Clash and OpenCiv3 - Government

[Mark_Everson]

The Joker:

I like the overall system a lot . It seems to be possible for the interested player to endlessly refine their government, while someone who just wants to go out and kick butt won't have to deal with it too much. However, you'll need a good AI for handling the AI civs' govt or there will be yet another place where the player can run rings around the AI civs...

The bit requiring 'govt approval' to build various things is IMO perhaps going overboard if I understand it. I think it could lead to Endless micromanagement. Having potentially to negotiate with religion or labor every time you want to build an extra stealth bomber seems more like dental work than a game . IMO it would be better to have a general 'happiness' for each class, and if you build things they don't like, their happiness would gradually get worse, Eventually leading to problems. But it would be one Big issue like you say in the 'build 5 libraries or else' part, rather than slow death by bureaurocracy .

One potential problem I noticed with your system is that it seems to assume the 'strength coefficient' for a given type of people is constant. For instance
Army political strength = (some constant)x (number of units or whatever)

Actually this can't be true IMO because the Political strength of the army in a military-junta state is much stronger than that in a democracy. The army generally doesn't Want to control the government in a democracy, whereas in a military-ruled state it Expects to exert great control over the direction of the civ. And yet these very different effects can happen with the same proportion of army to total civ population.

In the new Clash Govt model (not yet released) we (Rodrigo actually ) handle this by giving each class (we have 5) not only political power, but an ideology-based notion of what the power structure of the whole civ looks like. I will ask Rodrigo permission to send you a draft of the not-polished model if you'd like...

[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited June 08, 2000).]

[The Joker]

This is among my favorite topics for Civ games, so I will start a thread about it for some discussion and hopefully an improvement of our models. All are welcome, all projects, all civers. Coorporation is the key to greatness!

[The Joker]

I will start this discussion by posting my SI model:

SOCIAL INTERACTION SYSTEM VERSION 0.5
Before I begin I must say that although this system makes a lot of sence in my head, this is the first time I am writing it down. This may mean that I have left something out. So if you think that anything is missing or that something just doesn’t make sence then please let me know and I will try to explain it!

Now let’s get going:

This system only involves the Government category of the SE system. The other categories can easily be chosen without interfering with this system, and still be subjective to it.

The Social Interaction (SI) system basically involve 2 categories: Your absolutity and who you are supported by.


Your absolutity:
This defines how much you can do without having to negotiate with your people. It is done with a slider bar, that goes from 0 (you must get your people’s support on everything) to 10 (you can do whatever you want without asking your people. They should work so that both extremities would be very unlikely and that they would never have occured historically. I have chosen to call the degree of absolutity for the Legislature level (leg level). So if you have leg 1 you are not very absolute, and you can not operate individually, where if you have leg 8 you are pretty absolute. You would of cause want as high a leg level as possible, but unfortunately you wouldn’t decide this on your own.


Supported by:
This is where the system becomes interesting. You can not just rule because you feel like it. You need to be supported by someone. The groups you can be supported by is a representation of this. They each have a certain ”strength” over your civ (shown as a percentage of the ”strenght” of the total of all the groups. One group might have strenght 41% where another might have strenght 3%), and the ”combined strength” of the groups you are supported by need to be a certain percentage (50% perhabs?) of the ”strength” of all the groups in your civ. Following is a list over each of the groups you can be supported by. In the parenthesis is how their individual strength is defined (of cause the numbers of each groups strength are not directly comparable – how could you compare the percentage of the people in your civ that a strong believers of a religion with the number of units in your civ? In other words all these numbers would have to be multiplied with a certain factor for each group to make it all balanced, and so it will be possible to compare the strength of the army with that of the religion).

The religion (number of people that are strong believers in that religion) – each religion in your civ (apart from atheism) would be an individual group that you could base your power on.

The army (number of units)

The ”ancient Greece/Rome type city based wealthy people that have earned their money on slave based farms” (?? – Food production? Number of slaves?)*

The ”medieval type rural based agricultural wealthy people” (percentage of people working in food production?) – the nobility*

The ”city based industrial bourgeoisie” (percentage of people working in production/factories?)*

The ”information age wealthy people” (percentage of people working in service/information professions if such are included?)*

The intelligentsia/philosophers (science output? Percentage of people being scientists?)

The bureaucrats/administrators (percentage of people working in the administration?)

The labour unions (percentage of people organized in unions?)

The police (your civs police rate?)

The coorporations (production?)

Organized crime? (corruption in your civ?)

The people directly (overall living standards, education levels and more)

The people representatively (overall living standards, education levels and more)


You would have to choose who to base your support on from all these groups. Each group would become availible after a certain tech (the religion and the army would come almost immediately in the game where the labour unions would be availible pretty late the people directly would as the only one be there from the beginning, but in most cases it should pretty soon become less powerful than the other groups). This is of cause very chaotic, but it could be done so that you can support your power of several groups, and that you choose your support in ”10% intervals”. This would mean that you could be supported by: 40% on the army, 20% on the coorporations, 10% on the administrators and 30% on the people representatively.

The key to this system is how it is chosen who you base it on. To make my idea workable each group would need a (very simple) AI. When choosing how to base your government you would make sort of a negotiation with all these groups. Each group will look after their own interests, and they will try to get as much power as possible. You could think of it as being like when a government is being made. The person trying to become prime minister (which in this case is you) want to get enough support to be able to form a government. Each group is like a party, and they want to get as much power as possible. The power of the group is like the number of seats a party has in the parliament. They want to get as many of their people becoming ministers as possible. Here this is described as the percentage you are basing your power on. The higher percentage a group gets the more power it gets (this will be described late). So each group want to get as high a percentage as possible. You on the other hand want to be supported by as many as possible, so you actually want to give each group as low a percentage as possible. This would mean that when you enter the SI screen each group is displayed with their power, and with a demand for how many percentages they want. The religion might demand 30% for it to support you where the intelligentsia might demand 20%. For this to work the groups need to have an idea on how strong they are, so that they don’t all demand 100%. So the very weak groups would be more than happy just to get 10% and actually have some power where the powerful one would deman much more. Your leg level is showing how much you can do without having to get the support from your support groups. The groups would therefor want you to have as low a leg level as possible, as this also means more power to them. You would be able to interact with the groups, so you could offer them things, like ”no you can not have 40% of my governing being supported by you, but if you accept 20% I will go down from leg 6 to leg 4.” They would then interact with you, as they would accept or deny your proposal. It should work so that if your leg level is low enough then virtually every group will accept just 10% support.

