With Movements rework, aren't Interest Groups obsolete?

[Hopciu]

Currently, Movements can represent everything IGs were supposed to do, but better. They are more flexible (compared to Aristocrats that still want Serfdom back in 1936, PB going from Traditional to Nihilist overnight when leader dies, or monolithic TU, not fractured between Anarchists, Vanguardists, Socialdemocrats etc), and don't give no arbitrary gamey bonuses (that IG Approval does). Given how both Movement and IG concepts are often redundant, instead of unnecessary intermediate step of Movements influencing IGs leader Ideologies, we could just make Government system use Movements directly, and be done with IGs. This will make game more intuitive, clearer, easier for AI & player to manage, and run smoother, due to less performance required.

 

[Manchura]

I think IGs still serve a purpose but they aren't really being used in that purpose: being the leadership of particular groups

IGs should be influenced by and influence movements, a 40% clout armed forces SHOULD push for an authoritarian movement when they have authoritarian leadership and thus reinforce the movement as the movement should have an effect on if authoritarian leaders take over IGs

also if they were a bit more dynamic around structure of laws then they'd be better, currently the only law group that actually changes IG desires is slavery but the armed forces in a communist government is going to want way different things than the armed forces of a monarchy and that ain't reflected in the current game

 

[Hansatron]

I think having more events that swap the IG ideologies, like how corporatism changes the devout, is really what holds IGs back. There are several techs that could support this for different IGs - the landowners should turn away from serfdom and traditionalism at some point here - and a lot of points in the game when big reforms happen that would also work, not just abolishing slavery or monarchy. When you adopt certain radical forms of government (like council republic) you get a journal entry nudging you to complete some goals in the next few years - that would be a good way to either cement the new regime (making IGs support it) or open the door for reactive pushback.

I do think IGs are distinct from movements, though, and it’s not helpful to only see the entire area of government as “helping passing the laws I want.”

 

[Hopciu]

I think IGs still serve a purpose but they aren't really being used in that purpose: being the leadership of particular groups

The thing is, it's hard to imagine some of the groups having strict, unambiguous, formal leadership. While it's quite reasonable for a Church to have it's formal head, or Trade Unions to have their official spokeperson, I can't imagine Petite Burgeoise or Rural Folk having their formal, official leadership. On the other hand, Movements, being rather informal, grasroot groups, can easily have their own leadership.

IGs should be influenced by and influence movements, a 40% clout armed forces SHOULD push for an authoritarian movement when they have authoritarian leadership and thus reinforce the movement as the movement should have an effect on if authoritarian leaders take over IGs

That's not a good idea, and I'll explain why. Movements already influence the IGs, having IGs impact Movements would cause positive feedback loops. Keeping with the example you provided - Armed Forces & Authoritarian Movement - strong AF would empower AM, and strong AM would make AF leaders Authoritarian. After a while, every AF leader would end up Authoritarian, thus entrenching this particular Ideology, and making AF effectively static.

Especially, that the factors that attract Pops to IGs and Movements are often the same (Proffesions, Literacy, Wealth etc). Having both IG and Movement influencing each other, would strenghten these factor expotentially (eg. Officer pops streghtening AF and AM, AF streghtening AM, AM strenghtening AF etc).

I do think IGs are distinct from movements, though, and it’s not helpful to only see the entire area of government as “helping passing the laws I want.”

How are they different, though? For me, they both represent the political tendencies of Pops, just one system does it better.

Governments, Opposition and Parties would also work better, and more realistically, if used Movements as their basis, instead of IGs. Compare it to nowdays, or even gametime politics - Do people support a party because of who they are, or rather because of what their political views are? Do all of Trade Unions always support the same party? Are Intelligentsia some hive mind, that follows the same party? Are parties comprised of Armed Forces/Rural Folk/Petite Burgeoise etc., or rather Socialists/Liberals/Conservatives etc?

Also, I'm far from seeing government as "helping passing laws I want". It should be much more to it than this - right now it's also Legitymacy, but I hope in future we'll get cabinets, ministries etc.


Now, that I'm thinking, there is one aspect, in which IGs are better than Movements - graphics. Their intuitive, clear, color-coded symbols are much better, than intelliglible, tiny spots, that represent the Movements. The Movements could borrow these symbols, for sure.

