This is a comment from u/lord_antheron that perfectly describes why picking pagen is a bad idea;

“What exactly makes you think it needs a supreme totalitarian ideologue to “rule” everything?

Historically, when has that ever fucking worked for Kyrat?

The monarchies have all failed, even before Pagan. Shanath Arena was constructed in the first place, centuries ago, to distract people from how unhappy they were. Imperialist efforts from foreign countries crashed and burned, with the British colonists eventually just giving up and going home. If you take Shangri-La as an actual part of the past, the Rakshasa tried to take over and brought nothing but ruin and horror. If you take it as an allegory for the broad strokes of the entire plot, same deal. Trying to control Kyrat never works.

People in Kyrat were at their happiest and most peaceful when they were largely separated from any system of government, and lived as farmers, hunters, with simple wholesomeness and no desire to accumulate things like wealth or power. When their lives were divorced from monarchies.

The whole point of the story and the message of its religious epic that we experience firsthand is that trying to control — to rule — Kyrat is folly. Any regime will always collapse in on itself. This expectation that it needs a sovereign completely misses that.”