This system is of cause a model, so some things are not included. The relationship between the individual groups are not included. In stead it is based on a ”pool” model of political decissions. Each group is a billard ball, rolling around on the table. The stronger groups are bigger balls, so they are more likely to push the weaker ones away, while heading for their goal. The player could be like the pool player. In the beginning he has no idea how to make the balls do as he likes, where the very advanced player could manipulate them to do as he pleases. This system should work the same way, although a player should need to be extremely good to just make all the groups work for him.

The larger a percentage of the ”power” in your civ that is supporting your rule, the more stability there would be (the less likely would there be chance for the government to collaps – you could never be sure that this would not happend, but the higher stabilitity the lower the chance - or for cities to breake loose of your civ) and the less corruption there would be (as most people would support your civ). Of cause both stability and corrupion would be determined by other things than just this.

You would therefor need to balance a lot of things when making your government. Not only would you like as high a leg level as possible, you would also want to get the support of as high a percentage of the power in your civ as possible. The more powerful a group is the more it could demand from you (again it needs to be aware of it’s powers). For instance, in the western world today the people would be by far the most powerful group in the civ. This could not only let them demand a high percentage of your support, it could also allow them to demand that you have a low leg level. You have to accept, as you simply need the people’s support to make a working government. This can explain why the leaders of the western countries have very little absolutity. On the other hand if there are a lot of equally strong groups in your civ you would be in a position to demand a lot from them just to let them get any power, as you would just be able to shoose someone else. In such a scenario you could get perhabs 10% support from 10 different groups and get a very high leg level. This would not only give you lots of stability and low corruption, it would also let you work more or less autonomously from your support groups.

A group should possibly also be able to negotiate with foreign powers, and you should be able to negotiate with groups in foreign powers. All civs on the globe having 14 AIs in them besides from the civ itself (especcially with more than 30 civs, as most of us want) means a lot of AIs. But again I don’t think the groups would need advanced AIs. In stead they would just be very simple forms, able to just figure out a few things. They would not have any city management, unit movement or even any overall strategies. They just need to be able to take a few concrete, short run decisions, based on a few parameters.


Making decisions:
This would all not give any sence if if wasn’t because you would need all these groups when making decisions. The lower your leg level the more you would have to consult your supporting groups when making decisions. Making this work, however, is the tricky part, and one of the main reasons why we have not yet been able to make a system in which you don’t have absolute control possible.

There are many possible ways to do this. Unfortunately it seems as if the most easy-to-implement ways are also the ones that are the worst. You could, for instance, have it so that if your leg level was 6 then 6 out of 10 times you made a decision then you would decide, and 4 out of 10 the computer would decide. This is, of cause, an incredibly poor solution, offering none of the things we want a system which interacts with the people to do.

I have not found an absolute answer to this problem, but I have found something that works, is realistic and playable. You would have to involve the people when making SE changes (economic, structure, laws etc), when changing diplomatic relations with other civs and when building things in your cities. Unit movement and city ressource management (although I hope you wont have to move workers around on the city squares in Civ3) would be done by you alone.

Each group would have an agenda. This should not be oversimplistic, but would also adabt to the overall status of your civ. If you had just been in a destructive war then not many groups would want to start a new one. On the other hand it should DEFINATELY not be so that the people would always want peace. In stead this would be decided by their militarism rating (described later). Each group would have some favorite things to build. The army would always want more units, so if you want to build a tank you could count on it’s support. The religion would want to build tempels, the coorporations would want to build factories, the intelligentsia would want to build libraries etc. Some of the agenda’s of the different groups would sometimes be the same. Both the coorporations and the industrial bourgeoisie would want to build factories, both the people and the intelligentsia might like libraries, where the religion might agree with the army on the need to go to war with a civ of another religion.

It means that if your leg level is 7, then you need to get 30% (100%-70%) of the 100% you are supporting your power on to support this thing. So if you have leg 7 and you are based on 50% people 20% coorporations 10% army and 20% administrators then you need 30% of these to support you in EVERYTHING you do! You could do this by having the people support your desicion (this would give 120%, which would just be the same as 100%), by having the army and the administrators to support it or something else. This gives the advantage that the system is easy to overview (no complex rules on when you have to negotiate with the people), that you always know how many ”votes” you need to do stuff, and that the higher your leg level is, the easier it will be for you to get what you want. The disadvantages of this system is, that a more elegant sollution could possibly be found, and that you always (except if you have leg 10, which should almost never happen) have to get your people’s support, even if you have a very high leg level. None the less I have chosen to use this system. If anyone can think of a better one please post it, as I would like to hear about it, but for now this is what I will use.

Besides this there should be a way of using propaganda and such to get the permanent support from one group. This would mean that you could spend some money on propaganda directed at the people. This might give lower stability in a few turns, but if it is succesful then it will make it so that the people would always support your desicions (so they will not demand that you do anything to support you – this would of cause only work if you were basing your power on the people). This would continue for a few turns. If you want to always have your people’s permanent support then you would need to permanently use money for propaganda. A similar thing could be done to the other groups. If you are basing your power on the administrators then you would be able to make some sort of purge in the administration (meaning that you removed people that didn’t support you and put people loyal to you in the leading positions). Again this would give unstability for a few turns, but afterwards you would get always get the support of the administration. Similar things could be done in the army (although the US has a large army it is unrealistic to think that the army has a very important position in the country. In stead the government has made sure that people loyal to them are at all the important positions, and therefor the army is not an individual power) and possibly in all the groups. You should be able to do these propaganda/purge things in both groups that you based your power on, and in groups that you weren’t. If you used it on a groups that you weren’t basing your power on then it would simply mean that this group would not cause any unstability and that it would not try to begin a revolution. Each group would cost different things to use propaganda on. The people directly would be easy and cheap to use propaganda against, where other groups like the intelligentsia would be far more expensive to get permanent support from.

You should also be able to give money to a group, which would give it more power in your civ. This could be workable if the groups you are basing your power on are not quite strong enough to secure a working government, and you don’t want to begin a revolution. You could then give some money to a group, and thus giving it more power which would make your government more stable. Of cause the effect of these money would be pretty limited, and if there is a powerful overall tendency that a group is weakening then you could do little to make it more powerful. Giving money to groups would mostly be for the short run.

