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Well, I'm not sure how much work has been done on the Politics for the game as of yet, but after reading some of the models and DDs written for the game so far I thought I'd take a crack at making a Politics model. What I've included seems to me to be a very good system, however you guys might disagree, so you can give suggestions, cut out parts, whatever. Part of it has been adapted from previous DDs I found on the website. Let me know what you think of it so far...
Good? Bad? It blows? Everything already addressed? Improvements? Suggestions?
If you like the format and detail, I can start working on a model for Diplomacy soon as well. I'd also like to take a crack at editing the Military model with your guys' permission and input. I have to admit I'm better at designing things for war than I am anything else.
Politics Model v0.1 by Trip
Contents
Philosophy
Satisfaction Level
Religions
Nationality
Population Groups
Managing your Country
Domestic Policy
Religious Policy
Economic Policy
Philosophy
You will not just rule your civilization because you feel like it. Ruling means that you need the support of someone and you will not just do as you please. Instead you will be subjective to your people. To model this we have a system with social classes – Nobility, Clergy, Workers, capitalists, intelligentsia, military etc. - that combat for power of the civilization. Your task is to get the support from some, by being nice to them and doing what they want you to. Each class would have an agenda. The militaries would be many military units, the intelligentsia would be research, and humane policies, the capitalists would be free trade and as little a public sector as possible. So support those who fit your policy, and they will support you, and suppress the rest. Whether you run a military controlled police state or a friendly democracy is up to you - and the social classes. Cause you will not be in total control of what you choose. There will be revolutions, where you have to pick a side, or the class you base your power on may demand that you go to war with an enemy, even if you don’t want to! Refuse and you send your civilization into a destructive civil war, accept and you will be getting a war that you may not be interested in. Even foreign powers could play the game in your civilization. They could support a class suppressed by you, give it money and equipment to make it stronger and possibly revolt against you. Either just to annoy you and weaken you and let them conquer the leftovers, or they could have an agreement with the class, that if it gets to power they will have some influence on your civilization’s policy.
A player’s interaction with his country is very important, and can influence many facets of the game. As a civilization grows, its population is generally very homogeneous, but as the game progresses this will change. This can occur due to a variety of factors, including cultural diffusion, foreign conquest, trade, as well as the natural progression to a new type of culture in provinces far away from the capital. Dealing with other cultures inside your nation will become a large factor, due to the fact that should you ignore it, it can lead to your empire crumbling. Differences within your country that you will have to address include Religion, Nationality and Population Type. An overall representation of a province’s loyalty to its ruler is its Satisfaction Level (which is especially important), which along with other factors can have a profound impact on how you deal with different areas of your empire.
This model is designed to outline the player’s (and AI’s) relationship with his people, how he can interact with them, and how certain actions will affect their attitude towards him.
The system of having to deal with politics should indeed be one of the most important and most fun aspects of GGS, and would be something quite unique to our game.
Satisfaction Level
The satisfaction level of a province represents the population’s general view on how you are ruling them. Should their religion, nationality, and population class differ greatly from that of your capital province, and then their satisfaction level may decrease. This may occur when you choose certain policies or take certain actions that benefit other cultural groups within your country, but either exclude or harm the group in question. Satisfaction level may also decrease if another nearby country is more similar to the culture of that province compared with that of your own. Eventually, if the satisfaction level of a province drops too much, then the province may declare independence, or join the nearby country with which it is similar to. This can only be avoided by military occupation or by creating an Agreement Pact with that province. However, this will be dealt with later on in the Managing your Country section.
If the satisfaction level in a province reaches 50% or lower (subject to change), then it will revolt. Once the province is revolting, the only way to keep it as a normal part of your empire is to occupy it using an army. When a province revolts, it doesn’t officially separate from its controlling country yet. However, nothing can be built in the province, and it generates no income. Once a province is in revolt, then its satisfaction level will start decreasing at an even faster rate. Once a province’s satisfaction level falls to 25%, then a province rebels, and separates from its controlling country, unless an army is present (but no income is collected and production is never completed during a rebellion). This problem can only be alleviated by creating an Agreement Pact with the revolting province.
