23-08-2000 07:04									#91
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Rodrigo:

I have put forward an idea for the govt player interface that I think is important and would like to hear your opinion on it. I put it in my post "posted August 21, 2000 21:00" in the Beast Prototype thread. If you could please read it and the subsequent discussion I'd appreciate it.

If it gains enough support I will try to transfer it over here.

Thanks,

Mark

	23-08-2000 12:36									#92
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Yesterday I had an idea for an alternative method to set govt policies. Based on comments by F_Smith (he didn't like much the "negotiation procedure" of the model) and Axi's feelings about the "machiavelean ruler effect", I felt it was worthy to think about something else. The new proposed system is a "generalization" of one idea by Mark for the tax rate.

In order to let you all (even those who don't know the math in the model) comment this proposal and analyze if it's better or worse than the current system, I'll explain briefly what's good and bad with the current system:

The negotiation procedure (current system) takes all the desires for a given govt policy from the different social classes and mix them to produce a single output (the negotiated final value). In this mix, the greater political power a class has, the closer the final value is to what the class desired and vise versa. That's how all govt policies are managed.

What's good:
1)It's very simple in the mathematical side.

2)It isn't biased to any particular type of govt. The "negotiation" can be interpreted according to the regime because it's simply an interaction of units with power and desires.

3)It provides a lot of flexibility. Since the final negotiated value is a mix of others, the govt profile can take a lot of different forms, so we can have, FE, several democratic regimes with slight differences between them.

4)Most important, it makes social classes "active" (as well as reactive). In reactive-type models, computer-handled political entities can only react to what the player does, like producing riots if they don't like what the player is doing. With an active political entity, it doesn't have to wait for ruler intervention to make a change in the govt. It doesn't need the ruler to try to pass laws or any such thing to express itself. The class uses the power it posseses to make a change in the govt. If a class has power, this is what you'd expect.

What's bad:
1)The player is encouraged to put as his preferences other values than the ones he/she really wants. He/she "lies" to the game. If FE he/she wants a CivilRights policy of 45%, then probably would have to tell the interface he/she wants 15% in order to achieve it. This is the "machieavelean ruler effect" Axi has pointed out, and means the player is forced to take more extreme positions than he/she would. The player is like cheating here because he/she understands how the procedure works, but social classes cannot counterbalance this action because they're not as smart as the human is.

2)You don't know as a player what the final outcome is going to be. You put in values, but they're gonna be mixed with others (what the classes want) so you don't know what's gonna be at the end. Maybe this can be fun for some players, but the trial&error this system encourages may frustrate others. It's also important to note here that although in F_Smith's beast changes ocurr immediatedly (one turn), it's mandatory for realism that changes ocurr slowly in several turns, so players will see the effect of their decisions only after a while, making the trial&error strategy less effective. However, this problem can be solved if we add something like a "Political Advisor" who could tell the ruler what's going to happen. This is easily implementable.

It's hard to classify the following in good or bad. I consider it good, but...:
The negotiation procedure actually makes the ruler less powerful in more representative regimes. The model was meant to avoid the player having total control of govt policies in this situations for more realism. Therefore, in a regime with low ruler's pol.power, saying "I wanted to have a CivilRights level of 34% and the procedure gave me 75%" and then complaining for that is against the overall idea of the model. It has been a goal all along to throw away the ever-all-mighty-player approach one is used to in other games. Realism in this matter has been a must. I know Mark and Axi knew (and agreed) about this. I wonder about the rest...


So what's new? The "machiavelean ruler effect" has always bothered me, but I wasn't able to create another system capable of erradicating this without losing the good stuff of the system. On the other side, even though I don't like F_Smith's system based on votes (for the tax rate in the beast), I must admit it has one very nice characteristic: you know exactly what value the policy will take (given the change is approved), which makes you feel more in control of what's going on.

So what I came up with yesterday is a system where the mach. ruler effect doesn't exist anymore and where the player can manage his decisions more directly. All without losing the good things the current system has.

The proposal is this: For a given policy, the negotiation procedure is used normally, but the ruler is NOT counted. This means the negotiation takes place only between social classes. A negotiated value comes as the outcome. Instead of saying that the final negotiated value is the one to be implemented in the civ, we transform it into a range where the ruler has to choose a particular value. For example, if the negotiated value between classes is X, then we say classes have decided the policy value must lie in the range [X-d,X+d]. "d" is a value that depends on ruler's pol.power. The more despotic, the higher "d" is. The ruler now has to choose the exact value within the range. The value the player picks becomes the official govt policy.

What does this imply?
The interpretation is classes define like a global "framework" for govt policies. Within the framework the ruler can define policies precisely.

If the ruler has little pol.power, then he has few options (small range). A policy like CivilRight would have FE a range like [66%,71%], so mainly it's the rest classes that are deciding its value, which is correct and realistic. But if the ruler has a large pol.power, the negotiated value just becomes a lousy reference. CivilRights would have now FE a range like [23%,78%], so it's mainly a ruler's decision completely.

In this situation the player doesn't have to "lie" to the interface. The values he chooses are those he wants, at least those the regime allows him. If he's still not satisfied (his really desired value is outside the legal range) then he has two options: a)simply accept he's not all mighty and live with that. b)try to get more power becoming more despotic. Of course here we're dealing with legal actions. He in fact has more alternatives to get what he wants with some questionable actions.

Once the ruler doesn't have to lie, the mach.ruler effect disappears. And on the other side the player can see directly how his decisions take place instead of going through the negotiation process. (the two goals I was seeking with this proposal)

Does this idea sound better to using simply the negotiation procedure (with the ruler counted in)? I don't have personally an inclination to what's better, so I want to know if you guys consider this proposal interesting.

It's important to say, however, that the proposal only works for policies, but not for the political structure. Normally the negotiation procedure is used too to alter this structure of power, representing negotiation between actors to define how much power each should have. For the time being I can't provide with a solution for that part. The proposal here doesn't work for pol.power variables because if the ruler cannot participate in the negotiation, it will be way too easy to steal him his power (assuming classes want that, which is not necessarily true always, but it'll be of course common many cases). And this, of course, is not admisible!

Comments?

	23-08-2000 12:43									#93
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I posted the above without realizing there were two posts asking me things. Sorry.
F_Smith: Yes, at the civ level.
Mark: I'll check it.

	23-08-2000 19:47									#94
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Rodrigo:

As you will soon figure out, your idea two posts above is very similar to the proposal I was trying to get you to look at . I think it is much better for the player than the way we were handling it.

