Governments- a Comprehensive list and discriptions

[IConrad]

I guess it all depends on just how much we want to allow some races to be mechanically different from the others.

It would be interesting, in my mind, to allow some species to have differing social organization options available to them than others. I'm here assuming that each race would have a "preferred" social medium.

For example; the race I suggested a while back -- the "intelligent ant colonies" -- would probably work better under a socialist than a capitalist system, but would also probably work better under a democratic than a dictatorial system. (Eusocial species are actually organized from the bottom up rather than the other way around. This could presumably propagate all the way up). This would mean that such critters would get penalties if their social organization was anything //other// than Democratic/Socialist/Etc.

That's food for thought right there. Do we want to implement such a system, or does it violate the KISS rule? It would be interesting -- but... I don't know how the rest of the government modelling thing will work with the unrest standards.

[Tortanick]

wouldn't ant colonies be: one individual = one colony? So how a colony organises internally won't actually be that important.

[Nighthawk]

[*] Evolution (originally; the Catholic Church now officially accepts the scientific Theory of Evolution, though Evangelical Protestants do not.)

Finally someone else realizes that. I'm a devout Catholic and I follow evolution (and the big bang). Maybe a Theocracy might not have a research penalty?

[IConrad]

wouldn't ant colonies be: one individual = one colony? So how a colony organises internally won't actually be that important.

Look through the Eusocial thread I put up a while back.

Basically, your statement is more or less correct -- but the idea is that a Eusocial "intelligence" would have far less of a sense of individual self, being broken up into multiple parts already. After all -- what happens when two 'ant colonies' merge into one (which has been known to happen IRL).

Finally someone else realizes that. I'm a devout Catholic and I follow evolution (and the big bang). Maybe a Theocracy might not have a research penalty?

As an atheist, I'm trying very hard not to flamebait here. But I cannot concur with that sentiment. It took the Catholic Church centuries to come to that position; and even now there's resistance alongside the concept of Intelligent Design within the Catholic Church.

Again -- it explicitly //was// the Catholic Church which rejected the Vacuum and the Copernican solar model. Each of these advances came from "the secular sector" and were suppressed by the Church on ideological grounds, during the time of the Churches' Theocratic height. Whenever religions rule society, technologies and ideas are rejected or approved based on the merit of how they are reconcilable with the religion. This impedes scientific research. Yet another example of this is found in the works of Herod, who was a mechanical and technical genius during the Roman era. The steam engine was invented several centuries BCE -- but because it was only applied within theological grounds, it never "took off". Religion delayed the steam age by two thousand years.

A more contemporary and thus "heated" version of this is stem-cell research. Please do note that we have had, for over a year now, the ability to generate pluripotent and totipotent stem-cells from adult lines. The 'debate' over this still rages.

As a transhumanist, I have seen how often religion and luddism coincide. Much of the opposition to the efforts of the Methuselah Foundation's work is coming from religious groups, for example.

I would agree that Theocracies having a negative modifier to research is wholly applicable. While they //can// advance technologically (the Catholic Church and Darwinian Evolution, par exemplorum) it clearly lags behind what otherwise could have been.

If I offended anywhere in this comment, I do apologize. I attempted as much as possible to limit the discussion to citable facts.

[Nighthawk]

If a Theocracy is to have a research penalty, than a godless state (Communism?) should have a morale penalty.

I don't know though. Most the time research is done to satisfy a need, and that while religion has hurt science it has also helped it. In game terms, some areas would have an improved technological research ability, and others hurt. For instance, weapons might improve because of tendency to fight a war against other religions, while social aspects might be slightly hurt.

But I don't know.

[IConrad]

Well, in AC, Theocracy gave military units a +10% bonus to attack due to the greater fanatacism of attacking units. This is harder to replicate in a space-x game, and since we don't have an accuracy variable in combats that's less useful. We could translate that directly to production bonus. That is to say -- while theocracies are slower to develop new ideas, they are also more willing to sacrifice for the needs of the state.

