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Simplified Pop System Similar to Vicky, we are going to track Pops. Just like Vicky, Iron Curtain is just as much of an econo-political simulator as it is a war-game. As such, we need to track the economic well-being and political beliefs of the populace. There are 4 different 'Types' of Pops; Workers, Managers Scientists, and Capitalists. They each have a simplified role. Lower Class pops work in factories, or in RGOs, creating goods. Management works in factories to raise the efficiency, Intellectuals work in Labs to produce Research or in Centrifuges, and Capitalists invest in Companies.
Pops demand goods. All Pops require Survival Goods. Workers also need Low-Class Goods. Managers and Scientists require Middle-Class Goods on top of that, and Capitalists require Upper-Class Goods additionally. If pops can no longer afford Middle or Upper-Class goods, they count down to demotion. If pops are rich enough to buy Middle-Class to Upper-Class Goods, they count down to promotion. If pops can afford their goods but none are available to buy, then they begin to raise in Dissent. If they cannot acquire Survival Goods, then they also begin to count down to death.
I agree with regards to having a pop system, but I think that (as one contributor has mentioned) they should be tied with the ideology, and given your system, it will make sense. Furthermore, it can also be tied with the concept of estates/factions (Ming) in EU4. What it looks like is this.
I proposed 5 types of POPs, instead of the 4 that you suggested : Workers (or Laborers), Soldiers, Bureaucrats (Managers), Innovators (Engineers & Scientists) and Capitalists. Each class has their own needs, as you said, but rather that e.g. when workers can't buy luxuries, they don't increase in dissent, but when they can buy luxuries then they have a buffer against dissent increase. However, what I'm interested in is tying the Dissent to the ideology and its influence.
Firstly, when dissent is quite high in a particular POP, then that POP will start to drift slowly towards an opposing ideology, and when dissent becomes higher enough, also drifts towards a more neutral ideology (taking points from the main ideology of the country). For example, in democratic/capitalist France, when the workers are dissatisfied, then they get + 0.05 drift towards communism, and +0.01 drift towards fascism. Workers are more predisposed towards communism & capitalism, Soldiers are more predisposed towards fascism, Bureaucrats are more predisposed towards communism & capitalism, Innovators are more predisposed toward neutral, and Capitalist are more predisposed towards capitalism. Using this kind of system, one can add "national spirit" that can account on the rise of Islam as the core of politics, as is the case of Iran.
Secondly, a model on how influential a POP is (as is the case with factions). POP gains influence in a nation through events, government support (actions towards factions in EU4), or extremely high dissent (people expressing their dissatisfaction through protests, riots, etc. to increase awareness). Tying this with your proposition of having party popularity and organization, aside from the positive relationship of a POP's influence and party popularity, POP influence can also affect the method of uprising (popular revolution, military coup, capitalist takeover, etc.) and the efficiency of the nation. For example, if workers are very influential in the country but quite satisfied, then they add bonus towards RGO and factory output of the country.
There are 11 different types of Production Lines, similar to the 3 types in HoI4. They can be divided into Civilian and Military Lines. Factories can be switched between Lines, but the cost to re-tool the factory depends on how similar the Lines are. The lines that can be switched cheaper are Civilian and Military Centrifuges, Infantry Equipment to Low-Class Goods and vice versa, and Middle- and Upper-Class Luxuries to Motor-Lines and vice versa. Unlike HoI4, Input Goods do not simply slow down production, but are required and consumed to produce goods. Factory Lines can be set to Full, Half, Minimal, or Closed Employment, which lowers employment and thus labour costs, but also lowers output. Closing a factory sends a percentage of the goods used to build the factory back into the companies stockpile. Production Lines producing more goods lowers the prices of the goods.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems more like HoI 4 but in the case where civilian goods is produced in a manner like the military production lines (with addition of having companies as independent entities in a nation that owns the factories and can invest in any type of line they want); unless the government type prohibits it?
Companies are an extra step in the economy, new to PDS games, a replacement for V2's World Market. For state-run Production Lines, the State is considered to be the Company. I'll call out any other places where a state-run Production Line differs from a Company-run Production Line.
