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- General - Politics in a (Repuplic/Democracy) Goverment - How would you set it up?
Replies: 9 (Who?), Viewed: 1191 times.
#1
24th Mar 2018 at 11:01 PM
Last edited by Florentzina : 24th Mar 2018 at 11:58 PM.
Posts: 1,121
Politics in a (Repuplic/Democracy) Goverment - How would you set it up?
I know there was a thread a few years back about Customs regarding governments, but that thread was more about *what kind* you would set up, and being somebody who have ZERO interests and knowledge about Politics (well, apart from I support Environment aka "Green" party, where I live in Sweden ), setting up a functioning government is so frustrating. Before, I played mostly monarchy in per-modern/historical themed hoods with patriarch feudalism structures which I'm more familiar with, but starting to get a bit bored of this play-style.Recently, I started to play the pre-mades again, along with several sub-hoods created on MTS2 to create an entire country where each sub-hood represented a city, town or outcasted areas. (character files got to like 1000 with the clean templates, but I plan to play this hood more slowly), where Emerald Heights by Hood Building Group will be main City, The Raggerty family will be the main household building up the government, collecting taxes as such. Economics, Social groups and Taxes are no big difficulty for me to play as I've done it in historical hoods.
I've a slightly idea of beliefs established (Ethical and Moral alignments consist of authoritarian, humanitarian and Radical citizen who either has virtuous, evil or neutral beliefs, based on personality points, Using Warwick Challenge as guide and Almighty-Hat's G-rated version of the Religion mods which limited the interactions of a sim. I.e. Evil sims can do whatever they want. Neutral are not destructive or theft and the Nice cannot do any mean spirited behaviors autonomy).
But when it comes to setting up the Government with politicians, choosing majors, parties, adding campaigns, adding mods etc, I've no clue. Unlike my historical hood where the oldest son took the role as King, I don't want to do the same with the Major. I can't really picture the son of the Raggerty who is a romance sim.
I think I can include Top level on some other careers other than politics - The Law, Minister of Education and Chef of Staf, to add to form the government. Although I sucks at Politics (don't even know the difference between the power ideologies), I pretty sure the Major doesn't do all the work on his/her own, right?
So to the topic. Has anybody set up a functioning government in your hood that is not monarchy? Any ideas how to get started?
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#2
25th Mar 2018 at 12:01 AM
You might actually be able to get a lot of mileage out of looking at material for a basic Civics class in the US or UK... it gives you a very very basic overview of the way a Federal or Parliamentary system works, without going into SO much detail that you'd lose the "Sims" aspect to it behind all the real-world stuff. I think an important first thing to decide would be how many different "levels" of government you want though... It seems to me that the easiest to do would be National and Municipal levels of government, so I'll throw out a few ideas on careers and systems you could use for both... (bear in mind that for a lot of these, you might need to cheat to make Sims get the job you want them to have, in some cases helping them, and in some cases hurting them)
(A quick first note- whether Medicine, Natural Scientist, and Oceanography careers are government or private will depend on what type of country you're imagining... the United States would have them mostly private, while lots of European and other "Western" countries would have them as part of the government in one way or another, but it'd vary a lot from country to country, so that's gonna be more a judgement call on your part)
Municipal is probably easier, since the game kind of lends itself to that a bit more... All of the Law Enforcement career, most of the Education career, and quite a bit of the Politics career would fit in here, with the top position in Politics (Mayor) and 2nd-highest in Law Enforcement (Police Chief) belonging to that sector. You'd want to organize a police force, an education system, and a City Hall, with employees and locations for all of them... There are a fair number of police stations, schools, and City-Hall-type buildings already available, or you can make your own, but all of those would be good community locations to have in your neighborhood, maybe owned by the Police Chief, High School Principal, and Mayor Sims in your neighborhood, so that some of the Sims you'd want to have there when "regular" Sims visit the lot will show up.
Local elections would also be something you'd want to set up on a recurring basis (maybe every 5 weeks or so)... the Police department would be one you'd treat just as a "job" in-game, but the "City Councilperson," "State Assemblyperson," "Congressperson," "Senator," and "Mayor" positions would all be elected (and maybe Judge too, although I think that'd be more interesting as an appointment- see below), so you'll need an electoral process...
City Councilperson and Mayor positions are just local, so only Sims in your neighborhood would vote... you could probably treat that as a popularity contest of sorts, requiring your 'candidates' for those positions to establish a good relationship with lots of other local Sims, and inventing positions for them to hold (local elections tend not to be so party-based, since "potholes are nonpartisan") ... maybe one Mayor will see local law enforcement as a higher priority if you're dealing with a lot of burglaries lately, and another will be more concerned about the failing grades of many local students, if you have trouble with kids and teens doing badly in school (they don't have to fix the problems, they just have to make that issue the defining one for the community so that they get votes from it), and the same for councilpeople, to a lesser extent...
Another local elected position you might want would be a schoolboard, which would be made up of a handful of Sims with whatever jobs you want OUTSIDE of government, who have kids in school, and who the Principal would need to have a good relationship with... they would be in charge of making sure the schools worked correctly, and would try to lobby on behalf of whatever school issues they think are most important (truancy, college preparedness, job placement, whatever), and could "fire" and replace the principal if they were doing a poor job... (All of these job positions would be earned through elections, not promotions, so you'll need to cheat Sims into them in a lot of cases)
The National Level would be a little more complicated, since they'd be supposed to be representing more than just your current neighborhood... You'd still want elections, but probably less often, say, 10 weeks apart... and Sims you don't play (or even see) would also be voting for State Assemblypeople, Congresspeople, and Senators, so you'll have to decide on a political leaning for your region... (it doesn't have to match the way your city leans, either... IRL, I live in a city that's overwhelmingly Democratic, but my state is reliably Republican, so there's a disconnect there that might be interesting to play with in your game) That also leads into something else different on a national political level- political PARTIES. You'll want at least two, and you'll want them to have distinct (and largely unchanging) positions on big abstract issues... One might support medicine and education, while they other is much more interested in military and intelligence, to use the most obvious example. This is another case where you probably won't have much impact on your local gameplay, just because national policy is usually very slow and abstract. Likewise, you probably won't have locations that your Sims can actually visit for most of these positions, unless you're playing with your current neighborhood as the Capital of your nation.
