You're right in that my options wouldn't all be available from day 1, but you're wrong in the fact that they expire - I don't see how the availability dates and a possibility of expiration are related.

As for your position that my system would not take into account a gradual alteration of a government, I disagree, although my system does not handle that in the way yours does. Rather than have new governmental alternatives under a governmental type, mine has a variety of alternative ways of implementing this, including laws, my bureaucracy system, as well as changing modifier effects from outside SE (tech development, etc.)

In my system the player has the option of slowly upgrading his governments impact on society. No where did I say that a player had to upgrade his government. I believe the post made it clear that a player could choose the degree of Government/Societal/and Economic impact he wanted.

Oh. My misunderstanding; your system just looks a lot like M@ni@c's. If what you say is the case, however, then your system would, in actuality, be far more difficult to program than my model, as instead of having nine different governments, you would have to program five governments that each have three subsets, and these subset governments would have to have a special relationship to one another that is not present between any government in SMAC, making your criticism of my ideas unfair. Besides, I fail to see why having a larger number of options would be so much more difficult to program than developing the SE system in the first place for SMAC (as for SMAC the system would have to be created from scratch). BTW, I disagree that having a large number of choices is complicated; rather, it takes an intricate and difficult to understand "something" for that "something" to be complex, rather than just a long "something". And even if my SE model was incredibly complex, I don't agree that complexity is something that should be shied away from anyway.

I guess my overall critism is your system is long on idealogy, uses every major governmental adjective ever created, covers every nook and cranny from agriculture to fall fashion, (ok, so there wasn't really fall fashion - can someone say SE factor 17) and reads like an outline for a history of government term paper, it doesn't seem to lend itself well to a game (certainly not to a game programmer).

At least mine has a basis in reality - yours has very little. (Did you know that Unitarianism is a religion, not a government? Explain to me why theocracies and fundamentalist governments receive a science bonus again? How are oligarchies, monarchies, and confederacies are related, and how did oligarchies manage precede monarchies? How is Populism a government? Explain Enclave governments to me, and could you tell me which significant civilizations used that?) Mine is not long on "ideology," especially in light of the fact that you have 15 (what I've termed) subset governments (which collectively have more "governmental adjectives" than mine does, some of which aren't even governmental adjectives in the first place). If my 16 modifiers would be difficult to program (when they already have 10 that had to be programmed from scratch), explain to me exactly how establishing 5 governments that have 3 subgovernments each would be easy to program when there's no previous system like that in place. (BTW, I dislike this "ease programming argument" that has been introduced, as that is not something that is in our realm to judge, and we're supposed to be saying what's fun, not what's easy to implement). I also fail to see why your simplistic and erroneous SE system would "lend itself well to a game" as it would provide nothing new for the player to explore other than having subset governments, and besides it wouldn't provide much realism to jog the players imagination. BTW, if you could explain to me which of my modifiers is extraneous, instead of just simply making fun of them, I would like that a lot. I put a significant amount of thought into each of them and I was really convinced that each of them would be necessary/would be fun...

In games people basically only look at the plusses and minuses of each system and pick the most advantageous for their own strategy. Builders go for efficiency and research, conquerors go for morale and support.

Obviously, I'm trying to add more dimension to the game than just a simple examination of pluses and minuses...

As far as laws go, I don't think I was totally opposed to the idea, I was just pointing out that everything suggested only impacted the end game. Anyone who's ever played Civ knows that by end game, the winner is already a foregone conclusion... I don't see picking a few laws up as having any impact either, but maybe they were never supposed to affect the actual outcome of the game.

One, as I said, the modern era has had an enormous amount of laws in comparison to other periods (feel free to suggest anceint laws), and two, IMO, they aren't supposed to affect the actual outcome of the game.

As far as your AI comments, I really think that Firaxis will have a vastly improved AI by the time CivIII comes out as there have been significant AI improvements since SMAC (i.e., I agree with Joker's comments on this.)

Joker:
City-states:
My city-state government is a hangover from the time I had the ideas about the player still controlling the cities somewhat in order to help scores, etc. Since I don't really have a solution for C-Ss, I didn't drop it.

Capitalism:
That wasn't stupid of me, a) because you phrased it in a way that suggested GNP or GDP, and b) the US's per capita income is $31,500 while Denmark's per capita income is $23,300, and this makes the US's per capita 35.2% higher than Denmark's (BTW, Switzerland's is $26,400). {You're right about Germany vs. Britain, I went back and checked and I had their numbers mixed.}

The discussion of whether a small or large public secor should give eco bons/pens can not at all be settled by us. Economists can't even agree on that, as there is different "shools" in economy saying the opposite of each other (advocating for a smaller public sector is the classisists, the neoclassisists and the monetarists (monetarists being less extreme than the others) and for a large public sector is the keynesians and the neokeynesians).

I'm willing to agree that we won't be able to settle the thing about an Eco bonus (although Asia and America would seem to refute you within the confines of the Cycling penalty). And, BTW, you're still wrong about the average real income for an average American (when I say this, I do NOT mean the average of Americans, I mean an actual average American). The data you're getting this from is from the eighties, period. I'm sorry, but you're just simply either wrong or outdated about this. As for state colleges, it should cost you that amount according to the rules as you aren't a state citizen - I have relatives in Boston and it would cost a few thousand dollars a year for them (a state college is less for that state's citizens). Where I am, I could go to a Texas college for $3,000-$4,000 a year, before scholarships are taken into account.

