Clash and OpenCiv3 - Government

[amjayee]

Another quick point, more to come Sunday: Ok, I didn't mean they would get rebellions in the US because the army is not controlling them as strongly anymore. I meant that the _army_ guys might not like if their money is halved, most of their fancy aircraft carriers would be demolished, their new toys taken away... and the men losing their job because of it. Perhaps not any kind of civil war, but if some other social troubles were be involved, why not?

Disorder in the cities should not in my opinion affect the city production as drastically as in civ2 - the whole production cut off. Well, perhaps with the entire city in the hands of rebels, then perhaps. But small disorder, mass demonstrations, etc. are sure to diminish the efficiency of the city. So, they would get some penalties to various things, how big, depending on conditions. To keep order, you would need to increase police capabilities, or fix the problem causing the disorder.

If there is civil disorder in cities or regions, or in the whole country, the reasons should be listed - there would ususally all times be a number of reasons, and number of disorders. The player would decide what level of disorder is agreeable...

[The Joker]

OK, I have been gone for far too long. Sorry about that.

I have long promised Mark to say something about Clash's Gov model, and this I will:

First of all I would like for us to discuss the use of chances (like a city having 50% chance of going into riot if something happends) in the game. When first thinking about it it seems that chances are good, as they include an amount of excitement, as no matter what you do you can never be sure that people will not revolt. It is also realistic, as in the real world you just never can be sure.

But there is also some cons. First it can very easily get really, really annoying for the player. It could mean that he would propably save every single turn, and if something unfortunate happends (like the civ going into a civil war) due to chance he will just load the old game and therefor avoid unfortunate events.

I am therefor not sure if we should use chances in the game. But on the other hand I am not sure either if we should not use them. I hope you can all help me here, cause it is an important thing. But I think that we should try to avoid 50/50 chances. Cause if such a chance ends up unfortunate for you you would get really annoyed.

Now to the model:

First I must ask why you have only included 6 classes? Sure, it is easy to handle, but it is not realistic. How would you portray a french rev scenario? To do that two different types of upper classes is needed - a farm based and a city based one.

Another thing is, that in the entire model I lack things that actually mean stuff for the player. There is loads of tables and such over the power of each class, but how would it affect the player? There is almost nothing about what it will mean that one class has more power than others, how you make decisions with different classes in lead and such things.

I also think that the Principal Class is somewhat unrealistic. It does not really excist in history, and it seems as it is mostly just a way to express your own level of power. Would the class be administrators or what? And couldn't these have their own agenda different from your own?

I like the anti/pro status of the people of each class, and I think I will include something like it in my next SI model.

And the minors class is something I do not like. How can you put slaves in the same group as children? I think a slave class is good, but children and such should propably just be left out of the political model.

I also don't think that the principal class should always control the largest part of the power-cake. How about numerical representation in a democracy?

Besides that I really like that the model includes a population percentage of each class. It is something I will include in my model too.

Are you using provinces in stead of cities in your game? In the model there is a lot of talk about provinces where cities are never mentioned.

I don't really find any ideas on how a fullscale revolution would work with the model? Where lots of power shifts hands within just 1 or 2 turns. Do you have any concepts in this matter? And why would a social uprising freeze a portion of the policital power rather than change it? Is there any reason for this?

I think a simple system where your orders has a chance of succes simply based on power of each class is way too inelegant compared to what could be done. How about including the UL in this? So that you have to keep a class with power's UL higher than a certain level in order to avoid a revolution.

I can't say much about the tables of power and happyness of each class. They seem fine, but play testing is needed to see if they are balanced.

I think it is a really good thing that the UL will tend towards getting higher and higher as time goes. This shows that all societies move towards their end (Hegel). But wont the system mean that after a long gaming time all classes will be extremely unhappy and you will have to bribe everyone off always? Is there any real way to make people become happy?

How does the administration efficiency work? I find a lot of tables and talk about how a certain number will be calculated, but nothing about what the number will mean for the player!

I like the cultural expectation of each class. It is pretty good, and I will propably use it in some form in my next SI model.

And I simply must ask you: Do you have an INFLATION model in your game???? How would this work? And another quick question: Are you only basing your game in antiquity? It is written a few places and I was just wondering...

The riot and revolt models are pretty fine, but I think a distinction is needed between a really powerful and a really weak class revolting. The first could become fatal for the civ where the last could propably be pretty unimportant.

I must also ask if a riot can't end with you accepting the rioters demands (more power etc)?

I think the coups are beautiful! Simply! Great concept! But couldn't they end with more power than just 10/20% changing hands? I was thinking that perhabs one class conquored 80% of the power in just one turn.

