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Dev Diary #46 - Political Parties

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Good evening! Today we are finally ready to talk in detail about Political Parties. This has been a much-requested feature for Victoria 3, and indeed the political world would feel a little empty without the Whigs and Tories going at each other’s throats. We’ve listened, and some months ago we revealed that we were indeed working on implementing this feature. Today we are ready to talk about how Parties will factor into the political landscape of the game.

In Victoria 3, a Political Party is an alliance between Interest Groups. They appear in countries that have Elections, and are absent in countries without them, differentiating the experience and mechanics of democracies from autocracies. Interest Groups must be added or removed from government as a single bloc, which means that you’ll need to make strategic decisions about the makeup of your government and deal with the consequences. The Liberal Party may for instance contain both the Intelligentsia and the Industrialists, who will both back your plans to move toward a free market economy but diverge on the issue of child labor. Sometimes an opposition Interest Group might decide that it wants to join a Party currently in government (or vice versa) - in this circumstance, the Interest Group will leave their old Party and be marked as “wanting to join” their new party. This won’t force any Interest Group into or out of government, but if you decide to reform your government under these circumstances you must treat that Interest Group as being a member of the new Party, bringing them into or out of government as a single bloc.

The Republican Party in the USA is made up of an alliance between the Industrialists and the Intelligentsia, primarily opposing the ruling Democratic Party which is constituted by the Southern Planters and Petite Bourgeoisie.
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Just as Parties ally together when you form your government, they also share their Momentum in Elections, which determines their votes. If for instance the fascist leader of the Petite Bourgeoisie joins the Conservative Party and is caught up in a political scandal, the whole Party suffers the electoral consequences. On the other hand, as the Landowners begin to lose their political relevance in an increasingly industrialized economy they might cling to relevance by attaching themselves to the rising Fascist Party, who may bring them Political Power from the votes the whole Party gains in the Election.

The Whig Party, consisting of a large number of opposition IG’s, has landed themselves in a corruption scandal. Rowland Hill, leader of the Armed Forces and prominent Reformer, may have seriously harmed the entire bloc’s election campaign.
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During the Election Campaign period (which as you’ll recall lasts 6 months before the final votes are cast), you’re likely to get events relating to the various Party’s campaign efforts that can have a major impact on Momentum. These events are inspired by the campaigns and scandals of the period, such as Gladstone’s Midlothian campaign and the whistle-stop tours that became popular in the USA.

There are 11 potential Political Parties that your Interest Groups can join. At any given time, any combination of these parties might exist or not exist. Parties emerge and disband dynamically, so the political landscape can be very different between countries and playthroughs. The following Parties can emerge throughout the course of the game:
  • The Agrarian Party
  • The Anarchist Society
  • The Communist Party
  • The Conservative Party
  • The Fascist Party
  • The Free Trade Party
  • The Liberal Party
  • The Military Party
  • The Radical Party
  • The Religious Party
  • The Social Democratic Party

Many of these parties are aligned primarily around a particular Interest Group’s core ideologies, which other IG’s may join under the right circumstances. The Liberal Party for instance is the natural home of the Intelligentsia due to their Liberal Ideology, but they may be swayed towards other Parties under various circumstances. Other Parties are aligned more strongly with Leader Ideologies that emerge throughout the game, such as the Communist Party and the Radical Party. Each of these Parties has a variety of dynamic names based on national, cultural, and religious factors - for instance in Great Britain the Conservative Party is localized as the Tories, while in the USA they are known as the Democratic Party.

Interest Groups (IG’s) may join a Political Party if they are not Marginalized and if their country has any of the Laws that allow Elections. Which Political Party an Interest Group will join is determined by a wide variety of factors, some of which I’ll list here:
  • IG’s with the Republican, Radical, Market Liberal, or Reformer Leader Ideologies are much more likely to join the Liberal Party
  • The Industrialists are more likely to be drawn towards the Conservative Party if the country has public healthcare or schools, or when voting laws allow the lower strata to vote.
  • Weaker IG’s might join the Agrarian Party alongside the Rural Folk in a push to abolish Serfdom. Scandinavian countries are much more likely to develop an Agrarian Party.
  • In a Council Republic, IG’s led by Anarchist leaders might leave the Communist Party if the country’s ruler is a Vanguardist.
  • When an IG with a Fascist leader becomes powerful, weaker conservative IG’s might join the Fascist Party in a bid to retain their political relevance.
  • If a powerful IG has a Social Democratic leader, weaker leftist IG’s may fall in line behind their more moderate cousins. Likewise, weaker Social Democrats might join a stronger Communist Party.

