Enhanced Govt. Model - Need Your Input

[Mark_Everson]

Hrafnkell and I have been working on the internal-politics part of the government model. We think we have something that will be really Fun to play if you're into intra-civ politics. (If not, the player can just set it to automatic and not be hurt
too badly) We think the model is good, but would like to hear from you on the general ideas' validity, and ease of implementation thru a good interface (TBD). If you think its a complete mess we need to hear that ASAP too. The model is at http://people.mw.mediaone.net/markeverson/govt_v2.htm on the main Clash web page. It is still very rough, but at the point where we need a "sanity check".

Thanks,
Mark

[Glak]

I just checked it over and have some questions. First of all what type of scale is all of this on? Like in the example where the goverment was falling apart those three minus 1's are the cause of it all. How likely is that situation? You don't want player's govnerments to explode everytime there is a drought or whatever.

Also while those numbers should not be normalized they should stay in a fairly reasonable range over a long period of time. If over time they somehow get inflated the second column will gain importance over the first.

I also think that there should be an option to see the exact numbers used. Some people like having the numbers hidden from them, but others (like myself) like to know all of the numbers and the calculations used.

For civil wars and other uprisings I think that each class should have its own type of rebellious ability. That way if religion and labor rebel it is different than if the noble rebel. If the military rebeled for example you would lose your capital. That is always what seemed to happen in the olden days of China and Rome. If the upperclasses rebeled you might lose some sort of ability at home or perhaps your border lands would break away. If the peasents revolted then you would lose production or something like that. Since each type of trouble making would be different you would focus on keeping certain groups happy. If you had a large secure empire you would probably make the nobles happy at the expense of the workers because losing that big empire is worse than losing a few years of production. I'm not sure but I think Czarist russia was like this. In countries where the capital is very significant they might make extra sure that the army doesn't rebel. Rome for example was pretty nice to its generals (as I recall they got large territories that they could tax for personal use) because every now and then they would come across that river (the senate had a rule against it I think) and grab the place.

[Mark_Everson]

You don't want player's govnerments to explode everytime there is a drought or whatever.

Agreed, I just manipulated the example so everything was out of kilter. Things should almost never go from just fine to out of control. The player will generally have to ignore repeated warning signals to be as screwed as the leader in Example 3.

Also while those numbers should not be normalized they should stay in a fairly reasonable range over a long period of time. If over time they somehow get inflated the second column will gain importance over the first.

Agreed. We just aren't to the point where we have these numbers, and how they work figured out. If you use things like tax rates there is a natural limit already there.

Also some of the classes need to have the number or percentage of population kept track of. If slaves are 0% of the population it makes no difference if they have some legal protections or not!

On the exact numbers question, I guess the player could have them. (The AI would also then get exact values too) Whatever is fun for the player...

With respect to the Flavor of the rebellion, labor being different from military, etc. I agree. Your points about the specifics of the rebellion are Very good. We'll keep them in mind when working at a deeper level on this design. (You're of course welcome to join in if you'd like )

[Mikael]

Mark,Hrafnkell,

I've just read your proposed government model for Clash, and think everything seems to work out pretty well, although I have one comment to make about the "boost" that would enhance a civs military power and industry:
Hrafnkell said that any civ could do it(only when at war), but with a VP cost.
1.)Any civ at war? I think you could use this any time, but only when your civ has just suffered a humiliating defeat(nazi Germany), or you've just had a revolution or a new government,or an economic crisis, etc.
2.)Why should there be a VP cost? When you used fundamentalism in civ2 you didn't lose any points and it was fine! So IMHO you shouldn't lose any VPs, but that would be compensated by the huge diplomatic and trade disadvantages.The other civs would tend to ally themselves against such a threat, and in case a war started they would all stand together against the "extremists"!During peace they could make an embargo on the threatening civ, or something like that.And the last diplomatic problem:your civ may not be fully trusted in the next 30 years or so...But if the civ you're "targeting" is everybody's enemy , if you're lucky the others would ally themselves with you against that civ you're targeting!Not all "boosts" in history were insane(nazis) or mercilessly expansionnist. The spanish reconquista only involved reconquering a lost territory.
Sorry for the poor English and the roughness of these ideas.

