I've cautioned before (elsewhere) that realism is less valuable to a game than plausibility. That said, this might be one of those times when it's worth looking at how political systems change in the real world to think about how they might be made to change in the LT game world.HKY09 wrote:I thought I addressed this with the idea that left-wing governments keep leaning and inching to the left, right governments would keep leaning and inching to the right, up governments keep leaning and inching to the up, right-up governments keep leaning and inching etc etc etc.
Which is that, rather than Left and Right governments getting Leftier and Rightier, the opposite seems to be what really happens. For example, China moves rightward by introducing (some) market-based reforms, while the U.S. increasingly edges leftward by adding regulatory and social-welfare burdens. The revolutions (through dissolution or conquest) happen when political-economic systems spend enough time in the mushy middle to become stagnant compared to more energetic neighbor cultures.
But it's not necessarily the case that a game that simulates some elements of an economy must follow this plodding-to-the-middle process. For gameplay purposes, a "more of the same" process as you described might be more interesting, as I agree it sets up a faction for a more overt kind of internal "we need a change!" revolution.
Personally I think I'd rather see the more real-world model used in LT, but then I'm a sucker for simulation. I do value mechanics-play because I know it's important to most other gamers, though. So I still think the starter post in this thread was excellent, and I hope more people here will contribute to it.