Every groups should have some number (possibly just from 1-10) that described how much they liked your policy. This number would be determined by counting how many times you had done things following that particular group’s agenda. So if you were basing your power on the intelligentsia but never built any libraries and had all science things at a very low priority then this goup would have a low number – it wouldn’t like your policy. The lower this number is the larger the chance would be that this group would simply stop supporting you. It could make an ultimatum like ”You start the construction of 5 libraries now or we will stop supporting you and send the country into anarchy and civil war”. You would then have the choise of either doing what they want or try to make a new government with a period of anarchy in between. The same could be done by all the other groups. If you were basing your power on the army but never were in any wars it could demand that you started a war with civ x or it would stop supporting you (finally a way to be forced into a war). On the other hand, if the group really liked your policy then it would, if you were not basing your power on it, not cause unstability and not try to throw over the government, and if you were basing your power on it then it would be likely to accept it if you raised your leg level. This would mean that if you were supporting your power on the coorporations and you switched labour unions off (with or without their support) then the coorporations would be likely to accept that you raised your leg level.

This would mean that when you are choosing your groups to base your power on then you would not only have to make sure that these groups had enough power to make the government stable, you would also have to try to get as high a leg level as possible AND you would need to choose groups that had an agenda that worked with the policy you wanted to go with.

Militarism: Would be an indicator of how much your people would support war. If it is high then there would be low unhappyness for units away from the city, and the people (if you supported your power on them) would be more likely to support a war. It would be determined by a lot of things. A succesful war with low casualties would rise it, where a destructive war with lots of civilians killed would lower it.

Individualism: This would be an indicator for how much your people liked individual freedom in an economic sence. If it is low then a capitalist system would not give much trade (as the people would not work well in such a system) and a communist system would give a lot of unhappyness. If it, on the other hand is high then a capitalist system would give a lot of trade, and a communist system would give a lot of corruption. It would be determined by different things. If you had a communist economic system for a long time then this would lower it, where a capitalist system would rise it. But at the same time a lot of poverty in your civ (there should be some indicator of poverty) either due to your civ just being poor or because of the economic system creating an economically very polarized population, would also lower it.

Accept of distance to power: This was originately a part of Individualism, but I chose to make this, the political individualism, it’s own indicator. It would show how much the people would accept an undemocratic government. If it was low then the people, if you support your power on them, would demand that you only had a low leg level. They would be harder to use propaganda against, and they would create more unstability if they were not in the government. If it is high then it should be possible for the people to accept that you had a high leg level (they would want to have someone to lead them), they would be easy to manipulate via propaganda and they would not create much unstability if they weren’t in the government.

* I have chosen to have 4 types of wealthy people, as I had chosen one for each type of society: Slave society, feudal society, industrial society and information society. Each society had very different ways of getting wealthy, and a very different lifestyle, so they should be replaced by different groups. This is also needed if the system is to describe a french revolution type scenario: before the revolution the king’s power is based on the feudal wealthy, but due to the industrial revolution the industrial wealthy has become stronger and stronger, and eventually strong enough to throw over the government with the support of the people. Unfortunately for them it all ended with an army based dictator (Napoleon) getting a pretty high leg level.

[The Joker]

Mark:

quote: The bit requiring 'govt approval' to build various things is IMO perhaps going overboard if I understand it. I think it could lead to Endless micromanagement. Having potentially to negotiate with religion or labor every time you want to build an extra stealth bomber seems more like dental work than a game . IMO it would be better to have a general 'happiness' for each class, and if you build things they don't like, their happiness would gradually get worse, Eventually leading to problems.

Well, maybe you're right. I agree that an overall happyness rating with the stuff you make might be better. But I still think that when making SE changes you would need the support of some groups.

Well, I'm not really sure what I think...

quote: Actually this can't be true IMO because the Political strength of the army in a military-junta state is much stronger than that in a democracy. The army generally doesn't Want to control the government in a democracy, whereas in a military-ruled state it Expects to exert great control over the direction of the civ. And yet these very different effects can happen with the same proportion of army to total civ population.

Well, that might be one way to handle it. In my model I have included a way to purge a group, which would make it always support you and not complain if it didn't have any power. I then thought that this was what had been made with the army in the democratic countries. In your model how is this expectation of control determined? And can you effect it? If so I think it might in essence be more or less the same as I had thought.

quote: In the new Clash Govt model (not yet released) we (Rodrigo actually ) handle this by giving each class (we have 5) not only political power, but an ideology-based notion of what the power structure of the whole civ looks like. I will ask Rodrigo permission to send you a draft of the not-polished model if you'd like...

This sounds very interesting. I would definately like to hear more about this and to see the newest version of your model. Would this mean that there would be no meaning for me to continue reading your old model or what?

[Mark_Everson]

The Joker:

Army power:
The ideology 'democracy' in the Clash Gov model means that all classes Including the military one Expect the Army to have relatively low power. So if the army holds democracy dear, even if they happen to Get great power (as in severe wartime frequently) they will work to bring it back to normal low levels as soon as practical.

Reading the old model:
The old model is still mostly there except for the many little details. The changes are mostly stripping out a lot of the stuff in the tables and including the ideology and some other stuff. You should skip the Many tables etc. in the old model, but you need to read or at least skim it since the new model picks up where it left off...

I'll try to send the new draft as soon as I get an ok.

[Guildmaster]

Ok I like this! The idea of negotiating with your own government adds a whole new dimension to the game. In fact I like it so much I'm not even going to tell you about my weak gov't idea.

This would allow soooooo much under-table stuff to happen, like a foreign church recruiting your own military to fight a crusade with/or/without your consent. And then Lobbyists! We'll pay you $x to build a railroad from here to there.

But here's one thing you might consider, delegation. If you were allowed to appoint delegates to handle certain aspects of the game, this would cut down on so much tedious gameplay that becomes more work than play like in Civ2 where in the late game it just gets boring. Also by having delegates do your work for you, you can gain approval or disapproval of interest groups depending on what that delegate plans to do.