I wasn't giving the US public sector a res pen, just the very small public sector. That is because i am sure that when 90% of the kids in Brazil don't recieve any reasonable education it's bound to hurt the science output.

I wasn't saying you should get rid of the research penalty for a small public sector, I was just suggesting that you weren't very clear as to how cheap US state education is.

And for the science bon for the very large PS Biddles agrees with me on this. If you didn't want a res bon what would you want? Looking at your model a small public sector would by far be better than a large one.

I wasn't saying that you should just drop the research bonus, rather I think that it should be replaced by a Stability bonus (as there would be less dissent when the people are depending on the gov for pub-sec $) and maybe a Growth and/or Production bonus (better health for poorer sections of the citizenry, more productivity when the government is encouraging industry & productivity, etc.).

CormacMacArt:
If you're suggesting that different governments should be equally viable under different financial, political, and foreign-relations situations, then I just totally disagree with you. Besides, even if this was to be accepted as a valid premise, I still don't see how your model brings this into effect.

I sort of agree with techno, i sort of agree with joker. I still stand by the argument that a more educated society will adopt technology quicker and force resaerch forward. But techno's suggestion about stability seems valid. Maybe a combination of the two? As to an increased growth bonus, I doubt this would occur due to privatised hospitals.

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- Biddles
"Now that our life support systems are using Windows 98 nothing could possibly go wro...."
- Mars Colonizer Mission

I have read through your SE model and will comment on it later.

First is my responses:

City states:
I think it is rather pointless to continue discussing city states when we have almost no idea on how to solve it's problems. Let Firaxis do that and all hope they'll come up with a sollution.

Capitalism:
Actually, untill you wrote it, i didn't even know what GDP was. But i thought you would have realised that i wasn't suggesting that Denmark should have more trade than a country with more than 50 times as many people in it. I don't know from where you get your statistics. Possibly from the 1980s. I didn't belive in your numbers, and so i went to the World Bank to find the real ones (if you can't trust them you can't trust anyone). And i was right. The GNP per capita for Denmark is $34,890. For US it's $29,080 (so Denmarks is more than 10% larger) and for Switzerland it's $43,060. I think that settles that!

"(although Asia and America would seem to refute you within the confines of the Cycling penalty)."

Ehhhh Asia is currently getting over a huge economic crisis. And as for exambles, the richest area in the world (except for Switzerland which lives on Nazi-gold and being a place for tax-refugees and some Arabian countries which only wealthy because of oil) is Skandinavia! And that is also the area with the largest public sectors in the world. That sets things in perspective.

And for the Universities, you are probably right about it being cheaper for state citizens (as i have no idea), but keep in mind that i can go to the University of Copenhagen (by a British survey found to be better than all but about 9 or 10 american universities for $0 per year AND get just under $1000 a month to cover my living expences while i'm studying! And you can't discuss that if your parents earn $3-4 (or whatever the minimum wage is in the US) per hour they can't affort to pay $3000-4000 per year for your education.

And i still wasn't talking about US education (the res pen), i was talking about 3rd world education.

"I wasn't saying that you should just drop the research bonus, rather I think that it should be replaced by a Stability bonus (as there would be less dissent when the people are depending on the gov for pub-sec $) and maybe a Growth and/or Production bonus (better health for poorer sections of the citizenry, more productivity when the government is encouraging industry & productivity, etc.)."

I haven't included stability in my SE model, but reading it in yours makes me wonder if i should. It does sound pretty reasonable, and it would work with a large PS. But your growth and production bonus are totally out of proportion with reality. The growth bonus simply wouldn't excist, and the pro bonus would be determined by something else. Almost no countries today support industry with money (it's not allowed in the EU). Furthermore it should be determined as a law or something (like my coporatism for replacement of your fascism).

Now for your model:

Agricuture:
I'm not sure it should be in, as it is probably covered by the growth factor.

Morale:
Does your morale work like Maniacs experience? If so why not call it experience?

Enviroment:
I don't think it would determine terraforming speed.

Happyness:
I must say that i agree with Maniac - hap should determine how much it would cost to bribe other units. How much it would cost your units to be bribed would be determined by nationalism.

Legislature:
Ok (far better name than Senate, by the way). The legislature could also effect SE economy and other SE choises, not just policy objectives, if it was low.

Militarism:
I don't think units should cost the same in support.

Police:
I really like your civilian police. But i also think democratic nations should be able to use it. For instance to keep riots in an unhappy province down (your legislature would have to approve it - but if the majority of your population thought it was good then it could be done - like in Serbia).

Relations:
Relations should only affect international trade, not intranational.

A major mistake i think you have made is, that you have too many restrictions on what you can do with different SE choises. Why shouldn't capitalistic despotism be possible? there's nothin saying it shouldn't. I think all governments should be possible with all economic and sructural types. I would like to have as much freedom in choosing the government i like as possible. And some of your restrictions is actually opposite reality. E.g. that laissez faire shouldn't be possible with absolutism. Many European countries used both in the early 19th century!

Republic:
I think it is a pretty narrow definition, but a good one, none the less. So i'll include it in mine too.

