What I was trying to say earlier is that this scenario you're describing fits virtually none of the campaigns i've actually seen on the forum. I think most players would find it bothersome, rather than cool. I personally would love it, but it doesn't jive well with either a "united planets" scenario or a "country X themed scenario" which is what most of the fiction I've seen really is.
True, very true. The point being that the suggestion above drew a response that basically said "too difficult", that it would be difficult if not impossible to model, and my suggestion was that it might be more feasible than that.
I like have the
option for additional complexity. After all, Aurora by far is much more complex than any of the extant 4x games on the market by a wide margin. It also has a resultant steep learning curve, and a commensurate large number of fairly smart adherents as a result.
I would love to see the politics and diplomacy expanded. Any additional features added to the AI subroutines would also be great. The current discussion around limiting NPR surveying was a pretty cool, as that resulted in the NPRs being channeled toward the players, picking up the games activity early rather than later and preventing NPR sprawl and slowdowns.
A system that helps explain the "why" of the interstellar aims of a PC race would be neat fluff, and great for additional RP. Since Steve is actively interested in such systems, its not a bad idea to kick it around and see what may show up in game at some point.
As far as the unemployment numbers, I agree and the examples you gave are quite good. Arguably, the PC race in Aurora would be a "superpower" since they dont really have any competition, or other powers to contend or ally with (in a basic non-mult-faction start). The effects of long term unemployment are corrosive socially, and thats one of the challenges presented when you start looking at long term effects of either repression (making folks mad long enough = some form of revolution) or compensation (buying off the unemployed via social welfare/the Dole) both end up equally ineffective in the long run.
This isnt new by any stretch. Various historical empires struggled with this issue repeated. The phrase "bread and circuses" was coined as a direct result of the Roman Senate, and later Emperors, buying off the populace with subsidized or free grain and entertainment. It eventually corrupted large portions of the economy, and eventually led to serious economic decline in conjunction with the devaluation of the Roman denarii, as the Roman government lessened the amount of silver in their currency by adding higher quantities of base metals in order to print more coins (sound familiar?
).
The challenge from a game perspective is that it
could provide and interesting dynamic for the player to work around. In addition to the cost of fleets/trade/exploration/colonization, the underlying economy would have to be monitored. A lot of 4x games do this already.
If the player isn't interested, it could be a toggle just like the spoiler race, so you could select spoilers, political systems, and advanced economics, for example, or none at all.