{The List -} Government & Social Engineering

[Roman]

Originally posted by Fosse


With one exception: Tax rates. I should be able to have 7% of my income going to tax, and 3% to entertainment if I want.

If you want to do that than the measure of wealth will have to be decreased in value to allow for finer graduations (think CTP Gold versus Civ III Gold). Currently, none of your civilization's cities are likely to be earning more than 100 gold until rather late in the game, so such a fine graduation of tax rates is unnecessary, but as I said - this could be rectified by decreasing the value of a gold piece by say 10 fold.

[Fosse]

You make a good point. In fact, I have always wanted this decrease in value, and increase in amounts. It allows for more distinction in tiles that way.

With Civ 3 we get tiles with 0 shileds, 1 shield, 2 or 3 shileds. Why not make it 10, 20 and 30, so that we can have more terrains with real differences in productive capability?

Good point Roman, and I think that it is the way to go.

[Trifna]

You can limit this technologically as you can limit anything technologically. I don't see why it couldn't be limited technologically. Theocracy needs religion, kings need monarchy, etc. Perhaps that some parts are there to start with, but it all evolves.

Azazel: My thread wasn't to say which traits it'd influence. ALL traits, whattever what they are, are influenced by this. To know which traits should be included, we'd need to know which traits are forming a society (demography, happiness, capacity to build armies, taxes...).

My goal was alot more to resume a society in a few aspects, and not simply to bring some aspects to be included. It's not a bunch of dissociated elements, it's a whole forming one society. All these categories, resuming what would be more complicated if put as scroll bars, are saying everything concerning the general mold of a society.

[Kuciwalker]

skywalker... you would limit it technologically the same way you do in Civ 3 or SMAC. You have to discover a technology that unlocks a certain government chioce option. Just like you research Monarchy in Civ 3.

That doesn't really work, however, because certain combinations need to be at a certain tech, even if all of the individual components have been researched.

Plus, there are only so many variations in the real world. Leave it that way.

[Trifna]

I think I can update and resume my way of looking at this:



Goal

The goal is to look at what forms a government and to see how we could bring all this government in a few aspects. The ones I see are "System of values", "Justification of power", "Control system [justice, police...]", "Statecraft", "Administrative structure", "Economic system".




Definitions

- System of values: what forms the core belief for someone's life
- Justification of power: what is the rulers' justification for their power
- Control system: how citizens are controlled (justice, police...)
- Statecraft: who is put to direct the state, which necessarily implies how the state is ruled and its philosophy
- Administrative structure: the way power is divided between the main part the subdivisions
- Economic system: how economy is ruled





Difference with Civ 3 system, and this system's way to look at the problem

The main difference here is that it is about showing what structures and forms the government, not about showing a few possible results to chose from. In other words, it is not about creating categories like "fascism" and "democracy" as in precedent titles, but to show what is forming societies and, of course, someone can bring fascism or representative democracy (or what pleases him) by puting what forms that. ANY society can be built through such a system, in its broad aspects. Everything that forms a government should be there in a simple way.




Example that I brang earlier (updated, and not perfect)

*System of values*
religion - science - nobility [goes from European nobles to Confucius] - individualistic freedom - nationalism

*Justification of power*
theocratic - nationalist - militarily enforced - representativity - self-governance - nobility - technocratic

*Control system*
theocratic - oligarchic - martial - tribal or local - free for all [each locality organized itself as they wish and can]

*Statecraft*
totalitarian [includes king only, pope or else, depending on "justification of power"] - oligarchic [includes king + nobles or whattever else] - moderate democracy [some have more power, like actual democracies] - total democracy

*Administrative structure*
centralized - federation - republic - [Switzerland-like] - decentralized [includes anarchist local self-government, tribal local governance...]

*Economic system*
communism - soft-line communism [not following completely] - wealth state - moderate capitalism - complete capitalism

[Kuciwalker]

What's a valor? I saw your defintion, but AFAIK, the only meaning of the word "valor" is bravery and/or honor.

[Trifna]

skywalker: No. Valor to me is what socially counts for you, what forms your social ideal. Perhaps my term is not chosen well, I guess "values" perhaps would be better? If you have a better term to propose, go ahead and propose.

Besides, I know that the example is still not perfect. Yet, it's only there to show how it can work. A very easy example to point out is that we only see communism and capitalism while obviously it doesn't reflect Middle Ages or before.