Since there's no "President" or "Prime Minister" or "Dictator" career positions, you'll probably want a Parliamentary system, and so you'll have lots of Senators and Congresspeople as the highest elected offices on the National scale. The Senate in the US also is responsible for confirming the cabinet ministers/secretaries, so your Senators will need to approve of the Sims at the top of your Education, Intelligence, Law, and Military career tracks, in kind of a mini-election. This is also where I'd put sims who are Judges in the politics career, since Judicial positions are usually appointed, not elected (plus, this is a good opportunity to tie the national and municipal governments together, with Judges trying local criminal and civil cases, approving marriages and divorces, that kind of thing).
For any of the "elected" positions, you'll need to limit how many Sims can hold them, and decide on things like term limits and age requirements to hold office... you can't have a whole town of just Senators, after all! Other things though, like low-level politics and education jobs, and almost all of the Intelligence and Military positions, you're just limited by what makes sense in your neighborhood... you could have DOZENS of Recruits or Playground Monitors if you wanted to, without it seeming weird.
Clearly I'm having fun with this, so PLEASE, ask me questions about whatever I said that doesn't make sense or that you want more ideas on... I studied politics IRL at university, so I love thinking about different political and social structures like this!
(A quick first note- whether Medicine, Natural Scientist, and Oceanography careers are government or private will depend on what type of country you're imagining... the United States would have them mostly private, while lots of European and other "Western" countries would have them as part of the government in one way or another, but it'd vary a lot from country to country, so that's gonna be more a judgement call on your part)
Municipal is probably easier, since the game kind of lends itself to that a bit more... All of the Law Enforcement career, most of the Education career, and quite a bit of the Politics career would fit in here, with the top position in Politics (Mayor) and 2nd-highest in Law Enforcement (Police Chief) belonging to that sector. You'd want to organize a police force, an education system, and a City Hall, with employees and locations for all of them... There are a fair number of police stations, schools, and City-Hall-type buildings already available, or you can make your own, but all of those would be good community locations to have in your neighborhood, maybe owned by the Police Chief, High School Principal, and Mayor Sims in your neighborhood, so that some of the Sims you'd want to have there when "regular" Sims visit the lot will show up.
Local elections would also be something you'd want to set up on a recurring basis (maybe every 5 weeks or so)... the Police department would be one you'd treat just as a "job" in-game, but the "City Councilperson," "State Assemblyperson," "Congressperson," "Senator," and "Mayor" positions would all be elected (and maybe Judge too, although I think that'd be more interesting as an appointment- see below), so you'll need an electoral process...
City Councilperson and Mayor positions are just local, so only Sims in your neighborhood would vote... you could probably treat that as a popularity contest of sorts, requiring your 'candidates' for those positions to establish a good relationship with lots of other local Sims, and inventing positions for them to hold (local elections tend not to be so party-based, since "potholes are nonpartisan") ... maybe one Mayor will see local law enforcement as a higher priority if you're dealing with a lot of burglaries lately, and another will be more concerned about the failing grades of many local students, if you have trouble with kids and teens doing badly in school (they don't have to fix the problems, they just have to make that issue the defining one for the community so that they get votes from it), and the same for councilpeople, to a lesser extent...
Another local elected position you might want would be a schoolboard, which would be made up of a handful of Sims with whatever jobs you want OUTSIDE of government, who have kids in school, and who the Principal would need to have a good relationship with... they would be in charge of making sure the schools worked correctly, and would try to lobby on behalf of whatever school issues they think are most important (truancy, college preparedness, job placement, whatever), and could "fire" and replace the principal if they were doing a poor job... (All of these job positions would be earned through elections, not promotions, so you'll need to cheat Sims into them in a lot of cases)
The National Level would be a little more complicated, since they'd be supposed to be representing more than just your current neighborhood... You'd still want elections, but probably less often, say, 10 weeks apart... and Sims you don't play (or even see) would also be voting for State Assemblypeople, Congresspeople, and Senators, so you'll have to decide on a political leaning for your region... (it doesn't have to match the way your city leans, either... IRL, I live in a city that's overwhelmingly Democratic, but my state is reliably Republican, so there's a disconnect there that might be interesting to play with in your game) That also leads into something else different on a national political level- political PARTIES. You'll want at least two, and you'll want them to have distinct (and largely unchanging) positions on big abstract issues... One might support medicine and education, while they other is much more interested in military and intelligence, to use the most obvious example. This is another case where you probably won't have much impact on your local gameplay, just because national policy is usually very slow and abstract. Likewise, you probably won't have locations that your Sims can actually visit for most of these positions, unless you're playing with your current neighborhood as the Capital of your nation.
Since there's no "President" or "Prime Minister" or "Dictator" career positions, you'll probably want a Parliamentary system, and so you'll have lots of Senators and Congresspeople as the highest elected offices on the National scale. The Senate in the US also is responsible for confirming the cabinet ministers/secretaries, so your Senators will need to approve of the Sims at the top of your Education, Intelligence, Law, and Military career tracks, in kind of a mini-election. This is also where I'd put sims who are Judges in the politics career, since Judicial positions are usually appointed, not elected (plus, this is a good opportunity to tie the national and municipal governments together, with Judges trying local criminal and civil cases, approving marriages and divorces, that kind of thing).
