Government Model v.2

[Lord God Jinnai]

quote: Originally posted by F_Smith on 08-31-2000 09:50 PM The ruler can indeed fight against giving power to the people. The player can keep the 51% in his hands. He'll see his civ outpaced by more 'free' countries, in production and research, but if he'd rather keep the reigns of govt for war purposes so be it.

Well i don't believe in arbitrarily punishing the ruler for keeping a 51% control or whatnot. More freedom doesn't ness. mean more advancement. Take post-WWII Germany. It expanded much more rapidly when there was a dictatorship then when a democracy was in place. In fact it outpaced every other country in the owrld, save japan, which also had a dictatorship. Now the US also came along and outpaced both of them combined, but the US also had tons more resources to draw on than they did.

Also in modern day look at China. Barring the recent collapse in the asian stock market which also affected democratic countries like japan, China was outpacing every other country in the world as far as how fast its economy was growing.

On the other hand, there's Russia, a democracy that is in many ways doing worse than it was during the cold war (some progress in some economic areas, but on the whole not).

So with that said, as long as the player makes wise choices he can still control enough of the power under your system to do whatever the hell he wants and still keep up with the rest of the world (cept maybe socially).

[F_Smith]

Lordy:

The ruler will be encouraged to take a 'minority' position in the govt because groups' 'happiness' will be directly related to their representation in the govt. And Happy people will perform/produce more. So the only way to have a top-flight econ is to give the people a big share of the power.

And with the 'politics' game, the player can still have some decent amount of control in a more 'modern' govt, in which the ruler is in the minority. With the 'default' system, the ruler with minority power will have very little impact at all.

For the 'Middle Ages King' you mention, in real life that king passed laws. As long as he controlled the military/police, the laws were enforced. As you said, the Church could 'excommunicate' him, re-acting, trying to force their will on the player. But they can't force the King to change a law or policy. It is up to the king/Player.

One other thing -- the 'default' system doesn't seem to work at all for groups with a definite opinion, as most groups in real life seem to have. As I said, if a ruler with 50% of the power wants an 80% tax rate, and the people with 50% of the power want a 20% tax rate, the people are *not* going to happily compromise at a 50% tax rate, as they will in the default system.

* * *

Richard:

I suppose we could have that as an optional GUI. But again, if you take away the uncertainty, there's not much point in using the politics game anyway.

I think we've stumbled onto an interesting point here -- there are, broadly speaking, two kinds of 'games' we can make here.

[*]A pure 'sim'. A series of equations that takes inputs and generates outputs. The player alters inputs to get different outputs.[*]An 'uncertainty' system. The player has a choice of several actions, each of which may or may not work as planned. The player chooses an action, then watches the outcome.[/list=a]

I don't think we want to make a 'world' sim, here, do we? Shouldn't the always be a chance that an action by a ruler could fail? Otherwise, it isn't so much a game as a 'data engine'.

[Richard Bruns]

quote: Originally posted by F_Smith on 08-31-2000 09:50 PM Richard: If a player does exactly the same thing twice exactly the same way, should the result be the same? To me, that's a mistake. I don't think it should. I want a game in which the outcome of each turn is uncertain. That's what I mean by 'uncertainty'.

quote: Originally posted by Richard Bruns If you set foul play to unlimited and choose a red value, you cannot predict what the consequences will be. Your agents might bribe someone and get the thing passed peaefully and without much conflict. Or, they might be forced to brutally supress the opposing party, an action that leads to widespread rioting.

quote: Originally posted by Richard Bruns Of course, I would still have to deal with the consequences of my actions, and those consequences are uncertain. The people might agree with only a little persuasion, or they could all get really mad.

Like Toubabo_Koomi said, the people's reactions are in the riots model and not the government model. The player might be able to predict what the government model will do, but it is my understanding that the riots model is designed to be unpredictable.
[This message has been edited by Richard Bruns (edited September 01, 2000).]

[F_Smith]

TK:

Actually, right now, the people don't have any say about taxes at all. That's been left for later. Even the he ruler just sets any taxation level they want, in the default game.

