Political System

[Theodidactus (OP)]

Hello everyone,
Unlike a lot of people on this forum my expertise isn't in STEM, but the humanities. Specifically I'm very interested in politics and political intrigue. Aurora is great because it leaves so much up to the imagination of the player, such that niche systems simulating things like elections and such aren't necessary but occasionally I wish there was some kind of factional political system.

The aim here is to create a system that "plays well" with current game mechanics, and that is important, but not so critical that it interferes with people that don't care about it. It should also be simple. It should also accommodate multiple playstyles and settings (so specific ideas like "there will be an election every 4 years" is not a good suggestion, because not everyone's playing in a democracy) Here are my proposed changes:

Military Leaders can become civilian leaders: Granted, this happens a lot less in "real life" than it used to, but there should be a way for a distinguished space hero to become a politician, or a rogue admiral to tyrannically seize civil power. Changing a military leader into a civilian one permanently deletes all his military-specific bonuses, and reduces his civilian-specific bonuses (mining ect) by 25%. Upon becoming a civilian leader, the military leader is randomly assigned a faction.

The faction mechanic: civilian leaders are generated with a "faction" as part of their identity. So are colonies with over 1/5/10 million people (or whatever) and corporations. Factions have no specific mechanics associated with them and are completely identical in everything except name. Names are nonspecific and allude to factions in si-fi novels and history (avantist, federalist, sedition, chaotic, ect). The name list should deliberately avoid grandiose names that might destabilize the flavor of certain campaigns ("Imperialist" is okay, "Galactic empire of Albarth" is not).  There should probably be no more than 20. Civilian governors are generated with the faction of whatever colony they are generated on. Colonies are generated with the faction of their capital colony, but as you'll soon see, these can change.

Opposing factions: factions that do not match are "opposing"
- governors lose half their bonuses when governing worlds of a different faction
- governors of a different faction than the world they govern have a chance of being "deposed" every 5 day increment, equal to %(political stability)/2+2*(governor's political reliability bonus). Being deposed permanently retires the governor (can't think of a way to do anything more realistic simply)
- worlds of a different faction than your capitol lose a small amount of political stability every 5 day increment (not as much as an unprotected world would)
- civilian shipping lines make less money off routine trades with worlds of a different faction
- civilian shipping lines will not pick up or deliver installations to worlds of a different faction


Changing a faction
- Colonies with less than 50% political stability have a small chance of changing to a random new faction every 5 day increment.
- Colonies of a different faction than a governor have a chance of changing to the governor's faction every year, equal to the governor's political reliability bonus.
- Corporations have a chance of changing to the faction of the capital colony every time they are subsidized.
- civilian leaders have a small chance of changing factions randomly.

SM mode
Factions should work like character descriptions currently do, it should be possible to change the faction of a character or world.
Rather critically, it should be possible to punch in new factions by hand.


Advantages of this system:
- the game still works if you completely ignore it
- plays well with almost any science fiction setting.
- easy to understand and plan around, doesn't overwhelm the strategic considerations that will be more fun for most players (IE which fleets go where and look like what)
- adds a new element of randomness to the game that breaks up the relative monotony of aurora. New things to do and respond to, and not necessarily with force
- makes both political reliability and political stability matter a bit more.

disadvantages of this system:
- somewhat abstract, a necessary sacrifice for making a system that plays equally well in the "British empire in space campaign", "star trek ripoff campaign", and "Theodidactus' west wing in space campaign"
- somewhat unrealistic, deposed governors are erased from existence, this was done to make something that, given my knowledge of databases, would be easy to actually implement.

things that are both an advantage and a disadvantage
- factions can oscillate wildly if the political stability is low and the governor's political reliability is high. This is realistic and reflects exactly the sort of contentious political climate that you see in countries with low political stability.

[Brian Neumann]

I like your idea as a way to create internal politics for an empire.  One suggestion would be to have it be an item to check at game start with a blank for entering the maximum factions that an empire can have.  It should also only be active with player controlled empires.

Brian

[Theodidactus (OP)]

good advice on both counts!

