Revisions to government types

Input is always appreciated. Once down pat I'll post the agreed upon terms into the voting poll.

So when you select your government unique selections will become available to the country. (please remember we need to keep these equal but different)
_________________________________________________
Anarchy: All gradual change items can be changed instantly. Examples of this are social security, government salaries, state corp salaries, CEO corps located within the countries salaries. In addition the spending limit will be restricted only by the amount of available cash.
_________________________________________________
Kingdom: (merge with Aristocracy and rename Monarchy)
Aristocracy: (merge with Kingdom and rename Monarchy) Reduced government expenses [Incomplete]
_________________________________________________
Democracy: (Rename Representitive Democracy) Seperate fund for citizens to invest in corps located in the nation (if citizens have money and a corp has outstanding shares the people will automatically buy shares upto 100%, can force companies truly public, can takeover majority shareholdings and repurchase/sell shares select TS, and Supply Qualities, just not move corps). Welfare Boost [Incomplete]
_________________________________________________
Dictatorship: (merge with Fascist State and rename Oligarchy)
Fascist State: (merge with Dictatorship and rename Oligarchy) The ability to use militia. Reduced social security effect, social security boost. Welfare decrease. [incomplete]
_________________________________________________
Social Democracy: Increase government costs. Welfare Boost. Ability to change income tax percentages. Increased susceptibility to riots. War weariness. Increased birth rate, Increased migration rate.
_________________________________________________
Socialist State: No income from Health or education. Increase income from taxes. Welfare boost. Decreased migration rate. Decreased birthing rate. Education Boost. Increased effectivity of social Security
_________________________________________________
Theocracy: Less susceptability to riots. No back to work schools or special clinics. Increased income tax
_________________________________________________

So just because not all say incomplete it doesn't mean that any are complete. I simply didn't want to force them. So offer suggestions, and we'll change it around and submit to the vote when it's accepted by the majority of the players that post.

I dont like you, but i will support this in the voting poll. However the Theocracy...no back to work schools isnt a good idea and probally wouldnt be changed anyway. This would make the idea of CEO corps being better than regular corps kinda..well false. The good thing about ceo corps is that it offers more people to the economy. Nobody will want millions of unemployed people doing nothing when they could change goverment types and put them back to work. I think you have a good idea but some other items here should be changed as well.

The goverment types as of now, and to the best of my knowledge has no real meaning other than role playing. I think that should be changed but taking away the health income, back to work schools etc.. i'd rather see it with different traits.

Right so any suggestions?

Some, but more thought should be put into it. I'd like to see more communication between goverment and citizens. Thats not really on topic with this. But could be used as part of this. Democracy, citizens vote.

I see this as a good idea but like you say kasper, a few things would probularly need modifying or adding though. +1 for the idea.

So what we could do with this thread is take one of the 7 categories I split them up into or one of the 9 original ones and state what you think should be special about it.

Example
Anarchy: Blah blah blah

To reineterate why they are grouped like this and have some of the things inputted goes thusly, and I plan on changing it when good suggestions for revisions come along:

Anarchy: Should allow severe changes without reprocussions, as there are no laws to follow etc. So if all limiters can be removed then an Anarchagical government makes sense. Other things could be no one will give the government loans or an increased death rate, but don't want to fill it with negative side effects too heavily.

Monarchy: I hoped a british player could help extend with the benefits and/or problems with a monarchy. I figured though with a strong single figure head the amount of officials would decrease lowering the cost of government.

Representative Democracy: I figured I'd model this after the capitilist US. Allowing citizens complete freedom in regards to money. Essentially opening a country specific stock exchange, and that freedom would then be extended to the new owners of the corps to fiddle with some things to increase their profit margins or working conditions. The difference being the profits made by the corps would go directly back to the investor citizens, which is a very realistic goal. And exactly what the free market does. However I didn't get to very many other traits, just a unique policy for this governement type.