In addition, the lower a province’s satisfaction level, the more emigration will rise, so an eye must be kept on that as well.
Nationality
At the start of a game, your entire civilization will be one nationality: yours. However, as the game goes on, things can change the nationality of certain parts of your country. Taking over enemy lands and adding them to your empire will generally add people to your country that aren’t of the same nationality as yours, but of the type the area’s previous ruler was. Vast dissimilarities in nationality may cause unrest, resistance, and even rebellion if not contained due to a low satisfaction level.
A player can launch propaganda missions to try and alter the nationality of certain provinces to try and convert its nationality to that of the controlling country. This would reduce resistance to their new rulers, as well as making them more willing to do things for you. For example, an army recruited from a province that is of a different nationality won’t perform as well as one created from your own nationality. However, changing a group from one nationality to another may take many generations to be fully effective.
Another factor that may change the nationality of people within your provinces includes cultural diffusion. A provinces’ nationality will naturally begin to change to that of a bordering province over time. The more provinces it borders of a different nationality, the more it becomes the nationality of those border provinces. For example, a small province completely surrounded by a different country due to expansion will convert to that country’s nationality much faster than one that borders only 1 province of another country. This will encourage homogeneous borders due to the fact that provinces surrounded by other provinces of a different country will become that nationality over time, and may eventually elect to join that country one day. Another way this promotes contiguous borders is that countries may be inclined to make a deal with another country should this situation arise to prevent the eventual cultural absorption of isolated provinces.
Religions
Besides the nationalities people would also have different religious affiliations. Having different religions in a region or in a civilization may cause problems. The people would often not get along very well if they have fundamentally different beliefs, though some religions are more tolerant in this respect than others. On top of this religions may be governed globally, by a central religious center, which would control the religion class of that religion in all the countries in the world. This would give a religion with many believers enormous power, and could let it virtually control a lot of civilizations. If you make political decisions that go against the religion's agenda you upset its believers. So if 90% of your population worship one religion you better not upset that religion. This could some times let the religion dictate your policy more or less.
Of course the player would also have some effect on religions. He could support or forbid certain religions, which would have some effect on their popularity (as well as the ruler’s popularity). Or he could make a grand scale inquisition, by killing believers of a religion. Also, certain religions could be state-supported and funded to try and encourage conversion to create a more homogeneous society.
Religions would rise, fall and evolve like civilizations. It's possible for a religion to split into competing sects and for the agendas of religions change drastically due time. There would be stats for each religion, determining its ability to convince people to believe in it. This means that religions would start by a guy preaching in just one region, and afterwards it might die out immediately, or it could spread to surrounding regions via trade, migration etc. The player would not know the stats, so he could only try to figure them out from the religions success or lack thereof. A religion would also have cultural effects that could in fact affect people’s preferences and other things.
However, if you let religion get out of hand then large problems might occur. If you allow people to worship as they please, then they may eventually become more devoted to their religion than they are to you, and may declare an Independent Religious State. Should you try to re-acquire this renegade province, then other members of that religion across the world (including within your own country, reducing the satisfaction level of those areas) may protest. In some cases, the public outcry in some countries might be so strong it could force the government of that country to go to war with your country, to help preserve the independence of that province.
Population Groups
Needless to say, all people within your country are not equal. There are different kinds of social classes that are unique in a variety of ways, and affect your empire accordingly.
***To be worked on when I know more about this part***
Managing your Country
Working with these different groups and altering your provinces’ satisfaction level requires you to take certain actions within your country. These actions are grouped into 3 different categories: Domestic Policy, Religious Policy and Economic Policy.
