Republican and Democratic Government

A thread not about steam, not about 1UPT, sue me

Anyway, my general thought is under representation and Universal Suffrage (I know the social tree is coming, but since I don't know what it is, I'm using Civ IV terms) anyway, under a US or Representation, your people would vote every 10 turns whether to keep you in office. They'd also elect representatives to vote on issues.

You'd have full control of military and production, but you'd need senate approval to raise taxes, change the government policies peacefully, such as adding a welfare state, exc. When you talk to a leader you are at war with, the Congress would vote whether to make peace against your approval. If you refuse to talk, you can keep the war on for some time, but eventually, Congress will vote for peace behind your back if they want to.

There are two political parties, yours, and another. Voters will vote based on their happiness and their appreciation of how you're handling foreign affairs. In Representation, they'll vote only for senate, you keep your role, in US, they can also vote you out, causing anarchy and ultimately a new government.

Your party obviously is more likely to vote in favor of what you want then another party. To keep player control, you can always use anarchy to get total power, but there would be strong benefits to democratic or republican government.

Haven't hashed it out completely, but thoughts on the general idea.

EDIT: I voted for agree since I do at the moment and so I could see poll results, you guys could definitely convince me otherwise though.

I think there would also need to be a happiness bonus added for both of them, because you are risking losing office (likely causing anarchy) and losing some control.

Jarlaxe Baenre said:

I think there would also need to be a happiness bonus added for both of them, because you are risking losing office (likely causing anarchy) and losing some control.

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I agree here, also I would think if it was a capitalist republic there would be fiscal bonuses as well.

I've suggested this many times and while I voted for great idea as it is I do have a few suggestions.

1. No voting out, I doubt anyone would like having to sit and watch as their empire crumbled under the yoke of another leader.

2. Here's my idea of how the sliders may be affected.

You can have one or two houses of congress. One house would mean each city elects a representative to join the senate two houses would have each city elect a representative and X additional ones based on their population to a house of representatives.

Happy citizens always vote for your party and unhappy citizens always vote for the opposition party (for fun you should be able to name the parties). Opposition parties are always the "party of 'no'" opposing every move you make, while your party rubber stamps your ideas.

If you are running a bicameral legislature you have to have control of both houses to have an easy time running things but you can also play them against each other at times to get things done while with a unicameral legislature you can do what you want with control if the one house but have little recourse if it's under control of the other party.

Overall however great idea!

Domination3000 said:

A thread not about steam, not about 1UPT, sue me

Anyway, my general thought is under representation and Universal Suffrage (I know the social tree is coming, but since I don't know what it is, I'm using Civ IV terms) anyway, under a US or Representation, your people would vote every 10 turns whether to keep you in office. They'd also elect representatives to vote on issues.

You'd have full control of military and production, but you'd need senate approval to raise taxes, change the government policies peacefully, such as adding a welfare state, exc. When you talk to a leader you are at war with, the Congress would vote whether to make peace against your approval. If you refuse to talk, you can keep the war on for some time, but eventually, Congress will vote for peace behind your back if they want to.

Click to expand...

It sounds interesting, but I believe it would annoy players greatly to have the game playing the game for you at that point. Your own civ would decide peace when you don't want it, you can't change the tax rate, can't change gov't.... in essence your control is gone.

And what if you get voted out of office? game over? It would have to be implemented in the game in a completely different way than that, letting the player still do w/e they want to.

For example, something simple, such as:
Each Political Party stands for different policies. The people vote (somehow) for the party they want. Depending on how you manage your empire, you get bonus' and penalties depending on if you are in tune with the party in power, or if you are in tune with the people's voice, etc.

As I understand it this was tried early in the development of Civ IV. The more "enlightened" government types like Universal Suffrage and Free Speech caused you to lose direct control over your civilization in various aspects and do different degrees, but were extremely powerful. They ended up rejecting this approach, and I think I can understand why. Let me explain it in a blow by blow manner.

