Govt Model v.2 (contd.)

[Richard Bruns]

LGJ: I understand the wonders concept now. I should have said that there should be a vote on the construction of something big, like a massive wall or a huge temple or tomb.

Rodrigo:

quote: I see the fail/pass method as a short term political thing, but I also see it as too democratic. Are we going to have votings in a divine monarchy?

The game won't always be a divine monarchy. In the "Who is the player" thread, we agreed that we should have the flexibility for different scenarios. I'll quote F_Smith because he gave the best example:

quote: I'm currently coding under the assumptions it can be any of the three [play options], depending on how the scenario designer sets up the scenario. In other words, you can play the 'Greeks' in a 'Persian Wars' scenario, play 'Athens' in a 'Rise of Greece' scenario, or play 'Pericles' in a 'SimAthens' scenario.

So if you were playing the entire Greek civilization, you would be using the negotiation method most of the time. If you were playing Pericles, you would be using the pass/fail votes most of the time. And if you were playing "Athens" you would use a mixture of the two.

Besides, I thought that the player would be the king/ruler in a command government and the president/speaker in a democracy or republic. I never thought the player would be some deity like in Populous; I assumed we were using the Civilization model (without the power to change religion and order revolutions).

quote: If the system can be generalized a little to make sense in any type of govt AND if it can be generalized a little to accept more majority rules than only the very specific (US-like?) 51%-rule AND if it's used only for short-term play AND if at least a little of intelligence can be included in votings to simulate the "interactions", "coalitions", "strategic voting", etc between parties, then I'm willing to accept it for any policy, listed or not.

That is exactly what we are trying to do. For example, the strict 51% rule was abandoned a while ago, and we had planned on two-thirds majorities and other such things. That is why I am now calling it the pass/fail system or the vote system.

quote: Otherwise I'd accept it only for short-term decisions for new more specific policies with a low impact in the game.

Short-term and specific, yes. That is all I asked for. But I don't agree with the low impact. The construction of a huge wall should be voted on, but it does not have a small impact.

[Richard Bruns]

F_Smith: Don't forget that what is actually implemented over the long term can very different than what the ruler orders. Even though the powers that be might order one thing, the actual administrators and bureaucrats might bend the rules after a while. The negotiation system does a very good job of showing how the rules are bent over time. The ruler preference that was selected is often only a guideline for what actually happens. Other forces will change the policy. For example, the people who run the polling booths can find ways to keep minorities out even though the official policy is that there should be no discrimination.

That is why negotiation should be used for big, long term policies.

[F_Smith]

Richard:

I actually disagree with that, for the most part.

The policies get followed and implemented. Then, the people make their feelings known in a 'reactionary' way, thru civil disobedience.

I think your example states it perfectly.

The law gets changed, then the bureaucrats 'bend' the rules if and when they want. But the official govt policy still remains the same. The policy does not change.

Which is exactly how it works in the 'political power' game. You should be able, as a ruler with the power to pass laws, to pass a law against slavery. Now, if you find that the groups whom were made unhappy by that change are staging some sort of 'protest' by not enforcing that law, you should have a chance to take action, if you chose, to make that group happy (or force them to comply!). If the bureaucrats are unhappy, they may refuse to enforce the laws. If the people are unhappy, they may riot. If the church is unhappy, they may preach against you (inciting the people to riot?). If the Military 'class' is unhappy, they may try to murder/replace you. It should depend on who, what, why.

The 'negotiated' game doesn't really simulate this. The law doesn't ever get changed to what the person in charge of laws ordered in the first place.

Altho I don't think this discussion belongs here . . . does it?

[F_Smith]

One other thought:

The 'negotiation' method of setting govt policies does work moderately well, as you said, in simulating 'big, long term policies' -- how government policies average out over the years.

But there is no such thing, in a game like this.

Setting government policies is *always* a question of the moment. It is always the moment in time when you change the 'status quo'.

In the long run, things can and should work themselves out thru systemic methods. But *at that moment* you change a government policy, you should not 'average' out how the policy will play out over the next several years. You should wait those several years to see how that plays out.

[Lord God Jinnai]

F_Smith:

quote: I only have one quick interjection -- the 'politics' system is not actually a 'voting' system. It's a 'power politics' system. You don't try to get 51+% of the 'votes'. You try to amass 51+% of the total 'political power'. Which is why 51+% is actually the perfect number thru 85% of history, and why the 'political power' system actually models kingdoms far better than democracies -- The basic rule about power is, was, and always will be -- if you want to do something, and you overpower your opponents, you will be able to do that something over the objections of your opponents.