I think you should include a parliamental monarchy, with a monarch as government and a legislature elected by the people. It was used a lot by European countries in the early days of modern democracy.

Authoritarian:
I don't like this. My concept with oligarchy was to portray a lot of different - also modern - gov types. And also a lot of different authoritarian govs (the Nazis being different from USSR could be portrayed by the oliogarchy). An authoritarian state would simply be an oligarchic one with low freedom of speech, low privacy and high propaganda.

Somewhere you have written "none" under centralization options for gov types. What does this mean?

Federal:
You can easily have a nondemocratic federation.

Centralized and Unitary:
It shouldn't have anything to do with cycling.

BTW i like Unitary and will include it in my model.

Economics:
I really miss something in between commercial bartering and manorialism. Many countries had money, so why not include a Currency economic type? I would also like an economic type portreaying the special economic and social perspectives of city states (what i have called City state Economics).

Autarky:
I would give it more eco pens, and as there is no trade there can be no economic cycling (+?cyc).

Commercial bartering:
Again the Greeks and Romans had a very developed currency system.

Fascism:
I don't think this is enough for an economic choise of it's own, a´s it is capitalism in many ways except with the very large coorporations. I have therefor made it an option within capitalism called corporatism (as that's the correct word for it). Also, you can hae democratic corporatism (fascist economics). It would simply be the gov that supports the large companies.

Enviromentalism:
It could also give a rel bonus as people like those who don't pollute. This should be determined by the enviromental status of the other civilizations.

Criminal rights:
I don't think this is big enough to be a law.

Overall it's a very good model. Also we are getting closer and closer to each other which is very good.

As for your very important last note i think it is more or less impossible to summarize our models, as it would simply include the name of a choise and what it would give. And for me that's not important, as the bons and pens are gonna be changed anyway for playability. The important thing is the explanation for all the choises and the explanation of why it would give bons and pens something like these...

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- Biddles
"Now that our life support systems are using Windows 98 nothing could possibly go wro...."
- Mars Colonizer Mission

I hope this isn't turning into a personnal thing between you and me. I actually like receiving your inputs and fielding your questions. So with all that said, let me start responding to a few of your comments.

You wanted to know which of your SE choices I felt were extraneous, well here's what I would consider dropping out:
Environmental: Industrial output has more impact on pollution and waste than what kind of government you have. The planet rating in SMAC made sense since the planet was rising up against you in the form of fungal growth and mind worm attacks.
Agriculture: Again, this is more a technology driven field. American farmer produce what they do because they have the equipment and technology to do it. They obviously aren't in it for the money or because the government requires them to produce. SE models really don't affect someones ability to puts seeds in the ground and watch them grow. The distribution of food could be impacted by SE choices I suppose, but I would consider that part of the economic system than anything else.
Cycling: I understand why you put it in, but I think the random events driver built into the game supplies adequate cycling for my taste. Stock market crashes happen in SMAC often enough.
Relations: Seems redundant with Diplomacy in my opinion.
Nationalism: More of a SE choice under policy objectives (societal values) in my opinion. Growth usually already includes emmigration, although probably not under your system.
Militarism: Again, more of a societal value thing in my opinion.
Stability: I sort of understand why this was put in, but I don't see any controls put into your system that would allow one to manage the stability. Could I build up my police (military) force to increase stability, increase luxuries, what's the counter for players to use if they choose a government which is deemed by you to exhibit poor stability ratings over history?
Happiness: I think the luxeries rating worked fine on this. While I agree that some governmental systems prize their individual citizens rights more than others and therefore would theoretically have happier citizens, I don't think it needs to be it's own SE factor. Just give governments that would give greater freedoms to its citizens an extra happy citizen per city instead. Naturally, you'll have a wordy explanation to justify why all these factors are integral to you system dynamic, but if you're happy with your system, I'm happy. No need to explain why I'm wrong on this and you're right - we have philosophical differences on game mechanics and that's fine.

You said that your system is more realistic and that mine doesn't even to attempt to do so. If realistic means more historically based, you are absolutely correct. We are in complete agreement. I hope I never implied that it was otherwise. The reason I picked the system I did was so that you could adopt any governmental system you wanted from the beginning and expand on it over time (to include eventually adding societal values and economic values that could also improve over time). I just like the idea of having my caveman in 4000 BC decide he wants to promote the idea of representative government from day 1 without the problem of throwing the game out of balance (like I said before, in Civ I or II if you could have picked democracy early, you would have, but the game mechanics would have suffered). You would of course state that there were no democracies in 4000 BC. I would state that you can't prove this. There may very well have been ancient democracies back then, but their societal model was destroyed by less enlightened, but more militant factions which didn't keep historical records on who they were tyranically crushing. I also said that the adjectives I used to describe the primitive, advanced, and modern forms of government that I used were not Webster's Dictionary correct. The Joker noticed this many days ago. I said he was correct in noticing this fact then, I say you are correct in noticing that fact now.

We're splitting hairs over the meaning of governmental expiration. I don't want to discuss this any further as it is a meaningless debate. I'll just say that if I'm using your system, and I decide my dictorship is too primitive and I just discovered the tech that will allow me to upgrade to something I feel is better, then for all intents and purposes my dictatorship is expired by any other term. If you disagree, that's fine by me.