For any of the "elected" positions, you'll need to limit how many Sims can hold them, and decide on things like term limits and age requirements to hold office... you can't have a whole town of just Senators, after all! Other things though, like low-level politics and education jobs, and almost all of the Intelligence and Military positions, you're just limited by what makes sense in your neighborhood... you could have DOZENS of Recruits or Playground Monitors if you wanted to, without it seeming weird.
Clearly I'm having fun with this, so PLEASE, ask me questions about whatever I said that doesn't make sense or that you want more ideas on... I studied politics IRL at university, so I love thinking about different political and social structures like this!
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#3
25th Mar 2018 at 12:27 AM
Last edited by Florentzina : 25th Mar 2018 at 1:37 AM.
Posts: 1,121
Zarathustra
Cheats wise, it doesn't matter as I don't care much on the vanilla mechanism and use hacks that BOTH gives my sims advantages and disadvantages. Simulating new aspects of the real world are far more important to me. I tends to play semi-realistic though (ignoring some vanilla wacky stuff. Elixir of Life, Money Trees etc are things I do NOT use). Education (limitations), Medicine (health, particularly child bearing) and Economics (heavy on fees and taxes) are the things my hoods mostly focused on, because it overlaps with my historical themed "rules". Military and Security I've haven't established much yet.
I've created a social system inspired by the in-game feature of social groups and then adding requirements and guidelines for each time. In short, a sim for lower classes will have fewer job advancement, higher risk of death rolls (one sim died from childbirth recently from these rolls) and limited education, which is based on the Warwick Challenge system (each skill/education are tallied up by points, the higher the skills, the higher job and secure health they would possess).
Each social group start at different career levels according and then use hacks (jobstopinator, Edukanush Iz Gud by Cyjon, harder grades, Career Adjusters etc) to promote/demote/stop sims from advancing. For example, I've a sim in the Bohemian (lower middle class, sort of down-to-earth Eco-friendly sims) group who wish to become a major, but his status (the very minimal education from a UNI) wont allow him to reach it, only to level 5 or 7 in Politics depending on his final GPA when he (or rather IF he) graduates. So In a way, I think I already have my ways to limited positions in these careers, as its hard for the sims to advance to the requirements to reach 8-10 in most Careers.
After I've gone through the whole hood (which gonna take awhile, it's much bigger than the normal but clean Maxi Uberhood), I'll see which sims will have the "rights" to be elected. Some challenges I messed around with did have rules that your sims need to befriend with people to advance, so I think I will have to focus the game-play on community and businesses more. :lovestruc It's interesting how different simmers thinks though, because I've consider Law Enforcement's to be less important (as long as it exist SOME polices and guards, other than natural health, I haven't done much on the government security apart from natural ones. Fire, childbirth etc.,). Guess I made my hood too safe to live at.
EDIT: I wasn't familar with the word Civic so I googled and found mini lesson and differences between the systems to understand it better. I always thought Republic and Democracy was the same thing.
But it seems like its direct/parliamentary system I was thinking of. Before I only focused one main family overseeing the hood until there is no heirs suitable. Democracy seems to be more similar to it the way class and rules goes. I still like the idea of having a government controlling everything (but what type is voted) rather than having the people decide, which is ironically the opposite of my personal belief in real life. I'm just a hardcore fan of the older systems in historical movies, dramas etc. If I understood it correctly, Republicans has more lean-way of choosing education and lifestyles rights than Democratic ones. I find it easier to simulate scenarios by having stricter guidelines to follow.I write down everything in a spreedsheets and write it down when fixed. Guess it has to do with that I've Asperger syndrome, coz I've "fixed" behaviors. Playing things more loosely like without spreadsheet would be chaotic for me, so my "minimalist" interests in politics does influence it.
Cheats wise, it doesn't matter as I don't care much on the vanilla mechanism and use hacks that BOTH gives my sims advantages and disadvantages. Simulating new aspects of the real world are far more important to me. I tends to play semi-realistic though (ignoring some vanilla wacky stuff. Elixir of Life, Money Trees etc are things I do NOT use). Education (limitations), Medicine (health, particularly child bearing) and Economics (heavy on fees and taxes) are the things my hoods mostly focused on, because it overlaps with my historical themed "rules". Military and Security I've haven't established much yet.
I've created a social system inspired by the in-game feature of social groups and then adding requirements and guidelines for each time. In short, a sim for lower classes will have fewer job advancement, higher risk of death rolls (one sim died from childbirth recently from these rolls) and limited education, which is based on the Warwick Challenge system (each skill/education are tallied up by points, the higher the skills, the higher job and secure health they would possess).
Each social group start at different career levels according and then use hacks (jobstopinator, Edukanush Iz Gud by Cyjon, harder grades, Career Adjusters etc) to promote/demote/stop sims from advancing. For example, I've a sim in the Bohemian (lower middle class, sort of down-to-earth Eco-friendly sims) group who wish to become a major, but his status (the very minimal education from a UNI) wont allow him to reach it, only to level 5 or 7 in Politics depending on his final GPA when he (or rather IF he) graduates. So In a way, I think I already have my ways to limited positions in these careers, as its hard for the sims to advance to the requirements to reach 8-10 in most Careers.
After I've gone through the whole hood (which gonna take awhile, it's much bigger than the normal but clean Maxi Uberhood), I'll see which sims will have the "rights" to be elected. Some challenges I messed around with did have rules that your sims need to befriend with people to advance, so I think I will have to focus the game-play on community and businesses more. :lovestruc It's interesting how different simmers thinks though, because I've consider Law Enforcement's to be less important (as long as it exist SOME polices and guards, other than natural health, I haven't done much on the government security apart from natural ones. Fire, childbirth etc.,). Guess I made my hood too safe to live at.