Um on paper that has been the case, but in reality that rarely is the case. 5!% isn't the magical number by any means. I mean the 49% left could be capable of simply ignoring your policies before you even decree them because you think you can impose your will because you have a mere 2% more power than they do so they just stick out their touges and wait to see what you'll do.

Doing this forces all events to counterbalance the one in control to be special actions which are usually considered at the best underhanded. This is far from the case.

What you say is true F_Smith, but not with such a slim majority. Maybe when they reach 65% or so they might force their will on others like you said, but with such a slim majority they usually don't do too much for fear of being on the other side of the fence.

Also you've yet to explain how a 50/50 powestuggle would go.

quote: I actually disagree with that, for the most part. The policies get followed and implemented. Then, the people make their feelings known in a 'reactionary' way, thru civil disobedience. I think your example states it perfectly. The law gets changed, then the bureaucrats 'bend' the rules if and when they want. But the official govt policy still remains the same. The policy does not change.

In some cases yes, in others as far as things are converned government polcies change because the ruler lets them slide without worrying about putting it to a vote or whatever or just doesn't care.

quote: Which is exactly how it works in the 'political power' game. You should be able, as a ruler with the power to pass laws, to pass a law against slavery. Now, if you find that the groups whom were made unhappy by that change are staging some sort of 'protest' by not enforcing that law, you should have a chance to take action, if you chose, to make that group happy (or force them to comply!). If the bureaucrats are unhappy, they may refuse to enforce the laws. If the people are unhappy, they may riot. If the church is unhappy, they may preach against you (inciting the people to riot?). If the Military 'class' is unhappy, they may try to murder/replace you. It should depend on who, what, why.

Under you're system though every time a minute change in policy needs to be done, a power stuggle will emerge to see who's victorious. Hmmm i want to raise the tax rate from 8% to 9%...i want to add 1% more to military spending...i want to make a few people wear jester clothes every other even Tuesday when its raining, no longer just every other even Tuesday. This will invite micromanagment to the extreme for players to make sure they get the best and will constantly be changing their stats every turn because of this.

quote: Setting government policies is *always* a question of the moment. It is always the moment in time when you change the 'status quo'. In the long run, things can and should work themselves out thru systemic methods. But *at that moment* you change a government policy, you should not 'average' out how the policy will play out over the next several years. You should wait those several years to see how that plays out.

Creating the 'status quo'? I don't see how. But if its the case, its no differnt than yours save you think that because you have 51% anything else can be ignored.

[F_Smith]

With 51% of the power, you *can* impose your will. By definition. You pass the law, then arrest those who don't follow it. That is the definition of having 51% of the control of the government.

If you're saying that the player with 51% would do better to rarely, if ever, push their will -- then you're certainly right. If you outlaw slavery, then arrest those that continue to traffic in slaves, that group might become so angry they'll create civil unrest. And the only way to quell that unrest might be to grant them a larger % share of the power. Only a very strong despot dare risk ignoring the desires of the people.

A 50/50 split is a stalemate. You don't have the force to push the issue.

And yes, every change in govt policies will require a power struggle. But with 1 year turns, you'll only change policies rarely. At most once a decade, I should think. Usually in response to some stimulus, otherwise you'd just set the govt policies where you feel is 'optimal' and let it run.

* * *

Guys:

How did we end up back on this topic here again?

[This message has been edited by F_Smith (edited September 06, 2000).]

[F_Smith]

Let's get this back on topic:

What breakdown for 'political power' should we offer the players at the beginning of the default scenario 4000 bce?

One pattern that seems obvious is to have a player start with total control, 100% of the power. Then the player can 'dole' out %'s to groups to win their support, etc.

Does that seem reasonable?

What other patterns can I expect, do you think?

[F_Smith]

Lots of good discussion, here.

I only have one quick interjection -- the 'politics' system is not actually a 'voting' system. It's a 'power politics' system. You don't try to get 51+% of the 'votes'. You try to amass 51+% of the total 'political power'.

Which is why 51+% is actually the perfect number thru 85% of history, and why the 'political power' system actually models kingdoms far better than democracies --
The basic rule about power is, was, and always will be -- if you want to do something, and you overpower your opponents, you will be able to do that something over the objections of your opponents.

The only time this changes is when a system of laws specifically limits a ruler's power.

And this option only comes up in the last several hundred or so years, I believe (I'd like someone's thoughts on that, tho). Perhaps the 'Magna Carta' was the first such attempt to limit ruler power, agreed?

So most of the game would be played with pure 'power' politics.

