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Re: Managing Planetary Government

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2014 10:36 am
by Kambalo
I want to have a pirate colony, no need for no stinking government, we are our government. Arrrrgggg!!!! :clap:

Re: Managing Planetary Government

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2014 10:40 am
by MyNameWuzTaken
HKY09 wrote:Can you elaborate? Maybe draw some concepts? c:
Your joking right...

Re: Managing Planetary Government

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2014 10:43 am
by HKY09
Kambalo wrote:I want to have a pirate colony, no need for no stinking government, we are our government. Arrrrgggg!!!! :clap:
Then consider this a mutiny.

Re: Managing Planetary Government

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2014 10:43 am
by HKY09
MyNameWuzTaken wrote:
HKY09 wrote:Can you elaborate? Maybe draw some concepts? c:
Your joking right...
I mean later, when you can...

Re: Managing Planetary Government

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2014 10:45 am
by MyNameWuzTaken
HKY09 wrote:
MyNameWuzTaken wrote:
HKY09 wrote:Can you elaborate? Maybe draw some concepts? c:
Your joking right...
I mean later, when you can...
I can elaborate but the idea doesn't need a graph to explain. I didn't think it needed elaboration either.

Re: Managing Planetary Government

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2014 10:49 am
by HKY09
can you describe the sliders, how many there are, what they do, etc?

Re: Managing Planetary Government

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2014 10:55 am
by Kambalo
HKY09 wrote:can you describe the sliders, how many there are, what they do, etc?
OK what they do

one slider slide to the right, or to the left it is your choice
the second slider does the same
the third does the same
the fourth does the same.

And so on and so forth.


Now what is important is what lies at both ends of the slider, now that is the 5 cent question. :lol:

Re: Managing Planetary Government

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2014 10:58 am
by MyNameWuzTaken
HKY09 wrote:can you describe the sliders, how many there are, what they do, etc?
Um... You remember the seven bars josh showed in the last dev update when talking about AI personality? Yeah, those. Except make them into sliders and you pick your governments personality essentially. Then all the other AI under your control will be happy/unhappy with your choices. All the AI who aren't under your control will also have opinions.

We can argue all day about what the different types of government and economic policy should be, and their effects, and we won't get anywhere.

Lets just choose a mechanic that's in the game. I don't give a damn what my government type is called. I just want the effects of it. Using the personality sliders is the way to accomplish that. We are way over complicating it.

Re: Managing Planetary Government

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2014 11:00 am
by Kambalo
MyNameWuzTaken wrote:
HKY09 wrote:can you describe the sliders, how many there are, what they do, etc?
Um... You remember the seven bars josh showed in the last dev update when talking about AI personality? Yeah, those. Except make them into sliders and you pick your governments personality essentially. Then all the other AI under your control will be happy/unhappy with your choices. All the AI who aren't under your control will also have opinions.

We can argue all day about what the different types of government and economic policy should be, and their effects, and we won't get anywhere.

Lets just choose a mechanic that's in the game. I don't give a damn what my government type is called. I just want the effects of it. Using the personality sliders is the way to accomplish that. We are way over complicating it.
Agreed 100%

Could be interesting to see what the sliders can give, I figure or imagine that somewhere there is a neutral, greedy to the right, conservative to the left etc etc assigning to each government different attributes, like economy, research, religious, combat readiness etc

Re: Managing Planetary Government

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2014 11:06 am
by Hyperion
Hmm, Why cant we just have something similar to how the Democracy games handle it.

You have a variety of "policies" which affect different areas of the game, each policy appeals to or angers different demographics, and each policy can be weighted at a variety of levels which determine the cost of implementation, the magnitude of effects the policies have, and the magnitude of the policy's affect on subject opinion. Policies also have the tendency to slowly move the population towards accepting any given ideology/attributes you like.

For example, in Democracy games you have demographics like Conservative/Liberal; Religious; Environmentalist; trade unions; parents; lower,middle,and upper class... This could correspond roughly to the 7 cultural traits of aggressiveness, creativity, intellectual, greedy, etc as well as their financial situation (do they have more or less than the average net worth?) and their social situation (are they on better or worse terms with people under your control than average?)

You also have sectors that policies affect such as crime; GDP; overall health; poverty; income inequality; environmental condition; drug addiction; etc...
These could correspond nicely to how many people turn to piracy, or how much research is done, or how much trade is focused internally vs externally.



Admittedly, the Democracy policies came pre-constructed with fancy names like corporate tax rate or privitized health care, which might not be so easy in LT.