Simply put, each Production Line is owned by a specific Company (with the exception of the pre-set RGO Production Lines, which can have factories from multiple Companies in it). Goods are added to the companies Stockpile. When a state or Pop buys a good, they buy it from the Company. Money is given to the Company. The company first spends the money on salaries and input goods. Secondly, they may save up to spend on a new factory. Lastly, profits are split amongst investing Capitalist pops, based on how much the Pop has invested in that Company. State-run Production Lines give profits to the Budget. Companies can, of course, go bankrupt. As shown above, they set the Employment Level based on the demand for their goods, and can close factories to gain back a percentage of the construction costs of the factory.
For state-build Lines and Factories, the State sets the Employment to Full, Half, Minimal, Closed, or Automated, which will treat the line as if it was a Capitalist-driven Company. Thus, as the USSR, you can ensure full employment, and that everyone receives a wage, but if your factories are not efficient enough, or you cannot secure the raw goods, you may not be able to supply everyone with the goods they demand, despite them having the money to pay for it. This is an important point often missed; communist systems were supply-driven rather than demand-driven. If people didn't get goods, it was because there was not goods to give them, not that they couldn't afford them. This models that.
I'm all up for this, but isn't what you're proposing basically same with the world market, which in the case, is actually a "market of corporations", rather than "market of nations"?
Items from other countries cost more. In my V3 economic model, this is done via Infrastructure Companies, to avoid a Money Pit. In this simplified version, the extra money goes to the Company, who is assumed to handle transportation themselves. It's cheaper to buy goods from your country, than from other countries on the same continent, than from other countries on different continents. This can be balanced out, however, by other countries having more efficient lines, setting the base price of their good lower. Thus, it may be cheaper in the end to import lumber from China than to get it from France.
Additionally, Tariffs can be set on specific Types of Lines or Raw Goods, to protect local industries, and encourage local Pops and Companies to buy from other local Companies rather than abroad.
I support the use of cost as basis for trade, since it is one of the main basis for trading, but I kinda disagree with the suggestion for infrastructure companies. Furthermore, one interesting aspect is the rise of international investments that extends beyond the border, which is arguable on how to implement it. In addition, I propose trade treaties as a possible diplomatic action with other countries.
Espionage Points are points that are collected by Intelligence Center buildings (on a slow trickle), and by carrying out the cheap Spy Ring espionage mission, and spent on all missions. Espionage points are for a specific country, and can only be spent on missions in that country, and have to be built up by Spy Ring missions in that country. The Intelligence Centre gives a small trickle up to a maximum based on the total levels of intelligence centres you have in all countries, and a large trickle in your own country. Countries that are annexed give half of the espionage points in them to the country that annexed them. Missions only last a certain # of months. They also may trigger random events related to the mission.
I think rather than having points for specific countries, it is better to tie it with a region, similar to the HoI4's air system (the system, not the regional division, though it can be argued for).
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This might be a bit weird, but I also propose two additions that I haven't seen mentioned before. First, splitting internal and external espionage. The external espionage would work like the system that already exists and the system that is proposed. However, with internal espionage (or counter-espionage), regional division won't matter (which is quite to hard to model like in USSR's case). In internal espionage screen, the government can set whether to counter enemy espionage, protect certain assets, or monitor and reduce the popularity of a certain political party.
Secondly, the use of ministers similar to the chief of staff and important people in HoI 4, but combined with Stellaris' approach. A nation has certain key strategic and advisory positions that can be filled by appointing people. The people available to each slot depends on the government type and/or main ideology of the government. The slots that are available are: Chief of Army, Chief of Navy, Chief of Airforce, Chief of Espionage, Social Development Advisors (can be filled with trade advisors which improves trade, education advisors which improves the education boost of the country, health advisors which improves the RGO output and reduce dissent, etc.) and Technological Development Advisors (can be filled with scientists who are experts in some areas of fields or positions or with engineers which improves the production efficiency of certain goods).
Since I haven't seen a list yet, I thought I'd throw in some ideas for different ideologies that major powers can try to spread or that POPs can drift to. Each new super power will either have or choose a new ideology to spread. These are either things that have strong traditional power or who had movements for them at some point.
