Manual Government Change - Terran

[Indirik]

You could call the realm Frank's Democratic Tyranny of the Kingdom of Evilstani, and it wouldn't be a Democracy, Tyranny, or a Kingdom. It still says "republic" in the only place that counts, so far as game mechanics counts.

The difficulty has nothing to do with it. There are lots of things that are easy to do, that are not done due to the policy of non-interference in the game, except in dire emergencies. Heck, every time someone loses a region, or a unit, or even a point of honor due to a bug, it's all a matter of seconds to fix it. But we don't. We play through it.

This situation is no different.

I personally don't consider letting the realm go into anarchy to be an abuse. If I did, I wouldn't be suggesting it. It seems to me to ba perfectly legitimate way in which to peacefully change your government style. Just refuse to participate in the government. It collapses, you reform it as something else.

If someone steps in and takes leadership, then obviously not everyone wanted to change. At that point, since he's the government, you can legitimately rebel against him (should be pretty easy to win), and reform however you want. Sounds like no matter what, you win and get your new government.

[Chenier]

You could call the realm Frank's Democratic Tyranny of the Kingdom of Evilstani, and it wouldn't be a Democracy, Tyranny, or a Kingdom. It still says "republic" in the only place that counts, so far as game mechanics counts.

The difficulty has nothing to do with it. There are lots of things that are easy to do, that are not done due to the policy of non-interference in the game, except in dire emergencies. Heck, every time someone loses a region, or a unit, or even a point of honor due to a bug, it's all a matter of seconds to fix it. But we don't. We play through it.

This situation is no different.

I personally don't consider letting the realm go into anarchy to be an abuse. If I did, I wouldn't be suggesting it. It seems to me to ba perfectly legitimate way in which to peacefully change your government style. Just refuse to participate in the government. It collapses, you reform it as something else.

If someone steps in and takes leadership, then obviously not everyone wanted to change. At that point, since he's the government, you can legitimately rebel against him (should be pretty easy to win), and reform however you want. Sounds like no matter what, you win and get your new government.

I wouldn't really see why yes to Niselur and others, and no to this. You think he should pass by anarchy first? Then could you manually bring Terran into anarchy, so that he may then IC reform it to a theocracy?

[Lefanis]

The manual government change happened in Arcachon, in end 2011 (IIRC, could not locate my mail trail with Tom), shortly after the gazillion rebellions/ protests. At the end of it, Arcachon was left a monarchy, much to the chagrin of those who were left standing at the end of the civil war.

However, Arcachon had a long standing religion, most characters devoted to it, and had history of a theocratic government. The strong RP reasons were given due consideration, and Arcachon was changed back to a theocracy.

[Stabbity]

Also:

Name change =/= government system change. Lets not start using apples to justify oranges.

[Vellos]

Also:

Name change =/= government system change. Lets not start using apples to justify oranges.

What's different about them? Seems to me they're identical circumstances. Actually, name changes are an even higher standard of intervention than government changes: government changes are at least intended to be possible somehow; name changes aren't.

[Vellos]

I personally don't consider letting the realm go into anarchy to be an abuse. If I did, I wouldn't be suggesting it. It seems to me to ba perfectly legitimate way in which to peacefully change your government style. Just refuse to participate in the government. It collapses, you reform it as something else.

Except it's not anarchy.

You're suggesting an engineered, controlled process of centrally-planned government reform: which is not what anarchy is supposed to be. Anarchy isn't "transitional government." Rulers don't just go, "Well, hey, let's go into anarchy today so that we can change our laws tomorrow!"

No, that's clearly an abuse.

[Kwanstein]

Except it's not anarchy.

You're suggesting an engineered, controlled process of centrally-planned government reform: which is not what anarchy is supposed to be. Anarchy isn't "transitional government." Rulers don't just go, "Well, hey, let's go into anarchy today so that we can change our laws tomorrow!"

No, that's clearly an abuse.

It's not unrealistic to expect a group of conspirators (which is what your gang of four are) seeking to undermine the structure of their government to have to do so through use of force (rebellion) or else through the underhanded means of orchestrating anarchy and enacting their nostrum while the power structure is disorganised and unable to resist.