[Theodidactus (OP)]

potential generic-sounding titles for factions (some referencing sci-fi works)

- Federalist
- Republican
- Unificationist
- Liquifactionist
- Avantist
- Sedition
- Dominion
- Nationalist
- Colonial
- Tetrarchical
- Combine
- Independent
- Communitarian
- Emblamist

[boggo2300]

- Emblamist

I misread that three times as Embalmist,  my head was about to explode trying to rationalise a form of government based on embalming!

Matt

[Erik L]

I misread that three times as Embalmist,  my head was about to explode trying to rationalise a form of government based on embalming!

Matt

Those are the Chicago politicians. Vote early, vote often, and vote the cemetery.

[boggo2300]

all in all I think it would be a welcome addition,  I'm quite partial myself to fragmented internal politics, and revolutions (this would make it much easier to split off part of an Empire as revolting)  though I think a limit on the number different factions in an empire would probably be a good idea for not bogging down the back end, I also think doing the test for colonies swapping faction every 5 days is way too often,  every 30 days maybe,  possibly once a year even?

Matt

[swarm_sadist]

- governors lose half their bonuses when governing worlds of a different faction
- governors of a different faction than the world they govern have a chance of being "deposed" every 5 day increment, equal to %(political stability)/2+2*(governor's political reliability bonus). Being deposed permanently retires the governor (can't think of a way to do anything more realistic simply)
- worlds of a different faction than your capitol lose a small amount of political stability every 5 day increment (not as much as an unprotected world would)
- Colonies with less than 50% political stability have a small chance of changing to a random new faction every 5 day increment.
- Colonies of a different faction than a governor have a chance of changing to the governor's faction every year, equal to the governor's political reliability bonus.
- Corporations have a chance of changing to the faction of the capital colony every time they are subsidized.

I would just like to point out a few things.

First, the governor with a different faction than the colony they are on will have the chances of them being ousted "increase" as the political stability increases. Shouldn't a world with no stability be harder to control than a world without stability? This is compounded when the next line states that the stability will lower with a leader of a different faction. And then below 50% stability, the faction will change until the capital faction is randomly selected. This means that having fewer troops to enforce order will have an overall positive effect of converting a hostile faction.

Second, having different faction leaders running different worlds has been done in history successfully, and not all factions are diametrically opposed to each other.

Third, paying a corporation does not guarantee loyalty, much like bribing people does not guarantee theirs.

Fourth, an entire PLANET does not change it's faction on a whim, and when the planet's stability is low, it does not all change and point in the same direction.

I do like the mechanics to have a leader's loyalty, faction, nationality, faction, political party or ideology tracked.

- governors of a different faction than the world they govern have a chance of being "deposed" every 5 day increment, equal to %(political stability)/2+2*(governor's political reliability bonus). Being deposed permanently retires the governor (can't think of a way to do anything more realistic simply)

The easiest way would be to make a small part of the world secede instead of the entire world, and then have the governor flee, be killed or get captured and held by the enemy faction as a POW.

[Theodidactus (OP)]

First, the governor with a different faction than the colony they are on will have the chances of them being ousted "increase" as the political stability increases. Shouldn't a world with no stability be harder to control than a world without stability? This is compounded when the next line states that the stability will lower with a leader of a different faction. And then below 50% stability, the faction will change until the capital faction is randomly selected. This means that having fewer troops to enforce order will have an overall positive effect of converting a hostile faction.

I probably wrote the equation wrong...whoops. The idea is that a less stable colony is harder to control. that equation is too weirdly specific anyway. This was supposed to be a skeleton system...I guess my main point I wanted to highlight is that this would be easy to do with 2 variables  that already exist (stability and reliability, both of which I sorta wish did more anyway).

Second, having different faction leaders running different worlds has been done in history successfully, and not all factions are diametrically opposed to each other.