I've been thru the riots model pretty thouroughly.

Unless I missed it, the 'riots' model (which should actually be renamed to something like 'happiness model') doesn't cover taxation levels. At least as of now. It makes allowances that later, the Upper Class may have a reaction to taxes, but that's it.

* * *

Lordy:

It's not 'arbitrary'. We want to encourage a ruler to develop governments like the ones that have actually come about, don't we? If we build a govt game that encourages people to keep all control in their hands, we'll end up with a game dominated by dictatorships.

Then we'll have failed to come up with a 'realistic' model.

I disagree strongly, I believe that all other things being equal, freedom produces happiness and productivity. When Germany did well after WWI (I assume you mean), it was a free country, a democracy. Japan never matched the other nations in production or creativity, when they were an Empire. China is experiencing a boom because they have instituted free market reforms. And Russia, in spite of pretending to be 'free', still is clearly in the Iron grip of the same powerful people. Putin's secret police still storm into Media offices with no cause (other than being unhappy about the coverage!).

Yes, a player could still run a happy, productive Dictatorship. It's just not going to be the most productive possible society in the game.

* * *

Richard:

But even including the 'riots' model, there will still be no 'uncertainty of outcome' once you know the rules. If you do discriminate against people, they'll get mad. If they get too mad, they send a note. If you still ignore them, they rebel.

It's designed to work like an equation, not a game.

I assume you've played Caesar 3. Or Sim City. In those games, it's a matter of learning the perfect order to do things in. Or memorizing the perfect order of moves to accomplish a task. You do this, that always happens.

A seasoned player will know exactly what the outcome of every move will be. The only 'game' part is in the combat/competition with other players/civs. If an action can never fail, the only 'uncertainty' is in the outcome of the chain of events. Once you learn the chain, the outcome is no longer uncertain.


[This message has been edited by F_Smith (edited September 01, 2000).]

[Richard Bruns]

F_Smith:

My GUI has exactly the same randomness as your system. This is because it is based on your and Rodrigo's systems. It has no new rules, aside from automatic escalation of foul play.

There is no way to predict what actions the goon squad will have to take. Their actions are as random in my GUI as they are in your system.

Here is the only difference:

In your system, you order a bribe. If it works, the measure passes, and if it doesn't work the measure fails.

Results: X% chance pass, Y% chance fail

In my interface, you order a set of covert actions. If the bribe works, the measure passes and people are not mad. If the bribe does not work, your people order more extreme measures, the measure passes, and people are unhappy.

Results: X% chance pass without unrest, Y% chance pass with unrest.

Note that X and Y are the same in both cases. That is because my GUI uses exactly the same equations as your system. Your system and Rodrogo's system are the things that are powering the interface I am proposing. So the GUI has exactly the same randomness as your equations.

And players will have the option to prevent escalation to the more extreme measures. So your current system is a special case of the GUI.

The only difference is that the randomness does different things. It is just as unpredictable as what you have because it IS what you have.

[F_Smith]

Richard:

Actually, the 'automation' of the 'foul play' is removing a large part of the 'randomness'.

First, you won't know if the bribe 'fails' until after the vote, after the turn. The bribee will take the money, and promise to support many times. Whether the bribee actually *does* support you is not predictable, it'll be random, based upon honesty levels, the amount of the bribe, etc. So if a bribe fails, the solution might not be escalation to more serious foul play. Maybe just try a bigger bribe next time. Or try to bribe a different leader. Or a different group entirely. Or maybe you want to put the hit on the guy for taking your money.

But it *has* to require a decision to be made *by the player*. It *can not* be automated. If it's automated, it's a puzzle, instead of a game.

If a player's action fails, the player must be in charge of the decision on how to proceed. There are choices to be made that should not be automatic.

We really have different ideas of how to make a game.

Ya'll seem to be after a 'sim' game. My idea of a game goes beyond that. Fortunately, we can put both sets of ideas in this game, if ya'll don't mind.

Again, I assume you're a veteran of Sim City, Caesar 3, etc. Have you played Railroad Tycoon 2?