Re: Managing Planetary Government

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2014 11:08 am
by Cornflakes_91
Hyperion wrote: Admittedly, the Democracy policies came pre-constructed with fancy names like corporate tax rate or privitized health care, which might not be so easy in LT.
well, thats one of the few occasions where something hardcoded isnt bad for LT

Re: Managing Planetary Government

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2014 11:12 am
by HKY09
Hyperion wrote:Hmm, Why cant we just have something similar to how the Democracy games handle it.

You have a variety of "policies" which affect different areas of the game, each policy appeals to or angers different demographics, and each policy can be weighted at a variety of levels which determine the cost of implementation, the magnitude of effects the policies have, and the magnitude of the policy's affect on subject opinion. Policies also have the tendency to slowly move the population towards accepting any given ideology/attributes you like.

For example, in Democracy games you have demographics like Conservative/Liberal; Religious; Environmentalist; trade unions; parents; lower,middle,and upper class... This could correspond roughly to the 7 cultural traits of aggressiveness, creativity, intellectual, greedy, etc as well as their financial situation (do they have more or less than the average net worth?) and their social situation (are they on better or worse terms with people under your control than average?)

You also have sectors that policies affect such as crime; GDP; overall health; poverty; income inequality; environmental condition; drug addiction; etc...
These could correspond nicely to how many people turn to piracy, or how much research is done, or how much trade is focused internally vs externally.



Admittedly, the Democracy policies came pre-constructed with fancy names like corporate tax rate or privitized health care, which might not be so easy in LT.
I really like this idea.

Re: Managing Planetary Government

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2014 11:24 am
by MyNameWuzTaken
I disagree entirely, but that may be because I've always hated the democracy games. They are my micromanagement hell. Plus, I've never been good at them because I'm too die hard capitalist. All of my homeless, environmentalist hippies get angry with me. I'm not the type who likes to please everyone. I am the dictator. And, I still think that's over complicating it.

The AI will already understand the relationships and behaviors caused by the seven sliders. Just apply it to government. and I think adding democracy type government to LT would feel out of place. That way, if I want to set some sliders to full and then carpet bomb everyone who disagrees with me until my empire has been culled into only clones of myself, then so be it.

If you are not like me, then move the sliders around and watch the effects on your empire. Play around with it and learn how to keep everyone healthy and your empire wealthy. Learn how to balance every new planet you absorb into your empire. Wait until the time is right to acquire new planets, because the personality variance of the ones you already own has narrowed.

All of the gameplay elements and complexity you want are there, but in just seven simple sliders.

Re: Managing Planetary Government

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2014 11:28 am
by HKY09
MyNameWuzTaken wrote:I disagree entirely, but that may be because I've always hated the democracy games. They are my micromanagement hell. Plus, I've never been good at them because I'm too die hard capitalist. All of my homeless, environmentalist hippies get angry with me. I'm not the type who likes to please everyone. I am the dictator. And, I still think that's over complicating it.

The AI will already understand the relationships and behaviors caused by the seven sliders. Just apply it to government. and I think adding democracy type government to LT would feel out of place. That way, if I want to set some sliders to full and then carpet bomb everyone who disagrees with me until my empire has been culled into only clones of myself, then so be it.

If you are not like me, then move the sliders around and watch the effects on your empire. Play around with it and learn how to keep everyone healthy and your empire wealthy. Learn how to balance every new planet you absorb into your empire. Wait until the time is right to acquire new planets, because the personality variance of the ones you already own has narrowed.

All of the gameplay elements and complexity you want are there, but in just seven simple sliders.
Maybe you choose what kind of government you have with a slider (< -Minimal - Democratic - Imperial - Despotic ->) that will have different sets of policies you can enact, with the middle choices being the most rewarding, and the edges having less and less micromanagement?

Re: Managing Planetary Government

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2014 11:48 am
by MyNameWuzTaken
But now your complicating it again. Josh likes simple solutions and systems with finesse, that still provide conplex and rewarding gameplay.

The administration of government needs to be handled the same way for everyone. Simple on the front end, but with potential for complexity. Choosing a despotic government and having that limit your policy choices is not an elegant solution.

I'm not trying to be aggressive or insulting guys. I love the brainstorming we have going on. I think we are pulling pieces from other games, or from history textbooks and trying to make them fit LT. The reality is, it has to use LT systems and logic for it to really feel like it fits.

AI will all have attributes that are modified by the attributes of the colony they are from. Colonies from the same planet will have similar attributes. Planets in nearby areas will have similar attributes. You start and empire and set your sliders to match these local systems you own. Everyone is happy.

Then, suddenly, as your empire expands, people begin to act differently than they did at home. Suddenly they aren't happy about you being greedy and aggressive. More and more your feeling like the war wasn't over when you took the planet.

This is how a slider system would work.

Hard policies with static effects? Out of place in LT. Every policy would have to have a spectrum of effects for how it reacted with the seven traits. Too complex.