Developer Diary 13 – Upper House and Reform

[Brownbeard]

I would still like to know what effects does lower house party ideology have on gameplay.

I always picked populism over establishment in Vicky 1 to get parties with more progressive issue views to power.

But getting a party into power that was of different ideology than majority of population had a number of effects, some quite detrimental if playing other than democracy/constitutional monarchy. Namely, increase of conciousness, plurality and thus militancy, even if the pops had low taxes and all their needs met.

Simply put, if a majority liberal pop votes for a conservative party because it suits their issues best, will this piss them off because that party has conservative ideology? And vice-versa, will a conservative population get pissed off if they are ruled by a liberal party they themselves elected?

 

[Garak]

I would still like to know what effects does lower house party ideology have on gameplay.

I always picked populism over establishment in Vicky 1 to get parties with more progressive issue views to power.

But getting a party into power that was of different ideology than majority of population had a number of effects, some quite detrimental if playing other than democracy/constitutional monarchy. Namely, increase of conciousness, plurality and thus militancy, even if the pops had low taxes and all their needs met.

Simply put, if a majority liberal pop votes for a conservative party because it suits their issues best, will this piss them off because that party has conservative ideology? And vice-versa, will a conservative population get pissed off if they are ruled by a liberal party they themselves elected?

Haven't you ever heard of buyer's remorse?

 

[King]

Correct me if I'm wrong: socialist countries will have a major advantage (and you must agree that population growth in viki is very important) over the liberal ones, where even though pops have money, they can't spend it on... well, their needs?

Well it depends, if they dn't have money to buy thier needs they will starve to death or move abroad. You are also assuming that socialist countries have the money to pay for this health care system and the bureaucaracy to actually run it.

 

[King]

Amazing, absolutely amazing. I love the changes Paradox is making in the political aspects of Victoria, bloody amazing.
Although I do have a few points and questions.

- Will certain things be constitutionally enshrined and need a referendum to change? Things like Voting Franchise and Press Rights are often protected by the constitution.

- Will there be party discipline?

- Could an additional "Economic Reforms" category be added, most likely in an expansion. Things like Pensions and Minimum wage are as much economic as social problems, and moving them over to the economic category frees up space for truly social reforms like Religion/Secularism, marriage laws (don't ask me how it's relevant to gameplay), immigration laws, sedition/patriotism laws...

- No, as the guiding hand of the country, you will be abel to amend what ever consitution yout foolish POPs have tried to limit you with.

- No, we are seeking to avoid additional points of failure with the system. So we have taken the political system this far and no we are going to focus on making it work as well as we can.

- The problem is modeling the reform process in relation to POPs. At the more reforms you add you get either two trends. One the reforms start to over lap and become very similar, making them less clear choices. The alternative is you end up with reforms that simply do nothing in the game. Both are traps were are seeking to avoid.

 

[King]

Oh, this looks nice! I want to start playing right away :rofl:

But what about Revolutions and the changes of Constitutions?
I hope its under development too, so I dont have to wait for an expansion like i had to last time. It took so long

You should buy the EU3 expansions and check out the rebels with a cause system put in those. We will be using that in Victoria and it will make rebels cool. When a rebel spawn, depending on how he spawns, he will have scripted bahavours and a set goal at the end.

 

[King]

I would still like to know what effects does lower house party ideology have on gameplay.

I always picked populism over establishment in Vicky 1 to get parties with more progressive issue views to power.

But getting a party into power that was of different ideology than majority of population had a number of effects, some quite detrimental if playing other than democracy/constitutional monarchy. Namely, increase of conciousness, plurality and thus militancy, even if the pops had low taxes and all their needs met.

Simply put, if a majority liberal pop votes for a conservative party because it suits their issues best, will this piss them off because that party has conservative ideology? And vice-versa, will a conservative population get pissed off if they are ruled by a liberal party they themselves elected?

No

 

[unmerged(91061)]

- No, as the guiding hand of the country, you will be abel to amend what ever consitution yout foolish POPs have tried to limit you with.

- No, we are seeking to avoid additional points of failure with the system. So we have taken the political system this far and no we are going to focus on making it work as well as we can.

- The problem is modeling the reform process in relation to POPs. At the more reforms you add you get either two trends. One the reforms start to over lap and become very similar, making them less clear choices. The alternative is you end up with reforms that simply do nothing in the game. Both are traps were are seeking to avoid.

