For fun and interest, I’ve drafted some ideas to make political gameplay more interesting and challenging. I’ve played Vic II since launch, but I’ve not played any mods so apologies if these ideas are already modded somewhere. These ideas aren’t to make politics more realistic for its own sake - the guiding philosophy is to create more interesting political choices for players. I think this would make for a better Vic II, or at this rate, Vic III !
With that out of the way, here’s my number one and number two suggestion:
1) Parties should make election promises.
2) Players should “choose” a party to campaign for each election.
First, election promises are “missions” for the player to enact a particular government action, such as to: raise or lower budget slides, enact or repeal reforms, or lead a nation into or out of a war. If the party wins the election, then the player is expected to fufill most of these promises before the next election.
Promises would serve a similar purpose as missions in EUIV and ambitions in CKII – they guide the player, present interesting choices about what to prioritise, and reward players when they’re completed.
Promises can be fulfilled at any point in a government’s term. This means that a party promising tax cuts won’t destroy the economy by making radical changes to the budget slider the instant the election is over. Instead, governments have to fulfil their promises at some point before the next election. Promises would be big enough that players have to take meaningful action. A promise to increase tariffs means increasing tariffs by at least 10%, for example, not by 1%
In practice, promises would be created by event every election. Every party would have its own event to create its own set of promises. Parties would make promises that align with their ideology and issues. For example, a party that supports jingoism is more likely to promise to increase military spending.
Second, players should choose which party they will campaign for each election. Campaigning for a party means that players have significantly more discretion what election promises that party will make. All other party’s promises will be handled by the AI. Players could choose to campaign for any party regardless of who they’ve campaigned for in the past.
Choosing a party to campaign for creates an interesting choice. Should the player campaign for the party that best matches their goals for the nation? But if that party loses the election, the player will have to fulfil the opposing party’s promises, without having influenced what those promises are. On the other hand, players may want to campaign for the same minor party every election, slowly building that party’s support until it can win a majority, many elections later.
Whether the player’s party wins or loses the election, the player always continues playing as the winning party after the election.
Players will want to fulfil promises regardless of who they campaigned for. If a government doesn’t fulfil enough promises, then POPs will grow more militant, support more extreme issues and ideologies, as well as be less loyal to the governing party. Players may want that to happen in some situations, but it shouldn’t be an easy choice.
The details of promises would be very subject to play testing. Parties would likely only make around five promises per election – few enough to no overwhelm players but enough that players can prioritise between different promises. POPs would likely only care whether previous promises were kept or broken. POPs would likely not care about the content of promises – for example, they don’t care if one party promises a tax cut and another promises a bigger tax cut (POP voting is complex enough already). The different appeal of different promises would be accounted for because party issues generate election promises and POPs already vote for parties based on those issues.
Tl;dr, what would promises and campaigning mean for gameplay?
With that out of the way, here’s my number one and number two suggestion:
1) Parties should make election promises.
2) Players should “choose” a party to campaign for each election.
First, election promises are “missions” for the player to enact a particular government action, such as to: raise or lower budget slides, enact or repeal reforms, or lead a nation into or out of a war. If the party wins the election, then the player is expected to fufill most of these promises before the next election.
Promises would serve a similar purpose as missions in EUIV and ambitions in CKII – they guide the player, present interesting choices about what to prioritise, and reward players when they’re completed.
Promises can be fulfilled at any point in a government’s term. This means that a party promising tax cuts won’t destroy the economy by making radical changes to the budget slider the instant the election is over. Instead, governments have to fulfil their promises at some point before the next election. Promises would be big enough that players have to take meaningful action. A promise to increase tariffs means increasing tariffs by at least 10%, for example, not by 1%
In practice, promises would be created by event every election. Every party would have its own event to create its own set of promises. Parties would make promises that align with their ideology and issues. For example, a party that supports jingoism is more likely to promise to increase military spending.
Second, players should choose which party they will campaign for each election. Campaigning for a party means that players have significantly more discretion what election promises that party will make. All other party’s promises will be handled by the AI. Players could choose to campaign for any party regardless of who they’ve campaigned for in the past.
Choosing a party to campaign for creates an interesting choice. Should the player campaign for the party that best matches their goals for the nation? But if that party loses the election, the player will have to fulfil the opposing party’s promises, without having influenced what those promises are. On the other hand, players may want to campaign for the same minor party every election, slowly building that party’s support until it can win a majority, many elections later.
Whether the player’s party wins or loses the election, the player always continues playing as the winning party after the election.
Players will want to fulfil promises regardless of who they campaigned for. If a government doesn’t fulfil enough promises, then POPs will grow more militant, support more extreme issues and ideologies, as well as be less loyal to the governing party. Players may want that to happen in some situations, but it shouldn’t be an easy choice.
The details of promises would be very subject to play testing. Parties would likely only make around five promises per election – few enough to no overwhelm players but enough that players can prioritise between different promises. POPs would likely only care whether previous promises were kept or broken. POPs would likely not care about the content of promises – for example, they don’t care if one party promises a tax cut and another promises a bigger tax cut (POP voting is complex enough already). The different appeal of different promises would be accounted for because party issues generate election promises and POPs already vote for parties based on those issues.
Tl;dr, what would promises and campaigning mean for gameplay?
- It will create interesting choices about what actions the player will take by balancing the government’s election promises, the player’s priorities and voter dissatisfaction about broken promises.
- It will prevent post-election economic crashes because the new government will no longer need to move the sliders automatically and immediately
- It will make elections more exciting because players have to pick one party and campaigning for them.
- It will create an interesting choice for players to either: campaign for the party they want to form government, or campaign for the party that they think will win in order to shape that party’s election promises.
- It will move away from the boring, detached election events about who wins a debate, replacing it with more interesting events from one party's perspective.
