One of my favourites, spent quite a lot of time on it.
You get the possibility to apply for civic rights, if you have enough wealth at the beginning of a turn. Total money, not cash, which is displayed if you right click on your character name on the top of the screen. Or perhaps in the office overview -> family view, I forgot. It's 5000 I think. I usually take out credit during the first turn in order to apply for civic rights in the second and hopefully have an office in the third.
There's quite a bit of badly documented stuff. So here are a few hints:
Interface:
* A lot of actions (including courting a spouse) are found when you click on the bar on the top of the screen. Not quite obvious. This includes special actions for when you hold offices (i.e. embezzle money) or when other specific things happen (visiting a physician - this is quite important, do it every round when you're sick until you're healed.)
* If you hold down the Control Key (I think), all the options available on a screen appear. This is not the same as every option in that room, because you may have to scroll to see some.
Gameplay:
* Easiest profession is thief, but it plays differently than all the others. Sending thieves out at the end of the day = free money. Kidnapping is the best paid enterprise.
* Second easiest is landlord, which is a good place to start if you want a regular, handicraft profession.
* Early success in politics is critical on higher levels, simply because the office income is a lot of money during the early game. Use silver rings, poems and bone braclets. Get standing improvements for your house early and build a small statue. Bribing is very expensive and should only be done from church/ city authority upwards.
* if you can elect others, only elect those of your faith. Also elect young people (large life candle) so they won't die.
* Accumulate and use APs. Use a walking stick, build improvements to your residence. Train talents unless you're a thief, in which case you use APs for kidnapping.
* For longevity, build a villa as soon as you can (Baron I think) and upgrade to palace later. Note that magnificient palace and the country house are no residences.
* Plan ahead. Your children must reach the age of 12 in order for your dynasty to continue. The candle next to your character represents your health. If you get sick, click on the upper bar to visit a physician each turn until you're healed.
* Easiest way to wealth is marrying rhich widows/ widowers. Killing of a younger spouse is more difficult.
* Never employ master craftsment. Or only very late when you're really bored of micromanaging. The AI manages your buildings very terribly.
The Jowood forums have loads of stuff, perhaps check them out.
EDIT: Very Important: If you right click on the standing bar of a citizien in any office overview view, you see the relation to all others in that screen. This is critical in order to mess up relationships between appointers and other candidates when trying to get an office.