Will the authority mechanic railroad players into playing despotism?

[Sir Boots]

In regards to the new Vic III dev diary, if higher authority from despotic laws makes it easier to get things done, and lower authority from democratic laws make it harder to get things done, will Victoria III's meta be to turn your country authoritarian if you want anything to happen?

Kind of like how Hearts of Iron IV penalizes the player for having a Civilian Economy and encourages a "Total War" economy and thus the meta is to get there as quickly as possible, even though in reality having your economy focused only on war goods would cause a lot of problems in the long run.

If this is the case my hope is that playing democratic and having relatively low authority would confer other bonuses to make a democratic playthrough possible.

 

[Rebel1776]

*Jacobin Uprising Intensifies*

 

[CorneliusBottomly]

*2nd Jacobin Uprising while the 1st Jacobin Uprising isn't even over yet Intensifies*

 

[madpower1000]

From what I've read on the forums and the very limited information we have, higher authority will allow you far more direct control over laws and national decisions at the expense of the happiness and freedom of the pops. A more democratic style would require you to secure pop support behind issues which will have the benefit of increasing pop happiness and you could for example expand a healthcare system with enough pop backing while a high authority state might struggle because high authority doesn't mean absolute and you'll have to most likely manage the opinions and wealthy landowner pops that have their own agendas.

However there simply isn't enough information to do anything other than speculate at the moment but there certainly will be string positives to playing a democratic playstyle as well as an autocratic playstyle.

 

[Crosswire]

The more despotic you go, the far more revolts and uprisings you will get. That will be the pay off.

And if it is like in Vic 2 then all the social reforms increase migration so your nation will grow faster.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

well, what 'things' are you talking about?

 

[Lucododosor]

From what I've read, remaining an authocrat will keep you from earning some bonuses from high literacy/education and things like that, so in the long run, other more liberal nations might have an advantage over you. Besides, the right of assembly thing really doesn't fit with it, so what I'm thinking is that what counts as a bonus for authority or not will change accordingly to the government type - it's just a guees tho, I don't know if the devs have talked about it

 

[CorneliusBottomly]

Autocratic Monarchy doesn't mean you can do whatever you like, I imagine it'll actually mean you'll be enslaved to the whims of a few interest groups (the church, landed gentry) because the others won't have the power to form a government opposing them.

 

[Arknav555]

From what I've read, remaining an authocrat will keep you from earning some bonuses from high literacy/education and things like that, so in the long run, other more liberal nations might have an advantage over you. Besides, the right of assemble thing really doesn't fit with it, so what I'm thinking is that what counts as a bonus for authority or not will change accordingly to the government type - it's just a guees tho, I don't know if the devs have talked about it

Right of assembly is a poor ui choice, but the idea is that no reforms at all increase authority, with each step of reform reducing the authority gain.

 

[Lucododosor]

Right of assembly is a poor ui choice, but the idea is that no reforms at all increase authority, with each step of reform reducing the authority gain.

oh so it actually means no right of assembly? well that does need some fixing

 

[Arknav555]

oh so it actually means no right of assembly? well that does need some fixing

It's confusing. The government press gives more authority than the censored press, censored press gives more authority than the free press (which gives 0 authority). As I said, confusing UI choice.

 

[Qwerlancer]

*500+ brigades of Jacobin are ready to rebel*

 

[Avian Overlord]

I suspect a lot of the authority picked up from despotism will spent on suppression efforts to maintain that despotism.

 

[Heatth]

They already mentioned the benefits of not having autocratic laws. Aside the obvious fact your pops won't be revolting, striking or whatever else they can do to make your life miserable, they mentioned how freedom of press, assembly and other similar laws positively effect tech spread rate and literacy.

It's confusing. The government press gives more authority than the censored press, censored press gives more authority than the free press (which gives 0 authority). As I said, confusing UI choice.

It will probably be less confusing in the game proper where you can actually see the list of laws. Sometimes seeing a screenshot makes the UI look more confusing then it actually is in practice.

 

[Drakken]

It's confusing. The government press gives more authority than the censored press, censored press gives more authority than the free press (which gives 0 authority). As I said, confusing UI choice.

The most undemocratic "rights" give the maximum of Authority, while the most free and democratic ones give you zero. So, if you granted all democratic rights, you would almost never be able to enact the majority of your policies without a majority in government. The higher your Authority, the more policies you can have enacted as a Monarch, outside of parliament or any IG meddling into your affairs.

