I'm intending to start playing HP's Uber-Megahood soon, which I will be renaming as Chester (based on the UK city where I went to university, with subhoods named for its neighbourhoods/areas), and before I start I want to develop a political system that I can use for the 'hood.

I have a few ideas, which I would appreciate people's comments on - as you can see they are very much a work-in-progress! If you have a political system of any kind in your 'hood(s) I would love to hear how you do it! :-)

Here are my ideas so far. I am still working on names and political viewpoints/standings for the 4 parties, so I'd really appreciate some suggestions on those! I'm finding it hard to think beyond the Conservative/Labour division from the UK, or the Republican/Democrat division in the USA, but I really want 4 parties, not 2 (or 3, technically the UK has Liberal Democrats too).......

Anyway, my ideas so far:

I intend to have four “political parties” in Chester, each with its own policies and ideas. Every young adult, adult and elder sim in the neighbourhood will be assigned to one of those parties based on their personalities, aspirations, aims in life, familial voting habits, social standing and religious beliefs. Their assigned parties may change if one or more of the above factors change. For example, if an atheist sim starts a relationship with a religious sim and decides to convert, his/her political allegiance may change.

I will make a custom ‘Parliament’ career that all sims who wish to be MPs will have jobs in. There will be 3 levels – Political Candidate, Member of Parliament and Prime Minister. There will be 1 MP for every 30 playable sims who are of voting age and live in Chester, and one of them will be Prime Minister. All other sims in that career track will be Political Candidates.

Every 28 days (4 rotations) there will be an election. Each sim of voting age will “vote” for their assigned party. When the votes are counted, parties will be allocated MPs based on the proportion of the vote that they won. MPs will then be chosen from the sims that are allied to the relevant party and have jobs in the Parliament career track. If there are more sims in that career track than there are MP positions available, then the sims with the most friends within the party will get the positions. The party with the most MPs will be allowed to select one of them to be Prime Minister – this will often be a sim with a lot of friends in the party, a wealthy sim and/or a titled sim.

Each new parliament may “pass laws” that affect the citizens of Chester. For example, they may choose to ban (or allow) same-sex marriage, legalise (or illegalise) adoption by single people, give extra money to the church or declare a new national holiday. The laws that they pass will depend on whether the party with the most votes (ie the Prime Minister’s party) can get a majority within parliament to pass each law. Each new parliament may call a vote on 6 new (or amended) policies, but they may not (all) be made law, depending on who votes for and/or against them.

I think this is a really clever idea! I love the idea of banning/allowing certain things.... you could have a very liberal party for the Natasha Unas of this world and then a far more traditional-values government for your Mary-Sue Pleasants. I'd love to see how you get on trying to put this plan into action

Well, I have a few ideas for parties now - inspired by comparing some of the UK political parties using pocketpolitics.co.uk. I think that I will roughly base them on the Conservatives, Labour/Lib Dems, the Scottish National Party and Monster Raving Loony Party (but a bit more sensible - maybe a combination of them and the Green party, who aren't insane.....).

Conservatives: quite "traditionally" oriented, very supportive of the church, very keen on the "traditional family unit", anti-supernaturals, support for businesses through incentives for (wealthy) entrepreneurs. Would appeal to religious sims, wealthy/titled sims, sims who own their own successful businesses, some married couples with children.

Labour/Lib Dems: supportive of all families, not church-affiliated, anti-supernaturals, supportive of all children & young people (ie youth community lots), cheaper university fees for everyone, higher taxes for high earners. Would appeal to less traditional families - single parents, unmarried couples etc, especially less well off sims.

Scottish National Party: supportive of rights (extra rights?) for certain subhoods, inclined to concentrate development on that/those subhoods, supportive of children/young people, free university for teens from those subhoods, still quite "traditionally" oriented, anti-supernaturals. Would appeal to people who live in those subhoods (!), and aren't too bothered about the rest of the neighbourhood.

MRL/Green Party: supportive of everyone's right to do what they want, as long as it doesn't harm anyone, pro-supernaturals, funds lots of nature-oriented community lots, some "wacky" policies. Would appeal to supernaturals, non-religious sims and/or nature lovers.