Again, it is less realistic to expect this to be done automatically and without pain than for it to be a cumbersome process which requires some sort of coup or subterfuge. As I have stated, the entire society (which is medieval and thus conservative --not prone to change) would by nature resist your changes. Not only that, but those who have achieved power under your current government structure (plutocrats, citizens, etc.) could only stand to lose from change, and so would utilize what power they have to maintain the status quo. Other groups which would be hostile to your sanguis astroist theocracy in particular would be religious minorities, who would obviously fear persecution from a religiously minded state under the dominion of another religion. So many groups would be aligned against you and the only support you could rely upon would be those who stand to gain from change, and they would be outnumbered by those who stand to lose, those naturally inclined tradition, those with rational fears of what change might bring. So, given the unpopularity of your positions, you could not hope to bring change to your realm through co-operation, but only, as I stated, subversion or the use of force.

[Indirik]

Name change is nowhere near equivalent to a government style change. And in any case, you have none of the long-standing RP that would lead to a strong case for doing it. Arcachon had years as a theocracy before that series of rebellions (three or four in a row, combined with mass bannings, both sides claiming to be the "loyalists").

And I'm not trying to rude here, but what Terran has is a week of trying to buy the favor of SA so they can survive by being gifted knights and food from the church. That doesn't equate to years of IC RP and history of being a theocracy that got messed up up by a series of bizarre, chaotic, violent events that ended up giving you a different goverment style than it should have been.

Nothing you've said has even begun to convince me that Terran deserves manual dev intervention here. But that's just me. The two people who can do this are Tom and Tim. And neither of them have stopped by to give their opinions yet. Maybe they will see it differently than I do.

[Penchant]

Kwanstein, everything you have said is completely illogical due to the fact they don't give a !@#$ about any government changes except for a label that has some behind the scenes affects but otherwise does nothing to how the government is ran. Republic means nothing about how the realm is ran (every position but ruler could be appointed). How the government is ran is not what Vellos wants to change, he has already done that, he wants to change a label that makes no sense.

[Kwanstein]

Kwanstein, everything you have said is completely illogical due to the fact they don't give a !@#$ about any government changes except for a label that has some behind the scenes affects but otherwise does nothing to how the government is ran. Republic means nothing about how the realm is ran (every position but ruler could be appointed). How the government is ran is not what Vellos wants to change, he has already done that, he wants to change a label that makes no sense.

The government type is intended to be more than an arbitrary label, it is intended to represent the style in which a realm is governed in order to encourage players to keep in line with established canon. Changing the government type without hassle undermines established canon for the reasons I have listed. Therefore the requested change is indefensible from an RP perspective.

[Tom]

obviously the issue here is that we need to protect the interests of NPCs against players. That's a major concern.

The major concern is just represented by the NPCs. Don't eat the menu and don't drive on the map, please.

What these NPCs represent is that a government system is more than the label on the palace entrance. Changing a country from communism to capitalism is messy. From monarchy to democracy, usually bloody. From democracy to dictatorship, often twice as bloody. It's not something that happens in the palace, or even in the capital. It involves not just the government and the nobles, but everyone working for the government, from the ministers down to the lowest clerk.

A government system is a lot more stable than any particular government. A monarchy easily survives a hundred kings, and a democracy can go through a civil war with nobody questioning the democratic principles per se.

That is what we simulate in the game by simply not having a "change your government system here" button. The government in BM is only reformed after breaking down entirely. Throughout real-world history, that has been the normal case, with the peaceful changes like east germany being the exceptions.

I won't rule out exceptions entirely. But they need to be exceptional and that's why I asked this to be brought to the attention of someone who actually knows what's going on in-game, because I haven't played BM at all for a few months now.

[Velax]

I think you may have modified one of Vellos' posts, Tom, instead of quoting it. Took me a second to figure out why there were two posts exactly the same.

http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,4225.msg106017.html#msg106017

[Penchant]

I think you may have modified one of Vellos' posts, Tom, instead of quoting it. Took me a second to figure out why there were two posts exactly the same.

http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,4225.msg106017.html#msg106017

You are right. It says at the bottom of the post.

[Scarlett]

What's that? The state of the realm is out of sync with what actually happened in character and game mechanics are frustrating your plans?

no haz tears

[egamma]

What's that? The state of the realm is out of sync with what actually happened in character and game mechanics are frustrating your plans?

no haz tears

No need to troll.