Megathread : Politics, Government and Elections in V2

[wilcoxchar]

Well, at least in the US, there were plenty of anti-immigration and what I would call nationalist parties. The Know-Nothings were probably the most successful.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nativism_(politics)#Nativism_in_the_United_States

 

[Dark Knight]

The Ideological system in victoria has a good centre-extreme balance, what is needed is an extreme for Fascist.

You have anarcho-liberal liberal conservative reactionary
far left centre-left centre-right far right

But there needs to be a fourth side to finish the balance as for the fascist break off there is only one division, no extreme or possibly no centre. National Socialism would make a good extreme but then the game could be sold in germany.

Why keep the artificial distinction between supposedly high-militancy ideologies and supposedly low-militancy ideologies? Any ideology can seek the overthrow of the existing government in the right circumstances, and there isn't any reason that communist or reactionary POPs would cease being communist or reactionary when contented with their government. There really only need to be four ideologies present at the start of the Victoria period (liberal, conservative, socialist, and reactionary) and two added later (communist and fascist).

 

[Orinsul]

Thats not what extreme and centre means, think centre-right is political position, you can overthrow the state and still be a moderate conservative its about the shape of a government and laws on the other side of the reforms or revolution not the ways you go about doing it.
If Fascism stands on its own then it breaks the balance which is possibly a completely unimportant quibble but its still there as a chip.
Anarcho-Liberal or however it wants to be worded is also needed and vital to the system as its an important and seriously noticable different posistion than centre-liberalism.

 

[Arilou]

Why keep the artificial distinction between supposedly high-militancy ideologies and supposedly low-militancy ideologies? Any ideology can seek the overthrow of the existing government in the right circumstances, and there isn't any reason that communist or reactionary POPs would cease being communist or reactionary when contented with their government. There really only need to be four ideologies present at the start of the Victoria period (liberal, conservative, socialist, and reactionary) and two added later (communist and fascist).

That's actually arguable. Mainly because a revolutionary situation tends to change the ideology of the government. Socialists in western Europe largely did not become revolutionary, socialists in eastern and central europe (were repression was more harsh) did.

 

[unmerged(7537)]

Anarcho-Liberal or however it wants to be worded is also needed and vital to the system as its an important and seriously noticable different posistion than centre-liberalism.

I personally think that Anarcho-Liberal needs to be completely scrapped and replaced with a radical ideology that actually did have some appeal in the 19th century.

 

[unmerged(71032)]

I personally think that Anarcho-Liberal needs to be completely scrapped and replaced with a radical ideology that actually did have some appeal in the 19th century.

Do you mean by that just change in name, or in the game role of new radical ideology supporting POPs?

And if the change was more then just in the name, what would the radical POPs game mechanics would be, in terms of what would make them adopt the ideology, leave it, effects of their (highly potential,but hey, it's Paradox game) rules and such?

 

[Rosevelts Ghost]

actually libertarianism at the time was another term for anarchism it wasn't until the 70s that anarcho liberals hijacked the term. Also socialists in western europe actually were quite revolutionary when they began but by the 1900s they had increasingly lost their revolutionary characteristics.

 

[[VK]]

Not sure if already mentioned but something realy useful would be idf you could spezialize the "cakegrafics" So that you could check how's the percentate of my German Workers? Or something like Which nationality do my Communists Kapitalists have. It could be made by just cliking on the color in the cakegrafic

 

[Sarmatia1871]

I personally think that Anarcho-Liberal needs to be completely scrapped and replaced with a radical ideology that actually did have some appeal in the 19th century.

Indeed - although the issue here though is that while it's quite clear to see what the "Anarcho-Liberal" ideology should be referring to following the logic of the period and the game system (i.e. insurrectionary liberal-nationalist radicals of the 1848 stripe), there isn't really a satisfactory short catch-all term for them...

 

[Orinsul]

Its not about Ideologies its about Ideology Groups, Anrcho-Liberalism or Radical-Liberalism doesnt really make the difference as the ideology in the game represents ten thousand seperate ideologies held during the time peroid that are at the extreme end of 'Liberalism'. Once i figure out how to put up pictures on this i'll be able to explain what im trying to get at really well.

 

[Orinsul]

Okay so this is what im getting at, as no party is identical in policy to its peers in other nations rather than having an ideology for each specific possibility which would be unworkable in Victoria its set on a 'rounded-up' system.
In this wee picture ive put vague representations of likely positions of the early twenties Lib-Dems, Labour and the Conservatives although i put like three seconds of thought into it so the individuals are not so important. Anyway the parties would be given ideology for the portion of the graph they fall on, reactionary would be the second half of the right, conservative the first.
Rather than the terms having any actual meaning they are arbitrary generalisations, in the same manner as Left or Right Wing and should be used and viewed in much the same manner.
The only issue as i see it with the system as it stands is that there is no centre-fascist. but this is a minor quibble and on the whole the system is fine as it stands.
Anyway this is how its always sat in my head.

 

[Juancho]

I'm going a few pages back, sorry about that, I stopped checking the forum a week ago some treads have grown pages some are in page 5... jejeje

I agree, but in Victoria 1 it was already possible for parties to change positions on issues (and ideology), albeit only by replacing the party with another one of the same name but different ID. I hope that Victoria 2 will allow for direct changing of party policy.