[Krikkitone]

If a Theocracy is to have a research penalty, than a godless state (Communism?) should have a morale penalty.

I don't know though. Most the time research is done to satisfy a need, and that while religion has hurt science it has also helped it. In game terms, some areas would have an improved technological research ability, and others hurt. For instance, weapons might improve because of tendency to fight a war against other religions, while social aspects might be slightly hurt.

But I don't know.

Well I would consider a Communist state a "Theocracy" too.

There is a particular cultural ideology that the state is promoting. (So the Papal States, the Soviet Union or the Third Reich would all be 'theocracies' ie research penalty loyalty bonus by that measure)

[Bigjoe5]

Yeah... that's a bit of a misnomer.

??? I fail to see who or what I have named improperly in that statement...

For one, most of the intellectual progress made at the time was a recovery of information that was lost as a result of the fall of the Roman empire.

AFAIK, that statement is false. Source please.

• The number 0.
• The vacuum.

Recall that it was the Catholic Bishop Etienne Tempier who stated that God, being omnipotent, could create a vacuum if he wished. Simply because certain governing members of an organization were at odds with a particular idea does not mean that that idea was officially condemned by that organization.

[*] Evolution (originally; the Catholic Church now officially accepts the scientific Theory of Evolution, though Evangelical Protestants do not.)

The Catholic Church has never denied the scientific possibility of evolution, but has merely held that the fundamental difference between humans and animals, the human soul, is not the process of evolution but is infused directly by God into each individual, regardless of the evolutionary history of the human "species".

[*] The circumnavigability of the earth.

I have not encountered any evidence of the Church's condemnation of the circumnavigability of the earth.

[*] Copernican heliocentrism.

Copernicus was a catholic priest. I have little doubt that your statement is based on the commonly held view of the Galileo affair, the facts of which have been skewed out of proportion by the rapaciousness of anti-Catholic historians (not to imply that all secular historians are anti-Catholic).

[*] Humanist egalitarianism. (The Christian Bible supports slavery and monarchies.)[/list]

The Bible is a book. It doesn't "support" anything, as such. It includes slavery and monarchies because they were present at the time of its writing.

Again -- it explicitly //was// the Catholic Church which rejected the Vacuum and the Copernican solar model. Each of these advances came from "the secular sector" and were suppressed by the Church on ideological grounds, during the time of the Churches' Theocratic height.

Again, your sources are flawed.

Yet another example of this is found in the works of Herod, who was a mechanical and technical genius during the Roman era. The steam engine was invented several centuries BCE -- but because it was only applied within theological grounds, it never "took off". Religion delayed the steam age by two thousand years.

What are you talking about? The steam engine was invented by Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century AD and no practical use was found for it. He did invent a little do-jobby that used altar fires to open the doors of the temple IIRC, but the lack of progress wasn't because it was kept from the public but because it simply wasn't very useful at the time.

A more contemporary and thus "heated" version of this is stem-cell research. Please do note that we have had, for over a year now, the ability to generate pluripotent and totipotent stem-cells from adult lines. The 'debate' over this still rages.

Which makes it even more ridiculous that people want to get them from embryos, when no cures have been created using embryonic stem cells and some cures have been created with stem cells procured from adults.

I would agree that Theocracies having a negative modifier to research is wholly applicable. While they //can// advance technologically (the Catholic Church and Darwinian Evolution, par exemplorum) it clearly lags behind what otherwise could have been.

Overall, it depends entirely on which religion we're talking about. Certainly some religions will reject obvious truths on the basis of ideology: IIRC, a Muslim leader of Saudi Arabia was translated as commenting on the shape of the earth as follows: "Those who are of the round disposition do not believe in God and deserve to be punished." WTF? A religion like Islam would not be conductive to science because of its belief in a thoroughly inscrutable god who can feel free to change the laws of the universe according to his whims. A nature-worshiping religion would not be conductive to science because they would tend to think of nature as a sentient organism with inconsistent laws. Catholics on the other hand, believe that the universe was designed by an intelligent and consistent creator, and therefore has consistent natural laws. Such a belief assists in ideologically motivating the discovery of such laws even more so than atheism.

