special interest groups/political parties?

[Leowind]

Seemed like this topic needed a thread of its own. DoM has stated that political parties were pretty much a disaster in the Civ 3 demo game (of course, we're all more mature, experienced players here in Civ 2 and that would never happen with us ;-) ). Another idea floated by some astute, obviously intelligent Demogame player (who was that, now?) was to generate some sort of conflict between local and national interests, with players invested in some way in the success of particular cities and/or regions. I"ve tried to think this through a little bit, and haven't really thought of a way to make it work well yet, but thought I'd get some discussion going to see if all of you more astute and obviously more intelligent demogame players might be able to come up with something.

another thought I had was for each player to take on some sort of "persona" for the game, like a role-play, and play the demo part of the game from that perspective rather than their own. Any thoughts/ideas on that?

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

If we can find a way to make them work with the amount of people we have and in a way that it actually benefits the game, we can do them.

 

[Talar]

Maybe we could somehow tie the population size (in-game pop points) of a city/region to the number of votes the representant of that region will have in the national council. That would give the regions a reason to see to themselves before other regions and create the need to negotiate for support from other regions to get their representatives elected into the government.

Roleplaying a persona, ok I wouldn't mind doing a bit of roleplaying, but I guess not everyone likes it.

 

[Leowind]

Nice thought about tieing population to number of votes. Would be a headache for the polls, however How could we get around that?

 

[Talar]

We would have to poll by posting I guess, by allowing no other posts in the vote thread than the vote posts I think we could keep it manageable.

 

[Leowind]

ooh, that would make anonymous voting a thing of the past. :/ Make people put their name to what they voted for--could actually generate a bit more discussion I'm thinking, which would be a good thing. Anyone think it would scare people away from voting? IMHO it would not.

 

[Talar]

The region could have a poll about it internally if they have enough members then just the regional delegate need to post the decision together with the region's population.

This would really encourage regions to grow their cites. And maybe the capital could remain outside the regions and be the place for people who wish to be neutral in regional politics. Whoever is president at the moment could control the capital city's votes. Just throwing around ideas now...

 

[Leowind]

Keep throwing; I'm liking what I'm hearing

We don't want a bunch of sub-forums for each region. The governor of a region could post a thread about decisions to be made, and anyone could comment, even those outside the region (in an effort to sway that region's vote on a matter they see as of national importance, for instance). The governor would then make a decision and vote, weighted by the number of pop points in his/her region as you suggested. If the governor doesn't follow the will of the people--doesn't get re-elected. Under this scheme, would governors need to appoint advisors, such as domestic advisor or defense advisor, or would we be adding to beauracracy at that point? Might not be enough people in the game, either

So it could happen that people of Region A vote against a particular plan that negatively impacts them, but have that plan passed on a national level anyway. Their only recourse would be to mount a recall campaign or try to vote out those who voted against them. Would governors be elected only from within the Region/voted on by those in the Region? Makes sense to me. Several positions would need to be voted on nationally as well, I would think.

this means folks in office would get elected/not-elected based more on their philosophy/success than on how well they can poll and follow results. That's been one part of the demo games that's been a little less than succesful IMHO. The best advisors/governors are really those who organize polls the best, not those who have the best/most creative ideas. This might mitigate that a bit. I'm finding more reasons to like it

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

The only real way we could actually simulate seperation and conflict in a one nation demo game Imho is with a sort of virtual nation sperated in a number of civ's each representing a particular province or state ,so that in times of severe conflict a civil war could happen.For ex. you have four states ,and a virtual country called the united states.Each state is an actual civ ,but is part of the united states.And from each state's governor's a president is elected by the people of all states.Now the ruling cabinet of the virtual nation has power over it's states ,and the states have some sort of self gouvernence.the president has an actual capital province ,that is controlled by the cabinet of the president.All states are allied to eachother by default.All states must give tribute to the virtual nation givven to the capital state rulled by the current president in for of taxes and millitary suport ,etc...
Maybe a representation of a feudal nation ,with a king province and a few noble families competing for the monarch title.

There are numerous detail's you can add to this.This system could ,if well refined ,allow for much fun.
In any case i would advice to add a humongues everlasting Barbarian threat ,so that at some time's the states would need eachother to defend themself's.

BUT ,it would be extremely hard to implement ,given that every "state" should have to play it's turn ,so that would take a long time.And creating balanced rules for such a system would be very hard to.

Yet ,sollution's are there to be found.

A proposal would be a small pbem game , 3 province's of each 3 city's and a capital province of 2 or 3 city's.this with a first version of a constitution for such a game ,to test if this sort of game would work well.A specialised scenario would probably have to be created for it.With 3 faction's pbem would still go fast enough to have a good rate of playing and wouldn't require much people.

On a personal note:
I hope i won't shock anyone by being here.I certainly wanna apoligize to Duke of marlborough for leaving about a year ago ,withought saying anything.So i hope i'm still welcome ,but i don't doubt at the good spirit of the people on this forum.
I'm glad i got back to this place anyway.

Try to understand ,there is something in me that make's me a terrible person to lay responsibilety's on ,especially in administrative task's.Rather i'm a inventive person that is good in seeking solution's to various problem's.Moderator was never my thing ,but i love to create and invent new thing's.

 

[Octavian X]

I certainly don't think anyone will object to your return. We need all the participation we can get.

BTW, Duck, you may want to update those links in your signature.

My view on this subject is that it adds a whole level of complexity we really don't need. I would not have any objetions to smoething more simplistic. To be honest, I've gotten lost more than once in this thread...

