Pick your politics!

[cliffski]

I'm concerned I dont have a true international flavour for my politics game (http://www.democracygame.com). I'm looking to see what policies you would consider priorities if you ran your country. I already have about 60, I just need some inspiration ;)
They can be things that are specific, like "Ban fox-hunting" or "legalise cannabis" (oooh just thought of that one) or more general priorities like
"strong military" or "public education"
Thanks in advance ;).

[Raptisoft]

"lower Taxes!!!!!!!!!"

[Jack Norton]

Environment Policies (respect of nature, health, alternative sciences)
Ban for vivisection ;)

[Gilzu]

(de)legalize weapon control
(de)legalize abortions
free health insurance
free university studies (i know it exists in australia and denmark)
tax % (income or purchase tax)
improve - roads/highways/trains, tourism, education, military, health services, economy, science, sports or any other department you want to improve (here's an idea - you cant choose them all, you have to find what the public is interested in most by polls what how theyre divided)

[Bluecat]

Well, as has been mentioned with the green policies, you could run the gamut from simple environmental policies like air quality and water pollution to the more complex issues of genetically modified foods, technological advancement.

How about logging? This is a big one in parts of Australia where you have the two sides of the greenies and the townspeople whose jobs are at stake.

The other issue big in Australia at the moment is truth in politics. The PM who is about to call an election has effectively been caught on a bunch of honesty issues. It's not doing his popularity much good!

[Mark Currie]

religious issues, seperation of church and state. Here in the US, Bush is very pro religion:
banning stem cell research
prayer in the classroom
gay marriages/civil unions

[lexaloffle]

Recent contraversial law changes in NZ:

Civil Union Bill allowing same sex marriages.
Legalizing Prostitution.
One response to the changes. (http://stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3012200a10,00.html)

Also, it might be nice to have trade relationships with other countrys effected by things like military support and environmental policy.

Best of all, freedom issues! It would be fun to try to gradually take away people's liberties and construct a militant dictatorship without anyone noticing. (:

Great idea for a game. I'm looking forward to it.

[Rod Hyde]

whether or not to have a constitution
universal suffrage (or not)
voting age
drinking age (if at all)
capital punishment
voting system (first past post, PR, single transferrable vote)
spending on: military, infrastructure projects,
do you nationalise critical industries and services or do you privatise them
healthcare: free at point of use, pay for use, somewhere in between
interest rates
whether to join larger bodies, eg, EU, NATO, UN
what type of democracy
what side to vote on for international issues ... side effects could be sanctions, terrorism, could have economic benefits
how much to help disadvantaged groups
how much to listen to lobby groups ... anything from big business to fathers' rights
stances on environmental issues

[MirekCz]

- more sport in schools
- additional money for single-parents/ ppl without work/ help for ppl just after uni looking for their first job
- more/less freedom (so you change laws regarding free speech, tapping phone lines by police etc) - quite actual for USA situation i guess
- give out free condoms/teach kids about sexuality in schools etc.
- take steps against rasizm
- stop frauding public moneys (happens very often down here :( ), there could be some news about selling cheaply public propierty or paying large(much larger then expected) sums of money for all kind of work to "friends"
- regarding police (works bad, slow, court cases take too long, dead penalty yes/no, penalties for crimes are too low/high)
- make equal rules for men/women (like equal age when you stop working, equal pays, equal share of places in gov)

But I guess to get the full picture you also need to take into account the "wish list" of companies like:

- lower company taxes
- less power to workers in factory/more power to company owners
- stop piracy/p2p networks (RIAA will push you hard about it)
- make law simpler for companies
- ... much more here, you would have to find some ppl doing biz from small companies to large ones... well you should find some on this board actually ;-)


btw, if you come to beta-testing or even alpha-testing i would gladly give your game a try :)

btw2.I don't know much about your game yet, but multiplayer mode, if possible, might be a winner :) Game types might be:
- trying to be elected for presidency (and then re-election?)
- each player rules a different coutnry and has got some targets to hit in order to win

And of course, you should use funny faces of ex-presidents as yourself/enemies (anyone remembers nuclear war? pretty simple "politics" game... either be a friend of someone or nuclear bomb him like crazy... and the faces of enemy leaders told you all about what he/she thought of you :)

Ciao

[cliffski]

thanks guys, these are all great ideas... Im making great progress with this game ;)

[MirekCz]

I have edited my post.. some small changes and addons

one more important thing, althrought you probably have it already, is the whole "war" thing and overally politics regarding other countries... this is an important part of democracy and can not be taken out.

[BantamCityGames]

I don't know about other countries, but I would really like to ban the US penny. I hate pennies!! Anyone with me in starting an anti-penny campaign?

[Screwball]

A Penny for your thoughts ?

[svero]

Whether or not euro countries should be allowed to annoy US companies with VAT taxes for internet sales, and in particular whether or not the death penalty should be applied for introducing such a thing.

[Diodor Bitan]

Whether or not euro countries should be allowed to annoy US companies with VAT taxes for internet sales, and in particular whether or not the death penalty should be applied for introducing such a thing.

