Governments, policy and structure part II - Demcratic/Republican

[VanHalen78]

In past civilization games i've seen poor attempts to create a government anywhere close to real world Democratic government the only thing close was in Civilization II with the senate being able to declare war thats it. Under a government like this there should be a similar setup as the United states, either a unicameral or bicameral legislative branch which would serve to propose and vote on laws which would be sent to the president where he could choose to veto or not. next comes a constitution with the written powers of each branch of government. Next comes the bill of rights, the people deserve their natural rights. Another thing is the Cabinet for instance secretary of treasury, state, defense, and so on becuase it is not up to a president whom has limited powers to control the state, all of its economy, and its military. next, science, luxury, and, tax rates should not be determined by the president that is up to the legislative branch to vote on. and who's to decide how much scientific advancement there will be? that job is up to the people the gifted people of the country who wish to contribute their ideas so over time science rates should be continue to rise and fall the only thing that should be done is federal funding toward the random rise and fall of science that would be determined by the legislative branch. Well that is all for now on this form of government i hope that these idea's are taken into consideration as well.

[red_jon]

Hmmmm.

Apart from anything else, this would take away virtually all your power over your civ, which, although accurate, wouldn't amount to a very fun game and everyone would avoid democracy as a government choice (who wants to play a "god game" where you make virtually no decisions yourself?).

Plus different demcracies throughout the world have different systems, so civ has to generalise a bit (the US ain't the only democracy on Earth ).

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...And if the British Commonwealth and its people live for a thousand years, man will still say "this was their finest hour"- Winston Churchill.

[red_jon]

Oh, and the science rate in a democracy can be increased/decreased by democracy, both directly (by funding government scientists-the manhatten project wasn't discovered by civilians by chance) and indirectly (perhaps by increasing funding on education- a feature not in civ2 that could be implemented?).

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...And if the British Commonwealth and its people live for a thousand years, man will still say "this was their finest hour"- Winston Churchill.

[Dom Pedro II]

I agree with red_jon. First of all, that idea is WAY too complicated. Second, there are many types of democracies not just the American. I think if I were Australian or British (I say them in particular because they are the second and third largest group of members here) or from any of the other strong democracies of the world, and the programmers based the Democracy ENTIRELY on the U.S. model, I would be insulted.

In fact, I already think they should remove the part that says "Senate" has done something. (Although if anybody really wanted to, they could just type in Parliament or Congresso in Senate's place.)

[DarkCloud]

I believe the characterization is all right in the game now; I would not want any more control taken away from me in the game.

However I play in Monarchy the entire game to simulate the British ruling throne; also it is more efficient when you want to declare war against someone.

[VanHalen78]

Ok it seems i've been getting a little bit of hostility towards my posts but that is ok since unfortunately i'm not very familiar with foreign democracies i'm only familiar with the U.S. because i'm in AP U.S. History class and we've been going over the early years of our country. Now i'm very interested in knowing how these other democracies are set up around the world because then maybe in the game the player could customize the way they see it fit, with of course not giving too much power to the president because then it wouldn't be a true democracy so for those who can fill me in please do. Now you see for those of you who want all control of the game thats why there is a facist, communist, and dictatorship forms of government so you should chose those but personally i think its getting kind of old because i want to experience something new like having the computer do some of the work for me i think it would give the game a new and positive perspective by making it more interesting and more realistic. thats all

[Dom Pedro II]

VanHalen, don't take the criticism too personally. It is meant as constructive criticism, and you do make some important points. The people of a Democracy should definitely enjoy greater control. The computer should take over many functions. Here's an idea: maybe the legislative body should be able to block purchases of military units in the way that the Congress gives funding for the military.

I posted a message in the "Revolutions" category where I said that there should be degrees of democratization. The most extreme being a Republic and other forms being a Constitutional Monarchy. The most conservative would be Monarchy under a king. There would also be left and right governments like Fascism and Communism that would not involve a king and they too would have levels of democratization. It allows for a custom-made government.

I myself am in favor of a more complicated government where my power is not supreme. It does get a little dull.

P.S. I'm in AP US History too.

[Biddles]

Actually, Australia's upper house of Government is called the senate and our lower house is called the house of representatives. I believe these are the same as the American names.

Our government systems are totally different though.