Foreign powers: the church! You have a choice, to allow religion to influence your empire or to disallow. And if you disallow, do you ban religion or do you guarantee freedom of worship? Of course the church way over there in the Vatican won't like it if you go separate church & state, might send Spain to go attack your buttocks. Wasn't Spain your ally? That was before you were excommunicated. What's that, you were excommunicated? The people won't like that...
Now having a religious center in your civilization could pose a great advantage if you can sucessfully manipulate it to your own needs. IF.
No matter what you want to do, you get your power from someone, I don't think there should even be a leg thingy. Even supreme dictators like Saddam Hussein get their power from their military (whom he is the leader of). But even if he crossed the wrong people they would kill him in a heartbeat. How long do you think he would last if he stepped out and espoused the virtues of Judaism? I think you should do away with the leg thingy and focus some more energy on making sure the people that put you in power wether it's the nobility or the church or the popular vote, make sure those peopl feel justified in putting you in power. This will add a whole political aspect of the game. I say that if you want to do something you ought to be able to do it. If every time you try to build an aqueduct the senate votes you down that would get very frustrating and I wouldn't keep playing if that happened too often.

[axi]

Hey Mark! If you can get your hands on the latest draft of the govt model, I want a copy too... What I have in my computer is a very messed-up document, containing all the discussion between me and Rodrigo on the new Govt model proposal. It was about Easter time when our discussions ended and Rodrigo was going to make the final draft and post it on the forum. He then dissapeared for a couple of months and so did I, because there seemed nothing more for me to do about Clash but wait for news about the govt model. I e-mailed him a week ago and he replied that he kept away from Clash all of this time for personal reasons. I hope that you are going to get that draft and post it in the Clash forum, so that we can begin working on it. I will be happy to provide to the Clash team all the explainations needed.

For all of you who don't know who I am, I was supposed to be helping Rodrigo in refining the new govt model for Clash. Some sort of informal duke's aide that is.

P.S. Mark, I think that we have a lot to talk about and decide how the work in Clash is going to proceed, concerning the three more central and more directly linked with eachother models of Clash: Govt, Econ, Social. I am aware that you are currently making some progress in the Econ model and I feel that we must be assured of the compatibility of these two before we proceed into further development.

------------------
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
George Orwell

[Mark_Everson]

axi & The Joker:

Rodrigo said he would prefer to wait since he thinks he will have the new Govt. model soon and doesn't want to get questions/comments that are on parts of the model that are obsolete.

The Joker: I can send you what I have if you Really want to see it now (R said its ok) and just want to look at general issues in the model. But as I said R doesn't really want comments on it yet.

Axi: What I have is probably older than what you and R were working on. I don't think anything I have done in Econ recently has invalidated the handshaking we did before on the three models. Anyways we should probably continue that discussion on the Clash forum since its not really appropriate here.

[axi]

Whatever you say, boss!

[amjayee]

I also really like Joker's ideas. It would allow much more depth to the game. But as Guildmaster pointed out, the player should be able to automate (also) it. But generally, I think it will become a great addition to the gameplay.

I'm sorry I can't comment more right now. I'm working on a design web site, with an html design document. It will be a gathering point for all good game ideas, and finally it will become the official design documentation. It will be available to you in a day or two.

Also I have almost finished the first map system prototype. It will give you a better idea what the map will look like. It also features a possibility to create your own maps! (Well, an ancient system, but still...) Expect to see it tomorrow.

[Maniac]

More comments will come later, but now I quickly would want to say that I don't see how SE and SI could be compatible. For example, if your Intellegentsia are in power, it's kind of naturally assumed that they have Knowledge as 'value'. The same counts for others. Eg Military = Power; Labor Union = Socialism etc. Therefore the Value category would be redundant. And the same actually also counts for the Econonmy category. If the traders are in power, it's kinda normal, there will automatically arise a Free Market economy. Economy section also useless. So what's left? Nothing! Therefore I would say, let's get rid of SE!

Cause what is SE actually? It's effects (=SE factors) that are likely to happen when certain groups are in power. But when groups urge and oblige you to do and build things (eg Universities) that already represent the effects of the SE factors (eg Research), what's then the use of the SE factors themselves? Nothing indeed.

Since I'm writing anyway I'll begin to give my comments.

1)I don't know where it's written, but I thought I had read the reason why you make distinctions between eg ancient and medieval agricultural wealthy lords is because they have a different way of getting rich. Then I ask: is that really so? I think of the medieval serfs as not much more as slaves, so same group.

2)I don't really get what the information age people want to accomplish. Do they want to get rich by trading hi tech stuff? Then I would count them under the group 'Traders'.

3)Wouldn't want labor unions and representative people want the same thing: better living conditions?

4)In countries where armies are in power, they usually also maintain the social order, so I would make them the same group as 'police'.

5)This is my purely personal opinion of which groups should be included. I shortened the list a bit:

->The "Nobility":
People who get their power and wealth out of agriculure. They would strive for more Farm/Irrigation TI's, better food production, more slaves (if that is allowed by law), higher taxes, and would prefer to research Farming techs.

->The "Industrial Bourgeoisie":
They get their power out of their industrial capacity. Because also communist => not-capitalist countries can have a good industry, I didn't count them under the group 'Traders'. They would want increased Labor production, buildings that do so, research Economy/Applied techs

->The "Intelligentsia":
They want more research & science, buildings that do so, want to research Academic techs.

->The "Bureaucrats":
Want increased efficiency, decreased corruption and buildings (eg Courthouse) and TI's (intercity roads) that do so.

->The "Representative people":
Want better living conditions, more happiness and things that do so, eg Aquaduct, Hospital, lower taxes, more food... Research Social techs

->The "Traders":
More trade routes, more trade increasing buildings. Research Economic/Applied Techs

->The "Military":
Want more soldiers, more training & experience increasing and repair buildings, want to keep social order by what's called 'martial law' in civ2. Research Military techs.

->The "Religion":
More believers, more religious buildings, more taxes. Research Social techs.

This can only work if it is to the detail defined which things you do that improves and decreases the degree of which faction.

I would let this SI system only appear after you have discovered the technology advance 'Chiefdom'. By the time you have discovered that, there would already be other factions like the Religion and the Military. Therefore I wouldn't include "the people directly".

I'm sorry to say, but I think Individualism is just bullshit. People will never like working in some country-big collective communist organization where they don't work at all for themselves. The highest degree of un-individualism you will ever get is something like a kibboetz-farming cooperation. But there, people still work directly to increase their own harvest. If they work harder, they get more. That doesn't exist under Communism. People whose individualism lowers when they are for a long time under Communism? Pff...
BTW, that factor only works to make a distinction between Communism and Free Market. I think that the guy who wrote this (am I correct to assume you got several ideas from someone else?) gives too much attention to communism.

quote: But at the same time a lot of poverty in your civ (there should be some indicator of poverty) either due to your civ just being poor or because of the economic system creating an economically very polarized population, would also lower it.