Those are 'puzzle' games. What ya'll are focused on building here is another 'puzzle' game. The 'game' is played by learning the complex 'if-this-then-that' interactions of the system. Once you 'figure out' the puzzle, the game gets repetitive quickly. It's a matter of 'build orders'. If you play a scenario building exactly the same things at the same times in the same places, then the outcome will be the same.

A given set of turn inputs always produces the same output. If the output *is* always the same, then the game will get repetitive.
[This message has been edited by F_Smith (edited September 01, 2000).]

[Mark_Everson]

On dictatorship vs freer countries advancement:

I think its a pretty clear historical fact that free societies do better in the long run. Dictatorships can be better in the short run during wartimes, or when 'catching up' economically. However we could argue this forever...

The point I would make in terms of gameplay. Dictatorships clearly offer the player more scope for action. If there is no penalty for this, which is what LGJ seems to be suggesting, then everyone will want to be a dictator. Is That a fun game? Why would a player Ever want to put up with all the crap involved in being a democratic leader if there were no advantage? So I think, along with F_Smith and probably many others, that we should include penalties for dictatorships and authoritarian governments in tech advancement and many other areas. The size of these penalties should of course be determined by playtesting.


Randomness vs Determinism:

If the player can always predict what can happen then the model is a failure IMO. But I think the deterministic riots model is so complicated it may defy prediction anyway! I don't think determinism is such a sin in a complicated model, because the chance of Ever being under the exact same conditions is vanishingly small. If it is predictable, then I would vote strongly for putting randomness in it. But that is easily done if we decide its needed.

If the government model is so twitchy that the player constantly needs to have their hand on it, then its against our whole design philosophy. We want to reduce the need for micromanagement while enabling the player to drill down deep into each area if they like. The colored slider system is just one way to handle the reduced-micromanagement part of the scale.

Of course if the AI can handle the twitchiness ok, then there's no problem. But a very nonlinear system like the 51% one is Very difficult to do good AI for. Besides, the 51% system is deterministic Also. So I don't understand completely the claims that one is predictable and the other isn't.

But the most important issues are playablility and fun. We won't know the answers on those for the respective systems for quite some time.

[Richard Bruns]

F_Smith:

How many times do I have to say that the sliders are exactly the same thing that you proposed? They do not make a new system. They simply put an interface on your equations. They use your system of computing things. The sliders do not tell exactly what will happen. They simply show how much support something has. Green means that a certain size of coalition supports the thing. Orange means that a certain percent of the power supports the thing. They do not predict what will happen. They simply give the player information and serve as a quick interface.

Every time you are criticising the sliders, you are criticising your own system. The sliders are based on nothing other than what you described.

The thing you seem to object to is the automatic change in foul play. Let me try to explain why this is not a new or different thing:

If the player really needs something, that player will not tolerate failure. Suppose that I am playing a game and need to gat a lot of taxes to support an emergency military buildup. I will want to raise the most taxes possible while minimizing the amount of unrest that results.

If I did not have the automatic escalation, I would do the following:

1) Save the game
2) Set the tax increase and try the least severe action.
3) If that didn't work, reload the game and try a different action.
4) If that didn't work, reload the game and try a more severe action.
5) If that didn't work, go to step 3.

Players WILL do this. If the need for the proposal is vital and the country is in danger, they will keep trying and reloading until they get the increase with the minimum possible consequences.

The automatic increase in severity is simply an automation of this process. It is exactly the same thing that the player would do anyway. It turns an annoting and time consuming process into a quick calculation. It does exactly the same thing that your proposed interface does, but it does it in a way that causes the player less grief.

You have a good point about not knowing the outcome until after the vote. But why must there be only one vote per turn? The automatic escalation assumes that you can call many votes over a period of one turn. If the bribe in the first vote didn't work, you can submit the proposal again, pretend it is different, use different underhanded measures, and vote again.