I do want to come up with better names for the parties, though! :-D

I have no political system and it would break my brain to try and play as described, but if you really want four political parties, the simplest thing is to define your "issues" along two different axes, after the fashion of the D&D alignment system at its most basic.

If you never played D&D, the basic structure may be charted as two perpindicular lines defined by their extreme points: Law/Chaos and Good/Evil. An individual character in D&D would chart himself according to his attitude toward each, so the basic moral alignments were Lawful Good (King Arthur), Chaotic Good (Robin Hood), Lawful Evil (the Devil as Superlawyer), and Chaotic Evil (Jack the Ripper). This is too stringent for realistic individual play and quickly expanded to include the possibility of Neutrality in respect to one or the other variable, and btw causes more arguments and flame wars than any other aspect of game; but given that modern political parties tend to erase the nuances and create extremes, it may be good enough for sims political play. It is arguably better than real-life two-party systems which encourage people to behave as though people can be defined by a single position, as if a fiscal conservative can't be a social liberal or vice versa.

How you defined the variables would depend on the kinds of issues you want to emphasize. Possible axes that spring to mind are Freedom/Safety, Rich/Poor, Native/Immigrant, Aristocracy/Trade, Capital/Labor, Intellectual/Practical. Note how these are all extremes that need not be in opposition, but are often treated as if they are. You could do it with anything from the sublime to the ridiculous as long as it sparked inspiration for story hooks in game. A Grilled Cheese/Fortune axis intersecting a Family/Romance axis. Maxis-Match vs. CC intersecting Supernatural/Mundane. And since political issues mutate over time, when you ran out of campaign issues, you could invent a new axis and create a new set of parties.

Interesting ideas Peni Griffin! I have played D&D, but I was never the kind of player who knew any of the rules and so on :-)

I guess that, like you said, my political parties really need to be relevant to the sims, or at least the way that I play the sims! It's been a while since I played most of the pre-mades, but I'm trying to think of things that may be relevant to them and their lives, and then form political parties around them. Still needs a lot of though though! And input from other simmers, please everyone :-D

Question for everyone: What do you think could be political issues for sims/within The Sims 2? Immigration? University fees? Anything you can think of?

Banning sin (hot tubs, bubble blowers, bars, game tables) on public lots.
Banning culitvation of eggplants
Banning being downtown at night (vampire infection risk)
Ban eating on public lots
Ban on sims owning public lots
Ban on stargazing with the expensive telescope (alien abduction risk)
Ban bookcases on public lots

lauratje86, :lovestruc

solkan01, why eggplant? (Don't get me wrong: I think legislating food production is a great idea. I just wonder why you singled out eggplant.)

In the thread on social structures, a lot of people have second class citizens. You could be going through a civil rights conflict phase, when certain people are restricted from certain things by law while others enjoyed unreasonable privilege; but the discriminated against are gaining political power. This could be as serious as unequal enforcement of homicide laws, or as trivial as sumptuary laws (with the clothes people allowed to wear restricted by class - these were common during the Renaissance to maintain class distinctions when commoners began being able to afford fancy materials).

In addition to banning, certain things might be required. The Conspicuous Consumption Party might require every family to own a car and a hot tub, even if that means stinting on food. The Productivity Party, which regards this policy as intolerable, might instead require that all children automatically be sent to University. The All Night Party might oppose all requirements and promote government-run brothels.

Two eggplants makes an eggplant juice which gives a sim 1 random skill point. If you make a whole field of these you can max a sims skills by just having them drink the juice.

I'm wanting to sort out something like this for when I restart my uberhood too - though I haven't got too far with the planning yet so can't really help you with ideas...you seem to be much further ahead of me in that sense!
However, when it comes to political party names, I intend to have one inspired by llamas...

Thanks for the ideas folks!

I like the eggplant one, solkan01, that's not something I'd thought of at all. It would make sense that the Conservative party wouldn't want just anyone to be able to gain skill points so easily! I think that rather than a blanket ban they would probably legislate who could grow/buy eggplants - limit it to wealthy people maybe, or party members. And maybe the Labour/Lib Dem party would give free (or subsidised) eggplants to everyone when they became a teen, to help them build skills that would help them later in life. Or the Scottish National Party would only allow people living in certain areas to grow/sell eggplants - which would help boost their skills if they drank the juice or allow them to earn lots of money by selling them to others. And the MRL/Green party probably wouldn't mind who grew or sold eggplants :-)

Mangaroo - I am right in thinking that you had mentioned trying to create a political system (with elections?) for one of your 'hoods. Is that right? Have you had any ideas about it so far?