This can just be represented by letting the happiness of the people in general and thus also the happiness of the "Representative People" about your policy, lower.

About political individualism:
Throughout the entire history, people only revolted if conditions were so bad that they starved from hunger. Then nationalism came. And there were only two revolutions that had as only reason the fact that the people wern't politically free. That were Czechoslovakia (sp?) and Hungary against Communism. So you can conclude that people throughout history didn't really care who ruled them (if it was a republic or a king), as long as their stomaches got filled.
And BTW, the trend that people, or all factions for that matter, want more political freedom is also represented by the fact that thet want the leader (you) to have less Legislatural power.

[amjayee]

M@ni@c:

The people might not want to live in communist states, but communism can still work - it just requires propaganda, and firm control of the people. Also your point of individualism isn't true. It is a fact that communism lowers the initiative of the people. It should be the bad side for it. Good side would be the better control of your people.

Also we have to keep in mind that there must not be a clear distinction between the "government types"; in Europe, most countries exercise socialistic politics, that has some communist features. Also there are many ways to implement a communism government - compare the Soviet Union, Cuba and China.

About revolting: I don't agree. People will revolt (or rebel/demonstrate) if a) they don't like something and b) if they are not guarded well enough. Don't forget that not all rebellion is overthrowing the government and stuff. General unhappiness and unorderly behavior belongs to this. Watch the western countries - people are not starving, but they still are unhappy of many things, since they are free to demonstrate. The reason they don't rebel is the living conditions are not that bad, that they would get enough people to throw a revolution. An important point - the amount of people that are unhappy, decides if it's only discontentment and demonstrations, rebellion, or a full-scale revolution.

Also in the contrary; if people starve, they will not rebel, if they are controlled well, with police, military and propaganda. People starve in North Korea, but they can't rebel when there is a well-fed, loyal army of more than million men. Also the starving people of Africa don't rebel, since they are not very well-organized, and they are weak. Yes, there are continuous civil wars down there, but the hunger isn't the reason for them - in the contrary, people are hungry because the wars eat up all the resources. Many things need to be taken into concideration.

This is where the strong points in Joker's model come in: every country is lead in favor of some group, or some groups. It adds a new level of strategy, when you have to decide who you want to please. You can't please everyone, but it is possible to have most people content.

Watch United States - things are mainly well there, but many people are unhappy. Just not enough people to actually rebel. And who says army is not favored there - the benefit and well-fare of the army is a major thing. It's just that they don't want to give _political_ power to the army, since other groups would not like it. But if they right now would decide, that they don't need such a large army anymore and halve the military budget, do you think they could avoid rebellions? Not quite. It's important to divide the political power of some group, and the other powers and favored positions.

Revolution usually means, that a different group of people takes the lead. Revolution might happen because you want it - but it will still be a blood-shed, not as simple as in civ2. Revolution would be the ultimate way for the player to change the course of his nation, but usually a very costly one. Also the people might want a revolution. In that situation, you would need to decide what group you favor. Revolution usually would result in the country being divided to two or more countries. One of those would be led by the original leading group, the others by the new leaders - but once again, not necessarily so.

Revolution usually results in civil war, but not always in splitting the nation. It might change the political environment of the country, though. Wouldn't that be exciting? You would intentionalyy want a revolution, but you would never be excactly sure how it ends. Once again, you would need to find the best solutions for each situation. That would be real strategy!

I agree that we should scrap SE and replace it with the SI system of Joker.

About your ideas of the groups: I agree with the nobility. It has always worked in the same way. In modern times, nobility could be replaced by "rich people". They own large companies - compare to the nobles owning large plantations and farms. They work excactly in the same way - just replace farms with companies.

But about the information age people - they are not traders. Instead, they are "professionals" that aim to study, then work in companies, and live long and prosperous their comfortable middle-class life. They want social security, protection, and non-disturbed life. They might protest if too much money is used for military, and if too many men are died in wars.

Poor people should form their own group. About laborers - factory workers. They are the modern-day replacement to the farmers in ancient and medieval times. They want work, food, and shelter. Labor unions idea wouldn't work very well, since each industrial field has their own unions, and each union wants more attention to their sector.

[Mark_Everson]

quote: Originally posted by amjayee on 06-13-2000 06:18 PM Watch United States - things are mainly well there, but many people are unhappy. Just not enough people to actually rebel. And who says army is not favored there - the benefit and well-fare of the army is a major thing. It's just that they don't want to give _political_ power to the army, since other groups would not like it. But if they right now would decide, that they don't need such a large army anymore and halve the military budget, do you think they could avoid rebellions? Not quite. (snip)

Halve the army budget and the US would have open rebellions???? Upon what ideological delusions do you base That statement? Are there Facts to support it... Before WWII the US army was Miniscule compared to today... Can you tell me how many revolts there were between the US Civil War and WWII? What fraction of the population participated in these revolts? If you claim the situation is now dramatically worse than it was during the US Great Depression, upon what Facts do you base that assessment?

Sure, the US has its social tensions, but the army very rarely enters into it.

[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited June 14, 2000).]

[The Joker]

It is really great with all these replyes. I am sorry, but I don't have time to read it all before saturday. But then I will be back!

I think it should be possible to make a new SI model (v0.6) with a revision of the classes and of the process of making decisions within a short amount of time. Me reading the Clash gov model has really given me some great ideas that we too could use.

[Maniac]

quote: It is a fact that communism lowers the initiative of the people.

??? Initiative? I know also that people take more economic initiatives in a free market and that communism is planned, but we weren't discussing that, right? We were talking about individualism.

quote: Also we have to keep in mind that there must not be a clear distinction between the "government types"

Indeed. But since SE is gone (if no one objects at least), your wish is already fulfilled; there are no clear-cut government anymore.

quote: in Europe, most countries exercise socialistic politics, that has

That can be represented by a large percentage-power of the Representative people and high 'luxuries' (if that concept is kept).

About revolting:
Sure people will still demonstrate, even if they have good living conditions. But I hope you won't let every simple demonstration (eg workers want a wage raise of 1/5 dollar per hour) count as a 'civil disorder' with stopped production, more corruption, etc... 'Cos then it would city revolt in every city every year. What I'm trying to say is that there will be less real revolutions.