Oligarchy- The military running the government would most likely see human rights violations. This welfare decrease I had impacting social security effect, essentially raising it would not impact the index as greatly, yet on the other hand the authoritative regime inspires nationalism and so a static boost would offset that. Essentially if you keep your social security low then defaultly the index will be higher with this index. If you spend a lot of money other governemnts will be able to pass this up. I see that as a negative trait as I try to keep my welfare as high as possible but it has the possibility of being positive. But the largest gain from the Oligarchy is the militia system. I believe many of you, war players could make a better militia system then I can but... the idea is you don't need your entire military dedicated to the military the ones that aren't will leave their occupation when required to fight. leading to incredible sized armies and huge wars. (Beware of Oligarchical neighbors)

Social Democracy- I referenced this to left leaning european states such as Sweden, switzerland, norway, etc (northern Europe). They call upon the citizens to pay for the government. The uniquity of this is a major control boost to the government in regards to tax rate, don't know the current math but allowing changes to the marginal tax rates would be an incredible impact. Yet dangerous as well as there would have to be penalties leading to citizens not being able to buy all the goods they would like or need. So extra precautionary measures would have to be put in place, and social security would have to subsidize starvation and basically pay for food when the president is inept. But outside of that, people will be happy not having to worry about famine, and will be suscepible to low welfare conflicts, and outrageous taxes. And at least now they appear to be anti-war so war weariness impacting welfare I think is also good.

Socialist State- This is the other half of the meaning of Socialism, but so it remains different enough I threw in some communism there as well. Basically an authorative socialist regime. With that said universal education and health tied with an unchangeable high income tax rate, to offset the lack of government income through those institutions. As taxes will be a high % it brings people closer to even salaries and so social security above 100% would greatly increase the well being of everyone, and a socialist system would also care for the unemployed etc. This is what justisfies the increased effectivity of social security.

Theocracy- When I think of a government run by the church, I think of housewives, and resistance to medication. However the authorative system of things should bring efficiency offsetting some other policies. And as the government works for the church an extra tax paid to the church made sense to me. This authoratative government would tend to be more accepted by the public then others and reduce the susceptability of riots. Now the concern stated thus far is CEO's aren't as needed. This is true, however you can run a country without them. These governments need tto be different, and my argument to rebute that is the country would want corporations with strong religious values in their country and enterprises are immune to religious afffiliations, at least they should be. Extra benefits to offset this hindrance would be sure to make this a unique choice that has equal but different benefits. If you would like to change it great, but it needs something to replace it, and it needs something relative.

Thank you so far for your input and keep it coming. =)

When i get more time I'd read more and suggest more, but this is a very good start. Very interesting

That suggestion seems very complicated to code and to balance fairly. And it requires several new features.

It would be easier for government types to be about numbers. For example, each government type could get a 20% boost to one of the country indexes or income sources, or a 20% discount on a cost category.

social democracy: 20% increase in taxes paid by citizens

fascism: 20% boost to the business and trade index

dictatorship: 20% boost to the defense index

democracy: 20% cut in general cost of government

It looks like there are too many government types anyway. Anarchy isn't even a government.

The idea should be that government types and scores should reflect different playing styles.

Not everyone wants to play the same way. Scores should not assume that everyone must follow an identical strategy.

Scores need more relevance, indexes need transparency, government types need to be implemented. Might as well make all of that mutually related.

hmm... yeah you're right. But increased features would bring much more excitement to the game. So I do think the features should be simple but I don't think those changes really way make a significant change well except for democracy that is, that seems way to big, and the social democracy would simply cut into spending by the public and investment in housing/pension/IF's.

But we kind of do alot of this ourselves already. There are countries of pure state corps, with high taxes (75%) and low wages, whats that? socialist is it?

There are countries of high welfare, open to all foreigh investment, using IFs for health care etc...capitalist I suppose, making profits but weak and vunerable to economic or military war.

Large military countries with poor welfare, minimal expenses but the benefit of warring for profit. Dictatorial, not necessarily an Oligarchy seeing as you are the sole 'president'.