Domestic Policy
Domestic Policy is concerned with how you deal with the different nationality and culture groups within your country. The different options you can use within this category include: Provincial National Propaganda, Cultural Genocide, Agreement Pact, Immigration Restriction. Provincial National Propaganda uses a certain number of funds from your national treasury to promote national homogeny within your country. This helps prevent the inevitable cultural diffusion in border provinces (or any province which isn’t 100% one nationality). However, this also reduces the acceptance of other nationalities in that province, so the satisfaction level of that province will decrease depending on the proportion of it that is other nationalities. Cultural Genocide is the systematic extermination of a particular nationality present in a province. Depending on the number of funds allocated to this, a certain proportion of members of a province will be destroyed. Another area to devote spending to while undertaking this action is the Cover-up Cost. The Cover-up Cost is the amount of funds needed to completely assure that there is no evidence of the genocide that leeks out of that province. This cost is usually extremely high, since it only takes 1 person to reveal what occurred. However, if word of this reaches the outside world, there is an extreme negative impact to the satisfaction level within your provinces where members of the exterminated nationality live. Your diplomatic reputation will also suffer greatly, especially within the country that had the same nationality of the exterminated group. All in all, genocide can be a very risky option. An Agreement Pact can only be made between the central government of a country, and one of its provinces. An Agreement Pact is used when a province or provinces are in revolt. A province will request an Agreement Pact when its satisfaction level reaches 50%, and a list of demands will be read off. Usually they will entail various things such as more religious toleration, fewer taxes, less conscription, etc. If an Agreement Pact is formed, then the revolting province’s satisfaction level will rise to 51%. However, if nothing is changed (after all, in reality you don’t HAVE to adhere to the agreements), then their satisfaction level will drop incredibly fast, and your reputation for being honest both within and outside of your country will be harmed. Immigration Restriction reduces the number of people allowed to enter the country. While this is useful for keeping your population homogeneous, it effectively reduces the number of people you will have to work for you, both spending money and producing goods.
Religious Policy
Religious Policy is concerned with how you choose to deal with religious matters in your country. Actions you can take include: Change State Religion, Provincial Religious Conversion, Religious Inquisition, Modify Religious Toleration, . Change State Religion changes the religion naturally accepted by the government of a particular country. This will cause a natural amount of citizens to be drawn to this religion, and reduces the number of supporters of other religions. However, this command does not impose any kind of restrictions of what religions are allowed, nor does it help the supported religion in any way. The state religion is most often used when dealing with foreign nations: if you have the same state religion then your relationship will be friendlier. Its other main purpose is to change what religion you wish to convert people to using the next command. Provincial Religious Conversion is similar to Provincial National Propaganda in that you can set a certain amount of money to be used in converting people of religions other than the state religion to the state religion in any particular province. The more homogeneous a province is religiously, the higher its satisfaction level will be, and the more efficient they will work. A Religious Inquisition is the systematic extermination of members of a particular religion. It is very much like Cultural Genocide, except its target is only religious groups. The only difference is that there is no way to cover up a Religious Inquisition, so it is a decision that must be made very carefully. As with genocide, members of the target religion will cause a serious satisfaction level drop in provinces where they are located (based upon the proportion of their religion present in those provinces). An Inquisition can be used to very quickly homogenize a province religiously, and also may be the result of demands from either the members of a different religion within that country, or a powerful religious based center outside of the country. Refusal to do this will cause a sharp deduction in the satisfaction level of provinces where the other religion is present. When a demand is made by one religion for an Inquisition aimed at another, sometimes it can be a decision based upon which will make the fewer number of people unhappy. However, the targeted religion will have a much stronger impact on satisfaction level when dealing with the same number of people. The Modify Religious Toleration command is used most often to control the power a religion has on a country. Religious tolerance levels can be set for every religion present in the country (including the state religion). However, too much restriction will cause the satisfaction levels of certain provinces to drop, so a nice balance between keeping the power of religion in check, and keeping people happy must be met. Making the state less tolerant to certain religions will also cost a certain amount of money, based upon how many citizens must be suppressed, since declaring that a religion is less acceptable won’t produce visible results by itself.
