Ok this is a big one. I feel the nations should have different governments based on what the actual government was. These governments should be controlled by players. How is where things get tricky. Lets assume the war system is something like you are at war ally or peace with the other nations (trying to focus on the governing not the how or way of politics). A country like the US is a democracy so every player (maybe every clan instead, its just easier to use clans as political parties) would vote on an action (war, treaty terms etc). 1 or 2 of the monarchies might be NPC controlled complete with stories about why they are going to war (maybe outsourced to the community on forums?). Where pirates and neutrals come in is allowing players to switch sides when they dont agree with actions. These 2 groups would have more of a tribal government system where only clans can take ports and there are expenses to trying to get things like top tier ships without the sovereign. You could go pirate or neutral then earn a pardon with a nation later lets say. Basically there should be a different way(RNGesus, STV voting, Majority Based 2 party voting, etc) for each nation to choose the leaders that choose the direction of that nation. Then overall to get things like top tier shipyards and things in ports the nations have to meet different goals based on the population size of the nation (pirates and neutrals would have to pay large amounts and have a clan owned port to get the same benefits as the nations and only for clan access.) It also allows things like treasure fleets and raids to be triggered based on national goals. (pirates can not trigger treasure fleets or raids of their own but can steal from any nation. Neutrals may have some care bear method to trigger smaller raids but no treasure fleets).