Yeah, that is true. This is another place where I thought I'd sacrifice "realism" for simplicity. Please note that it's totally possible to have different worlds of different factional affiliation, as long as you keep SOME military there. Also, opposing factions need not be diametrically opposed, simply groups that don't work in concert. A more robust system could randomly generate degrees of separation, but my rule #1 was that I wanted to make something that would work with a large number of campaigns players would dream up themselves, so these factions were sorta deliberately bland (because not every campaign is going to have a secessionist group, or a mutant rights group, or a socialist group, or a monarchist group, ect)

Third, paying a corporation does not guarantee loyalty, much like bribing people does not guarantee theirs.

Yeah it doesn't here either. The "factional affiliation" of a corporation (and a planet, and a politician) represents the goals they are currently superficially serving in the broadest possible sense, so players can imagine what the shift in loyalty "actually means". Subsidizing the corporation has a chance of making them join up with you. See below for more of what I'm getting at.Also remember that subsidy provides a chance of changing, it doesn't guarantee it. Maybe loyalty isn't permanent either

Fourth, an entire PLANET does not change it's faction on a whim, and when the planet's stability is low, it does not all change and point in the same direction.

This simplified system was implemented to accommodate multiple political systems, to the reader's imagination. Obviously a 2-billion-man planet won't just change its factional affiliation overnight, and more than Wisconsin suddenly become a red state  and then suddenly a blue state during the 2012 election cycle (despite the fact that the "reds" clearly had power in the first half of the year, and the "blues" in the second)...saying a planet's "faction" has gone from liquifactionist to imperialist or whatever can mean whatever the player wants it to mean: popular perception has shifted because of a particularly brutal crackdown, the high majordomo council has cast a vote officially changing their affiliation, whatever.

Factional affiliation changing wildly during periods of low stability does not necessarily mean everyone goes to bed one night as a Dominionist and wakes up the next morning as an emblamist...it just means the emblamists sieze critical reigns of power overnight, or win a significant election, or bribe all the right people, or otherwise become the dominant player on what is likely a very fractious field...but probably not for very long.

The easiest way would be to make a small part of the world secede instead of the entire world, and then have the governor flee, be killed or get captured and held by the enemy faction as a POW.

See but I'm afraid this is too complicated. One thing I like about Aurora is that the game "keeps on working" even if you ignore some mechanics that you might not be terribly interested in (IE diplomacy). This would be a massively disruptive mechanic, particularly if the ceding forces do become like, NPRs or something. I feel like this would be really really annoying rather than something that is fun to work around.

[Arwyn]

Really like the idea, it would add another dimension to the RP aspect of the game, and certainly make for some interesting internal dynamics. I can already see a whole process of "this guy has better stats, but he is the wrong faction, cant make HIM the governor!"

To add to the list:
-Socialist
-Communist
-Marxist
-Liberty
-Democrat
-Social Justice
-Green
-Pacifist
-Industrialist
-Capitalist
-Freedom
-Military
-Progressive
-Justice
-Constitutionalists
-Reform
-Unity
-Workers
-Independence


I would also suggest that these be editable. You have a whole host of additional factions that could arise around religion, ethnicity, or culture that COULD be use. I would avoid actually putting those in game, but give the player the option.

[ardem]

I tried to do a faction based game, I end up changing the last 3 letters of there last name to refer to there faction.

I love the idea for an extra faction field. To RP this could add interesting elements to the system for those who wish to RP it.

Much like I RP there traits, many times where a battle is a 50/50 slip I look at their traits and if they have coward apart of it I retreat from the battle. I love the flavour of Aurora so I can RP those non-game elements.

[Theodidactus (OP)]

pretty much all of my current campaign if RPing factions. One reason I wanted to add this system was that until very recently there hadn't been any kind of violence between them, so i wanted some game mechanics that weren't entirely about blowing the )$(*# out of spaceships.

[Whitecold]

There should be a 'free election' checkbox for each planet, which allows the population to pick their own governor, and pushes old ones out of office without deposing them.
One should be able to set an official policy on each faction, if it is favoured, allowed or forbidden.
The same one should be able to set a policy for the autoassignment of military officers, either allowed, only for non-combat units, or not allowed at all to hold command.