You also mentioned that you felt my 15 sub-set governments would be more difficult to program for. Either I didn't explain myself well enough or you weren't reading close enough. My system only has 5 governments - Military, Unitarian, Spiritualist, Representative, Elitist. The 3 sub sets are primitive, advanced, modern. I gave them other names for the Hell of it. It just seemed more interesting to have a cultist, theocratic, fundamentalist government than to have a Primitive spiritualist, Advanced spiritualist, and Modern spiritualist government. By any other names 6 of one is half dozen of the other. I thought I made it clear that when programming the AI for diplomacy purposes, the primitive, advanced, modern aspects would be dropped, therefore allowing the AI with a more advanced form of the same government to recognize he was dealing with a nation that shared its basic values.

The reason I mentioned a sliding scale for your system was that the game wouldn't function any other way that I can see. If I were programming you system, I would have to list your governments, and other SE factors, rate them 1-X (depending on # of choices) and have them organized from most leftist (all the 1's) to most right wing (high numbers). After looking at the mix of choices I'd then add up the number. Leftist govs with leftist policies would alway have a low number, right wind govs with right wing policies would always be high. When a pair of civs met and that number was within a range of say 3-4 points, then the civs would be virually identical and make alliances, trade pacts, and so on. As those numbers continued to slide apart it would determine how the diplomacy would work out. The flaw in this system would be when radical left with radical right ideas were mixed you could fake out a computer into thinking your civ was actually moderate. I suppose you could program a check to make sure that on each SE category was within a certain range as well though.

Since you've offered no solution as to why a nation with Direct democracy wouldn't decide to crush a civ with True democracy for not having the same political beliefs, I pointed out that it would be more difficult to program since computers don't recognize democracy, only "is equal to" and "does not equal". True democracy does not equal direct democracy, therefore what's to make the AI believe they shouldn't be attacking each other. You remember from SMAC how the Spartans got ticked if you had any other social choice other than Power, and the Believers went off because you weren't Fundamentalist. To assume that the company that made SMAC is going to suddenly recode it's entire model is an assumption I'm not willng to make. I merely ask the question, how will your civs interact (computer AI wise) with so many options and no way there is likely to ever be a perfect match between civs SE wise?

As for the plus and minus issue, I stand by my argument that this is a game and not a term paper. A "what do I get with this option" means more to me than "what do they mean with this option". On the SMAC SE screen you had choices. They didn't bother to describe what each choice meant, they merely pointed out what factors were improved by coloring them green and what factors were degraded by coloring them red. That was good enough for me and good enough for just about everyone else. Whatever the game manual said regarding the definition of Police State, Fundamentalist, or Democracy I frankly don't care. All I know is a Green, Wealth, Democracy combination kicks butt for my style of play because I prefer the plusses from that system and can live with the minuses. What political preferences I keep in "the Real World" are irrelevant to the game. For others this may not be the case, but what choices are ultimately the best for SMAC is the topic of a totally different discussion.

As for why my spiritual government (not to be confused with spiritual social values) had the research bonus, it's rather simple. Military was my pro morale - anti econ gov, Unitarian was my pro industry - anti efficiency gov, Representative was my pro efficiency - anti morale gov, elitist was the moderately pro industry, moderately pro efficiency - anti research gov, and that left Spiritual to be my pro research - anti -industry gov. I simply justified it by using the historical context that religious institutions and missionaries, in whatever form and whatever religious principles, have for the majority of world history been responsible for teaching reading and writing and promoting education than any other governmental form. Even today, religious schools tend to graduate more educated and well rounded students than the public school systems (in the United States most people acknowledge this fact). I made the spiritual societal value the system that breeds distrust of secular teaching and intolerance for the ideals of others. As I've said before, I view countries like Iran to be elitist (a strong upper class ruling an uneducated lower class - my definition of elitist) with strong spiritual social values, not a spiritualist government.

In a nut shell, my philosphy on games is that game mechanics to include play balance is more important than what you consider realism (I'll explain in more detail why I think your historical model is no more realistic than any other). I could care less that in reality, system A is better than system B and here are some historical examples to prove it. Look at Saudi Arabia, their country is so rich that their citizens don't have to do a freakin' thing (and often take advantage of their unique situation). As a Phillopino contractor over there told me one day, the Saudi's own the hotels, they hire an American to manage the hotels, they hire TCN's (third country nationals) to work in the hotels, and they hire a Phillipino to manage the TCN's. The Saudi's have access to the most modern facilities and technology on the planet. Does that mean that monarchies that support strong spiritual social values produce a better standard of living for its citizens than any other social model?

To look at history and say that governmental SE choices were the driving factors to successful national development is an theory that wise men could argue is not an absolute truism. An equally valid historical argument could be made that access to resources, avoidance of conflict with hostile neighbors, and dumb luck avoiding plague and other disasters has as much to do with the successful historical development of a nation than any governmental choice.

For this reason, I don't put much stock into someone telling me that their SE model for democracy is any more reality based than my arbitrary SE model. I know for a fact I can find some historical precedent for any SE factor bonus I applied to any SE category just as you have done. I'm just not as interested with the pretentiousness of it all. With enough resources, a little luck, and/or the right charismatic leader, a person can find some historical precedent for any governmental system being better at producing some SE outcome than another.

