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Re: Managing Planetary Government

#76
The first question that needs to be answered here is what a planet is good for in terms of the core gameplay (which probably can be boiled down into trade, production and pewpewpew). Presumably, a whole planet would be a dandy thing to have for resource extraction and industry. With the resource extraction probably being related to the planet type.

High population probably translates into faster extraction/production rates, while requiring a higher amount of supplies.

The choices probably won't end up being between communism, democracy and dictatorship, but more as a balance between self-sufficiency, import and export. Because let's face it, the core gameplay doesn't give a flying sloop's quarterdeck on whether you're Emperor Ming, the Dalai Lama or the President of the Federation. It's all about the credits and the ships and the NPCs that fly them.


Of course you can go on constructing a set of parameters that have absolutely jack to do with the actual core gameplay, but I think it's a better approach to consider how to implement both into a working whole, instead of trying to cram Diplomacy (which sucks, btw. Junta is the only way to fly, as far as political games go ;)) into what is basically Freelancer on Steroids.

Even 4X-games don't usually bother with internal politics - you're the effing god-emperor, your word is law, your will shall be done - pretty much the only way to get shit done on a stellar scale, really, else you'd spend the first 20 turns of the game discussing the option of building a colony ship and getting the press to warm up to the idea. It's more like: "Yeah, right. Aboard the ship you go, drones, all glory to the Overlord, be fruitful and multiply, and start building battlecruisers ASAP you lazy farts."
The only slider here is between "Let's tax the peasants to death and risk rebellion, we're short on dough!" and "Taxes, schmaxes, I want my people to be happy and breed like rabbits!". If the game is luxurious, there might also be the choice between gangraping the planet with bucket-wheel excavators or keeping the ecology pristine.

You shouldn't need to fiddle with the things just for the sake of having fiddly planetary bits inplemented. Personally, I'd be okay with "Yeah, here, have this planet, go have a ball, and send me 5% of the earnings. Toodles, I'm off...". How the thing is governed really is of no concern to me, it's the results that count. Public healthcare debates don't quite fit on my busy schedule of blowing things up, taking their cargo and exploring the universe. I still recognize the benefits of passive income, planetary real estate and rare planetary resources, however. But for the mind-numbingly boring parts, there's automation and AI support. Nobody wants to suffer through planetary public healthcare debates.

-Hardenberg
Hardenberg was my name
And Terra was my nation
Deep space is my dwelling place
The stars my destination
Post

Re: Managing Planetary Government

#78
Hardenberg wrote:The first question that needs to be answered here is what a planet is good for in terms of the core gameplay (which probably can be boiled down into trade, production and pewpewpew). Presumably, a whole planet would be a dandy thing to have for resource extraction and industry. With the resource extraction probably being related to the planet type.

High population probably translates into faster extraction/production rates, while requiring a higher amount of supplies.

The choices probably won't end up being between communism, democracy and dictatorship, but more as a balance between self-sufficiency, import and export. Because let's face it, the core gameplay doesn't give a flying sloop's quarterdeck on whether you're Emperor Ming, the Dalai Lama or the President of the Federation. It's all about the credits and the ships and the NPCs that fly them.


Of course you can go on constructing a set of parameters that have absolutely jack to do with the actual core gameplay, but I think it's a better approach to consider how to implement both into a working whole, instead of trying to cram Diplomacy (which sucks, btw. Junta is the only way to fly, as far as political games go ;)) into what is basically Freelancer on Steroids.

Even 4X-games don't usually bother with internal politics - you're the effing god-emperor, your word is law, your will shall be done - pretty much the only way to get shit done on a stellar scale, really, else you'd spend the first 20 turns of the game discussing the option of building a colony ship and getting the press to warm up to the idea. It's more like: "Yeah, right. Aboard the ship you go, drones, all glory to the Overlord, be fruitful and multiply, and start building battlecruisers ASAP you lazy farts."
The only slider here is between "Let's tax the peasants to death and risk rebellion, we're short on dough!" and "Taxes, schmaxes, I want my people to be happy and breed like rabbits!". If the game is luxurious, there might also be the choice between gangraping the planet with bucket-wheel excavators or keeping the ecology pristine.