 

[Froonk]

I think it shifts interest groups from being the beginning and end of politics to being the foundational but not fundamental basis of politics. That's overall a great change and I don't think it makes them obsolete and indeed opposite makes the interest groups better embedded to gameplay as a building block rather than the sole structure.

 

[Hopciu]

I think it shifts interest groups from being the beginning and end of politics to being the foundational but not fundamental basis of politics.

And for me it just adds another layer of unnecessary confusion. If I'm at risk of Revolution, should I rather try to improve IG Approval, or reduce Movement Militancy? If an Event outcome reduces Rural Folk pop attraction by 10%, but increases Peasant Movement pop attraction by 10%, is it helpful, or harmful, to enacting Homesteading? I ain't got no goddamn clue, to be honest.

It's two parallel, concurrent concepts trying to achieve the same thing, getting in each other's way.
Only one of them is just better.

 

[Citizen Caen]

in my opinion, if Victoria devs want to commit to the materialist lens for their politics. I think IGs need to be reworked so that they represent solely the class interests of their particular pop types. Let movements represent the ideological layer.

Right now the problem with IGs is they are BOTH material class interests AND ideological world views. Which is what creates the tensions OP describes. It would be better if for example every laborer had trade unionist material interests they supported: worker protections, tax reforms, public services expansion
That was then modified by an additional ideological layer via movements- this laborer is a loyalist and supports the monarchy, while this laborer is a radical and a socialist, ect.”

Ironically until the movement rework, I would argue that Victoria 3 used more of a “great man of history” lens than a materialist lens due to the over importance of IG leaders. It still kind of is, but it’s better.

 

[Diskianterezh]

It's really good to have IG and movements splitted so you can have a net difference between global population and people in power.

It's just very sad that IGs lost a lot of their "entropy" : their coups and petitions can now be freely ignored, so the game lost a lot of this "out of control" effects.

 

[Hopciu]

It's really good to have IG and movements splitted so you can have a net difference between global population and people in power.

How exactly? Which one for you represented people in power, which one population as a whole? To me, people in power were IGs that form the government, while all the others were opposition, but I don't see, how can't that be achieved with Movements in place of IGs.

It's just very sad that IGs lost a lot of their "entropy" : their coups and petitions can now be freely ignored, so the game lost a lot of this "out of control" effects.

Coups and petitions would make sense, if they weren't triggered randomly. If coups resulted from IG's power & low approval, or if Petitions were something that fires regularly, eg. after each Elections, they could be quite interesting mechanics.

 

[Diskianterezh]

How exactly? Which one for you represented people in power, which one population as a whole? To me, people in power were IGs that form the government, while all the others were opposition, but I don't see, how can't that be achieved with Movements in place of IGs.

Because you can have parties and IGs that are suppressed by the institutions (autocracy instead of universal suffrage) thus twisting the representation of an organized opposition.
The IG power flow with the legitimacy they gain from the votes (or just wealth support), meanwhile the movement is just mainly the numbers and guns.
In an early autocracy, the landowners detain the power, but the peasant movement is pretty strong. How would you fuse those two ? Giving power to the rural IG ? that would be highly unrealistic, as it would mean they have institutional power, which is not true.

Coups and petitions would make sense, if they weren't triggered randomly. If coups resulted from IG's power & low approval, or if Petitions were something that fires regularly, eg. after each Elections, they could be quite interesting mechanics.

Coups do result from IG power and approval : coups happens when a powerful IG is in governement, and approval <0, and you need to have serious dissagreement on the institutions (the trigger code is actually pretty large), so they are exactly what you want and not random at all. The only problem is that you can now dismiss the IG from government, without consequences, as very negative approval do not trigger revolution anymore ...

 

[Hopciu]

Because you can have parties and IGs that are suppressed by the institutions (autocracy instead of universal suffrage) thus twisting the representation of an organized opposition.
The IG power flow with the legitimacy they gain from the votes (or just wealth support), meanwhile the movement is just mainly the numbers and guns.
In an early autocracy, the landowners detain the power, but the peasant movement is pretty strong. How would you fuse those two ? Giving power to the rural IG ? that would be highly unrealistic, as it would mean they have institutional power, which is not true.

