Victoria's (19th Century) liberal bias

[arstal]

Well the thing about communism is that is very mechanistic, so from a programming point of view Marx is your friend. Let's face it Marx wasn't entirely wrong either so it was a nice thing to start with. However Marx wasn't entirely right either so we do want to move away from the hard core Marxist model.

So you have any economists on board for this game? You probably should get one to consult or something.

There are plenty of unemployed ones still out there from the US banking scandal, which is why I'm currently doing the weather instead.

 

[Sute]{h]

Many parties in 19th century were influenced by Edmund Burke, who was conservative liberal himself, but his work influenced more conservative based parties.

I know some liberals have borrowed from Burke's ideology (and vice versa), but Burke himself is the closest thing to a founding father conservative ideology has. So calling him a liberal only serves to blur the line between liberalism and conservatism.

It would be wrong to simply assume, that conservative parties are against change. That is not true. They only want those changes to be more spontaneous and achieved through evolution and not revolution. I've always seen conservative parties as best way to modernize without much tension and forces reforms.

While I agree that conservatives arn't against change, I don't approve of the terms "spontaneous" and "evolution". Conservatives in practice tend to be more "cautious" then "spontaneous" when it comes to changes in society. When it comes to "evolution" conservatives are rarely contend with sitting back and allowing change to happen. So the term "controlled evolution" might be more exact. But really conservatives are all about gradual (and controllable) change rather than a truly evolutionary approach. Evolution happens in anarchic environments based on survival-of-the-fittest mechanisms not in the orderly state conservatives tend to favor.

 

[Orinsul]

Conservatism arent against change, there against change if its in [in their minds] the Wrong Direction. If they were just against change for it being change they would all have to be insane

 

[delra]

I support the motion of hiring economists as consultants. We need every job there is.

 

[clamp2004]

Every grand strategy game has its bias towards some kind of political idea or mindset.

Take for instance Civillization (1 and 2). Democracy was by far the best government form you could have in terms of growth.

Also the whole concepts of technology, idea of expansion and military paradigm was rather American - Cold war influenced.

Take the latest version of Civilization (Beyond the Sword) and you'll notice that there's much more focus on how culture and religion works (and no it isn't just because computers are more powerful today and game developers have more power to play with).

Sim City on the under hand promoted environmentalism and liberalism (economic liberalism). Lower taxes + clean energy was seen as absolute goods in the early Sim City games.

Unfortunatly there aren't really that many Japanese or Chinese game developers that try to emulate world history or other grand strategy simulators. Maybe it has something to do with culture + political climate?

You see plenty strategy games on historic singular events such as the Three Kingdoms + the Taiping Revolution but rather few on the scale of Victoria/Civ/Sim City.

Quite unfortunate in my opinion as it would be interesting to see how a game from an Eastern studio would depict imperialism...

 

[Trin Tragula]

Every grand strategy game has its bias towards some kind of political idea or mindset.

Actually I'd say every grand strategy game has a bias towards totalitarianism .

The very idea that you can control a state in the detail you can in games is quite totalitarian. Peter Englund, Swedish historian and member of the literature nobel comitee dubbed grand strategy games "Cyber Stalinism" a while back (and he was even mentioning Europa Universalis as one of his examples) and also noted that while ideologically deplorable such games are a lot of fun. Nobody wants to play a game you can't controll (as Master of Orion 3 showed) .
That aside I agree with what other's have said that Victoria rewarded socialist policies and Revolutions rewarded Liberalism. Both where, as most strategy games on the grand level are (and probably should be), obviously biased in their very structure towards a very controlling state though

I also agree that a game about this era probably _should_ favour liberalism (but there still ought to be very powerful things to try to stop such a development). It was one of the main themes of the era and is definitely a crucial part to anyone who wants to experience the spirit of that era in a game.

 

[clamp2004]

Actually I'd say every grand strategy game has a bias towards totalitarianism .

The very idea that you can control a state in the detail you can in games is quite totalitarian. Peter Englund, Swedish historian and member of the literature nobel comitee dubbed grand strategy games "Cyber Stalinism" a while back (and he was even mentioning Europa Universalis as one of his examples) and also noted that while ideologically deplorable such games are a lot of fun. Nobody wants to play a game you can't controll (as Master of Orion 3 showed) .
That aside I agree with what other's have said that Victoria rewarded socialist policies and Revolutions rewarded Liberalism. Both where, as most strategy games on the grand level are (and probably should be), obviously biased in their very structure towards a very controlling state though

Very much hit the nail on the head.

The idea that the player can go in and basically dictate most of the things happening in grand strategy games is very totalitarian.

Of course there is a change in that approach from more and more grand strategy games, as they try to move away from unrealistical stalinistic micromanagement of an entire nation. Victoria 2 seems to be taking the a much more less hands-on micromanagement approach and it definitely is promising to see what direction this will lead the grand strategy game genre and whether or not it will actually be fun to play as a player (compared to games where you have much more control over your country).

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

Remember, we still haven't had most of the gameplay mechanism revealed to us. There's a lot we dont know.

