More Governments, less revolutions....

Civilization is the greatest game ever, but it has too many versions, and all of them have great material. Lets compile all the governments to date (like in my Mod) for Civ 4: Anarchy(?), Despotism, Monarchy, Republic, Democratic Rebublic (aka Democracy), Popular Democracy (true democracy), Communism, Fundamentalism (Theocracy), Fascism, Feudalism, Technocracy, Ecolocracy (nature lovers), Libertarianism (green party), Martial Law, and Capital Commonwealth (pure capitalism). I think that is all of them. Also, I want the people to initiate a revolution. What unsuccessful ruler (besides Saddam) knew they were getting thrown out before it happened? Revolution is and should be a state of mind of the populace, and the current government pays the price. Perhaps this can be programmed (better) into the happy/content status of the game. Revolution should sneak up on you (as a player), not be inititiated. If you initiate a change in government perhaps the transition could be less catastrophic, and a revolution could be more devastating?

You've got a lot of those mixed up there! The Green Party is many things, but Libertarian is NOT one them!

Anyway, these are a better set of governments, in historical order:

*Anarchy*
Despotism
Absolute Monarchy
Theocracy
City States
Democracy
Imperialism
Feudal Monarchy (Or simply Feudalism.)
Constitutional Monarchy
Republic (Don't try to make it pretty by tacking "Democratic" to the beginning.) [This is ignoring Rome, which was far ahead of its time.]
Fascism
Communism
Libertarianism (= Capital Commonwealth) [Doesn't really exist yet, but the idea is out there.]
Technocracy (Not yet truly existant)

Most of that list is based on your suggestions, though I've always supported more ancient governments, as you can see. Personally, I think every government should be a viable option during its era of significance and that revolutions should be far faster at certain points in history and during certain crises. For example, extreme unhappiness among the citizens would tend to cause a revolution to a more citizen-friendly government (Democracy, Republic or Communism). On the other hand, great leaders could come along and overthrow a nation of City States and form an Imperialism (a la Alexander).

"Libertarians support a great deal of liberty and freedom of choice in both personal and economic matters. They believe government's only purpose is to protect people from coercion and violence. They value individual responsibility, and they tolerate economic and social diversity." - add protect/co-exist with Nature and you have the Green Party (which, I guess I would call Ecolocracy); semantics really. And Democratic Republic is very distinct from Republic, which is also very different from a popular democracy. I would like to see this distinction in the game too. Republic is based solely on representation from each district, no national elections, and only representation elects the figurehead/leader. Democratic Republic, like America's foundation, is Republic with the addition of local and national general elections. A Popular Democracy uses general elections to decide most of the major issues, and leadership roles; no electoral or representative votes needed. America today, because of media frenzy and short term thinking is in danger of becoming a popular democracy, which is a very corruptible system. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin are probably rolling in their graves watching politicians today beg for the popular vote.

masterofdragons said:

America today, because of media frenzy and short term thinking is in danger of becoming a popular democracy, which is a very corruptible system. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin are probably rolling in their graves watching politicians today beg for the popular vote.

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The others of us who know the dangers of popular vote wish we were rolling in our graves!

--"When the people learn that they can vote themselves money, that will be the end of the Republic." Benjamin Franklin

I would also like to see more governmental systems in place. I actually like the slider idea suggested in another thread, where you tailor-make your government based on some variables. Freedom of expression, Tax-controls, universal taxation that sort of thing.

I hate how people can be so idealistic about governments... how revolutions will always move towards something more people-friendly, like democracy -- what about the Iranian revolution, or the Russian revolution, or the attempted revolution in Venezuela? In each case (monarchy to fundamentalism, monarchy to communism, democracy to dictatorship) there were a lot of people who regard it as a step backwards for all the people who thought it was progress.

But still, I think you're onto something, with your government being more a slave to public opinion, instead of being able to just push your civ wherever you want.

I also think that there should be more government complexity, but not necessarily by more governments. Who's more democratic -- the US, or Canada? Trick question, because everyone will give a different answer, and a different reasoning. Is China still communist if they have a free market?

I'm more about sliders -- which people have eluded to when they describe SMAC (which I haven't played), or the possible civics system. You could decide:

1 - how much political freedom do your people get (voting, carrying a gun, walking around naked)
2 - how much do you interfere with the market (protecting your people, the environment, even smaller businesses from big corporations)
3 - how much do you put back into social services (is health care free? what about housing?)

And other factors... do you separate church and state? How much do you spend hyping your government?

This way you can have various kinds of democracy -- from left to right... let alone the subtleties of the full spectrum of governments.

Just throwing that all out there, to get some creative minds working.

Well, governments always, always start out as ideology - how do you want to rule over your people? A perfect example is your example, slider bars. Those slider bars represent your governing powers, and hence, your ideology of how citizens should be governed. I like that slider idea as well. Yet, it seems to get away from the historical aspects of the game if you start using completely customizeable governments, and anything else for that matter. Many thoughts on this forum lead me to foresee two different games: Civilization 4 and Sim Government.