Authority represents the "Do as Your Supreme Warlord orders you, or else..." type of power. This Capacity seems to be spent to perform a number of policies regardless of IGs. The higher your Authority capacity, the more you may have enacted at the same time. Needless to say, unless IGs agree with your action in the first place, this will tend to piss them off. And the bigger they are, the more that the fact that this would piss them and their supporters off matters.

As you become more democratic, on the opposite you have a much lower Authority capacity to enact policies outside of your government (which is formed of one or more IG). You will need either to build around a coalition of various IGs agreeing on similar policies, or form a government that controls a majority which will agree with these policies to have them enacted through Parliament "for free". And this would mean, also, that as long as these policies are in agreement with your government you can pass a much higher number of these that way than through the individual acts of your Monarch, which each costs Authority.

Authority cannot be pooled, so they are not a resource that you can spend another time. If you have zero Authority, you cannot pass anything outside of your government. Your monarch is, in effect, a chrysantium garden inaugurator.

 

[Drakken]

As an Example, from the picture above, let's say I want to improve Road Maintenance :

If I went the Absolute Monarchy way, I'd pass a decree for two Regions I want to focus on Road Maintenance. So, - 200 Authority for each = - 400 Authority. As you can see, this cannot be done eveywhere, otherwise I'd go over my Authority capacity.

If I were in a parliamentary democracy, my Authority would be much, much lower. I'd need a government which approves of improving Road Maintenance through public funding (maybe, for example, opposite IGs that are pro-privatization and would leave that to the private sector?). Because the government contains one or more IGs that agree with Public Road Maintenance, enough that they would vote in majority in favour of this same policy, I can enact it throughout all Regions "for free".

 

[kviiri]

oh so it actually means no right of assembly? well that does need some fixing

It means the pops have Freedom of Assembly, but implicitly also that they don't have other freedoms that would build on that. It is a part of a continuum that probably looks something like this (layman projection, beware):
- No Political Freedoms
- Freedom of Thought (Dissidence is ok as long as it is not overtly communicated)
- Freedom of Speech (Dissidence is ok as long as it is communicated in person)
- Freedom of Assembly (Dissidence is ok as long as it is promoted in person plus you're allowed to form a club around your whimsical ideas)
- Freedom of Press (Dissidence is ok even when communicated over public writing)
- Protected Speech (Dissidence is 100% ok and we'll hit anyone who says otherwise with a club)

Each successive level would give less Authority than the preceding ones but confer pops more political freedom in return. So the reason you gain Authority from Freedom of Assembly is that it's still not the Full Monty of protected rights.

And yes, it is a bit confusing especially like this in vacuum.

 

[alanschu]

I think there's a compelling argument to normalize the base value and make the progression of laws incur a larger negative value. It makes the impact feel more intuitive.

I'm reminded about of Josh Sawyer's GDC talk about Pillars of Eternity. Initially chargen started with all stats at 1. This led to people really min-maxing characters when doing focus groups. They were fine with a stat being a 1 or a 2. They renormalized the values and made 10 the "default." Fundamentally a character with all 10s played the same in both systems, but simply showing a 9 as giving a "penalty" to a stat's effect made people a lot more hesitant to decrease the stat.

 

[Lucododosor]

It means the pops have Freedom of Assembly, but implicitly also that they don't have other freedoms that would build on that. It is a part of a continuum that probably looks something like this (layman projection, beware):
- No Political Freedoms
- Freedom of Thought (Dissidence is ok as long as it is not overtly communicated)
- Freedom of Speech (Dissidence is ok as long as it is communicated in person)
- Freedom of Assembly (Dissidence is ok as long as it is promoted in person plus you're allowed to form a club around your whimsical ideas)
- Freedom of Press (Dissidence is ok even when communicated over public writing)
- Protected Speech (Dissidence is not ok and we'll hit anyone who says otherwise with a club)

Each successive level would give less Authority than the preceding ones but confer pops more political freedom in return. So the reason you gain Authority from Freedom of Assembly is that it's still not the Full Monty of protected rights.

And yes, it is a bit confusing especially like this in vacuum.

ohhh ok now I get it
thank you!

 

[johnty5]

My reading is that authoritarian governments will have an advantage in terms of getting stuff done - but at the cost of pops unhappy at the the lack of political freedoms, leading to rebellions etc. (or, alternatively, at the cost of keeping a low-literacy population to avoid that, with all the costs that come with that).