[Kuciwalker]

Yes, values would be better

[Stefu]

I'd like a sort-of-social-engineering system, but only limited to a choice of government and a choice of an economic system, and some other, simpler choices. With government, you get your usual Despotism - Monarchy - Theocracy - Democracy - Totalitarianism thang, with Economics you'd get Autarchy - Mercantilism - Capitalism - Socialism - Communism or something like that. Then there'd be a number of smaller choices. Some depend on the form of government you have.

The smaller choices would be something like "Slavery yes/no", "A feudal system yes/no" (only if you're a monarchy", "How do we treat the minority X persecution/assimilation/multiculturalism" (persecution not available to democracies), "Who gets the vote? Landowning majority-population majority-religion men [ ] and non-landowners [ ] and minority populations [ ] and minority religions [ ] and women [ ]" (democracies only, if you check everything you're giving the vote to everyone) and so on.

In democracy, there could be an elected assembly with some limited powers - mainly deciding on going to war, the smaller issues and the economic choices, as well as have some influence about the tax rates. And they could occassionally decide to build something somewhere. They shouldn't complicate being a democracy too much, though - the player should get veto powers, to a degree, though using it too much will eventually lead to the people getting pissed off. You could have different parties - Conservatives, Liberals, Socialists and what have you.

[Fosse]

Originally posted by skywalker

skywalker... you would limit it technologically the same way you do in Civ 3 or SMAC. You have to discover a technology that unlocks a certain government chioce option. Just like you research Monarchy in Civ 3.

That doesn't really work, however, because certain combinations need to be at a certain tech, even if all of the individual components have been researched.

Plus, there are only so many variations in the real world. Leave it that way.

Well, theoretically you could simply limit combonations even if components are available. But I would disagree with the idea that this is true.
A system could be devised with a little work that would prevent clearly inappropriate historical combinations. And if some historically inaccurate combinations are possible, so be it. Nobody every conquered the world with knights, either.


And there aren't "only so many variations in the real world." Every single democracy is markedly different, just as every economy is. Many differences are too small to deal with in Civ, true, but we're talking about something that would give the player an extra degree of control at the macroscopic level. Why shoehorn us into one of five or six unalterable modes?

Why can't I have a democratically elected state that loves war?
Why can't I have a benevolent dictatorship in the 20th century?
Why can't I can't my communist society elect its leaders?

This is, after all, a game.

Besides, so many of the choices that impact how your society works don't have to be strictly government/economy based. We have the "valors" values, we can have militarism, trade attitudes.



We should be able to set Politics, Economics, and then any number of Values.

[Fosse]

Cross post with Stefu. I essentially agree that what he said could be really good.

[Optimizer]

I believe that a group of sliders like the one in Europa Universalis could simulate most historical and hypothetical forms of governments and policies. Some sliders would be available as certain techs are discovered.

Examples on policy sliders and their impact on the game:

* Market economy: A high value makes industrial buildings faster to build, but it decreases tax income.

* Gender equality: A high value increases industrial production but decreases fertility.

* Natonalism: A high value decreases war weariness but decreases the assimilation rate.

* Religiosity: A high value increases the power of Temples but makes policy changes more expensive.

* Political climate: A high value increases the efficiency of military police but decreases science.

* Centralization: A high value makes policy changes easier, but increases the risk of civil war.

[filix]

market and planed

Originally posted by Optimizer

Examples on policies and their impact on the game:

* Economic policy: market (economic and industrial structures cheaper) vs planned (greater tax income)

In my poinion planned should be more productive because the planer has direct influence of the goods produktion. I think thats the reason why communism is more productive (in ctp) than democrathy
At the market the capital is used for the most produktive use. But that is not always what the president want. Market should have more tax income and less produktion than planed economy.
I`m not sure how science should be handeld but i thin democrthy should have the benifit. I like the ctp solution of democrathy vs communism. There it is possible to substitue the sience bonus of democrathy with the production bonus of cmmunism.
Perhaps we should ask an economist, but keep in mind that the UDSSR was a very powerful nation in reality for a long time...
bla bla
Anyway i think a big tax income cant be the benifit of a planed economy because on a planed economy there is the need of subventions and other price regulations which are not cheap.

Can anyone exlain it with a economy circle in english?
With a pole of state production and enterprise produktion.
Perhaps im wrong but market and planed should be equals

[Nikolai]

I like the system Trifna & co is proposing. As for tax, I'd like to see some limitations based on the economic part of the system. So that a capitalistic system can't have it's tax rate higher than say 50 %. What do you think?

[Az]

Personally, I think that science rates are completely unrealistic. Did you know that we actually use only some 2 percent of our output on science?

Personally, I think that in earlier times, we should have much more sever caps on science.