Just 3 I think of for now. But there are so many variations, like I for one on KB generally have all state but a few CEO for the BTW schools and clinics, relying on high profit transfer rather than tax. I am a firm state economy believer, so what catagory does that put me in? There would be too many limiting factors involved in having specific rules for a limited selection of political outlooks. IMO.

That's why scores should accommodate different playing styles. Currently, scores assume that one measure of success fits all playing styles.

If government types provide different benefits, then the game would recognize different playing styles. Then all that would be needed is to recalculate scores so that government types and scores are integrated.

If someone chooses a communist, anti-CEO government, then scores should rate the country versus other communist countries. If someone chooses a capitalist, pro-CEO government, then scores should rate the country versus other capitalist countries. And the same with pro-war or anti-war governments.

Countries would be much more interesting if government types had benefits and scores didn't favor only one government ideology.

Nah, the scores should reflect the success of your country compared to any other type of government. All players have the same opportunities, different strategies (govt. types if you like) have different pros and cons already.

I see where you envisage it going, but dont introduce too much influence from a set govt. type. I would rather have the best bits from all types.

Scores currently are silly.

There are countries with low profits having higher scores than countries with high profits. There are countries with a low welfare index scoring higher than countries with a high welfare index.

Scores should be relevant. Scoring countries equally based on a silly methodology is banal.

It's not useful that scoring or government types expect players to play identically.

But the game currently doesn't allow very many strategies that work, and those change all the time. I mean if done right you can increase the number of if different strategies and compare them to everyone else. And though I somewhat agree with you, it still makes actually picking one meaningless. I see socialist states with like the default 40 to social security. That is a pathetic excuse for a socialist state.

The scores should reference your country verses all other countries. But the game isn't completely realistic and it doesn't take in the benefit of many different idealogies. Such as a fascist state. If you ran your country like NAZI Germany your country would suck, but if we were to measure indexes in real NAZI Germany you would see that they were very successful compared to other countries (easy example not a country I like by any means). Can you imagaine how fun it would be to make a country that symbolizes an Anarchigal government work? Also it can be a very good learning experience to the less informed people if done correctly.

There's a lot more to the scores than you've mentioned there Madoff. I presume you know that. Military ranking is a big one. Assets. Game level. So it's a balance of all these things if you're really looking for a high country score. So your score can be good or bad regardless of govt. type. Surely you're not saying one type should have advantages over another.

Yes, have small influences on different things depending on Govt. type but can you image the complexity of trying to work that out fairly in a game such as this where we are all smart enough to catch on to any tiny loophole we can manipulate to our advantage?

It is very common in games for there to be several classes, and for each class to have pluses and minuses. Differentiating classes does not mean that any class is superior.

Differentiating classes encourages players to play the aspects they like most. Happy players results in more players.

Government types could be classes.

Regarding scores, no, they are not balanced. This scoring system rewards rigid uniformity. This scoring system doesn't incorporate different player interests or goals.

yes but then as they are exposed they will be fixed and sorted out with updates. The end product will be much more exhillerating, the process might be a little rough. One world test would be fine then wouldn't it?

The same is true for strategic resources, mobile units, multisized corps or any other change made

Hahah, yes, but, without trying to sound too negative, that is one of SCs big failings. They never seem to recognise the knock on effects that any even minor changes have.

I seem to remember them saying some time back now, maybe even pre Andy, that Govt. type influence is on their radar, but then so are many things.

i remember asking 3years ago in jozi chat to allow tacts to hit forts and cities and i was promised that anyone killed in nuke attacks would directly effect the war index.... Dout the GM knows whats on the list anymore
lol
they had a list but they lost it so is like they making new stuff up @ will

I think it should be possible to have a so called 'anarchy' as a kind of government. Simply it would be a place full of petty warlords, organized crime sydicates and exiles fighting each other and running the country. Litually tearing itself apart in constant civil wars. What would the good sides and the bad sides be to this?

