The Serene Republic - A Realpolitik of Venice

Greetings! I am mrrandomplayer, and as many of you know, I am a resident of S and T as well as of the DoC forums. I have recently finished an Alternate History modmod of DoC (link in my signature) where I also added Venice in, and to celebrate as well as to jump on the bandwagon of IAARs here, I am starting a Realpolitik as Venice, which was decided by a poll. This will be a simplified Realpolitik, which has greatly different rules than IAARs. Instead of voting for a leader with certain policies and I play it out, you will form political parties and vote parties in office, then the winning party/coalition will appoint government offices and you will make decisions with me via PM. For the purposes of RP, everyone here is a member of the Maggior Consiglio (Great Council).

How voting works:
There will be 2 or 3 days for voting, every 20 in-game turns (normal speed). During then, each person participating can vote for a political party (usually one that they're in). Political parties can form coalitions and (try to) rule the government together. At the end of voting, the party/coalition with the most votes wins control of the government. All other parties become part of the opposition, where they can comment on the rule of the leading party. Then, the party/coalition in power will divide up control of the government however they wish.

Ruling rules:
-Each city must have one governor, which is assigned by the leading power to last the entire term (can't be changed unless the governor resigns). A governor decides production, specialists and worked tiles of the city and can micromanage the city in any way that is seen it. A governor can only govern one city and can't have any other roles.
-Division of other roles of the government besides governors can be assigned by the majority coalition however they wish.
-The one thing that cannot be changed in any way is that democracy must be preserved. Even if the Fascists or Communists are in power, there is still voting every 20 turns.
-As GM and Doge, I have ultimate veto power. Do not anger me.

Let's get started!

Current Parties:

Il Partito Mare Nostrum
Goals and Policies:

baseballpie said:

A) Our plan is to first establish control over the Adriatic and Italy before eventually ensuring Venetian dominance over the entire Mediterranean (As implied by our name). We will topple our age-old Byzantine enemies while colonizing North Africa and the Italian isles. Spain and Morocco will come next, before finally taking France, Egypt, and the Levant. If that can be accomplished, then we will seek further expansion into the incense and gold-filled regions of Aethiopia and Nubia.
B) We are isolationists, seeking only alliances to fulfill our short-term needs.
C) We follow Christianity, but will not seek to persecute or proselytize other faiths.
D) Our military and navy will also be our strengths, as well as encouraging economic growth.

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Il Partito Christeano
Goals and Policies:

Christos200 said:

We support Theocracy, good relations with Byzantium, unification of the Italian Peninsula under Venetian rule and Crusades against the Arabs. Political Power should be held only by the rich and the clergy.

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Il Partito della Pace e della Cultura

GreekAnalyzer said:

Views:
Religion: Strict Catholic theocracy

Military: Only enough to defend Venice after Italy is conquered. (Except Rome of course)

Culture: The real focus. The cultural works of our ancestors, the wise and sapient Greeks and Romans should be read, understood, and appreciated by all. We must take their works and improve upon them so that all of Europe looks upon Venice with respect for our advancement and superiority.

Science: Another major facet of this Party's Policy, new inventions, ideas and doctrines should be welcomed and integrated into society. Based off of the work of the wise men of old (Galen, Aristotle, Plato, Ptolemy etc.) we will leave the heathen Barbarians in the dust in our city of marble.

Foreign: Our diplomats should negotiate trade deals and keep relations good with all rulers, from the Saracens to the English. Our traders should be able to stop in any port in the world and freely trade.

Economic: Let the market dictate what the prices should be. Trade and manufacturing should be propagated at maximum efficiency, along with agriculture.

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Voting:
Current vote ends Sunday, April 13
Current Votes:
Il Partito Mare Nostrum: 8
Il Partito Christiano: 2

Starting situation:



5 days belated April Fools! We're actually playing as Indonesia!

JK, we just need to wait one turn to switch over to Venice (it uses the rebirth mechanic).




