Revolutions

[The Diamond]

This thread is a continuation of the discussions held in the Rebels, Pirates and Other Social outcasts thread. I've made a separate topic so that discussion will be easier.

Here is my current proposition for the revolutions model:

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Starting a revolution in Clash should not be as simple as pushing a button and saying "I no longer want a monarchy, we're becoming a republic as of now". No King in history has ever deposed himself in favour of spreading power to the masses, it's unrealistic to assume that any King ever would. Therefore, revolutions are important social, political and cultural events that allow the Civ to grow and evolve.

Right now, I want to define the role of the player in a revolution. The player is the guiding spirit of the Civ, in the form of whoever the current leader (character/group in direct control of the Civ's capital) is. This means no magical switching around from being the King one minute, to leader of the rebels the next, then back to the King when the revolution fails, then back to the leader of the new rebels, etc. etc.

The player is stuck with, if you like, whoever is officially ruling the capital at that moment, regardless of whether or not they sympathise with the rebels.

Revolutions, in terms of changing govts, I see happening in two ways. The first one is a peaceful one, involving FE, an emperor meeting with the barons in control of the provinces and signing a treaty enabling them to have more control over their lands and the country in general, although still keeping the King in power. Thus, a simple transition between a despotic system to a monarchy. A similarly easy change could be made between a monarchy and a feudal monarchy, for instance.

However, to transform from being a monarchy to a republican system is far harder. This would now involve the King agreeing to depose himself (yeah, right) and allow an elected body of people (the Senate) to rule in his place.

This is not impossible. A Senate might be allowed, if the King still has ruling control over it. An easy way of preventing a bloody revolution. Still, to become a true Republic, the King would have to stand down. To accomplish this would involve a slight military upheaval - perhaps as simply as the Senate-favouring military ousting the King and his guard in a short-lived battle for the palace.

However, such a peaceful system would have to be carefully engineered and timing would be crucial, the revolution possibly taking many many years to occur. So perhaps a quicker, if bloodier route, is necessary. Or perhaps even the best laid plans of mice and men might fall drastically by the wayside and result in a large-scale military conflict.

So, there also exists a system for violent upheavals in the Civ. FE, the Civ is under Despotic rule by an Emperor. The Emperor throws his weight around and generally has the people under the yoke of oppression. The more unhappy people in every city, the greater the chance that rebel "units" will be generated. With the existence of active rebel units comes unhappiness, which leads to more rebel units being created and so the spiral towards revolution begins.

These rebels will cause general havoc and, once strong enough, openly fight the Emperor's forces for control of the realm. In the resulting Civil War, the player will still remain on the side of the Emperor, although if he/she decides that the rebels have it right, important battles could be lost to allow the rebels to finally oust the Emperor and replace him with the leader of the rebels, now under player control, who has to deal with a Civ with loyalist forces still at large and widespread destruction and disarray as a result of the upheaval.

However, what happens if the Emperor is a kind ruler who keeps his people happy? Does this mean the Civ could last for all eternity unless the player actively makes people unhappy to stir a revolution?

I say no. In every society, there will be people who reject the rule of one single Emperor, or a select group of people. Perhaps it might be in the nobility who don't have a say in the ruling of the land, perhaps it might be in the working classes who are sick of being oppressed? In any case, although these people are outwardly content with their lot, inside they may harbour deep feelings of anger.

These are the people I refer to as having "hidden unhappiness". Still, because they are generally content, they aren't prepared to immediately march on the capital to depose the Emperor. However, get a large enough population and these people will start to get together.

It might start innocently enough, protest marches. Demonstrations. Yelling at people from soap boxes. All things the Emperor might get to hear of and react to. If the Emperor handles the situation well, the revolution might be buried for years. Or maybe not. If the Emperor reacts aggressively, it might spark further discontent, leading to direct unhappiness and the creation of rebel units. If the Emperor doesn't react aggressively, the malcontents may become bolder, perhaps rioting and causing unhappiness and thus rebel units.

Assuming the Emperor makes no reaction, the spiral to revolution will again become clear. The malcontents will start to go beyond demonstrations. They may riot, attack merchants, burn down farms, blockade roads. All actions that will cause unhappiness in the local people. This unhappiness against the Emperor may spark further people joining the malcontents, especially if their leader has a rousing personality.