One can always look at a regions location, resources, and quality of its leadership to find examples of successful governmental programs. The fact that Communism in Russia didn't produce the agricultural output of the US could be reasoned as a byproduct of government, or it could be reasoned as a byproduct of climate and simple allocation of technology (in game terms, as the Soviets researched improved chemical weapons, the US researched improved chemical fertilizers and genetically engineered plants).

As always, I look forward to your further questions and comments (actually from you or anyone else), and as always, we probably won't agree.

Later,

Hmmmm, it may take awhile to fully critique your SE system since I'll progressively have more questions on how the mechanics work.

If I'm reading your system right, the player will make SE decisions during the game that will effect the level of control the player will have over certain aspects of production, military conflict, research choices, the tax/luxury mix, and diplomacy. Since the more control you (the player) exercises will produce better stategic efficiency, it'll have to be balanced by the fact that the more control you exercise, the more unhappy and less productive the people will be. Am I still summarizing the system correctly or am I getting off base?

As the computer will control some aspects empire management (like trade/taxes/diplomacy/declarations of war)based on your SE choices the player will, to a certain extent, have to make some concessions to the AI in order to function under his chosen form of government. Again, you'll have to correct me if I'm wrong. Since there are no plusses and minuses shown, the player will have to be mindful of his people to see that production, research, and so on isn't stagnating. If the player notices parts of the nation not functioning up to his expectations, he'll have to modify his policies to bring the nation back in line. Under a military type government, he'd send more troops in to get people back to work ("the beatings will continue until productivity, research, and morale improves"), under a representative government he'd have to reduce taxes (in game terms, allow his cities to keep more of what they earn) to make his citizens happier and therefore more productive/resourceful.

Again, you'll have to ping me if at some point I'm misrepresenting your SE system. Under this system, I would basically list all the no kidding options a player potentially has control over (decision points), then break it down as to whether the AI or the player would have control over it. This would be done under the assumption that player not giving the citizens (computer) what they want would make them unhappy over time, and therefore, less productive.

Therefore, with all that said and done, I would look at the control issue this way:

a. Player control: The AI will determine what the goals of the nation should be based on the players SE choices. Each time the player successfully matches what the AI has determined to be the correct course of action, that ability is improved (faster production, faster research, higher morale, and so on). When the player does not correctly meet his citizens needs (as determined by the AI), then that ability is degraded (slower production, slower research, lower morale).
b. Computer control: The computer will make the decision based on what it feels is most appropriate considering the SE choices made by the player. As long as the player remains hands off then that ability is improved. When the player overrules, a serious hit to that abiity is received.
c. Player and Computer shared control: The AI proposes a direction and the player approves/disapproves. When the player approves, that ability is improved only a little bit. When the player disapproves, the ability is degraded only a little bit. In game mechanics terms, instead of a 10 to -10 scale, we'll go to a 5 to -5 scale. I'd assume that each move up or down on the scale brings 5% or so improvement/ penalties.

So what decisions can be impacted in this regard? I would submit the following list for example purposes:

Research, City Production, Declaring War, Approving Trade treaties, Level of Taxation, Level of Luxuries, Societal values, Economic Models.

That list isn't all inclusive, but it's a start. Since I don't want to make it look like I'm completely rewriting your SE system, I'll give an example of how I see implementation taking place.

Research - The AI will determine what it feels is the appropriate tech based on what the needs of the nations are. That is, if at war it'll choose a military tech, if at peace, city infrastructure, if starving, agricultural tech, and so on. If the human player controls the direction of research and successfully picks what the computer picks, his citizens will research the tech faster (an improvement on that 10 to -10 scale). If the computer controls the direction of tech, it'll research it faster and pick it automatically (slowly moving toward that high 10 on the hidden scale). For the middle ground option, the computer proposes a tech and the player approves or disapproves. If he approves, a slight boost is made on a revised 5 to -5 scale, if he disapproves, a slight degradation is made on the same 5 to -5 scale.

Now the question becomes, where does govermental choice fit into the picture? Well, here's an example: A military government would have the following AI attributes: Picks military tech first unless people are starving or the government can't afford upkeep of facilities. Always constructs the maximum number of military facilities and troops available before producing other city improvements. When encountering a weak neighbor, prefers war to trade. Later in the game prefers social models that promote expansion and prefers economic models that emphasize self sufficiency over extensive trade with others. How would a military government be implemented, the player in a military government would have more control (being at the top of the chain of command). This would give the player the advantage of getting what he wants. It would hurt the player in the fact that if he wasn't good at role playing the military style of play (always proposing trade treaties, even with "weak" civs, always building market places and libraries instead of barracks, and so on) his generals would accuse him of being soft and start rebelling. Here's how I'd write up a military government:

Research (player picks)
City Production (player picks)
Tax Level (player picks)
Luxuries Level (player picks)
Declaring War (player picks)
Trade Treaties (player picks)
Social Values (computer picks)
Economic Model (computer picks)