Here's our humble starting spot on Adriatic. As you can see, there is a graphical error (this bug has been encountered before by Leoreth when he coded in rebirth civilizations, the error fixes itself in a few turns).



Venice's Unique Power is the Power of Merchant Republic: Starts with Republic, Guilds, and Naval Dominance enabled.




Venice's Unique Unit is the Galleas, which replaces the Caravel. Basically, it's a Galley on steroids (5 Str, 5 Movement, 3 Cargo, enabled with Guilds can't enter rival territory, can't enter Ocean until Astronomy).



Venice's Unique Building is the Arsenal, which is a Harbor that gives +2 exp for Naval Units.

Start organizing yourselves into parties! Elections will start on Wednesday, April 9th at 7:00 AM EST and end on Friday, April 11th at 9:00 PM EST.

I approve!
(except the part where the Doge has veto power )

Noyyau said:

I approve!
(except the part where the Doge has veto power )

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Yeah, the Doge was powerless mostly, but I have to shoehorn the existence of the Doge in somewhere! I wouldn't be fulfilling my Venetian heritage (my last name is Trevisan) if I didn't mention the Doge somewhere!

Sorry about the double post, but I've added the inital images in.

Start organizing yourselves into parties! Elections will start on Wednesday, April 9th at 7:00 AM EST and end on Friday, April 11th at 9:00 PM EST.

Subbed. I will decide what I'm doing later once I've read everything.

Congratulations for the new IAAR! I'm curius to see how it will be played.

I think Venice should run city states instead of Republic. The republic of Venice was similar to ancient ones.

Count me in! I literally play like this with my father and whatnot, though it really becomes a diarchy instead of a true democracy. This will be fun.

That Indonesia start really confused me.

mrrandomplayer said:

Yeah, the Doge was powerless mostly, but I have to shoehorn the existence of the Doge in somewhere! I wouldn't be fulfilling my Venetian heritage (my last name is Trevisan) if I didn't mention the Doge somewhere!

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Heh, I'm from Padova myself, so you can understand my interest

Anyway, I say that our long term objectives must be:
-control of the mediterranean
-wealth through commerce

citis said:

I think Venice should run city states instead of Republic. The republic of Venice was similar to ancient ones.

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Though I'm not too familiar with RFC, from a historical point of view that's right. But this isn't history!
No idea what's better for game mechanics though.

I'll join in as well.

Noyyau said:

That Indonesia start really confused me.

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It is the rebirth mechanism. In old RFC days playing an earlier civilisation and switching to an other was the rule. Leoreth added 1700AD start in his mode eliminating the switches.

I will join.

Count me in!

BTW, should we create the parties? I was making a research on venice history, but no political divisions are mentioned in the early days (in wikipedia). So if you do know please share the names with us. If not we may start thinking on the most logical things, like a pro-byzantine party and an independentist party

Im in.


mrrandomplayer, i think you should actually be the Signoria. It fits the theme better.
After all, the doge was not a ruler, but a person who simply headed the government and it's institutions.

We probably could have the Pregadi, Council of X, and he Maggior Consiglio be the bodies we elect to. We then choose the Doge. We expect him to follow the laws determined by the governing bodies. The Doge must choose a Collegio, which must be approved by the Signoria and Council of Ten.

The Arengo is the voting population. if need be create NPCs. with each character representing a certain amount of people in each group to decrease the strain.

Daedwartin said:

Im in.

mrrandomplayer, i think you should actually be the Signoria. It fits the theme better.
After all, the doge was not a ruler, but a person who simply headed the government and it's institutions.

We probably could have the Pregadi, Council of X, and he Maggior Consiglio be the bodies we elect to. We then choose the Doge. We expect him to follow the laws determined by the governing bodies. The Doge must choose a Collegio, which must be approved by the Signoria and Council of Ten.

The Arengo is the voting population. if need be create NPCs. with each character representing a certain amount of people in each group to decrease the strain.

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I was considering doing that, but we would need a lot of people and a lot of hassle to successfully simulate the Venetian government with a relatively small group of people. If we had 50 or 100 participants, I would try that, but unfortunately, I can't.