This is very important, it was the same republican party, throughout the civil war, the reconstruction, and the later era, but their inmigration and minorities policies changed, the same can be said about de democrats, in the south their policies could even be called "residence" 'till the 60's.

I would like to see a few policies to each of the parties, and those would change as their party base changes, why would a liberal party have lim. citizenship, or residence throughout the game if his base changes issues... most of the US would have residence during the civil war, as as you go through events, liberation of slaves, increasing population of Europeans the issues would change to lim.cit., to increase the rate at wich they become like you, melting pot anybody?

leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the government he obeys, and the new rank he holds

And it could also help with the new election system parties could not form coalitions if their issues were too different from each other, but that would change if their issues were similar. The whig party divided, part of it was closer to the republicans, part of it was to the democrats, and in a pre-ACW scenario the relative sizes could help pass or block laws in pre civil war US.

Maybe have this?

conservative -> reactionary
liberal -> anarcho-liberal
socialist -> communist
nationalist -> fascist

If by nationalist you are talking about the know nothings I could agree with you as both would be xenophobic/nativist parties, but are they similar in anything else? (I really don't know much about their economical, trade, political stances/policies)

as Sarmatia said I've always thought that anarcho-liberals was a term refering to the very militant nationalistic liberals like 1848-Germany or the Italian carbonari, although they were not really of the same form of militancy .

In game terms the biggest problem right now is that as militancy grows, your votes go to the radicals, but if as soon as it goes down, the party in power losses it's strength. The changes in pop's ideology shouldn't be that fast, maybe low con/literacy pop's should be guided by some militant, high con elites.

 

[Arilou]

Indeed - although the issue here though is that while it's quite clear to see what the "Anarcho-Liberal" ideology should be referring to following the logic of the period and the game system (i.e. insurrectionary liberal-nationalist radicals of the 1848 stripe), there isn't really a satisfactory short catch-all term for them...

I think "radical" with a phrygian cap would work. Or even "Jacobin" (although that's a bit too specific)

 

[Rosevelts Ghost]

I like your idea Arilou.

 

[Juancho]

a phrygian cap sounds good

 

[Arilou]

Okay, thinking about different ways of restricting the underclasses...

I'd love to see a kind of situation where you can mix and match suffrage restrictions.

For instance, let's say you have the following restrictions availible:

Wealth (clerks, capis, clergymen, officers and aristos)
Landed (aristos, officers, clergymen?)
State culture (only pops who share the state culture get to vote)
Religion (only pops of the state religion gets to vote)
Military service (soldiers and officers)
Literacy (Pops with a certain % of literacy can vote?)

And so forth.

The point is that you could, if you wanted to, mix and match them. So say, only landowners of the true faith and religion could vote.

And then of course there'd be "Universal suffrage" and "No voting rights" which would just disable the list.

This would allow you to manipulate the political system to a greater extent (at the cost of upsetting certain groups, naturally) Thoughts?

 

[unmerged(71032)]

Sounds like a funny feature, allowing you to customize your policies even more (same level of detail can be added to other stuff, like taxes, tarrifs, political freedoms, social support and such).

Everytime something like that is added to the game I always wonder what AI should do about it. Is historical policy optimal, or suboptimal? Should AI follow historical one or go for optimal if they differ? How other parts of the game system will be affected by the new functionality?

On it's own, it seems like an interesting feature, I'm just a bit worried that adding extra layers of complexity might be too much for the game to actually work.

 

[yourworstnightm]

I want Anarcho- Syndicalism!! Makhno!!

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

State culture as a voting restriction is a very good idea.

 

[Nikolai]

Politics in the colonies

I've been thinking on the colonial system today. In Vicky1, all colonies are the same. Just the same, all US territory is alike. In Vicky2, I hope this can be done something with.

Take the US. During its expansion in the 19th and 20th century, states first were territories. In V1, that's not modelled. I'm thinking V2 should have an internal differentiating between various political models. As such, the US could have states and territories, and perhaps the post-civil war reconstruction could be modelled this way too. Others than me probably know more about what exactly removed a territory from a state, politically, but I think we all can agree they did not work the same. The reconstructions, Lincolnite, moderate and radical could also be modelled inside a dynamic system like this, instead of a generic event.

And as for colonies, take GB's: India after 1857 worked different from South Africa, Australia or Mali. Much of this was in how the colony was administered, some of it was because of the existence of educated native elites. India f.ex. already early on had a well educated elite that, while internally divided, strived for independence or at least a freer hand in administering the country. I envision myself as GB, having these people in India asking for a say in the daily matters.

I could say no, and risk getting them upset. This would probably make the cost of running the colony higher, perhaps I get some Gandhi-type coming along after a while. Which I do not want.

I could give them a hand in the steering wheel, but would that appease them? How long before they ask for more? Perhaps I could give them voting rights, but India is huge, so I couldn't give them full 1 person = 1 vote. Perhaps I could give them say 10 PMs out of my (say) 300, but would they be content with that? What about my electorate at home?

I could give them partially or full independence, but how would the people at home treat me for that? What about the other colonies? They could get ideas...