Here's another example, a representative government would seek balance, therefore the AI would prefer researching a wide variety of techs keeping military tech, growth tech, infrastructure tech, and so on at about the same technology level. Peaceful negotiations with neighbors would be the preferred diplomacy option over war. Taxes would only be enough to fund basic infrasture, production would be based on social and economic SE choices, but would be geared to promote a wide variety of services (libraries, market places, aquaducts, city walls, and so on). How would this effect game mechanics, most choices would include shared responsibility with the AI, therefore the representative government would never become too powerful or to weak in any abiity (since it would be on that 5 to -5 scale instead of the 10 to -10 scale). Here's how I'd write up representative government:

Research (shared)
City Production (shared)
Tax Level (computer picks)
Luxuries Level (computer picks)
Declaring War (shared)
Trade Treaties (shared)
Social Values (player picks)
Economic Model (player picks)

The challenge of this system would be programming the AI scripts for each system. Social and economic models would cause adjustments to the script and perhaps only effect one dicision point or two within any government system. If it needs to be said, there should never be a system that allows the computer to control everything, where the player's only ability is to overrule the computer's decisions.

Programming the computer AI would also be a challenge. Perhaps difficulty levels would determine the maximum efficiency a computer could attain since he could run his system up to maximum efficiency quite quickly as it would never be at odds with itself (the only way I proposed for degrading effectiveness).

With all that said and done, the challenge of getting this system up and running would be to construct an ample supply of decision points and then creating governmental choices that varied the degree of computer vs. player control at each of these points. Then you'd have to determine how each social choice would impact the AI scripts on taxes, luxuries, research goals, production, war, and trade, and determine how each economic models would impact the AI scripts as well. It could even be that certain Gov, Soc, Econ SE choices automatically limited, or granted bonueses too, the level of efficiency to each attribute.

I don't want to further bastardize your SE system - especially if I'm not implementing it the way you would. Your SE system is rather radical in that it discounts the plus and minus system as absolutes and is more focused on making your citizens (as controlled by the AI) happy and productive based on player decisions. To a certain extent, it would require more role playing.

If you give me more concrete details on how exactly you see AI scripts being written and how the players actions would impact the actual mechanics (hidden plusses and minues in this case) I could more readily give a more detailed opinion on the system. Just pinging those ideas above made me realize it wouldn't be an easy system to create since the number of actual decision points in a civ game are rather limited. These decision points could be expanded or tempered by having "Leader discretionary funds" where a certain amount of taxes are set aside for the leader of a nation to do with as he pleases without the approval or watchful eye of the AI. There could even be public vs. private industry, where the player (leader) controlled the public factories to build facilities and military units he wanted and the computer contolled his own factories to produce what it saw fit.

Either way, the real trick is predicting how players would "game" the system and having checks and balances built into it to make sure things weren't too easy.

Later,

Joker:
" didn't belive in your numbers, and so i went to the World Bank to find the real ones (if you can't trust them you can't trust anyone). And i was right. The GNP per capita for Denmark is $34,890. For US it's $29,080 (so Denmarks is more than 10% larger) and for Switzerland it's $43,060. I think that settles that!"/I]

I went to the World Bank's website, and you're right that it gives that data, but there's a quirk between our respective positions - my "per capita" income is GDP per capita, not GNP (and is obtained from the online World Factbook, BTW). Note that the World Bank specifically says "GNP per capita," not merely "per capita." If someone says "per capita," it usually means the GDP per capita, as GDP is what is normally used (as opposed to GNP). I don't really know what the actual substantive difference is between the meanings of those two statistics, and I have a hunch, but I won't post it since I'm not a hundred percent sure it's right. I don't even remember what this stemmed from off the top of my head, anyway. I hope [i]that will now reconcile our positions.

"Ehhhh Asia is currently getting over a huge economic crisis. And as for exambles, the richest area in the world... is Skandinavia! And that is also the area with the largest public sectors in the world. That sets things in perspective."

Even though Asia is having a recession, it's economy is still enormous - Japan's economy is still the third largest in the world, despite its recession. Moreover, the International Institute for Management Development ranked the US (followed by #2, Singapore, an Asian country) as the most competitive economy in the world marketplace as it's controlling inflation to a remarkable degree and capitalizes on technology (the rankings were based 288 criteria ranging from adaptiveness and GDP to management efficiency), although Finland did rank 3rd (it was beat by Singapore, which is in recession as you said, though...). Also, if Scandinavia is the wealthiest region in the world, why are there no Scandinavian countries on the G8? Why would the British ambassador phrase a complaint about the US this way (this is from CNN), "It is wrong for the wealthiest country in the world to not pay its debts (to the UN)(?)"

About the universities in America, you're not really correct, as if a family was on minimum wage, they would qualify for a financial scholarship - scholarships are so abundant and readily available. I'm sorry, but someone can just as easily obtain a higher education here as anywhere else, and therefore I still don't see a justification for a research bonus.

But your growth and production bonus are totally out of proportion with reality. The growth bonus simply wouldn't excist, and the pro bonus would be determined by something else. Almost no countries today support industry with money (it's not allowed in the EU).
I suggested a growth bonus as I thought you said healthcare is so readily available and cheap in you country. Is this not the case? As for the production bonus, you really don't subsidize your industries through incentives, specialized tax breaks, governmental advertisements and the like? I didn't mean a direct payment or anything, just indirect support of industries...

About my model, I think I'm going to jot down the suggestions of yours that I like and eventually make a v2.1 or something.