You are right on this one. I've checked the formulas, and while Wiki does not provide the exact formula for IG Political Power, it is different, than Movement Support one.

The Political Power is a function of Pops, their Wealth, and "legal" power they posses (either Votes, or modified by laws, eg. Oligarchy giving bonuses to Aristocrats, Officiers etc.).

Meanwhile, the Movement Support is (Percentage of Pops + Percentage of Military Personnel + Percentage of Political Power)/3.

As you see, the Movement formula takes Population into account twice (as it is a factor of Political Power, too). This might, in fact, push the balance towards Movements supported by numerous pops.

To counter this, we might tweak the Movement Power formula. For example:

Power = (%of Pops + %of Military* + %of Wealth** + %of Legal*** Power)/4

*Officiers should weight more, than Servicemen.
**Building ownership should also be accounted for Wealth
***Legal Power should depend of laws. If there are Elections, Legal Power should equal % of Votes. If country is Theocracy, only Clergy Pops have Legal Power. If country is Military Junta, only Officiers and Servicemen have it, in Monarchy, Aristocrats wield most of it etc.


This way, early-game autocracy still has strong Aristocratic Movement (filling the early-game niche of current Landowners IG), due to high percentage of Wealth, Legal Power, and quite high % of Military, while Peasants Movement has low Legal Power, despite high Pop support.

Coups do result from IG power and approval : coups happens when a powerful IG is in governement, and approval <0, and you need to have serious dissagreement on the institutions (the trigger code is actually pretty large), so they are exactly what you want and not random at all.

The trigger itself IS random. It shouldn't. It's too important matter. It should fire ALWAYS the conditions are met, given it's preventable progress bar nature.

The only problem is that you can now dismiss the IG from government, without consequences, as very negative approval do not trigger revolution anymore ...

That's a serious issue, I agree.

 

[Desseabar]

IGs are the people, while political movements are what they believe in.
A group has different 'levers' they can pull to show they're unhappy, while political movements affect what makes them unhappy.

E.g., "abolitionism" as a movement might sway a lot of people, but it takes a different form if industralists, clergy, or trade unions take place. In Britain, for example, textile workers sympathized with anti-slavery forces and went on strikes while Industrialists supported slavery for cheap access to goods. This contrasts with the US, where industrialists were more often opposed to slavery (and slaveholders). So while an unhappy laborer might strike for their beliefs, a capitalist might invest elsewhere.

I think they could probably still do a bit more UI tweaking here to show the overlap between the two, but there's still value in both.

 

[Manchura]

That's not a good idea, and I'll explain why. Movements already influence the IGs, having IGs impact Movements would cause positive feedback loops. Keeping with the example you provided - Armed Forces & Authoritarian Movement - strong AF would empower AM, and strong AM would make AF leaders Authoritarian. After a while, every AF leader would end up Authoritarian, thus entrenching this particular Ideology, and making AF effectively static.

Especially, that the factors that attract Pops to IGs and Movements are often the same (Proffesions, Literacy, Wealth etc). Having both IG and Movement influencing each other, would strenghten these factor expotentially (eg. Officer pops streghtening AF and AM, AF streghtening AM, AM strenghtening AF etc).

yes, a movement that has IGs supporting it WOULD be hard to destroy, that's exactly how it works

currently political movements are unidirectionally influencing IGs with no real feedback into themselves, for example if you wanted one or 2 socialist policies like taxes or education but didn't want anything else you can do that easy enough currently by promoting them to be radical with some pops, get what you want then supress them until they disband even though in reality empowering the socialist movement by having political support for them made the movement way less likely to ever be removed from the public conscious

plus pops and IGs aren't unified pillars, this is a false idea many have because they don't read tooltips or care to do anything other than look at the overview windows, you have peasants that support the industrialists and capitalists supporting the trade unions depending on a myriad of factors and you can model this into movement/IG interaction fairly easily with relevancy of the movement, if the rural folk IG has an authoritarian and there is an authoritarian movement and the leader is popular it should increase pops who belong to that IG's willingness to join that movement even when that movement would be directly at odds with the basics of what identity people who join the rural folk IG would be interested in

