Local autonomy

Local autonomy affects how much mana you need to spend to extract taxes and levies from a province. A province with 100% or 1% autonomy will still give you the same amounts, but at a very big different mana expenditure. The lower the autonomy, the less mana needed.

Elites
The local Elites influence the local autonomy with their loyality. Higher loyality means better autonomy modificators, the power of the elite influences the strength of this modifier. A local powerful and very loyal elite can reduce the local autonomy significantly, while a very disloyal and powerful elite will increase local autonomy drastically.

Corruption
Provinces with high autonomy receive higher corruption from local elites. A high autonomy gives the elites more capacity to corrupt the burreaucracy, therefore increasing the provincial corruption. See Powerbrokers for information on elites.

Tax income
The state tax income a province generates is heavily depending on provincial corruption, while to extract that income is depending on the autonomy of the province. High autonomy will make it more expensive to extract the tax income. It is important to note that income is not lost due to corruption, it just does not end up in the coffers of the state. The state loses, some elite gets richer. Therefore, a province with 0% corruption would give the same tax at high autonomy as at low autonomy, but would cost more mana to extract that tax at high autonomy.

Dealing with local autonomy

 * Elite loyality is the key factor for local autonomy especially in the starting years. Careful when revoking privileges or reforming the state.
 * You can counter the effects of local autonomy on state tax by increasing the mana you spend on tax collection, but you can not counter the effect of provincial corruption due to low elite loyality.
 * Meritocratic reforms, administrative reforms and similar reforms will help to reduce local corruption and autonomy effects by local elites, which will help to increase state incomes and weaken elite power.
 * Newly conquered territory will have high autonomy due to nationalism. Reducing state income, increasing provincial corruption and increasing power of corresponding elites. Be careful of the effects of conquering large swathes of land.