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BattleMaster => Development => Feature Requests => Topic started by: vonGenf on October 22, 2011, 02:51:53 PM
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What if you could buy elections through family gold instead of regions?
By that I mean that when the election is run, you could pay gold for a chance to simply decide what the results will be. The outcome would be one of:
-You fail, nothing happens
-You fail, you get caught, the realm is aware (maybe you get thrown in jail)
-You succeed, the election runs its course but instead of displaying the counted votes it shows whatever you want it to show. The realm is unaware anything happened.
This wouldn't work for appointed posts, of course, but that's fine. On the other hand, you could buy a government position if you were so inclined. And in most cases it would be seen as legitimate. There are cases where it won't be seen as legitimate because it flies in the face of everything the characters expected, but this will be an IC indignation and not meta-gaming.
Mechanically, I think it could work like this, although many details could be modified maintaining the core idea:
-When an election of any kind (including referendums) occurs and you go to the voting, you sometimes get a link to "Influence the results...". This link should only appear if you have over a certain prestige (15?).
-If you click it, you get a boilerplate warning. Then you get to write down what you would like the result to be. This probably requires some interface where you assign number of votes. I think you should be able to decide the votes, not just the winner.
-It costs you 6 hours
-It costs you an amount of gold that depends on the size of the realm (10 gold/noble?). It should be easy to rig the vote in a two region realm where the vote counter is your cousin Billie Joe, it should hard in a 100k+ people realm with multiple cities.
-As a refinement, it could be paid by family gold.
-If you get caught, you get caught immediately.
-If you don't get caught, the votes goes on. You're still not certain if you will succeed.
-The probability to get caught should be fixed; I would say 20% caught - 40% fail without getting caught - 40% succeed.
-I can't see any skill it should be tied to, but in theory it could.
-When the vote terminates, either the results you've decided or the actual result, depending on your success, appears. Everyone just sees the result as normal.
-If multiple people try to rig the election, the successful one (if any) should be randomly chosen and race conditions avoided.
I think that's it!
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Hmm, just as brainstorming, why not make it less clear-cut and allow someone buying the election to buy/change a few votes instead of fixing the entire election?
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I think it should show that you won by one vote, or maybe the election committee will let you vote for all abstentions--they just fill out the left over ballots.
I think there should be a chance that more votes than you have nobles appears in the results, so that observant people might do a count and know there was money business.
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Hmm, just as brainstorming, why not make it less clear-cut and allow someone buying the election to buy/change a few votes instead of fixing the entire election?
That could be simpler, yes. You could have a box to "Buy x votes", and you pay, let's say, 50 gold per vote? Then it would be easier to tip a close contest.
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from an implementation POV, the easiest would be to let you pick who you want to be the winner - and then at the end of the vote, your "winner" and the real winner get exchanged. That way, all the votes work out, very little special code is needed, and you have the maximum amount of plausible deniability, while it is still possible to work out that the election was rigged (e.g. if those voting for the real winner talk amongst each other and figure out that he should've gotten more votes than he did).
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from an implementation POV, the easiest would be to let you pick who you want to be the winner - and then at the end of the vote, your "winner" and the real winner get exchanged. That way, all the votes work out, very little special code is needed, and you have the maximum amount of plausible deniability, while it is still possible to work out that the election was rigged (e.g. if those voting for the real winner talk amongst each other and figure out that he should've gotten more votes than he did).
If the person you pick as a winner would have arrived second place anyway, this works out perfectly. However, if the person you pick was going to receive zero or very little vote, then your plausible deniability is gone.
That's not necessarily a bad thing however, as it would force people to pick and choose their fights.
And if it's simpler than adding x votes, I'm all for it.
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I would totally use this to get Sundar in as Imperial Magistrate of Arcaea. Would be so much fun.
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I think there are two important things to note with this feature:
1. I think that the amount of gold it costs to "rig" an election should be variable. One should be able to put as much gold as they want into rigging the election, and by placing more gold on it, they increase their chances of winning the election by rigging it. This would be on a percentage basis, with a standard minimum and maximum chance of failure.
Ex: The game gives you a "minimum required gold" level in order to bribe the election offices, and this would result in perhaps a 50% chance of failure. However, you could put more gold into the bribe in order to reduce the chance of failure down to a minimum threshold (let's say 10%?) chance of failure. This gold increase could operate on a logarithmic scale or some such where the more gold one puts in the less % deduction as the % chance of failure approaches the limit.
2. There should be a way to "insure" an election. In other words, place money on the election, not to change the results, but in order to counteract bribes and attempts to fix the election. This would operate by someone seeking to insure the election placing X amount of gold into the election pot in order to make sure the results run true. This increases the chance of failure of any attempt to "bribe" the officials by a % equal to the fraction (X/Y)*100 where Y is the amount used as a bribe. If X > Y, then there is a 100% chance of the person bribing the officials of being caught. Also, if (X/Y)*100 + Z > 100, where Z is the % chance of failure by method 1, then there is a 100% chance of the person bribing the officials of being caught.