But actually, you are saying yourself just the point I'm trying to make:

quote: The reason they don't rebel is the living conditions are not that bad, that they would get enough people to throw a revolution.

I'm glad we agree.

quote: Also in the contrary; if people starve, they will not rebel, if they are controlled well, with police, military and propaganda.

Yeah, but there's a lot more chance.

quote: since they are not very well-organized,

Indeed, I don't think people are capable of much if they aren't supported by some other 'faction', like the Industrial Bourgoisy in the French Revolution. Or even the Intellegentsia, with men like Rousseau, Voltière, etc...

Ok, ok, perhaps I expressed myself a bit too strong. There are of course many other factors, but I still maintain that living conditions is (one of) the most important.

About Information Age people: from the drescription you give, I would just put them under 'Representative people'. I don't think we should make an distinct group for every social midlle class (of course the high classes are distinct groups) since they basically all want the same thing: being happy.

Don't want Info Age people also work, food and shelter? Same group. Let's wait for The Joker and look what he gots to say about it.

PS: I agree with Everson about the USA Army.
PS2: Where can I read the latest Clash Gov model?

[amjayee]

Another quick point, more to come Sunday: Ok, I didn't mean they would get rebellions in the US because the army is not controlling them as strongly anymore. I meant that the _army_ guys might not like if their money is halved, most of their fancy aircraft carriers would be demolished, their new toys taken away... and the men losing their job because of it. Perhaps not any kind of civil war, but if some other social troubles were be involved, why not?

Disorder in the cities should not in my opinion affect the city production as drastically as in civ2 - the whole production cut off. Well, perhaps with the entire city in the hands of rebels, then perhaps. But small disorder, mass demonstrations, etc. are sure to diminish the efficiency of the city. So, they would get some penalties to various things, how big, depending on conditions. To keep order, you would need to increase police capabilities, or fix the problem causing the disorder.

If there is civil disorder in cities or regions, or in the whole country, the reasons should be listed - there would ususally all times be a number of reasons, and number of disorders. The player would decide what level of disorder is agreeable...

[The Joker]

OK, I have been gone for far too long. Sorry about that.

I have long promised Mark to say something about Clash's Gov model, and this I will:

First of all I would like for us to discuss the use of chances (like a city having 50% chance of going into riot if something happends) in the game. When first thinking about it it seems that chances are good, as they include an amount of excitement, as no matter what you do you can never be sure that people will not revolt. It is also realistic, as in the real world you just never can be sure.

But there is also some cons. First it can very easily get really, really annoying for the player. It could mean that he would propably save every single turn, and if something unfortunate happends (like the civ going into a civil war) due to chance he will just load the old game and therefor avoid unfortunate events.

I am therefor not sure if we should use chances in the game. But on the other hand I am not sure either if we should not use them. I hope you can all help me here, cause it is an important thing. But I think that we should try to avoid 50/50 chances. Cause if such a chance ends up unfortunate for you you would get really annoyed.

Now to the model:

First I must ask why you have only included 6 classes? Sure, it is easy to handle, but it is not realistic. How would you portray a french rev scenario? To do that two different types of upper classes is needed - a farm based and a city based one.

Another thing is, that in the entire model I lack things that actually mean stuff for the player. There is loads of tables and such over the power of each class, but how would it affect the player? There is almost nothing about what it will mean that one class has more power than others, how you make decisions with different classes in lead and such things.

I also think that the Principal Class is somewhat unrealistic. It does not really excist in history, and it seems as it is mostly just a way to express your own level of power. Would the class be administrators or what? And couldn't these have their own agenda different from your own?

I like the anti/pro status of the people of each class, and I think I will include something like it in my next SI model.

And the minors class is something I do not like. How can you put slaves in the same group as children? I think a slave class is good, but children and such should propably just be left out of the political model.

I also don't think that the principal class should always control the largest part of the power-cake. How about numerical representation in a democracy?

Besides that I really like that the model includes a population percentage of each class. It is something I will include in my model too.

Are you using provinces in stead of cities in your game? In the model there is a lot of talk about provinces where cities are never mentioned.

I don't really find any ideas on how a fullscale revolution would work with the model? Where lots of power shifts hands within just 1 or 2 turns. Do you have any concepts in this matter? And why would a social uprising freeze a portion of the policital power rather than change it? Is there any reason for this?

I think a simple system where your orders has a chance of succes simply based on power of each class is way too inelegant compared to what could be done. How about including the UL in this? So that you have to keep a class with power's UL higher than a certain level in order to avoid a revolution.

I can't say much about the tables of power and happyness of each class. They seem fine, but play testing is needed to see if they are balanced.

I think it is a really good thing that the UL will tend towards getting higher and higher as time goes. This shows that all societies move towards their end (Hegel). But wont the system mean that after a long gaming time all classes will be extremely unhappy and you will have to bribe everyone off always? Is there any real way to make people become happy?

How does the administration efficiency work? I find a lot of tables and talk about how a certain number will be calculated, but nothing about what the number will mean for the player!

I like the cultural expectation of each class. It is pretty good, and I will propably use it in some form in my next SI model.

And I simply must ask you: Do you have an INFLATION model in your game???? How would this work? And another quick question: Are you only basing your game in antiquity? It is written a few places and I was just wondering...

The riot and revolt models are pretty fine, but I think a distinction is needed between a really powerful and a really weak class revolting. The first could become fatal for the civ where the last could propably be pretty unimportant.

I must also ask if a riot can't end with you accepting the rioters demands (more power etc)?

I think the coups are beautiful! Simply! Great concept! But couldn't they end with more power than just 10/20% changing hands? I was thinking that perhabs one class conquored 80% of the power in just one turn.

I think the religion revolt model is too simple. How about more religions or atheism? Sure, if the religion revolts and people are really religious it would create unhappyness, but if people are all atheists they wouldn't at all care. I suggest a religious revolt would just mean that the believers of that religion become unhappy. I also think that both the religion and the labour classes should be able to take the power - like the revs in Russia and Iran.

I don't like the government type names. Of cause it would just be names, but they are not at all good.

I also think that in your model it seems as if it is possible to just always buy classes off before their UL became too high.

This is all I have at the moment....

[The Joker]

Maniac:

I am not sure that SI should completely remove SE. You should still pick general things for your society, you would just have to make sure they would match the wishes of your supporting classes. Things like economics and structure would still be a part of the game. But I agree that SE should be dramatically changed.

quote: 1)I don't know where it's written, but I thought I had read the reason why you make distinctions between eg ancient and medieval agricultural wealthy lords is because they have a different way of getting rich. Then I ask: is that really so? I think of the medieval serfs as not much more as slaves, so same group.

