I'm less in love with the idea of "rebels" in the position of unsatisfied populace. I prefer something closer to "thralls" or "drudges" to depict uninvolved people not enjoying their lives and not contributing more than the absolute minimum.
Although everybody who can read this has been exposed to people "rebels" all their lives, in economic terms, most "rebellions" of the last century were the expensive hobby of rich people. Genuinely poor and uneducated folk keep to themselves and try to get by in the best way they can, while giving up as little as possible to the lords/commisars they distrust and despise. Throughout history there have been notable uprisings, but until fairly recently it was not an activity that occurred on an ongoing basis. When the people in charge use cavalry as their ombudsmen, rebels have short careers.
The advantage of calling unhappy folk "Drudges" is that it changes the economic framework of the game. The oppressive Empire kingdoms will have predominantly "Drudge" populations, but the more enlightened Kingdoms can have more productive happy citizenry. This way you can have folks who are miserable but loyal...or at least too beaten down to overthrow their masters. Contrary to most popular representations of revolutionary transitions, it takes a lot to convert a "Drudge" to a happy citizen, but a lot of that is cultural.While it would be nice if everybody welcomed individual liberty, a distressing number of folks will put the slave collar back on, the first chance they get.
This new title is more in line with the experiences I've observed and discussed with survivors of Franco's Spain, Ceaușescu's Romania, Pinochet's Chile, Mubarek's Egypt, Assad's Syria, and Hussein's Iraq. I hope you will consider it, I give this to you freely.
I think you will find that drudgery is universal. Calling your state a kingdom does not change that fact
It's an interesting distinction to make simply for the sake of lore, though. Some kind of fleshing out of the population system, without overcomplicating it, would be good.
The popular myth that people jump immediately from discontent to active rebellion isn't borne out by history. Uprisings do take place, but not frequently, and especially not when there are literally wolves at the door.
"Let's rebel! It will really show Lord Ixtyplex a thing or two when his weakened garrison lets giant spiders eat us to the last man!" That kind of stupid is reserved for people in the modern era who have powered appliances to explain their incomprehension of cause and effect. (For details, see the New Jersey State Supreme Court: http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_1_nj-supreme-court.html )
In between productive farmer/worker and useless protest-dweeb there must be a space, especially since there is a world of wilderness to wander off into. It just rings a hollow note that people coming in from the wilderness immediately attempt to form an anarcho-syndicalist commune like a bunch of Oxford debating society twits.
I'd be very interested in hearing you suggestion for how to do this without breaking or overcomplicating the system in FE.
I'd suggest a global search and replace of the term "rebel" with the word "drudge". Then I'd scale back the explanations that indicate refugees from Ogre attacks cop a 'tude when they find someplace safe to live. Instead, I'd indicate that many people coming in from the wilderness take some time to become fully engaged in the community, and that there are a number of town additions you can build to develop the sense of belonging over time. This is almost entirely a question of emphasis and degree.
If the developers genuinely believe that refugees participate in rebellion, they can post pictures of first generation Vietnamese, Kurds, and Coptic Christians at Occupy Peoria events. I work with first generation Vietnamese, Kurds, and in the last year Coptic Christian refugees. In my experience, they don't go starting things where they live after a "transition" event. I just think it makes the game story ring falsely.
Few people I've met who've experienced anarchy ever became Anarchists.
Oh... I thought you wanted some interesting population mechanics. If it bothers you, I am sure you can mod it out fairly easily.
And applying modern day experiences to FE, when the game doesn't even attempt to model any form of psychology, is really crushing the fourth wall.
About five years ago, it was my privilege to spend time with Yezidi people in Iraqi Kurdistan. They are arguably some of the oldest peoples practicing their community identity on earth because they got in on this civilization thing right from the beginning with the conversion of wolves into dogs. (The Yezidi venerate, not worship, dogs at extremely high cost to themselves.) The "Johnny-come-lately" folks who came up with domesticated grain harvesting downhill got nothing on the Yezidi. In the last hundred years scholars have noted the strong similarities between Judiasm and Yezidism in their core texts, and it is entirely possible that they stared from the same place before recorded history of any kind. I'm talking old, here.
I'm trying to model the game's behavior on their attitudes and responses, not on the fancies of French intellectuals circa 1785 CE. The game's explanation is modern in its conception and doesn't stand up to historical reflection on assembling a civilization from wasteland. Rebellion is a hothouse flower, kept alive in the warm manure of civilization. Drudgery is universal, and stands up to the cold battery of desolation.
I do thank you for your continuing this discussion, this has really helped me hone my argument.