These actions will lead to the creation of rebel units, who will do everything on a larger scale, including taking on local military encampments. The presence of rebel units in the province will also cause general unhappiness, sparking more rebel action. Also, the presence of rebel units in the Civ as a whole will increase "hidden unhapiness" on a Civ-wide scale...All in all, a seemingly peaceful Civ containing a few protestors in an outlying province could quickly turn into a hot-bed of Civil War.

Rebel factions may negotiate with rival Civs, gaining support in terms for promises of some kind should the revolution be successful. If the rebels should take the capital, the player might find himself in tricky foreign negotiations when his rivals ask him to honour their agreement and cede his outermost province or face an army crossing his borders to take it by force.

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This is the basic way in which I see revolutions working within Clash. Currently, I believe I'm the only person to hold this opinion of how revolutions should work. I therefore will greatly appreciate any comments, arguments and criticisms.

[Mark_Everson]

The Diamond:

Revolutions are part of the Government Model. We have now been discussing these things for about a year. You can't just go off on your own, making up something from scratch. Or rather you can, and probably have a fun discussion. But it really won't likely affect the game design because your ideas probably won't fit in with the existing model(s). (Government, Social, and Characters in this case)

If you want to have an impact, read the existing Government stuff (for instance search for posts with 'revolution' or government and change. You can probably skim the earlier stuff. The main Govt. model is being revised by Rodrigo, and hopefully something more definitive will be out in a week or two. So perhaps its not the best timing to propose new things that are intimate to the govt. model.

Now some of the high-level issues with revolutions that the Player starts (or isn't allowed to) haven't been discussed in detail, so there is clearly room for input... But at the level of how the people get pissed off, how that might translate into military power, and other details, there is already a framework within which any suggestions need to work.

Once you Know whats in the existing models, you can say what you like, and what you don't like, and why its a bad idea doing it the way we planned. But if you propose a change, you need to suggest how to integrate the change so it fits in with the rest of the model.

If you want to contribute to model making, as opposed to just tossing off ideas, you need to take this approach, or your suggestions will likely never be used. You're obviously willing to commit a lot of time and careful thought to your Clash ideas. And I appreciate it... But you need more background in which to frame your suggestions or you will either waste huge amounts of time duplicating existing work, or even worse, go off on tangents that are completely separate from the foundations of the models we are using.

Mark

[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited June 07, 2000).]

[Lord God Jinnai]

First off Mark is right about what has been decided for sure shouldn't be changed unless there is a major flaw with it. With that said, we can go ahead and discuss this stuff?


I see where you're coming from. A civil war would happen when the people were very angry at a ruler's actions...but wouldn't it happen if they felt "oppressed" anyway? Even in a monarchy system where the player makes sure everyone is either happy or content or whatever you choose to say, some people will still be unhappy at the idea of one person having total control of anything that happens. The "hidden" unhappiness factor, if you like. Bear in mind that something as simple as a player imposing a quota on fishing limits might cause every fisherman in the kingdom to have this "hidden" unhappiness. That might lead to anti-govt. actions, which in turn will spark off any bad feeling elsewhere and cause visible unhappiness. This is merely the beginning of the spiral which gradually leads to the player sending in the military to control the situation and the local people making the decision as to whether they want the situation to be "controlled" or not. If the army is strong enough, or the ruler popular enough or the people content enough not to take up arms, the revolution might be quashed. Alternatively, such an action might be the spark that ignites the people against the crown, causing a Civil War. An influential rebel leader, good at winning people to his cause, would also have an effect here.
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So, there also exists a system for violent upheavals in the Civ. FE, the Civ is under Despotic rule by an Emperor. The Emperor throws his weight around and generally has the people under the yoke of oppression. The more unhappy people in every city, the greater the chance that rebel "units" will be generated. With the existence of active rebel units comes unhappiness, which leads to more rebel units being created and so the spiral towards revolution begins.
These rebels will cause general havoc and, once strong enough, openly fight the Emperor's forces for control of the realm. In the resulting Civil War, the player will still remain on the side of the Emperor, although if he/she decides that the rebels have it right, important battles could be lost to allow the rebels to finally oust the Emperor and replace him with the leader of the rebels, now under player control, who has to deal with a Civ with loyalist forces still at large and widespread destruction and disarray as a result of the upheaval.
However, what happens if the Emperor is a kind ruler who keeps his people happy? Does this mean the Civ could last for all eternity unless the player actively makes people unhappy to stir a revolution?
I say no. In every society, there will be people who reject the rule of one single Emperor, or a select group of people. Perhaps it might be in the nobility who don't have a say in the ruling of the land, perhaps it might be in the working classes who are sick of being oppressed? In any case, although these people are outwardly content with their lot, inside they may harbour deep feelings of anger.
These are the people I refer to as having "hidden unhappiness". Still, because they are generally content, they aren't prepared to immediately march on the capital to depose the Emperor. However, get a large enough population and these people will start to get together.
It might start innocently enough, protest marches. Demonstrations. Yelling at people from soap boxes. All things the Emperor might get to hear of and react to. If the Emperor handles the situation well, the revolution might be buried for years. Or maybe not. If the Emperor reacts aggressively, it might spark further discontent, leading to direct unhappiness and the creation of rebel units. If the Emperor doesn't react aggressively, the malcontents may become bolder, perhaps rioting and causing unhappiness and thus rebel units.
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Let me state to you something that you may not have noticed. You seem to favor democratic/republic type governments over others and think they are inherently better (with a few minor exceptions) than others.
I must tell you, you are wrong in that assement. Don't take this the wrong way, I know many people would agree with you, but most of them are not divorced from there prejudices and such of republics and monarchies and other such governments. In essence there is no good or bad government type so that people would nessarily cause revolutions to create a democracy is, although true, misleading. You are forgetting to add the other side. That people will and have stated revolutions (sometimes in masses) for monarchial societies because it has things that are easier.

