Ruling Party system and elections - changes I would like to see

Proud Canadian,
I don't know how politics works in Canada but there are some aspects of your suggestions that just plain do not exemplify US politics.

1). A political leader that changes parties is vilified in the US. Neither party trusts such a leader.
2). The electorate in the US is swayed during the election campain by the rhetoric of the candidates (and you wondered why some people get elected). Actions and "track records" do not influence voters.
3). Right and Left, Moral and Amoral, ethical and unethical, conservative and liberal, and other opposites seem to have adherants in majority proportions that can not be swayed. None of this has anything to do with how well a president, senetor, or congressman performs his/her job, or whether she/he pays any attention to his/her constituants.
4). Lately (last 40 years? More?), big business has had more control of government (through lobbies and campain contributions, and other means, in spite of "election reform") than "the people".
5). You did not specifically talk about war weariness (your seventh bullet does touch on it obliquely), but it has been implemented in other games. I think this is the only aspect where "the people" will prevail over special interests in the US (or is thist just wishful thinking on my part). (I think this may be a worth while addition to GC2.)

Your sixth bullet is in GC1 to a very superficial extent. Maybe it can be improved upon.

Your eighth bullet contains a kernal of truth when viewing the US transition of power after an election where a change of political party occurs. The game could make it harder during the first couple of months if there is such a change of power. (But I have to wonder if this is really worth while in GC. After all, isn't it the player's objective to retain power? Also, if the player does change parties, wouldn't he/she retain her/his cabinet and staff, thus obviating a transition period?)

Maybe in this case, GC should aim more for idealism than realism -- aim more for how we would like to see politics work, than what we see today.

Hey Jack,

I wasn't really going for a real-world model, I just thought that the way I suggested would be more fun. Besides, I was talking Galactic Politics, not US politics. It is very different. I believe the famous quote of M'rrthax the Beheader (leader from the 4th dynasty Drengin Empire) was "Adaptability is strength". If you recall, M'rrthax led the Drengin through some very exciting times, changing their focus from war, to trade, to research, to industry, then back to war. His many changes of government type allowed unprecedented expansion by the Drengin Empire. If he hadn't inadventently slowed the Drengin expansion with his dabbling in Pacifism (for which he was, ironically, beheaded by his own people) we would both be nothing more than bits of tasty skin floating in a bowl of Terran and Bean Chowder.

MY POINT? A good Galactic Leader must be flexible and willing to work with all the political parties for the greater good of his race. (except for the damn pacifists - if you like those guys, you might as well just quit now and move to Canada)

- PC

My opinion? Not simple enough, not representing the whole thing better enough.

My try. Here's the structural aspect:
1-a- Ruling political elite: One ruling party (the player choice, kindda "ruling elite's general direction")
1-b- Still ruling political elite: Main party's opposition (many parties)
2- Popular support (morale... for the player to manage it as elections)

In GC, opposition is always seriously divided, and you get bad effects when it's another party as if only the main party was competent. I say let's do the same, but better:
- You get the party's bonuses, whattever party it might be. Main party has too little compared to second greatest party = division in political ranks (ruling elite). You get bad effects out of it (lose your bonus, other party minor bonus, whattever).
- You wish to change party? Can do. A wary population might support it, while if everything was on the party's side it will then gradually bring it to minority (with bad effects) and gradually give the other party is dominance (to extent possible by circumstances).
This simply represents a shift in the political environment, a shift in dominance/general orientation (just like a US president might lose his own party's support, etc etc). Such a shift from full-fledged dominance will of course mean that the dominating party will go through (unstable) minority phase before it changes to other party's majority, with the effects of undominating "ruling elite / player's main (hopefully undivided) direction".


Resuming:
- Player-chosen "chosen elite main political direction" + main AI party.
- Weak "player party" = bad effects (no bonus...).
- POP SUPPORT: changing the directing elite's (player) main party might have good effects on population (if wary of other party, war, whattever the how).



Same but better. Needs refinement and simplification (cut the dead branches), but looks nice as a general direction. Potentially more representative, more immersive, more fun.
Comments?

Proud Canadian, I pretty much agree with everything you suggestion except what you suggested about being able to give support to different political parties and changing your political party during the game. I think that you should stay with the same political party the whole game, and if you lose power than you lose your bonuses and negatives (ex. War Party +ship hp -diplomacy) and you gain the bonus's and negatives of the superior party.

Also, your actions should definately have a lot to do with which political parties gain power like you said. If you are the War Party and you're in 3 different wars, you're losing ships and planets by the turn, and your morale is extreamly low, then the Pacifists Party should be strongly supported come the next election.

Well, developers.. I really hope you take these ideas and come up with a much more improved system of political parties. GC2 is suppose to be exactly that.. not GC1.5. So if there is anything that can be improved, it should be, and the political party system is one of those things.

Also, your actions should definately have a lot to do with which political parties gain power like you said. If you are the War Party and you're in 3 different wars, you're losing ships and planets by the turn, and your morale is extreamly low, then the Pacifists Party should be strongly supported come the next election.