EDIT: I wasn't familar with the word Civic so I googled and found mini lesson and differences between the systems to understand it better. I always thought Republic and Democracy was the same thing.
But it seems like its direct/parliamentary system I was thinking of. Before I only focused one main family overseeing the hood until there is no heirs suitable. Democracy seems to be more similar to it the way class and rules goes. I still like the idea of having a government controlling everything (but what type is voted) rather than having the people decide, which is ironically the opposite of my personal belief in real life. I'm just a hardcore fan of the older systems in historical movies, dramas etc. If I understood it correctly, Republicans has more lean-way of choosing education and lifestyles rights than Democratic ones. I find it easier to simulate scenarios by having stricter guidelines to follow.I write down everything in a spreedsheets and write it down when fixed. Guess it has to do with that I've Asperger syndrome, coz I've "fixed" behaviors. Playing things more loosely like without spreadsheet would be chaotic for me, so my "minimalist" interests in politics does influence it.
Scholar
#4
25th Mar 2018 at 1:45 AM
Posts: 1,415
SimHampton is a combination monarchy and democracy. The latter is an 8-Sim chamber known as the Planning Council. Planners live and work on the same lot, paid for by the International Bank of SimHampton's Motherlode Investment Agency.
However, I do not simulate it to anything like the extent one might imagine.
General Elections
In a democracy, elections are important. However, I find it difficult to tell which of my Sims would would vote for whom. So I prefer to focus on the result rather than the process.
First, I identify which Sims would be likely to be re-elected (assuming this is a general election). Sims are retained by the people if they meet all of the following criteria:
- they are in Gold or Platinum aspiration on election day (otherwise they will decide not to stand again due to not liking the job enough)
- they have been on the winning side of vote debates, or at least abstained, more often than they have been on the losing side (otherwise citizens will have no confidence in their skill). Votes where the Sim declared a special interest, or the hypothetical situation where a party compelled a Sim to vote a particular way*, are excluded from the count - this is just counting occasions where the Sim chose their own position independently
- they have not done anything since the last election that would render them ineligible to serve as a Planner (so no crimes, marrying into the royal family or taking on a full-time occupation/university study during their service).Otherwise it is assumed the electoral officials would have excluded the Sim's name from the voting form.
- they are not pregnant on election day (it is an 8-Sim Council, and the maximum number of Sims on a lot is 8. Sorry, but asking someone who hasn't been born yet to make voting decisions on complex matters on the civic Simoleon would not only be unfair on the youngster, but also constitute child labour...)]
- they have at least twice as many friends as enemies, and any enemies they do have are not powerful at the moment (so having a member of the Royal family, a senior police officer or the Countess of the League of Mystics as an enemy is a potentially career-ending event). This is because a Sim with many enemies is clearly unpopular, and a Sim with a powerful enemy will find that enemy's counter-campaign too much to overcome.
Sims meeting these criteria that are already politicians get re-elected by their constituencies.
* - Hypothetical because there are currently no political parties in SimHampton. All politicians are independent. This is most likely because the BaneForce attempted to form a political party four years ago. They couldn't agree on any policies, kept losing debates and the three politicians got arrested for crimes (participating in a riot, insulting the High Ruler and conspiring to blow up the Palace respectively) before making any sort of impact (positive or negative) that Sims outside politics would have noticed.
This usually leaves a few gaps for new Planners to step forward. The re-elected Planners are then given new ranks. The important one here is Head Planner. If the Head Planner from last session got re-elected, they remain Head Planner. Otherwise, whoever has the best voting record gets the position of Head Planner. If there is a tie for this position (I once had three re-elected Sims who managed to win or abstain in 100% of their debates in a particular session), whoever held the highest position in the Council before the election becomes Head Planner.
The re-elected Planners wait for someone to come past their house. An initial check for eligiblity is made - members of the Royal Family, visibly pregnant Sims, anyone not yet a teen (the minimum voting and representation age in SimHampton is 12), Sims who have already been Planners this session and Sims still on probation from a prison sentence are ignored. The Sim is left to autonomously interact with the Planners present. Other eligible Sims are invited as they come by.
Whoever has the highest relationship with the Head Planner at midnight (it's that late to give vampires a chance) gets freshly elected, and is moved into the Planning Council at that moment. Granted, "I went to a cool party and now I'm the Planner for Scholars" doesn't quite match up with most people's experience of democracy, but it saves a lot of paperwork and creates a nice social mix.
However... ...if a Sim is moved in and I discover they are pregnant, have too many enemies or the wrong enemies,
Basically, I'm more interested in the result of elections than the process of doing them. Officially, the election season is 4 days long, but the actual campaigning is strictly off-camera.
Cabinet
The Planning Council is an executive cabinet. It is assumed all departmental functions are off-screen unless otherwise depicted. As such, every Planner has a specific set of interests they are expected to represent (presented here in order of seniority):
Head Planner - the leader of the Planning Council, responsible for keeping order in the Council chambers, ensuring the law is followed by Planners, for making sure democratic functions occur, liasing with the High Ruler and (in conjunction with the High Ruler) heads of states and other political leaders. Failure in any of these areas tends to cost Head Planners their jobs (any citizen may petition the courts for the removal of any politician - elected, appointed or monarchy member - who conspicuously fails in their duty, and Head Planners tend to do whatever it is they do conspicuously).
Planner for Finance - responsible for making sure the Planning Council (and for that matter the monarchy!) is on-budget, on-time and good value for the public Simoleon. Also supervises legislation for the International Bank of SimHampton, other financial institutions and measures to assist the economy.
