Elections (idea)

Democracy 1 & 2 Democracy 2
1

Hello. I own Democracy 1 (and had no idea there was a 2!) I bought it way back when, and recently found good use for it while on my commute to work (about an hours worth - makes for a good block of time to play Democracy on my laptop!)

Anyways, I downloaded the demo for Democracy 2, and have seen a screenshot of the election. I also played the USA in Democracy 1 with the House and Senate, and anyways, I have an idea!

I dont know if this will require much programming - perhaps so - but you could sell it as an “expansion pack” if you wanted to!

Here’s my idea:

Each nation has more than 2 parties*. Some nations are Presidential, some are Parliamentary. Since I’m from Canada, and if I understand it right, the developer is from the UK, I will discuss the latter.

Lets take the UK as an example. You could pick, say, to be in the Labour party. Your party will limit what kind of election pledges you could commit to (they’d have to be generally left-wing things) Then at election time, you win a number of seats, and not raw votes. Say you win 350 - then you win a majority and everyone is happy. But what if there is a hung Parliament? Well that’s the fun part because then you get to try to work with another party - one that would give you a majority. They would demand you do something, for example (Reduce Income Taxes by 10% in 2 years) And if you miss the deadline, they pull the rug out from under you, and you could lose the game outright, or go to an election. You could, however, try to bargain with the other party, who will demand something that will have a shorter deadline (reduce corporate taxes by 20% in 6 months) The more parties the more fun it could be!

In Presidential systems, you could just modify this to have lack of control of one house reduce your political power, and both houses, means the other party(ies) demand stuff as above.

Anyways. Democracy 2 seems like a great game and at the end of the week if I can save up the money I will buy it!

[size=85]*= they do not have to, but rather can[/size]

2

I guess this would work and it would make the game more interesting. The only problem is that a game can always be improved or modded in any way. While this is a good example, i think we need to start with the basics. Lets Make it so the population increases over time. Also more control over the military is what i think democracy 3 should work on. But i guess more control over political parties and their demands would spice up the game a bit more.

3

Got meself the Mac version a couple of days ago after playing with the demo. Great game!

I agree with the poster above. A parliamentary system would be a fantastic addition. As the game works now, you are effectively a dictator if you have enough political points. You can do anything you want. I wouldn’t just want a third party built in, but a dynamic party system! Let’s say the game starts with 2-3 parties. If a certain part of the population is unhappy with your rule, they might want to start their own party, rather than bombing and shooting. It is a bit more realistic, at least here on the European side of the pond. So, now you have 3-4 parties fighting for the vote. Election results are as follows: You get 45%, P2 25%, P3 gets 20% and P4 gets 10%. You can’t form government alone, but can lead a coalition with any of the others. You negotiate with them and form government. The ratio between the parties decides how many ministers the parties get.

You form a coalition with P3. Of the 49 seats in parliament, the government gets 33. The opposition gets the remaining 16. You would get 3-4 ministers and the other party 1-2, depending on how you managed to negotiate with them. Forming a large majority government is not automatically better than a small one, as a large coalition party may demand more ministers. It’s a comfortable majority, but each MP has a will of his own, which might be weighted against his party opinion. Instead of using up political points when you want to introduce or modify policies, you would need the parliament to approve. The votes will depend on the personal opinions of MPs, their connection with the population and businesses, the parties they belong to and their personal feelings towards you as an PM.

Your political strength (and ability to get MPs to vote for you) increases when your policies work. If MPs lose faith in you, they will stand in your way.

4

It’s something I’d love to do. I’ve been gradually watching the whole boxed set of ‘the west wing’ and the political maneuvering and compromising required to get legislation passed seems exactly like a decent strategy game in itself, regardless of the policies effects on the actual voters.

5

If you are at all serious about that last comment, please send me a PM and I’ll send you a link to a very interesting british political simulation I partake in; it might help you figure out what you would need to make a computer based game work.