Now another thing is that you said that if you are a benovalent monarchial ruler things will change and my response to that is, no they won't. People don't like change, in fact, its human nature to fear change. More likely if everyone is content, then things will stay the same. Sure your right about the small minority being disgruntled, but these people can be dealt with and usually by the local populous. People don't like people sturring up trouble if there isn't any or any reason and those that do soon find themselves dead or outcaste. This is espially true in eastern civilizations whose dynasties lasted on average 3-4 centuries. Even when replaced, things went back to the way they were with only cosmetic changes. Even today people still perfer the way things are rather than change and risk.

How many times have there been revolutions throughout histroy that have to do with discontent of the home state (not to reclaim land that was taken or oust foriegner rule. Not many. I could probably count the number of them that had no foreign influence (ie not like vietnam) on one hand.

[The Diamond]

Ah, okay...

First off, then, apologies to everyone working on the govt. model. Didn't mean to encroach on your ideas. I had no idea there was already an existing system for revolutions...the discussion in the piracy thread seemed to suggest otherwise.

LGJ, I disagree. Not all govt. systems are equal in the eyes of the general public. Once someone has had a taste of freedom and control, they very rarely want to give up that control. FE, hardly ever did democracies return to feudal monarchies or monarchies to despotic systems. Although your suggestion that neither is right or wrong, good or bad is probably correct. Although this is more of a social-philosophical question than anything else.

Still, I'll cease my suggestions on revolutions for a while, although further comments will, as always, be appreciated.

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Right, I've now made a search of topics dealing with govt. changes and revolutions and rebels. So far, the only concrete ideas I've come across are those proposed in the govt. model from June last year.

These stated that rebel groups are based on factions from classes/cultures. Basically everything that I was saying about the rebels already exists under the current system. It's only the starting/finishing points of the revoltion and exactly what the player does within it that I've disagreed with, and those parts of the model seemed disputed in the govt. model (long) thread anyway.

However, I know that the govt. model is being overhauled, so I'll wait for that to happen before I say anything more about revolutions - it's probably the safest way.

Anyway, to clarify, ignore everything I said in the first post. I would delete it, but that'll just confuse matters to anyone reading this thread at a later date.
[This message has been edited by The Diamond (edited June 08, 2000).]

[Mark_Everson]

Well, I have to apologize too. I had remembered more being discussed than I could find through searching and following links on the web page... I Hope most of what I remember is around somewhere, or it means I'm going quietly mad

Anyway I will see if Rodrigo would mind my sending you an old first draft of the new system so you can see what he had in mind for the unrest stuff.

I was just very concerned that a model would evolve that was largely inconsistent with the new system. (and you and others would put a lot of work into it) We've already got the discussion going... and its ready to start back up when the new models show up! And like you said some of this stuff was never settled.