Planner for the Interior - responsible for the welfare of people living in SimHampton. Making sure there is good enough health, environment, courts, food, water, utilities, taxis, weather forecasting, bubble blowers... ...this may well be the position that has most influence on Sims' day-to-day lives.
Planner for the Outer - responsible for how regular citizens interact with people from other places. Liases with the Head Planner and various heads of states to secure and maintain peace. Also in charge of spaceports, airports and travel documentation (along with related agreements, like the reciprocal visa-free travel arrangement with SimHampton and Alegnia Viaduct).
Planner for the Arts - responsible for the Architect of SimHampton, the Amarilla Art Contest and its associated community art participation projects, newspapers, books and literature, cosmetology training and making sure Sims of all ages are able to express their creativity fully.
Planner for Sciences - responsible for monitoring of cyberspace (essential due to the ever-present risk of cyberstorms), liasing with the Planner for the Interior on matters of health, creating a balance between free rein for inventors/discoverers and ethical concerns, and ensuring Sims of all ages are able to express their analytical abilities fully.
Planner for Defence - responsible for matters concerning cyberstorm bunkers, war, the military, civil unrest, violence in general, police and prisons. Used to be the most junior Planning position, until the University of SimHampton was founded.
Planner for Scholars - responsible for all matters within the University of SimHampton, except those specifically within the remit of other Planners (in which case the Planners in question collaborate with one another). Matters specific to the Planner for Scholars would include courses and curricula, the SUET entrance exam, the SimHampton Outreach Centre, teacher training and Greek houses.
Debates and Votes
When I think that a specific matter should be debated, I decide whichever Planning position is most likely to consider it "their" issue, and have them propose the matter.
Each Planner then states what they think and votes. I decide what that vote would be (for, against, or proposal of an alternative) based on that Sim's history, the special interests their position might bring - and whether they like the Sim proposing the motion. For example: if there was a proposal on the table to ban Invisibility Juices (a controversial modded potion that makes Sims invisible), some Sims have positive or negative experiences with them, but most haven't any personal experience. However, a Planner for Finance might still be told by commercial interests that it is profitable to them, and a Planner for Defence might argue that criminals can use it to evade justice. On the other hand, the Planner for the Interior and the Planner for the Outer might vote opposite ways because one of them is secretly in love with the Planner for Finance that came up with this idea and the other would like to throw a drink in their face...
Planners must include a statement if they think their view is in any way compromised. Votes for politicians who declare a special interest (for example, a proposal to ban Invisibility Juice imports would be a special interest to a Planner who formerly worked in a border control office) are counted but treated as ethical abstentions unless the Council would otherwise be in deadlock. If a politician declares themselves in outright conflict (for example, a proposed law banning importing of Invisibility Juices would be a conflict for a Planner who currently has a side job importing them...), their vote is always counted as an ethical abstention, but they are allowed to speak, and expected to state what their vote would have been "out of curiosity". Not declaring a vote is legal, but could count against the Sim. A politician who hides a conflict of interest has committed a crime and, upon discovery of it, will be escorted to the prison on the other side of town. Secret ballots are not a thing in the Planning Council, though Sims voting for Planners are assumed to use a secret ballot system to cast their votes.
The Head Planner speaks and casts their vote last. After this, the votes are tallied - a simple majority of valid votes carries the motion and gets it enacted into law. Sims who voted the same way as the decision went are regarded as having "won" the debate. Abstentions (on any grounds) are also counted as having "won" for the purposes of voting record,
By-elections
If a Planner dies or becomes ineligible in office (the latter is alarmingly common), the same process is done as for finding new Planners. The main difference is that there is no shuffling of positions beforehand - the replacement is always in the same position as the one vacated. Also, every current Planner except the Head Planner is allowed to "encourage" (invite) one eligible Sim that they think would be a good Planner to attend the selection event.
Jobs
None of the careers is essential to being a Planner. In fact, holding any form of "standard" job is looked at with suspicion. Yes, a Sim can be elected with such a job, but only jobs of 6 hours or fewer a day, worked for 4 or fewer days per week, are permitted in conjunction with a Planning role. Otherwise, the first act of an elected Sim must be to quit their job. Writing novels or doing the occasional spot of work as a barista is perfectly acceptable provided it doesn't clash with Planning Council meetings.
Teenage Sims are allowed to be Planners, but cannot hold jobs as they are already spending 4 hours per weekday at school (note this is already a concession, because everyone else can only be away 4 days per week).
Sims do not need previous experience of any job to stand for or become a Planner. It is assumed that any Sim who has managed to become a teenager (and isn't otherwise ineligible) is potentially capable of doing the job, if the citizens of SimHampton agree with them.
However, I do not simulate it to anything like the extent one might imagine.
General Elections
In a democracy, elections are important. However, I find it difficult to tell which of my Sims would would vote for whom. So I prefer to focus on the result rather than the process.
First, I identify which Sims would be likely to be re-elected (assuming this is a general election). Sims are retained by the people if they meet all of the following criteria:
- they are in Gold or Platinum aspiration on election day (otherwise they will decide not to stand again due to not liking the job enough)
- they have been on the winning side of vote debates, or at least abstained, more often than they have been on the losing side (otherwise citizens will have no confidence in their skill). Votes where the Sim declared a special interest, or the hypothetical situation where a party compelled a Sim to vote a particular way*, are excluded from the count - this is just counting occasions where the Sim chose their own position independently
- they have not done anything since the last election that would render them ineligible to serve as a Planner (so no crimes, marrying into the royal family or taking on a full-time occupation/university study during their service).Otherwise it is assumed the electoral officials would have excluded the Sim's name from the voting form.