Well, I thought of the ancient upper class as the senator class of ancient Rome. They had gotten wealthy on farms in the rural area, but these farms were all driven by slaves. The senator class themselves lived in the cities and used their time on philosophy and politics. Compared with the medieval farmers there would be quite a difference.

quote: 2)I don't really get what the information age people want to accomplish. Do they want to get rich by trading hi tech stuff? Then I would count them under the group 'Traders'.

Hmm, maybe you're right. I guess there could be a trader class. But would these be very different from the industrial bourgeoisie?

quote: 3)Wouldn't want labor unions and representative people want the same thing: better living conditions?

Well, I have decided to get rid of the "people" as a class. In stead there will be worker and farmer classes. All classes would have a # people in them, and as it should be possible to divide the power in the civ with one percentage steps in stead of the 10% ones, a democracy would simply be where all groups had as much power as they had people.

quote: 4)In countries where armies are in power, they usually also maintain the social order, so I would make them the same group as 'police'.

Well, how about the USSR? I would say that the police here had pretty much power, where the army were not that powerful.

quote: I would let this SI system only appear after you have discovered the technology advance 'Chiefdom'. By the time you have discovered that, there would already be other factions like the Religion and the Military. Therefore I wouldn't include "the people directly".

Well, Athens was a direct democracy. I agree with you that the whole thing shouldn't start untill an advance. I am not sure whether there should be a distinction between a direct and a representative democracy, but some day I will propably think of a way to make one.

quote: I'm sorry to say, but I think Individualism is just bullshit.

In the US people are extremely individualistic. They like a small public sector and would become upset if it grew. In Denmark people are not as individualistic as in the US. People here are happy for our large public sector, and would become unhappy if it was reduced to the size of the american one. The socialist system in USSR (and all the other previous gov types there) made the russian people's individualism low. Therefor, when they change to a capitalist system they are not individualistic enough to make it work properly (at least for now). This is why I think individualism must be included. Different social settings work differently with different societies.

quote: Throughout the entire history, people only revolted if conditions were so bad that they starved from hunger.

Yes, in ancient times. But the last 100 years (actually longer) political individualism has been very important. Look at the Weimar Republic: It didn't work as people weren't politically individualistic enough to make it work (of cause there are other reasons, but for a civ game this is a good enough reason). In stead people wanted to have leaders - Hitler. In other countries people were more politically individualistic, and therefor they wanted democracy.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi The Joker:

Thank you for your time taken in critiquing the old government model. The new social and government model's just went up on the Clash forum today, and when you get a chance it would probably be of value to you to check it out. Many of your objections cited above disappeared with the new model. So I will only respond to things that still exist in the new models. If you do end up critiquing the new models, can you put them in the appropriate threads on the Clash forum? I don't think they mean much to people here anyway who haven't read the model...

On chances: People can cheat if they want, there is no way we can stop them. So I don't think that's an appropriate criticism. I just like the idea that you need to plan for uncertainty. Also, without random chances, you end up like things in civ 2 where you need to micromanage to avoid crossing a threshold. This type of micromanagement can consume a large portion of your playing time...

Classes: you can tell rural upperclass from urban upperclass by the ratio of economic power in cities to the total.

Provinces: Yes, provinces are the basic economic unit in Clash. A province can have 0, or many cities.

Revolutions: Check out the new riots model, and also the threat on Revolts on the Clash forum

Inflation: no, there is no inflation model. It just seems too complicated to put into the economic system.

Riots ending: yes, if you accept the rioters demands it will generally make them stop.

-Mark

[amjayee]

Joker:

The chances is a good thing. The system should be made in a way, that the player wouldn't need to reload. This could be done like this: The revolutions etc. would grow slowly - you wouldn't just one day notice your civ has divided to two factions. The unhappiness grows slowly, and when the people want to rebel, they would start rioting, and you might be warned by your spies, that they are planning a revolution etc. Similar ways could be used in other things.

About the UL rising gradually, that doesn't mean that it rises anyway. There is always a bunch of things the people are unhappy about - if you fix those or make them better, the UL would lower. Also by giving free bread or building colosseums and such you could make the people more satisfied, as in earlier civs.

About SE/SI system, we shouldnt' completely dump SE, but put the things we like in SE to the SI system. No need to have two systems to deal with your people.

I agree that we should add as many classes as we find appropriate, with some reason. Slaves should be one class, middle class perhaps another - the bourgeoise and professionals would go to that class. Sorry, I can't think of more for now, I'm in a little hurry. I will comment more soon.

[The Joker]

To bring this back into focus:

I would like a revision of the classes we will need. I think that at the same time as each class would have a power representation in the civ (how much of the power in the civ were controlled by them), they would also a numerical representation in the civ (how many people each class has). This will mean that in stead of having a "people" class a democracy would be one where each class has as much power as they have people. Power in the state should be divided by single percentages and not by 10-percentage steps.

The new classes:

Large farmers

Small farmers

Employed farmers/copyholders

Large producers

Small producers

Workers

Traders

Administrators

Army

Religion

Intelligentsia

Organized crime

The power and the numerical representation of each class should be very closely linked with the socioeconomical model of the game. People would be employed in different professions, which would decide the numerical representation of each class. Also the difference between the large and small farmers and producers (nobility versus independant farmers and bourgeoisie versus petit beourgeoisie) would be decided by an "economic concentration" value. There would be one for farmers and one for producers, and it would be a number showing the percentage of production owned by the large farmers/producers group. So if it was e.g. 65 for the producers, then 65% of the production would be owned by the large producers and 35% of it would be owned by the small producers. This would also mean that 65% of the people working in production would be workers and 35% of them would be small producers (the small producers would own their own company and would not have employees). Certain things would effect this economic concentration, but no matter what it will tend towards rising. The player could do certain things to lower or rise it, like making land reforms and such.

The way of making decisions should also be changed from the 0.5 version. In stead of having to bargain with your supporting groups every time you do things, each thing you do will have a rating for each class. Making the public sector larger would have a positive rating on the workers and the administrators, but a negative one on the producers. This rating would propably be between -10 and 10, and would have an individual setting for each class. It would show how much that class likes what you do. If it is negative they will not like it, if it is positive they will. All things, SE changes, unit or improvement buildings would have a rating.