The only diff is I would keep the ruler pref as you had them in the guts of the system so we can have a quick way to see if the ruler is more reactionary or more liberal than the govt as a whole.

	23-08-2000 20:33									#95
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I like Rodrigo's new system. It is realistic, has good math, and should work well and be fun to play. I do have a few questions/comments, however:

The range listed is the "safe" range, right? The ruler can choose any number in there without causing problems, and it would be represented on the slider as the green area.

But the ruler should be able to override the desires of the other classes using "foul play", martial law, or whatever. Choosing a policy outside the range would require such actions and would not be popular. These areas would be represented on the slider as yellow and red, depending on the negative consequences that would result from the action.

My view is that the players should be able to force anything if they are willing to deal with the consequences. Instead of "You can't do this" we should have "You can do this, but if you do everyone will hate you and there will be rioting in the streets."

	24-08-2000 08:08									#96
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OK I like the new sys rodrigo posted with two minor exceptions:
1> This realates to Rich's post: The ruler should be able to set the tax rate outside the area, but only on certain conditions, ie appropriate gov type and enough political power of his own. The diff is that anything outside would be red and anything iside would be yellow/green on mark's bar (if its really low variance we could even go beyond red to purple or black for very extreme proposals).

2> The variance seems not quite right to me. It seems the variance should also be not ness X-d thru X+d, but more based on the social classes deciding what it is. FE if a majority wants very low taxes then it might be more like X-d-p thru X+d-p where p is the political pressure put on by that class to keep the rates lower.

Now about why negotiations shouldn't always work: Generally i say they should, about 90-95% of the time, but nothing is guaranteed and the ruler shouldn't always have the luxury of knowing the policies will be settled for a medium.
FE its quite possible that 2 groups that are opposite extremes (ie 0 vs 100 on everything for this example) will not tolerate each others proposal. Take also the fact that say they are very fundimentalistic and won't budge to even close to a moderate solution (quite possible) and the other groups make up so small a percentage of political power that their voices aren't heard amist the other 2 groups (also quite possible) so no matter what there would be no compromise because neither group will agree perhaps to even meet with the other group. Such situations will if not already eventually lead into internal warfare, but if it isn't already no policy can be negotiated because neither side can stand the other and the other small groups are so small that anything they propose will be drowned out by the other two (which they might likely meet temporarily to make sure that such a proposal doesn't pass).

Also on the case of a rulership like japan i mentioned earlier, even if the ruler took extreme measures compared to what his current policies were, the people would almost not likely revolt because of their sence of community and their belief the ruler was divine and his word supreme and their were also no really potential 'leaders' to rally the people against the ruler.

	28-08-2000 07:09									#97
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It seems the new proposal is gaining supporters... But, I had another idea! And I feel is better (maybe I'm in an innovative streak! )
I'll tell you about it, but first a few comments on what you all say above:

LGJ: I'm not gonna comment your points 1 and 2 because I'd prefer you all to look at my new idea (below). As for your thoughts about antagonistic parties negotiating policies, I think you have a good point there. I believe you're right when you say a very heterogeneous political arena can lead to a less effective govt when it comes to negotiate policies. To generalize your idea, I think what we can do is to measure how much diversity a govt has. This is easy to do. Then we use that measure and modify the time for achieving negotiated policies. The greater the diversity, the more game turns it takes to achieve final values. I think this would be a nice feature. Opposed visions would tend to "paralyze" the govt, but not completely, of course. How does it sound? What do the rest think?

Richard: I think we see things pretty much the same way regarding what the player can and cannot do, but there may be some slight differences of importance, so I'll be more precise in what I think: I consider very important to limit player's control over the govt according to his pol.power. I don't like the idea of "safe" and "unsafe" ranges where the ruler can impose govt values outside the legal framework facing risks. This is like saying the ruler is really all powerful all the time. This converts a govt just in a matter of how much risk you want to take, but not a matter of having or not the power to do things. That's not realistic IMO. The US president can't do a lot of things, FE. Many things are simply outside the reach of his power and they've nothing to do with how popular a decision would be or if the guy in charge has or not the nerves to take a risk.

A regime for me defines the limits of ruler's intervention. If the player wants to do things he's not entitled to, then he needs another regime with more power for himself. He may use Special Actions to get more power and THEN, with a new framework, take the decisions he couldn't in the past. So I'm seeing it as a two steps move. We're not saying to players "you can't have whatever you want for govt policies", but we're saying "if you want to impose your view, then FIRST you have to get yourself a dictatorship (of some sort)". Does this sound reasonable to you all?

Mark: I don't understand well your idea with colored slides. If you say it was similar to my proposal above, then... there isn't much to say!
Your comment about the need to know ruler's preferences to see if he's reactionary or not and, in general, knowing what he stands for, is very good. You're right. We really need that. Otherwise the concept of govt and ruler tend to become one and this shouldn't happen. The truth is my proposal in my previous post isn't compatible with keeping ruler's preferences in the system. It wouldn't be possible to eliminate the machiavellian ruler effect and then the proposal has very little value. Thinking about this triggered this new idea I have.

Here's my new proposal:

As before, the negotiation procedure is used only for social classes not counting ruler's preferences. Social classes end up with a negotiated value X for a given policy. Then the game takes X and modifies it according to what the ruler wants. If the ruler was pushing for a higher value, then X is increased. And vise versa. The magnitude of the increase/decrease is given by ruler's pol.power. Example: Classes alone negotiate a Civil Rights value equal to 45%. The ruler wants 66% and he has 30% of total power. Since 66%>45%, the ruler pushes for a greater value. Let's assume his 30% pol.power allows him to alter any negotiated value by 15% at most. Then, CivilRights ends up being 45%+15%=60%. In general the system is

Govt_Policy=X+sign(ruler_pref-X)*min(abs(ruler_pref-X),F(ruler_polpower))

where F is a function TBD transforming ruler's pol.power into the maximum modifier the player could apply to the classes' negotiated value.

It's similar to the "range" approach I proposed in the other post in the sense that classes take a "preliminary" decision and the ruler then affects it, where ruler's intervention level is given by his pol.power. But in this case the ruler has to express what he wants prior to the decision-making process (as it was planned in the original system) and it's possible to differentiate ruler's intention from actual govt. Classes will now see what his intentions are, which is very important as Mark pointed out.

There's no machiavellian ruler effect. The player gains nothing if he lies to the game. Using the equation above, the best the player can do in order to achieve his goals is put exactly what he wants in the interface. Doing otherwise would only harm him. Therefore, there's no trial and error and players won't have to waste time finding how to fool the system. And this new system still has the good things: it's simple, classes can use their pol.power to influence govt values and it's sensitive to how much power each actor has.