I think the religion revolt model is too simple. How about more religions or atheism? Sure, if the religion revolts and people are really religious it would create unhappyness, but if people are all atheists they wouldn't at all care. I suggest a religious revolt would just mean that the believers of that religion become unhappy. I also think that both the religion and the labour classes should be able to take the power - like the revs in Russia and Iran.

I don't like the government type names. Of cause it would just be names, but they are not at all good.

I also think that in your model it seems as if it is possible to just always buy classes off before their UL became too high.

This is all I have at the moment....

[The Joker]

Maniac:

I am not sure that SI should completely remove SE. You should still pick general things for your society, you would just have to make sure they would match the wishes of your supporting classes. Things like economics and structure would still be a part of the game. But I agree that SE should be dramatically changed.

quote: 1)I don't know where it's written, but I thought I had read the reason why you make distinctions between eg ancient and medieval agricultural wealthy lords is because they have a different way of getting rich. Then I ask: is that really so? I think of the medieval serfs as not much more as slaves, so same group.

Well, I thought of the ancient upper class as the senator class of ancient Rome. They had gotten wealthy on farms in the rural area, but these farms were all driven by slaves. The senator class themselves lived in the cities and used their time on philosophy and politics. Compared with the medieval farmers there would be quite a difference.

quote: 2)I don't really get what the information age people want to accomplish. Do they want to get rich by trading hi tech stuff? Then I would count them under the group 'Traders'.

Hmm, maybe you're right. I guess there could be a trader class. But would these be very different from the industrial bourgeoisie?

quote: 3)Wouldn't want labor unions and representative people want the same thing: better living conditions?

Well, I have decided to get rid of the "people" as a class. In stead there will be worker and farmer classes. All classes would have a # people in them, and as it should be possible to divide the power in the civ with one percentage steps in stead of the 10% ones, a democracy would simply be where all groups had as much power as they had people.

quote: 4)In countries where armies are in power, they usually also maintain the social order, so I would make them the same group as 'police'.

Well, how about the USSR? I would say that the police here had pretty much power, where the army were not that powerful.

quote: I would let this SI system only appear after you have discovered the technology advance 'Chiefdom'. By the time you have discovered that, there would already be other factions like the Religion and the Military. Therefore I wouldn't include "the people directly".

Well, Athens was a direct democracy. I agree with you that the whole thing shouldn't start untill an advance. I am not sure whether there should be a distinction between a direct and a representative democracy, but some day I will propably think of a way to make one.

quote: I'm sorry to say, but I think Individualism is just bull****.

In the US people are extremely individualistic. They like a small public sector and would become upset if it grew. In Denmark people are not as individualistic as in the US. People here are happy for our large public sector, and would become unhappy if it was reduced to the size of the american one. The socialist system in USSR (and all the other previous gov types there) made the russian people's individualism low. Therefor, when they change to a capitalist system they are not individualistic enough to make it work properly (at least for now). This is why I think individualism must be included. Different social settings work differently with different societies.

quote: Throughout the entire history, people only revolted if conditions were so bad that they starved from hunger.

Yes, in ancient times. But the last 100 years (actually longer) political individualism has been very important. Look at the Weimar Republic: It didn't work as people weren't politically individualistic enough to make it work (of cause there are other reasons, but for a civ game this is a good enough reason). In stead people wanted to have leaders - Hitler. In other countries people were more politically individualistic, and therefor they wanted democracy.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi The Joker:

Thank you for your time taken in critiquing the old government model. The new social and government model's just went up on the Clash forum today, and when you get a chance it would probably be of value to you to check it out. Many of your objections cited above disappeared with the new model. So I will only respond to things that still exist in the new models. If you do end up critiquing the new models, can you put them in the appropriate threads on the Clash forum? I don't think they mean much to people here anyway who haven't read the model...

On chances: People can cheat if they want, there is no way we can stop them. So I don't think that's an appropriate criticism. I just like the idea that you need to plan for uncertainty. Also, without random chances, you end up like things in civ 2 where you need to micromanage to avoid crossing a threshold. This type of micromanagement can consume a large portion of your playing time...

Classes: you can tell rural upperclass from urban upperclass by the ratio of economic power in cities to the total.

Provinces: Yes, provinces are the basic economic unit in Clash. A province can have 0, or many cities.

Revolutions: Check out the new riots model, and also the threat on Revolts on the Clash forum

Inflation: no, there is no inflation model. It just seems too complicated to put into the economic system.

Riots ending: yes, if you accept the rioters demands it will generally make them stop.