Economic Policy
Economic Policy is concerned with how you manage your economy and finances.
Refer to the Economy model if you really care all that much about economics at this point. :P
Contents
Philosophy
Satisfaction Level
Religions
Nationality
Population Groups
Managing your Country
Domestic Policy
Religious Policy
Economic Policy
Philosophy
You will not just rule your civilization because you feel like it. Ruling means that you need the support of someone and you will not just do as you please. Instead you will be subjective to your people. To model this we have a system with social classes – Nobility, Clergy, Workers, capitalists, intelligentsia, military etc. - that combat for power of the civilization. Your task is to get the support from some, by being nice to them and doing what they want you to. Each class would have an agenda. The militaries would be many military units, the intelligentsia would be research, and humane policies, the capitalists would be free trade and as little a public sector as possible. So support those who fit your policy, and they will support you, and suppress the rest. Whether you run a military controlled police state or a friendly democracy is up to you - and the social classes. Cause you will not be in total control of what you choose. There will be revolutions, where you have to pick a side, or the class you base your power on may demand that you go to war with an enemy, even if you don’t want to! Refuse and you send your civilization into a destructive civil war, accept and you will be getting a war that you may not be interested in. Even foreign powers could play the game in your civilization. They could support a class suppressed by you, give it money and equipment to make it stronger and possibly revolt against you. Either just to annoy you and weaken you and let them conquer the leftovers, or they could have an agreement with the class, that if it gets to power they will have some influence on your civilization’s policy.
A player’s interaction with his country is very important, and can influence many facets of the game. As a civilization grows, its population is generally very homogeneous, but as the game progresses this will change. This can occur due to a variety of factors, including cultural diffusion, foreign conquest, trade, as well as the natural progression to a new type of culture in provinces far away from the capital. Dealing with other cultures inside your nation will become a large factor, due to the fact that should you ignore it, it can lead to your empire crumbling. Differences within your country that you will have to address include Religion, Nationality and Population Type. An overall representation of a province’s loyalty to its ruler is its Satisfaction Level (which is especially important), which along with other factors can have a profound impact on how you deal with different areas of your empire.
This model is designed to outline the player’s (and AI’s) relationship with his people, how he can interact with them, and how certain actions will affect their attitude towards him.
The system of having to deal with politics should indeed be one of the most important and most fun aspects of GGS, and would be something quite unique to our game.
Satisfaction Level
The satisfaction level of a province represents the population’s general view on how you are ruling them. Should their religion, nationality, and population class differ greatly from that of your capital province, and then their satisfaction level may decrease. This may occur when you choose certain policies or take certain actions that benefit other cultural groups within your country, but either exclude or harm the group in question. Satisfaction level may also decrease if another nearby country is more similar to the culture of that province compared with that of your own. Eventually, if the satisfaction level of a province drops too much, then the province may declare independence, or join the nearby country with which it is similar to. This can only be avoided by military occupation or by creating an Agreement Pact with that province. However, this will be dealt with later on in the Managing your Country section.
If the satisfaction level in a province reaches 50% or lower (subject to change), then it will revolt. Once the province is revolting, the only way to keep it as a normal part of your empire is to occupy it using an army. When a province revolts, it doesn’t officially separate from its controlling country yet. However, nothing can be built in the province, and it generates no income. Once a province is in revolt, then its satisfaction level will start decreasing at an even faster rate. Once a province’s satisfaction level falls to 25%, then a province rebels, and separates from its controlling country, unless an army is present (but no income is collected and production is never completed during a rebellion). This problem can only be alleviated by creating an Agreement Pact with the revolting province.
In addition, the lower a province’s satisfaction level, the more emigration will rise, so an eye must be kept on that as well.