Agriculture: M@ni@c's Production bonus (IIRC) affected both industrial production and agricultural output, and I separated the two. I am very much in favor of keeping this modifier, and one only needs to look at the USSR to Russia Federation change to see why.

Morale: My morale is different from M@ni@c's as his affected the combat experience of the troops, something that I do not think that is really affected by SE - if a government changed from Democracy to a more dictatorial regime, how would the actual experience of the troops change? Wouldn't the thing that actually would be changed be their morale? Using a more SMAC-like system, troop's ratings (i.e., green vs. veteran, etc.) reflects both their morale and their experience, as it can improve both through governmental change and through combat, something which I prefer (though recognize could use improvements).

Environmentalism: This is one specific area where I wanted balance more than realism. Without the terraforming affects, this really wouldn't be a modifier worth paying attention to. Besides, there are two alternative points to be made. First, the terraforming rates would also naturally be affectable through means other than SE. Second, it isn't all that hard to come up with a generalized explanation - environmental countries would have a broader understanding of the natural processes and their underlying principles, etc.

Happiness: I don't see how the happiness modifier would affect the cost of foriegn units, as what they really would be paying attention to would be their own nationalism/patriotism/happiness, not the happiness of another country's citizens (as that would have been all they experienced). In spite of this, I agree that it should be moved to the Nationalism modifier.

Legislature: I agree, although as I said in the introduction, I really think that it is something that Firaxis needs to look at before specifics are laid down.

Militarism: I agree here as well, but I do think their support still should be affectable via Social Engineering.

Police: That's a good idea, but it's a detail and I'm inclined to let Firaxis work out the specific details.

Relations: Hmmm... I always though that the Commerce rating in SMAC only did affect international commerce. Was I wrong?

I will expand Laissez-faire to the Monarchy, Oligarchy, and Absolutism governments - you are quite right the example you provided. However, I am unwilling to eliminate this aspect altogether. It is entirely unrealistic to say, for example, that a democracy could have a socialistic fuedalism.

Republic: Given the long debate before, I am very astonished and rather encouraged with this.

Parliamentary Monarchies: I didn't include this as a separate option as in modern times, Parliamentary monarchies really are representative democracies in disguise, as the monarch usually serves as Chief of State (as opposed to the Chief Executive/Legislator role), and as such is really a fidurehead. In retrospect, however, I see this wasn't always the case in the past, and I think I'll include it as a subset of Monarchy (maybe I should even unite parliamentary monarchy, monarchy, and absolutism into the same government as for the oligarchy government?)

Authoritarian: I totally disagree with you on this one. This is simply a broad term for dictatorships or totalitarian states, and I also disagree that the Nazi regime could be described as a Corporate Oligarchy. I suggest that you read The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945 by Michael Burleigh of the London School of Economics and Political Science and co-authored by Professor Wolfgang Wippermann of Freie Universitat in Berlin, which is an analysis of politics and economics within the Third Reich. My Fascism option is closely based on that book and discussions about Fascism with some of my teachers.

I thought I got rid of the "None" comment (a relic from the time I wanted a default w/ no modifiers a la SMAC). I don't know what the default should be, though.

Federal: Not really, as imbued into federalism is the idea that the centralized authority should not have any direct control over local affairs. Although I might agree, in theory, that such a system could work under a dictatorship, I am not aware of any historical examples of this even being attempted, and IMHO, such a system would be unworkable, for two reasons. First of all, a federal system requires a set of higher laws (a constitution) to delegate the powers of the national and local governments, and this is in conflict with the very idea of a dictatorship or an oligarchy. Also, if a state governor or whomever decided he/she didn't like the dictator, and really was protected by a constitutional delegation of powers, he/she could begin to use their authority to counteract the national laws as established by the dictator or whatever.

Centralized and Unitary: I disagree. Countries with Unitary, for example much of Europe, have much lower economic cycling effects IMO. I.e., most of the EU as a whole is Unitary and has much less economic cycling than other locations. Also, China and Japan, with their Unitary systems of administration, has weathered the bad Asian financial climate much better than some of its neighbors, such as the Philippines, as they can more directly enact stabilizing legislation.

Economics: After extolling the virtues of having barter and currency systems be separate, it is highly embarrassing for me to have consistently overlooked the ommission of an ancient currency option. Thank you for pointing out this horrific oversight, which I will correct. Thinking back, I probably put the Greeks and Romans on the Barter list (and omitted a Currency option in the first place) as their currency really wasn't that developed and amounted to bartering a precious metal in exchange for another commodity. Since then, of course, my thinking has changed, but apparently my model did not. This is such an embarrassing oversight!

Autarky: I was against having such a heavy penalty on an early civilization, but if you think so, I'll include it.

Fascism: You need to brush up on Fascism. It has nothing to do with capitalism, and its "corporations" are thinly veiled arms of the monopolistic government. Corporatism would apply for a group of multiple corporations, more dominating the government than vice-versa, making it the near opposite when viewed from a corporation control viewpoint.

Environmentalism: I didn't think about it that way, but I suspect it would be more likely for people to concentrate their hatred of other countries' bad actions than to celebrate others' achievements.

Criminal Rights is fundamental to law, especially if a criminal model is adopted. There's no way I'm dropping it.

