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King

Part Time Game Designer
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Dec 7, 2001
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  • Crusader Kings II
  • Deus Vult
  • Europa Universalis III
  • Europa Universalis: Rome
  • Sengoku
  • Victoria 2
  • 500k Club
  • Crusader Kings II: Holy Knight (pre-order)
  • Europa Universalis III: Collection
  • Hearts of Iron II: Beta
  • Victoria 2 Beta
We continue on from last week, this week I want to talk to you about some of the broad trends that make POPs want to choose ideology and issue and also what POPs will do when they get angry. Much testing and balancing is still to be done, so I am not going to go into too much depth about the specifics. At the same time we just didn’t start picking issues and ideologies at random, we had a number of goals in mind when we started to script this system and this is what I am going to talk about this week.

Craftsmen and Labourers are swing voters. They have no default weight to either an ideology or a party issue; these two groups are the most sensitive to the current country situation. We have two main goals in this approach, firstly as a country industrialises, the ability to hold a party in power through skilful manipulation of your POPs composition becomes harder. These two groups will grow in numbers as the game continues, so your country’s electoral system (assuming you have one) will become increasingly sensitive to your current country situation. The second is how to model the rise of socialism. In Europe it is probably the most defining political effect of the late 19th and early 20th century. The rise of this movement still defines how the politics in most European countries work today. However, in the US the Socialist Party peaked at 16.6% of the vote in a presidential election (1924 for those who are interested), thus we wanted to set both possibilities to be true, one where the socialist movement rises and becomes strong and the other where it does not. We wanted to create the conditions that model both sides of the Atlantic.

Next up the Aristocrat. Now they are basically a Conservative POP, however this creates problems for us with our reform model. So we set up an interesting trend with Aristocrats, when the poor get militant the Aristocrats get a stronger pull towards conservatism and reaction. Thus, in the face of unrest among the poor, the aristocracy will circle the wagons and dig in and try to defend their privileges. However, in the face of poor and middle class unrest, Aristocrats also pick up a pull towards liberalism. Essentially, in this situation the ranks of the aristocracy split as the threat of revolution increases meaning that political reform becomes increasingly possible.

War? What is it good for? It is the eternal question that people ask and in Paradox games quite often war isn’t all that bad after all. In Victoria 2, war is a useful instrument of internal policy. When war is declared, it gives all POPs a strong pull towards Jingoism. This has two major effects; Jingoism as an issue reduces the POPs militancy gain from war exhaustion, Jingoistic POPs will go that extra mile to ensure victory. Secondly, if your POPs are Jingoistic, they are not looking for reform. There may be strikes in St. Petersburg in the first half of 1914, but a damn good war will bring you some social peace. However, this Jingoism effect starts to drop as war exhaustion bites, so staying at war is not going to hold off the masses forever. As war exhaustion bites, your POPs get a counter swing towards pacifism, which increases the militancy effects of war exhaustion. This counter swing is not as strong as the swing to Jingoism, leaving some room for reform in the POP issue choices, making the militancy problems even worse. The effect we are looking for is that countries with lower reform levels are not going to just instantly collapse when war is declared. Instead, they will be able to sustain a fight in total war for a number of years before the morale on the home front collapses. All countries will get this effect, but the fewer reforms you have, the more likely you are to get a feedback loop that can become pretty dangerous. A major defeat will exacerbate the problem. Remember; failure to achieve war goals increase militancy. You could be locked into a war, knowing that your country is falling apart. Could one more big push win you the war and save you from the even worse effects of defeat?

Well, these are some of the trends, but what do POPs do when they get angry? We have taken the rebels with a cause system from In Nomine, thus rebel units have a goal, and this influences what they will do and where they will go. However, we have added an additional twist to this. When a POP hits MIL 7, he joins a rebel faction. So an Irish POP in Ireland will join the Irish rebel faction, seeking an independent Ireland. Each member of the faction contributes towards the growth in the organisation of this faction based on his income. Sort of like small contributions around a pub were Irish workers seek to help the movement, strong police spending reduces the rate at which rebel factions gain organisation. When a POP hits 8 MIL he is now ready for more direct action. The POP can now spawn a rebel unit whose strength is based around the POP size and the faction organisation. At MIL 10 the POP can no longer wait and will rise in revolt, spawning a rebel unit. Now the rebel factions are a bit different, they are assessing their chances of the success of a generalised rising, looking at their own strength and the strength of the country military and the number of rebels in existence (amongst other factors). As the unrest rises, as the number of rebels increases, you reach a tipping point where one of the rebel factions will go into generalised rising. All POPs aligned to that faction, with more than 8 MIL, will rise as a block seeking to overthrow the government. Rebels should be less common in Victoria 2, but when they appear they should be far more interesting. No more whack-a-mole now, but we want to give you a fight for your life.
 