What about pol.powers? In my proposal with ranges in the other post this part was still unsolved. The best thing about this new system is that it is also compatible with pol.power shares. We can use the same equation (slightly altered to ensure pol.power shares will sum 100%) to simulate how political entities define the political structure with good results.

Finally, for policies (that is, all variables except pol.power shares), we can still get that feeling of "more control" each time the player changes his prefs. In the example above for CivilRights, if now suddenly the ruler changes his mind and prefers a value of, say, 50%, then the govt can make the change immediate. The old govt value, 60% would be changed to 50% at once. On the other side, if the ruler changes his preference to a value of 75%, the govt value would remain at the old level:66%. With this, the type of messages F_Smith has in the beast would fit nicely here. In the first case the message would be "Our leader has decided to lower the Civil Rights level from 60% to 50%" while in the second case it'd be something like "Our leader wanted to rise Civil Rights to 75%, but was rejected by the govt's high council. The law remains at 60%!".

I wasn't very convinced about the proposal I made in my previous post, but I really like this one very much. I think is much better. What do you think?

	28-08-2000 07:36									#98
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I still like the range interface. I think it would be good if the game said: "This is what we will let you do. Choose any value in this range and we will be happy. You can choose a value outside of the range, but there could be negative consequences." That is a system that should be easy and fun to work with.

While I don't like the interface proposed in the new system, it seems that the math is better. The two proposals are very similar, so would it be possible to put the new math behind the range interface?

By the way, I have one word to respond to Rodrigo's comments about the political power of US presidents and their inability to do certain things:

Nixon

	28-08-2000 08:03									#99
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Warning! Do not confuse! In the "ranges proposal" choosing a value inside the "green" area, as you name it, Richard, wouldn't imply happiness for classes. If the ruler has a lot of power, then the range is wide and therefore the value the ruler picks can be very different to what classes wanted.

Happiness must be computed comparing what they want to what the govt ends up being. That's all other topic. The thing to solve here is how classes and the ruler interact to set policies (a final value for each) and not what makes people happier.

The range represents the legal limits and not what's popular and what not. Of course topics are related, but don't confuse!

About Nixon... well, it's a good example... but I'm sure you don't believe the US president has total control of the govt as, FE, saddam hussein... so, how'd you make this difference in the game? And here there's ground to get confused too! Despotism doesn't mean doing things regardless of people's desires. It's just the ability to do whatever is wanted. A ruler can be despotic and good to their people. Many kings were... So, were all US presidents despotic, yet good to their people or were they really limited in their powers?

	28-08-2000 08:51									#100
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OK, yea that sounds appropriate for the most part. Few things though could take centuries also and in this case could be marked (indefinate). FE the battle in the balkans has lasted since the arabs conquered the area after the fall of the Byzantine empire. Such things are more ethnically motivated, but similar things can happen with social conditions.

I like that new proposal, though you should also consider how fudimental and agrressive each side is on their position and allow the ruler to be morseo or lesso also. Also there could be other additional ways of influencing like bribes, threats, propoganda all in special actions the player should be allowed to do during negotiations.

	28-08-2000 16:55									#101
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Rodrigo:

I haven't read all this carefully, and need to reflect on your new idea. But I have just a quick note to clear up a misconception. On the green - red ranges idea -- for a democratic government even the red (extreme actions) range does not necc go from 0-100% of each parameter. Suppose the people in general want 20% for some govt. parameter.
For a very democratic state the ranges might be: Green 18%-22%; Yellow 16%-25%; Red 10%-32%. And that's it! Even Extreme actions in a very democratic govt only allow so much flexibility because the rest of society is pulling against the ruler. If the player wants more power then they have to go your route of changing the govt. Or if they get caught doing something in the red range the govt might collapse anyway...

FE Nixon and many other US presidents have gotten away with a lot of things that push beyond their constitutional power. But even Nixon used extreme actions to move civil rights just a small amount (maybe a few percent on average). In no way could he have reinstituted slavery, even with the most extreme covert actions you can think of!

Does this help you better accept the idea?

[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited August 28, 2000).]

	28-08-2000 18:35									#102
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I'm back, but having goofed around for so much, has left me with a pressing schedule. Please be patient with me.

Below, I am using the term "power groups", which refers to classes for the DNPs and to ideologies for the INPs.

On the policy-setting procedure: Rodrigo's idea sounds rather good, since:

• It gets rid of the "Macchiavelian Ruler Effect".
  
• It is independent of the Current Govt Profile. This way, power groups that have the will and the power to do so, can be "active" instead of "reactive". As Rodrigo wrote:

  quote: Most important, it makes social classes "active" (as well as reactive). In reactive-type models, computer-handled political entities can only react to what the player does, like producing riots if they don't like what the player is doing. With an active political entity, it doesn't have to wait for ruler intervention to make a change in the govt. It doesn't need the ruler to try to pass laws or any such thing to express itself. The class uses the power it posseses to make a change in the govt. If a class has power, this is what you'd expect.

  
  
• It allows the ruler to be judged for his preferences, while the govt will be judged for the actual policies. Things like the RRF should be determined according to the ruler's profile rather than the govt profile.
  
• It shows to be compatible with the rest of the model.

I tried to find a proper expression for F. I am using the following abbreviations:
P=govt_policy (0-1)
R=ruler_pref (0-1)
r=ruler_polpower (0-1)

Negotiation procedure: P=X(1-r)+Rr

New procedure:
IF R > X
THEN P=X+min[R-X,F(r)]
ELSE P=X-min[X-R,F(r)]

To be equivalent, it should be:
If R > X and F(r) < R-X:
X(1-r)+Rr=X+F(r)
or F(r)=r(R-X)
which is always less than R-X because r < 1
For R < X, we have F(r)=-r(R-X)
Here we see what's wrong with the negotiation procedure: F depends from R, hence the "Macchiavelian Ruler Effect".

F(r) should be such that for r=0, F=0 and for r=1, F=max. But maxF=1-X if R > X and maxF=X if R < X. The simplest possible implementation is:
IF R > X
THEN P=X+min[R-X,r(1-X)]
ELSE P=X-min[X-R,rX]
This is the equivalent of using the negotiation procedure with the ruler always highballing to the maximum degree (always choosing 0 or 1, according to what suits him best). In other words, this is a way of "automation" of the MRE, so that the player won't get into the trouble of trying out manually to find what he should bid for. Obviously this is not the best solution, since the ruler has a clear advantage over the other power groups. Other implementations like F(r)=r, or F(r)=r² or F(r)=ar where 0 < a < 1 do not give what is expected for despotic regimes, while they are no more representative of the ruler's power.