Overall, I'm against including the concept of a theocracy in the game at all, primarily because no set of bonuses or penalties could possibly apply to all theocracies and secondarily because whatever bonuses and penalties we give will be seen as a comment on religion in general, which should be avoided in such a game.

If I offended anywhere in this comment, I do apologize. I attempted as much as possible to limit the discussion to citable facts.

I'm not offended, but you've certainly failed in your attempt to restrict the conversation to citable facts.

[IConrad]

I don't care to get into an argument on the internet. If you really want sources for each of the above items, I'd be more than happy to discuss them.

The one item I will touch on here:

AFAIK, that statement is false. Source please.

This is a matter of public record. I would suggest you look at the interaction of the Muslim nations with Christendom circa the Renaissance. To be fair; double-entry bookkeeping and the water-wheel do seem to have been original inventions to that period.

As to the rest; please do remember that individuals are not organizations. It doesn't matter what select individuals said or did; it matters how the organization responded.

• Citation for Catholic church deeming vacuums heretical: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Bo ... 0738206103
• Citation for the Catholic church deeming the number 0 to be heretical: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3293 ... erous_Idea
• Citation for the original stance on Darwinian evolution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_ ... pe_Pius_IX

I'll here note that yes, the stance was that "special creation" applied only to Man. But this is clearly an involuted attempt at avoiding the issue and also as an intellectual dishonesty can only be viewed as an impediment to scientific development. It is only revisionist history that can state that "special creation" only applied to the human soul.

• Galileo popularized the Copernican model and was almost excommunicated for it. "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved. -- remember?
• Slavery was supported through the several explicit passages dictating how slavery is to be conducted within the bible for quite some time. Similarly, the book explicitly states that a Monarch is to be obeyed as though he were God. These ideas are anti-Humanist. That the book itself comes from a period that was anti-Humanist is irrelevant to this fact. Intellectual conservatism, remember, is what we're discussing here. This is a clear example of such.
• Regarding Hero of Alexandria: yes, you are correct. I was off in my citation of who, here. However... again; the fact of the matter is that were it not for religion his inventions would have been put immediately to practical uses rather than propping up the various cults of the day. That is to say; the first time the steam engine was invented was the 1st century AD; as opposed to James Watt's re-"invention" some 17 or 18 centuries later. If Hero's inventions had been left to public record rather than used to support the "mysteries" of the various religious cults, then practical use would have been derived from the fact that the idea existed. Instead, the idea died because of the religions of the day.

Whew. Got into an argument after all. I won't continue it, on this forum that is.

Which makes it even more ridiculous that people want to get them from embryos, when no cures have been created using embryonic stem cells and some cures have been created with stem cells procured from adults.

Spoken like someone who has absolutely no idea how the scientific nor the medical processes work. Let's not forget, either, that the Bush Admin's ban on new embryonic line research also prevented the creation of new lines through this technique. ("Law of Unintended Consequences"). This is a very fundamental line of research and even if it had not been impeded we would still be roughly 10-20 years away from practical cures. One of the main reasons for the desire for totipotent rather than pluripotent cells has to do with the ability for cell lines to be cultivated over time; there are others having to do with biocompatibility and flexibility, but that's for another time and place.

but you've certainly failed in your attempt to restrict the conversation to citable facts.

This is uncalled for.

[MathGeek]

O.K. We really need to kill the off topic argument here. If the individuals currently engaged in the discussion about the comparative merits of theocracy wish to carry on their discussion, they are welcome to do so in the rant and rave section. I will gladly join them and throw in my two cents.