[roquijad]

For now, we'll have both systems (51% and negotiations) in the beast to test them. I'm out of bullets to continue the discussion over that controversy. I've said everything I think already on the subject, so I won't insist anymore on that.

What to expect at 4000bc?
I think the best way is to give each civ an "almost" random regime out of a small list like:
divine monarchy
"typical" monarchy
total despotism (warlord rule)
oligarchy

"almost" means the game can check civ's culture first and then assign a regime ad hoc to culture, so egyptians can start in a divine monarchy, FE. sounds reasonable?

[Lord God Jinnai]

One last thing F_Smith...your 51% rule doesn't prevent the player from reseting policy every turn. All he needs is a majority whereas the other he needs to renegotiate with everyone.

A though just suddenly smacked me in the head. Why does the ruler or anyone else ever haveto know what their exact political power is? Can't we just give them an estimate so that say the ruler had 51%, he might see something like "You have about have the total power of the realm", but he wouldn't know what side of the line he was on nor by about how much. This would reduce the player from micromanaging things to get certain percentages. Same thing with alliances "Through various alliances your reign is all but complete control over your realm." or just say what the various groups hold.

[F_Smith]

Lordy:

?

"Reseting every turn"?

I'm not sure what you mean by this . . . but of course someone could make changes every turn, if they wanted to. But remember that every time you change a law against the will of the people, there will be increased unhappiness in the ignored groups.

And this will lead to various forms of civil unrest.

About the other, that's certainly a possibility. Altho I'd like to think about it some.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Well how often does a ruler or group know really how much control they have. They may have a good picture, but can u actually say they can pinpoint to a percentage what their power over the course of a country, province, etc is?

IRL such power is fleeting anyway and often varies depending on what the subject is. FE Kings of latter middle ages/early renassaunce (with the exception of England) had little/no control over the religion and often there were 2 sets of laws which someone accused under king's law could recieve sanctuary from the Church. Yet the church couldn't disctate battles. Sure they could impose ethical standards and on occasion ask (sometimes with threats) for mediation, but their power varied depending on each area.

Anyway this just simplifies it saying rule is the same everywhere. Its just giving real life situations of telling everyone that you might have an idea where you stand in terms of power, but you never know for certain.

[roquijad]

Government Model Glossary, Brief Summary and Current Status (September 24th, 2000)

BRIEF SUMMARY
The power in the govt is distributed among the ruler and a set of social classes. All of these political agents (including the ruler) participate in the definition of the Government Policies (or govt laws) which in time define how the civ should work.

List of Govt Policies
Tax Rate
Ethnic Discrimination
Religious Discrimination
Slavery
Private Property
Economic Planning
Social Policies
Foreign Affairs
Civil Rights

The political agents interact with each other to define policies through the "negotiation procedure", which is an abstract way to handle all the possible real life interactions between political entities, like voting, making alliances, discussing legal initiatives, bribing the opposition, etc.

In general terms, the negotiation procedure ensures that the greater the power an agent has, the more alike the final govt policy will be to what the agent wanted it to be.

The ruler enters his preferences for each policy, while what the social classes want for them must be modeled. To this end, the govt model takes info from the culture and social role of each class to determine what they want.

Social classes preferences are divided in two groups. For the first group of policies (called Directly Negotiated Policies-DNP), the value a class wants for each policy is computed individually and independently from all the rest. For the second group (called Ideologically Negotiated Policies-INP), the class is forced to choose first an "ideology", which is a pre-set group of values. An ideology is really a "govt type". Given this election, the class preference becomes what the govt type dictates.

Division in DNP and INP allows flexibility, consistency and flavor in other areas of the game.

In terms of game-play, the political entities are constantly struggling every game turn to force the govt be what they want it to be. The shape of the govt is constantly in change, smoothly. The player, though, doesn't need to interact with the model every turn. He/she just puts what he/she wants and the game engine plays the ruler for him/her in the political arena automatically.

The player will also have a set of Special Actions to (or attempt to) make sudden changes to the govt, like "closing the parliament".

The Riots Model is in charge of handling violent attempts by social classes to change the govt.

Social Classes
We're trying to make the number of classes flexible. To do this, we've created 4 "families" of social classes, so you can have as many classes as you want from each family, each behaving slightly different to the rest in the same family and sensibly more differently compared with a class in other family.