- they are not pregnant on election day (it is an 8-Sim Council, and the maximum number of Sims on a lot is 8. Sorry, but asking someone who hasn't been born yet to make voting decisions on complex matters on the civic Simoleon would not only be unfair on the youngster, but also constitute child labour...)]
- they have at least twice as many friends as enemies, and any enemies they do have are not powerful at the moment (so having a member of the Royal family, a senior police officer or the Countess of the League of Mystics as an enemy is a potentially career-ending event). This is because a Sim with many enemies is clearly unpopular, and a Sim with a powerful enemy will find that enemy's counter-campaign too much to overcome.
Sims meeting these criteria that are already politicians get re-elected by their constituencies.
* - Hypothetical because there are currently no political parties in SimHampton. All politicians are independent. This is most likely because the BaneForce attempted to form a political party four years ago. They couldn't agree on any policies, kept losing debates and the three politicians got arrested for crimes (participating in a riot, insulting the High Ruler and conspiring to blow up the Palace respectively) before making any sort of impact (positive or negative) that Sims outside politics would have noticed.
This usually leaves a few gaps for new Planners to step forward. The re-elected Planners are then given new ranks. The important one here is Head Planner. If the Head Planner from last session got re-elected, they remain Head Planner. Otherwise, whoever has the best voting record gets the position of Head Planner. If there is a tie for this position (I once had three re-elected Sims who managed to win or abstain in 100% of their debates in a particular session), whoever held the highest position in the Council before the election becomes Head Planner.
The re-elected Planners wait for someone to come past their house. An initial check for eligiblity is made - members of the Royal Family, visibly pregnant Sims, anyone not yet a teen (the minimum voting and representation age in SimHampton is 12), Sims who have already been Planners this session and Sims still on probation from a prison sentence are ignored. The Sim is left to autonomously interact with the Planners present. Other eligible Sims are invited as they come by.
Whoever has the highest relationship with the Head Planner at midnight (it's that late to give vampires a chance) gets freshly elected, and is moved into the Planning Council at that moment. Granted, "I went to a cool party and now I'm the Planner for Scholars" doesn't quite match up with most people's experience of democracy, but it saves a lot of paperwork and creates a nice social mix.
However... ...if a Sim is moved in and I discover they are pregnant, have too many enemies or the wrong enemies,
Basically, I'm more interested in the result of elections than the process of doing them. Officially, the election season is 4 days long, but the actual campaigning is strictly off-camera.
Cabinet
The Planning Council is an executive cabinet. It is assumed all departmental functions are off-screen unless otherwise depicted. As such, every Planner has a specific set of interests they are expected to represent (presented here in order of seniority):
Head Planner - the leader of the Planning Council, responsible for keeping order in the Council chambers, ensuring the law is followed by Planners, for making sure democratic functions occur, liasing with the High Ruler and (in conjunction with the High Ruler) heads of states and other political leaders. Failure in any of these areas tends to cost Head Planners their jobs (any citizen may petition the courts for the removal of any politician - elected, appointed or monarchy member - who conspicuously fails in their duty, and Head Planners tend to do whatever it is they do conspicuously).
Planner for Finance - responsible for making sure the Planning Council (and for that matter the monarchy!) is on-budget, on-time and good value for the public Simoleon. Also supervises legislation for the International Bank of SimHampton, other financial institutions and measures to assist the economy.
Planner for the Interior - responsible for the welfare of people living in SimHampton. Making sure there is good enough health, environment, courts, food, water, utilities, taxis, weather forecasting, bubble blowers... ...this may well be the position that has most influence on Sims' day-to-day lives.
Planner for the Outer - responsible for how regular citizens interact with people from other places. Liases with the Head Planner and various heads of states to secure and maintain peace. Also in charge of spaceports, airports and travel documentation (along with related agreements, like the reciprocal visa-free travel arrangement with SimHampton and Alegnia Viaduct).
Planner for the Arts - responsible for the Architect of SimHampton, the Amarilla Art Contest and its associated community art participation projects, newspapers, books and literature, cosmetology training and making sure Sims of all ages are able to express their creativity fully.
Planner for Sciences - responsible for monitoring of cyberspace (essential due to the ever-present risk of cyberstorms), liasing with the Planner for the Interior on matters of health, creating a balance between free rein for inventors/discoverers and ethical concerns, and ensuring Sims of all ages are able to express their analytical abilities fully.
Planner for Defence - responsible for matters concerning cyberstorm bunkers, war, the military, civil unrest, violence in general, police and prisons. Used to be the most junior Planning position, until the University of SimHampton was founded.
Planner for Scholars - responsible for all matters within the University of SimHampton, except those specifically within the remit of other Planners (in which case the Planners in question collaborate with one another). Matters specific to the Planner for Scholars would include courses and curricula, the SUET entrance exam, the SimHampton Outreach Centre, teacher training and Greek houses.
Debates and Votes
When I think that a specific matter should be debated, I decide whichever Planning position is most likely to consider it "their" issue, and have them propose the matter.
Each Planner then states what they think and votes. I decide what that vote would be (for, against, or proposal of an alternative) based on that Sim's history, the special interests their position might bring - and whether they like the Sim proposing the motion. For example: if there was a proposal on the table to ban Invisibility Juices (a controversial modded potion that makes Sims invisible), some Sims have positive or negative experiences with them, but most haven't any personal experience. However, a Planner for Finance might still be told by commercial interests that it is profitable to them, and a Planner for Defence might argue that criminals can use it to evade justice. On the other hand, the Planner for the Interior and the Planner for the Outer might vote opposite ways because one of them is secretly in love with the Planner for Finance that came up with this idea and the other would like to throw a drink in their face...