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

I have no problem with the fact that you left, but the way in which you left was inexcusable..... But, you will see no reflection of that from me in the forums. That said, you are more than welcome to join the game.

BTW, I'm glad you got your account straightened out.

 

[Jayne]

One way of making everyone involved in the game is to make everyone responsible for an individual town - build queues, workers etc. The main problem with this, however, is who looks after towns of people who drop out, and how can we help those who can't download the came.

As for role-play..... maybe we all start off as 'Citizen' and must sign our posts as such. As we get further into the game, the Government can award titles to citizens for their contribution, eg 'Earl', 'Baron'. Maybe each new thread is posted as a letter to someone, similar to the letters Counsellor GaryNemo was getting from the Baroness of Reneaux!!! I see this as a way where we don't get too bogged down on the role-play bit, and even people who aren't keen on it can still participate with little embarassment!

 

[Leowind]

Duckie's back Welcome "home" Duck.

However, I find your suggestion to be a bit unwieldy, although an intriguing idea

Octavian, I wasn't sure what suggestions you were deeming as too complex, Duck's or the general idea Talar and I had been batting around. Something like what Jayne proposed with each person in charge of a town would be good, except there arent' enough towns early in the game, and then what happens if someone is not around to take charge of their town. Maybe we could still have governors, who would take charge of any unclaimed towns in their province. There would need to be clear deadlines for submitting suggestions/changes, however. And how do we resolve a conflict between what a "Mayor" wishes for his/her city and the needs of the nation as a whole?

If we all keep talking about this I'm confident we can hammer out the details to make it work

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

Hey Leo

About that idea ,it's just an idea.I knew it would probably a bit to extreme given what we want here.

 

[Chieftess]

Hi Duck! Anyway, the first Civ3 demogame had Citizen's Groups. These were special interest groups that talked about certain aspects of the game. For example, my Spice Traders Guild was about the trade of spices. The War Church was a warmongers type group, wanting to expand into certain areas (which we eventually did by game's end, thanks to an oppurtunistic AI). There were other groups, but none lasting as long as these two. (BTW, we eventually - for a brief time - had control of ALL the spices in the game).

In the Civ3DG2 however, these groups aren't as popular. I attribute some of that to the Demogame RPG, which has taken on a life of its' own, and until recently, was only 10% demogame related. (It's getting better now, but not by much).

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Something like Duck's suggestion would be great - two civs working together - deciding whether to help each other... or not . It would be like a massive collaborative PBEM. The biggest problem would be that the two people would have to alternate turns when it was time to play, slowing things down to a crawl. It could take a week just to play the turns! I doubt we could hold everyone's interest doing it that way.

 

[Chieftess]

The Civ3 Multisite Demogame (and that's 540 turns!) could take up to two years to finish! Civ2 (with around 640 turns) might be close to 3. - that's if you play a turn a day.

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

If only i could persuade firaxis to program a little addon for civ to play it demo game style ,i have send them some e-mail's over time ,but they never react.

For example ,i asked them if it was possible to program a proggy for civ so that you could folow the game on an other computer ,withought actually playing it.Would be great for the turn chat's of the civIII demo game ,just that you could view what happens in the game ,but no ,no reaction.

But one thing i know for sure ,an actual programmed democracy game might be a succes if made well.I said to firaxis that such a game might get very popular and so much money could be made after it ,thinking they would go for the gold ,yet.......


The splitting up civ's idea ,it could make a super fun game ,though i fear indeed that it's practicly impossible to implement.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Here's an idea. The forum plays a civ and I play a civ and see what happens.

 

[Kev]

Well, here's the idea I sort of semi-floated in the general thread:

Have a 3rd party create a map - someone like Smash who's been able to help us out in the past. It may have to be done as a scenario, but what the heck.

Have the creator (we'd have to worship him at our temples I guess) do an accelerated startup and customize our own civ - I guess through the cheat menu. Give us a start of 3 different cities but have each start on a separate island that can hold maybe about 5 or 6 cities each (Give the AI's 3 cities to start as well). We would be one civilization, but each island/province would have its own concerns and desires. All 3, however, would answer to a single president and cabinet - though they can hold their own polls and the like. Perhaps make it so you can only vote in the polls coming from your own island.

This can provide some interesting gameplay, though I'm sure things would have to be tweaked to make it work optimally. Perhaps one island would be more militaristic minded while another more commerce driven. Perhaps there would be battles to decide where the SSC city would be built - things the cabinet would have to discuss and decide upon. So too might there be more participation - especially in voting members into office since you'd like to get 'your person' into those key spots.

Still, we'd all be one civ so when the other islands do well, the whole civ does well.

This can also be a way to keep us at a city cap. No building off of the 3 islands. This would end arguments of who controlls non-island colonies, and would make the city placements on you home area very important. We would have to implement the razing of any foreign city, or just remain isolationist and implement a 'no attacking foreign city' rule.

Two problems:

1. Flaming other islands. Sure, we'd expect some good-natured ribbing and jokes, but it may get ugly. Espeically true where elections are concerned. Still, being a single civ would help to make sure we all work together.
2. Attrition. One group may have dropouts resulting in having only 1 or 2 people where others retain their players and have 6 or more. I guess we can have people move to take up slack, but it may be tough when you have invested a lot with your own group.

Probably other difficulties I'm not seeing - like how to make such a map or something like that. Still, it's almost like the Greeks with the Athenians, Spartans, etc.

Just a thought.