You shouldn't need to fiddle with the things just for the sake of having fiddly planetary bits inplemented. Personally, I'd be okay with "Yeah, here, have this planet, go have a ball, and send me 5% of the earnings. Toodles, I'm off...". How the thing is governed really is of no concern to me, it's the results that count. Public healthcare debates don't quite fit on my busy schedule of blowing things up, taking their cargo and exploring the universe. I still recognize the benefits of passive income, planetary real estate and rare planetary resources, however. But for the mind-numbingly boring parts, there's automation and AI support. Nobody wants to suffer through planetary public healthcare debates.

-Hardenberg
Boring! :roll: However, you should be free to stay out of politics if that isn't what you want to do. :) Sure, you can toss the ball to someone else and make it the AI's problem, but if you like those fiddling knobs and sliders to create an ideal little utopia or a sadistic hellscape, i don't see why you shouldnt be able to.


Personally I am mainly concerned with Who am I taxing and how much, should i place the tax burden of my entire empire on miners? how about traders? how about i only charge taxes on ammo, or how about i only charge taxes on imports...

Also, I want tools where I can encourage the AI to build what I want it to without having to go and manually say "Build a damn warp lane from A to B" to devote their efforts to vaguely specified areas of research useful to my empire, to produce particular products I want them to produce, etc. I dont want to have to go to every factory and say "build Camelot Class Battleships until further notice" I just want to lower taxes on battleship makers and put out some market orders for a fleet of battleships and watch as the market starts pouring out a whole variety of battleships.

Also, I want to make arbitrary rules for shits and giggles as well as harassing or putting pressure on anyone i damn well please. I want to be able to issue edicts like "No Klingons may purchase research modules under penalty of death for both the purchaser and the seller", "Murder of Elves is not a punishable crime, happy hunting!"

Thats all I want. :ghost:



Oh, and I also want there to be crippling healthcare debates that bog down the entire process... mainly for my competitors, so I can catch up to them or move further ahead of them while they waste their advantage. I will then laugh as i crush them in everything they were once good at...because I am china. :shifty:
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Imagination Fertilizer
Beauty may not save the world, but it's the only thing that can
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Re: Managing Planetary Government

#79
I dunno I think that each planet in dependence of what is about can have a wide range of government options, for example a planet with basically no ore or mineral resources, but with gorgeous beaches and beautiful tropical flora and fauna, could be designed as a recreational planet with a more relaxed type of government.

A planet with plentiful mineral resources and many factories etc could need a more Technological minded government etc etc etc
Post

Re: Managing Planetary Government

#80
Then make a mod for it. Keep the original planetary government basic, and simple, and then mod that on top of it. I would hate for LT to come out and no longer be a 4x game but instead be a planetary governance game. And what your suggesting is a lot more than a fragment of gameplay.

And while your making this mod, please make me a cannon that launches zoo animals into space. It would be hilarious to watch them spin off into the distance, collide with a ship, and they both explode.

Priceless.
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Re: Managing Planetary Government

#81
MyNameWuzTaken wrote:Then make a mod for it. Keep the original planetary government basic, and simple, and then mod that on top of it. I would hate for LT to come out and no longer be a 4x game but instead be a planetary governance game. And what your suggesting is a lot more than a fragment of gameplay.
:eh:
I would fully expect the vanilla LT 1.0 to only have a basic government/ management structure, but when the planetary ownership and faction ownership updates come out, I would also expect that to add some significant ownership/ management features, Like taking control of your planet's/faction's specifics in much the same way that you can alter how much energy goes to your thrusters vs your guns or how you can customize the gear on your ship... Planetary governance should be just as viable a way to play the game with its own interesting features as being a commodities trader, wingman, miner, or explorer. I for one have pretty much no interest whatsoever in being a wingman or engaging in first person combat at all, but I wouldn't say Josh should skimp on it, because I know full well that many people enjoy that sort of thing.

I would be greatly disappointed if every planet and faction was functionally identical to every other, varying only in the resources, culture value, appearance, and name. Far more satisfying a game to me would be one in which factions act and think differently, where I could stay in my starting system for an entire playthrough and have hours upon hours of enjoyment as i try to become the biggest fish in a very small pond playing politics and political intrigue in much the same way that the largest factions do.
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Challenging your assumptions is good for your health, good for your business, and good for your future. Stay skeptical but never undervalue the importance of a new and unfamiliar perspective.
Imagination Fertilizer
Beauty may not save the world, but it's the only thing that can
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Re: Managing Planetary Government

#84
While I enjoy frobbing the dials and switches as much as anyone, and wouldn't mind some amount of visible difference in Official Behaviors for star system-controlling factions (AKA "governments"), I will mention something Josh wrote that I suspect reveals an important aspect of his plans for Limit Theory:
JoshParnell wrote:we don't need this to become the next Sim City :roll:
As MyNameWuzTaken said (and as Hardenberg illuminated as only Hardenberg can): if any feature like planetary or system government types is going to exist, it needs to be simple, it should emerge naturally from existing features of colonies, it should fit into the other aspects of LT that have been revealed, and it needs to contribute something useful to gameplay beyond just "this planet is different from that one."