Planners must include a statement if they think their view is in any way compromised. Votes for politicians who declare a special interest (for example, a proposal to ban Invisibility Juice imports would be a special interest to a Planner who formerly worked in a border control office) are counted but treated as ethical abstentions unless the Council would otherwise be in deadlock. If a politician declares themselves in outright conflict (for example, a proposed law banning importing of Invisibility Juices would be a conflict for a Planner who currently has a side job importing them...), their vote is always counted as an ethical abstention, but they are allowed to speak, and expected to state what their vote would have been "out of curiosity". Not declaring a vote is legal, but could count against the Sim. A politician who hides a conflict of interest has committed a crime and, upon discovery of it, will be escorted to the prison on the other side of town. Secret ballots are not a thing in the Planning Council, though Sims voting for Planners are assumed to use a secret ballot system to cast their votes.
The Head Planner speaks and casts their vote last. After this, the votes are tallied - a simple majority of valid votes carries the motion and gets it enacted into law. Sims who voted the same way as the decision went are regarded as having "won" the debate. Abstentions (on any grounds) are also counted as having "won" for the purposes of voting record,
By-elections
If a Planner dies or becomes ineligible in office (the latter is alarmingly common), the same process is done as for finding new Planners. The main difference is that there is no shuffling of positions beforehand - the replacement is always in the same position as the one vacated. Also, every current Planner except the Head Planner is allowed to "encourage" (invite) one eligible Sim that they think would be a good Planner to attend the selection event.
Jobs
None of the careers is essential to being a Planner. In fact, holding any form of "standard" job is looked at with suspicion. Yes, a Sim can be elected with such a job, but only jobs of 6 hours or fewer a day, worked for 4 or fewer days per week, are permitted in conjunction with a Planning role. Otherwise, the first act of an elected Sim must be to quit their job. Writing novels or doing the occasional spot of work as a barista is perfectly acceptable provided it doesn't clash with Planning Council meetings.
Teenage Sims are allowed to be Planners, but cannot hold jobs as they are already spending 4 hours per weekday at school (note this is already a concession, because everyone else can only be away 4 days per week).
Sims do not need previous experience of any job to stand for or become a Planner. It is assumed that any Sim who has managed to become a teenager (and isn't otherwise ineligible) is potentially capable of doing the job, if the citizens of SimHampton agree with them.
#5
25th Mar 2018 at 2:27 AM
I'd say to remember though, most elected positions don't have many explicit requirements associated with them (for example, to be elected President of the United States, someone just needs to be a natural-born-citizen who's at least 35 years old). Beyond that kind of minimal threshold, it's just having the resources and personal ability to convince enough people to vote for you, and those are things that can mean whatever you want them to mean in your game.
As to the relative "importance" of different aspects of government, remember that there's a difference between how important something ACTUALLY is and how important people THINK it is. This is why 'security' issues like the Military and Law Enforcement get so much more attention than Education, even though EVERYONE will go to school, but not everyone will be robbed- it's how the issues are perceived that matters from a political point of view, not how important they really are.
You can also take advantage of some of the in-game mechanics to have Sims campaigning for positions they want to be elected to... have a TelePrompTer in a bandstand in central park where Sims can broadcast their message to other citizens... have someone with the "Make Me Know Everyone" business perk work as a phonebank campaigner, calling people "on behalf of" a candidate, etc...
As to the relative "importance" of different aspects of government, remember that there's a difference between how important something ACTUALLY is and how important people THINK it is. This is why 'security' issues like the Military and Law Enforcement get so much more attention than Education, even though EVERYONE will go to school, but not everyone will be robbed- it's how the issues are perceived that matters from a political point of view, not how important they really are.
You can also take advantage of some of the in-game mechanics to have Sims campaigning for positions they want to be elected to... have a TelePrompTer in a bandstand in central park where Sims can broadcast their message to other citizens... have someone with the "Make Me Know Everyone" business perk work as a phonebank campaigner, calling people "on behalf of" a candidate, etc...
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#6
25th Mar 2018 at 2:40 AM
Last edited by Florentzina : 25th Mar 2018 at 2:56 AM.
Posts: 1,121
A President need to be able to write, though?
This one (so far) with LTW of Becoming the Major enrolled to a Puplic University but are not from a Vacation hood that I classify as part of the main hood. He is in simulated real life age 22 though.
But I I've some social groups that are not allowed any form of education such as Criminals, Envicts, Homeless, Debt ridden, Mentally ill, Foreigners (vacation sims), Supernaturals/Occults etc. Usually use custom careers for these. I also now use the motivation system on eien herrison to limited advanced/lifestyle path further, this guy is suppose to be average.
This one (so far) with LTW of Becoming the Major enrolled to a Puplic University but are not from a Vacation hood that I classify as part of the main hood. He is in simulated real life age 22 though.
But I I've some social groups that are not allowed any form of education such as Criminals, Envicts, Homeless, Debt ridden, Mentally ill, Foreigners (vacation sims), Supernaturals/Occults etc. Usually use custom careers for these. I also now use the motivation system on eien herrison to limited advanced/lifestyle path further, this guy is suppose to be average.
Scholar
#7
25th Mar 2018 at 2:45 AM
Posts: 1,415
Quote: Originally posted by Florentzina
A President need to be able to write, though? This one with LTW of Becoming the Major enrolled to Puplic University but are from a Vacation hood that I classify as part of the main hood. He is in simulated real life age 22 though. But I I've some social groups that are not allowed any form of education such Criminals, Envicts, Homeless, Debt ridden, Mentally ill, Foreigners (vacation sims), Supernaturals/Occults etc. |
In that case, you could say those groups are ineligible for positions of power, either by force of law or because, even if they technically could stand for election, everyone knows that not enough people would look beyond their social grouping to vote for them, even if thy were the perfect candidate otherwise (resulting in nobody in those categories bothering to stand).
