Leaders: Diplomatic/Ideological Positions

[Ryika]

I'm currently re-designing diplomacy for my Overhaul-Mod and part of it is a system that categorizes all leaders within 5 diplomatic/ideological Categories. I know there's some people here who care deeply about the history and characteristics of the sponsors in this game in this forums, as well as people who just know a lot about this stuff in general - so I would like to have some feedback and opinions from you.

The categories and where I personally put the Leader looks like this at the moment (not sorted vertically, just categorized):

[U][B]Spiritual				Rational[/B][/U]
					ARC
African Union				Brasilia
Franco-Iberia				North Sea Alliance
Al Falah				INTEGR
Kavithan Protectorate			Chungsu
Polystralia				Slavic Federation
					PAC

[B][U]Militaristic 				Peaceful[/U][/B]
ARC					PAC
Brasilia				African Union
Al Falah				Franco-Iberia
Slavic Federation			Polystralia
Chungsu					Kavithan Protectorate
North Sea Alliance			INTEGR


[B][U]Traditionalist 				Progressive[/U][/B]
Kavithan Protectorate			ARC
African Union				PAC
Franco-Iberia				INTEGR
Slavic Federation			Al Falah
Brasilia				Chungsu
North Sea Alliance			Polystralia


[U][B]Libertarian 				Authoritarian[/B][/U]
African Union				ARC
Franco-Iberia				PAC
Polystralia				Kavithan Protectorate
Al Falah				Slavic Federation
North Sea Alliance			
Brasilia				Chungsu
INTEGR


[U][B]Individualist				Collectivist[/B][/U]
ARC					African Union
PAC					Kavithan Protectorate
Franco-Iberia				Brasilia
Polystralia				Chungsu
Al Falah				INTEGR
North Sea Alliance			Slavic Federation

Sorted by Trait/Overlap:

[U][B]Leader			Spiritual/Rational	Militaristic/Peaceful	Traditionalist/Progressive	Libertarian/Authoritarian	Individualist/Collectivist[/B][/U]
Al Falah		Spiritual		Militaristic		Progressive			Libertarian			Individualist
African Union		Spiritual		Peaceful		Traditionalist			Libertarian			Collectivist
Franco-Iberia		Spiritual		Peaceful		Traditionalist			Libertarian			Individualist
Kavithan		Spiritual		Peaceful		Traditionalist			Authoritarian			Collectivist
Polystralia		Spiritual		Peaceful		Progressive			Libertarian			Individualist

ARC			Rational		Militaristic		Progressive			Authoritarian			Individualist
Chungsu			Rational		Militaristic		Progressive			Authoritarian			Collectivist
North Sea Alliance	Rational		Militaristic		Traditionalist			Libertarian			Individualist
Brasilia		Rational		Militaristic		Traditionalist			Libertarian			Collectivist
Slavic Federation	Rational		Militaristic		Traditionalist			Authoritarian			Collectivist
INTEGR			Rational		Peaceful		Progressive			Libertarian			Collectivist
PAC			Rational		Peaceful		Progressive			Authoritarian			Individualist

Please note that I'm not using strict, current-day political definitions of these categories, but instead generalized and idealized descriptions of the political and ideological positions. This is to keep them neutral, in harmony with the generally idealistic tone of the game, and to keep my own political/ideological biases out of the equation as much as possible - so this is not meant to be a "political debate", this is simply about preferences between values held by the Sponsors.

An Example:
"Traditionalists value stability and continuity. They adapt to a changing environment by looking at what has worked in the past and augment their empire to carry their values into a better future."
"Progressives favor rapid change when required to fix political, economic or social problems as they emerge, and to create an Empire that can quickly reform itself when required."

Now, I wonder if people agree with how I have sorted the Sponsors, or whether people would swap Sponsors around, and if so, why. Given that I had to create equally sized groups for my mod and that every sponsor MUST fit into one of the choices of the binary system I took some liberties here and there, but don't let that discourage you from telling me where I'm wrong in your opinion.

 

[legalizefreedom]

Kavithan would seem to need to be higher Spiritually

Maybe Brasilia over ARC Militarily. And probably Slavic over Polystalia

Chungsu would seem to be way too low in Authoritarian

I would probably put NSA near the top of Individualist

These based strictly on my perception of in-game personalities.