We could of course accept that the ruler, as the initiator of the negotiation, has a de facto advantage, so his "automatic highballing" would be accepted as a feature of the game. But then the ability to initiate negotiations should be granted to other power groups too (since we agree that power groups in Clash should be active). This means that we would have to provide our system with criteria for when a negotiation should be pursued by the power groups and when such a claim should be accepted. We should also have to devise a way for the ruler to participate in such a negotiation, from a different, non-priviledged position.

These preoccupations, in accord with F_Smith's repeated statements about having a "game within a game" (which I gather is the desire of all of us; that's why we are trying to devise a political system), have led me to another idea: if we want the player of Clash to really "play politics", shouldn't we then use a "Political AI"? I feel that the power groups shouldn't be just "dumb" bodies, with certain power and certain preferences, that act or react always in the same way. I feel it would be nice for the player to know that he is facing an "internal enemy", and not just a "flock of sheep". Using the traits of their respective character-leaders (ambition, fundamentalism, ego, venture, etc ,whichever there are), each power group should have the liberty and the brains to differentiate it's actions, for the purpose of better achieving it's goals in the current circumstances; exactly like the player is expected to do. This sort of AI (internal enemy) should of course be much simpler than the military AI or the AI of a rival civ, but it should be able, within certain (severe) restrictions, to:
- Differentiate it's preferences, in order to affect the negotiations. (old negotiation procedure)
- Initiate negotiations, when it suits it. (new negotiation procedure)
- Form a coalition with another power group, to obtain majority. (election procedure)
- Organise and control PAF Events.
- Perform special actions.
- Be corrupted and taken-over by the player or one of his rivals.

As for the red-yellow-green range interface that Mark has mentioned, I feel (and I have previously mentioned) that it is a very good way to display all of the PAFs, in a place where they will be viewable during policy setting, so that the player will be able to view what kind of risks he takes. If we want, we can create Overall Risk Counters (ORCs), giving a weighted average (with weights=the respective pol.power of each power group in question) of all PAFs of a certain type, or even more general counters for each group of PAFs. The variable Empire's Stability will be a general indication of all PAFs. Certain ORCs can be directly linked to some Ruler's Govt Profile ranges and some ranges might have multiple ORCs attached (f.e. INPs should have RRF_ORC and BAF&RF_ORC attached; the first would refer to the discontent caused by the profile itself, while the second to what would happen if that was passed as a govt policy. I feel that this interface shouldn't make things too easy for the player; the real rulers are never sure of the consequenses of their actions; so these indications do not need to be precise. As for the risk and the gains from commiting special actions, this should be provided elsewhere; foul play would be encouraged and encapsulated to the normal political play otherwise, which I don't like. Finally, I am in favor of using gradient color ranges and not just R-Y-G.

What a negotiation procedure of any kind is always lacking, is what I have mentioned before as "concentrisation". I'm not sure if the term is valid, but I'm referring to the kind of political system where some sort of "majority rule" applies. It is like the various power groups are gambling their share of power, in hope of gaining it all. As it is generally advertised, this is due to the fact that it is impossible to make realistic policies through negotiation, because of the existant ideologic distances. In reality, this is just another way for the mighty to steal the power of the weak. This doesn't ness need to be the "absolute majority" (50%), but also the "relative majority" (biggest %) and all variations where the "critical percentage", or "Consensus" is different than 50% (f.e. in the Greek Parliament, to pass a law you need 50%, to elect the president you need 60% and to revise the constitution 75%, while in the general elections, the govt usually needs about 35% of the people's votes to obtain 50% of the parliamentary seats).

So I feel that the election-type system should be enhanced by a DNP called "Consensus", that will provide us with a basic "critical percentage", upon which the consensus for each individual policy should be based (f.e. it should be multiplied by a factor >1 for some DNPs like SL, ED, RD). This and the critical ideologic distance should be a measure of how cooperative the political system is and the should be derived from cultural elements. Of course, if the needed consensus is 100%, then it totally reverts into a negotiation procedure. For big numbers (like 75%), the policies will be mostly negotiated. This way, we can allow for mixed (election-negotiation) systems. I figured this out as an enhancement to my election system, if F_Smith wants to proceed into coding both ways.

To revert to an older topic: The power structure in the ideologies and the classes power structure are not the same thing. "UC power" is not replaced by "Capitalist power" (which term btw is not appropriate now, because we have assumed that power deriving from the possession of land is also lumped here, so we should probably use the term "Property power", or the term "Kapital power", which is characteristic of the way it is divided among the socioeconomic classes), nor is "LC power" replaced by "People's power". What happens is:
UCpp=Kapital_pp*UC_Kap.share+People's_pp*UC_demog.share, and
LCpp=People's_pp*LC_demog.share (+Labor_pp*LC_labor.share), while
MCpp=Kapital_pp*MC_Kap.share+People's_pp*MC_demog.share (+Labor_pp*MC_labor.share)
(Inside the parentheses are the factors added if we include Labor power, as I have proposed)
"Religion power" is not always the power of the RC, because there can be one or more other classes that provide ethics to society. The same applies to "Warrior power".

I am stressing this point because I'm afraid that F_Smith, during coding, has overlooked this fact. If this is so, this is an error in understanding the object structure of the model and must be corrected ASAP. Any ideology should be translatable to a power structure for any class system that we or the scenario creator would want to create. The best way for us to test if this is implemented as it should be, is to include the MC into the beast and to bring back the "Build new SC" capability. Custom made classes can be given power and behavior through their share of the contributions, as I have previously outlined, at least for now, until we come up with a better way of assigning behaviors. I am of the opinion that this should be our next step in advancing the Beast.

Btw, a question to all: shouldn't we consider including nobility in the way I have proposed, or in some other way?

quote: Possible implementation: Nobility could be attributed to the socioeconomic class with the higher concentration of power per capita and once instituted, it cannot change hands, unless it is reinstituted by some social reform. I feel that purely institutional classes should not have nobility because they consist of higher as well as lower members (Their power is attributed to the institutions rather than the members anyway), but at least for scenarios, nobility should be attributed to whomever the author wants. Nobility is linked with social elitism and as such, it should oppose or totally restrict intra-class mobility.

For the time being, I am not pressing neither for this, nor for "Labor power", so we can officially stick with Rodrigo's scheme for ideologies. But it's nothing that we can't change in the future, if we like.
[This message has been edited by axi (edited August 28, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by axi (edited August 28, 2000).]