Don't forget the state of Washington. :)

Some policies concerning the patents/copyright issue and violence in video games would be nice. Yeah, and spam and piracy and other kinds of electronic crimes. Also, privacy issues vs. intelligence gathering (is the CIA allowed to read email, etc.). It's a _computer_ game, chances are your players might care about computer-related things too.

[Cogin]

Level of media control. If player goes toward dictatorship he can increase control of state run media, even add penalties for antigoverment medias.
Also there should be possibility to cancel elections if results don't suit you. When you go to dictatorship end of game will be when revolution arises, which will be determined by level of control of army and police, how much you keep population happy with some unimportant events (think about something like gladiator games in modern times).

Well if you want to have dictatorship mode, I can give you more ideas, I'm from Serbia, seen it happened :)

[papillon]

probably too narrow a focus, but: what health care (especially free government health care) should cover.

"Person X got <expensive and 'needless' treatment> on the NHS!" is a common whine over here. The problem, of course, is that people disagree over what needless is. :)

(Personally, I don't care that you think it's your "human rights", I don't think you should be using public money for X cycles of fertility treatment to try and breed. ADOPT ALREADY.)

Other things:

age of consent
various children's rights stuff (when can minors override parental consent? particularly in terms of religion, school, and being forcibly shipped to other countries for 'reeducation'?)

[Greg Squire]

Since your game involves fictitious events (I'm assuming here). I could also involve fictitious places, and/or fictitious issues, such as "prisoner's rights to creamy peanut butter, instead of chunky", "should brussel sprouts be banned in public school cafeterias", "creating Jell-O free work environments", etc.

I guess it depends on how realistic versus how absurd you want to go.

[Bluecat]

"should brussel sprouts be banned in public school cafeterias".
Brussel Sprouts should be banned everywhere! Lumps of foul green putty from Satans armpit they are! :p

[Sunshine]

I hate to ruin your political ambitions, :D

But there is already a game like this called 'The Political Machine'

You can chose any of the current politicians from Bush to Rev Jessie Jackson, even Arnold is in there. Then you try to make a run for the oval office.

Maybe you should add in a more lacks copyright law :p

[Damon DuBois]

Here's a few no one has mentioned yet:


Whether to develop nuclear arms in secret against non-proliferation treaties. And whether to threaten people with them
Whether to harbor terrorist organizations who may advance your political aims
Mechanisms (honest and dishonest) for spreading propaganda
Ways to encourage foreign investment
Whether to establish secret police
Funding contras in other countries
Whether to discreetly allow illegal drug and arms trade

[Sunshine]

Uhhh....hey,man....Your starting to scare me :eek:

I think 'Brussel Sprouts' was the key word to activate Damon's subliminal programming.

Either that or one too many Tom Clancy books :p

[cliffski]

The political machine is not very similar to my game. My game is more like NationStates if anything, but its a deep political sim which is based around issues. I never mention parties, strategies or candidates, funding of parties or corruption. Its a perfect world where people make informed choices on the issues and their quality of life.

[Peter Wayne]

free university studies (i know it exists in australia and denmark)

Although you still have to pay it back. It's free as in no up front fees. But you do have to pay it back once you start earning money after you finish or drop out. It's like a loan but without all the crap. Although I dont know all the details as I never went. And I'm not sure how it works in other countries but I'm guessing we are pretty lucky in Australia.

...........

Bank on topic, Just remember every good game has an underworld ;). What about all the unseen and under the table stuff ;). Also what about UFO's and Area 51... LOL...

Also what about banning TV ads :). Any President that did that would be on a winning ticket.

[Bluecat]

Although you still have to pay it back. It's free as in no up front fees. But you do have to pay it back once you start earning money after you finish or drop out. It's like a loan but without all the crap. Although I dont know all the details as I never went. And I'm not sure how it works in other countries but I'm guessing we are pretty lucky in Australia.


It's called HECS (Higher Education Contribution Scheme). Basically anyone who gets the grades can go to university in Australia (though if the course you want fills up you might have to do something else.) The Australian government pays for most of the degree through funds allocated to the university, the student is charged a certain amount depending on the course that is being done. I think, the last I heard anyway, was that it was about ten thousand a year on average. (I think the current government is getting some stick because they want to raise that amount.)

Anyway, when the student finishes uni, they go into the workforce. Once they start earning a certain level of income a tax or levy is applied and they start paying the HECS fees back as a part of their taxes. There are ways to reduce the amount you have to pay too. One guy I know had the opportunity to completely pay of his HECS debt in a lump sum before the first or second year after he completed his degree and ended up having the amount he had to pay cut substantially.

From what I can tell it's not a bad scheme, though a lot of uni students don't particularly like any system where they have to pay.

[Damon DuBois]

Uhhh....hey,man....Your starting to scare me :eek:

I think 'Brussel Sprouts' was the key word to activate Damon's subliminal programming.

Either that or one too many Tom Clancy books :p


LOL
No.. not Tom Clancy books, just the news. :p

Oh well, doesn't sound like my ideas really apply to what cliffski is working on anyway.