Capitalism (USA at game start)
Communism (USSR at game start)
Religious - Christianity
Religious - Islam
Religious - Other
Syndicalism
Technocratic
Totalitarian (Generally only an authoritarian government has this)
Anarchism (Generally only pops)
Pacifism (Generally only pops)
Secularism
Apartheid (Generally only government)
Civil Rights/Anti-Apartheid (Generally only pops)
Isolationist (Usually bad)
Republican/Libertarian (Generally only pops in non-democracies)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems more like HoI 4 but in the case where civilian goods is produced in a manner like the military production lines (with addition of having companies as independent entities in a nation that owns the factories and can invest in any type of line they want); unless the government type prohibits it?
I'm all up for this, but isn't what you're proposing basically same with the world market, which in the case, is actually a "market of corporations", rather than "market of nations"?
Not quite. It's best to differentiate this part from Vicky 2. In Vicky 2, you produce a good, it has a set price across the whole world, and you (or your sphere leader) gets first chance to buy before it goes to the World Market stockpile and anyone can buy. There's no difference between buying canned goods from France and canned goods from China, once it ends up in the World Market, all distinction is gone.
In Iron Curtain, there is no World Market. Each company acts as its own World Market (most likely with the local country having first buying opportunity), setting its own prices, and buyers choose which World Market offers them the best prices. It makes an actual difference between canned goods from France and canned goods from China, and stops there being one single price per good, as in Vicky 2.
I support the use of cost as basis for trade, since it is one of the main basis for trading, but I kinda disagree with the suggestion for infrastructure companies. Furthermore, one interesting aspect is the rise of international investments that extends beyond the border, which is arguable on how to implement it. In addition, I propose trade treaties as a possible diplomatic action with other countries.
My thinking is this; a) There must be mechanics that encourage buying of local goods over foreign goods, to avoid Chinese production levels of base goods from destroying profitability of Western goods too early.
b) In real life, this is because of two factors, transportation costs and quality.
c) transportation costs is the simpler of the two factors to code.
d) "Black Holes" that stop money from circulating in the economy must be avoided
e) Transportation costs has to lead to SOMEBODY.
Vicky 2's themes include the expansion of the railroads, so it made sense there to separately model transportation companies. By the Cold War, there was little left to develop in conventional train/truck/ship transportation, and only limited air transportation, so might as well just fold the profit back to the production company.
I think rather than having points for specific countries, it is better to tie it with a region, similar to the HoI4's air system (the system, not the regional division, though it can be argued for).
Now this is fantastic idea. Make them sub-continent based? 4 regions in the Americas, for instance (Canada/US, Central America, Caribbean, Southern America), 4 in Africa (North Africa, West Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa), 5-6 in Europe... that would make it much quicker and funner to play the espionage game!
Since I haven't seen a list yet, I thought I'd throw in some ideas for different ideologies that major powers can try to spread or that POPs can drift to. Each new super power will either have or choose a new ideology to spread. These are either things that have strong traditional power or who had movements for them at some point.
Capitalism (USA at game start)
Communism (USSR at game start)
Religious - Christianity
Religious - Islam
Religious - Other
Syndicalism
Technocratic
Totalitarian (Generally only an authoritarian government has this)
Anarchism (Generally only pops)
Pacifism (Generally only pops)
Secularism
Apartheid (Generally only government)
Civil Rights/Anti-Apartheid (Generally only pops)
Isolationist (Usually bad)
Republican/Libertarian (Generally only pops in non-democracies)
Would this be in addition to Party Ideology though? My Internal Politics section revolves around Parties in the end, with Parties representing legal parties, illegal parties, and inter-party factions, depending on the country. Some of your list seems more like Policies, similar to how Vicky 2 you can have Pops who support certain policies. Many of these, in the context of a party-centric internal politics, could be folded into each other.
Parties are further differentiated by what policies they support, with a dynamic system for parties to change supported policies. Thus, despite the Muslim Brotherhood and the Iranian Islamic Republic Party both being Fundamentalist, they support drastically different policies in my systems.
My system has, currently, 12Ideologies, plus the special "Separatist" ideology.
I have
Separatist (covering organizations both radical, like the Black Panthers, and established, like the Scottish National Party)
Fascist (covering organizations like the UK National Front, Ku Klux Klan)
Paternal Autocrat (would include your Totalitarian ideology, and possibly Isolationist, Traditionalist, Apartheid. Examples are UKIP, and the French National Front. This is the dominant ideology across non-communist aligned autocracies.)