 

[Ryika]

Oh, I didn't order them within their category, I just formatted them vertically because it seemed to be the most compact one while also making it easy to read - sorry for not making that clear. ^^

Although, while I don't need it for my mod, if people are interested we could actually sort them like that.

 

[Barathor]

Ooh, this is very cool!

- - - - - - -

LF, I could be wrong, but I don't think the order matters. They either "are" or they "aren't". Plus, you can see that certain factions are often at the top of the list and others are often at the bottom, so they were added from another list, like the Wikia.

- - - - - - -
Everything looks pretty good, Ryika.

Polystralia is listed twice in the top categories. The NSA is missing in the first one and the KP is missing in the second.

I would perhaps put the NSA under Rational, and the KP under Peaceful.

I don't know, I'm thinking off the top of my head that the PAC should be Collectivist and INTEGR should be Individualist, but I'd have to look back at their bios/stories. Though, maybe INTEGR really does believe in more of a collectivist state, I'll have to check it out.

I was also thinking of switching INTEGR with the NSA within Libertarian/Authoritarian.

Also, maybe switch Al Falah with Polystralia (the real one, under Militaristic). Seeing Hutama under that category just doesn't sit that well, but I also understand sometimes things like that are going to happen in a binary setup -- you gotta choose the best six for each category and push the others to the other side.

- - - - - -

I think another useful way to display all this data and to help design it would be to list all leaders and have their chosen traits to the right. Then organize each row by each column category. So, the first column would have all the Spiritual leaders first and then all the Rational leaders would be under them. Then you do the same with the next column, and so on. This will help filter out leaders with matching trait combos (if you want to avoid that).

Also, since we're focused on the immortal leaders and their personalities (this is very minor), maybe the leader names should be listed instead of their faction title.

- - - - - -

EDIT: Gotta run, but I'll look more at it later, I stared at it long enough, haha.

 

[Ryika]

Woops, thanks for the Corrections, fixed them and pushed Al Falah into the Militaristic Category. I always thought about her as "military minded" anyway, and a spiritual (maybe even somewhat fanatic) Warmonger is missing in the current setup. Her Flavors don't quite reflect that, but those are easily changed.

I'm not quite sure about the INTEGR/NSA Libertarian/Authoritarian thing though. To me Lena Ebner almost feels a bit like a caricature of a radical Left/Authoritarian. But maybe I'm biased in that regard, I saw her like that way before Rising Tide was actually released, so I'll go and read up her stuff later.

The thing about the alternative categorization is a great idea as well, I'll make sure to add it later on.

/edit: Okay, second table added. The Overlap between Spiritual/Peaceful and Rational/Militaristic is pretty extreme. I'm not quite sure if that's a problem with the way I'm planning to implement the Diplomacy. Some "camaraderie" between those factions may be okay.

 

[GenyaArikado]

What do you consider Authoritarian/Libertarian? Because my perception associates the queen-like Elodie more with the former and the smart-hippy Lena with the later so yeah, i'd like to see your definitions.

Do you plan to give the leaders an affinity bias?

 

[CelJaded]

Ooh, this is very cool!
Also, maybe switch Al Falah with Polystralia (the real one, under Militaristic). Seeing Hutama under that category just doesn't sit that well, but I also understand sometimes things like that are going to happen in a binary setup -- you gotta choose the best six for each category and push the others to the other side.

Based on in-game perceptions I'd certainly put Hutama above Al Falah on the militaristic side of thinking. But then it's a case of in-game perceptions vs. established flavour I guess (Al Falah is always nice to me whereas Hutama is always a warmongering SOB).

All looks very exciting though, Ryika. Keep it up!

 

[Ryika]

What do you consider Authoritarian/Libertarian? Because my perception associates the queen-like Elodie more with the former and the smart-hippy Lena with the later so yeah, i'd like to see your definitions.

Do you plan to give the leaders an affinity bias?

I'm currently just using two definitions that are more placeholders than anything:

Authoritarians believe that an empire is strongest when its people are led guided an experienced Leader and working towards a common goal.

Libertarians believe that an empire that allows its people as much personal freedom as possible will ultimately shine the brightest.