There is a difference between the state of drudgery and the act of rebellion.
They are not the same, and do not describe the same thing.
Your real life experiences sound interesting though, and could inspire a modification to the population system(if the modding-tools allow it) or perhaps a story driven scenario.
I suppose "Drudge" could replace the name "rebel" and instead of producing nothing could produce a fraction of a production point.
If you want "Empires" to have a higher drudgery percentage (less happiness/belonging), then maybe slightly increase the productivity of Empire drudges. And additionally give Empires a building to boost the productivity of Drudges (or all citizens in general).
Additionally, do not change the tax system (ie drudges still do not produce gold of any kind)
This would have the end result of more Productivity in Empire lands but more Gold in Kingdoms.
(if we want to differentiate between the two titles instead of just renaming 'rebel' that is)
I agree with most of this, but I feel that the difference is that drudgery in the kingdoms is a failure and in the "Empire" it is a policy. At the beginning, drudgery should be common in both areas, but the success of the Kingdoms should be in the way it helps people be more free.
There are policies and innovations that help make more effective drudges for repressive regimes, but in the end there are strong boundaries on how good they can get.
pslblog,
How much do you know about how the game works? Your ideas might have the beginnings of a really good core mod. You could make some buildings that do different things with unrest for Empire and Kingdom. If you do make it into a mod, make sure the Empire's buildings have lots of denizens just lying around all day on their roofs in the blistering heat. So nice to see a soldier on the forums.
First, I was a lousy soldier and in that picture I'm a very happy, and pretty dang good, sailor with 40mm training rounds on my shoulder. (It was the first time most of the folks in my unit had gotten to fire the 40mm Mk.19, and it was a good day in a lot of ways.) No offense taken at all, but in the interests of full disclosure, I feel it important to come clean. (I really sucked as an Infantry sergeant. No submarines to find.)
I'm involved in work on a mod project for Mount&Blade:Warband already and don't want to stretch my commitments too far. "Sword of Damocles:Warband", where I contribute as Daedelus_McGee, is a big dang mod and I don't devote enough time to it anyway. Much of my testing work has to be done on a netbook, and this E:FE game ain't running on an Atom processor anytime soon.
The Empire won't have people laying about in public, they'll have everybody working, but the animations should be half speed to show the effect of coercion upon workplace output.
I think you've got a fine distinction here, in both language and political economy. You are definitely correct that true destitution and revolution seldom go together. Especially when there's a modernistic overtone as much of Elemental still has. The U.S. Revolutionary War is a fine example--it was instigated and led by middle and upper class men who were concerned about threats to the pace at which their wealth was growing, not people who were grateful to be able to sleep at night without fear of being slain or starving to death.
Also the missing seventeen years were a key factor. In 1775 the average lifespan in the 13 colonies was 59 years, in England it was 42. The revolution was in many ways an effort to maintain the prosperity brought about by minimal taxation and control. Part of the problem that the King faced was that the colonial revolution wasn't a peasant uprising driving towards anarchy, it was a move towards indpendency. Pity those parlor radicals in Paris didn't comprehend the distinction and were compelled by events to wash out the mistake in an ocean of blood. Shame that another Paris parlor radical named Mao didn't have any problem with repeating the exercise in China as needed to prop up his rule.
It is important remember that oppressive regimes fear ideas more than weapons, which is why they put so much effort into stealing and perverting the best ideas of free people. One physical reaction that drives this is the interaction of fatigue and fear. Fear makes you tired and exhaustion makes you afraid. Historian S.L.A. Marshall in trying to understand why thousands of healthy troops drowned in eight inches of water while storming the beaches of Normandy, codified the fear-fatigue reaction cycle. The fear with which tyrants rule exhausts their subjects and makes them stupid. The most brilliant minds are only one beating away from stupid compliance, and threatening only makes them stupider. While the Empire should have organization and discipline, their society must lack brilliance or it is more of a fantasy than any faerie dragon.
How to model lack of brilliance?
less taxes?
or less research?
I obviously agree in part, but one should not discount the differences in resource contexts. Europe had already consumed most of their forests and begun to suffer problems from overfishing in their nearby ocean waters. No small part of the prosperity of the colonies was because they were beginning to apply European resource use techniques to vast lands and waters that had never seen such use from humans. Plus, there were the advantages of being able to produce crucial crops like tobacco and cotton that were not viable in Britain or even most of Europe.
