Idea: Replace Cabinet members with an "estate edicts"-like system.

One of my least favourite features from CK2-3 is the cabinet members. And I was quite disappointed to see them make a return in EU5.

I don't think they are a bad mechanic, but I don't find them enjoyable at all and they feel punishing if you dare to own more provinces than you have cabinet members.

My suggestion would be to bring back estate edicts from EU4, that would effectively perform the cabinet actions at a province level without requiring a cabinet member. This would of course cost ducats, maybe some relevant goods as well. In addition, instead of being entirely positive, they should also debuff the provinces when on.

For example, you'd turn on the "assimilate culture" edict in province which would assimilate the pops at the cost of X ducats a month, plus some debuff like increased rebellion chance and prosperity hits. Similarly, increase development edict could cost ducats, but also goods such as lumber, masonry ect to signify building up the province.

In this system you'd theoretically be able to turn edicts/actions on every single province you own however the limiting factor would be your resources and money instead of an arbitrary number of cabinet members.

In order to keep the current estates systems that is influenced by the cabinet, maybe you could appoint local governors for a province/area. These would improve the effectiveness of each edict by the character points but also cost more gold and give power the their respective estates.

This is just a suggestion, and it would probably need refining. But I really don't vibe with the cabinet members arbitrarily restriction your options instead of a more organic limit.