I do not want to play political games when the country is in danger of being destroyed. I do not want a vital defense measure to fail because I didn't micromanage a few percentage points of support properly. The slider GUI is simply a way to reduce the micromanagement in your system.
[This message has been edited by Richard Bruns (edited September 01, 2000).]

[F_Smith]

Richard:

I am only disagreeing with the automation of 'foul play' escalation. As I said above, the sliders would work for just setting a policy, if you want them.

The player will *have* to tolerate failure. The possibility of failure is a *must*, if this is going to be a 'game'.

Yes, in single player games, some players will 'cheat', when they couldn't get what they wanted. When they fail to get a tax increase thru at a critical time, because they messed up and have to have it now, they will reload. That's their right. They lost -- but they can cheat instead of starting over. If someone wants to cheat the game rules because no one is looking, so be it. And if someone playing Chess against themselves wants to move pieces around, that is *their* right. If someone want's to cheat while playing solitaire, who am I to complain?

They couldn't do that during muliplayer games, tho.

And they can't say they 'won' the game.

Besides, the increase in severity is *not* automatic. It can *not* be what the player would do, because you don't know what the player would do. Or rather, each player would do something different. The same player might do different things, depending on mood.

The player *must* first find out if the first action was successful. That requires a turn ending, unless we're going to begin allowing multiple actions in a turn, which is a possibility. Then the player *must* select from several possible choices -- live with the results, repeat the bribe hoping things turn out differently, bribe using more money, arrest the fool, kill him, etc. There is no way to know which to 'automatically' do.

That is my idea of a game.

A choice must be made by the player. You wait until the turn is over to see if that choice worked, then you make other choices.

If you automate making those choices, you remove the 'game' part.

Finally, if you don't want to play politics, then you should probably leave the Politics game turned off, agreed?

[Lord God Jinnai]

quote: It's not 'arbitrary'. We want to encourage a ruler to develop governments like the ones that have actually come about, don't we? If we build a govt game that encourages people to keep all control in their hands, we'll end up with a game dominated by dictatorships. Then we'll have failed to come up with a 'realistic' model. I disagree strongly, I believe that all other things being equal, freedom produces happiness and productivity. When Germany did well after WWI (I assume you mean), it was a free country, a democracy. Japan never matched the other nations in production or creativity, when they were an Empire. China is experiencing a boom because they have instituted free market reforms. And Russia, in spite of pretending to be 'free', still is clearly in the Iron grip of the same powerful people. Putin's secret police still storm into Media offices with no cause (other than being unhappy about the coverage!). Yes, a player could still run a happy, productive Dictatorship. It's just not going to be the most productive possible society in the game.

quote: On dictatorship vs freer countries advancement: I think its a pretty clear historical fact that free societies do better in the long run. Dictatorships can be better in the short run during wartimes, or when 'catching up' economically. However we could argue this forever... The point I would make in terms of gameplay. Dictatorships clearly offer the player more scope for action. If there is no penalty for this, which is what LGJ seems to be suggesting, then everyone will want to be a dictator. Is That a fun game? Why would a player Ever want to put up with all the crap involved in being a democratic leader if there were no advantage? So I think, along with F_Smith and probably many others, that we should include penalties for dictatorships and authoritarian governments in tech advancement and many other areas. The size of these penalties should of course be determined by playtesting.

Ok here's what I think: As long as there isn't an arbitrary penalty at any stage for keeping a dictatorship then yes, I'll agree that a more democratic (not democracy as the gov. your talking about are republics) can lead to more speedy outcome, in the long run (BTW Germany after WWI was the only country not to see the 'boom' the rest of the world did until Hitler took over). Anyway, it is my opinion that the people might push for more power so long as they view it as benifitial to themselves. They will also push for the opposite if they see nothing being done or their security or children's is at stake. How much so is up in the air, but that's how it is.

Anyway the thing i don't like about your system is that it gives too much power to anyway so long as they have 51% without negotionating aliances or whatever. Like my example of the player who wants to keep control of everything by reaching for 51% so he can try to also keep the people as happy as possible without loosing control and will micromange to the extreme to make sure that 1% point that makes all the differance doesn't get lost. That isn't how things work and that is the only thing i see flawed with your proposal. It gives too much power to those who have a centain minimum percentage. If you come up with a way that a player still hasto negotiate for things to be done no matter what percentage, save 100%, then most of my arguments will disappear.