Nationality
At the start of a game, your entire civilization will be one nationality: yours. However, as the game goes on, things can change the nationality of certain parts of your country. Taking over enemy lands and adding them to your empire will generally add people to your country that aren’t of the same nationality as yours, but of the type the area’s previous ruler was. Vast dissimilarities in nationality may cause unrest, resistance, and even rebellion if not contained due to a low satisfaction level.
A player can launch propaganda missions to try and alter the nationality of certain provinces to try and convert its nationality to that of the controlling country. This would reduce resistance to their new rulers, as well as making them more willing to do things for you. For example, an army recruited from a province that is of a different nationality won’t perform as well as one created from your own nationality. However, changing a group from one nationality to another may take many generations to be fully effective.
Another factor that may change the nationality of people within your provinces includes cultural diffusion. A provinces’ nationality will naturally begin to change to that of a bordering province over time. The more provinces it borders of a different nationality, the more it becomes the nationality of those border provinces. For example, a small province completely surrounded by a different country due to expansion will convert to that country’s nationality much faster than one that borders only 1 province of another country. This will encourage homogeneous borders due to the fact that provinces surrounded by other provinces of a different country will become that nationality over time, and may eventually elect to join that country one day. Another way this promotes contiguous borders is that countries may be inclined to make a deal with another country should this situation arise to prevent the eventual cultural absorption of isolated provinces.
Religions
Besides the nationalities people would also have different religious affiliations. Having different religions in a region or in a civilization may cause problems. The people would often not get along very well if they have fundamentally different beliefs, though some religions are more tolerant in this respect than others. On top of this religions may be governed globally, by a central religious center, which would control the religion class of that religion in all the countries in the world. This would give a religion with many believers enormous power, and could let it virtually control a lot of civilizations. If you make political decisions that go against the religion's agenda you upset its believers. So if 90% of your population worship one religion you better not upset that religion. This could some times let the religion dictate your policy more or less.
Of course the player would also have some effect on religions. He could support or forbid certain religions, which would have some effect on their popularity (as well as the ruler’s popularity). Or he could make a grand scale inquisition, by killing believers of a religion. Also, certain religions could be state-supported and funded to try and encourage conversion to create a more homogeneous society.
Religions would rise, fall and evolve like civilizations. It's possible for a religion to split into competing sects and for the agendas of religions change drastically due time. There would be stats for each religion, determining its ability to convince people to believe in it. This means that religions would start by a guy preaching in just one region, and afterwards it might die out immediately, or it could spread to surrounding regions via trade, migration etc. The player would not know the stats, so he could only try to figure them out from the religions success or lack thereof. A religion would also have cultural effects that could in fact affect people’s preferences and other things.
However, if you let religion get out of hand then large problems might occur. If you allow people to worship as they please, then they may eventually become more devoted to their religion than they are to you, and may declare an Independent Religious State. Should you try to re-acquire this renegade province, then other members of that religion across the world (including within your own country, reducing the satisfaction level of those areas) may protest. In some cases, the public outcry in some countries might be so strong it could force the government of that country to go to war with your country, to help preserve the independence of that province.
Population Groups
Needless to say, all people within your country are not equal. There are different kinds of social classes that are unique in a variety of ways, and affect your empire accordingly.
***To be worked on when I know more about this part***
Managing your Country
Working with these different groups and altering your provinces’ satisfaction level requires you to take certain actions within your country. These actions are grouped into 3 different categories: Domestic Policy, Religious Policy and Economic Policy.
