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Civilization Democracy Game
Shinto
__BANNED USERS regular
__BANNED USERS regular
A thread for Andrew_Jay's proposed democracy game. I'm not sure I need to do much to get the discussion going.
What do people think the mechanics for elections and governments should be?
What do people think the mechanics for elections and governments should be?
Shinto on
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Basically, I am enthusiastic.
I feel that certain interests should definitely not have the best interest of the civilization in mind. If we have a Buddhist who wants to raze a Muslim city to the ground, that's probably a bad idea for others, but great for killing off the other religions.
I'd be down so long as I can compose my land army entirely of bears with shark launchers and my navy entirely of sharks with bear launchers.
http://www.aforcemorepowerful.org/game/
I can only imagine that whatever government is in power would leave instructions with the moderator covering civilization policy for, say, a ten or fifteen turn block which would then be executed every day. Small events where a decision has to be made could be handled via a PM consult with the appropriate minister. Large events like an unplanned war would necessitate new policy instructions from the government.
For unit movement and production queues, I'm thinking that under some government you'll just have the person playing make those decisions themselves while under others you'll have representatives to give input to the player (who at this point is just a game master - not making decisions).
More dramatic stuff - research decisions, someone declares war on us, do we build a wonder, etc. the game stops and comes back to the thread for debate and/or voting.
Also, I wouldn't be adversed to doing some simple modding to make the game a little more friendly for this style of game play (tweak the number of turns, the technology and build rates, etc.).
I have an idea to assign people an affiliation based on the great people from the game (artists, prophets, engineers, merchants, scientists and generals) - at the very least, only those people can decide what to do if one of their great people are born. There could also be bonuses (weighted votes) under certain governments/civics.
I think it would be cool to have three or four person parties in charge of policy, with elections via poll between parties every twenty turns or so.
Personally, I like the drama that elections of representatives add on top of the game, rather that simply making decisions by referendum without overall policy coherence. In the very early game I imagine that everyone would pretty much agree.
But I think that the game is sufficiently complicated with enough options that controversy wouldn't be hard to find. Like, from the moment the easy expansion stops and real choices about development and war begin.
I like that idea as well.
Some ideas: under representation the players will elect several people to make decisions (three or five, maybe), under universal suffrage perhaps there will be more representatives, or some other mechanic I haven't thought of.
Despotism and hereditary rule could perhaps involve only a subset of the players electing a single leader - I think under hereditary rule having the current player choose their successor (subject to some kind of veto from the players) could be fun.
This is my concern as well.
But then, if the concept is successful I'm sure we'll have many of these, so it isn't like this will be the only game.
I mean, it would be raucous fun if a war-mongering theocratic group held power for a cycle or two, and then we had a benevolent republican trying to put together the pieces of the world.
Pop open an old saved game from around the year 1200 AD.
Look at the map and think about all the different ways you could take the game.
Ah well, like I said, this particular game doesn't have to be everything I like.
Another consideration though is that if you assign roles then you have to have people sign up in the beginning. If you don't assign roles then people can just come in to vote and participate as they like as the game goes on.
True - and the game might be somewhat longer than a Phalla and without the elimination of players.
I think rather than assigning roles, I might toy with "specials" - someone who can force a war, a research decision, the construction of a wonder, etc. etc. Still, that screws over the people who might some in later.
EDIT: though when brining in new players they can always be assigned to a group.
Or the religious groups collaborating with the militarist groups to institute a military theocracy, and change the civics accordingly.
Barring that, though, you could just create a laundry list of goals in the beginning. "Raze all cities bordering our civilization on the east, regardless of their alignment-- 10 points." "Begin a religious war, force your opponent to cower before you, and then declare a cease-fire-- 15 points."
Just create three teams afterwards with open membership, and a rule that you cannot join a team with 2 more players than any other team. People can come and go as they like.
Points go to the teams that earned them, and when the win condition is met (conferring points of its own), or our civilization is burnt to cinders, the team leading with points wins.
It seems more chaotic on paper than it necessarily would be, I think, because smart teams would combine goals that followed one another and if we develop smart goals, they wouldn't all be completely counter-intuitive development anyway. :P
EDIT: Sorry that my examples suck, I've actually never played a Civ game, haha.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
The method of winning is what we will maneuver over.
Single-player civ, but as a group we take over a civ and direct how is played. Think of it as being the citizens of an empire in the game.
I don't know. I just sort of want to act out my deep-seated grudge against Christianity and its slow-simmered establishment of a civilization bent on my ostracizing.
EDIT t Shinto-- yeah, sorry haha, I just got out of my hand with my imagination. Traditional Oboroism, my bad.
And Civ does have several win conditions.
So not everybody needs to have the same version of Civ?
That's a plus. I don't have and don't intend to get Civ4.
This sounds like it could take fooooorrrrrrreeeeevvvvvveeeeeeeerrrrrr though.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
It could take three or four weeks.
I mean, it takes between six and twelve hours to play a game of CIV III straight through.
HOw would we decide when what to attack then? We keep track of how many tanks my city makes?
I can't tell what you mean.
Well if we are all in charge of a city, how will we as a nation decide how/when to use our army. I mean if I build 4 tank units as the leader of a city, will I have complete control over the tank units? OR once I build a tank unit does it get nationalized.
You'd still have national leaders.
Representing a city would give players some measure of conflicting interests to watch out for though.
One work-around (which would also help streamline the game and cut out the early-game tedium) would be to start from a scenario that gives us a handful of cities - but that would involve me having more input in the game than I might really want.
Also, this is one of the big differences between Civ III and Civ IV - in the later you're not going to have a whole lot of cities. Maybe a dozen or so on a standard map.
I don't know.
This probably isn't ready for prime time. Maybe next time.
player 1
player 2
player 3
player 4
player 5
player 5
player 4
player 3
player 2
player 1
like the draft
Districts.
Everybody gets assigned a geographic district. As cities are conquered, they're added to the closest adjacent districts.
Then we have to periodically re-define the district boundaries. This would give the lower officials a chance to engage in some good old democratic jerrymandering.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.