To summarize: in Victoria 3, Interest Groups band together into Political Parties for the purposes of elections and forming governments. There are many dynamic names and conditions that work to create plausible and flavourful Parties no matter which direction you choose to guide your country.

That’s all for today! Join us next week when Mikael will talk about the mechanics behind Religious Conversion and Cultural Assimilation.
 
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What's the standard for using popular bynames, instead of the party's official name? The American Party didn't call themselves the Know Nothings. :p

Can we expect the Bull Moose Party instead of a Progressive Party?
 
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Interesting. Seems we get an early look at America's political situation.
-The Democrats are an alliance of Southern Planters and Petit-Bourgeois
-The Republicans are an alliance of Industrialists and the Intellectuals
-Judging from the Presidency and the relative power of the parties, I'm guessing this is after some good ol' historical divergence?
Looks great, but a couple of nitpicks;
-'Evangelical Church' should probably be Evangelical Churches or something similar. Right now it makes it sound like the Evangelicals in America have a centralized body like The Catholic Church of the Church of England.
-The Know Nothings seem to be the religious party for the USA. That's.....really strange. For anyone who doesn't know, the Know Nothings were essentially a single-issue anti-immigration party. I think I get what they're going with here -you could, for example, make the argument that the Know Nothings were a sort of spiritual ancestor of the prohibition movement- but I'm not sure it quite works. I mean, look at the Know Nothings ideology in the game and in RL; Patriarchy? The Know Nothings were at moderately progressive on that front. Abolitionism? Neutral at best. Pious? Eh...I guess I can't think of a better way to represent the notorious anti-Catholicism of the Know Nothings under the game's current mechanics then to have them advocate for state religion, but it's not all that great a representation.
Point is, I would have expected the Know Nothings to be a Nationalistic or Racist party, and that's not really what's being reflected here. I guess they're might not be a better fit for a specifically religious party for the USA during this period, but it is odd.
 
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Very anglocentric with this one-party government system though, I hope later you bring also concepts for multi-party governments with coalitions.
 
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Interesting. Seems we get an early look at America's political situation.
-The Democrats are an alliance of Southern Planters and Petit-Bourgeois
-The Republicans are an alliance of Industrialists and the Intellectuals
-Judging from the Presidency and the relative power of the parties, I'm guessing this is after some good ol' historical divergence?
Looks great, but a couple of nitpicks;
-'Evangelical Church' should probably be Evangelical Churches or something similar. Right now it makes it sound like the Evangelicals in America have a centralized body like The Catholic Church of the Church of England.
-The Know Nothings seem to be the religious party for the USA. That's.....really strange. For anyone who doesn't know, the Know Nothings were essentially a single-issue anti-immigration party. I think I get what they're going with here -you could, for example, make the argument that the Know Nothings were a sort of spiritual ancestor of the prohibition movement- but I'm not sure it quite works. I mean, look at the Know Nothings ideology in the game and in RL; Patriarchy? The Know Nothings were at moderately progressive on that front. Abolitionism? Neutral at best. Pious? Eh...I guess I can't think of a better way to represent the notorious anti-Catholicism of the Know Nothings under the game's current mechanics then to have them advocate for state religion, but it's not all that great a representation.
Point is, I would have expected the Know Nothings to be a Nationalistic or Racist party, and that's not really what's being reflected here. I guess they're might not be a better fit for a specifically religious party for the USA during this period, but it is odd.
Maybe there could be a "Xenophobe" party whose primary goals are reducing immigration and encouraging the assimilation of non-dominant culture pops?
 
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I really love the fact that industrialists are supporting the conservatives if we have healthcare and lower strata voting.
This is an accurate description.
You only support the liberal idea of expanding the rights of persons, until you have what you want, after that you tend to be happy with the status quo and ready to defend it.
"An outspoken group on many subjects. Ten degrees to the left of center in good times, ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally."
-Phil Ochs, Love Me, I'm a Liberal
 
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Cheers for the DD Neondt, and the extra info - I think the dev team have done a great job responding to interest and political parties and crafting a set of mechanics that are interesting and engaging :)

This is a tricky one to find a maritime-themed pic for, but drawing a long bow, and stretching it beyond breaking point, Teddy Roosevelt when he was President for the Republican Party was pivotal in the expansion of the US Navy, which came of age on the world stage through the voyage of the Great White Fleet (a round-the-world trip in 1907-1908 by a fleet of pre-dreadnought battleships on a massive showing-the-flag expedition), pictured here :)

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Very anglocentric with this one-party government system thoug, I hope later you bring also concepts for multi-party governments with coalitions.
Huh? Multiparty governments are absolutely a thing you can do, as the developers have said. Really not sure where you're getting this from that you can only have one party in government.
 
