Unit Workshop for governments

[The diplomat]

I was just thinking: what if SMAC's Unit workshop system could be used for governments. I am not talking about Social Engineering, that dealt with society as a whole. I am talking a workshop just for governments, where the player would mix and match modules to create a huge variety of different governments.

There would be a government workshop screen, with 4 slots, executive, legislative, judicial, and political parties. The player would pick a different type in each slot, to custom make their government.

The executive types could be: despot, monarch, president, council, elected assembly, appointed assembly.
(The council type represents a system with a small group of people that debate and decide on all executive decisions together. it would be similar to the Soviet Politburo or the advisor councils in the SMAC novels).

The legislative types could be: none, elected legislator, appointed legislator, elected senate, appointed senate.
(The legislator type represents a single person separate from the exec that is charged with only making legislative decisions. If the player wants a goverment without separation of powers, they pick the "none" type for legislative and judicial branches).

The judicial types could be: none, elected judge, appointed judge, elected court, appointed court.

The political parties could be: war party, peace party, green party, religious party, labor party, technology party.

The political party type would give you SE type bonuses if the senate majority was the same party. If your government has no elected legislative, then you would always get the bonus.

Like the unit workshop, as tech made new types available, the player could combine types to create a new government type, and save it (the computer would provide a standard name but the player could rename).
Once different templates were saved, the player could switch governments whenever they chose to.
Of course, it would cost something to switch government types depending on how radical the switch.

Like the unit workshop in SMAC, this system would allow a great diversity of governments. it would no longer be an all or nothing proposition, like democracy or despotism but nothing in between. For example, if I want a US type government, I would pick president (exec), elected senate (legislative), appointed court (judicial).

This system would not only allow many historical governments, but also many hypothetical governments.

[LDiCesare]

Interesting idea. I'd just like to point out one more variation, whch doesn't show in your example but is hugely important: Whether there is a single legislative assembly or two. During the French revolution, there was only one, and it got carried away easily. Setting up two assemblies allows things to calms down a bit and was done to prevent things like "La Terreur" from happening again. Note Great Britain also has two houses (commons and lords).
If you look at Galciv, the party-bonus thing is implemented. Note that you get penalties when you lose elections, based on your party and the majority party.
You might want to put a freedom of speech (journalism) section in the government thing too, since propaganda is part of the government.

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
Interesting idea. I'd just like to point out one more variation, whch doesn't show in your example but is hugely important: Whether there is a single legislative assembly or two. During the French revolution, there was only one, and it got carried away easily. Setting up two assemblies allows things to calms down a bit and was done to prevent things like "La Terreur" from happening again. Note Great Britain also has two houses (commons and lords).
If you look at Galciv, the party-bonus thing is implemented. Note that you get penalties when you lose elections, based on your party and the majority party.

Easy enough. The "Senate" type could be split into "Single body Congress" and "Two body Congress". There could also be a type for a two body congress where one body is elected and the other not. That would be interesting!

You might want to put a freedom of speech (journalism) section in the government thing too, since propaganda is part of the government.

I am not sure how that would be implemented in my system. My model only has slots for exec, legislative, judicial and political parties. "Freedom of speech" does not seem to really fit any of those slots directly.

Your idea of "free speech" made me think of something. Maybe we could add a "freedom Party". It would advocate a maximum level of freedom in all aspects of life.

On the other hand, perhaps free speech could be a SE thing and done separately in a SE screen.

[The diplomat]

I am not 100% sure what kind of gameplay effects each government type should have. The idea is still rather preliminary.

There seems to be 3 different solutions:

1) unique powers.
Each type would give the player a unique power. For example, despot would have the "forced labor" power (rush construction but lose a pop, like in civ3), the senate could have the "cease-fire" ability (force a 10 turn cease-fire, cost money).

Depending on the government, the player could have up to 3 powers (one from the exec, one from the legislative, one from the judicial).

Mix-matching exec, legislative and judicial could produce governments with interesting combinations of powers, that would give players unique strategies.

2) SE bonuses

Each type could give the player certain SE effects, like +1 industry, -2 Police etc...

Again, mix-matching types could produce interesting governments with strategically interesting SE combinations.

The disadvantage of such a system, is that it would transform an interesting government workshop idea into basically another SE system.

3) Authority points

Each Executive type would give the player a certain number of "authority points" (AP).
The player would spend AP's and money to "buy" SE bonuses. For, example the player could spend 1 AP and 10 gold to "buy" +1 Police.