But no, I don't plan to add Affinity-Biases. My goal is to have the Early-Game diplomacy somewhat "predetermined" by who you are and who everybody else is, then, when you can start changing your personal Leader Positions during the Late Early Game you can align with who you want to, and in the Late-Game Affinity will come in and vary things up again, so "fixed" Affinities wouldn't work well.

Based on in-game perceptions I'd certainly put Hutama above Al Falah on the militaristic side of thinking. But then it's a case of in-game perceptions vs. established flavour I guess.

All looks very exciting though, Ryika. Keep it up!

Well, to be fair: While having only moderate warmonger-stats he has a very high value for being deceptive. That may be the cause.

I'll update the table with some of the suggestions that have been made here and on reddit in a few hours, when I've had the time to read some of the ingame texts.

/edit: Done!
- Brasilia -> Authoritarian (Makes a lot of sense, not sure why I had categorized them that way - Spiritual was proposed, I disagree. He's somewhat of a "wonder child", but he himself - or his people - do(es)n't seem to be spiritual)
- PAC -> Rational (Yeah, makes sense, too!)
- INTEGR -> Libertarian (I disagree slightly, but people seem to generally agree with this.)

 

[GenyaArikado]

Lena is definitely a libertarian or at least far more than Franco-Iberia. After all it's Elodie who says "I know these are the best ideas because they're mine"

I believe Duncan should be spiritual. Read his quotes

"You fail to reap the bounty of the seas not because your people lack the means, but because you lack the imagination."
-Duncan Hughes, The Prime ARK Letters

"The independent spirit will always prevail over the dependent. We will control our own destiny and our own survival, even if we have to bend the rules of reality itself."
-Duncan Hughes, The Prime ARK Letters

 

[Ryika]

Yes, after having read through Lena's Civ-Texts earlier today I've realized that my personal version of who she is differs greatly from how she's portrayed in-game. Not very surprising, given that in retro-perspective I had already created an image of her in my head before Rising Tide was even released.

She's clearly a libertarian on principle.

@Duncan Hughes being spiritual: That actually sounds great, because it would ease up the Rational-Spiritual Warmonger-Peaceful-divide even more. I'll look into that tomorrow.

As a side note I've just updated my mod-thread with information about the implementation about the diplo system. Can be found here if anybody's interested.

 

[GenyaArikado]

I read. I absolutely love it too. Originally i liked the idea of blankish leaders but honestly it ended up being blander than flavorless jelly.

 

[legalizefreedom]

Oh, I didn't order them within their category, I just formatted them vertically because it seemed to be the most compact one while also making it easy to read - sorry for not making that clear. ^^

Although, while I don't need it for my mod, if people are interested we could actually sort them like that.

Got it. Just a matter of whether they belong to those traits or not. Pardon my ignorance.

I'm glad to see you're still working on BE. I continue to enjoy it a lot. I've had a difficult time ever going back to Civ V...

 

[LORD ORION]

I always viewed Elodie as the worst kind of leader.

A left wing authoritarian progressive.

Her ideas are the only ideas, any challenge to her ideas aren't met with debate, they are met with slander, libel and outright lies. She maintains power by a hidden surveillance state and minimum socialism to keep her people happy. eg: She might bring along her aristocrats and focus on energy output, but she'd also be focused on the prosperity tree, an internal spy network, and favor the Purity affinity / techs.

Spiritual
Progressive
Peaceful
Totalitarian
Collectivist

Also Arc would be libertarian.
Their spy focus would be external, not internal, and social policies and traits would favor free market. eg: Fielding's flavor text include fighting off classism, racism and misogony, as well as quoting adam smith.
That would make her a believer in equality and real capitalism, not the authoritarian surveillance / fascist state, corporate welfare / cronyism crap you see in the US today.

 

[GenyaArikado]

Elodie is probably 2200 version of right wing to Lena's left wing. I dont see her being "Progressive" (Franco-Iberia being literally compared to the roman empire) nor collectivist. I do consider Elodie authoritarian (they're the best ideas because they're mine).

ARC is a company and Suzanne is a female dog who would give Amanda Waller a run for her money, so no, she's good as she is. Her journals state how she's after more power which is why she left with the seeding.

In my interpretation, which tbh is the best one, Elodie went for Pur/Har towards Transcendence victory and Suzanne for Sup/Pur towards Emancipation