Mikael

[Hrafnkell]

Hi Mikael,

Thanks for replying,

You say:
>I think you could use this any time, but >only when your civ has just suffered a >humiliating defeat(nazi Germany), or you've >just had a revolution or a new >government,or an economic crisis, etc.

I think there is a small misunderstanding here, let me clarify: First, "boosting" is done While your at war, not after it´s finished. Secondly, IMO, in order for this rule to work there must be some serious restrictions on it´s use. I envisioned using some unique cultural attribute as a 'pre-requsite'. If this rule can be invoked by the things you mention (new government, economy crisis) players can easily manipulate the rule, f.e. by changing their government or wrecking their economy in order to invoke the rule, as the "boosting" will give advantages in those same fields the 'sacrifice' could very well pay off.

Now, on the VP issue, this is not something I think the rule will stand or fall on, so it can be removed if people want. My only intention with it was to discourage players from invoking the rule too often, thus the higher cost for each invoking. But if people think this is unecessary, we can remove it, no problem.

Hrafnkell.

[Mark_Everson]

Glak's good post has caused me to come around to the notion that the Contributions to Civ value Should be normalized. Normalized in this case means that the total of the Contributions should be divided by a number so that they sum to 100%. My thought processes are moving slowly, so it took more than a day for my thoughts to surface Hrafnkell, you may have said something about these issues before too...

Basically, to paraphrase what Glak said, it is the only way to ensure that Contributions do not overwhelm the Cultural part of who holds the power. This clearly shouldn't happen. Plus Contributions Should be relative and scaled, its just the way people's minds generally work IMO.

[Mikael]

Hrafnkell,

Why should boosting only occur when you are at war? IMO boosting should not only be used when at war, but they should also provoke a war.This was the case with nazi Germany (sorry for always picking on the same example..) and probably many other boosts in history.
Then you said:
"Players could easily manipulate this rule by changing their government or wrecking their economy in order to invoke the rule, as boosting gives advantages in those same fields,the sacrifice could very well pay off."
I suspect an economic crisis has sometimes such consequences that maybe even a boosting may not solve all the problems...And the huge disadvantages (trade and diplomatic relations)could discourage a player from attempting a boost.As Mark said about the tech chart,a civ will not be able to go all the way on its own:it needs help from the other civs.So isolating yourself from the rest of the world could have some bad effects on your scientific research, and other things.
Then I think you shouldn't be able to make boost after boost: after such a boost, the population may have lost its original enthusiasm and may not be willing to make another boost in a long time( I cannot see communism reemerging in Russia for a long time, and the same applies to nazism in Germany.)
Finally, why should the boost only be based on cultural or religious prerequisites? Maybe that civs particular history, if it was once glorious, could be a potential booster(Mussolini made full use of Rome's ancient glory to "boost" his population.)

Mikael

[Hrafnkell]

Hi Michel,

>Why should boosting only occur when you are at war? IMO boosting should not only be used >when at war, but they should also provoke a war.This was the case with nazi Germany (sorry
>for always picking on the same example..) and probably many other boosts in history.

I agree that, at least for the lower magnitudes, more flexibility should probably be allowed for activating a ‘boost’. We mainly seem to disagree on how often a boost can be used. IMO a boost should be a relatively rare thing, if we put little restaints on its usage we could very well end up with a game where everybody are ‘boosting’ each other all the time, which would make a mockery of the game. Demanding that players would have to be at war to use it was one such restraint, I concur that it´s not absolutely historical, but the idea was that players should preferably only use it when they´re in a dire straits (which usually means war).

>Then you said:
>"Players could easily manipulate this rule by changing their government or wrecking their
>economy in order to invoke the rule, as boosting gives advantages in those same fields,the
>sacrifice could very well pay off."
>I suspect an economic crisis has sometimes such consequences that maybe even a boosting may
>not solve all the problems...And the huge disadvantages (trade and diplomatic relations)could
>discourage a player from attempting a boost.As Mark said about the tech chart,a civ will not be
>able to go all the way on its own:it needs help from the other civs.So isolating yourself from the
>rest of the world could have some bad effects on your scientific research, and other things.

At the moment it´s impossible for us to discuss this fully simply because we don´t know exactly how the game will be. So we´ll just have to see whether players can manipulate the rule and rectify it if so.