-Mark

[amjayee]

Joker:

The chances is a good thing. The system should be made in a way, that the player wouldn't need to reload. This could be done like this: The revolutions etc. would grow slowly - you wouldn't just one day notice your civ has divided to two factions. The unhappiness grows slowly, and when the people want to rebel, they would start rioting, and you might be warned by your spies, that they are planning a revolution etc. Similar ways could be used in other things.

About the UL rising gradually, that doesn't mean that it rises anyway. There is always a bunch of things the people are unhappy about - if you fix those or make them better, the UL would lower. Also by giving free bread or building colosseums and such you could make the people more satisfied, as in earlier civs.

About SE/SI system, we shouldnt' completely dump SE, but put the things we like in SE to the SI system. No need to have two systems to deal with your people.

I agree that we should add as many classes as we find appropriate, with some reason. Slaves should be one class, middle class perhaps another - the bourgeoise and professionals would go to that class. Sorry, I can't think of more for now, I'm in a little hurry. I will comment more soon.

[The Joker]

To bring this back into focus:

I would like a revision of the classes we will need. I think that at the same time as each class would have a power representation in the civ (how much of the power in the civ were controlled by them), they would also a numerical representation in the civ (how many people each class has). This will mean that in stead of having a "people" class a democracy would be one where each class has as much power as they have people. Power in the state should be divided by single percentages and not by 10-percentage steps.

The new classes:

Large farmers

Small farmers

Employed farmers/copyholders

Large producers

Small producers

Workers

Traders

Administrators

Army

Religion

Intelligentsia

Organized crime

The power and the numerical representation of each class should be very closely linked with the socioeconomical model of the game. People would be employed in different professions, which would decide the numerical representation of each class. Also the difference between the large and small farmers and producers (nobility versus independant farmers and bourgeoisie versus petit beourgeoisie) would be decided by an "economic concentration" value. There would be one for farmers and one for producers, and it would be a number showing the percentage of production owned by the large farmers/producers group. So if it was e.g. 65 for the producers, then 65% of the production would be owned by the large producers and 35% of it would be owned by the small producers. This would also mean that 65% of the people working in production would be workers and 35% of them would be small producers (the small producers would own their own company and would not have employees). Certain things would effect this economic concentration, but no matter what it will tend towards rising. The player could do certain things to lower or rise it, like making land reforms and such.

The way of making decisions should also be changed from the 0.5 version. In stead of having to bargain with your supporting groups every time you do things, each thing you do will have a rating for each class. Making the public sector larger would have a positive rating on the workers and the administrators, but a negative one on the producers. This rating would propably be between -10 and 10, and would have an individual setting for each class. It would show how much that class likes what you do. If it is negative they will not like it, if it is positive they will. All things, SE changes, unit or improvement buildings would have a rating.

This rating will then work together with a modified version of Clash's Unrest Level (UL). The UL will go from 100 (very happy with the gov) to 0 (very unhappy with the gov). Each time you do a thing with a UL level attached the rating will be multiplied by the power the particualar class has in the state (if a thing has the rating -5 and the class has 40% power in the state then the result will be -2, if they only have 3% power in the state it will be -0,2) and added/substracted to the UL of that class. The lower the UL is for each class the higher is their chance of revolt/riot. Two social effect will matter here: The stability and the legislature ratings. The stability rating will determine how low the UL is allowed to be before the class will riot and how low it is allowed to be before it will revolt (the police rating will propably also have an effect on this). The legislature level will be decided as in the 0.5 version - by barganing with the people. This will determine how low the UL rating for the classes that has power in the state is allowed to be before they stop supporting you. If the leg level is very low this number will be very high (up to 95 or more), and if the leg level is very high the number will be pretty low - but always higher than the riot number.


Anyway, I'm just brainstorming at the moment in an attempt to begin a debate that should lead to the 0.6 version of the SI model. Please join in!

[amjayee]

Some thoughts over your model:

There would be relatively few large farmers, with relatively much power and wealth. This needs to be taken into account.

The class names perhaps need to be refined; the names in the list sound a little awkward, and lack "personality". What would you think if you receive a message: "An embassy from the Large Farmers of your empire wishes to see you"? The names should be interesting, even if a little "unhistorical".

Would it be too complex if the class names change over time, reflecting the historical counterparts?

The idea of having each class simply react to what you do, instead of having to negotiate with them, is good. Also, when you make a decision in the game, if some group doesn't like it, it could tell you that; if you don't want to upset them, you can cancel that, but then you would upset some other group. Of course you could, if you want, ask the groups what they think if you do this or that. There could also be a "wish list" from the different groups what they want you to do.