 

[telesien]

I know some liberals have borrowed from Burke's ideology (and vice versa), but Burke himself is the closest thing to a founding father conservative ideology has. So calling him a liberal only serves to blur the line between liberalism and conservatism.


While I agree that conservatives arn't against change, I don't approve of the terms "spontaneous" and "evolution". Conservatives in practice tend to be more "cautious" then "spontaneous" when it comes to changes in society. When it comes to "evolution" conservatives are rarely contend with sitting back and allowing change to happen. So the term "controlled evolution" might be more exact. But really conservatives are all about gradual (and controllable) change rather than a truly evolutionary approach. Evolution happens in anarchic environments based on survival-of-the-fittest mechanisms not in the orderly state conservatives tend to favor.

I was just reffering to the fact, that he was Whig. Otherwise you are right.

You are right in the second part too. I tend to use term evolution in a bit wrong way. It dates to my college studies, when we often used term evolution when refering to something which is ongoing and more steady and without some kind of given goal, where the popular name contains word revolution (industrial (r)evolution being probably the best example). I know it is not the best term. "Controlled evolution" is better, but is too long to sound "just right."

 

[Quarto]

So you have any economists on board for this game? You probably should get one to consult or something.

There are plenty of unemployed ones still out there from the US banking scandal, which is why I'm currently doing the weather instead.

Hehe, but who'd want to hire any economists in light of the ineptitude they all showed in the banking crisis?

Unfortunatly there aren't really that many Japanese or Chinese game developers that try to emulate world history or other grand strategy simulators. Maybe it has something to do with culture + political climate?

Well, there is Koei - they've been wildly, wildly successful, but most people have never heard of them, because for most of the time the company has been active, it didn't bother publishing its titles outside of East Asia. I do believe their latest "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" game is available from Gamersgate. Mind you, that's a China-centric game, so it's not quite the same as you were asking about - but it's still pretty grand strategy, on the scale of Crusader Kings or Rome.

 

[Johan]

A bit of all if you ask me. The only way to keep POPs happy in the late game was a scandavian style welfare state. To be honest that smacked of Socialism.

But but..

aren't that the perfect state??

 

[TempestDK]

But but..

aren't that the perfect state??

It certainly is ... until it dies a slow death of suffocation due to bureaucracy

 

[telesien]

It certainly is ... until it dies a slow death of suffocation due to bureaucracy

Not to mention rich taxes so high, that they are leaving orbit I once saw documentary on ABBA, where they said how much they paid and my jaw dropped so hard, that I have some bruises even now

 

[TempestDK]

Not to mention rich taxes so high, that they are leaving orbit I once saw documentary on ABBA, where they said how much they paid and my jaw dropped so hard, that I have some bruises even now

I think 60% tax on the highest incomes are fair ... add to that 25% VAT on EVERYTHING.... and you'll have the danish tax model

Ofcourse not everyone pays 60%, most hover around 40-45%.

But I guess instituting a Scandinavian welfare state in Vicky2, would/should ruin most nations

 

[Dietmar1982]

I think 60% tax on the highest incomes are fair ... add to that 25% VAT on EVERYTHING.... and you'll have the danish tax model

Ofcourse not everyone pays 60%, most hover around 40-45%.

But I guess instituting a Scandinavian welfare state in Vicky2, would/should ruin most nations

in my humble opinion, I don't think it's fair to say that any of the current Scandinavian countries is ruined.

 

[Evans]

A bit of all if you ask me. The only way to keep POPs happy in the late game was a scandavian style welfare state. To be honest that smacked of Socialism.

Really? I could never get the buggers elected and never felt any reason to institute welfare state policies. Maybe because I played on normal difficulty, or a VIP thing?

 

[MichaelM]

Please remember that the terms "liberal" and "conservative" in the 1800's meant nearly the opposite of what they do now (at least in the U.S.).

 

[Subcomandante]

It certainly is ... until it dies a slow death of suffocation due to bureaucracy

Such suffocation happens with a disorganized bureaucracy, where different parts if it effectively working against each other, deliberately (power games) or not (bad communication).

The bureaucrats create demand for the products of the rest of the population with their wages too. So the admin money is not lost - apart from bringing happiness to a part of the population, the money flows back into your economy. The problems with too many of the unproductive b-crats is that it creates demands that cannot be fulfilled resulting in higher prices for everybody, and thus unhappiness.

The question is, how is a bloated b-cracy even possible in V2? Does the state not have control over how many are hired? Are internal power struggles simulated? Do certain party policies incentivize conversion to b-crats? Or do social reforms need so many people that inefficiencies are preprogrammed?

 

[TempestDK]

in my humble opinion, I don't think it's fair to say that any of the current Scandinavian countries is ruined.

Nope ... but we have been close ... and the welfare model as we know it today wasn't implemented in the mid 19th century, but the mid 20th.

back then, I am sure the costs would have broken the back of many nations

Edit: Slightly off-topid though, i think

 

[marshman]

So you have any economists on board for this game? You probably should get one to consult or something.

There are plenty of unemployed ones still out there from the US banking scandal, which is why I'm currently doing the weather instead.

I was an economist for the White House for a while.

King knows I am available!