[axi]

You have a nice discussion here gentlemen, but, to be sincere, I'm lost. You probably have noticed that I haven't replied to this thread since 29 Aug, which is many posts ago. Well, to be frank, I was disheartened by some things I read here, by the chaos and the vanity of this discussion. I decided to wait for a while, to see what other people, except Rodrigo, me and F_Smith think about government in Clash. Now I am going to comment on what I saw:

1) F_Smith wrote (29Aug/09:36):

quote: Yeah, I believe Axi is talking about the 'econ' model. For the govt-system's purposes, 'social classes' don't matter, except as a provider of input values. They're just 'variables', so to speak. I'm just trying to understand what page he's on, so I can move in that direction soon. But no, none of this is getting coded yet.

No, I was not talking about the econ model, I was talking about social classes as OBJECTS. As such, they have to contain all data that refer to them, regardless if they are economic or political data. Social classes will eventually end to be about the most complex object classes in the entire game, since they will contain the behavior of the people against all aspects of their life: politics, economy, investment, research, military, culture, etc. Alot of models will demand for alot of variables which are classes attributes. This is simply a prediction; you know OOD way, way better than me; if I'm wrong, just say so.

2) About the "Politics" procedure:
Richard wrote (29Aug 14:44):

quote: I have an idea for the interface. Hopefully it can combine F_Smith's and Rodrigo's systems so everyone is satisfied: Initially, the allowable range on the slider is any policy that can get support from any combination of groups with at least 51% of the power. .... The previous part of the proposal used F_Smith's ideas, and while being more accurate it can lead to thorny problems. The second part of the system is as follows: The player can ask for negotiations. This would most likely be done when the other classes' ranges do not overlap. It would have to be done if no proposal is supported by 51% of the people. ....

This reminds me very much of the election system I had proposed two weeks ago:

quote: ...Of course the PC ideology doesn't dominate all the time. There are the following possibilities: a) PC Ideology > 50%. Then the player can choose between inforcing his policy as is and finding collaborators to increase the consensus. b) Another Ideology > 50%. Two cases: i) D ii) D>Dc. The distance between the two ideologies is unbridgeable, so the PC loses the struggle. The dominant ideology is the Govt policy. c) No ideology > 50%. Then the two ideologies that share the smallest D collaborate. If they do not exceed 50%, the next bigger D is checked and either a third ideology is added to the group, or another couple is formed. This formation of groups goes on until: i) Dc is reached without any group exceeding 50%. Then a Universal Consensus Government is formed, with the participation of all Ideologies. ii) A group exceeds 50%. Two cases: 1) If the PC ideology is in the dominant group, the Govt policy is the weighted sum for this group. 2) If the PC ideology is not in the dominant group, the case is similar to case b).

Well, this sort of logic (it can be furtherly elaborate and improved, to assure a more active role for non-ruler ideologies) provides for coalitions and lets the player to pursue either a marginal or a wider majority.

F_Smith wrote (31Aug 00:04):

quote: Also, you actually bring up a great point, about being able to vary the % needed to pass a law. That is a definite enhancement to this politics system that should be included. A 'Political Body' -- 'Council', 'Senate', whatever -- can give a civ the power to control it's govt in that manner. Each govt who discovers the 'Political Body' tech and built a working 'Council' can control that % needed to pass laws to some degree, so some govts could be very hard to change policy in. The base 51%+ is clearly just a simplification, based on pure 'simple' power politics, as exists in most human interaction. As it was played in human societies for most of our past. I like it...

