I'd like to give any regent about 15 action points, which he may use during his regency at any time he wants. When using an action point, he won't be possible to do anything else in the quarter.

Actions should be:

election campaign > increases chances for re-election
state visit > increases international reputation
holydays > increases the regent's health

Any more ideas? Especcially how to increase power?

Why should you limit this with actionpoints?

Give every Option a negative sideeffect and you won't need a limit.

for example: holyday > decrease the regents popularity

Hmm, a constant amount of those points means older states wont be able to rely on it, since points will be used after a while. This could be intended, if you assume younger states clearly need more help. It is an interesting way to allow newbies compensating mistakes (and to allow experienced players to exploit it ).

A big military parade could increase power (translated right?) value. Probably all effects just should be temporary, including holidays (though it isnt too logical, but otherwise players could grab holidays over and over to increase influence).

Anyway, they should be strong enough to justify sacrificing a whole quarter for them.

- Any "panem et circenses"-equivalent should boost the regent's popularity. Big state-sponsored sporting events or festivals could do the trick (cf. Zürifäscht).

- Some kind of national exposition would also work as "panem et circenses"-equivalent, but could otherwise boost the international reputation (cf. Expo.02 in Switzerland).

how about using action points in relation to tasks and reforms:

Doing more tasks
Do reforms(or more than one)

or, exchange action points to increase the % of people that agree with a particular action which may otherwise be unpopular.

Ex. "As a result of your responce, 42% of the population favor it."
Just beneath that add an option to exchange action points to % that favor it. Less popularity loss or perhaps gain which equals more power from what I understand or more of something else. And, you get the benefits you wanted.

This might also be good in nations with a high extremist count. Don't know if any of this could be done though, but still, just a thought.