This rating will then work together with a modified version of Clash's Unrest Level (UL). The UL will go from 100 (very happy with the gov) to 0 (very unhappy with the gov). Each time you do a thing with a UL level attached the rating will be multiplied by the power the particualar class has in the state (if a thing has the rating -5 and the class has 40% power in the state then the result will be -2, if they only have 3% power in the state it will be -0,2) and added/substracted to the UL of that class. The lower the UL is for each class the higher is their chance of revolt/riot. Two social effect will matter here: The stability and the legislature ratings. The stability rating will determine how low the UL is allowed to be before the class will riot and how low it is allowed to be before it will revolt (the police rating will propably also have an effect on this). The legislature level will be decided as in the 0.5 version - by barganing with the people. This will determine how low the UL rating for the classes that has power in the state is allowed to be before they stop supporting you. If the leg level is very low this number will be very high (up to 95 or more), and if the leg level is very high the number will be pretty low - but always higher than the riot number.


Anyway, I'm just brainstorming at the moment in an attempt to begin a debate that should lead to the 0.6 version of the SI model. Please join in!

[amjayee]

Some thoughts over your model:

There would be relatively few large farmers, with relatively much power and wealth. This needs to be taken into account.

The class names perhaps need to be refined; the names in the list sound a little awkward, and lack "personality". What would you think if you receive a message: "An embassy from the Large Farmers of your empire wishes to see you"? The names should be interesting, even if a little "unhistorical".

Would it be too complex if the class names change over time, reflecting the historical counterparts?

The idea of having each class simply react to what you do, instead of having to negotiate with them, is good. Also, when you make a decision in the game, if some group doesn't like it, it could tell you that; if you don't want to upset them, you can cancel that, but then you would upset some other group. Of course you could, if you want, ask the groups what they think if you do this or that. There could also be a "wish list" from the different groups what they want you to do.

The unhappiness ideas look quite good. If we manage to balance the system well, it will work very realistically, but not being very complicated. It also allows us to introduce some domestic diplomatics in the game, which should be only good.

I will elaborate more on this later, now I'm in hurry.
[This message has been edited by amjayee (edited June 28, 2000).]

[The Joker]

Large farmers and producers:

Their numerical representation would propably be calculated via a simple formula. Like (for the farmers): (Number of people working in food pro) X (economic concentration for food pro) / 100 / 20.

Examble: In an early civ 90% of the people work in food pro, and the economic concentration level (EC) for food pro is 70. This will mean that 90 X 70 / 100 = 63% of the farmers would be working in large farms/for large farmers. Therefor the large farmers themselves would be 63 / 20 = 3,2% of the pop. Therefor the small farmers will be 27% of the pop, the large farmers would be 3,2% of the pop and the employed farmers/copyholder would be 63 - 3,2 = 59,8% of the pop.

The same model could be used for the producers.

The power of the large farmers/large producers would be determined by the percentage of the pop working for them. In the previous examble the large farmers would control 63% of the people - they will be very powerful. In a more industrialized civ more people would be working in production and fewer in food pro, which would make the producers more powerful and the farmers less so.

And of cause the names should be refined. The ones I posted were just to show who each class would be. The large farmers would propably be called the Nobility, the large producers the beourgeoisie and so forth.

But I dont think the names should change over time. Each class would really be the same no matter what timeframe. Changing the names would just add unneeded annoyance.

I think a class would become unhappy with what you do (that is, if they have power in the state) if their UL dropped below the level allowed by your leg level. Major changes (like declaring war to a powerful neighbor or making the public sector significantly larger than it used to be) would have large impacts on the classes UL's, and so make them upset. But of cause the effect of each thing should not be settled now and in stead be balanced via play testing.

[amjayee]

The farmer power idea is good.

Names of the classes not changing is ok for me. I was just concerned about the names... but those are things we can decide later. Also: playtesting - yes, that's where the system should be fine-tuned.

[roquijad]

Hi all,

I'm the guy in charge of the govt, social and riots models in Clash. I'm sure you can take a lot of ideas from these Clash models, so take a look at them. Suggestions to improve them are welcomed, of course. Since currently there've been discussions about merging Clash and OC3, I think it'd be good to compare Clash and OC3 approaches on this matter.

cya,
Rodrigo

[heardie]

^Bump^

I am bumping threads for all the new people, and people (such as me) who neveer bothered to read them. there is a wealth of info

[VetLegion]

Ha!

excellent thread! very good points almost codeable. I ll se what can I do about it. I remember clash had a fully designed class (rouquiad?) so I am off to their forum to dig it out.

Btw, this is the kind of stuff I was talking in population thread. These two threads speak of same thing: population and your interaction with it.

[The Joker]

Yep!

I think we should keep the more political things in this thread, and then focus the pop thread on the down to earth stuff, like getting a population where people get born, work, live and die in a way that we like.

That, too, is dificult.

But I don't think you should start coding my old SI model. I have thought a lot about this stuff since, and a lot should be changed. I really think we should have an econ and a pop model ready, before we start spending time doing this.

But of cause discussions are great!

------------------
"It would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence."
- A Clockwork Orange

GGS Website

[VetLegion]

Joker, I both agree and disagree

First, you have done great work in the original post. I have never thought of it that way!

Secondly, why do you think it should be changed? I read it and I can argue that it shouldnt

I thought to make a simple text mode demo like amjayee did with economy. I dont have much time, but why not?

[XWaste]

I really like this SI idea, especially the way it allows different groups to react to your actions ie if you start building lots of labs then the intellintsia grow in promincance and maybe you get discontent from the neglected worker class.

Here are some ideas to help discussion.

The list from joker above does a good job of splitting up where all the people would be employed - and so if you have a well balanced economy that is doing moderately well then there shouldn't be too much unrest to worry about.

What I was thinking was having this socioeconomic class system - which should equal 100% of the population (maybe you might need to add unemployed), and also having an ideological class system something like

extreme left wing
middle
extreme right wing

maybe this can change depending on the sophistication of your government so in the early game you have basically those that support your rule and those that don't. Later in the game you can get a message like 'the people have organised an environmental lobby group' and now you have a group of conservationalists to worry about.

These ideological divisions then can show how much your pop will support a war and authoritarianism such as described in the first post by Joker

This way, even with a healthy economy there will always be some level of small discont ideologically - which could conceivably be manipulated by outside nations

just some ideas anyway