Fundamentalist (Linking all of your Religious parties into one. I see no point in separating religious ideologies by religion.)
Libertarian (Necessary for late-period politics, especially in North America)
Conservative (This is probably the most common ideology, is generally a dominant one across democracies.)
Liberal (This ideology used to be the main foil to Conservatism, but no longer. Used for parties agitating for more political freedoms but not a welfare state. Also includes centre-left parties like the Canadian and UK Liberals, or the American Democrats. Canada and the US are the only countries where Liberalism is still the main foil to Conservatism)
Environmentalist (Similar to Libertarian, necessary for late-period politics)
Social Democrat (The main foil to Conservatism in most western democracies, with the exception of the US.)
Communist (One wing of the Communist Party, mostly defined as being the anti-Stalinist reaction)
Maoist (Pretty much what it sounds like.)
Stalinist (Yup, also what it sounds like).
The latter three are used to give meaningful internal politics to the single-party communist states. Under this system, almost all parties are banned (forcing them into low organization), but Communist and one or both of Maoist and Stalinist parties are still legal, so Communist countries can still play the internal politics game.
I think that's a pretty useful list of ideologies, especially when you add differences in policies and the abilities for Pops to support specific policies.
Mmmm, would require more than modding can do. Focuses, for example, would need to be drastically changed. They work for the focused short-term alt-history that HoI4 dabbles in, but it would get ridiculous in the long-term. I mean, already you can have silly things like the Communist path as Canada giving an alliance with the Soviets when the Soviets themselves took the Democracy path, or other similar silliness. (I know that specific example doesn't work but it shows the kind of issues that would arise over the long-term play).
I'm not sure how moddable the economy and production is, because you'd need to wholesale add a civilian economy to the game.
My thoughts on the ideologies was as a continuation of a previous idea where you have a set of super powers in the game that espouse specific ideologies. They basically represent that ideology and build their power by spreading that ideology. A super power would "win" the game by spreading that ideology enough that there are no other super powers. At game start, the two super powers are USA and USSR, and their ideologies are capitalism and communism. Other super powers could rise up with different ideologies and try to spread that around the world in order to build their influence. That's a big reason why I included Islam and Christianity as separate ideologies, so there could be a Christian super power and an Islamic super power in the same game. It wouldn't make sense for a Christian super power to rise up in Europe that then has automatic dominance in the Middle East since most of the countries there are already following a fundamentalist ideology.
That said, I also did pick out some ideologies that wouldn't make sense to be valid for super power status, such as apartheid and isolationism. Those exist more to cause internal issues, weaken countries, and to better represent what's going on in the world.
Would this be in addition to Party Ideology though? My Internal Politics section revolves around Parties in the end, with Parties representing legal parties, illegal parties, and inter-party factions, depending on the country. Some of your list seems more like Policies, similar to how Vicky 2 you can have Pops who support certain policies. Many of these, in the context of a party-centric internal politics, could be folded into each other.
Parties are further differentiated by what policies they support, with a dynamic system for parties to change supported policies. Thus, despite the Muslim Brotherhood and the Iranian Islamic Republic Party both being Fundamentalist, they support drastically different policies in my systems.
Do you mean the possibility of having more than one party with the same ideology in a country? I don't think it is a good idea, since in some countries, there can be a lot of political parties with nearly the same alignment.
My system has, currently, 12Ideologies, plus the special "Separatist" ideology.
I have
Separatist (covering organizations both radical, like the Black Panthers, and established, like the Scottish National Party)
Fascist (covering organizations like the UK National Front, Ku Klux Klan)
Paternal Autocrat (would include your Totalitarian ideology, and possibly Isolationist, Traditionalist, Apartheid. Examples are UKIP, and the French National Front. This is the dominant ideology across non-communist aligned autocracies.)
Fundamentalist (Linking all of your Religious parties into one. I see no point in separating religious ideologies by religion.)
Libertarian (Necessary for late-period politics, especially in North America)
Conservative (This is probably the most common ideology, is generally a dominant one across democracies.)