Families: Socioeconomic social classes, Religious social classes, Administrative social classes and Military social classes. For now, the default game will have these social classes:
Upper Class-UC (Aristocracy) (Socioeconomic)
Middle Class-MC (Socioeconomic)
Lower Class-LC (Socioeconomic)
Religious Class-RC (Religious)
Warriors Class-WC (high officers of the army) (Military)
Bureaucratic Elite-BE (Administrative)


GLOSSARY (MOST IMPORTANT TERMS)
Government: All persons who take part in defining policies. It can be the great priest and the great military leader in a small tribe or the whole senate plus the elected administration in a modern democracy.

Political power: The power or capability to influence the final value of govt policies. Any form of influence is counted in, legal or not. In a modern democracy, any party with at least one senator in the senate has political power, for example (very small in this case, though).

Social Class: A group of people with a certain social role and common mentality in general terms.

Govt Policy: A generic govt regulation including in theory a whole set of laws to define how the civ should operate in a given field.

Political Block: Group of social classes sharing the same condition that allows them to participate in politics. "Conditions" are 1)Economic power (control of kapital), 2)Military power, 3)Spiritual power/recognition, and 4)Inherent. The latter means you don't need nothing to participate in politics. It's your unalienable right.

Political Structure: How political power is distributed among political actors. Expressed in pol. power shares distributed among political blocks.

Government Profile: The current political structure and policy values in the civ.

Ruler's Govt Profile: Ruler's preferred values for the political structure and policy values.

Ideology: A pre-set group of values consistent with each other describing a political structure and an economic system (values for policies Private Property, Economic Planning and Social Policies). It's a more sophisticated concept for "govt type", but the terms are interchangeable.

Ideologically Negotiated Policies: Variables defining an ideology. The pol.power shares and Private Property, Economic Planning and Social Policies.

Directly Negotiated Policies: Policies not defined in ideologies. That is: Tax Rate, Ethnic Discrimination, Religious Discrimination, Slavery, Foreign Affairs and Civil Rights.

Negotiation Procedure: Method that produces the Govt Profile given the preferences of all political actors having political power.


CURRENT STATUS
The model is being coded by F_Smith in the "Beast". You can check it in http://home.austin.rr.com/lostmercha...ashEditor.html

The current effort in model design is to allow greater flexibility in the number of social classes. The "families of social classes" approach seen above is an implication of this. The development in this part is still in progress. Some equations in the model need to be changed to reflect this and that's part of the current work.

An alternative system to the "negotiation procedure" has been started by F_Smith under the assumption that a straight forward voting system is more realistic. You can play with this also in the "Beast". Decision to which one use for the final game waits for play testing.

The negotiation procedure has been in doubt for several reasons. No agreement yet.

Some discussion about interface has been made with little agreement.

[Twinge]

Reading furthur down in the government model, One line of text struck me as totally wrong:

quote: For all what follows minorities are irrelevant. That's because this model simulates the political game in the government leading to set the values for each government policy and minorities are definitely out of the government and have no political power to play this game

What?!
What if a Civ. has an Ethnic Tolerance of 1 or 2, meaing they have a majority, but the others aren't discriminated against very much. There should still be the change of those said minorties being in government! Look at the US, FE: White Caucasion Male would be the Majority. Does this mean there are no Blacks, Females, or Asians ever in government? Obviously not; there may be less of them, but theyre still there.

Another Small question: are you planning on including True Democracy (Basically, you control next to nothing, and any polices and the like are put to popular vote) as a possibility in the government model?

A few thoughts about discrimnation: The way it looks to be set up, is that if RD & ED were at 1, and some people weren't the national religion or ethnic group (but most people didn't care) they still wouldn't have any political powers whatsoever. On the other hand, FE, and ED of 10 and RD of 0. Your Civilization hates all Asians, but they're still fine because the belive in Jedaism.
Also, on part 2 you said "Killing Ideology Supporter #1" wouild lower the knowlege level, and on Part 3 you add in this whole new Representation level which isn't really needed (I think just lowering the Knowledge level would be enough)
And on the negotiating thing, there should be some sort of limit to how often you can do it or disadvantages to doing it often in a short time.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Twinge:

Your points are good ones, and I have raised some of them myself too. I don't know when Rodrigo will get a chance to respond... but if you want to dealve deeper into the previous discussions on this stuff, you should search on "minority" or "minorities" and you should get plenty. (Search function is to the upper right of the main forum window.)

On the general issue I too have trouble with how the model handles "almost equal" societies. There has been some change of the model from the web page one based on our discussions of it already. But I don't want to summarize since Rodrigo is the one in charge, and I don't remember our exact modifications in detail anyway . We may just have to wait for playtesting to resolve the issue finally as to how to handle the near-equal ethnicities' politics in the model.