I like your reasoning, especially in regards to the latter two points, it's a good idea not to over reach with the new system.
Regarding constitutions, however, I'd argue that it could be done, but there's no urgency. Some reform options would be simply blocked out because they're "unconstitutional". The player can try to enact them if a majority of PoPs support the proposed change by it being their primary issue; or they can push the reform through which raises PoP militancy and Badboy.

All good answers none the less, thank you.

 

[unmerged(15485)]

I would suggest a small change to how communism should work. I would have them vote for political freedom while outside of position, but against it when in position. (Traditionally the communists supported democracy until they were in power themselves).

 

[telesien]

Reaction, conservatism, liberalism, social democracy, and communism were all coherent ideologies advocating particular policies based on their worldview and the existing circumstances. Aside from conservatism, they all more or less possessed an ideal end-state in which their preferred policies would be realized and there wouldn't be a need for further change. The word 'conservative' is frequently used to mean supporting the status quo, but this a non-ideological use of the term that has as little relation to the conservative ideology as a liberal application of salt on one's food has to do with liberalism. A communist may be a revolutionary in Tsarist Russia, a supporter of the status quo in the Soviet Union, and a counter-revolutionary in post-Soviet Russia, but this does not turn the communist into a conservative or a reactionary. Likewise, a reactionary is one who desires the Old Regime and is content under a throne-and-altar absolute monarchy; a reactionary is just as much a reactionary when he lives under a reactionary government as when he does not.

But what we often forget is, that just because you are liberal automatically doesn't mean, that you agree on everything with other liberals. Everyone can have different opinion about the depth of reform. Liberal A wants to have weighted voting rights while liberal B wants to have universal suffrage. To explain your example with USSR. When you have communist government for some time (POPs will change their ideology slowly), you get yourself to a different situation. The level of communism can be different and there will surely be some part of your population that would like to have harsher regime. They will remain communists to express their needs. As someone stated earlier (he used it as a critique, but I actually like it), they will be communists-communists, i.e. radical communists. Those sattisfied with the level of communism will become conservative or better conservative-communists, i.e. mainsstream communists. Liberals would represent liberal-communists, i.e. socialists. All other ideologies hate communism so much, that they unite against it in two groups. Reactionaries and ALs. They will incorporate all individuals from republicans to monarchists and democrats to jacobins. I can even give you real life example, although recent. When communism ended in Czechoslovakia and the first free elections were held in 1990, it was everyone against communists. It existed one major party called Civics Forum and after short time, when status quo moved from communism, it just split into different parties, each with different opinion on new status quo, although they had the same opinion on the previous one.

I can agree that some people find this confusing, but only when you will show me another and better way to express changing status quo and different level of radicalism within ideology blocks, I will reconsider. Right now I am quite sure, that with you view of ideologies as strict and absolute, not relative, blocks, this can't achieved.

 

[unmerged(67185)]

I would suggest a small change to how communism should work. I would have them vote for political freedom while outside of position, but against it when in position. (Traditionally the communists supported democracy until they were in power themselves).

Hmm true I support this!

 

[ashandresash]

I would suggest a small change to how communism should work. I would have them vote for political freedom while outside of position, but against it when in position. (Traditionally the communists supported democracy until they were in power themselves).

I support this too

 

[King]

I would suggest a small change to how communism should work. I would have them vote for political freedom while outside of position, but against it when in position. (Traditionally the communists supported democracy until they were in power themselves).

The 3rd World Congress of the Communist International rejects you suggestion and instead instructs you to build up a paramilitary wing to prepare for the impending civil war.

 

[ashandresash]

The 3rd World Congress of the Communist International rejects you suggestion and instead instructs you to build up a paramilitary wing to prepare for the impending civil war.

Uff, I was totally wrong then. I thought the Communist International rejected the way adopted by Rosa Luxemburg and the spartaquists (mispelled?) in Germany. Oh, King, you and your historical accuracy

 

[King]

Uff, I was totally wrong then. I thought the Communist International rejected the way adopted by Rosa Luxemburg and the spartaquists (mispelled?) in Germany. Oh, King, you and your historical accuracy

The Problem is that the Second Communist Iternational had a totally different approach. So we decided to go for the more radical of the two options, because it makes thing more clear cut. If you want political reform you do not have to pick either Communist or Liberal, you pick Liberal. It makes the ideology scripts more obivous and the ideology effects on the shape of your country clearer.