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I knew being up at 6am would somehow pay off...
 
Wow! Rebels system seems now a very challenging thing. One question: will that factions have political parties either, which organization would rise depending on faction relative power? I'm thinking, following your example, in Sinn Féin.
 
Wow! Rebels system seems now a very challenging thing. A few questions: will that factions have political parties either, which organization would rise depending on faction relative power? I'm thinking, following your example, in Sinn Féin.

No, politics and rebels are seperate entities game play wise. Although communist rebels (for example) have a political agenda and will seek to put a communist party in power.
 
If the revolt system really works as described I think I will be addicted to this game...

The situation in China in Vic2 will be very messy...and it will be a great fun to sort that out now! No more harmless risings with no consequences! :D

Edit: please add more factions in China, not just the Qing and anti-Qing/Kuomintang thing - something like the beiyang faction in Vic1 will be nice, thanks!
 
Wow the war exhaustion effects really sound deep! This could make the effects of war very complicated :).
 
I would like to find out more abour rebels with cause, please

So, for example: we have 20 communist POPs with militancy 8, 9 and 10.

Will POP automaticcly spawn as a rebel if it reaches militancy level or it rather will wait for more POPs with high militancy level?

What I mean: it would be better to model the revolts if we have 10 POPs spawn at once rather than one by one, every month (for example).
 
Sounds very interesting. I particularly like the mechanics by which the POPs forcing industrialisation hold the most leverage in the political development of your country. It's also good to see how war can lead to reform, not to mention the brilliance of the new revolt/rebel faction system. Really liking this! :)

Just a couple of questions though: do aristocrats pull to liberalism when only the middle classes get militant, or do they require both poor AND middle class (or did you mean that an increase in "poor and middle class" militancy creates a split amongst the aristocracy)?

Also, how do you model the rise of socialism on both sides of the Atlantic? You only mentioned that you wanted to without much in the way of specifics, thus I'm left wondering.
 
No whack-a-mole rebels sounds great.

Oh, and 1001% literacy in Haiti :D
 
Great ! I love the rebel faction system. Looking forward to be overthrown :) over and over !

Small questions :

How do the pop with 7 MIL decide which faction they will join ? I suppose this is related to their ideology and issues but I am not sure. Follow-up : can they change faction if there linked ideology/issue change will MIL is still over 7 ?
 
The province sizes are perfect!! What about Australia, we seem to get left out a bit but not soo much in Victoria. Plz portray Australian regions as the colonies i.e. Queensland, New South Wales coz Victoria was the only correct representation of this. Also New Zealand is wayy too bigg in most of the games! :D
 
I would like to find out more abour rebels with cause, please

So, for example: we have 20 communist POPs with militancy 8, 9 and 10.

Will POP automaticcly spawn as a rebel if it reaches militancy level or it rather will wait for more POPs with high militancy level?

What I mean: it would be better to model the revolts if we have 10 POPs spawn at once rather than one by one, every month (for example).
From what I gather it works like this...

POPs at militancy level of 7 or more will contribute to a rebel faction, increasing the organisation of that faction. POPs at level 8 & 9 will revolt depending on the level of organisation and the potential scale of the revolt (i.e. how large that POP stack is). POPs at level 10 will revolt regardless of organisation, and can lead to an all-out uprising (i.e. all POPs of the same rebel faction with a militancy of 8 or more revolt) if enough revolts are occuring.
 
Sounds very interesting. I particularly like the mechanics by which the POPs forcing industrialisation hold the most leverage in the political development of your country. It's also good to see how war can lead to reform, not to mention the brilliance of the new revolt/rebel faction system. Really liking this! :)

Just a couple of questions though: do aristocrats pull to liberalism when only the middle classes get militant, or do they require both poor AND middle class (or did you mean that an increase in "poor and middle class" militancy creates a split amongst the aristocracy)?

Also, how do you model the rise of socialism on both sides of the Atlantic? You only mentioned that you wanted to without much in the way of specifics, thus I'm left wondering.

Both need to get militant for the Aristocracy to consider reform.

Socialism as an ideology is driven from social reform. Social reform is driven in turn by economic conditions. So on one side of the atlantic the economy is successful and the majority of the POPs are doing well, there will be no drive towards a socialist society. If the other side of the atlantic is less good at satisfying the economic asperations of their POPs socialism will gain traction as an ideology.
 
Both need to get militant for the Aristocracy to consider reform.

Socialism as an ideology is driven from social reform. Social reform is driven in turn by economic conditions. So on one side of the atlantic the economy is successful and the majority of the POPs are doing well, there will be no drive towards a socialist society. If the other side of the atlantic is less good at satisfying the economic asperations of their POPs socialism will gain traction as an ideology.
Sounds good. Thanks for the quick response.