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In current system there is no place for nationalist political parties. Also there are some strange things like all landowners supporting landowner interest group even though the leader has ethnic supremacy views. Or pious pops of minority religion supporting clerygy interest group even though they are from minority religious group and said interest group wants them converterted.

Each religion should have their own Church interest group. Makes no sense for muslims to support catholic state religion in your empire. They would support some kind of religious autonomy for them instead.

Each nationality that has homeland provinces in your country should have their own interest groups of other kinds.
 
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In current system there is no place for nationalist political parties. Also there are some strange things like all landowners supporting landowner interest group even though the leader has ethnic supremacy views. Or pious pops of minority religion supporting clerygy interest group even though they are from minority religious group and said interest group wants them converterted.

Each religion should have their own Church interest group. Makes no sense for muslims to support catholic state religion in your empire. They would support some kind of religious autonomy for them instead.

Each nationality that has homeland provinces in your country should have their own interest groups of other kinds.

PoPs don't have to support the IG of their profession. Not all landowners will support the landowner IG. Not all religious people people will support the religious IG.

If they belong to a minority religion they are more likely to pick another IG that is closer to their interests - trade union or intelligentsia or something.

PoPs can support multiple IGs. IGs can support single parties. Multiple parties can support (make up) the government.
 
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The only thing in there that sounds wrong to me is POPs supporting multiple IGs, if you meant to say that the country’s population will support multiple IGs, then that is correct, but if you meant to say a single individual, then no. An individual supports a single IG (unless that was changed since the DD about this).
But yes, a pious catholic soldier living in the USA might support the Petite Burgeoise because they want to implement public schools instead of religious (protestant) schools.
 
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The only thing in there that sounds wrong to me is POPs supporting multiple IGs, if you meant to say that the country’s population will support multiple IGs, then that is correct, but if you meant to say a single individual, then no. An individual supports a single IG (unless that was changed since the DD about this).
But yes, a pious catholic soldier living in the USA might support the Petite Burgeoise because they want to implement public schools instead of religious (protestant) schools.
Pop groups overall can support multiple IGs which could represent each person in the pop supporting 1 IG, each person supporting the different IG groups at the same percentage as the overall group or even that different people support different IGs at different amounts but in aggregate it adds to up to what's shown.

For example. in a group of 10 people it might be 50/50 support for the Landowners and the Industrialists which can represent 5 people each supporting each IG, each person supporting both IGs 50/50, or 5 that are split 75/25 in favor of the Landowners and the other 5 split 75/25 in favor of the industrialists, or some other combination there of.
 
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Well, yes, that was what I was trying to get clarification for. If pop meant an entire group or an individual.
 
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I have always been looking forward to political parties and elections in Victoria 3 and this dev diary really attracts me a lot. However I wonder if an IG can only join one political party or will they support different parties, which splits the IG.
 
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Shouldn’t there be a few steps between social democracy and full-on communism? Doubly so when you consider the tendency of social democratic parties to end up way less economically radical in practice than on paper?

I can see social democracy being used to represent democratic socialism too, but there’s still a lot of ideological room between democratic socialism and communism.
 
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I have always been looking forward to political parties and elections in Victoria 3 and this dev diary really attracts me a lot. However I wonder if an IG can only join one political party or will they support different parties, which splits the IG.

They will support 1 party at a time.

I would not be surprised if which party an IG supports influences the support the IG gets from pops.
 
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The Agrarian Party => Center left like radical or progressist ?
The Free Trade Party => Liberal I guess.

A lot ofr ideologies.
Most likely the Agrarian Parties have different ideologies in different countries but the share the 'interests of the farmers' base. In some countires the Agrarian Party will be communist (Social Revolutionary Party in Russia) and in some they will be Conservative (Republican Party of Farmers and Peasants in Czechia for exemple) or could even be Fascist (like the Agrarian Party in Italy in the 1920s)
 
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