A New Political parties mod

from GalCiv2 Forums
    I have lately started working on modding the political parties in Galciv 2. Although this concept is far from new and original, I wanted to get a bit of inspiration and help from you more experienced modders.

My mod will replace most of the political parties and give them all more bonus abilities but also penalties, even when your party has a majority of votes. Much like in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, no political ideology will come without flaws.

I also want the policital parties to respect the spirit behind Galactic Civilizations.

Here is what I accomplished so far:

BELIEVERS:
Believers hold in mind the infallibility of their religious and political doctrine. The citizens educated under this regime will show great loyalty but their beliefs may infringe upon scientific progress.
Bonus: Loyalty+20 / Morale+15 / Courage+10 / Research-15
Penalties: Morale-10 / Loyalty-10


CARETAKERS:
Caretakers, whether they really have green thumbs or not, oversee the preservation of planetary ecosystems. They unfortunately cause your population to have a smaller growth rate.
Bonus: Planet Quality+15 / Home planet Quality+10 / Growth Rate-10
Penalties: Social Production-10 / Morale-10

CORPORATISTS:
Corporatists place emphasis on the development of free markets and industries that make your economy and production blossom. However, social inequities caused by their politics can lead to skepticism from the general population.
Bonus: Social Production+10 / Military Production+10 / Economy+15 / Morale-15
Penalties: Economy -20 / Interest Rates-50

FEDERALISTS:
The Federalists are big believers in having the government be somewhat distributed. This decentralised state will give you greater logistic abilities and also a well balanced economy. This party will make the morale of your people tougher to monitor as many levels of government create many levels of discontentment.
Bonus: Logistics+20 / Economy+10 / Diplomacy +10 / Morale-10
Penalties: Economy-15 / Trade-20

ISOLATIONISTS:
The Isolationists say they prefer to mind their own affairs, and let other races mind theirs. Building planetary improvements is a priority but their skills at espionage are also notable. Their protectionist measures will affect your race's ability at trading with alien cultures.
Bonus: Loyalty+10 / Social Production+15 / Espionage+10 / Trade-10
Penalties: Loyalty-15 / Morale -15

MILITARISTS:
This party uses propaganda to glorify the ideals of the military class. Your race believes it has a manifest destiny to control the entire galaxy by enslaving inferior races.
Bonus: Soldiering+15 / Attack+10 / Defense+10 / Diplomacy-30
Penalties: Hit Points-25 / Military Production-10

ROBOCRATS:
The Robocratic party thinks most governmental decision making should be lended to machines who will make better, selfless and more logical choices than any sentient lifeform. Research and economy will be prioritized but morale and diplomatic flair seem to be ignored by Robocrats.
Bonus: Research+25 / Economy +25 / Morale-15 / Diplomacy-15
Penalties: Social Production-10 / Economy-15

UNIVERSALISTS:
This party believes in a powerful welfare state that focuses on the needs and fears of all people. Eudaimonic ideas greatly improve morale and influence, but bureaucratic institutions slow down your economy.
Bonus: Morale+15 / Influence+10 / Creativity+15 / Economy-10
Penalties: Interest Rates-20 / Morale-10

***
I didn't have time to test all these parties and I wanted your opinion on their statistics. I would like them to be well balanced, which I believe is quite understandable. Also, since English isn't my first language, I would appreciate if you could point out any errors in my texts. You're also invited to say your opinions about my choices in political parties.

I will make this mod available in the library in about a week, when I will have decided what logo to give each party.

Thanks for your comments!
modding
7,852 views 8 replies
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
how about CONFEDERALISTS the opasete of FEDERALISTS
The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Theorically, a Confederation is a union of independant states without a Federal government. Therefore, all of your colonies would in be governing themselves without you to say a word. That's why I didn't choose this party.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
That looks promising.

I've got me some of those too...



Left to right; Capitalist, Illusionist, Fascist, Antagonist, Anarchist, Palindromia, Equilibrium, Surrealist, Perfectionist and Paganst.
Although... Neutrality, Alarmist, Scientific & Naturalist didn't make the above summary sheet deadline-cut of April 30th since those four are somehow reserved for later use.

All balanced to provide a challenging context to 39 different races, so i claim.

Curious about anything else? Ya're gonna have to dowload X-Worlds version #05-E or even #F(inal) in a few days or maybe, weeks!
:)
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I hope the devs consider adopting the basic "strengths come with weaknesses" notion for GC3.

I don't know if it's intentional or not, but you seem to be missing some sort of divine-right autocracy, unless something like Louis XIV's France would fall under "Believers" for you.

I consider a divine-right autocracy to be very different from a real modern theocracy like Iran or a fictional one like the US in Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale. The former might get minuses to loyalty and espionage while the latter could have economy and research minuses.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Theorically, a Confederation is a union of independant states without a Federal government. Therefore, all of your colonies would in be governing themselves without you to say a word. That's why I didn't choose this party.
End of quote


good point but i thought the amarican confederation had a councal and a presadent.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
One thing you could do to balance this a little further is to give back the negatives if the party looses an election. For positives, the penalty doesn't have many tough consequences (IF a player should purposely want to change parties, btw)... but to me, bonuses imply an advantage rather than a handicap as long it's kept.

Which is why the XWs do not have any negatives upon starting. As i know very well, players (and AIs) CAN opt to change any party they're stuck with once their strategy needs be adapted to some situations.

10 would be a minimum for a reason; 9 opponents & the human player. If those, of course, are intended to replace defaults altogether or simply added to the available choices.
Be warned however, that plenty of AIs do have an algorithmic knack for Capitalist, in my case. I've never seen one pick Neutrality though as that special one is rather simple, completely empty; perfect for some localized testing purposes, in fact.

Take a look at the Alarmistroaster;
(Bonus)0:25 11:20 8:25 4:25 5:15 18:25 6:30 2:25 23:25 15:15(/Bonus)
(Penalty)(/Penalty)
!Guess what i am using it for!!
;)
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
good point but i thought the amarican confederation had a councal and a presadent.
End of quote


I used to teach US civics in a community college; please stop reading if you don't want a sloppy micro-lecture, but the info might be helpful for modding in this area.

The standard patter here is that complex national gov'ts can all be placed on an open-ended linear scale, with one direction being confederal systems (e.g. our original Articles of Confederation and the CSA) and the other being unitary systems (e.g. modern Britain and France). US federalism is in the middle somewhere.

There was no national presidency under the Articles, but there was a congress (council). The CSA had a presidency, but the individual states supposedly would have had much greater autonomy than under the US Constitution. Given that the CSA was shortlived and always a wartime gov't, we can't really know how their form of national executive might have developed over time.

The power of Washington DC, and espcially of a modern US president, might well horrify many of the founders--we have steadily, if slowly, moved towards the unitary end of the scale, starting during the Civil War and accelerating dramatically through WW II and the Cold War. Wartime psychology tended to make people want a single, powerful leader to help them feel safer. Plus, the national commitment to capitalism outweighs our tradition of states' rights. The markets work better if a central authority can do things like manage currency and set standards for transit systems, product safety, labor practices, etc. Messed up trade is probably the most important reason we ditched the Aritcles and adopted the Constitution.