2. AUDIENCES, IMPERIAL COURT, CHARACTERS
Audiences are granted on regular basis. During an audience various imperial officials, alien ambassadors, corporations representatives come to the Emperor with various issues, proposals, reports, announcements, etc.

Court is a group of imperial officials working directly with the Emperor. They form a sort of central government and are divided into 6 departments (Defence, Treasury, Justice, Internal Affairs, Foreign Affairs and Protocol). Competence of courtiers assigned to a department determine how well the department is run which provide some bonuses and affects the chance of positive/negative department related events. It’s vital to keep the most competent (and loyal and not too corrupted) as the high rank courtiers since how much they affect the department depends on their rank within the court.

Factions are groups of interest, each courtier belongs to one faction. It’s vital to keep those factions balanced (preferable each faction at around 20% influence) or the Empire will suffer penalties. In addition, the Empire gets a specific bonus depending on which faction is the most influential (go to Empire/Court and mouse over the faction crests for details).

Characters come into three main groups: officers (admirals, vice admirals, political officers, commodores), planetary governors and courtiers. Most have 3 stats (Competence, Loyalty, Corruption), also courtiers have a faction affiliation. The trick is to make sure the most competent, most loyal, least corrupted people are in the high positions in the Empire.
Competence affects how well the character does his/her job (effect depending on office, check character’s tooltip).
Loyalty affects how supportive the character is to the Emperor (check Empire/Summary/Rebels for details).
Corruption (negative stats, you want it low) determines how much money an imperial official steals (check Finances tab).