I think the one good side of it would be.

Depending on the size of your army, they could act as raiding forces such as stealing and looting other rich and populated countries, since they would be completely disobedient and would not any kind of loyalty to anyone, an option like a kind of sneak attack where you would'nt have to officially declare war against that country, which could produce a form of income for a 'anarchy' government. As well as organized crime sydicates for example paying you regular 'bribes' as another form of income.

And also to help you further on the 'Monarchy' form of govenment Drew, the people under a king or queen, particularly when celebrations or events take place like jubilees and general visits to certain parts of the country would make them generally happier, giving them a kind of morale boost which could indeed increase the welfare level of the country a bit, which in turn would be more productive.

Welfare boost, thank you. If each section had one feature then one negative index value, and one positive one seems to be the approach that seems to have the most capable balancing approach. So do you have any feature that can be brought up for a monarchy choice? Possibly festivals that cost money to have a temporary boost, by your description?

Also I'm not sure if I'm in favor of your anarachy, to think you can control criminals is a little out there. But I will oblige to it, if someone else shows support. That would be in contrast to my proposed ability of anarchy governments to allow quick edits to salaries, ss, and spending limits.

Crafty, and Madoff the two of you seem to be the one's in opposition. One seems to want to dismiss the subject entirely, and the other would like to alter the base of the suggestion. No hard feelings just in an attempt to satisfy the community, and as forum members you are forced to represent the sample of SC members I will rehash the construct of the suggestion.

To satisfy Madoff's concern of scores currently not representing a variation of tactics. 1 new feature per government will be added to better the effect of certain playing styles. In addition 1 minor positive change to effectiveness of social policy, and 1 negative change to social policy. These changes to social policy should only partially enhance aspects of the game allowing presidents to benefit slightly by following the will of their people, as you choosing your government is to be a symbol of what values you want your country to undertake.

To satisfy Crafty's, concern of conformity limiting variation of playstyles. And the inability to balance the government types effectively I suggest: limit the government types even more narrowly so its easier to balance. Down to Oligarchy, Democracy, Socialist State, and Monarchy. 4 is easier to manage then 9 or the proposed cut down to 7. Also then you are not forcing topics, and the project would become much easier to implement.

To satisfy the other concern of conformity: I'll start with a vague example; A military nation will benefit from an Oligarchy because of the feature, however his entire economic policies will be untouched, so instead of finding merely military players and economic players, you will find military players with a wide array of economic choices. The opposite can also be true, you can find economic players who take the Oligarchy route as a safegaurd for defense to protect their incredible economic edge. I felt the example worked better then anything I could have said otherwise. This should not enforce conformity yet the opposite, but expand the base of playing styles. Furthermore the negative and positive tweaking associated with this should not be so deprimental that it encourages robot players. I know I say that it is the intent, but in practical uses it could be very different, and have unpredictable effects.

now if you support re-instating the orignal proposed message before this reconstruct be vocal about it.

Current suggestive changes to gov types
Oligarchy - Feature add: Militia || Positive Boost: a higher base value or starting value to social security (SS=0~SS=15) || Welfare Decrease (5% decrease)

Socialist State - Feature add: Income Tax Management || Positive Boost: Increased Birthing rate (5% increase) || Negative Boost: No income from Health or Education (Keep in mind this value should however be pushed to increased money in spending by the pop, IF's etc, and be further reduced by influencing tax rates)

Democracy - Feature add: Citizen Brokerage || Positive Boost: I'd prefer suggestions for this one (?) || Negative Boost: Increase in Cost of Government (10%)

Monarchy - Feature add: I'd prefer suggestions for this one || Positive Boost: Welfare boost (5%) || Negative Boost: Sunk Cost for building facilities (15% increase to building a corp, of evaporating cash)

I think once you pick a government type it should be applied same to all countries in your empire as currently you don't have to have the same government type across your entire empire.