Surprise, surprise! F_Smith aknowledges that the 51% rule is not universal, after Rodrigo has pointed it out to him. We had just reinvented the wheel; in Aug28, I wrote:

quote: What a negotiation procedure of any kind is always lacking, is what I have mentioned before as "concentrisation". I'm not sure if the term is valid, but I'm referring to the kind of political system where some sort of "majority rule" applies. It is like the various power groups are gambling their share of power, in hope of gaining it all. As it is generally advertised, this is due to the fact that it is impossible to make realistic policies through negotiation, because of the existant ideologic distances. In reality, this is just another way for the mighty to steal the power of the weak. This doesn't ness need to be the "absolute majority" (50%), but also the "relative majority" (biggest %) and all variations where the "critical percentage", or "Consensus" is different than 50% (f.e. in the Greek Parliament, to pass a law you need 50%, to elect the president you need 60% and to revise the constitution 75%, while in the general elections, the govt usually needs about 35% of the people's votes to obtain 50% of the parliamentary seats). So I feel that the election-type system should be enhanced by a DNP called "Consensus", that will provide us with a basic "critical percentage", upon which the consensus for each individual policy should be based (f.e. it should be multiplied by a factor >1 for some DNPs like SL, ED, RD). This and the critical ideologic distance should be a measure of how cooperative the political system is and the should be derived from cultural elements. Of course, if the needed consensus is 100%, then it totally reverts into a negotiation procedure. For big numbers (like 75%), the policies will be mostly negotiated. This way, we can allow for mixed (election-negotiation) systems. I figured this out as an enhancement to my election system, if F_Smith wants to proceed into coding both ways.

Ok, I know this wasn't overlooked on purpose, but first I had to point it out and second, I just had to rant.

I feel that with these new elements (active formation of coalitions and varying consensus) the "Politics" model is mature and antagonistic of the "Negotiation" model in it's new form.

3) LGJ wrote (31Aug 10:40):

quote: There is what is known as the "minority rule" in deciding what passes/fails. Although i can't think of any country that has it, it has been used and has had important consiquences. Remember Tianemen Square (hope i didn't really screw spelling of that up). Anyway a small minority of the students wanted to stay, but most wanted to leave when they group of chinese students had their vote. They used the afore mentioned "minority rule" and so everyone stayed.

This sort of thing always happens at heroic moments in films or in real life. Obviously, the majority of the chinese students couldn't leave the square and let the minority face the military on it's own. They stayed out of solidarity for their comrades; which is a very brave thing to do. In such cases, there is always some sort of ethical dilemma, between what's logically and what's morally correct. The prevailing minority uses some sort of blackmail, even if it is in the good sense. For this to work of course, there needs to be a vast difference between the concentrisation of the body (which should be very small, meaning that the will of a majority cannot be forced upon the will of a minority) and the consensus needed by the circumstances (which should be very high, meaning that the decision must be followed by all).

Almost similar is the case of the student political organisations I participate, in the university. There is no way one can force a political line upon a minority that disagrees with it, so in the cases that we need to show up with a common line, there are fervent discussions, the outcome of which is always rather shallow politically, because it mainly consists of our common ground. We could not do things anyway else; we are not like the mainstraem political parties, which force a line unquestionably (take it or leave it) to their members. Something like this would also happen to the Clash Project if there was no Game Lead or Model Leads to take critical decisions when needed. If this is good or bad, it depends on the purpose of the body; if it wants to struggle for educational and social liberty or if it wants to perform a certain task on time.

4) Richard wrote (31Aug 19:11):

quote: My view is that if a player really wants something to happen, that player should be able to get the thing to happen. For example, suppose that I really needed to raise taxes to support a last ditch defense of a valuable province. I wouldn't want to micromanage a lot of petty politics and run the risk of my vital tax increase being rejected. I would want to set foul play to unlimited and run the tax rate up into the red zone. I would want to make sure that I get my money.

Who told you that the defense of a critical province, or any player action taken under the pressure of the circumstances will depend on politics? The govt model is supposed to have a mid term effect on the game, as the social model is supposed to have long-term effects. Critical circumstances are always short-term. Be assured that in such cases, it won't be the govt model that will prevent you from being effective, only the ineffectiveness or lack of your own preparations. Some time ago, Mark had requested that the govt model should provide for different conditions when special circumstances, such as war, occur. This post of yours has reminded me of it and I am currently working on it.

