jalapeno_dude
AKA Panda Judo Eel
Good. I needed more stuff to nitpick.Next section, this time government!
Given that the player controls the faction in power, shouldn't they almost never want to change it?Changing either of these is obviously a big deal, and will need tons of political capital or some sort of violent revolution.
This ties into another question--what happens if your faction falls out of the dominant spot? Is the player kicked out, or can they continue playing as the new faction? How will you enforce playing in-character as the ruling faction if it changes every couple turns (like e.g. in the case of the modern US)?
The most important stat, I'm assuming you meant to put.On the next line is your current amount of political capital, possibly the most stat in the ruleset
Are there any hard guidelines for this? Like changing the budget 5% costs 1 PC, etc?this numeric shows how much your government can do; new policies cost political capital, changing the budget even more capital, new treaties cost political capital, new wars lots of PC, and so on.
So a long update is 4 years. How long is a short update? 1 year, 6 months, 3 months?It will be refreshed every long update
And I assume if, say, you're invaded, or during other extraordinary circumstances, you could gain extra PC in the middle of a long update?
I assume there will be some type of limit on this...Stories are a way to get free PC, if you can relate them to your policies support for a war will be much greater if your king starts it off with something inspiring after all.
Can other players play non-dominant factions? Or write stories attempting to promote a change in leadership?You can go into a deficit of PC if you really wish, but that will make it likely that other factions seizing the leadership role
Which one? Wouldn't it make the most sense to list both, or at least both within the faction and within the population with political power? To go back to the US, Republicans were the ruling faction in 2005, but approval among the majority differed greatly from approval among the Republican party--after Terri Schiavo and Katrina, let alone once Iraq went haywire.Popularity is a one word ranking of how happy the ascendant faction/majority are with your actions with a possible description.
Will NPCs/short stat nations with low reputations be more or less willing to work with nations with high reputations? Could you get "axis of evil"-style banding-together among nations with extremely low reputations?Prestige is a numeric of how the international community sees you (-5 to 5) and is gained by being trustworthy, respectable, stable, and pleasant and lost by the opposite. This actually matters, although it has only a little effect on your own PC it will significantly affect the PC of other players when they cooperate with/oppose you, and it will of course affect how willing short stat nations are to work with you.
This stat seems problematic in general. Consider the Cold War. Wouldn't reputation vary greatly depending on which bloc a nation was in and which bloc the reacting nation was in?
So it seems reputation should be either broken up into groups (e.g. -2 among Catholics, 2 among Protestants, or 1 among Republics, -3 among Monarchies) or gotten rid of, and I prefer the former option.
A numeric? Where?Next there is a one word description and numeric of your systems effectiveness
Wouldn't it make more sense to put this as a percentage of the working population, or at least the employable population?Then comes the size of the public sector as a percentage of the whole population,
Where does funding for the bureaucracy fit into this?Next is the standing budget items, these show how you're choosing to allocate the money coming in from your tax rate section into the main outlays of the government: Military Maintenance, Infrastructure Maintenance, Social Maintenance, R&D (later on), Savings, Paying off the Debt, Enacting Policies.
If the tax rate can move in units of 1%, why can't the budget allocation?These are done as percentages in units of 5%, so that they are flexible over time,
And I assume you can change the tax rate for appropriate amounts of PC as well?
Unpopular among whom? The ascendant faction or the entire population? Or either? Or both?upkeep in cash and possibly PC if it becomes unpopular
Nitpicking aside, I really like both main innovations you've proposed. Political capital as the spending unit makes a huge amount of sense, as does the project model for policy changes. Good job!