RTS (read the Sticky)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=85573

masterofdragons said:

Many thoughts on this forum lead me to foresee two different games: Civilization 4 and Sim Government.

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See, this is the problem I have.

"Civilization 4" - "Sim Government" = "6000 Year War Simulator"

How are you supposed to simulate civilization when you don't account for the importance of how you handle domestic issues?

It seems the only reason Civ even has people is so you have a way to moderate the user's production-engine.

Seriously, how different would the game be with one government, no population-filled cities, instead with a bunch of forts / barracks? It would be less immersive, but would it really play that differently?

It All Comes Down To Production My Friend... :d

Well, what seperates Civ from Warcraft (aside from being turn based) if it's about how many units you can pump out, and how certain sequences of operations permit more powerful units? It's really a race through all the technological / building hurdles, and whoever produces the largest army will win.

What makes Civ so great is that you have ideas like government, pleasing your people, trading, deciding whether to be at war with someone... but when you can basically mechanize those non-war decisions, they clearly aren't compelling enough.

Hence the call for more flexibility and control in government, no?

I, for one, would like to see more revolutions arising from your own people! I would also like to see the people be able to RESIST your attempts to change the government-if your choice is one they don't like!
I personally think that when a populace revolts, and what government they change to, should depend on five MAJOR factors-current happiness and corruption levels, war weariness, the preferred and shunned government of that civ, the Civs current characteristics, and the current amount of labour-specialisation. For instance, if your civ is industrious and scientific, and you have a large number of labourers in your population. If your government is currently in Monarchy or Republic, then your people might try to start a revolution to change the government to communist.
Of course, if you also had Social Engineering sliders, then even if the government DID change to Communism, then you would still have the power to slightly adjust the underlying nature of this Communism-as Stalin and Mao did!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

perhaps you didn't see me, RTS

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=85573

What is a technocracy?

That is from Civ 2: Call To Power, where science and technological development is root of government...

A Technocracy is an elitist government that is technically a republic but denies most rights to the poor and attempts to gloss over its negative aspects with gleaming nationalist structures and strong commercial and cultural output. Usually, a technocracy would focus on scientific output at all costs, including poor ethics.

For a rather bland definition, Dictionary.com provides:

tech·noc·ra·cy
n. pl. tech·noc·ra·cies

A government or social system controlled by technicians, especially scientists and technical experts.

So it's controlled by nerds?

/boredom

a society of nerds, i always wondered what kind of government civfanatics was, i think i just found out...

Using sliders to determine government policies and how immersive your government is in society (based on technology and current social development) is very compelling. The idea is that you could have an iron-fisted Monarchy or a benevelont one, but you'd still have a Monarchy.

As social "technology" increases, social forces pressure the Monarch to work within certain social and religious norms that restrain his/her behavior. As time goes on, the ideas of representative government may (or may not) become a part of the social ideals.

I think it would be great to have citizen/social pressure on the government (YOU!) to change the form of government or the way it's prosecuted (slider bars here!). If you do NOT enact these changes, social unrest may ensue. Civil War anyone?!

The possibilities are simply amazing and would truly create an immersive, true Civ experience!

--CK

That's the idea, CK... there's a lot of variety within governments. A lot of people might be tempted to compare things across government:

Democracy: USA, Canada, Israel
Communist: USSR, China, Cuba
Other: Iran (Fundamentalist), Saudi Arabia (Monarchy)

But here's some comparisons you might not be aware of:

USA has more in common with China and Iran when it comes to the number of people killed under the death penalty.

Canada and Cuba have more in common when it comes to free health care to everyone, with Cuba having the lowest rate of infant mortality in the World.

USSR and Cuba had serious tension when USSR used wealth to motivate economic progress.

Israel and Iran experience a large amount of lobbying from the religious wing. (Some people think the USA is moving in this direction.)

China is putting together serious economic reforms, contrary to the communist ideal, as is Saudi Arabia and Iran...

Criticizing the government of ANY of the above countries will get you labelled as unpatriotic, or worse, except in Canada


Not to bring the little facts into the debate. But the point being there's a lot of room between governments. I think sliders would be a better choice than multiplying the governments by 3, e.g.: "Religious Democracy", "Libertarian Democracy", "Democratically Elected Dictator", (etc.)

The idea of sliders is great to make Civ a Sim-ocratic game, but (I feel) the flavor of history and historic ideas would be left out. Imagine if all Britain did to appease their American Colony was to gradually give more to appease, rather than squash the rebellion. Even more, what if we just came up with sliders to enable different scientific advancements and city improvements? All the historical flavor (and even science future (fiction)) of the game would be lost. If units just got more powerful and we lost the right to label (and draw new graphics); and governments were reduced to sliders rather than the idealistic foresights of DEMOCRACY, REPUBLIC, MONARCHY, et al..., then the character and passions of people would be lost in "sliders". No, no, no, no.... sliders dull the ambiance, and hinders the imagination of the game. I think a good use of sliders is to allow players variance within each government, but do NOT take away the ideals and government. They have more meaning then just governing.