1) Making them cause you to cede control to the AI would require that they be immensely powerful.

2) Them being immensely powerful would cause them to become strategic no-brainers.

3) Skill differences between players in the modern era would be diluted by 1 and 2.

I respect your thinking and especially your making a thread that wasn't about Steam or 1upT, but I have to vote no... on voting.

i don't think the american political process is vary conducive to a fun game. maybe have successful vote's make things go a little easier, but defiantly not forbid you from taking the action entirely.

also the main question is do you represent the political parties stated goals or actual goal? in real life you have the republicans clamoring for small government and individual rights but their actions and rhetoric more frequently encourages the increase of government in order to assist the removal of individual rights.

i thought it would be interesting to have a game that relied on an approval rating with nations sucesses effecting the rating slightly, and representative/advisor/petitioner's requests effecting the rating greatly. so you would essentially do short term missions from these people in exchange for a higher approval rating, but i think such a system would work best in an RTS with a bigger scale.

evirus said:

i don't think the american political process is vary conducive to a fun game. maybe have successful vote's make things go a little easier, but defiantly not forbid you from taking the action entirely.

i thought it would be interesting to have a game that relied on an approval rating with nations sucesses effecting the rating slightly, and representative/advisor/petitioner's requests effecting the rating greatly. so you would essentially do short term missions from these people in exchange for a higher approval rating, but i think such a system would work best in an RTS with a bigger scale.

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tom2050 said:

It sounds interesting, but I believe it would annoy players greatly to have the game playing the game for you at that point. Your own civ would decide peace when you don't want it, you can't change the tax rate, can't change gov't.... in essence your control is gone.

And what if you get voted out of office? game over? It would have to be implemented in the game in a completely different way than that, letting the player still do w/e they want to.

For example, something simple, such as:
Each Political Party stands for different policies. The people vote (somehow) for the party they want. Depending on how you manage your empire, you get bonus' and penalties depending on if you are in tune with the party in power, or if you are in tune with the people's voice, etc.

Click to expand...

In Civ 4 terms, representation only has a Congress. You don't stand for election. In US, you can lose the election in which case Anarchy results and the government changes. This is harmful though, so you should keep the people happy.

Maybe if you get voted out, your nation enters Civil War.

Then you get control of the happiest cities in your empire (no more than half your previous amount) and an AI takes control of the other half, at war with only you and an AI that focuses on only destroying its enemies.

Domination3000 said:

If you refuse to talk, you can keep the war on for some time, but eventually, Congress will vote for peace behind your back if they want to.

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That is the part of Civ (the first) I hated the most. It's a good thing they got rid of it, and hit shouldn't come back, it's really absolutely horrible to play with.

evirus said:

also the main question is do you represent the political parties stated goals or actual goal? in real life you have the republicans clamoring for small government and individual rights but their actions and rhetoric more frequently encourages the increase of government in order to assist the removal of individual rights.

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You mean Democrats campaigning on a center-conservative platform, and then they don't turn out to be democrats at all, but ridiculously-far-of-center Progressives?

You are right, any type of politics are not very enjoyable. They could add propaganda to the list, so you could fool people into believing stuff that is not true. (Making them believe you are not at war, while in a nuclear holocaust)
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It would be nice, if they added it as an option (so you are not forced to play it), and kept it at 'fun' levels only (nothing too politically in-depth).

No, it's unecessary

tom2050 said:

You mean Democrats campaigning on a center-conservative platform, and then they don't turn out to be democrats at all, but ridiculously-far-of-center Progressives?

You are right, any type of politics are not very enjoyable. They could add propaganda to the list, so you could fool people into believing stuff that is not true. (Making them believe you are not at war, while in a nuclear holocaust)
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It would be nice, if they added it as an option (so you are not forced to play it), and kept it at 'fun' levels only (nothing too politically in-depth).

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The Democrats are ultra liberals, not conservatives.

Please post truth only in my thread.

PS: I respect that people disagree with me, I wasn't being serious. In seriousness though, let's not make a real political debate in this thread.

