, but unofficially it is considered to be Pavia as it is the home of the main Roman institution. The Diet is the only national legislative institution, as there is no Senate or similar. All the Roman duchies are currently represented in the Diet: all of them have a permanent delegation in Pavia with a spokeperson who represents the whole delegation in the actual Diet when the debates and the voting are performed. However, not all the spokepeople have the same number of votes: depending on the population weight of every duchy, a different number of votes can be submitted. I.e. the spokeperson of the Saxon delegation can submit 12 votes, while the spokeperson of the Icelandic one can submit just one.
The Diet is renewed every four years through the national elections. Every party presents its own proposed delegation in every duchy they contest: there is a first round where the two most voted parties in every duchy are selected for the second and final round (it is very unusual that a party gets more than 50% of the valid vote in the first round). Due to the high number of parties (because of the diversity of hundreds of duchies), they are grouped by 'families' in the Diet: the most relevant are the (Social-) Democratic, Conservative, Liberal, Nationalist, Green and Labour.
The Diet does not appoint any unified Government: they create different comittees (Justice, Diplomacy, Commerce...) with similar party composition to the Diet itself. The only relevant figure chosen by the Diet is the Roman chancelor, considered to be the second authority after the Emperor and the first political one. Normally, the chancelor is proposed by the winner family of parties. The chancelor has limited powers outside diplomacy and somehow institutional representative of the Diet.
The Diet has competences over defence (army, navy...), the Roman Central Bank (currency), diplomacy, international commerce and certain kind of laws. The Supreme Court is also regulated by the Diet, but the judges are appointed by their own separate committe. Other national institutions are not located in Pavia: the Central Bank is located in Terra Nova (New England) while the Supreme Court is located in Constantinople.
Duchies and counties
The duchies run almost all the ordinary competences: education, healthcare, police, ordinary justice etc. The Civil Duke is appointed by the ducal diet and, unlike in Pavia, he forms a proper government. The duchies are divided in several counties, but they have no diet: since 1870, the Civil Counts are appointed by the mayors of the cities and villages of the county, so they are indirectly elected through the local elections. The counties basically manage the supra-local services like garbage collection, recycling, management of the woods and lanes etc.
The counties also act as constituencies for the ducal elections.