10-05-2001 18:19									#32
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I hope you guys know that you are arguing about symantics. There are many different ways to describe a form of government, and no two forms are identical. Most people would say that the US is a democracy, not true. George Moron Bush got put into power. I say put into power because Gore was elected.

Fundamentalism is almost the same as Theocracy, which are both forms of Monarchy. All of you should take a political science course so you know what you're talking about, especially JamesJKirk. I hope that different governments offer different styles of play because in Civ, Civ2, CTP, CTP2, the gameplay didn't change when the government changed.


On another note, I'd like to have the option of committing genocide in the game. It would add an interesting twist. Also, I'd like to see more frequent revolutions, such as America being formed from British colonies. And civil wars would be nice too. Also, there should be an option of assassinating a leader. That could throw a civilization into revolt. And I'd like to see the computers do that to the player. Even on diety, the game is too easy.
[This message has been edited by SoulAssassin (edited May 10, 2001).]
[This message has been edited by SoulAssassin (edited May 10, 2001).]

	10-05-2001 18:25									#33
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Admiral PJ... communism didn't decrease Russian culture in any way, it just contained it internally. And Chinese culture isn't any less potent today because of the communist government. Culture seems to thrive under the most oppressive forms of government. Look at occupied Europe during WWII. The occupied peoples' culture didn't cease to exist or fade away, it actually kept the peoples hope up and helped people survive the Nazi occupation.

And Democracy doesn't increase culture in any way. The United States has the weakest form of culture the world has ever seen, and it was the first true democracy. Democracy isn't the cause of the weak culture, its the mixture of different nationalities, the melting pot theory.

I hope that the people at Firaxis know a lot more about aspects of civilization and culture than the people that post on these boards.
[This message has been edited by SoulAssassin (edited May 10, 2001).]

	11-05-2001 09:24									#35
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Imran, can you think of ANY modern communist countries NOT a dictatorship?

I'm for SE...

	10-05-2001 22:54									#37
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Alot of you seem to like the SE model... and... alot of you seem to be comfortable with the old familiar model in Civ I/II. Why not have a combination of the two... sort of. Let me try to explain my idea...

I picked up a book once (you may be able to find it at your library. Its called World Government. I forget alot of the other pertinent info, but its probably in the refence section, about the size of an Atlas), and it talked about and described, among other things, the different forms of government around the world. It divided it up by region, and gave the most detail on the major government in that region (ie, Canada, US, Mexico, Germany, France, UK, China, South Africa, frm USSR, [you get the point], got their own blurbs [with diagrams, which is the important part, i'll get to that later], and other nations got a little less coverage).

Now, the important part is, the government systems that got the most coverage got the models, and the models really caught my eye. Besides the fact that they helped me understand the governments of different parts of the world better, the fact that they used a colourful and visually accomodating diagram made me think of Civ. Those diagrams could easily be incorporated into the game to literally allow the 'construction' of governmetn by players. It would be much better if you saw this for yourself, but I'll do my best to describe it...

I'll use the example of the US government to illustrate first.

On a white field, there was a green rectangular prism (picture a green pizza box, on its side) labelled "Electorate". From this box, there was an arrow pointing at... um, picture an orange pizza box lying flat, now, labeled "Congress". On this Congress pizza box, there were two red cubes, labeled "Senate", and "House of Representaives". Standing on top of the senate box, (as prez of the senate), was the Vice President, pictured as a little purple figure that looked like a person... sort of. The lines from the elctorate showed how the people elect, directly, their Senators and Reps (details were written on the arrows). More arrows showed the indirect relationship between the Electorate and the President, the Prez and Vice Prez, and the Prez and his cabinet, cabinaet and Senate, Prez and judiciary, and electorate and judiciary. You may think this is messy, but this was the first time I really understood how the American system works (in a technical sense). This is what was nice about these diagrams: they were very easy to understand. The flow charts were not messy. And this was for demonstrating a system with compartively more checks and balances than other nations. I found the communist systems of the USSR, Cuba and Angola more difficult to follow, however.

The example of the United Kingdom had the elctorate, with an arrow to the House of Commons, who they elect. On the cube representing the Commons, was a cube representing the cabinet, showing that unlike in the US, where the cabinet's "cube" was removed from the congress, the British cabinet is responsible to the House. A line from the Queen (pictured as a person [just like the Prez, Vice Prez in US diagram, only with a crown], labelled monarch, with details indicating heditary system) to cabinet showed that the PM and cabinet (PM a little people figure, too, standing atop cabinet "cube") are appointed by the monarch, with support of the Commons. A line from PM and Monarch to House of Lords showed how some Lords are apointed by monarch on advice of PM, and the rest hereditary, etc.

Now, let me explain how this could work in Civ, though you probably alrady made the conection...

Early in the game, you would start out with just you, and possilble something that indicated influence from tribal warlords. As the game progressed, rather that 'discovering' forms of government, which is patently ridiculous, your civ would develop the components of government. Rather than discovering democracy, you would develop The Electorate, and be able to include that into your model/flow chart, for bonuses and drawbacks, similar to what is seen when you develop a new SE model or install a new gov't ala Civ I/II. How involve are the electorate? Are their representatives puppets, or can they in direct referenda, block your every move? How much influence does the military have? Do they have members in the Parliament, ready to 'gently influence' their civilian counterparts on the affairs of governing, as can be seen in the book's diagram for Libya, or is military kept a tarms length from gov't processes, with civilian oversight? Are you a one, two, multi or no party system?

You can understand more of the possiblities if you read the book for yourself. The system could be set up so that you could select pre-set systems to avoid fiddling around with details and get that Civ I/II feeling, or add an embelishment here and there to get the SE feeling of SMAC.

I encourage you to take a look at that book if you can find it. Besides having good ideas for improving the gov't model in Civ, it can help you get a more informed persective on the world's different forms of governement and short histories of these nations.

	11-05-2001 05:18									#38
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Don't take offense to that Kirk, I just wanted to point out that it seems you're too worried about what a government is called rather than the ideology behind it.

This discussion about governments is moot anyways because it really is a dictatorship. You, the player, control all aspects of the game. No matter what you call it, what advantages/disadvantages a certain Civ government type there are, its all a dictatorship. Maybe in Civ3, the people would decide certain things and take away control from the player. I'm not going to postulate on what the AI model would be like, but its something worth looking into.

	11-05-2001 05:28									#39
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I trust that Sid and Firaxis will turn out a quality game ( ), with all the relevant governments. Even if they don't include what you want, it's certainly possible that we'll be able to modify the game to our liking.

Sabre

------------------
"We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything."
-Thomas A. Edison

	11-05-2001 06:50									#40
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What I love about the Apolyton forum is that we can start a thread on the fact fundy is not in Civ III end up talking about communism and dictatorships, all the while having someone going at someone else about needing to take political science courses and finally the thread ends with the line "let's all just trust the all powerful Sid."

It's quite refreshing that in the year I have been posting on Apolyton not a thing has changed.
[This message has been edited by tniem (edited May 10, 2001).]

	11-05-2001 18:13									#41
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LoL