Developer Diary 13 – Upper House and Reform

[King]

This will make Russia interesting ( I presume there's a fair few reactionaries there).

We have no country specific scripts as such. Russians go reactionary for just the same reasons that other people do. I will return to issue and ideology picking later.

Are unions considered political or social reform? And does the 'conditions of high militancy' mean among their voters, or in the country overall?

Unions are a political refrom that increases the desire for social reform.

Which POPs start as AL voters?

No POPs start that way as the ideology is not enabled at start, but once it comes into play, angry liberals of course.

Only under high militancy? I think Socialist parties should always seek an extension of voting rights.

For game play puposes they don't. It makes things easier for ideology picking and interface representation.

OK, this is getting confusing, can you please clarify which are political and which are social reforms?

If you are looking at the screenshot, the ones under political refrom are political reforms and the ones under social refrom are the social refroms.

So does the upper house get composed at the same time as a general election? How does that work?

Depends on how you pick your upperhouse, but for electives ones we have one election for both upper and lower house.

OK, but can rich POPs get in regardless of ideology?

Yes

So basically all the time that won't be spent clicking to promote POPs is now going to be spend studying and strategising on POPs? Brilliant. I foresee much pausing to think decisions through.

A bit of that, but also we are trying to make things seem more real. Reform is something you manage not something you power game.

 

[King]

Is "Rule Britannia!" a mission?

Decision

 

[King]

Is there any kind of Lower House ? In the screenshot, the Whig party represents the major party in the Upper House or in the Lower House ?

Nice DD

The Whig party are your lowerhouse, and like Victoria their policies set the day to day restrictions on your country. Things like taxation and stuff like that.

 

[King]

How much liberty will we have to choose political reforms? Will it be possible to turn your country into a dictatorship from democracy via reforms alone (albeit at a heavy price)?

Depends entirely on your upperhouse. If you get a load of reactionaries and/or communists in your upperhouse then you can roll back those nasty reforms and become a good old fashioned dictatorship.

 

[King]

Considering that conservative is the only status quo ideology... do political parties change ideology? Ie. Would a socialist or liberal party which had achieved its goals transform into a conservative party? It would be somewhat strange to have a successful political party with who people are satisfied with lose elections...

It does explain how George W. became president, but it might be annoying game-wise.

Lowerhouse and upperhouse voting is sperate. So you can have a boradly conservative country, with a conservative upperhouse voting in a liberal party because they like the Free Trade. Thus your day to day business is liberal but your country is boradly happy with the current status quo. POP ideology only become important when you have a tie break, if you have both a conservative and a liberal party with the political issue that the POP favours, then the ideology will become important then.

 

[telesien]

The Whig party are your lowerhouse, and like Victoria their policies set the day to day restrictions on your country. Things like taxation and stuff like that.

So the lower house will always consist of only the winning party?

And shouldn't all revolution seeking parties act like spoilers and not only fascist? It looks like rational decision for them and at least our communists used to act like this in the 20s and 30s

 

[King]

Oh and also, have you added some kind of spawn mechanism for new parties, depending on emergence of new issues, but not strictly historical?

To explain - if I'm some backwater state who knows where, and i somehow manage to modernize my country sufficiently for my people to become involved in my policies, but there's no hard coded socialist party for my country (as was possible in V1) - is it possible for the party to suddenly appear? Or do I have to go into the files like in the good old days?

In V:R we added a party for each ideology for each country. So everyone will have a socialist party even if they historically did not have a strong socialist movement.

 

[Colon]

Depends entirely on your upperhouse. If you get a load of reactionaries and/or communists in your upperhouse then you can roll back those nasty reforms and become a good old fashioned dictatorship.

Ah yes of course. This is all very sensible and elegant. Wonderful.

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

Thanks for the responses. Looks like a lot of dpeth has been added to the political system. A few questions on the screenshot.

What is Weighted Universal?
How do the three voting system options work?
Is it safe to assume you aren't going to explain the political party options in this DD?