In other words, I want a method whereby I can ensure that an election proceeds true. If we have a feature where people can use gold to buy things, I want a feature that helps others with gold stop it. If not, everyone can simply put 200 gold towards bribing into an election and its random chance who wins. The actual values, and percents, can be discussed and decided upon by the devs, but I think this is a decent method of setting it up.
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How would you handle a situation where two or more people rig the election?
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How would you handle a situation where two or more people rig the election?
One succeeds, the other fails. Unless both are trying to achieve the same.
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The more money you put into it, the higher the chance of detection should be, as the more people you have to bribe.
Like financing rebels it should be, I would say. More gold = more impact, but more risk.
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How would you handle a situation where two or more people rig the election?
For my system, any gold used to insure the election would could towards reducing both of them in a manner befitting the gold put forth. However, it would be related to the fraction that each of them put forth to rig the election.
I.e. If person A rigs with 250 gold, and person B rigs with 500 gold, and I set forth 100 gold to insure the election. 33 gold would go towards reducing the chances of A and 66 gold would go towards reducing the chances of B, based upon their respective fractions.
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You know what I LOVE about this? It makes elections a far less viable system of government and that is just !@#$ing ossim.
Shin is gonna love this: "How can you prefer these corrupt democrats over our highly disciplined nobles traditions?"
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You know what I LOVE about this? It makes elections a far less viable system of government and that is just !@#$ing ossim.
Shin is gonna love this: "How can you prefer these corrupt democrats over our highly disciplined nobles traditions?"
Even tyrannies have elections, just not as often--whenever the tyrant dies or pauses.
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You know what I LOVE about this? It makes elections a far less viable system of government and that is just !@#$ing ossim.
Shin is gonna love this: "How can you prefer these corrupt democrats over our highly disciplined nobles traditions?"
I too like this. Would make democracies and republics feel a lot more medieval.
Even tyrannies have elections, just not as often--whenever the tyrant dies or pauses.
That's beside the point, imo.
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That's beside the point, imo.
Not at all! An "elected once" election is the chance of a (character's) lifetime! Think about Sordnaz, as ruler of Makar for what, 8 years? If he were to pause because his computer crashed or he got banished or something, that would be a very unique opportunity to seize control of a realm! Everyone would be buying votes, and trying to bribe others into buying votes for them, etc.
Why bother spending 500 gold on a monthly election? It's a lot cheaper to simply campaign for the position--I've successfully held all 4 council positions in Giblot, with little opposition, based on this.
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Perhaps we should restrict this to only elections that happen more than once.
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actually.. the best thing would be to not show the numbers in elections.
though obviously no one would be able to tell if it's bugged or not.
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Perhaps we should restrict this to only elections that happen more than once.
Why?
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How would you handle a situation where two or more people rig the election?
-If multiple people try to rig the election, the successful one (if any) should be randomly chosen and race conditions avoided.
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Why?
Because I think it's important we keep parts of the game fair that have very long lasting consequences... maybe by this criteria only the ruler (if elected once) must have fair elections.
Theres just something I find annoying about having a King's (or any equivalent title's) seat open to bribes... it just seems too big for that type of !@#$...
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I think there are two important things to note with this feature:
1. I think that the amount of gold it costs to "rig" an election should be variable. One should be able to put as much gold as they want into rigging the election, and by placing more gold on it, they increase their chances of winning the election by rigging it. This would be on a percentage basis, with a standard minimum and maximum chance of failure.
Ex: The game gives you a "minimum required gold" level in order to bribe the election offices, and this would result in perhaps a 50% chance of failure. However, you could put more gold into the bribe in order to reduce the chance of failure down to a minimum threshold (let's say 10%?) chance of failure. This gold increase could operate on a logarithmic scale or some such where the more gold one puts in the less % deduction as the % chance of failure approaches the limit.
I see your point, but it looks more complicated to implement - I tried to keep it simple.
2. There should be a way to "insure" an election. In other words, place money on the election, not to change the results, but in order to counteract bribes and attempts to fix the election. This would operate by someone seeking to insure the election placing X amount of gold into the election pot in order to make sure the results run true. This increases the chance of failure of any attempt to "bribe" the officials by a % equal to the fraction (X/Y)*100 where Y is the amount used as a bribe. If X > Y, then there is a 100% chance of the person bribing the officials of being caught. Also, if (X/Y)*100 + Z > 100, where Z is the % chance of failure by method 1, then there is a 100% chance of the person bribing the officials of being caught.
In other words, I want a method whereby I can ensure that an election proceeds true. If we have a feature where people can use gold to buy things, I want a feature that helps others with gold stop it. If not, everyone can simply put 200 gold towards bribing into an election and its random chance who wins. The actual values, and percents, can be discussed and decided upon by the devs, but I think this is a decent method of setting it up.