>Then I think you shouldn't be able to make boost after boost: after such a boost, the population
>may have lost its original enthusiasm and may not be willing to make another boost in a long
>time( I cannot see communism reemerging in Russia for a long time, and the same applies to
>nazism in Germany.)

I agree with you here, maybe we should somehow ´track´ how the boost faires, if it´s succesful it´s effect (good and bad) will linger on, if it´s a bad experience people´ll stay away from it.

>Finally, why should the boost only be based on cultural or religious prerequisites? Maybe that
>civs particular history, if it was once glorious, could be a potential booster(Mussolini made full
>use of Rome's ancient glory to "boost" his population.)

IMO the main determinant in wheter the rule can be manipulated is what restrictions we put on it´s usage. That´s the basic idea with the cultural prereguisites. Besides it has historical references. From a historical POV your idea on players using their past history as potential booster is not totally accurate (IMO Italians in WWII were far from ‘boosted’, they never strongly supported Mussolinis war efforts, the economy showed little improvements and their army was very ineffective due to bad leadership and poor equipemnt. Neither do I see it happen that f.e. the British will look back on their 19th century Empire for ‘boost’, maybe it´ll be a source of pride for them, but nothing more. However, if we feel that it´ll improve gameplay to have this feature that´s fine by me. Let me know what you think.

Keli.

PS: Although this ‘boost’ rule should be fun to have it´s not a core rule, so maybe we shouldn´t focus too much on it and rather try to develop further the gov.rules themselves.


[This message has been edited by Hrafnkell (edited May 05, 1999).]

[Mark_Everson]

It seems to me that we should try to make it fairly realistic at first, and if playtesters can abuse it then we can change it. Most boosts in history that I can think of that were based on hatred of this or that were not great bargains for the civilizations involved.

Many civs that are boosting through feeling superior are already on the top of the heap anyway. Rather than targeting against someone this kind of boost rarely harms anything, except perhaps filling the civ with hubris that may contain the seeds of its downfall.

[Mikael]

Hrafnkell,Mark,

You're right.The boost rule should certainly not be important at all, only a detail.So the main problem is to make it really simple and interesting to use in extreme situations(my problem is that I always make potentially simple things look too complex:-)
And for that Mussolini thing, you're right as well.In fact he only tried to recapture that glory, and failed miserably...

Mikael

[xiane]

Mark, Mr. H., please I'd like to help with this. What a lot of fun, and a neat way to test ideas about political behavior.

I have read your web page and discussion on the political system and have a few comments, if you don't mind.

1. Idea for anticipating speed of change in government type, degree of change.

This is hard in text, but imagine and x,y grid. The idea is to use it to indentify where power rests - in few hands or many, and how free individuals or groups are.


Concentrated Power
|
Open - |- Repressive
|
Dispersed Power


Hope that worked.

If it did it could be a vehicle for determining speed of social change in the face of certain actions. Imagine numbers in on the x and y axis and consider giving a civ an x and y number. To move from the bottom left to the top right would be very difficult, and this would be reflected in the score. But to tighten control a bit at a time, until you are in the top right might not be so tough.

Imagine a drill down screen with choices in the face of some civil unrest: , do nothing, surveilance ,mild policing, strenous policing, severe crackdown, suspend rights, martial law, martial law with show trials. Each choice would represent movement along the axes. Each bit of movement brings its own conseqiences. Each of your mentioned classes has positions of happines, comfort, dissatisfaction and revolt on the axes, the farther they move towards one or the other, the more they will support or work against the government.

Which brings me to #2.

Policy Implementation Effectiveness (PIE) or losing control of your civ. If you make everyone angry, or constantly lose wars, or kowtow to another civ your PIE rating goes down. (This is modified by the system of government anyway.) The effectiveness of your choices for policy is diminished. The give simple doesn't obey you, or not much.

A low PIE means that boosting could be a problem. If you are an ineffective leader than you can't expect too much of a boost, or vice versa.

Also, if you become totally ineffective, the game will put you back in control, or a high PIE, but at a VP penalty. This means you are the first freely elected president, or the army's genralissimo or whatever.

BTW if you look at modern history of Africa and South America you can see that, yes indeed, angering the military and aristocracy is a good way to become the ex-dictator ex-president or what have you.

Well that's enough until I see if this is welcome at all.