Liberal (This ideology used to be the main foil to Conservatism, but no longer. Used for parties agitating for more political freedoms but not a welfare state. Also includes centre-left parties like the Canadian and UK Liberals, or the American Democrats. Canada and the US are the only countries where Liberalism is still the main foil to Conservatism)
Environmentalist (Similar to Libertarian, necessary for late-period politics)
Social Democrat (The main foil to Conservatism in most western democracies, with the exception of the US.)
Communist (One wing of the Communist Party, mostly defined as being the anti-Stalinist reaction)
Maoist (Pretty much what it sounds like.)
Stalinist (Yup, also what it sounds like).
The latter three are used to give meaningful internal politics to the single-party communist states. Under this system, almost all parties are banned (forcing them into low organization), but Communist and one or both of Maoist and Stalinist parties are still legal, so Communist countries can still play the internal politics game.
I think that's a pretty useful list of ideologies, especially when you add differences in policies and the abilities for Pops to support specific policies.
EvW already has the right ideologies, IMHO, but it needs more working. I think separatists shouldn't be a separate ideology, but rather making it similar to HoI4 and tie it with just three ideologies. For example, when 58.4% of the POP are communists branch (communist-maoist-stalinist) then the separatists' main political party when they break out is the Communist party. When the POP are liberals (conservative-liberal-social democrat), then their main political party will have the Liberal ideology, while nationalistic separatists will have the paternal autocrat's political party as their main party and ideology. However, instead of having a left-right spectrum as in EvW, I would argue more of a "triangle" system like the factions in HOI3. On each side is the position of the triangle is the left-right spectrum category, and within these triangles exists the degree of extreme adherance to an ideology. For example, a communist ideology would have four degrees of extremism: Stalinism on the most extreme one, followed by Communism, Market Socialism, and Social Democrats. I would propose for the ideologies to be like this:
Fascist/Fundamentalism - most extreme neutral
Nationalism/Hegemonistic (e.g. South Africa's National Party)
Authoritarianism (your paternal autocrat, monarchies like Thailand or Saudi Arabia, etc. and your typical banana republic dictators)
Ah, I see what you are going for, but I think that a simplistic look at ideologies-as-driving-force misses a lot of the complexity of the Cold War. I mean, if you merely have "Communism" as an ideology, and you win if you spread "Communism", then there's no difference between Stalinism, Maoism, Hoxhaism, Titoism, and all of these real geo-political differences between approaches to communism that made a huge difference in the real world. If, instead, having similar ideologies means raised relations with other countries, then you can portray this.
I also am not a fan of "win-conditions" in an open-ended game. My current plan for Iron Curtain even involves the opportunity to de-escalate the conflict early, beginning from the first treaties in 1946 deciding the shape of post-war Europe.
Do you mean the possibility of having more than one party with the same ideology in a country? I don't think it is a good idea, since in some countries, there can be a lot of political parties with nearly the same alignment.
Yes, exactly. Ideological alignment is not the political be-all and end-all. I'm most familiar, for example, with Canadian politics, in which we had for a time 3 Conservative ideology parties, the Reform Party (which I classified as Libertarian), the mainstream Progressive Conservative, and the very specific Social Credit party, which advocated a very specific model of conservatism. In 1957, the Canadian federal elections gave the Social Credit party almost all of the seats in Alberta, and a third of them in BC, for a total of 7.5% of the seats in Parliament, worth representing, I think.
More broadly, I want to show how a single party can change stance over time, especially those with high-org. As the beliefs of the populace change, a party finding its base collapsing can re-evaluate policies to better court new supporters or bring back old supporters.