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- Biddles

"Now that our life-support systems are utilising the new Windows 2027 OS, we don't have to worry about anythi......."
Mars Colonizer Mission

[Tical_2000]

Honestly, VanHalen. Your ideas are WAY out there. Your talking about partisan politics and an AI that can make decisions to build a bank in your country under a free market government such as Republic and Democracy. I'm not saying your ideas aren't valid but its only a game and games have to have focus on goals. Expanding the political realm of Civ games is cool but going too far with it will definetley ruin the point of the game, which in my opinion is to establish a empire that ranks above all others. The FOCUS of civ games is foreign policy not internal political policy. Its fun to discuss things like this but some people need a reality check.

[red_jon]

I think varying degrees of democracy is a good idea.

In the UK there are the House of Commons (elected representatives) and the House of Lords (losing power- they're unelected people who stop 'extreme' new laws)

The Queen has no power whatsoever (she can theoretically stop laws- but she has never done and if she did, the British citizens would probably vote for a republic).

My point is the constitutional democracy idea is good, if we got rid of the Queen to become a republic (in fact this Queen may probably be our last - if not Charles definitly will be- in the UK and Australia the monarchy just isn't as popular anymore) there wouldn't be a revolution- just an election.

Oh, using the Monarchy to represent modern Britian isn't quite realistic, parliament can stop wars and martial law can';t be used, as well as other things.

(PS- I'm not anti-monarchist by the way, just a realist)

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...And if the British Commonwealth and its people live for a thousand years, man will still say "this was their finest hour"- Winston Churchill.

[Biddles]

red_jon: I wouldn't be so sure about the time span left on the monarchy. In Australia last year we had a referendum on whether to become a republic or not. The problem was that we have a monarchist for our prime minister and he gave us the choice between staying the same and a republic where the politicians choose the president. I think you can see why we voted it down.

By the way, if England voted to scrap their monarchy, but Australia didn't, would the queen move to Australia?

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- Biddles

"Now that our life-support systems are utilising the new Windows 2027 OS, we don't have to worry about anythi......."
Mars Colonizer Mission
[This message has been edited by Biddles (edited November 06, 2000).]

[airdrik]

actuall, just to clarify. The U.S. is not a true democracy. There are no countries in the world that are true democracies. They are all a form of representative democracy called the 'republic' (or at least those that are democracies are republics). If you did have a true democracy, or government by the people, then the people would vote on all their laws directly, they would elect one person to be their spokesman, or president, and they would run their own government DIRECTLY. Since it is practically impossible to have a stable true democracy (the people could never get anything decided, one person would bring something up and the majority would vote it down), such a government would be practically chaos(though a better government than anarchy as there would be some laws to regulate things.) Instead we have today's republics, where people vote people into the government who they hold the most values with, and who they think is the best person for that position.

Since this eliminates the 'democratic' government type, they could add the Confederation of States, or Confederacy. This government, modeled after the U.S. under the 'Articles of Confederation' for the first 12 or so years after the revolutionary war, features each state ruling it's own internal matters and having it's own military. They would send representatives to congress to discuss matters of inter-state business. A publicly decided spokesman, or president would be the 'Head of State' that other countries would talk with when addressing matters of international business. In the Confederacy, all states are concidered independant, unlike the republic, where the states are united and considered part of the whole country.

[Dom Pedro II]

airdrik, I posted a similar point about the U.S. not being a Democracy, and I agree about removing Democracy. I don't think the Confederation is a good idea. Almost no confederacy has EVER worked. The only long-lasting confederacy was the Iroquois. Confederacy is borderline anarchy. Besides, how do you define a state in civ??

I think that Republic should be put in the place of Democracy. However, allow Monarchies to become more democratic to the point of Constitutional Monarchies. And there should be a Primitive Republic in the beginning (eventhough nobody uses it).

[airdrik]

There was another government I've heard about, I can't remember what it's called, but it is government by the judiciary branch, or government by judges. All laws are brought before the courts and are judged baced on their constitutionality. There is an acount of one such government type in a book I've read, each level of the court has it's own juristicion, and laws can be appealed to higher levels. The 'Chief Judge' would be the figure head of the government who would be able to declare war and all that other fun stuff, but if you do something unconstitutional then you will be tried and removed from the judgement seat.