	28-08-2000 20:37									#103
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Axi:

I think you're right, I didn't see the proposed system quite the way you outlined it here --

[*]So are 'uc' and 'lc' still in the game? If so, where again? I don't think we need them, if we use 'people' and 'capital'.

[*]'People' power and 'capital' power (the terms I've used in the GUI for the beast) can be used to determine the influences on the political system for all economic sectors of the pop. 'People' and 'Capital' are the two components of 'peoples political power' that would actually include all concievable 'economic' classes (UC, LC and a 'Labor' class). And it means we don't have to worry about demographics or 'capital shares' at all. So do I still need to include the specific 'economic' classes?

[*]I also don't understand the concept of 'Religion' power being seperate from the 'religious class'. Can I get a little more feedback on that?

[*]As for custom social classes, they're in the data model but not on the GUI, a situation easily remedied. But I was thinking that a custom SC would not have any political power unless a govt specifically gave it some. So to specifically create a 'Nobility', you would give the 'Nobles' social class some level of political power.
[/list=a]

	28-08-2000 23:28									#104
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F_Smith: Time is pressing on me, so I can't say much. I hope the others will help you more.

1. UC, LC and MC are socioeconomic classes. They hold K units of kapital, provide L units of labor and consist of X people each. Between them they hold all of the (private) kapital, provide all of the labor (except slave labor) and sum up to the whole of the (majorities) population. Ideologies and govt policies assign power not directly to each of those classes, but to these quantative characteristics and the socioeconomic classes share this power accordingly. By definition, for the UC it is L=0 and for the LC it is K=0. The other numbers will be given from the govtecon submodel. So who holds kapital, holds part of it's power; this means that (1-PP)% of capital power goes to the ruler + the BE (together they represent the state), according to their respective powers. If we had labor power, the power partaining to the labor of the exploited class would be also given to the state. Of course minorities do not have part of the people's power, as this line of thought would imply.

2. The specific economic classes are needed because they have an economic role, in addition to a political one. They are the ones who produce and invest and consume; they hold the kapital and provide the labor. They have different income, demographics, PAFs, investment and research preferences. Maybe the govt model alone can be abstracted enough so that it won't need classes, but the econ model cannot.

3. Social contributions like Ethics and Security cannot be measured like Kapital and Labor can. Nevertheless, we can arbitrarily say that class A provides a1% of contribution 1, a2% of contribution 2, etc. An example I have used before:

quote: We can have f.e. a holy warriors class that provides 40% of the society's security and 20% of it's ethics, while a monks class provides 60% ethics, a mandarin class with the rest 20% ethics and 100% admin and finally a generals class with the rest 60% security

	28-08-2000 23:58									#105
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Axi:

Okay, I'm going to need help conceptualizing this. Forgive me if I need more explaining than a 3 yr old . . .

[*]I am not too familiar with the econ model, only some of the 'big' ideas have sunk in. If we need demographics info for econ, I don't see that being a problem. Altho I haven't included any for the govt code, it can be easily added.

[*]Yet I still don't see it being necessary to the govt model. Altho if you want it in, just say the word. As it is, the govt model 'capital' power just refers to the power of all the capital . . . it's a level of abstraction that seems to make sense. Altho we can use specifics, instead.

[*]Stupid question time. Do I have this correct?
"The warrior class is all the groups who provide security".

"The religious class is all the groups who provide ethics".

[*]I think my main misunderstanding in all this is what you mean when you say 'social classes'.

I thought that 'nobility' would be the very quintessential 'social class'. They, in fact, are the original 'upper class'. I thought 'social class' membership was related to some organization -- Nobility, Military, Church, Guild, Society, Govt Job, etc.

What, in 'Clash' terms, is a 'social class'?
[/list=a]

Perhaps what the beast needs next is more 'econ' info, so that the actual calculations for these govt numbers can have a real basis?

In there now is a primitive 'food' system. I used Mark's production and consumption #s, based upon pop and # of 'zones'. Altho they don't have to feed armies, or anything else -- yet.

But it's neat to run off a hundred years and see food in the 'bank'!

	29-08-2000 00:15									#106
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Double trouble.
[This message has been edited by F_Smith (edited August 28, 2000).]

	29-08-2000 03:40									#107
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Well as far as i know warriors and religions don't ness each provide only ethics and only security. Well maybe religion only provides ethics, but warriors can provide both, such as knights and samari

	29-08-2000 04:04									#108
	Support Apolyton

Green Range: If the green range does not imply happiness, then the slider color system wouldn't make sense. I think that green should mean "safe." Otherwise the player gets confused. I asked about this in an earlier post, and assumed that this was the case because I was not corrected.

Power Limits: I understand now. Before, I had assumed that the red range would include things like the declaration of martial law and the use of the army to enforce things. But I see now that the model considers such a drastic step to be a change in government. If you do this, you are essentially switching to despotism, and the range increases. That makes sense.

Just to clarify things:

The center of the distribution and the green range are chosen by the other social classes. The size of the yellow and red ranges are determined by the ruler's political power. The player sees this range and then inputs a value representing the desired policy.

I would like the interface described above. Is this close to what we are doing?

	29-08-2000 11:16									#109
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F_Smith, are you kidding me? This is from your post of 27 June, in this thread:

quote: P.S.-- there is actually no reason not to allow all social classes to contribute labor, capital and anything else, at varying levels defined by the 'social class'. The code will loop thru it all on a turn-by-turn basis anyway, and get from each person his contributions (taken from his social class) . . . so it's a quick and simple thing to have the 'LowerClass' (UnderClass, maybe?) contribute, say, x percent of it's total net worth (which could be next to nothing) while the 'upper class' contributes a higher percentage of their net worth (which will be considerably higher, of course). Or you can define the 'LowerClass' as returning 0 when you ask for their 'capital contribution'. But it's up to ya'll.

The whole concept of economic and social "contributions" and the idea to define Social Classes according to their contributions, originated from this paragraph of yours and was introduced by me in my post of July 10. Rodrigo came up with the original idea of linking power with contributions, by assigning power to kapital and to population, in August 14. In my post of August 16, I tried to generalise this idea for all contributions, both economic and social, but, for the time being and correct-me-if-I'm-wrong, my view got accepted only for social contributions. This is all the progress the govt model has made for the last 2 months!

quote: Stupid question time. Do I have this correct? "The warrior class is all the groups who provide security". "The religious class is all the groups who provide ethics".