Domination3000 said:

A thread not about steam, not about 1UPT, sue me

Anyway, my general thought is under representation and Universal Suffrage (I know the social tree is coming, but since I don't know what it is, I'm using Civ IV terms) anyway, under a US or Representation, your people would vote every 10 turns whether to keep you in office. They'd also elect representatives to vote on issues.

You'd have full control of military and production, but you'd need senate approval to raise taxes, change the government policies peacefully, such as adding a welfare state, exc. When you talk to a leader you are at war with, the Congress would vote whether to make peace against your approval. If you refuse to talk, you can keep the war on for some time, but eventually, Congress will vote for peace behind your back if they want to.

There are two political parties, yours, and another. Voters will vote based on their happiness and their appreciation of how you're handling foreign affairs. In Representation, they'll vote only for senate, you keep your role, in US, they can also vote you out, causing anarchy and ultimately a new government.

Your party obviously is more likely to vote in favor of what you want then another party. To keep player control, you can always use anarchy to get total power, but there would be strong benefits to democratic or republican government.

Haven't hashed it out completely, but thoughts on the general idea.

EDIT: I voted for agree since I do at the moment and so I could see poll results, you guys could definitely convince me otherwise though.

Click to expand...

To me one of the attracrtions of civ is to be IN COMPLETE CONTROL Now with this idea it would take some of the control out of the game which I would not like. Though I do like your attempt to suggest something new I don't think it is for me. If this was implemented in the game I probably would just stay with Police State .

CaesarPlayer995 said:

To me one of the attracrtions of civ is to be IN COMPLETE CONTROL Now with this idea it would take some of the control out of the game which I would not like. Though I do like your attempt to suggest something new I don't think it is for me. If this was implemented in the game I probably would just stay with Police State .

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I am open to what I suggested being too extreme, but I think that something like it being proven.

Now, you can stick with police state, that's your choice. And, in Representative Government, you still have the control to switch out. But in the end, its all about choice and I'm trying to make more choice. In some games, I'd also stick with police state, but there's a choice.

There would have to be something though to make the Senate not have to automatically agree with the AI civs under this. I think this could work though, the AI leader trying to use Grand Strategic to win the game, but the Senate trying to keep the people happy, keep with the Party Platform, and keep themselves in office, in other words, the same way they handle the Human President.

gpshaw said:

I've suggested this many times and while I voted for great idea as it is I do have a few suggestions.

1. No voting out, I doubt anyone would like having to sit and watch as their empire crumbled under the yoke of another leader.

2. Here's my idea of how the sliders may be affected.

You can have one or two houses of congress. One house would mean each city elects a representative to join the senate two houses would have each city elect a representative and X additional ones based on their population to a house of representatives.

Happy citizens always vote for your party and unhappy citizens always vote for the opposition party (for fun you should be able to name the parties). Opposition parties are always the "party of 'no'" opposing every move you make, while your party rubber stamps your ideas.

If you are running a bicameral legislature you have to have control of both houses to have an easy time running things but you can also play them against each other at times to get things done while with a unicameral legislature you can do what you want with control if the one house but have little recourse if it's under control of the other party.

Overall however great idea!

Click to expand...

This isn't always true, see the US between 2000-2006

Domination3000 said:

I am open to what I suggested being too extreme, but I think that something like it being proven.

Now, you can stick with police state, that's your choice. And, in Representative Government, you still have the control to switch out. But in the end, its all about choice and I'm trying to make more choice. In some games, I'd also stick with police state, but there's a choice.

Click to expand...

In Civ2, where what you propose was implemented (namely Democracies always accepted peace from the opponent), players would usually be rather unhappy about it. You had to either go funddamentalism, or plan for alpha strikes, and repeated war declarations as soon as you could make them with the correct timing.
It essentially led to less choices (war = fundy) or micromanagement (timing your going to war and making sure you could accomplish something in the few turns of war you could get).
In civ IV, this was abstracted in war weariness (there was already some in civ2, but unhappiness from war/military units was easy to circumvent with some luxuries). Having governments with more or less war weariness accomplishes the 'opposition wants peace' well in my opinion, without making it impossible to wage a war.

