Reworking Governments

[dh_epic]

Discrete choices (radial menu) or continuous choices (slider) are fine. Some work better in some cases or another. Especially since the "left-right" dichotomy is a little one dimensional (horrible pun intended).

Rather than looking at how planned your economy is, you want to look at WHY your economy is planned. Are you planned in order to stay green? Are you planned in order to siphon off funds into your own treasury? Are you planned in order to provide basic protections to workers? Are you just a dictator who controls everything? Simply moving your slider all the way to "planned" instead of "free" doesn't quite cover it.

I'm optimistic that if the developers take this route, they can come up with choices that make sense.

 

[rhialto]

Thank you, Krikkitone, for explaining what I had been struggling to express clearly.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

But this is one of my biggest issues here. Who says planned economies are neccessarily GREEN-remember that the Soviet Economy was Centrally planned, and the various former sattelite states are STILL repairing the environmental damage! By the same token, if a large business can be convinced that reducing pollution is good for the long-term profit sheet, they COULD become green. That is why I feel that Green has no place on a Planned/Free Market Axis-because it is a totally SEPERATE ISSUE. It is more to do with what value a society places on its environment than about hard economics!
Also, if you get sufficient 'overlaps' between the various 'sliders' (probably a poor word, given that it doesn't really SLIDE-it 'notches' or 'ratchets') then you can get very good interactions between the various settings, ESPECIALLY if a high setting in one limits how high (or low) you can set another!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The problem with sliders is that the relationships between the sliders can get Incredibly complex (starting off with the environmental/economy and expanding to all others)

It becomes much easier to just give a couple of options
each which could then affect all aspects of a Civ's government. (rather than individual ones with individual tradeoffs.)

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

The only problem then is that you will get what I call 'the SMAC effect'. i.e. when I first started playing it, I was constantly playing with the settings. Then, when I had tried out all the USEFUL combinations, I got bored with the whole SE thing, and pretty much left the settings 'as is'. A series of 'sliders' (again, bad word), with a range of settings and slightly complex interactions, opens up an almost limitless set of combinations-thus increasing player choice and flexibility, and reducing the chance of the system becoming yet another 'Wonder Movie' feature-if that makes sense?

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[rhialto]

And that's why I favour a system where you have different sets of sub-options for each government. So teh various suffrage options will only be relevant to elected governments, chiefdoms get to choose shamens or smithies as chief advisors, and so on. That way you don't have teh full range of every option to maximise things in one go, which is one key area where SMAC lost out.

 

[slightlymarxist]

Yes, well, governments don't cause pollution - factories and powerplants do. Any civ that invests heavily into industry should suffer some kind of pollution penalty regardless of government.

I actually think government choices should have a smaller overall effect than it has now, especially if Religion is going to be a factor. I kind of liked the SMAC idea of combining variables. The problem with SMAC is that it had way to much influence - choosing Police State/Planned would automatically cripple your economy unless you played as the Hive, for example, and Democracies were just worthless at waging wars.

Perhaps just small modifiers, like this:

Political System:
Chiefdom (Basic): No modifier
Despotism: Military +1
Res Publica: Trade +1
Theocracy: Law & Order +1
Democracy: Trade +1, Science +1
Police State: Military +1, Law & Order +1

Economy:
Survival (Basic): No modifier
Feudal: Law & Order +1
Mercantile: Trade +1
Free Market: Trade +2
Planned: Industry +2
Green: Health +1, Science +1

Religion/Values:
Tribal (Basic): No modifer
Warlike: Military +1 (eg. Norse mythology)
Pacifist: Law & Order +1 (eg. Hinduism)
Pious: Industry +1 (eg. Christianity)
Secular: Science +2

So you would combine different traits, some traits being easier to change into (like Mercantile -> Free Market). For example, USSR-style Communism might be represented by Police State, Planned and Secular, giving Military +1, Law & Order +1, Industry +2 and Science +2, while modern day USA might be represented by Democracy, Free Market and Secular, giving Trade +3 and Science +3. This system would allow for great variety without deadlocking certain combinations.

 

[slightlymarxist]

Oh, and also: I would like to have the option to rename my Civ slightly whenever I'm switching into a new government.

("Russia is now known as the Soviet Union", "Celts are now known as Great Britain" etc.)

 

[dh_epic]

slightlymarxist is on the right track. I'd obviously have some embellishments and disagreements, but the essence is there. tweak an option here, add an option there, add a category altogether...

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Governments may not cause pollution, but how governments deal with industry can effect how much pollution those industries create. So, with higher environmentalism comes less polluting industry-overall-but at a higher maintainance cost, perhaps.
Also, I don't feel that sufferage ONLY applies to democratic government types, as sufferage goes beyond mere voting, and into the realms of WHO gets a say in your decisions. An Absolutist may have a sufferage setting of 0, and pretty much acts without ANY outside interference. A true Democrat, however, might have a Sufferage setting of 10, in which case almost ALL of his major decisions are in some way vetted by your people. The upside for the former is he can do whatever he wants, but might have to deal with higher unhappiness, a poorer economy overall, and a slower science rate. The latter, on the other hand, has less freedom of action, but benefits from a happier and more productive society-so its all about checks and balances.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[rhialto]

I with Aussie Lurker there too on pollution. It's true that governments don't cause pollution, industries do. Equally, governments don't cause commerce - banks do, so let's scrap any commerce bonus. Ditto for almost any other kind of bonus. The government itself actually does very little in terms of direct action in the economy (in this respect it is similar to the military). But the government acts as a powerful force multiplier if its power is directed properly.