 

[Hopciu]

yes, a movement that has IGs supporting it WOULD be hard to destroy, that's exactly how it works

Static. The IGs and Movements would become static. Unless you let Radicals to get out of control (and given you are at least moderately experienced player, you won't), the positive feedback loop would entrench IGs into their ideologies, so that none of them would ever be challenged.

plus pops and IGs aren't unified pillars, this is a false idea many have because they don't read tooltips or care to do anything other than look at the overview windows, you have peasants that support the industrialists

Not true.

and capitalists supporting the trade unions

Not true x2.

But what is true indeed, is the fact, that players sometime forget, that Proffesions and Interest Groups are not the same thing. Even though Aristocrats are naturally attracted to Landowners IG, most of early game Intelligentsia Clout comes from Aristocrats.
But for me that's just another reason, why we don't need another entity. Proffesion already defines, who Pops are, and Movements define what their views are. IG tries to be both of these things, doin neither of them good.

 

[anyoneatall]

Yes

 

[yurcick]

I think we need some sort of "main identities" to replace/integrate both movements and IGs.
For some people, their class identity is more important, for some -- the ethnic one, for some -- their religion, for some -- their ideological stance, for some -- nothing, really, they couldn't care less.

I think BPM attempts to do something like that with their much more granular IGs, including "professional / bureaucratic interests" with less ideological stances. But within the current framework this doesn't feel all too natural, as the vanilla's architectural constraints are significant.

 

[za3tarani]

Currently, Movements can represent everything IGs were supposed to do, but better. They are more flexible (compared to Aristocrats that still want Serfdom back in 1936, PB going from Traditional to Nihilist overnight when leader dies, or monolithic TU, not fractured between Anarchists, Vanguardists, Socialdemocrats etc), and don't give no arbitrary gamey bonuses (that IG Approval does). Given how both Movement and IG concepts are often redundant, instead of unnecessary intermediate step of Movements influencing IGs leader Ideologies, we could just make Government system use Movements directly, and be done with IGs. This will make game more intuitive, clearer, easier for AI & player to manage, and run smoother, due to less performance required.

when vic3 was introduced (before release), IGs was meant to be the core of internal gameplay - later they added political parties due to requests, but was just confusing.

i agree i would rather remove IGs and just have movements, and from movements have political parties.

 

[ingenieux]

What we need is MORE IGs, each vying for power / independance / religious supremacy :
- orthodox church, catholic church, austrian nobility, hungarian nobility, croat nobility, czech nobility etc.
- 235 japanese clans
- 5 leftist movements
- orleanists, bonapartists, legitimists
- muslim, hindu, buddhist
As you see i separated them as they be in starting countries, but what about you gain the orthodox IG if as Spain you start eating the balkans or russia ? What if you get the slaver south planter IG if you conquer some southern land of the USA ?

Basically link the IG to culture / religion / areas so the new leadership has to deal with them.

edit : and have them an "laws enforced" value which is just to show how much they apply the country's laws. (well that requires a whole "local governance" mechanic that would be about how much they pay their tax according to the country or their favourite law, etc. for the main laws (economic system, bureaucracy, army model, etc.) but one can dream)

 

[TitaniumMan91]

when vic3 was introduced (before release), IGs was meant to be the core of internal gameplay - later they added political parties due to requests, but was just confusing.

i agree i would rather remove IGs and just have movements, and from movements have political parties.

I could see that, but I'd argue you need to keep IGs as an entity that exists in autocratic societies. There were no parties necessarily, but people still had similar interests and the groups are an easy concept to use to make sense of that. Then once you have parties, IG is just one layer of the pops political identity, modifying how they feel towards various movements.

 

[za3tarani]

I could see that, but I'd argue you need to keep IGs as an entity that exists in autocratic societies. There were no parties necessarily, but people still had similar interests and the groups are an easy concept to use to make sense of that. Then once you have parties, IG is just one layer of the pops political identity, modifying how they feel towards various movements.

there were/are still political parties/organizations even in "autocratic" societies, they were just repressed in different degrees.