As almost none of this structure was present in the beginning of the republic, we may develop the nation as the game progresses to incorporate some of this structures later, like they did in history. Of course this will be dependent on the number of people, viability of the structure, simplified ways of re-creating them and the patience mrrandomplayer must have.

BTW, if you've chosen Marathon, maybe we could develop this better

Spirictum said:

As almost none of this structure was present in the beginning of the republic, we may develop the nation as the game progresses to incorporate some of this structures later, like they did in history. Of course this will be dependent on the number of people, viability of the structure, simplified ways of re-creating them and the patience mrrandomplayer must have.

BTW, if you've chosen Marathon, maybe we could develop this better

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Ugh, I hate Marathon, it's really slow. I guess since you guys are piloting it, my preferences don't affect the game too much, and I guess I could learn to play Marathon from it. The first vote will be on game speed: Standard or Marathon? After that, we will really begin forming parties and voting.

mrrandomplayer said:

Ugh, I hate Marathon, it's really slow. I guess since you guys are piloting it, my preferences don't affect the game too much, and I guess I could learn to play Marathon from it. The first vote will be on game speed: Standard or Marathon? After that, we will really begin forming parties and voting.

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I love Marathon, exactly because it's really slow.

I know it's interesting to play a game that's not too fast or too slow, because the interest may decrease if it's not immersive enough (fast) or if there are too many things to think and most things take too long to be completed (slow).

Now IMO, I will write here why for this type of game I think Marathon is the best option:

If you are playing a single game just for the sake of winning, a quick game will take some hours of your life to be beaten. Now that will be just a good match against the AI. A Standard game may be better if you wish to use more combat in all eras, as in these speeds it's possible that you never put old troops to combat, just because the turns were quick and you hadn't a reason to attack anybody.
The immersion of this is shallow, as you may play hundreds of matches like this in less then a year. At least it didn't took such a toll from your mind and/or your time.

Now if you really want to make a game a story, where things are eager to be highly detailed, you will make the speed slower, as things take more time to happen, and there are more turns for you and the AI to be friends or foes. In compensation you'll give attention to a much larger group of things, ranging from micromanaging to diplomacy. The snowball effect will be much more taken into consideration, as the multipliers will have more time to effect differently all kinds of things. Competition will be more severe. But you'll have to keep the patience for this game, as it goes slowly and even slower as you now have to think much more to complete your turns.


In a game where the details are to be written in a forum to immerse people on the story and delegating some aspects of the game to be decided by a group of real people, a slower speed seems more fit to me then a quicker speed. I think the idea here is to make something more epic then participating in a bunch of realpolitik of a month long each. It'll give more time for the parties to make their assigned jobs.

BTW I think after choosing the speed we may think in how many turns should an administration be in effect. This number may be more properly depicted if it was changed as the game goes (much because the number of time passed in a turn changes as the game gets closer to the end, and too because political decisions may change that)

I am considering joining, and I want to say a few words about game speed,
of which I can predictably throw my support behind Normal speed.

Firstly, as Spricitum readily admits, this game will not finish, particularly if it will be played on a slower Speed.
I know it will not finish, if the IAAR/Realpolitik history of this subforum is any indication.
Being able to tailor the game length and being respectful of the players' time and interest is key.
You have to figure out how to approach this and keep people interested.
I'd recommend maybe a 15-20 term turnset each update instead of a 5-10 one to illustrate.
And on a Normal speed game, we can actually have some hope of finishing if that is the case.

Secondly, Marathon is overall easier for a myriad of reasons (snowball effects being stronger,
more time to prepare and whip compared to Normal, being able to approach certain situations like civ spawns at your leisure because of the aforementioned perks, etc.)
and we will not be able to meet challenges that can be seen as pressing if you choose this setting.
I think this innately goes counter to making something epic, because much of the pressure is lost.
It depends whether or not we want to have a challenging scenario or not, but I for one,
feel that there are more excellent opportunities for dramatic scenes and events with the pressure of a Normal speed game.