Taking the Demo Game to a new level

[Kuciwalker]

I was thinking about how we could really roleplay the game. Some of you may recall the discussion earlier about making it a competition, with people being worth a number of bananas etc... If you remember it you know what I'm talking about.

I thought that we could really roleplay the actual governments and everything. We could start out as a dictatorship. Before we begin the game, we elect someone who will be the dictator. The point of the game is NOT to win the actual Civ3 game that we're playing. That's secondary. The goal is to get in power.

When we are in a dictatorship, the dictator has absolute power. He even has mod powers, such as editing posts etc., though he can't ban anyone. What he can do is kill someone, which means that they aren't allowed to post or vote for a week in this forum. If they violate this they are banned by Ming. After a week the person is reborn, and cannot be killed until another week has passed. There [i[are[/i] ministers, who are really just those who suck up to the dictator.

How you revolt depends on what government you are revolting into. When you revolt into the same government form, you still have to do the in-game revolution, even though it's really just a coup. During anarchy, NO PLAY IS DONE. You simply hit the end turn button. Here are the different ways:

Dictatorship: A Minister or Senator (I'll explain below) manages to get the majority of the other Ministers or Senators to support him. The Minister or Senator is now dictator.

Monarchy: Same as Dictatorship, except the person is now King.

Republic: Same as Dictatorship, except the leader is now the Chairman and the revolt can be staged by a citizen who gets two-thirds of the people to support him.

Communism: Same as Republic, except the leader is now General Secretary.

Democracy: Same as Republic, except the leader does not become President. The President is elected.

Now I'm going to explain how the different govs work (I've already explained Dictatorship, so I won't repeat myself here):

Monarchy: A Monarchy is just like a Dictatorship, except the leader is called King and he must declare a successor. After a month, the King dies (though he doesn't have the 1 week of no posting) and the successor becomes King.

Republic: There is a Senate. The Senate decides everything. Each city (or region, maybe) elects a Senator. This is why what city you live in is important (reference to the banana idea). The Chairman is elected by the Senate every month, and does not have mod powers.

Communism: Communism is a mix of Dictatorship and . The Politburo is like the Senate, except that the General Secretary chooses the candidate for each city, and as there are no opposition candidates, he effectively chooses the Politburo members. The General Secretary is chosen by the Politburo every month, when the old one dies. The General Secretary has mod powers.

Democracy: Democracy is exactly like we have now.

When someone dies (as in the monthly death, or is overthrown, not when they are killed by the ruler) they cannot hold any office for two months.

[Inverse Icarus]

i had this idea a while ago, posted it and got negative feedback. and it's essentially stupid for the people who have to "watch" until we get the appropiate techs.

and, whos to say we'd ever have a revolution?

[Kuciwalker]

People would get fed up with the dictator.

[civman2000]

it's been proposed and was even explored in depth in the civ2 forums...but the thread slowly faded away

[MrWhereItsAt]

This is a Democratic game from the very start. Whatever game government we have should not affect this.

It may affect the Ministers' titles (President=Leader/Emperor now, King later etc.) and what register people want to use in their posts but nothing else.

This is, if anything, the one thing we should NEVER amend.

[Kuciwalker]

No, this wouldn't be the Demo Game. This would be the Civ3 Roleplaying Game.

[civman2000]

In the civ2 game, I proposed how it could still be a demo game: Every month, the leaders are elected, the only differeneces are how or whether:
1. Ministers are chosen
2. Game decisions are made.

Despotism:
1. THere are none
2. prez chooses
Monarchy:
1. Appointed by prez
2. prez and ministers choose together
Republic:
1. Elected
2. prez and ministers choose together
Democracy:
1. elected
2. ministers poll people
Communism:
1. people must approve prez's appointees
2. prez and ministers decide together

[Captain]

Gotta say I'm against it, for now. All else aside, simply because we've already started and I don't think we want to go backwards. Perhaps in a new game though...

But as for a Demo Game economy with bananas and such, I'm working on one... and if I ever get my act together, I'll present the new and improved version in a thread for the rest of you to critique. (the old ideas were in a thread GoldenPanda started). I'm hoping to make it a voluntary thing, so that it doesn't add more complexity to the existing game, but adds an option of more involvement for those citizens (non-ministers, non-party members, non-officials...) who find they have nothing else to do. If politics ain't their thing, perhaps money making will be (and it will be based on the actual game). trying to keep it low-tech and simple too, since I'm not much of a programmer.

but maybe it's all just a pipe dream. we'll see.

[Duddha]

If this is a good thread to discuss changes in the government I would like to bring the idea of a Senate Amendment back into the discussion. It would have like ten members elected in parliamentry fashion and hold some limited power.

[Kuciwalker]

Captain adn Duddha -

I'm not trying to make changes now. I'm making a proposal for a new type of game.

[Spiffor]

I'm against it for a very simple reason : the more we give powers to the people, the more people will be interested in the game.

If I had a power near nil. in this game, after having elected someone who takes all decisions, I'd be out of here in no time. And I wouldn't be alone. A "despotism game" would interest up to 10 players, not 100.
That's the main reason I petition for more power to the people in amendment proposals. I want this game to be fun for everyone, not a few chosen.

[Kuciwalker]

It would only be a despotism until we had a revolution. Also, the "banana" element would keep people busy.

[Edrix]

How would a revolution be initiated? Would someone just post something declaring it? And if it was initiated, how would we determine if the current leader would agree to it?
I can actually see where you'd get the idea, and it isn't bad for strictly roleplaying, but from a gameplay/participation standpoint, it's a bit too complicated.

[civman2000]

I don't think this should be implemented now, but maybe in a future game.

How to get a revolution:
Length of term should be based on turns, not real time (so dictators can't play 300 turns). THe first few ones, though should be shorter. Even in despotism, the leader still can hold elections and poll the people if they're unsure that they're own strategies would be the best ones. Also, leaders that would make revolutions will be more likely to be elected by the people. By having short terms in the beginning the people get to have more active involvement while the game is still despotism or monarch

[Kuciwalker]

Edrix -

To keep from being "killed" for talking about revolt, this sort of discussion would have to happen by PM, in the chat, or somewhere else. Even then there is the chance of someone betraying the revolt for their own benefit. To initiate the revolt, you would wait until the dictator was offline, then post a thread saying that you're the leader of the revolt. Then the others in your revolt can post in that thread their support. There can be more than one revolt at once, because several people could aspire to power.

Civman -

First, Dictators should keep their post until they are overthrown.

Second, Dictators can do whatever they want, so of course they can poll people. They just don't have to poll people, and don't have to follow the results of any poll (if they post one).

I forgot to mention that membership would be restricted to those who a) first PMed the Game Master (a mod who would coordinate, make sure that the rules were not violated, but doesn't play the game) for membershp and b) posted a "membership post" (for lack of a better name) every week. You could pay people bananas to post for you if you were going to be gone.