EvW already has the right ideologies, IMHO, but it needs more working. I think separatists shouldn't be a separate ideology, but rather making it similar to HoI4 and tie it with just three ideologies. For example, when 58.4% of the POP are communists branch (communist-maoist-stalinist) then the separatists' main political party when they break out is the Communist party. When the POP are liberals (conservative-liberal-social democrat), then their main political party will have the Liberal ideology, while nationalistic separatists will have the paternal autocrat's political party as their main party and ideology. However, instead of having a left-right spectrum as in EvW, I would argue more of a "triangle" system like the factions in HOI3. On each side is the position of the triangle is the left-right spectrum category, and within these triangles exists the degree of extreme adherance to an ideology. For example, a communist ideology would have four degrees of extremism: Stalinism on the most extreme one, followed by Communism, Market Socialism, and Social Democrats. I would propose for the ideologies to be like this:
Fascist/Fundamentalism - most extreme neutral
Nationalism/Hegemonistic (e.g. South Africa's National Party)
Authoritarianism (your paternal autocrat, monarchies like Thailand or Saudi Arabia, etc. and your typical banana republic dictators)
I'm thinking more of the British and Canadian contexts with the Separatist parties, where you have established political parties with elected representation in government whose primary goal is to lead their part of the country to secede. Would it be better, perhaps, if the Bloc Quebecois, Scottish National Party, etc, were regular parties of other ideologies (Social Democrat in these cases) with a special "separatist" tag attached to them that limits their popularity to certain groups, and makes them trigger secession if they win? I could perhaps get behind this, especially as it would become more obvious that these parties are true 'spoilers' for their ideology.
As for the other ones, I'm not sure I see the use for some of the ideologies. What countries would having separate parties for Social Democrat and Market Socialism actually have a serious game-play effect on? OR Nationalist/Authoritarianist? Or, especially, the entire mostly-obsolete Liberalism tract? Additionally, where would we put the powerful late-game Western Environmentalist political movement? I admit, I can see combining Fundamentalism and Fascism into a single party, and putting milder religoius movements under Conservative in countries like Egypt where they are the primary anti-Authoritarianism / Paternal Autocrat party.
OFFICIAL HEARTS OF IRON 17: SUPER AWESOME COLD WAR DLC STANDALONE ADDON THING DEVELOPER DIARY #4
Espionage! events that happen if USSR steals plans to V2 rocket to allow the Yak-3P to reach the moon.
in return, the US can respond with P-47 Thunderbolts and P-38 Lightnings
OFFICIAL HEARTS OF IRON 17: SUPER AWESOME COLD WAR DLC STANDALONE ADDON THING DEVELOPER DIARY #16
mechanics for international crimes have been added! have a problem with your spies being killed? put foreign leaders on trial!... for completely unrelated reasons!
hey lets face it, they were probably trying to overthrow you anyway!
OFFICIAL HEARTS OF IRON 17: SUPER AWESOME COLD WAR DLC STANDALONE ADDON THING DEVELOPER DIARY #27
Comics! comics as we all know formed the backbone of international relations after the 1950s. here's a never before seen cover page to the USSRs very own "Komrade Komyks da very gud Volume #1"
Der Fuhrer may be dead! but don't let that stop you! beat some sense into him anyway!... in comics!
idea on how ideologies can be depicted in the game that would allows nations to have diverse stances and policies while also still being simple to understand; a 3 axis chart: Communism vs. Capitalism, Authoritarianism vs. Libertarianism, and Nationalism vs. Globalism.
each of these will have advantages and disadvantages, and some when taken to their extremes would cause your nation to start drifting on the other axis as well; after all Communism does require a certain level of Authoritarianism to function.
for example "Fascism" would be when you're at the extreme ends of both Authoritarianism and Nationalism, with little mattering on where you lie on the Capitalist vs. Communist axis(or even requiring you to be closer to center on that axis).
and this in turn can tie in with how pops react to bad governments; the strongly Communist Soviet Union for example would also be "Globalist" due to their frequent aid to other Communist nations and the funding of revolutionaries around the world, so when things start going bad for them the people may not only turn against Communism, but also start going Nationalist and in turn start creating separatist movements for non-Russian states that can be split off from Soviet territory.
sure, technically that's true, but when people hear the term "Communism", most don't think of Karl Marx's idea of a perfect world, most people think of "Communist" and "Planned Economy" as synonyms, because that was how most nations that called themselves "Communist" were run.
the meanings of words change based on public perceptions of what those words mean; and so we come to the modern meaning of the word "Communism":
"a way of organizing a society in which the government owns the things that are used to make and transport products (such as land, oil, factories, ships, etc.) and there is no privately owned property"-Simple Definition of Communism by Merriam-Webster
and while yes, "a final stage of society in Marxist theory in which the state has withered away and economic goods are distributed equitably" is still in the Dictionary definition, it's listed 3rd after "a doctrine based on revolutionary Marxian socialism and Marxism-Leninism that was the official ideology of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" and "a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production" somewhat overshadows the older meaning.