An elected type Exec would give the player a variable amount of AP's, based on unrest. The more unrest, the less AP's, the player would get, and vice versa. At regular intervals, there would be elections, where the computer would calculate the number of AP's the player deserves based on unrest.
A selected type of exec would give the player a fixed number of AP's. For selected types, of course, there would be no elections.

For the legislative branch, each type would give the computer a certain number of AP's. The computer would spend those AP's based on which political party is in charge of the senate. The political party would be either picked by the player if the senate is a "selected" type, or based on population feelings (the game would keep track of the popularity of each party among the general pop based on game events) if the senate is elected. For the elected types, there would also be regular elections to recalculate which party should be in power.

For the judicial, the types would simply modify the number of AP's that the Exec and Legislative get.

Note that "buying" SE bonuses would essentially simulate passing laws.

The system would have the benefit of giving the player a lot of SE flexibility since the player could "buy" whichever SE bonus he/she feels is right. It would also make governments fairly realistic since for elected types, the player would have to consider their SE preferences versus the Senate's preferences. For example, say the player "buys" +1 industry. Well, if the Labor party is in party, they would probably also "buy" +1 industry. The net result would be +2 industry. Conversely, if the green party were in power, they would probably "buy" -1 industry. The net result would be 0. So, government could work in sync or not depending on the situation.

Personally, I prefer 1 (unique powers) or 3 (authority points), in that order. But there might be other interesting ways of applying the government workshop idea other than these 3 that I mentionned.

[GePap]

Unit worshop for governments would be too complex: the AI would have real troubles with it, or it would eat up lots of its time.

I think the Social engineering scales of SMAC are much better suited to the creation of goevrnments. You can go ahead and epxand it beyond just three choices per line and you could add more lines. BUt such a system would work better, and the Ai might use it more efefctively. As with SMAC perhaps you could limt choices based on civ, though this would be controversial.

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by GePap
Unit worshop for governments would be too complex: the AI would have real troubles with it, or it would eat up lots of its time.

Didn't the SMAC AI handle the unit workshop well enough? A government workshop is based on the same concepts as the unit workshop: you just have government modules instead of armor or weapons modules!

In terms of which type to choose, you could simply preprogram the AI to always prefer certain combos as soon as they become available. That is what SMAC did with SE!

I'll admit that #3 which uses authority points might give the AI a little headache. But, I think that #1 (unique powers) would be easier for the AI, and would also be very simple and intuitive for the beginner human player as well.

Obviously a strong AI is important, but shouldn't a game be designed first and foremost for the human to enjoy?

I think the Social engineering scales of SMAC are much better suited to the creation of goevrnments. You can go ahead and epxand it beyond just three choices per line and you could add more lines. BUt such a system would work better, and the Ai might use it more efefctively. As with SMAC perhaps you could limt choices based on civ, though this would be controversial.

Well, the SE in SMAC is a great feature that worked superbly. However, it was a bit limited because you could only get certain combos of SE bonuses. The authority points idea would give the player much more flexibility, since they could "buy" whichever SE bonuses they wanted to, instead of being limited to the SE choices in the game.

Also, the problem with simply adding more SE choices, is that it would make gameplay balance more difficult. You could end with a situation where players almost never use certain SE choices.

The purpose of the government workshop idea is to give the player maximum flexibility in creating different governments.

[LDiCesare]

Obviously a strong AI is important, but shouldn't a game be designed first and foremost for the human to enjoy?

If the ai is never a match for the player, then I won't enjoy it. Since I don't play MP, an ai that can handle the game concepts is a must.
Note that the ai doesn't have to make the same decisions as the player. It could use a set of template governments from which to choose. It would thus have to compare a few possibilities instead of the whole computational complexity humans can play with. This means the ai wouldn't be as efficient as the player in some cases, but it would be possible to improve it by scripting/scenarios.

[GePap]

Also, the problem with simply adding more SE choices, is that it would make gameplay balance more difficult. You could end with a situation where players almost never use certain SE choices.

The purpose of the government workshop idea is to give the player maximum flexibility in creating different governments.

The very same thing was true about the unit workshop and units.

The fact is that a very small number of basic choices give you the vast amount of real life government choices. The only time when a Goverment worshop wouldbe trully usefull would be if internal politics really became and issue. and I find that unlikely.