I believe that if we want this experience to be as much like an actual Civilization as possible, we need to allow political parties. I am not suggesting that we say the dominant political party would make all the rules, i am saying that there should be able to be opposing ideas. For example, one person could open the thread for, say, opposing the use of any navy (Just an example). This group could talk amongst itself in its very own thread while the Navy Only group talks within its own thread. This way, the two groups come to a verdict and the all agree to vote a certain way on the polls. Those two groups are only an example, of course it would be slightly more complex, but thats the general idea. However, it would not be mandatory to vote this way, but if you didnt want to then you probably wouldn't be in the group. If your wondering how this varies from Citizens Groups it gives you the power to say that they all vote a certain way. Recently i was informed that if you say, "We area all gonna vote the same way" Its a political party. Well, i say we talk about it in this thread and then move to a vote to make it legal. If this passes the political parties could be in the same thread as the citizens groups, or it could have a different thread in the same lay out. Thank you for your time and your comments.

The Great Iguanaman

I often asked myself the same question. I don't see the harm in political parties but we have done well without them so far.

but just think about all the fun it would add. mmmmmmmmmm fun

i like the sound of this idea. if anybody has a reason why this isnt such a great plan let me know, but i think it could both add to the fun and enfranchise citizens who currently have little say in the affairs of government. however, i would recommend a coalition government modeled after the german bundestag. anyone wanting an explanation of how that system works can find it here: http://dw-world.de/english/0,3367,6591_A_607872,00.html

I believe that it was Thomas Jefferson who warned America not to use political parties, and I believe he was right.

Since they are not a necessity for an effective election campaign, I do not see what good they would actually do. I do think that they would cause an unnecessary duplicity in regards to many issues, where those who hold a very valid "third" point of view would not be heard.

And, Neutral leader, it is not a matter of people telling you what is wrong with them, but rather you need to tell us what is so good about them.;)

Eyrei, its not gonna send our beloved Three Books to heck. Its simply going to give the people more of a say. If need be i would love to sit down and right the specific roles of these political parties, but i see no need for that right now at such a young stage in these discussions. also, i would hope that rather agreeing with it or condeming it, that people who post here suggest the best way to execute this idea. Please help me help you by suggesting possible ways to maximize this idea to its full potential. Thank you.

The Great Iguanaman

Originally posted by Great Iguanaman
Eyrei, its not gonna send our beloved Three Books to heck. Its simply going to give the people more of a say. If need be i would love to sit down and right the specific roles of these political parties, but i see no need for that right now at such a young stage in these discussions. also, i would hope that rather agreeing with it or condeming it, that people who post here suggest the best way to execute this idea. Please help me help you by suggesting possible ways to maximize this idea to its full potential. Thank you.

The Great Iguanaman

Believe me, I don't exactly 'cherish' our lawbooks.;)

I do not want to help you 'execute' this idea, because I don't think it is a good idea. Also, this is not the first time we have had this discussion.

Like I said, political parties do anything but give the people more say. Those that do not agree with the views of a major party are essentially 'swept under the rug'. It also causes unnecessary discord among the citizenry.

Now, tell me what these political parties will do that is worth them causing these problems?

Originally posted by Great Iguanaman
Eyrei, its not gonna send our beloved Three Books to heck. Its simply going to give the people more of a say. If need be i would love to sit down and right the specific roles of these political parties, but i see no need for that right now at such a young stage in these discussions. also, i would hope that rather agreeing with it or condeming it, that people who post here suggest the best way to execute this idea. Please help me help you by suggesting possible ways to maximize this idea to its full potential. Thank you.

The Great Iguanaman


The problem with political parties is that people won't get their true say. The head of the party might say "Vote for XYZ leader". If they have 20 people in their party, that's 20 votes for them. But, not all of those people might agree with the decision. It might be 13 votes for that person. And if a person goes against a party, then that's a formula for trouble.

Mayber i keep thinking it, but it will give the citizens, like me, more of a voice. How many people have you seen in your day pop up say something, realize it hardly matters, and you never here from them again. Not only would this bring more people into the game, but it would improve the quality of gameplay for those of us with the title 'Chieftan'.

The Great Iguanaman

Citizens still have a say in the game. Infact, look at disorganizer and Shaitan (before he bacame a mod). :)

sorry chieftess, i was typing my reply when you sprung in. There would be much discussion before anyone said "Vote this way". And the people will have an equal say in this. At the end, someone would say, "So we all agree to vote for XYZ?" If everyone agrees then thats how they vote. Its really a good idea if you simply look past all your earlier discussions about politcal parties in past games.