Mark

[Lord God Jinnai]

LGJ, I disagree. Not all govt. systems are equal in the eyes of the general public. Once someone has had a taste of freedom and control, they very rarely want to give up that control. FE, hardly ever did democracies return to feudal monarchies or monarchies to despotic systems. Although your suggestion that neither is right or wrong, good or bad is probably correct. Although this is more of a social-philosophical question than anything else.
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Yes in the eyes of the people they may be differnt, but that still doesn't make democracy the ideal for everyone who's experienced it. Take Russia for example. Many people preferred the communist system in some ways because atleast they weren't starving or had a job. True, they were unhappy, but one shouldn't overlook the fact that just because one is incharge of his own self (which isn't even the case in democracies since there are rules and a governing body...only anarchy is a person truly free) doesn't always mean thay favor that system. One must also take into consideration sociatal structures. FE a people who were freed of their emperor who was to an outsider a tyrant and create a democracy might be considered to them a savior and perhaps a god-like figure, might reinstate him or someone else and despise democracy. Its plausible and in some ways has happened before.

Also people as a whole are more worried about safery than freedom. If they view their lives are at risk, or more importantly, their children's lives are at more risk of anything and that risk is very great and the rewards may not be all that common, then they will seek safety rather than freedom.

[The Diamond]

Mark (or Rodrigo) - A copy of the propsed plan for disorder/revolutions/unrest would be great. Still, no need to hurry...I think I'll still be here by the time the whole new govt. model is finished, so don't go out of your way.

LGJ - You're absolutely right. Okay, this is what I think. From a social viewpoint, the govt. that the people want is the one that they think will bring them:
a) The most happiness
b) The most wealth
c) The most safety (physical/insurance)
d) The most freedom

I agree that people will go for whatever govt. will actually help them survive, should that be the case.

However, each govt. system has more than just social effects. It will naturally affect the economy, international relations with other govts, etc.

[roquijad]

My apologies, Diamond. I should have been here helping you with your ideas and allowing them to find a way into the new govt model.

I'll be posting three models, probably this weekend.
Govt model: The ruler and classes negotiating with each other "govt policies" (or "govt laws" if you prefer) and how much political power each have.

Social model: how cultural attributes change overtime. Cultural attributes will be an input for all other models.

Riots Model: Processes leading to protests, riots, revolutions, etc. These events will be generated from the people in your civ as a result of bad administration in the govt, poverty, etc.

The ruler won't be able to simply "create" a revolution. People need to be pissed off in order to revolt. In the Riots Model the player will face revolutions from the throne room, regardless of the sympathy he might feel for the rebellion. It's unsolved what to do if the player, being the ruler, wants the rebellion to succeed. That's something to keep discussing. My personal choice would be letting the player to choose any character in the civ, except the ruler. If you want to be the ruler, you have to earn it. This means you can give up being the ruler to become a rebel leader, but you cannot switch to being the ruler if you're currently a rebel leader. The only way would be overthrowing the current AI ruler. This would allow the player to be the civ's guiding spirit without having bizarre effects.

[Stuff2]

I saw that my - switch leader idea has been clearly missunderstood by some persons.

I'll give u an example on how I as a player might do when i want to switch government.

I decide to switch to a provincial governor not far away from the capitol. As I suddenly become I local governor I then for succeding overthrowing the government has to do following things:
1. Get support from the people and other leaders. (I want to keep this position)
2. Get money
3. Get an army
4. Avoid getting caught bye the leader (who is now controlled bye the computer)
5. Plan the overthrow and go through it.

This is not done easily.
How do i do? Well, money is the first problem. I have several options.
- Lend money - and risk loosing everything
- Get money from another nation (in exchange of...)
- Provincial taxes
- Ask for money from the leader.
- Crime (drugs, smuggling)

Once I have money I need the support of the people. (Beacouse if I don't they will just revolt and that will really hurt my position and my economy). This can be done with:
- Propaganda
- More propaganda, I tell them "Freedom, Equality, Fraternity".
- Doing good things like building places for recreation.