Peni Griffin, more good ideas from you! :-) I like the idea of "social injustice" - some groups of people having more rights than others sounds like a good idea. I think that if the Conservative party (well, my equivalent!) ever gets a majority they may be inclined to make life easier for wealthy sims and/or upper class sims, and/or harder for supernaturals, single parents etc. And the Scottish National Party equivalent would discriminate against people who lived outside of their core subhoods. I just have to wait and see if they ever get voted in!

I'm sure I will struggle to keep track, Extensa, but I have plans involving lots of Excel spreadsheets and Word documents and things to try and help me track things :-) I think that if I can work out all the details before I start that will make it much easier - if I'm still trying to think up aspects of the system as I go along it will be more complicated..... I like some of your party ideas too, shall try to incorporate some of them into my 4 parties! :-)

Croutanian - yes. Llamas are a necessity! :-D I think that the MRL/Green party is going to have some kind of llama-related name in my Uber-Megahood :-) Need to think of a good one!

Here is the current party structure; I'm still working on it! Thoughts?

The Churdition Party: quite "traditionally" oriented, very supportive of the church, very keen on the "traditional family unit", little welfare/benefits, orphanage/care system linked to church, anti-supernaturals, support for businesses through incentives for (wealthy) entrepreneurs, control on business ownership, controlled immigration. Would appeal to religious sims, wealthy/titled sims, sims who own their own successful businesses, some married couples with children.

The Progress Party: supportive of all families, not church-affiliated, anti-supernaturals, supportive of all children & young people (ie youth community lots), cheaper university fees for everyone, higher taxes for high earners, welfare/benefits for single parents etc, comprehensive child-focussed care system, grants to encourage small businesses, partially controlled immigration. Would appeal to less traditional families - single parents, unmarried couples etc, especially less well off sims.

The Suburban Regeneration Party: supportive of (extra?) rights for certain subhoods (Riverblossom Hills & Desiderata Valley), inclined to concentrate development on those subhoods, grants to promote development of those subhoods, supportive of children/young people, some welfare/benefits, well-funded care system(s), free university for teens from those subhoods, still quite "traditionally" oriented, anti-supernaturals, controlled migration to the two subhoods. Would appeal to fairly well-off people who live in Riverblossom Hills or Desiderata Valley, and aren't too bothered about the rest of the neighbourhood.

The Llama of Awesomeness Party: supportive of everyone's right to do what they want, as long as it doesn't harm anyone, pro-supernaturals, welfare/benefits for all single parents and unemployed people, awesome orphanage, funds lots of nature-oriented and llamaesque community lots, no immigration/migration control, some "wacky" policies. Would appeal to supernaturals, non-religious sims and/or nature lovers.

The way it's currently set up, I imagine that in the case of a hung parliament (which is pretty likely) the Churdition Party and the Suburban Redevelopment Party would be inclined to work together, as would the Progress Party and the Llama of Awesomeness Party. If parties did have to work together, though, both would have to make compromises to get any laws passed!

Amazing, lauratje86! I love how you've taken our beloved UK parties and given them a real Sims twist to make them suitable for the game - particularly the Llama of Awesomeness Party. (Also, considering the supernaturals is great; I could see a little community of "outcast" supernaturals all living together when the Churdition Party is ruling!)

Thanks wgroome :-) I figured it would be easiest to base my sim parties off something I know, and as a UK resident (and voter!) I figured that the UK parties were a good starting point! The Llama of Awesomeness Party is pretty much the Monster Raving Loony Party - their policies were amazingly easy to adapt into Sims 2! :-D Probably helps that they're a bit mad to start with.....

I wanted to make sure the parties covered enough ground that it would be relatively easy to assign each sim to a party - the more variety the better! I want to take into account lots of factors, like aspiration, personality, religious beliefs etc when assigning sims to a party, to try and make it more "three dimensional". I intend to start off with all the households living in Pleasantview (and businesses in Bluewater Village and Downtown) and then move sims out to the subhoods as the neighbourhood expands. So I'll be starting with three parties, and the Suburban Regeneration Party will be introduced when I have a good few sims living in the appropriate subhoods.