 

[Sudaxe]

Sounds absoulutly incredible!

 

[ashandresash]

The Problem is that the Second Communist Iternational had a totally different approach. So we decided to go for the more radical of the two options, because it makes thing more clear cut. If you want political reform you do not have to pick either Communist or Liberal, you pick Liberal. It makes the ideology scripts more obivous and the ideology effects on the shape of your country clearer.

Yeah, I went to refresh my memory and it's very confusing all about it. So your option is right, in special because of helping more people to get into the game.

 

[Surgünoglu]

Reaction, conservatism, liberalism, social democracy, and communism were all coherent ideologies advocating particular policies based on their worldview and the existing circumstances. Aside from conservatism, they all more or less possessed an ideal end-state in which their preferred policies would be realized and there wouldn't be a need for further change. The word 'conservative' is frequently used to mean supporting the status quo, but this a non-ideological use of the term that has as little relation to the conservative ideology as a liberal application of salt on one's food has to do with liberalism. A communist may be a revolutionary in Tsarist Russia, a supporter of the status quo in the Soviet Union, and a counter-revolutionary in post-Soviet Russia, but this does not turn the communist into a conservative or a reactionary. Likewise, a reactionary is one who desires the Old Regime and is content under a throne-and-altar absolute monarchy; a reactionary is just as much a reactionary when he lives under a reactionary government as when he does not.

That's rather accurate. That said, what is your opinion of the game's redefinition of the ideologies? I mean, King specifically invoked the notion of Brezhnevian communists as the conservatives of the Soviet Union.

 

[Alexander Seil]

Reaction, conservatism, liberalism, social democracy, and communism were all coherent ideologies advocating particular policies based on their worldview and the existing circumstances. Aside from conservatism, they all more or less possessed an ideal end-state in which their preferred policies would be realized and there wouldn't be a need for further change. The word 'conservative' is frequently used to mean supporting the status quo, but this a non-ideological use of the term that has as little relation to the conservative ideology as a liberal application of salt on one's food has to do with liberalism. A communist may be a revolutionary in Tsarist Russia, a supporter of the status quo in the Soviet Union, and a counter-revolutionary in post-Soviet Russia, but this does not turn the communist into a conservative or a reactionary. Likewise, a reactionary is one who desires the Old Regime and is content under a throne-and-altar absolute monarchy; a reactionary is just as much a reactionary when he lives under a reactionary government as when he does not.

No.

You're taking these words and deliberately using only one of the meanings given to them, while the game uses another. There is no Great Big Book of Game Design Dogma that says that it has to be that way.

 

[KonradRichtmark]

If the terms "conservative", "liberal", "socialist" are fluid terms whose meaning depends on the current status quo, is there any point at having parties have specific ideologies?

Say your status quo is laissezfaire-nosocialreforms, but universal suffrage. Your craftsmen want social reforms and go socialist. They manage to vote in a socialist party whose issues are statecapitalism-muchosocialreforms. They're content with the new status quo, and thus become conservative.

What will they do then? Naturally, they should keep on voting for the same socialist party since it will preserve the new, socialist utopian status quo. But they're conservative now! Will they switch party to another one (i.e. a conservative party supporting statecapitalism-muchosocialreforms), or will the socialist party change its label to conservative?

 

[Alexander Seil]

If the terms "conservative", "liberal", "socialist" are fluid terms whose meaning depends on the current status quo, is there any point at having parties have specific ideologies?

Say your status quo is laissezfaire-nosocialreforms, but universal suffrage. Your craftsmen want social reforms and go socialist. They manage to vote in a socialist party whose issues are statecapitalism-muchosocialreforms. They're content with the new status quo, and thus become conservative.

What will they do then? Naturally, they should keep on voting for the same socialist party since it will preserve the new, socialist utopian status quo. But they're conservative now! Will they switch party to another one (i.e. a conservative party supporting statecapitalism-muchosocialreforms), or will the socialist party change its label to conservative?

They'll just switch the party I guess. Although, technically speaking...parties don't have stances on reforms, so it's not really how it works. The entities in the upper house aren't parties.