As to the issue at hand, I am going to re-hash a suggestion that I made in another thread. We should abstract away the government types that we are familiar with. There are far more governments possible than we can imagine. I prefer (in the interests of KISS) that we set radio button policies on certain aspects of government that would always (or almost always) apply. This is similar to the civ4/SMAC system, except using more abstracted terminology as a sort of make your own government. Here are some examples of possible policies:

• Information - Free Access / Censored / Controlled
  Economic - Individual Enterprise / Hybrid / Politically Directed
  Borders - Open / Restricted / Closed
  Political - Autocratic / Aristocratic / Pluracratic (everyone has a say)

Each end of each spectrum would have clear, quantifiable gameplay effects, with the middle being neutral. Some races could gain empire customization points by removing the option to change them (I am assuming that we will use a system similar to MoO2 to balance empires). For instance: I don't think the Trith would tolerate open borders, and it makes no sense for George to be keeping information from himself. I am open to adding some options to this list, but remember, they should have clear gameplay effects, we don't want options no one ever actually changes. Also, some social effects are best reserved for empire customization (if they would never change within the game).

Examples of how these would work:
US - Free / Individual / Open / Aristocratic
N. Korea - Controlled / Directed / Closed / Autocratic

P.S. I for one would much prefer if we left religion out of the game completely. No good can come of including it, as I have never been satisfied with any depiction that I have ever seen in any video game.

[Tortanick]

P.S. I for one would much prefer if we left religion out of the game completely. No good can come of including it, as I have never been satisfied with any depiction that I have ever seen in any video game.

Fortunately no one gets offended when fictional religions get portrayed badly, and aliens arn't going to have human religions so we're safe it also begs the question of why anyone cares about Catholicism since the effects of theocracy vary by what your holy book says.

Compare Fall From Heaven 2 and Civ 4, Civ 4 made religions interchangeable to avoid controversy, Civ 4 had fantasy religions that were quite simply not nice and no one minded.

[IConrad]

it also begs the question of why anyone cares about Catholicism since the effects of theocracy vary by what your holy book says.

It's just the most familiar theocracy in Western culture. If I had been less lazy I would have used less familiar examples. That being said -- yes, I very much agree that any further argument needs to be done elsewhere.

As to the abstracting out a layer -- I like it.

[MathGeek]

P.S. I for one would much prefer if we left religion out of the game completely. No good can come of including it, as I have never been satisfied with any depiction that I have ever seen in any video game.

Fortunately no one gets offended when fictional religions get portrayed badly, and aliens arn't going to have human religions so we're safe it also begs the question of why anyone cares about Catholicism since the effects of theocracy vary by what your holy book says.

Compare Fall From Heaven 2 and Civ 4, Civ 4 made religions interchangeable to avoid controversy, Civ 4 had fantasy religions that were quite simply not nice and no one minded.

I own and have played Civ4 and thus it is included in the sweeping condemnation above. Religions were interchangeable in their effects which was both unrealistic and unfun (IMO). It would be very tough to make a fictional religion without accidentally insulting a genuine faith. Example: if you create a bunch of silly religions for in-game aliens, many religious people will feel that you are saying that all religions are silly. You may think they are being overly sensitive, but if you offend them, they will not play or contribute. Is it worth it?
I still maintain that no good can come of it. How will putting fictional religions in a game make the game be more fun? There are many aspects of alien culture that have no gameplay effects which we leave to the player's imagination; let the aliens' religion be one of them.

O.K. That is my two cents; I will shut-up now. I hope that wasn't too harsh

[pd]

Religion has been and is such a big part of human culture that it's impossible for it to not influence our alien designs in one way or another.

The stories and designs we create are works of pure fiction(like the bible ). We don't intend to offend anybody and I don't like to exclude such a fun topic(from a story and design point of view) just because some people seek to be offended.

[IConrad]

Hey now -- just because the history is allegorical doesn't make it //pure// fiction. There is some historical accuracy in the relevant aspects of the Bible. Mind you, in general it was all written decades if not centuries after the fact, but still.

Amusing anecdote: "Bible" means "book". This amuses if you ever see a commercial talking about "the Bible book." (I.e.; book book.) Badgers for everyone!

Okay -- back on topic; we really don't need to include Theocracy as a specific governmental type. Perhaps if we called one of the options "Fundamentalist" -- that way it could be secular fundamentalism (which is just as bad) as well as religious -- and that relegates religions to flavor-text.