#8
25th Mar 2018 at 4:11 AM
I don't think it's possible to say this without including political bias, so oh well, but "A President need to be able to write, though?" Well, honestly, I think Donald Trump is probably pretty functionally illiterate, so, no, not really... I'd say the same thing in response to ieta_casseopeia's guideline too... it SHOULD keep people like that from being elected, but, as Churchill (supposedly) said, "The best argument against democracy is five minutes with the average voter." Setting many hard-and-fast 'rules' about who can and can't be elected doesn't match up with the real world, and sadly, in the real world, there are countless examples of people being elected who really shouldn't have been.
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#9
25th Mar 2018 at 4:51 AM
Last edited by Florentzina : 25th Mar 2018 at 5:09 AM.
Posts: 1,121
I think I know a way to gathered votes for different government parties which ended up with three.
The three governments are the Moral alignments which I randomize (6 for radicals, 2,4 for humanitarian and 1,3,5 for authoritarian.). According to Warwick challenge. roughly:
Authoritarians tends followed traditions and respect the law and are loyal to their place in society (politics, law, military etc), Humanitarian focus on cultural beliefs, health and culture (education, medicine) while the radicals are rebellious and often try to form revolution trying to turn upside down to the society to please their own needs and beliefs.
Rebellious sims I cannot come up with suitable careers, but I think they will try to change the power to allow the sims to control the government---or something like that.
Each has ethical beliefs that slightly affect their morals which is based on their Nice/Grouchy personality. Generally, Evils are selfish, Neutrals stand somewhere in the middle but act when they feel it while Nice sims stay true to their beliefs without harming others. Some of these sims change their beliefs when experiences trauma and life-changing scenarios.
I have every sim in a spreadsheet (attached an example, Joe is the guy I mentioned about before, R6 means risky woohoo 6%, F65-6 ACR2 TFB & Ideal kids, MA = Average motivation, HC/SF Funds & house expenses, blank as they live in dorms), then I only need to write every sims down based on their beliefs and look for every sim eligible to vote. Since its randomized I don't have control over how many sims I have of each group. If I get a group who support Traditions, I will have the sims from higher career levels focus on politics, laws, military needs and technology. I think I might also grab ieta's ideas of eligible sims. Sims who break rules or misbehaving will not be able to vote or get positions. The actual positions I still need to think about how to run. But the campaign/voter seems more clear. Might be way simpler than other may do it, though.
My sims has as 1 day = 1 year lifespan so I think 3 sim weeks which equal 21 years should be long enough for one sim to rule over the hood, starting in their mid 30's.
The three governments are the Moral alignments which I randomize (6 for radicals, 2,4 for humanitarian and 1,3,5 for authoritarian.). According to Warwick challenge. roughly:
Authoritarians tends followed traditions and respect the law and are loyal to their place in society (politics, law, military etc), Humanitarian focus on cultural beliefs, health and culture (education, medicine) while the radicals are rebellious and often try to form revolution trying to turn upside down to the society to please their own needs and beliefs.
Rebellious sims I cannot come up with suitable careers, but I think they will try to change the power to allow the sims to control the government---or something like that.
Each has ethical beliefs that slightly affect their morals which is based on their Nice/Grouchy personality. Generally, Evils are selfish, Neutrals stand somewhere in the middle but act when they feel it while Nice sims stay true to their beliefs without harming others. Some of these sims change their beliefs when experiences trauma and life-changing scenarios.
I have every sim in a spreadsheet (attached an example, Joe is the guy I mentioned about before, R6 means risky woohoo 6%, F65-6 ACR2 TFB & Ideal kids, MA = Average motivation, HC/SF Funds & house expenses, blank as they live in dorms), then I only need to write every sims down based on their beliefs and look for every sim eligible to vote. Since its randomized I don't have control over how many sims I have of each group. If I get a group who support Traditions, I will have the sims from higher career levels focus on politics, laws, military needs and technology. I think I might also grab ieta's ideas of eligible sims. Sims who break rules or misbehaving will not be able to vote or get positions. The actual positions I still need to think about how to run. But the campaign/voter seems more clear. Might be way simpler than other may do it, though.
My sims has as 1 day = 1 year lifespan so I think 3 sim weeks which equal 21 years should be long enough for one sim to rule over the hood, starting in their mid 30's.
#10
25th Mar 2018 at 12:12 PM
Posts: 6,236
I don't really have a political system set up in game, but if I did, there would be a two party system, with the "Conservatives" and the "Liberals" as the leading parties.
The conservatives would be, well, conservative, (think Ms. Crumplebottom) and the Liberals would be people like Don Lothario. The "Knowledge" pixels would have their own party of the "Progressives" as a third option.
I'd really like to see a mod based on the "religion" mod that would allow one to create such a working situation. Then everyone could be of one or the other political party and have arguments about it.
Receptacle Refugee & Resident Polar Bear
"Get out of my way, young'un, I'm a ninja!"
Grave Matters: The funeral podium is available here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/e6tj...albits.zip/file
My other downloads are here: https://app.mediafire.com/myfiles
The conservatives would be, well, conservative, (think Ms. Crumplebottom) and the Liberals would be people like Don Lothario. The "Knowledge" pixels would have their own party of the "Progressives" as a third option.
I'd really like to see a mod based on the "religion" mod that would allow one to create such a working situation. Then everyone could be of one or the other political party and have arguments about it.
Receptacle Refugee & Resident Polar Bear
"Get out of my way, young'un, I'm a ninja!"
Grave Matters: The funeral podium is available here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/e6tj...albits.zip/file
My other downloads are here: https://app.mediafire.com/myfiles
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