The Great Iguanaman

Originally posted by Great Iguanaman
Mayber i keep thinking it, but it will give the citizens, like me, more of a voice. How many people have you seen in your day pop up say something, realize it hardly matters, and you never here from them again. Not only would this bring more people into the game, but it would improve the quality of gameplay for those of us with the title 'Chieftan'.

The Great Iguanaman

You can edit your title.

It has nothing to do with what someone's title is anyway. If you make a good point, people will probably listen to you. And BTW, a good chunk of our citizens are very new to the game.;) If you expect that everything you say will be take as gospel, you are going to be disappointed, and I do not mean that in a derogatory sense. Just a little bit of advice. Take it or leave it.

Anyway, if you have a good reason for implementing political parties, please post it.

About once a month someone tries to sell the Demogame political parties. Luckily, the majority of the players here have not been buying. Political parties will just divide the citizens we are trying to unite. I think the best way to execute this idea is put it up against the wall and shoot it. 'Course that's just my opinion.

Chieftess, youre all over this.
So whats that two, well really one, citizen who has a say. I just want to improve the voice of the rest of us.

The Great Iguanaman

Originally posted by Great Iguanaman
sorry chieftess, i was typing my reply when you sprung in. There would be much discussion before anyone said "Vote this way". And the people will have an equal say in this. At the end, someone would say, "So we all agree to vote for XYZ?" If everyone agrees then thats how they vote. Its really a good idea if you simply look past all your earlier discussions about politcal parties in past games.

The Great Iguanaman

Still, that would be obligating new citizens to vote one way. Newer citizens don't always know how the games works, and an entreprenuring (I know I spelled that wrong) political party leader can use that to their advantage.

Originally posted by Great Iguanaman
Chieftess, youre all over this.
So whats that two, well really one, citizen who has a say. I just want to improve the voice of the rest of us.

The Great Iguanaman

In all seriousness, if you want to argue whether we can have political parties, that is all well and good. However, do not pretend to speak for 'everyone'.

I hope you do realize that I am a citizen here as well. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by Great Iguanaman
Chieftess, youre all over this.
So whats that two, well really one, citizen who has a say. I just want to improve the voice of the rest of us.

The Great Iguanaman

More citizens can be like that. There's nothing stopping you from doing so - it's just that we simply don't allow political parties because of problems in other demogames.

well we've heard from our 1st Culural Minister, our moderator, and our Great President. So far NL is the only one with no 'say' that has said anyone about this. And i believe that those stats alone prove my very point. The citizens want a political party, the powers dont because it would take some of there power. Anyway, im not here to make enemies, i just want the people to havemore say.

The Great Iguanaman

Originally posted by Great Iguanaman
well we've heard from our 1st Culural Minister, our moderator, and our Great President. So far NL is the only one with no 'say' that has said anyone about this. And i believe that those stats alone prove my very point. The citizens want a political party, the powers dont because it would take some of there power. Anyway, im not here to make enemies, i just want the people to havemore say.

The Great Iguanaman

Hehe. That is the biggest load of rhetoric I have heard in a while.:p

So, what if most citizens have not even had a chance to look at this thread yet?

You still haven't made a case for the benefit that political parties will bring...

Originally posted by Great Iguanaman
well we've heard from our 1st Culural Minister, our moderator, and our Great President.

hehe.. I'm a mod too, but I'm being impartial. :)

So far NL is the only one with no 'say' that has said anyone about this. And i believe that those stats alone prove my very point. The citizens want a political party...

They do? I didn't see a recent poll on it. You can always start another discussion on it. But, I'm sure it will be met with a lot of resistence.

Oh, and by the way. I have almost no 'say' as far as the actual game of CIV3 goes. I generally do what I am asked to do by the citizens. All of the leaders have more influence because they were elected, so they more closely represent the citizens than you do, methinks...

So theres not a poll yet, but 2 out of 2 'Chieftens' are for it. That sounds like 100% to me. Well, i think we should see what the rest of the citizens think. So lets just see. i may be wrong in which case ill shut up and sit down. But im pretty sure theres many other people who are all for it. And did you guys miss the part about talking about ways to improve the idea.

In an unrelated note, can someone give me directions to the Pub, i hear good things.

The Great Iguanaman

i personally didnt elect any of them.

