For a GalCiv III, it would be nice to expand the political factions further so that there was actaully internal competition in keeping your empire under your control.

For a GalCiv III, it would be nice to expand the political factions further so that there was actaully internal competition in keeping your empire under your control.

That would be very cool.

Draginol, whats your blog site? I enjoy reading political views from all points of views.

http://draginol.joeuser.com/

Sweet.. thanks

While not trying to stir up any animosity, I just wonder where the heck did the center go off to? Nowadays it doesn't seem to be about debating an issue and finding a compromise, it's about beating your opponent so far into the ground he or she winds up in China.
Ever wonder if the metal detectors in the Capitol building are the only thing from keeping the politicans from putting holes in each other?

Personally I wish there was a third party, so that the Reps and Demos could both be punished for their blunders and inability to find common ground.

These are just my thoughts,
Have a nice day.

I think Draginol was talking in terms of how the AI uses its agents rather than how the player is allowed to use them. You will be able to order each agent individually so if you want you can put one in every opponents empire. The question is how is it best for the AI to handle them?

Yes, I guess that makes more sense. Looking back at my post, though, I think some of it applies to the AI too. If the AI overconcentrates it's resources it becomes vulnerable to weaker races, but if it distributes it's power it's a lot harder to take down or surprise.

Oddly enough, the game you are designing/produce doesn't support your political agenda.

In Galactiv Civ II you have to raise moral by build things for the people so that you can RAISE taxes.

Taxes are the key to victory. If you don't raise taxes you will lose. Period.

The sucess of your empire is dependent on your taxes.

It doesn't matter if you play as a hostile evil invading nation or as a peaceful diplomatic nation, you must tax your people or your society falls apart.

It is true that it is a good strategy to lower taxes initially so that you can build moral to build population, but in the end the goal is to raise taxes to 80%.

Once you have your tax rate at 80% without killing moral then you have pretty much won the game.

It seems ironic to me that you are against taxes in real life, but the basic fundamental strategy of your game is to raise taxes as high as possible so that you can re-invest in your infastructure and build military.

Anyway, I have said my piece, and don't feel I need to say more, but I did find this observation of interest.

- Livonya

The one thing I find truly distasteful about political discourse these days is something Kelly touched on above, and something I've also seen echoed in Brad's recent blog entries.

Too many people think of politics in the same way they think of sports. They pick their team, and then they slavishly cheer them on no matter what, deny any mistakes their team may have made, and bust the heads of supporters of the other team in the local bar at every opportunity.

Interestingly, where I come from, it's somewhat the opposite of that. People actually seem MORE inclined to criticize a politician if they personally helped put that politician in office. The mentality is more along the lines of "I helped give that sucker his job, and THIS is what he's doing with that opportunity?!"

So, while I disagree with Brad on some of the political issues themselves, I do greatly respect his attitude towards it all. It's not our job to support politicians, it's their job to represent the interests of the people who gave them their jobs. If they do a bad job of that, then they should probably be fired, like all underperforming employees. And fittingly enough, it may be the people that gave them their job in the first place that do the firing - by not showing up to support them at the next election.

P.S. Feel free to slap me around if I misrepresented anyone else's opinions.

Interesting... 2 things you never discuss with strangers or friends unless you want them to become strangers: Politics and Religion. Now you see why .

I hate to say it but any system based on human beings is flawed because at our fundamental core we are flawed. For me personally I tend towards things that hold up under common sense scrutiny regardless of which side of the political spectrum it originated from. Something a lot of people are lacking I know but sometimes it just boggles the mind some of the ludicrous things politicians and general populace say and take as truth. Here in AZ recent attack ads during campaigning just show how screwed up most politicians really are.

I think the biggest problem our system of government in the US has is the delusion that some how the politicians have your personal best interests at heart. Politicians care about one thing: staying in office. That is their job. They care about keeping it the same way every other gainfully employed person cares about keeping theirs. Fear of losing that job motivates them. Just because they were elected into office doesn't immediately turn them into saints which is what some want to believe about their chosen candidates while wanting to believe the other guy is pure evil. Show me an honest politician and I'll show you the tooth fairy.

On to the game. Personally I prefer the simplistic role government plays in this game. After all I'm supposed to be the supreme ruler of the galaxy anyway. What fun would it be to have to stop waging war with my massive fleets to have to go make nice with the systems under my thumb so they'll allow me to continue to play? I'll just gladly go about building my amusement parks and casinos to keep the populous happy so I can tax the heck out of them to keep my war machine rolling.

It seems ironic to me that you are against taxes in real life, but the basic fundamental strategy of your game is to raise taxes as high as possible so that you can re-invest in your infastructure and build military.

Oh I don't take politics very seriously in real life.  But in GalCiv, you are in charge of a command economy, not a free market really.

That is what got me in trouble with Rush Limbaugh in the first place. I, like many people, have some interest in politics but we don't lose sleep about it. Sure, I'll happily have a friendly debate on some political issue but if someone has views very different from mine, it doesn't bother me. I have close friends who are far left and I have friends who are on the right.

 

My Frogboy blog is here btw:

http://frogboy.joeuser.com/

The Draginol one on JoeUser is partially designed to create controversy and get discussion going. The Frogboy one is more what I generally talk about on a day to day basis other than game stuff.

Cool, I didn't know about the Frogboy one. Thanks!

I think the Frogboy one is more interesting if less controversal.

Personally I prefer the simplistic role government plays in this game. After all I'm supposed to be the supreme ruler of the galaxy anyway. What fun would it be to have to stop waging war with my massive fleets to have to go make nice with the systems under my thumb so they'll allow me to continue to play?

I think the game should introduce a fully-featured government simulator. The economy screen would display different stats every time you brought it up, none of the sliders would work, the cursor would only be visible 20% of the time, and most improvements would do the opposite of what they said they'd do.

As far as politics goes, the divisiveness between us now has hurt us more than any of the issues we argue about. This country used to draw an enormous strength out of it's conflicting viewpoints, and if we can't recover that strength than we are in for some very hard times. I've stated personally that it's high time for America to compromise with itself, not because of fairness or high-mindedness, but because our survival is at stake.

Besides, elected officials simply do not have the balls to screw over a strong populace. We are better than this.