As much as I like the idea, that probably means a faction big enough to behave as a government should, at best, have a very high-level government style assigned to it as suggested in the OP in this thread.

Alternately, it might be possible to come up with a short list of styles for economic, social, and foreign policy with distinct and interesting gameplay effects, and to key each of those styles to particular combinations of factional personality traits. This approach has the virtue of being similar to what Josh described for guessing the nature of a ship by knowing the homeworld of its commander: knowing the general "personality" of a factional government would let you guesstimate its likely behaviors in the social, economic, and foreign policy (i.e., military) spheres of activity.
mcsven wrote:Just a quick note to say that I'm very happy to see the return of Hardenberg, with his equivocal and uncertain opinions.
:lol: :clap:
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Re: Managing Planetary Government

#86
HKY09 wrote:
Hadrianus wrote: Question: I see that the more libertarian the policy is the more developed your economy is. Whether that is true or not is another thread but the point is that in that case very little of the wealth of the economy is at the disposal of the government! Perhaps this should be a penalty of sorts?
The idea behind it was that there was more money flowing in the market without regulation or intervention - therefore, you'd be technically just another corporation competing in the market with everyone else. It was supposed to be a massive monetary boost to your income on all planets, but it couldn't possibly last very long before you or another faction seized more economic control, causing revolution. Ideally, you'd need to think "What is the government with this combination?" - as with the AnCap (Molotovism and Atlasism) policies, you'd be more a corporation than a government. You wouldn't be installing leaders, or creating laws, etc.
Hadrianus wrote:Say group X decides to set up a colony on planet Y. In order for that to happen they would need some sort of hierarchy, someone or some group of people to elaborate a colonization plan and to organize the basic infrastructure for the needs of the colonists. At this point there is no government per say but rather an organizational structure with clearly set and finite goals (build the roads, the sewers the water purification plant etc)
Then say some other unforeseen or unexpected problem emerges (pirates, toxic or hostile native life etc), now you have a choice either you organize a separate project for defensive purpose, be it under the authority of the initial project management teem or a totally separate teem. With just two project teams put together the risk of overlap would be minimum but as more and more teams are put together to deal with different emergent problems you need someone to coordinate them to insure that there is no or minimal overlap.
Now this central authority at this point is not exactly what you might call a government but it does fulfill some of the basic needs of it.
Say that this central structure or authority becomes incompetent, people want to change it or replace it so they put in place rules on how and under what conditions the one or ones that are the central authority can be replaced or can take the place of the central authority.
And so on and so on till you get closer and closer to an actual system of government. You need needn't a clearly defined constitution just look at the UK.

My point is that government should evolve from small colonial project teams to government with no clearly defined line that states this is a government and this is just a colonial project team.
Well, yea, but then how does the player get involved? How does the player choose to govern his empire? How does he co trol its inner workings to benefit him, or help him expand?
In regards to your first answer well then you are no longer a government are you?
In regards to the second one, well the player could set up a colonial project and develop it into a full fledged government. Josh has already explained in a previous dev video the basics of project management.
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Re: Managing Planetary Government

#87
To me the easiest answer is let the player choose from a pool of options what government he wants to have in every planet he controls, to me the easiest way is to have a pre-made set of options for each class of planet that way the player dont have to be forced to use just on type of government.

Another possibility is for the player to change governments as the planet develops.
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Re: Managing Planetary Government

#88
Kambalo wrote:To me the easiest answer is let the player choose from a pool of options what government he wants to have in every planet he controls, to me the easiest way is to have a pre-made set of options for each class of planet that way the player dont have to be forced to use just on type of government.

Another possibility is for the player to change governments as the planet develops.
Like Civics from Civ IV. Or policies from Alpha Centauri.
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