Buzz! Wrong answer!
The RC and WC will exist only in the default game, where there will be the only classes providing ethics and security respectively. Obviously, in a scenario with monks, mandarins, generals and samurais (classes which provide all of the ethics and security in the specific scenario), there will be no RC and WC. Do not confound Social Classes with OO-Classes; monks and samurais are objects of the same OO-class as the RC and the WC ("pure social classes", or "institutional classes") and NOT instances of the OO-classes RC and WC respectively.

quote: I thought 'social class' membership was related to some organization -- Nobility, Military, Church, Guild, Society, Govt Job, etc.

It's either this (membership in an organisation or institution) or an economic role that differentiate social classes. In the first case, we're talking about "institutional classes", in the second, about "socioeconomic classes". Only Nobility is somewhat ambiguous; it is in fact a socioeconomic class that has become an institution. As for society, as long as capitalism exists, it is not organised into a functional body; people are divided along economic lines. But pray, let's not get into this discussion, if we can.

	29-08-2000 12:44									#110
	Remove this text

What a chaos, baby!

I think we should refrain ourselves from discussing so many subjects at the same time. It's too confusing.

Please let's forget for a moment about how to include nobility, "ethic" and "security" contributions, etc and let's focus on what we want for the setting-policies method.

Only to clarify possible F_Smith's misconceptions, I've written the following part to him. All the rest can skip it and go to the "POLICY-SETTING METHODS" part of this post.

-----------
The following is for F_Smith:
Axi is right when he says it's not as easy as simply replacing the Lower Class for People and the Upper Class for Capitalists. It's the same thing I told you some posts ago: a change is needed in equations to fully implement the update that creates the concepts of "People" and "Capitalists" from the old rigid UpperClass and LowerClass you find in the govt model document. But it's not so important now. Just imagine for now we're still using only the UpperClass and LowerClass as in the original system until I see what exaclty needs to be changed in equations. Don't worry about this.

Axi mentions a lot of things like "ethics contribution", "security contr.", "consensus", etc. They're all in the area of "still under discussion" and that's why you get confused. You're free, of course, to code whatever pleases you regarding this concepts in your "alternative" political system if you understand what Axi is saying. As for the "official" or "default" model, all those are alien concepts and should not be coded. The only change so far to the govt model document regards the political structure, replacing UC and LC for Capitalists and People. So, you can rely on the document on anything else. Whatever is not mentioned there, is still under discussion and you shouldn't code it in the "default" system.

The nobility stuff Axi brings up is within the discussion about flexibility for the number of social classes. I'm avoiding the subject for now just to let us all focus on the method for setting govt policies.

You ask if Capitalists and People eliminate UpperClass, LowerClass, MiddleCLass, etc. And you ask a definition for socialclass. Here's the thing:

A social class is a group of people with the same behavior. That's it.

A socioeconomic class is a socialclass whose behavior is given by the culture it belongs to and the amount of Kapital and Labor it provides. For developing purposes we'll have just 3 of them: UpperClass, LowerClass, MiddleClass.

The concepts "People" and "Capitalists", which are novel, are not socialclasses and refer to all social classes matching a given criteria, so they don't eliminate classes UC, LC, etc. When we say "People", we refer to all social classes. In terms of procedures, socialclasses will be aggregated (their preferences, that is) to have them acting politically. The weight each class will have in this mathematical aggregation is given by its demographic share, so demog.shares are relevant for this model (and the econ model). Of course, if a demog. share for a given class is too small, it will practically not affect the math. aggregation, so in fact "People" will be an aggregation only of all "demographic-intensive" classes. The Religious Class, the Warriors Class and the Bureaucratic Elite are all, by definition, irrelevant in terms of demography. This means "People", really, are only an aggregation of socioeconomic classes.

"Capitalists" refers to all socioeconomic classes controlling kapital. Each socioeconomic class has a level of kapital. Again, in terms of political procedures, we'll aggregate socioeconomic classes' preferences with K>0 to know what preferences Capitalists have as a whole, but in this case it will be the relative posession of K the variable defining the weight in the math. aggregation.

So, what a scenario designer (or we, for the default game) has to do is to define how many socioeconomic classes he wants, and for each, how much Kapital and Labor it provides. A procedure TBD will dynamicly, as the games evolves, assign demographic shares to each socioeconomic class the designer defined using, among other things, K and L. The player, therefore, will experience a game with:
N socioeconomic classes
1 Religious Class
1 Warriors Class
1 Bureaucratic Elite

while the political structure consists of (always, regardless of "N"... which provides the very-modest extra flexibility):
People's pol.power
Capitalists' pol.power
Ruler's pol.power
Religous Class' pol.power
Warriors Class' pol.power
Bureaucratic Elite's pol.power

So, when we use the "negotiation procedure" (or whatever policy-setting method we'll end up with) to set a policy value, we take preferences from the respective aggregations (People or Capitalists), the respective class itself (RC, WC, BE) and ruler' pref.

Is it any clearer?
-----------------

POLICY-SETTING METHODS

F_Smith: I haven't seen any thoughts from you regarding my two proposals in previous posts to replace the negotiation procedure. Since you're maybe the most reticent to use the current system the govt model uses, I'd like to know your opinion.

All:
It seems each one of us understood a different thing for the colored sliders interface Mark suggested! What's red, yellow or green depends, of course, on what we want to tell players with that. What I mean is we should first be clear about how our policy-setting method is going to work and only then care about how different player's options will be displayed. But it seems to me you prefer to do things the other way around: Imagining how you'd like to interact with the game and leave the inner math that makes that interface possible to me! It's alright. Maybe it's better that way.

Richard and Mark have proposed systems based on colors, but I'll ask you two to please now make a proposal with a definition of exactly what is understood by each color to avoid confusion. All the rest can make proposals too, of course.

Just for a reference, I'll repeat here my last proposal briefly: For a given policy, the player chooses the value he wants. Classes negotiate between them a value X for that policy. Value X is then modified according to what the ruler wants and how much power he has to achieve a final value. The more despotic, the more he is able to modify the value and the closest this final value will be to what he wanted. And vise versa. THIS IS THE LEGAL PART. On a different interface, probably with buttons just like F_Smith has it in the beast, the player will find several special actions for "illegal" activities. These are the ones already envisioned:

Bribing/threatening politicians: It's main effect would be making classes "vote" more in line with ruler's prefs, moving "X" toward ruler's values.

Assesinations/Ideology Banning: Lower or eliminate politicians with mentalities opposite to what the ruler wants from the political arena, which, again, will tend to move "X" to what the ruler wants.

Clossing the Senate: The ruler takes away People's power and makes it his own. He's actually changing the regime here. With more power the player will probably get his prefs imposed.