 

[Brownbeard]

Lowerhouse and upperhouse voting is sperate. So you can have a boradly conservative country, with a conservative upperhouse voting in a liberal party because they like the Free Trade. Thus your day to day business is liberal but your country is boradly happy with the current status quo. POP ideology only become important when you have a tie break, if you have both a conservative and a liberal party with the political issue that the POP favours, then the ideology will become important then.

Fair enough. Maybe some day we see dynamic parties as well, with ideologies and issues changing relative to the state of nation.

 

[King]

So the lower house will always consist of only the winning party?

And shouldn't all revolution seeking parties act like spoilers and not only fascist? It looks like rational decision for them and at least our communists used to act like this in the 20s and 30s

The Lowerhouse and voting will get a detailed developer diary of its own. We decided not to do that with the communist party due to its historical tradition of aligning with the socialists in normal conditions.

 

[Letar]

They don't for ease of game play you are either one or the other. Sort of like these guys here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lib-Lab

But it is possible that some times Liberals seek social reforms from time to time so isn't this modeling possible Social Liberals neatly?

 

[King]

Thanks for the responses. Looks like a lot of dpeth has been added to the political system. A few questions on the screenshot.

What is Weighted Universal?
How do the three voting system options work?
Is it safe to assume you aren't going to explain the political party options in this DD?

From Developer diary #13

"We also have universal weighted voting. Everyone (except slaves) has the vote, but Rich POPs votes count as 3, middle as 2 and poor get one 1 vote."

I will come back to these voting systems in a later diary.

 

[Bezborg]

In V:R we added a party for each ideology for each country. So everyone will have a socialist party even if they historically did not have a strong socialist movement.

But no spawning mechanism making new parties (albeit non-historic ones) as a reaction to the changing times and moods of the general population... Understood

Can't wait for this game...

 

[King]

But it is possible that some times Liberals seek social reforms from time to time so isn't this modeling possible Social Liberals neatly?

Under conditions of high militancy Liberals will support social reforms to stave off revolution.

 

[unmerged(81228)]

Depends entirely on your upperhouse. If you get a load of reactionaries and/or communists in your upperhouse then you can roll back those nasty reforms and become a good old fashioned dictatorship.

Assuming as being Monarchy I picked the rulling party (as it was in Vic1 - still possible?) - fascists or communists for example and then introduced political reforms to go to the democracy. In Vic 1 after a while I had proletarian/presidential dictatorship (democracy+ruling fascist = presidential dictatorship after few weeks). Is it going to be a case in Vic2?

 

[King]

Assuming as being Monarchy I picked the rulling party (as it was in Vic1 - still possible?) - fascists or communists for example and that introduced political reforms to go to the democracy. In Vic 1 after a while I had proletarian/presidential dictatorship (democracy+ruling fascist = presidential dictatorship after few weeks). Is it going to be a case in Vic2?

No, a Communist party cannot force through the conversion to a Proletarian Dictatorship without control of the upperhouse. However should you roll back reforms enough you will then endup with a Dictatorship.

 

[unmerged(131989)]

Sounds really good! Liking the new types of voting reforms too!

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

No, a Communist party cannot force through the conversion to a Proletarian Dictatorship without control of the upperhouse. However should you roll back reforms enough you will then endup with a Dictatorship.

OK, so lets say you get the commies into the lowerhouse. Is the choice yours whether to roll back political reforms? Do your pro-commie POPs get annoyed with you if you dont? Is there some other mechanism to incline you towards doing it?

I think this is the best DD so far BTW. At the halfway point of the DDs, I can say my high expectations have been exceeded.

 

[unmerged(81228)]

No, a Communist party cannot force through the conversion to a Proletarian Dictatorship without control of the upperhouse. However should you roll back reforms enough you will then endup with a Dictatorship.

So, is there any form of coup possible? For instance, ruling party is using force to remove other parties and introduce dictatorship. Or the reforms are the only way to change it?