From what I've gathered over the years, the Stardock game folks are not interested in building nuance (or even options for it) into their TBS efforts. The taste for it is apparently a niche thing, and our niche is too small. Much of your discussion in this thread makes me think of the 'triangular sliders' that were part of SimEarth. I'd love to have a game setup that included letting me move a point around in a space defined by three poles like Working, Thinking, and Obeying. So far as I know, there's no room for things like that under the Great Modding Rug. But then I've never use or tried to make a mod for GalCiv or Elemental...
Lack of brilliance is certainly a research hit of the first order. It also means that improvements and developments deliver less efficiency gains than they do in more free kingdoms. This should give the Empire incentives to spy upon Kingdoms and subvert their leaders whenever possible.
Also, Empire elite units should be always under scrutiny and not trusted away from direct control. Requiring "political troops" seems like a new concept, until you look at the Persian Immortals or the Roman Praetorian Guards.
One key problem for oppressive regimes is the willingness of subject peoples to trade yokes for a closer master. Since we don't have any mechanism to replace the obstinate idiocy of a Gen. Lesley J. McNair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesley_J._McNair), who likely killed more Americans than any single German general officer with his obstructing the development of the M26 and other excruciatingly bad ideas, it probably is fair that fragments of the Empire don't crumble...but they should.
Revenues for the Empire should be lower per capita, but they should support larger bulk populaces. Since their population turns over very quickly, the cost of their elite troops should be much higher in personnel absorption. It takes a lot of serfs to create an Immortal.
Hmm ... larger populations .... weak units cost regular low population costs, elite units cost *extra population usage*
So empire play uses mass amounts of weak units, and maybe a few elite units? Sounds good
Just as a reference, I've spent most of the last year actively participating in the Mount&Blade:Warband mod Sword of Damocles: Warband, so I've been kicking around the corners of most of this topic for a while. Technically, I'm just playing hooky here until Computica cranks the next rev of SoD:W.
It does make sense that the Empire would field as large an army as they could feed, and a bit more since it won't be good food. Those hordes should mostly be grease in a battle, except that the Empire will use their dregs to grind down the Kingdoms. When necessary, they would use elite units to create breaches and flood swarms of thralls behind to tear down what the Kingdoms created.
In Ivory Towers, my mod, you can only train minions. They have 80% less upkeep and are very weak. They take one turn to grab a spear and get in line. There is no training. It would be nice if this was the default way an Empire faction worked. It does make me think about having the Kingdom factions behave differently. I may take part of this idea.
I feel that you are probably technically correct on this subject, and certainly surpass me in personal knowledge about the subject. But, overall...my opinion on what to call these people in this video game is simply this...I really don't care. Also, it seems the reaction seems a bit personal, as if these terms offend you in a personal-political way. Either way, I'm not terribly concerned.
You might benefit from the study of one of the more stark examples of the difference between drudges and rebels, exemplified in the Warsaw Uprising of 1943: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto_Uprising Without mentioning any political matters, rabble held against formed troops for over a month.
In between dissatisfaction and rebellion there is a space that deserves respect. A lot of jerks steal the title of "rebel" to earn them more respect that their actions, integrity, risk and results deserve. I'd like to stop giving the jerks cover for their posing.
I give the idea to you freely and will be happy to answer questions you have about implementation. I recommend the following book for your general use in modeling conflict: http://www.amazon.com/Sling-Stone-21st-Century-ebook/dp/B004JKM6IG/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&qid=1329162858&sr=8-1 I have friends who are knowledgeable enough to dispute it's conclusions, but not many. There is some seriously good material in it.
If that floats your boat, you might also look at: http://www.amazon.com/genius-war-German-general-1807-1945/dp/0133511146/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1329163033&sr=8-2 This will change your view about the importance of integrity and freedom.
As a student of Russian History, I know alot about this subject.
The take Col. Hammes takes on the Nicaraguan development is quite illuminating. A good bit of what he postulated was used by FM 3-24 and very successfully utilized in 2006-2008. http://www.amazon.com/Century-Military-Manuals-Counterinsurgency-ebook/dp/B004KAAYTI/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1329166364&sr=1-3 (There are cheaper versions, but their Kindle formatting is less helpful. As somebody with eight Kindle transcriptions under my belt, I can tell you that bad formatting is a giant pain, but it can be overcome with some effort.)
Could you extrapolate on this please?
Also, just to play devil's advocate for a Moment ... the flip side we are talking about is a Kingdom. Not Free Enterprise, a Republic, or a Democracy ... but a Kingdom. A Mercantile economy and Monarchical governing, Hereditary rule.
I don't see why we are putting so much 'freedom' association with Kingdoms.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