The Great Iguanaman

Originally posted by Great Iguanaman
So theres not a poll yet, but 2 out of 2 'Chieftens' are for it. That sounds like 100% to me. Well, i think we should see what the rest of the citizens think. So lets just see. i may be wrong in which case ill shut up and sit down. But im pretty sure theres many other people who are all for it. And did you guys miss the part about talking about ways to improve the idea.

In an unrelated note, can someone give me directions to the Pub, i hear good things.

The Great Iguanaman

Well, I don't think there are too many Chieftens in this game at all. Most prefer to change that title to something else...

The pub is in the central square.

Once this discussion has been going for a couple days, a poll will be appropriate.

Originally posted by Great Iguanaman
And did you guys miss the part about talking about ways to improve the idea.


Well... you asked why we didn't have political parties, so we answered. :)

BTW, Cyc is now a citizen. So, that's 2 out of 3. :D

Once again I stand corrected, i did 'ask'. But it was more a rhetorical title. my bad. i have a new proposal, along the same lines so im gonna use this thread. Instead of calling it a politcal party, which are ugly words, and make somtheing call The Gentlemans Club. Here, you join the club, we talk about recent issues, and then decide. Remember there is absolutely no way to know who voted what (unless they say) and to force someone to vote a certain way period. If this is okay, just say so and i will get to work on a proposal.


The Great Iguanaman

domestic sure doesnt want anything to do with political parties

Oh dear, here we go again...

I cannot see political parties being anything but artificially divisive. In the current situation the citizenry need never feel under any obligation to argue a position or cast a vote that conflicts with their beliefs regarding what is in the best interests of the nation. Everyone can state their opinion or make a proposal, whatsoever it may be, to the entire citizenry and know that it stands or falls on its own merits rather than on whether their party commands the greatest support. As a number of my fellow citizens have pointed out in this thread, political parties would just serve to stifle individual voices and IMO could cause citizens who do not belong to the controlling party to leave the demogame due to their effective disenfranchisement. Would you want to bother with a game in which you can have little or no say?
You argue that newer citizens' opinions and ideas do not hold any weight in the demogame, but I certainly did not find that to be the case when I first joined and have not seen any shift towards elitism in the time since. It's not your postcount or the length of time you have been a citizen that determines whether your ideas are taken up around here, but rather the nature of your idea itself and the force of the arguments which you use to advance it. I feel that this is the way the demogame should be, and have no desire to see that way of doing things wiped out by partisanship.

I am against political parties and have a real world example. When in college (some time ago), my friends in the student government and I formed a de facto party to help raise awareness of things we felt were important. In the end we basically controlled the student govt', had no input from anyone else (why bother, as they could *never* win in any issue we opposed) and alienated most of the thoughtful people who would have been involved had we not locked everything up. Sad to say, we also ended up with some positions filled by people who agreed with us, but were not terribly motivated by anything other than being on the winning team. The following year we ditched the party idea, and had an incredible, vibrant, talented, opinionated group, and actually got more done with better, more thought-out discussion. Political Parties in a small community kill good ideas. Plain and simple.

And a follow-up note. I was elected to public office here despite being an outsider and latecomer to the game. This would never have happened with parties unless I subscribed to a slate of somebody else's deas and sucked up to the party leadership. I don't know how this idea that parties make a system 'more democratic' got started, but the purpose of parties is actually to make things less democratic as it replaces individuals with nomenclature and assumptions.

I was pushing for Political Parities last game but I was informed that when they were put into action on a previous game the game descended into arguing and ruined the entire game.

The history student in me has taken over the keyboard---

In this day in age, political parties have become obsolete, they no longer hold a real purpose in life, societies, as a historical subject, have advanced far beyond what political parties can offer, their historical function has been done, they helped to secure power in nations when they where being formed, they defined a course nations should take and they gave us the idea that democracy was atainable. That is all done, most historians now believe that they should be disolved, p.p. have no purpose in a society where no one wants some one else to tell them what to think or who to support just beacuse she or he is from the "home team". If p.p. are being so heavily critized by intelectuals in the real world, why should we bother with them in our?

Ehecatl Atzin

And for input from yet another "mere citizen", let me say that I have absolutely no interest in political parties. Their net effect on the game would be negative, and could reduce our system to a shambles.

I much prefer the current method, where each leader runs on his/her merits, and I can make my own choice between them. I do the same on all other polls; I make up my own mind based on discussion and vote accordingly.

