[RPDG] RolePlay Democracy Game - discussion

[Mart]

Introducing an idea of a new multiplayer democracy game:

RolePlay Democracy Game (RPDG)

- The aim of this game would be to both play SMAX and have possibility to tell a story, roleplay, or maybe build an extensive AAR and have diplomacy interaction between factions/groups.
- Game speed would not be the first priority,so that we do not have to rush.
- I do not know, if similar attempts have been made before, so this would be also a test of this kind of gameplay.

In particular:
- We play with 6 human factions in multiplayer, that are set to be in permanent Pact. This could be considered as playing one faction with, let's call them "districts." We can also call this agreement Coalition.
- Players could "belong" to a certain faction in the Coalition, but changing faction would be allowed without limits. Kinda like we have political parties in a country. Each faction would have a turnplayer.
- We play against all other factions (excluding aliens) from vanila and expansion, that are combined into one superfaction and represent opposite permanent Pact, let's call it Union. We have 12 such factions total, so we would have 6+6.
- Superfaction would be specially designed with its characteristics, one would have to offset differences between playing 6 pacted factions and 1 faction six times larger. E.g. obligatory would be: VOTES,6, (or even 7 if with PK) so that Union has at least intended comparable number of votes in the council.
- For voting 1 vote per faction we would need special rule, since Union would be in a disadvantage here. I have an idea how to do it, but more details later.
- Playing in our Coalition would be up to us, we might have our own (made in the forum, not inside the game of course) council or parliament. Having 6 different factions would allow for competition inside the Coalition with its own diplomacy, like in singleplayer democracy game, but also made easier distinguishing between "political parties."
- Game victory conditions: transcendence or conquest of the Union. We might have also ranking of Coalition factions. That could make for interesting internal affairs diplomacy game. I guess we would disable other ones, so that game does not end prematurily.

Selection of factions:
- The poll is to choose 6 preferable factions to the Coalition set. Can change voting.

[Edit]:
- I was thinking about playing with Yitzi patch 2.4.
- Also, a special scenario setting with some of these new options tweaked. So turnplayer would need to have the mod setting. Easiest to do on Windows (folder on C: drive), but Linux and Mac also possible, I guess.

[JarlWolf]

Would it be possible to also introduce custom factions into this?

[Mart]

Yes, let me introduce it to the poll.

[JarlWolf]

Sigma's factions Leviathan and Authority are my suggestion.

[Mart]

Sigma's factions Leviathan and Authority are my suggestion.

These factions have great feeling.  When we choose custom factions, 6 factions for the Union would have to be selected also, as there would be more than 6. That's good for keeping the character of the Union, e.g. less likely there would be opposite ideology. I am thinking of setting nil,nil,nil for the ideology of the superfaction, but I'm testing it now. We can also set superfaction (SF) personality in scenario editor to aggressive, next to no ideology, so it will give us more challenge.

[Geo]

I wonder if you could gather enough people to fill in a six-party 'super faction'.
Also, since technically this would be one nation, with supposedly an overall Constitution/Charter, SE should be changed somewhat. It would be weird to have citizens of the same nation live under Democracy, Fundamentalism, and a Police State at the same time. Economic values can be thought of a different 'district government' running things, but politically?
Personally, I wouldn't force a permanent pact on all the human parties, but let coalitions and animosities develop as they come. That way, civil war wouldn't be out of the question.
It sounds to me the opposing 'Union' faction(s?) could be aliens already living on the Planet humans arrive on to colonize instead of another nation with voting rights in a sort of Planetary Parliament (the ingame Council).

[Mart]

...
Personally, I wouldn't force a permanent pact on all the human parties, ...

Yes, that is in plan. All six human-controlled factions will be pacted permanently. Any game event throwing out from pact would be immediately and obligatorily corrected.

but let coalitions and animosities develop as they come.

They will... Like in any parliament, I think.

That way, civil war wouldn't be out of the question.

I did not think about! That would be possible, if we allow not obligatory pact. But then, it would be back to regular multiplayer demo game. And I thought of having sort of singleplayer demo game, to avoid too much conflict. It's RolePlay in mind.

It sounds to me the opposing 'Union' faction(s?) could be aliens already living on the Planet humans arrive on to colonize instead of another nation with voting rights in a sort of Planetary Parliament (the ingame Council).