That's the plan, with the supernaturals :-) If the Churdition Party ever have the majority, that is! I got the idea from Garambola's post in the Megahood stories thread; I think it could potentially fit well into my game, so I figured I'd try and incorporate it.

My political plans for Prosperity are in turmoil. I don't know how I want the votes to be decided (interests? aspirations? social status? job status? lifestyle?) because I don't know what the issues are they'll be voting on. I'm having difficulty coming up with issues that 1) I am willing to implement in gameplay and 2) will be relatively interesting to me regardless of the outcome. I can't, for example, let my Sims vote to remove the anti-immigration restrictions in Prosperity, because the townie ban exists so I can reduce the number of families. Player gets what player wants.

However, this thread is giving me tons of great ideas for political plans in a new megahood, where I think I would develop a dual voting system: one set of issues would apply to the megahood as a whole, while each individual neighborhood would have its own set of laws re: immigration, property rights, etc. So Strangetown might have open borders while Veronaville is closed to everyone but the natives. (...and again I drift into player-set laws and not Sim votes. ARGH!) I do think I'll follow my practice of allowing only one mayor per town, and will hold a weekly election (on Tuesdays) whenever there's more than one Sim in the political track to decide whose career will rise and whose will stall. That election will be determined by assigned political parties, which means only one candidate per party can run. If there are multiple candidates in the same party, there will be a primary election with results based on interests and lifestyle.

Very interesting post. About elections. I read this either in Apple Vallley, or Jade Elliot's blog, but when they threw an election, they had posters of the candidates, then they opened a shop, with these posters, and who evers poster got soled the most, was the winner. I always thought of implementing this idea for election, if I would have ever gotten far enough in a hood to have enough sims to have politics.

Government Type: Plurality Communism (didn't see this one coming, didja?) Basically, whoever commands the most 'voters' (YA-E) controls the government.

Ultrarightist- Nearly no rules, promotes business, dominated by subhoods inc (subhoods controlled by businesses). Schooling supported. Supernaturals are not promoted nor prohibited. Business owners support this group.
Left wing Radicals- opposite of ultrarightist, private business discouraged, dominated by massive city center with few suburbs, promotes 'genetic anomalies' i.e. supernaturals. populated by poorer and lower class sims.
Anarchists- no rules, 'Borderlands' style society. doesn't care about anything except being paid. Promotes supernaturalism. Your 'wacko' sims reside here.
Traditionalists- promotes schooling, promotes basic family unit. supernaturals will be burned at the stake populated by elders
Universalists- main group of sims left out of all the other parties. will mainly follow previous groups example except anarchy.
Fascists- promotes main careers, specifically military. will actively exterminate other parties. usually elected after after a massive epic failure by the previous party.

Actually noobkiller, and I would like to correct this, Fascism/Nationalism are considered far-right forms of politics.

Fascism
Nationalism
Arch Conservatism
Conservatism
Social Conservatism
Democrat
Social Democrat
Liberal
Social Liberal
Social Libertarian
Left Wing Radical
Socialist
Anarchist/Communist

To make a rough list. (Very rough. Excluding tens of ideologies.)


Edit x 3: Reread your comment. I replied too hastily, it would seem. Although if I may correct a different issue, Communism is essentially a system without State. There are no votes, because no leaders exist.


*Lersad pulls a cloak over his face, and fades into the shadows.

Brainstorming votable, playable issues:

Simmigration
Votes would be tallied every 28 days at the individual neighborhood (as opposed to megahood) level, and would decide whether whole families could move from NeighborhoodA to NeighborhoodB or even if Sims from NeighborhoodA could marry into households in NeighborhoodB. (Personally, I would go with the marriage issue, since I tend to leave my megahood families in their native neighborhoods. Who gets to marry into whose neighborhood -- while unrealistic to my real world experience -- would have a larger impact on my gameplay.) I might introduce randomness by holding the vote (issue: restrict immigration into Belladonna Cove?) and if the vote was yay, roll dice to determine how many of the subhoods would be affected, then either pick that number of hoods off a predetermined list in opposite order of immigration "desirability" or just assign a number to each subhood and roll the dice x times to see which are included in the ban.

Supernatural immigration would be handled separately, on the megahood level.