You have a good point about the "negative influences" being a big factor. I think Lucky Jack had a similar point about war weariness. So on the negative side, we may see voters influenced to vote like this, for example:

Pacifists: we are losing a war or paying way too much for military upkeep
War Party: we have a superior military but are not in any wars (wasted military potential)
Industrialists: we have fallen behind in building colony improvements (but have done the required research)
Technologists: we have fallen behind in research
Populists: we have near 100% morale, but population growth is sluggish
etc...

The political system described by FuzzyMatrix makes me think somewhat of the Honor Harrington books by David Weber and the political system in there. The rulers supports a certain party thus when they have control of the senate it works smoothly. When the opposition has control it doesn't work as smoothly, so the opposition's goals benefit a little and the ruler's party goal's gain a little benefit. Should the dominant party be the exact opposite of the ruler's party, ie. war party and pacifists, then there is a stalemate and nobody benefits and there are even penalties. So as I see it:

Ruler's party = dominant party (complete bonus for that party)
Ruler's party is not dominant but opposite party is not dominant either. (30% bonus of the Ruler's party, 50% bonus of dominant party)
Opposite party = dominant party (no bonuses, possible penelties).

Of course the amount of penelties and bonus you receive in each situation might depend on what type of government you are running .

You have a good point about the "negative influences" being a big factor. I think Lucky Jack had a similar point about war weariness. So on the negative side, we may see voters influenced to vote like this, for example: Pacifists: we are losing a war or paying way too much for military upkeep War Party: we have a superior military but are not in any wars (wasted military potential) Industrialists: we have fallen behind in building colony improvements (but have done the required research) Technologists: we have fallen behind in research Populists: we have near 100% morale, but population growth is sluggish etc...

Pretty much my thoughts too. In GC1 the purpose of choosing a political party was to focus your game strategy, if you intended to pull off a research wi you would take the Technologists for example. I liked how you would lose your party bonuses, but disliked how easy it was to stay in power.

I would like to see more election defeats but as a balance gaining some if not all of the new ruling parties benefits. Moving from war party to pacifist should make for a serious hurdle to overcome, so more penalties would be interesting if balanced with some helpful bonuses. Perhaps the senate could influence decisions more, similiar to GC1's war declaration votes. Perhaps the senate could force the player to accept ceasefire offers?

Hey Jack, I wasn't really going for a real-world model,

PC, sorry I took you so litterally. I guess I just didn't know what you meant by '"real-world" style.'. I think these ideas have merit, especitally if they were controled by the difficulty level being played.

However, to take a devil's advocate view:

1). I don't think a player should be able to change parties once the game is started. This could be very difficult for the AI to handle, and if the AI did succeed in taking advantage of it, it might make the game unplayable for many people.
2). I agree that the ability to so vastly affect an election by changing the tax rate is lame. Some averaging out of morale to reduce the effect of changing the tax rate just before an election is warranted, but I think a total smoothing out of morale over the entire period would be too hard for me to buy into. Perhaps something in between, or something controled by the difficulty level being played.
3). Some "war weariness" would be nice, but the games I have played that have it I think overdo it. And I think it would have to handle the case where the "righteousness" of the war was very strong, which I have not seen in any game. Also, there should be some way for the leader to influence the populous about the righteousness of a war (or any other decision, for that matter).
4). In order for the Leader to be more flexible some way of sampling the attitude (not just the morale) of the populous would need to be injected into the game. It would be nice, but I wonder if this would be adding a very minor but very complex function to the game.
5). I like Ugleb's idea. If the leader looses control of the senate, having the senate able to force peace and/or war initiatives (of varying levels) and responses to events is a good idea. It makes it more important for the leader to retain control of his/her government. Difficulty level should be used to control the 'likelyhood" of the senate overriding the leader's decisions.

Possibly For a leader to change parties Would be extremly diffuclut and force a mandtory election to deal with the new change and your influence as a leader sticks to your old party and so it makes it a bad choice somtimes however the influcence goes back to the party your in and you cannot change parties unless it is election day like it will give you a choice to change somting like that

Hey guys,

One thing in these "space empire" games was never clear to me - what (as the human player) am I? A politial leader? A supreme emperor? A mysterious behind-the-scenes leader who is secretly pulling the strings?

Some of the comments that I have seen so far on this topic assume that changing party support would cause problems because a political leader would never do this (well, it would be very unlikely). I really couldn't see George Bush or Tony Blair surviving politically if they tried to jump ship and join with the opposition party. However, since GalCiv is a futuristic fantasy, let's imagine that you (as the player) are the leader of your race and not just a political party leader. Maybe you are something like the Chairman of the United Nations (sorry - I don't even know what title the head of the UN holds), and the "political parties" are more like global "lobby groups". As the leader, you can put your support behind a particuar lobby group (war, pacifist, industry, trade, etc.), but the United Nations vote will determine what direction your empire will take. If they vote "trade party", for example, then as the leader you will have to find a way to keep going with the "trade party" bonuses.

My last point is this. What would be the most FUN system to play in GalCiv2? Honestly, I don't care how realistic the political system is, as long as its fun.