BTW, thanks for your ending compliment. I agree that it's good that our models are becoming more and more alike, as that will give our ideas more influence when Firaxis considers them (if they ever do).

Lynch:
I also hope this isn't becoming personal between us, although I will say that your last post to me was more civil and less sarcastic in the beginning, and I appreciate that bit.

"Naturally, you'll have a wordy explanation to justify why all these factors are integral to you system dynamic, but if you're happy with your system, I'm happy. No need to explain why I'm wrong on this and you're right - we have philosophical differences on game mechanics and that's fine."

Well, if you're serious about that, then I won't explain everything, except to address the pressing point about Agriculture. If you read carefully, you would see that, like Cycling, Relations and a few others, it is not exclusively affected by SE, but also by technology, etc. Some aspects of the game should be affected be a broad range of factors, including SE and technology. BTW, thanks for being so accepting on this point.

Let me make the comment now that I am not going to address any computer-programming issues. You said earlier that you don't program, and I don't program anything really complicated, and therefore we would just be arguing in ignorance, which is something that I'm not willing to do.

If you want representative democracies in 4000 BC in your model that's fine, but do not say that my proposal "reads like a history government term paper." BTW, if pressed, I could prove that no representative democracies existed back then, provided there are no lost continents or something (I am a BIG history buff).

Before commenting on your "sliding scale" idea of my model, I would like to say that I fail to see why diplomacy in CivIII would or should be SE-option driven a la SMAC. I think this should be just one aspect of it, not the whole pie as in SMAC. Now, I totally disagree with the idea that a leftists vs. right-wings would have to be the basis for my model's implementation. If this was the basis on which my model was implemented, I would be truly upset, as that is a perversion of it.

"Since you've offered no solution as to why a nation with Direct democracy wouldn't decide to crush a civ with True democracy for not having the same political beliefs, I pointed out that it would be more difficult to program since computers don't recognize democracy, only 'is equal to' and 'does not equal'."

How about, Direct Democracies and Representative Democracies would be specifically programmed to like one another?!? Sometimes the direct solution is the best, not to mention the most logical and the easiest to implement. I still am opposed to having diplomacy based on the SMAC method. Would two expansionary dictatorships love each other simply b/c they had one anothers' governments and objectives? NO! Quite the opposite, in that case. Judt like I don't see how a Believer Fundamentalism and a Gaian Fundamentalism would get along.

An SE panel using my system wouldn't have explanations either, I just simply provided them for the benefit of the reader of the post, as opposed to simply posting bonuses and penalties without regard to the reader's confusion. My plusses and minuses are there as well, I just have logical reasons for what they are and I provided those reasons. This is in contrast to your Spiritual government's research ratings, and your reasons for having them. If you needed a pro-research government, why didn't you create a new one? (BTW, were you in the US, your views of missionaries would be considered, gently put, politically incorrect. That incorrectness aside, I also disagree with the historical foundations for such an argument. Although in some places missionaries did bring writing etc., most places had already developed it [e.g., the Aztecs, May] or were coming close [e.g., the Inca], and anyway, I fail to see what misionaries have to do with government.) I also disagree with you religious universities argument. The top universities in the US, i.e., Harvard, CIT, MIT, Princeton, Yale, are all secular. Harvard, MIT, and Stanford, BTW, have the highest acedemic reputations (4.9s out of 5.0), and they are secular (the #s are given by US News & World Report).

As for Saudi Arabia, their wealth would derive itself from a resource concentration, which would have to be brought about by a Terrain/whatever Thread implementation and has very, very, very little to do with their socioligical structure.

[i]
"To look at history and say that governmental SE choices were the driving factors to successful national development is an theory that wise men could argue is not an absolute truism. An equally valid historical argument could be made that access to resources, avoidance of conflict with hostile neighbors, and dumb luck avoiding plague and other disasters has as much to do with the successful historical development of a nation than any governmental choice."

I actually agree with that, but you should avoid the fallacy that governmental types, organizational types, and most importantly economic types, have little impact on a civilization's success. I happen to subscribe to the school of thought that economics (with the occassional exception of religion) is the driving force of mankind's history. However, of course, this is the SE thread, not the economics thread.

You say that you know you could find a historical basis for your bonuses and minuses. I doubt it, but even if you could, there would be the flaw that what ought to be done to have a historical foundation is that you start with the actual real-world effects of the government and say "what effect does this have in terms of my modifiers?" Otherwise, there will always be flaws and inconsistencies in trying a historical argument for you bons/pens. In other words, you could try to provide a historical argument for your designs, but I wouldn't recommend trying, as it would be easily undermined (as your silly missionaries and universities arguments were).

As for the agricultural output of Russia, how do you then explain the enormous food availability (despite high prices) that resulted when it abandoned its previous economic system in favor of trying to start capitalism? The Russian economic system did in fact impact, not the maximum possible agricultural output, but rather the actual amount of food that was produced and distributed and therefore available for consumption.

I say we simply move this discussion to Apolyton and continue it there. Then we can also get new ideas from all the people posting over there. Are you with me on this? Besides this i think i will also follow Technos proposal and simply post my SE version 2.1 (with a few new ideas compared to 2.0) to Firaxis. I sure hope they actually read it and send it to the game designers.

Techno:

I will answer all your questions at Apolyton, as it is pointless to post them here.