Interesting ideas mangaroo! :-)

I think that I'm going to (try to) move all the households, except for students, into Pleasantview to start with (if they all fit!), and then slowly expand to the subhoods. Will probably have a small downtown as well, but just community lots, not residential. So to start with the only simmigration issue I plan to regulate (or not, depending on who's in power!) is vacation destination locals and tourists moving into the 'hood (and becoming playable). Different parties will have different views - I think that the Churdition Party will regulate it heavily, either not allowing it at all or only allowing spouses to move in, the Progress Party would probably allow significant others, fiance(e)s and spouses to move to the 'hood, and the LoA Party would allow free immigration. As the 'hood expands and subhoods become populated, the Suburban Regeneration Party will start to champion certain subhoods (not sure which ones yet) and control immigration into them, as living there would have actual benefits as far as laws, taxes, fees etc were concerned.

The supernatural stuff is interesting too. Like I said, I plan to start everyone in Pleasantview, but depending on who gets elected I may 'banish' all supernaturals to one subhood, probably Strangetown. So they could have their own rules/customs amongst themselves, whilst being discriminated against at a megahood level. I don't think I'll ever force curable supernaturals to be cured, because then I wouldn't get to play them, but I may come up with some restrictions on what they can and can't do. For example, vampires, werewolves and witches would be punished (somehow) for changing others into vampires/werewolves/witches, plantsims would only be allowed to grow food for the ruling parties, or just for non-supernaturals, and would have to get permission to spawn and so on. I could also make it than only supernaturals that look normal some of the time can have jobs - as I have the no weird-skin/sparkles mods that would be witches and werewolves if they worked daytime jobs. But that they had to keep their supernaturalness hidden as much as possible.

I think I'll probably implement some kind of inheritable supernaturalness thing (the original idea was Olliepop's, but I'd be using a modified version of iCad's ideas), so that should add an extra twist too, as supernaturals (other than plantsims) could breed more supernaturals......

That's something that never occurred to me, and now I wish I had asked about moving Sims around in the Megahood methodology thread. I always play the Sims in their "original" Maxis neighborhoods, and the only move-in questions I have to answer at the start of the game are where to place the Travellers (BV) and Pets families.

See, that's what I originally intended to do, mangaroo. But I know that I don't like most of the premade houses, so I'd be moving households into the bin and then into a new house so that I didn't have to play houses that, for me at least, are not much fun to play. Also, I was having a look at Pleasantview (the original one, just to see the street layout) and I thought it would be good to start them all of as if they were in a small town and then expand into subhoods. I think they'll all fit! I don't normally use big lots, so I should be able to squeeze them all in.

I made a list of all the households and their value, and divided them into social class groups depending on household worth (and titles - I plan to make Mortimer Goth, Patrizio Monty and Consort Capp Lords, and they and their families will be Upper Class). So I think I'll divide Pleasantview into class-based areas - with the poorest in trailer parks up to the Lords and the richest upper middle class families living in nice houses up near the bridge overlooking the rest of the town.

There are 84 households total, including students, though I intend to merge some of the student households, so that should take it down to 75-80. Eeeek!

Moving the pre-made sims into a lower-class district is what I did in Pleasantview. Even the Bluewater Village pre-made sims had to move to Pleasantview. And the pre-made uni students when they graduated/dropped out found themselves living in Pleasantview.

It was the most simple way I could think to of to create a different class. I did not want one big huge hood and one big huge subhood. I prefer small subhoods.

My CAS sims live on a small island subhood, and even have some of their own community lots. More community lots than the Pleasantview sims have because they are higher classes, currently.

Another island is the business district where all classes come together to work. Sims are not allowed to live there.

In time, I expect Pleasantview will be very run down and mostly abandoned. The subhood for my CAS sims will be abandoned by a future generation. In the story, it will come about when the island is flooded.

My political system is simply, One Queen to rule them all. Of course there will be dissenters, loyalists, and acts of treason.

That is quite cool :-) I had thought about making the Goths (complete with restored Bella) into the royal family for my Uber-Megahood, but decided against it. Them or the Summerdreams. But I've decided not to have a monarchy after all - I want to play with emphasis on political parties and stuff, and I think that if there was a monarch the elected representatives may end up taking a back seat....