Propaganda: Will influence mentalities of classes making them more alike with ruler's intentions. It will make possible more affinity between "X" and ruler's pref.

Depending on ruler's pol.power:
a) These actions can be done without any scandal. They're not really "illegal" (despotism)
b) These actions are considered illegal, but the ruler can still do some of them "undercover" facing a scandal. (low despotism)

Classes' happiness or ruler's popularity are handled somewhere else (riots model) comparing what they want to what the govt ends up being and how the ruler behaves.
---------------
All:
Just a quick poll. Please respond.

"The lower ruler's pol.power is, the more limited he should be in his control over govt policies". Do you agree with this statement?

---------------
Axi: I won't comment your ideas for "F" because I feel that's too detailed for the moment. As for your idea for a "political AI", I find it very ambicious. I'm sure we can find a simple method. This isn't THAT difficult.

	29-08-2000 17:14									#111
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Hi everyone:

Its a complicated week at work so I don't have much time.

Rodrigo's new proposed system...
I am with Richard, the math and behavior looks basically good, and it eliminates some problems, but the interface needs work. So I agree we should go with the new system.

"The lower ruler's pol.power is, the more limited he should be in his control over govt policies". I Agree

Interface:
The colored slider was meant to be a synthesis of in what ranges the player can attempt to set policy, and what the possible repercussions are. Personally as a player I don't care if its 'legal' by the govt model or not! If I can change something and there are likely no repercussions (nothing should be completely certain) then its 'green'. So IMO green generally means Both legal and not causing large amounts of unhappiness. In some cases, because of general unhappiness in the body politic, there will be no green zone at all. FE an ideological battle where the country is split 50-50 between two vastly different ideologies. No matter what the player does there will be substantial chance of serious riots or even revolt. Here even though the ruler can do many things that are legal, there is still a good chance things will blow up, and the player must know about it!

I haven't written down specifics because all the happiness stuff depends on the numbers in the riots model, and extraordinary actions aren't quantified in their effect either. For now, in testing, the green could just be legal actions, yellow if it requires some moderate 'extraordinary' actions and red if it requires a lot of them.

As a rule of thumb I would say its green if you can do it with <1% chance of something bad happening in the short run. Yellow <10%. Red >=10%. But these exact breakpoints would have to be figured in playtesting.

	29-08-2000 18:15									#112
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I agree with Mark's post above.

Rodrigo, I am not asking for a new math system. The math in your most recent proposal is good, but it does have one problem. It asks the player to input a value at the beginning, before the player knows what the other classes want. If the players are blind like that, they could unwittingly cause riots. The players should be able to see what the other classes want before they input the desired values. That is why I liked the proposal before the most recent one, and it is also the reason I really like the slider interface.

The player should know roughly what the consequences of the decisions are before the decisions are made. This might not be entirely realistic, but IMO it would make a more fun game.

	29-08-2000 18:36									#113
	Remove this text

Axi:

No contradiction -- it is a simple thing to do, as I said above. I'm just pointing out that theres no need to do it for the current govt system, as I see it, altho we *certainly* can do it that way.

Since 'people' and 'capital' are aggregates of all economic classes, that is.

Rodrigo summed up perfectly what my understanding of a 'social class' is -- any group with similar behavior. As such, 'uc', 'mc', 'lc' would not seem to be 'social classes', since the poor don't all act alike, the rich don't share any similarities, etc. A 'socioeconomic' class would have 2 parts -- social and economic. I think that's what the 'uc/mc/lc' are, the 'economic' classes. So 'nobility' would be a 'social' class, because they act different from other 'uc' people.

At least, that's what I thought.

* * *

Rodrigo:

Yeah, I believe Axi is talking about the 'econ' model. For the govt-system's purposes, 'social classes' don't matter, except as a provider of input values. They're just 'variables', so to speak.

I'm just trying to understand what page he's on, so I can move in that direction soon. But no, none of this is getting coded yet.

Oh, personally, I'm staying out of the discussion on the 'negotiated' political policy system mainly because I'm not fond of it. I'm sorry.

I think that when a ruler changes a policy, it will pass unless the powers that be are against it (a 'politics' vote system). I don't believe policies are 'negotiated' in this manner, even today. The politicians have always just tried to gather 51% of all the power. Once they have that coalition, they don't need the other groups with political power, and can ignore them. It doesn't make sense to me that a ruler with 80% of the political power can't pass any policy he/she wants. It just doesn't sound like govt as I understand it.

The people who hold the majority of the power get to do what they want, regardless of those in the minority.

People with minority power in govts get over-ridden. Here we have had various groups with some minority political power, yet they have absolutely *no* effect on the final results that come out of Congress.

The 'aggregate' system will work fine, don't get me wrong, it's just not a 'political' system, as I understand it. But it's better than what other games have had, by far.

To sum up, I think that if you're going to negotiate, you should probably use your first system, in which the ruler's power counts exactly it's percentage. But don't go by my advice, since I'd almost always use the 'politics' system.

	29-08-2000 23:44									#114
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F_Smith: It is my understanding that if the ruler has at least 51% of the power, the slider goes from 0% to 100%. But there can be negative social consequences associated with forcing something through. If most of the people want 10% something and the player orders 90%, there will almost certainly be riots and civil unrest.

So the pass/fail system works fine with the slider syatem. If you have the power and are willing to deal withthe consequences, you can do anything. If you don't have the power, you are limited to a certain range on the slider.

I have an idea for the interface. Hopefully it can combine F_Smith's and Rodrigo's systems so everyone is satisfied:

Initially, the allowable range on the slider is any policy that can get support from any combination of groups with at least 51% of the power. For example, if the ruler has 30% of the power, the MC has 30%, and the RC has 40%, then any range supported by the RC or MC is on the slider as a chouce for the ruler (player).

Even if the proposal has 51% support and is passed, it could cause social problems. The riots model would estimate the consequences of the ruler's choice and color the bar accordingly. However, is if the desires of the other classes overlap, the overlap range will almost certainly be green.

I do have two questions about that situation, however. Suppose that the RC wants 20-50% and the MC wants 40-60%. In this case, the player can choose any policy from 20% to 60%. Suppose the player wants 20%. Then, there would be two policies that are supported by 70% of the power: 20% and the 40-50% range. Which one would be selected?

The second question is: What would happen in the above situation if the ruler had 25% of the power and the MC had 35%? The 20% proposal (the one the player wants) would have 65% support and the 40-50% proposal would have 75%. Which proposal would be selected?