- Proud Canadian

The best system is simply to change player party in line with the election results. Therefore the player is simply jumping into the skin of the victorious candidate and carrying on from there. Kind of like the Europa monarch system. I wish you could have randomly determined party leaders for each party, with random names at least and if possible even portraits too. You'd be able to see emporer of another civilization's names and portrait and with basic espionage his abilities. The abilities would have a high probability of following the strengths and weaknesses of the party itself but not always. Maybe they should even have a candidate death event to kill off party leaders from time to time. If the current ruler dies the player should have to choose between maybe four randomly generated rulers, if a opposition party leader dies then the leader is randomly generated. Random leaders with random abilities and traits would do a lot to not only make the game more interesting but also increasing replayability.

As the player you are the group-mind of the civilization itself, not a particular persona, although you should have the ability to design the first character in the game.

Adding parties leaders and portaits would also do a lot to add character to the civilizations. The portraits and names would be carved up into males and females and assigned apropriatly, except for the Yor and civilizations that are either hermaprodite or would never have a female ruler. All major civilizations have portraits, minors don't have portraits and instead have a generic leader character. Galactic movement (Including I leugue) should generate characters from all created major races to be their leaders, to reflect the cosmopolitan nature of these groups.

Ideas for names for civilizations.
Humans- Human names from a wide variety of cultures, from familier western ones to exotic foreign ones.
Arceans- Short names of less than 6 letters, with the title lord or lady, ie Lord Vega, Lady Regas
Yor- Combinations of numbers and letter, all Yor rulers have N1, as this is the leadership title of the Yor. N1788AR would be a Yor leader's names.
Torians- 4- 4 letter first name, longer surname, ie Tlas Kziana
Altarian- Medium length first names, no second names, ie Netromancer
Drengin- Names with adress lord, no female names as Drengin are very patriarchal.
Korx- All Korx leaders are members of the Korx family, hence all have Korx as last name.
Drath- All Drath leaders start with the title, Centurion.
Iconions- ??????????????????????????????????
Thalan- No male names, all Thalan leaders start with the title Hive Princess.

One thing in these "space empire" games was never clear to me - what (as the human player) am I? A politial leader? A supreme emperor? A mysterious behind-the-scenes leader who is secretly pulling the strings?

This is the great fuzzy detail. You are one of several posibilities.
1) You are the head of an imperial line where sucession is handled out of sight to the player as the current monarch goes senile and pops his clogs the spritely young successor springs up and takes over.

2) You play as the current leader of your chosen political party, every few years the face changes but the pary goes on.

3) You are somehow immortal. Brain suspended in a green preservative liquid? Inexplicably long lifespan? Count Dracula? Dr Who? Maggie Thatcher? The possibilities are endless in science fiction!

4) You are the collective consciousness of government bureauracy. No-one knows how but it just keeps rumbling on.

With my proposed leadership/character you would be role-playing the current ruler of the civ.

4) You are the collective consciousness of government bureauracy. No-one knows how but it just keeps rumbling on.

Now THAT is frightening! I think I'd rather play as Count Chocula.

- Proud Canadian

What, you found that more frightening than Maggie Thatcher? You really must be Canadian!

What if... you DON'T choose your faction? You are whatever population chooses- and your civ. gains that faction bonuses. So you could see if population wants war or peace or more industry or whatever. Also implementing faction weaknesses (Industrialist- higher pollution, environmentalist- higher building maintenance (due to high-tech equipment), war party- higher unrest (due to radical measures in law)...

Random votes are good

Switch political parties should give you some temporary penalties. If you are the Pacifists and are constantly at war, you might just switch to the war party to win easy election

Penalties function as an incentive to keep morale up and actually try to win the elections

Elections should be influenced by long-term morale

What i would like to see is changes in national leadership. For example your starting leader could get voted out of office or assassinated or just die. In which case you'd just enter the name of the new national leader into a box.

Also, the Senate should have more power than just declarations of war and party bonuses. For example you might have to get alliance or trade treaties ratified.

Also, you should be able to propose bills to your senate. They could come from a list. The Senate would vote on them based on their party. Pacifists won't vote for conscription, etc. You could only propose like 2 or 3 bills per term to keep you from constantly spamming your senate with new bills. Bills could have different effects. A slave labor bill would raise production, lower morale, and make you more evil.

It would be nice if you could get a sort of opinion-poll within regular intervals viewing the shift in support of different political parties. In that way you can anticipate a loss in an (upcoming) election and shift to another political party or change your policies. Or you can try pulling voters away from your main rival(s). Of course the element of surprise would be lost but if there's one thing you want in politics it's certainty. (At least if I was a politician I would want it)

also wanted to add will it be possible to change captials in the game? im sorta imperialistic and may get into "Things"

Votes are only based on current Morale, and that can be improved immediately by lowering taxes for one turn

I cannot find the link right now, but I recall Brad posting about (maybe it was a journal?) the fact that in gc2 there is a rolling average on the morale for the purposes of voting, not just the month before the election.

I cannot find the link right now, but I recall Brad posting about (maybe it was a journal?) the fact that in gc2 there is a rolling average on the morale for the purposes of voting, not just the month before the election.

Which quite frankly rocks.