 

[rhialto]

Also, I don't feel that sufferage ONLY applies to democratic government types, as sufferage goes beyond mere voting, and into the realms of WHO gets a say in your decisions.

I disagree on a minor point - suffrage does have a specific meaning which relates to voting rights. But I take your point on who influences government and run with the ball.

With a slider, all you have is anonymous "I am the man I have the vote" vs "everyone and his pet cat votes", with warious points in between. It's all completely anonymous. How about instead of having a vague number, have (for democracy):

- universal
- wealth/land based voting rights
- education based voting rights
etc

That way, instead of having simple trade offs of one bonus vs another, you can have multipolar decisions to make.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

That's about what I meant (although I think the examples are a bit too specific) multiple trade offs should be in the system

Although ideally you want them to be as independent as possible rather than nested.
of course the interpretation given to certain choice would depend on what the other choices are. (but the effect should not)

I also like SM's idea of renaming your civ (probably have each choice associated with some possible government names like the leader titles in Civ3)

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Thats actually the trouble I am having, Krikkitone. How broad is too broad, and how specific is too specific?
For example, should you have a simple 'Democracy' Axis which defines both the Pluralism of your society's political system AND the degree of sufferage? Or should you split them up and have a single Pluralism axis (from Absolutist to multi-party representation-or even non-party based representation) and a seperate sufferage axis (from 0% to 100% say).
The same goes for Open vs. Closed society-that seems just TOO broad, without explaining WHY a society is closed. Perhaps it could be split up into Legalism (how Law-abiding your people are, and how strict is your legal system?), Libertarianism (how many rights and liberties does the average citizen enjoy?) and Nationalism (how highly do your people esteem your nation, and how do your people regard foreigners).
Perhaps 10 Broad and/or Specific civic 'definers' would be sufficient to describe any and ALL governments-in a non-fantasy world at any rate !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[dh_epic]

The more I think about it, the less sliders I want. Sliders you really are trading off in some one dimensional value. Say -- freedom versus security, or money versus happiness. Even culture and happiness versus productivity and security still ends up being pretty one dimensional.

Not that there should be no sliders... but those radial menu options are sounding pretty good. A "primitive" economy versus a "green" economy versus a "market" economy versus a "corporate" economy versus a "crooked" economy... even the new Chinese communism-capitalism hybrid is frightfully appealing as a strategic choice. And these all trade off various economic gains (productivity, money, trade) with other aspects (environment, freedom, happiness, order)... It's more descriptive for the user, less abstract, and still just really interesting.

 

[Kosez]

Governments and civ traits?
Should there be any connection?

 

[slightlymarxist]

Well I just want to keep things fairly simple so I don't HAVE to worry about government settings all the time, but I CAN delve into the finer aspects of social engineering if I want to. You don't have to have every little aspect represented, you just have to get the geist of a concept in a gameplay situation. Eg what differs democracies from police states, or planned from free markets.

About pollution: Actually, I would argue that Free Market economies has just as much - if not more! - negative effects on the environment compared to Planned economies. Waste, greed, commercialism. In SMAC, Free Market economics gave a huge penalty to "Planet" rating if I remember correctly. Point is, the only modern economic system that would seriously try to limit pollution is Green, any other choice would result in heavy pollution. I think that's about fair.

Perhaps I should write a disclaimer here: My personal political opinions are NOT influencing what I think should be in this GAME. I'm just trying to think of concepts to implement an interesting, variable gameplay. Nothing else.

 

[slightlymarxist]

Governments and civ traits?
Should there be any connection?

Each civ could have an inherent bonus that resembles the government bonuses. Germany, for example, could have a standing Military +1 and Science +1 bonus in addition to any eventual government bonuses.

Perhaps it's a bit too simple though, now that I think of it.

 

[dh_epic]

I think that even biasing a civilization towards a certain government is a bit of a bad idea. People should be as free as possible when playing as a civilization of their choice.

I think the tricky thing is that there's a difference between a purely free market, as we see in a "capitalist utopia", and the free market as we know it in many nations around the world. Most free market nations don't actually have a totally free market. The government usually handles roads, the military, the justice system, sometimes even the health care system. The government often guarantees minimum wages or certain inalienable worker rights.

In a totally free market, they would privatize the roads. They would let various corporations compete to provide military service, and competition would provide more effective troops. They would let the market decide how the laws and protections of the justice system would work.

The question I sometimes ask myself is you should distinguish between the conventional "free market" and the "neo-conservative market" that is catching on -- that says the public sector should be abolished?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well the way I would model that is have a 'free market' option available from early on that would improve with various techs like economics / corporation / some future tech that allows effective total privatization. You would have similar results for 'welfare' or 'planned' economy options.