Hmm..... anyone who remembers my first thread on political parties will be rather confused.... I find myself having to join the ranks of anti-party debaters. Chalk up one more simple citizen who has had some say in things without being elected... true, nobody listens, but thats beside the point... when I argued for parties upon joining nearly a year ago, I was bombarded with reaons why they shouldn't exist, and having now seen the chaos caused on Apolyton by parties, I agree that they're a bad idea. They might serve only to take away the opinion of new citizens: Little Johhny joins and has no idea what is going on, so he goes into a thread for...say... the Orange Party, and the head of the party says "Johhny vote for (somebody) for president", and so Johhny does w/o knowing who or what hes voting for. Also, I'm sure we all see the threat posed by someone creating a *cough* historically based party.... maybe advocating a certain Industrial Age gov't.... or maybe somebody hoping to take power with the N-word (ain't gonna say it!) Anyway, I hope I've proved my point... if not than at least I've gotten off my daily rant nice and early... thank you all.

I will not particpate in this demogame, if there were political parties. It ruins the game, and could cause people to hate one another. I cannot express how much I am against this.

-Lord Master Zarn of the Jedi Knights

Yes Padma, that's one of the main problems. Not just because of the political party, but also the added effect of the civ-type we're playing... If that happens, I may have to ask TF to shut the entire demogame down. :)

Then again, maybe its not such a bad idea.... *decides to start growing mustache and develop a salute*

J/K... sorry CT... I'll stop now.

fascinating, simple fascinating. I felt so strongly for this idea i was blinded by how it would actually affect the game. However, i do not agree with all of you on all your points, but a few of them are going to make me do a 180. I am no longer backing this issue and i would like all memory i ever brought it up erased. How bout you Zarn, pull some of your mad jedi skills on us all and make us forget that i every had this terrinble idea. Thank you all for helping me see the error of my ways. I am sorry for the inconvience of my arragance. However, no one said anything about my other idea. Of you really care about it PM me or keep an eye out for anything i start. I promise this idea will actually be good :)

The Great Iguanaman

What topic are you talking about? There is no topic about something that is not being talked about. Is there? Were we talking about the temple that the people want to construct for the Jedis? That must be it.

Youve almost hit the nail on the head. I am talking about the upcomeing Gentlemans Club. I am working on the specifics, expect it available soon at an RPG forum near you. You guys didnt say anything about it.

The Great Iguanaman

I like your Jedi Temple suggestion better.;)

Anyway, there are groups that favor certain ways of going about the game. My group dedicates itself to religous advances and improvements, but is too rpg like to be in the citizen's forum. I don't know about the other religous threads that were here. They might have died.There are some pretty aggressive threads and I think there is a pacifist one. There is a least one trade group as well.

wHERE aM i???
What is this thread about, hmmmmm
*stops pretending to be effected by jedi mind trick*

Well, it seems I came a little late to this party...
Just to remind everyone that all players start of small! Of the top of my head, I think Fionn is a reletively new player who quickly rose to acclaim through posting good ideas. I myself plunged head first into Governorship and managed not to screw it up too badly. The very first proposal I made as Gov was defeated 22-6 or something, with the 6 being me and 5 mayors I appointed! So son't be too disheartened if your first few ideas fall flat, it is the fresh inspiration we get from newer players that often drives some of the most fun aspects of the game!!

AJ is correct on this, look at me! fresh out of the oven and allready a fully fledged council member!! :)

Ehecatl Atzin

I ran for governor unapposed as well but i managed the province pretty well. Plus my contributions to the demogames website helped. Im still waiting for my ideas to pass a vote tho hehe

after finishing reading the first page (i hadnt checked this in a while) i decided to withdraw my support from this proposal as well. which action, i believe, leaves the issue entirely dead.

i shot the political party, but i did not shoot the deputy proposal :)
couldnt reisist. well this is the lst time im gonna look at this thread, again, thanks for showing me the error of my ways.

The Great Iguanaman

Originally posted by eyrei
I believe that it was Thomas Jefferson who warned America not to use political parties, and I believe he was right.

Since they are not a necessity for an effective election campaign, I do not see what good they would actually do. I do think that they would cause an unnecessary duplicity in regards to many issues, where those who hold a very valid "third" point of view would not be heard.

And, Neutral leader, it is not a matter of people telling you what is wrong with them, but rather you need to tell us what is so good about them.;)

Actually it was Washington himself. Political parties would do us little good, i like it more this way.