The unhappiness ideas look quite good. If we manage to balance the system well, it will work very realistically, but not being very complicated. It also allows us to introduce some domestic diplomatics in the game, which should be only good.

I will elaborate more on this later, now I'm in hurry.
[This message has been edited by amjayee (edited June 28, 2000).]

[The Joker]

Large farmers and producers:

Their numerical representation would propably be calculated via a simple formula. Like (for the farmers): (Number of people working in food pro) X (economic concentration for food pro) / 100 / 20.

Examble: In an early civ 90% of the people work in food pro, and the economic concentration level (EC) for food pro is 70. This will mean that 90 X 70 / 100 = 63% of the farmers would be working in large farms/for large farmers. Therefor the large farmers themselves would be 63 / 20 = 3,2% of the pop. Therefor the small farmers will be 27% of the pop, the large farmers would be 3,2% of the pop and the employed farmers/copyholder would be 63 - 3,2 = 59,8% of the pop.

The same model could be used for the producers.

The power of the large farmers/large producers would be determined by the percentage of the pop working for them. In the previous examble the large farmers would control 63% of the people - they will be very powerful. In a more industrialized civ more people would be working in production and fewer in food pro, which would make the producers more powerful and the farmers less so.

And of cause the names should be refined. The ones I posted were just to show who each class would be. The large farmers would propably be called the Nobility, the large producers the beourgeoisie and so forth.

But I dont think the names should change over time. Each class would really be the same no matter what timeframe. Changing the names would just add unneeded annoyance.

I think a class would become unhappy with what you do (that is, if they have power in the state) if their UL dropped below the level allowed by your leg level. Major changes (like declaring war to a powerful neighbor or making the public sector significantly larger than it used to be) would have large impacts on the classes UL's, and so make them upset. But of cause the effect of each thing should not be settled now and in stead be balanced via play testing.

[amjayee]

The farmer power idea is good.

Names of the classes not changing is ok for me. I was just concerned about the names... but those are things we can decide later. Also: playtesting - yes, that's where the system should be fine-tuned.

[roquijad]

Hi all,

I'm the guy in charge of the govt, social and riots models in Clash. I'm sure you can take a lot of ideas from these Clash models, so take a look at them. Suggestions to improve them are welcomed, of course. Since currently there've been discussions about merging Clash and OC3, I think it'd be good to compare Clash and OC3 approaches on this matter.

cya,
Rodrigo

[heardie]

^Bump^

I am bumping threads for all the new people, and people (such as me) who neveer bothered to read them. there is a wealth of info

[VetLegion]

Ha!

excellent thread! very good points almost codeable. I ll se what can I do about it. I remember clash had a fully designed class (rouquiad?) so I am off to their forum to dig it out.

Btw, this is the kind of stuff I was talking in population thread. These two threads speak of same thing: population and your interaction with it.

[The Joker]

Yep!

I think we should keep the more political things in this thread, and then focus the pop thread on the down to earth stuff, like getting a population where people get born, work, live and die in a way that we like.

That, too, is dificult.

But I don't think you should start coding my old SI model. I have thought a lot about this stuff since, and a lot should be changed. I really think we should have an econ and a pop model ready, before we start spending time doing this.

But of cause discussions are great!

------------------
"It would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence."
- A Clockwork Orange

GGS Website

[VetLegion]

Joker, I both agree and disagree

First, you have done great work in the original post. I have never thought of it that way!

Secondly, why do you think it should be changed? I read it and I can argue that it shouldnt

I thought to make a simple text mode demo like amjayee did with economy. I dont have much time, but why not?

[XWaste]

I really like this SI idea, especially the way it allows different groups to react to your actions ie if you start building lots of labs then the intellintsia grow in promincance and maybe you get discontent from the neglected worker class.

Here are some ideas to help discussion.

The list from joker above does a good job of splitting up where all the people would be employed - and so if you have a well balanced economy that is doing moderately well then there shouldn't be too much unrest to worry about.

What I was thinking was having this socioeconomic class system - which should equal 100% of the population (maybe you might need to add unemployed), and also having an ideological class system something like

extreme left wing
middle
extreme right wing

maybe this can change depending on the sophistication of your government so in the early game you have basically those that support your rule and those that don't. Later in the game you can get a message like 'the people have organised an environmental lobby group' and now you have a group of conservationalists to worry about.

These ideological divisions then can show how much your pop will support a war and authoritarianism such as described in the first post by Joker

This way, even with a healthy economy there will always be some level of small discont ideologically - which could conceivably be manipulated by outside nations

just some ideas anyway