Talk Elections

This doesn't have to do with what type of government we're using, but does anyone else think it may be fun to introduce a war and conflict aspect to the game? We've had a lot of silly revolutions, civil wars and what not in the past that had no consequences.

Perhaps, if we reduced the number of regions to four, we could find a way for the regions to wage war against each other to decide who survives, for starters. However, wars would not be taken lightly and there would have to a very specific set of rules for how they proceed and how they would actually start.

Well, that may not be such a bad idea, but how will they work? In a forum, it would be less of a war and more of a competition. Maybe we should wage war against outside countries. That would add a whole new dimension to the game. We could have generals and an army. It would also be a good topic to debate upon come election time.

Why, yes, yes I do, which is exactly why I proposed abolishing the national government.  But no one seemed to listen.

Listening now....

Perhaps we could use some type of game like Risk to wage war.

Or, better yet, STARCRAFT!

It sounds like a good idea on paper, but will it work?

I've done war simulations and stuff in other forum or internet games like Atlasia, and they always end up horribly, with one side or the other claiming the other side cheated or is acting unfairly or is breaking the rules, etc. and then everyone hates each other and leaves.

Like that doesn't happen in Atlasia already! ;)

I think this causes unneeded conflict between members. You think there is tension now...

War requires a Game Moderator, and no one ever wants to be Game Moderator, which is why the position was left vacant, abolished, reestablished, and left vacant again (and abolished again? Not sure). Anything which requires a Game Moderator is clearly nonviable.

Yeah, sadly.  That was the biggest flaw in my own plan.

I don't think a permanent GM is necessary to have war.

I like the idea. In the real world there is conflict, so too should there be the possibility for conflict in Atlasia.

Nann.

These are some general rules I would put on any war:
-The two warring parties would have to agree on a neutral third party to serve as "moderator"
-If they cannot agree upon a neutral moderator, then no war shall occur
-The neutral moderator would determine what is fair--for example, if a region has twice as many people as another, then it should surely have a larger army.
-They would then have to agree upon how they would act out their war. Would they do it through a game of Risk, or perhaps a game of Starcraft?
-They would also have to agree what in particular they're fighting over. Perhaps control of a state, for example.

Sounds like a good idea in theory, but I don't know if it would work out well in practice.

^ Perhaps we could try it once and see how it turns out before we make it a permanent part of the game.

Okay. Would we have to do this during the constitutional convention?

Just a comment from the observer of this that I am:

That's funny to see that even when there is no reason to go at war, humans wants it! ;)

That said you're right, in a political simulation that is a point to take in consideration, but well, for that the thing has a real meaning, a war must have a sens, even for a funny political simulation, that gives more interest to the thing.

For it to have a sens, it has, like in the real life, to be an option you take to reach a goal, a goal that would have some sens in the political simulation.

For example, in Age of Empires, missions are determined, when you play that game which is also a kind of "political simulation", ok in very simplistic, you know what are your goal, and here war is almost always the solution.

What I mean in short is that I find it weird to want to make war in order to make war, I think it has more sens when it has a goal understood in the political simulation.

But well, that's just a commentary from the outside, and maybe all of you have already taken this aspect in count.

In fact you need to make a new video game to complete Atlasia.

It's just that we've already had "wars" and "revolutions," but simply not had any process to have them play out.

And interestingly enough, I think using a RTS game like Age of Empires, Starcraft, or Warcraft would be a fun way to simulate a battle... :)