Domestic Policy
Domestic Policy is concerned with how you deal with the different nationality and culture groups within your country. The different options you can use within this category include: Provincial National Propaganda, Cultural Genocide, Agreement Pact, Immigration Restriction. Provincial National Propaganda uses a certain number of funds from your national treasury to promote national homogeny within your country. This helps prevent the inevitable cultural diffusion in border provinces (or any province which isn’t 100% one nationality). However, this also reduces the acceptance of other nationalities in that province, so the satisfaction level of that province will decrease depending on the proportion of it that is other nationalities. Cultural Genocide is the systematic extermination of a particular nationality present in a province. Depending on the number of funds allocated to this, a certain proportion of members of a province will be destroyed. Another area to devote spending to while undertaking this action is the Cover-up Cost. The Cover-up Cost is the amount of funds needed to completely assure that there is no evidence of the genocide that leeks out of that province. This cost is usually extremely high, since it only takes 1 person to reveal what occurred. However, if word of this reaches the outside world, there is an extreme negative impact to the satisfaction level within your provinces where members of the exterminated nationality live. Your diplomatic reputation will also suffer greatly, especially within the country that had the same nationality of the exterminated group. All in all, genocide can be a very risky option. An Agreement Pact can only be made between the central government of a country, and one of its provinces. An Agreement Pact is used when a province or provinces are in revolt. A province will request an Agreement Pact when its satisfaction level reaches 50%, and a list of demands will be read off. Usually they will entail various things such as more religious toleration, fewer taxes, less conscription, etc. If an Agreement Pact is formed, then the revolting province’s satisfaction level will rise to 51%. However, if nothing is changed (after all, in reality you don’t HAVE to adhere to the agreements), then their satisfaction level will drop incredibly fast, and your reputation for being honest both within and outside of your country will be harmed. Immigration Restriction reduces the number of people allowed to enter the country. While this is useful for keeping your population homogeneous, it effectively reduces the number of people you will have to work for you, both spending money and producing goods.
Religious Policy
Religious Policy is concerned with how you choose to deal with religious matters in your country. Actions you can take include: Change State Religion, Provincial Religious Conversion, Religious Inquisition, Modify Religious Toleration, . Change State Religion changes the religion naturally accepted by the government of a particular country. This will cause a natural amount of citizens to be drawn to this religion, and reduces the number of supporters of other religions. However, this command does not impose any kind of restrictions of what religions are allowed, nor does it help the supported religion in any way. The state religion is most often used when dealing with foreign nations: if you have the same state religion then your relationship will be friendlier. Its other main purpose is to change what religion you wish to convert people to using the next command. Provincial Religious Conversion is similar to Provincial National Propaganda in that you can set a certain amount of money to be used in converting people of religions other than the state religion to the state religion in any particular province. The more homogeneous a province is religiously, the higher its satisfaction level will be, and the more efficient they will work. A Religious Inquisition is the systematic extermination of members of a particular religion. It is very much like Cultural Genocide, except its target is only religious groups. The only difference is that there is no way to cover up a Religious Inquisition, so it is a decision that must be made very carefully. As with genocide, members of the target religion will cause a serious satisfaction level drop in provinces where they are located (based upon the proportion of their religion present in those provinces). An Inquisition can be used to very quickly homogenize a province religiously, and also may be the result of demands from either the members of a different religion within that country, or a powerful religious based center outside of the country. Refusal to do this will cause a sharp deduction in the satisfaction level of provinces where the other religion is present. When a demand is made by one religion for an Inquisition aimed at another, sometimes it can be a decision based upon which will make the fewer number of people unhappy. However, the targeted religion will have a much stronger impact on satisfaction level when dealing with the same number of people. The Modify Religious Toleration command is used most often to control the power a religion has on a country. Religious tolerance levels can be set for every religion present in the country (including the state religion). However, too much restriction will cause the satisfaction levels of certain provinces to drop, so a nice balance between keeping the power of religion in check, and keeping people happy must be met. Making the state less tolerant to certain religions will also cost a certain amount of money, based upon how many citizens must be suppressed, since declaring that a religion is less acceptable won’t produce visible results by itself.
Economic Policy
Economic Policy is concerned with how you manage your economy and finances.
Refer to the Economy model if you really care all that much about economics at this point. :P
If you like the format and detail, I can start working on a model for Diplomacy soon as well. I'd also like to take a crack at editing the Military model with your guys' permission and input. I have to admit I'm better at designing things for war than I am anything else.
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