Another consequence of this system is that the choices could be discontinuous. If the RC wants 20-40% and the MC wants 70-90%, then those ranges are allowed but nothing in between is. Choosing either of these policies will almost certainly make someone seriously unhappy, so both ranges would be red. However, a strict 51% system allows no compromise.

The previous part of the proposal used F_Smith's ideas, and while being more accurate it can lead to thorny problems. The second part of the system is as follows:

The player can ask for negotiations. This would most likely be done when the other classes' ranges do not overlap. It would have to be done if no proposal is supported by 51% of the people.

If the classes with power agree to negotiate, then everyone bargains as per Rodrigo's most recent proposal. In this case, I would not oppose asking the player to input a value ahead of time, because the player has already seen the initial slider and can make an informed political choice. After the negotiations, the policy is selected.

I think that most choices can be made in the initial 51% system. Usually, the culture would be mostly homogeous and there will be some range that satisfies everyone. But the negotiations are always there as an option for the times that the 51% system would not work well.

I think that this system removes the chaotic tendencies of the 51% system. I also think that while initial slider choices are not real negotiations, they have the good interface characteristics of the negotiation/slider system.

Questions? Comments? Cuss Words?

	30-08-2000 03:12									#115
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

You are forgetting something with your 51% power. Your considering each gov. as though it were run like a democracy or republic. That's not true. Even if the ruler has 1% power he can issue any orders he wants if he is considered the "ruler." The problem is iimplementation. Take the last emperors of China FE. They were considered "the ruler" of china, but their "rule" ended at the edge of the Forbidden City. He could issue whatever order he wanted, but no one had to impliment it beyond that point. The same is true if a ruler has 51% of the power, with or without coalitions. He can't do anything unless a signifigant portion of the ruling people agree with his policies and are willing to impliment them, even if grudginly. Even at 100% power he still has to have people to back him up or any decree he makes is worthless. That's why the 51% rule won't work for most governmental types.
Also even in the democracies and replublics, the ruler hasto usually give something to gather the votes needed to pass a law or bury it. Thus, negotiation happens anyway, just it happens prior to the bill coming to vote. And with 51% there they still haveto worry about the other 49% because that is still a signifigant portion of the people, enough to cause a bloody civil war or enough to gather strength outside the political area to force a few votes to go the other way after a few months or so. That's what politics is. You haveto worry about the minorites as well as the majorities otherwise those minorities could end up screwing you over, espically if you passed something they absolutley hated.

On another note, what about my proposal about perosalities (for lack of better word) for the groups such as how stubborn they are, how forceful, how moral, etc. Haven't heard anything and i proposed it twice, not even a 'yes that's good.' 'no that sucks' or 'we already plan on having/not having it''

	30-08-2000 04:07									#116
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Wait:

The 'political' system option runs like this:

1) Someone in the political system proposes a change to a policy.

2) All parties 'vote' yea or nay.

3) The measure passes or fails.

4) The effects of the change are applied.

For the time being, only the ruler can propose changes. That will be enhanced later.

So, as ruler, if I want to raise or lower a policy, I go to my 'preferences' screen and set it to the number I want.

Then other groups with power look at the change. If I raise it and they also want the value raised, then they agree (as long as I don't go farther than they want). Otherwise they disagree.

So it's up to the player to negotiate with those groups beforehand, even if the player has 51%+ 'dictator' power. If the people oppose you, and you push the measure thru anyway, they will become unhappy. They have 'negotiated'. They have made their views known to you. They likely now demand a greater % of the political power, so they won't be ignored again.

That's also where the 'special orders' come in. If I need the support of the Church leaders on a measure, I can blackmail or bribe one of them. Or I can have one arrested, or even shot, to suppress the church's power.

If you pass unpopular policies, over groups; objections, those groups will become unhappy, and less loyal. So even a dictator has to worry about the effects of his policies.

So there are no 'ranges' necessary.

* * *

Lordy:

Interestingly enough, your complaints seem to be calling for the politics system. Everything you asked for is in the politics system, and not in the 'negotiated' system.

The ruler proposes. The govt model makes a game out of implementation. The player is in charge of the negotiation and implementation, as he tries to keep his people happy and productive. A bloody civil war will result from passing too many unpopular policies.

	30-08-2000 04:44									#117
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LGJ: I define power as "the ability to implement things." So if a ruler cannot implement anything, that ruler has no power.

F_Smith: I know how the current "political" system works. I was trying to put a GUI on it. Rather than click blindly through words and menus, the player should be able to select a value on a slider that is color coded to give the information the player needs to make a good decision.

The slider does not allow the player to input a proposal that will fail. If the player cannot get 51% support, the value is simply not an option. That eliminates the uncertainty and chaos of the system. The idea of the slider GUI is to quickly give the player good information about the political system. The player can tell a glance which values can be passed and what the consequences of the values will be.

I think that both of the current proposed political syatems are like DOS. They are good kernels, but navigating them requires a thorough knowledge of the system. A newcomer is lost in the arcane terminology and specific inputs required.

I am trying to make Windows 3.1. I want a GUI that fits over the kernels and allows a newcomer to easily navigate and interact with the political system. Like Windows, my GUI does not give the player as much power and control over the system. Power users will want to deal directly with the kernel. But I am trying to make the GUI a good way for regular users to navigate easily.

	30-08-2000 05:14									#118
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

F_Smith: You're right in a sence i'm looking for a political system, but not like you described. What you descibe I'll term as a hit or miss system, either it passes and you get what you want or it doesn't and you don't. That's not how politics is. The negotiation system, is actually closer to a political system than yours is because politics is about compromise and coalitions. Coalitions must compromise on each other though, so in this case the negotiations just happen during the proposal instead of before. Also things change. Your view wouldn't allow for internal compromises to support the minority which can puts lots of pressure on the majority because even if it passes, the ruler or other groups might want their votes elsewhere so they compromise with them on issue A to get their votes on issue B. That is another reason the minority of a proposal cannot be ignored.

Rich: Then under your idea that the percentage=amount of power for the player or the group shouldn't allow for the player to set proposals as he wishes with just 51% because he doesn't have total control. Otherwise your saying if its 51+ is = to 100, which isn't right. 51 is just that, a slim majority of control of the civ belongs to the ruler, not enough to do whatever he wishes like set tax rates at any level. Even 99 isn't = to 100. If it were, why have 99 and not just say 100 instead?

	30-08-2000 06:17									#119
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

LGJ: If you have 51% of the power, you can take on any combination of your enemies. You can do anything you want, but there will be a lot of rioting and conflict. If you have 100% of the power, then there will be almost no opposition and you will have a much easier time.

At least, that is my interpretation. I am just trying to put an interface on everyone else's ideas.