5) F_Smith wrote (31Aug 09:50):

quote: The ruler can indeed fight against giving power to the people. The player can keep the 51% in his hands. He'll see his civ outpaced by more 'free' countries, in production and research, but if he'd rather keep the reigns of govt for war purposes so be it.

LGJ wrote (01Sep 00:06):

quote: Well i don't believe in arbitrarily punishing the ruler for keeping a 51% control or whatnot. More freedom doesn't ness. mean more advancement. ..... So with that said, as long as the player makes wise choices he can still control enough of the power under your system to do whatever the hell he wants and still keep up with the rest of the world (cept maybe socially).

They are both right and wrong, but LGJ is more wrong than F_Smith. The solution against the despotic ruler (51%+ power) is that the overwhelming PAFs will not let him keep his power. Clash will probably begin with 100% ruler power in 4000bce (despotism), which will diminish as time passes and more liberal ideologies gain support and the people get unhappy with the despotic ones. So the player who wishes to keep up with despotism will have huge proplems on his hands and he will risk his "life" all the time. But this doesn't mean that we have to arbitrarily punish him (IIRC, this is the first comment I ever made on Clash govt, back in January... and Rodrigo had backed me up... Ahh, these were the days! ). Well, maybe for research, there is a point that liberty is linked with innovation, but for production there isn't such a connection. Your examples show this well enough; sometimes "success" is achieved through oppresion and conquest (Nazi Germany), sometimes through planning (Japan, USSR), sometimes by liberty and innovation (USA as it is seen by the rich white Americans ), sometimes by exploration, trade and colonialism (Venice, Spain, British Empire). Most of the times though, it is achieved due to overhwelming resources and demographics and, more important, to opportunity (which is present as a factor in all of the previous examples). So won't a despotic ruler have a worse economy than a liberal one? Well of course he will, if his workers strike and revolt every other day and if his officials are corrupt and waste all his money. The riots model can take care of him allright.

Btw, we are going to have to close this thread soon, due to the 150 posts length limitation. I feel that the initiation of a new thread calls for a new summary of the govt model. Should I do this, or would you like to do it yourself Rodrigo?

------------------
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
George Orwell

[F_Smith]

Mark:

Even in a complicated model, determinism creates predictability. Because after you play the game a dozen times, you have seen all the combinations.

I'm sure you've played Caesar 3 . . . very complicated model. Very predictable, repetitive gameplay. It was a fun puzzle, for about a month, tho. Then 'build order memorization' sets in.

Railroad Tycoon 2, same story. StarCraft, Age Of Empires, and on, and on. It isn't the complexity of the model, it's the absolute *need* for randomness.

That's what I've been trying to get here. The current models are so predictable, in fact, we are going to use colored sliders to tell the player what the outcome will be before they ever make a choice. We're actually able to pre-compute the exact outcome.

The Politics game is *not* deterministic at all. You make the exact same choices, they will turn out differently. The bribe will work sometimes, but not others. Sometimes arresting a leader will suppress his supporters, sometimes just the opposite will happen. Randomly (within certain parameters).

That's what Richard so objects to, in fact. He wants the player to be able to know the exact effects, to know his tax increase will *always* pass.

I, personally, feel that would be a mistake.

[F_Smith]

Guys:

Since the limit is up, let's just continue any 'off topic', non-default govt discussions in that other thread I started. Then let's keep the new govt thread on the topic of Rodrigo and Axi's govt model.

I am interested in discussing this at length. I enjoy hearing criticisms of an idea, it only makes the idea stronger in the long run.

And remember -- If you don't like this politics game, you don't have to play it. I personally love it, and already enjoy playing with it, which is why I wrote it. I make games for my own enjoyment, so please forgive me if I slipped this option into Clash.

[roquijad]

I didn't know there was a limit of 150 posts...

THIS THREAD IS THEN OFFICIALLY CLOSED!

A new one will be opened.

[Edit]
The new Govt thread is at: http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum21/HTML/000306.html?35

[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited March 18, 2001).]