Now i have the peoples support. Now i have to get enough military support. I have to make sure that, once the leader is replaced by me, the military will remain loyal to me. Well, bribing some general officers could do the trick but it's a bit too risky. If the military is very loyal the present leader i may have to eliminate them in some way. Also, during the coup i need some military support.
I could now if i wanted to turn to a foreign country for military support, but that would lead to a real war and i don't want that. So i simply try to win over all provincial governors to my side. I bribe them, I give promises, I give threats, I assasinate those that are too dangerous. Once assasinated all those military leaders that are to loyal to the king i just walk in to the palace with the a small army and capture the king. I replace him, take over the country, hopfully keep all my promises. Replace the government with my own. In this case a republic government. All and all it took maybe 8 years
but the problems hasn't disappeared yet. Some royalistic people protest, try to revolt. One province simply breaks loose and they kidnap the king and make him their leader. A few other provinces tries to do the same but i surpress them with the military. A few years later after some war i manage to get the province back. Some more propaganda and society-building and i have overcomed the worst problems. It actually took me 15 years to do it.

[Lord God Jinnai]

1 thing about that is there must be popular support before you start otherwise it becomes too easy for a player to simply start (not ness finish) a revolution. Because say he gets caught right away under your idea before he can get enough money then as the guiding spirit of the civ you'd just go back as the ruler and can again try a new revolution.

I'd also say there'd haveto me more than popular support, ie downright hatred and wanted support for revolution, not just anti-gov sentamism. The latter is easy to come by, the former is much harder.

[axi]

Hi Rodrigo!

So, you're back into Clash? And you are about to post three models too! I surely didn't expect that. Judging from your email of 29/5, I thought that you would be missing for a long time to come. Gosh I am excited! Now maybe my contribution will be still useful, for the upcoming govt/social/riots model discussions.

And now some retrospect information, for all those that do not remember and for the newbies:

I am the one who volunteered to help Rodrigo to redraft the govt model, back in the end of Febuary. He sent me a 27 page doc which was revised and sent back and forth 3 times, in addition to several emails traded. We reached an understanding the week before Easter and Rodrigo was to make a presentable summary of what we had got to so far (As I have already told Mark in a related thread in the Alt.Civs section, what I have in my possesion is an incomplete document, jumbled up with all the previous discussion.) and post it in the Website and in the forum, so that we could start explaining it away to the team and making all the necessary additions. Back then I had personally insisted that all discussion should be made in the forum and I was pressing for a quick release, so that progress would not depend on one person only, which could cause delays (as it did, especially from my side ). After the discussion in the forum, a self-sustaining and codable version was to be established and tried with a demo. I was personally hoping for demo 5 (with just the basics in, just to get the feeling of it), which still isn't ready yet, so who knows?

But Rodrigo dropped out and (shame for me!) so did I, keeping a passive stance and distracting myself with the trivialities of life. May was generally a lame month for Clash, so I didn't even have interest in the forum discussions, not until now at least. Because June has started with fervent discussions about pirates and revolutions, all lacking any connection with our existing work and this has been entirely my fault and Rodrigo's, because we were not here to give the necessary information. IIRC, something like this occured in May too; somebody, I don't know who, was talking about government and I offered to share all of my knowledge with him, so that we could recommence the govt model discussion in spite of Rodrigo's absence, but I was not contacted thereafter.

All the while, I did not know exactly how much of all this did Mark know about and what his intentions were about the govt model. Mark is supposed to be personally responsible for the econ model and since these two have a large and extremely important interconnection, we had to be in close cooperation, which we didn't have. I still owe Mark a presentation of my ideas for the economic action of classes and for the economic effects of government policies. And I still am out of phase with the latest progress in the econ model itself. I am afraid that Mark has overlooked this too much while I, who should have helped into bringing the two models in understanding, have been skulking too long. Rodrigo was to cooperate with TK in consolidating the links between the govt and the social model and, if a new social model is indeed to be presented shortly, they must have worked more than I have.

...............................................

What comes out of this is that we have done some very bad planning, losing months of development time in the process. I have virtually lost contact with Clash and this I am now trying to reestablish. Please excuse me for all the off-topic issues included in this post.

As for my opinions about revolutions, should I wait for the models to get posted, or should I post here anyway? Revolution is one of my favorite subjects you know...

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"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
George Orwell

[The Diamond]

I too am very interested in the system of revolutions...still, for the benefit of everyone, I think we should wait until the updated model is posted before we start discussion on them again.