I suppose it would be one of the more difficult achievements to manage becoming a highly "Libertarian Communist" nation, though that final critical step of dissolving the government would be hard to implement from a gameplay perspective...
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so anyway; my ideas on how the 3D ideology system's advantages and disadvantages could work, besides the enabling/disabling of what laws/regulations/policies/actions can/can't be used by a government:
Communist vs. Capitalist: this would tie into a hypothetical "world market" system, it would have ups and downs that boost or drain the economic output of nations, Capitalist get a multiplier so when the market is booming they are just swimming in cash, but when it crashes they're in an abysmal spot, while Communists get a decimal point for their multiplier so they tend to stick to a more steady/stagnate income.
Authoritarian vs. Libertarian: this is a more strait forward sliding scale where values simply invert between the two sides; Authoritarians get modifiers to their military but also take worse hits to unrest/disorder when they do happen, while Libertarians get negative modifiers to their military they have less unrest.
The big question I have here is how this stat interacts with corruption: should corruption make Authoritarianism tick up? or should Authoritarianism make corruption grow? having both would create a feedback loop of doom for any liberal society, though I suppose that would be a fitting metaphor for the endless fight against corruption and the dangers of leaving it unopposed.
Nationalism vs. Globalism: This axis is more to do with how POPs behave, with the government's alignment doing little besides maybe enabling or disabling a few laws/regulations they can/can't pass or actions they can/can't take.
Nationalist POPs are less likely to be influenced by the actions of other nations and will be more likely to act of their alinement on the other two axis and how it compares to their government's standing on those lines; when they match the government they will be more likely to volunteer for the army or serve in residence movements during occupations by hostile forces, and will generally all stay happier during hard times relative to other POPs; when opposing the government they will join the separatist/revolutionary/political movements that are most applicable(both peaceful and violent, but that's it's own complicated system to sort out).
Globalist POPs are more easily influenced by outside forces.... and I'm not sure what the benefits should be, something involving trade would probably fit, but that would likely be covered by the government side laws/actions related to this axis...
Globalism would grow in governments as they take part in more and more complicated diplomatic relationships. Things like the UN, the EU, NATO, the Warsaw Pact, the British Commonwealth and so on will all give their member states a boost to increasing their Globalization values.
A seemingly irrelevant thing, but I'd love the option to change many types of different laws, set the tax rate and so forth. This would really add flavour, and allow you to pressure other countries into adopting similar laws to you as a gameplay feature. For example "religious headwear" can be illegal, legal, or mandatory: after the Iranian revolution, it would switch to "mandatory", but as France in the 2000s, it might become "illegal".
If they're going to do a Cold War game, it should probably also last into modern times, that it might link up with Stellaris in some form.
That'd probably be easier with a general "state religion" law, ranging from "Religious Law" to "State Religion" to "Secularism" to "Enforced Secularism", with Iran, Morocco, Canada and France being your exemplars on each side. (US has Secularism law, but it acts as if it had State Religion law).
That'd probably be easier with a general "state religion" law, ranging from "Religious Law" to "State Religion" to "Secularism" to "Enforced Secularism", with Iran, Morocco, Canada and France being your exemplars on each side. (US has Secularism law, but it acts as if it had State Religion law).
I think a better way of showing something like that would be to have some kind of stat on POPs for how devote to their faith they are and in turn have their behavior modified by that. so the Government may not be able to act on maters of religion due to its laws, but the citizens will(or vice-versa). This will also allow modeling of religious strife and conflict without accidentally making places like the USA instantly turn into a endless series of holy wars due to the diversity of faiths found there.
Another good POP category would be the cultural elite or entertainers or whatever. They fulfill few roles in the economy, but have the following effects:
1: They provide entertainment, boosting happiness.
2: They are good at spreading ideology. Think of the left leaning writers who inspired the youth of the fifties and sixties. If America's cultural elite turn red they'll spread that across the nation.
3: Propaganda. If your cultural sector is large enough you'll influence global ideology. Think Hollywood and Coca Cola commercials. This could be countered by being a more closed society.