LDiCesare said:

In Civ2, where what you propose was implemented (namely Democracies always accepted peace from the opponent), players would usually be rather unhappy about it. You had to either go funddamentalism, or plan for alpha strikes, and repeated war declarations as soon as you could make them with the correct timing.
It essentially led to less choices (war = fundy) or micromanagement (timing your going to war and making sure you could accomplish something in the few turns of war you could get).
In civ IV, this was abstracted in war weariness (there was already some in civ2, but unhappiness from war/military units was easy to circumvent with some luxuries). Having governments with more or less war weariness accomplishes the 'opposition wants peace' well in my opinion, without making it impossible to wage a war.

Click to expand...

It's not impossible. If its considered to be a "Just war" such as to liberate land, in response to an attack on a friend, or that administration did something to you, the Congress and people would likely be behind you. Even if not, it would take some time before the majority of the Senate together for peace, even still you could refuse to talk. By the time they got to meet secretly, you'd have a 15-25 turn war under your belt at minimum. And, you could always just declare war again (Though your citizenry would be unhappy.) Of course, if the Senate starts restricting you too much, anarchy!

Also, in Civ 1 and 2 the senate like always voted peace, whereas in this it would be more complex, based on the overall justification for war.

I dont hate this idea, but i dislike it.

An interesting idea I toy with often!
However, I agree with many of the above concerns:

insert any quote from above here!

The player controls the government from the get-go. Why diminish fun by removing control? Loss of control, which in my opinion is the point of playing, equals less ownership felt by the player for the controlled Civ. Other games which have introduced more "liberal" (classical European sense) governments, such as Empire Total War, Sucked... Or didn't differ greatly from other governments.


I DO however think it could be done! Although via a different method then proposed above.

The new city state aspect of Civ5 could be utilized in a novel manner to simulate the representative governments.

As I understand it, the city states, which populate the map, are to be highly valued for the peace-monger Civ (My favorite play style). Initially, these micro-civs could prove beneficial through trade, military alliances, research, ect. The end goal however, is for the incorporation of the minor civ into the larger civ. For new cities to "join" your civ traditionally (CIV4), larger civs were required to populate enemy cities with their troops! A peace-monger Civ5 option could be a negotiated incorporation into a federated government. The joining city states may wish to maintain some degree of independence. When joining, the parental civ and minor civ could negotiate the terms of annexation. Possibly negotiating on the following items: the number of seats in congress, population requirements for additional seats, military requirements, taxes, ect. The new city would largely be under your control (or independent). However, the congress would always "vote" in the best interests of their city. Possibly even to secede. Even more loose associations such as confederations could be implemented (Italian city-states of the renaissance).

Truly, I would like CivV implement a simulation of the importance of capital accumulation. As well as see Civ5 divide the current "production" yeild. A problem which I despise and will discuss first. Currently (Civ4) production is derived from mines/forests. I propose, as others have before, that improvements such as these should yeild materials instead. Industrial workers (idle citizens, cottages, industrial buildings) should provide production. Projects should be purchased with materials and completed by spending production. If saved, materials are reserved and stockpiled. Production would have to be spent each turn. This divide would facilitate trade of materials from underdeveloped cities of mines and lumber mills to developed cities. (I hate that my island cities are so unproductive despite enormous populations)

Capital accumulation could be simulated by the city keeping and reinvesting the fruits of its labor back into its self. Citizens that occupy cities reinvesting, would be happier then citizens of cities, which send more to the government (you). This could be another pro-growth mechanic of the more liberal Civs. The statist Civs would be at a disadvantage over the long run with out introducing (in my opinion) annoying arbitrary modifiers.


Any ways, These are just some of my thoughts.
Hopefully I will find the time to mod Civ5.