I would keep it human affair only. And the Union - would be single superfaction (seventh faction) - would represent six other factions, just played by AI. This is RolePlay in mind. So people writing stories could use multiple faction leaders in the Union (AI controlled) for the purpose of stories, fan fiction.

[Geo]

...
Personally, I wouldn't force a permanent pact on all the human parties, ...

Yes, that is in plan. All six human-controlled factions will be pacted permanently. Any game event throwing out from pact would be immediately and obligatorily corrected.

That's my whole point. It SHOULD be possible to have violent disagreements with other parties.
And the main reason I would have an alien faction as the opposing AI is that it would have no say at all in planetary council. This enables it as a solely player-controlled tool without outside interference. You could even go with 5 human factions and 1 'president' faction which always gets the planetary governor seat (by charter). This could be the CMN's spot then by the Constitution/Charter, or choosen by all the party leaders. This 'President' faction would have the capital of the coalition, perhaps control of all military, and nothing else.

[Mart]

We could declare the Union SF as alien with it being actually the 6 'human' AI factions. That way we would have ingame council to ourselves. However, with 6 human-controlled factions we can establish our own council inforum, with unlimited number of proposals also per turn, e.g. 4 proposal in one turn for voting? why not.
Havin SF (Union superfaction) using ingame council is better in the way, that it would be for example strange to have a vote for increasing solar shade only in the Coalition when maybe the Union would be on the winning side with more technological advancement. That would break roleplay, since half the planet or even more would have no say in these planetary issues. The idea is to have these 6 (or more!) factions in the game 'simulated' as close to being actually there.

Ok, how about this, in regard to 'President' faction:
We may have one base, declared as the capitol of the Coalition. One of the 6 factions would held Presidency and then being gifted the base from its previous owner. Gifting bases (trading them, etc.) inside Coalition would be allowed. President might issue military orders to military in districts=other factions.
On the other hand, one faction 'President' faction having all military would be simpler to play. But what with the upkeep? Units drain minerals. We would need special setup of such support.

[Geo]

We would need special setup of such support.

That's where the charm of a dedicated 'president/capitol' faction comes in: give it the clean reactor ability.
I'm assuming that any unit gifted to a faction having this ability would automatically gain the clean reactor ability?

[JarlWolf]

Hrm..... We could also take a much more "Confederacy" like approach and each member district is relatively autonomous, even to the point of military. A loose confederacy perhaps, prone to civil war if things become tense?

Also, if we should have a starting President faction, it should either be Sigma's Planet Authority or  , given both their status and ideals.

[Mart]

... give it the clean reactor ability...

I think it is too much of an abuse. Several factions would manufacture a lot of units, that dumped into a clean reactor feature would need no upkeep. That would make economy too easy.

Hrm..... We could also take a much more "Confederacy" like approach and each member district is relatively autonomous, even to the point of military. A loose confederacy perhaps, prone to civil war if things become tense?

Yes, we could have that. And level of autonomy could be subject to change by voting of member factions. E.g. do we have the same political setting in all factions, like all required to run Democracy, or we allow free choice.

Also, if we should have a starting President faction, it should either be Sigma's Planet Authority or  , given both their status and ideals.

Colonial Authority is a good choice. That Battlestar Galactica Admiral is a great idea - nice graphics from the show. Almost like Garland himself.

From tests, I can see, that giving SF Votes, 6, did not work ok. That was expected, what is better is just giving several times more colony pods to SF, than to a single 'human' faction.

[Mart]

Maybe few more things:
- the game setup would be multiplayer. However, passwords would be open to all. This is cause of permapacts. In cases of inter-factional conflicts, that would represent good intelligence, that most likely would be available to all factions due to years of pacts before. This way playing such multi-faction game is easier. And we could also find some other solutions in mid-game if needed. Also, such openness would encourage persons not "belonging" to any of the factions to be observers and maybe write some stories/fanfic.
- I am making 54x110 map. For tests and for intended game. It's not small or regular, but the scope of such game - simulating 14-16 factions - explains it. And anyway, larger maps are more interesting and for the roleplay it's a good thing. We could even play huge, 64x128, but I think that's already a bit too big. Research on 54x110 is somewhat slow, but with such cooperation of 6 factions from the start, techs are coming sufficiently often.