The best way to insure your election is to stab your opponent. I wouldn't want this feature to have the end result of requiring constant investments to run a democracy.
If you're worried it would happen too often, increase the price and the probability to get caught.
It was never my intention to make a system where buying the election every month is a viable strategy. It should be a rare and risky event.
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Because I think it's important we keep parts of the game fair that have very long lasting consequences... maybe by this criteria only the ruler (if elected once) must have fair elections.
Theres just something I find annoying about having a King's (or any equivalent title's) seat open to bribes... it just seems too big for that type of !@#$...
I see your point... yet it seems strange that a tyranny would turn into a perfect democracy once a character pauses.
Also, this would have no bearing at all on rebellions, which should be the standard way of changing rulers in tyrannies anyway.
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Because I think it's important we keep parts of the game fair that have very long lasting consequences... maybe by this criteria only the ruler (if elected once) must have fair elections.
Theres just something I find annoying about having a King's (or any equivalent title's) seat open to bribes... it just seems too big for that type of !@#$...
Why is it too big for that !@#$?
You still have some sort of fairness guiding you to that. But there is no fairness in real life and where we would have rebellions and backstabbing, we now have elections so we should make the elections less reliable.
It is the elections that happens once where this would pay off for real, not the ones where it happens monthly.
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Not at all! An "elected once" election is the chance of a (character's) lifetime! Think about Sordnaz, as ruler of Makar for what, 8 years? If he were to pause because his computer crashed or he got banished or something, that would be a very unique opportunity to seize control of a realm! Everyone would be buying votes, and trying to bribe others into buying votes for them, etc.
Why bother spending 500 gold on a monthly election? It's a lot cheaper to simply campaign for the position--I've successfully held all 4 council positions in Giblot, with little opposition, based on this.
Because switching fro monthly to lifetime elections is just a click away if you get elected? And in some circumstances, if the elections are timed right, the other government titles can do quite significant things too.
Because I think it's important we keep parts of the game fair that have very long lasting consequences... maybe by this criteria only the ruler (if elected once) must have fair elections.
Theres just something I find annoying about having a King's (or any equivalent title's) seat open to bribes... it just seems too big for that type of !@#$...
I find it a little troubling that our medieval BM elections are more legitimate, just, and free of taint than our modern one with all their checks in place.
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I vastly prefer buying VOTES rather than buying ELECTIONS. It would make the resolution of multiple buying attempts theoretically simple: you just add both peoples' purchases.
And it would be fun to buy a vast amount of votes for a person you want to smear, and then claim they tried to buy the election. It might be more complex to code, but this seems like the most balanced way. The more votes you buy, the more expensive, and the more likely you win... but also the more likely people are able to "do the math" and catch you.
Frankly, just swapping winners seems really, really lame to me.
MOREOVER, there is a serious thing to consider: this might just kill the referendum system and lead to a return to manual message-based voice voting. Many realms did this frequently before the current referendum system. It could return. We might be fine with that but, as I remember, it was a huge hassle.
In sum: buying individual votes in elections, good. Buying winner-slot, bad. Either way, unintended consequence could be to increase player burdens.
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what does buying votes mean?
you pick a noble and flip his votes your way? ... so basically you aren't buying his votes, but bribing some pesky official to change someone else' votes?
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what does buying votes mean?
you pick a noble and flip his votes your way? ... so basically you aren't buying his votes, but bribing some pesky official to change someone else' votes?
Considering the amount of votes that end up in abstention.... it could make sense to simply add votes. i.e. everyone's vote get counted, plus some extra. And if there are too many extras, then people will notice.
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You can effectively buy votes now though. Nothing stops someone from straight out bribing others to vote for them.
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Why is it too big for that !@#$?
You still have some sort of fairness guiding you to that. But there is no fairness in real life and where we would have rebellions and backstabbing, we now have elections so we should make the elections less reliable.
It is the elections that happens once where this would pay off for real, not the ones where it happens monthly.
I'm not speaking from a gameplay point of view rather than "what would be medieval." I don't care what happens in real life, whats important is does it keep the game fun for a decent number of people (not just the rich ones.)
This is why I think it's important to have an elected once ruler be transparent not because it's realistic but so the game still has a minimal layer of transparency. I'm all for this buying votes thing but I think we need to seriously consider the impact this will have on the game; especially for the "noobs"
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I would certainly restrict the bribing option to certain elections. For the ones in which each noble has just one vote, it would be very strange that you could fake their votes, given the prestige they count with (as long as the vote is not secret, which though IG-mechanics it is, I don't see as very medieval). When you have elections in where prestige or knights counts, then it would be easier, for you would simply bribe the low nobility of which the prestigious nobles has the support from (I suppose that is how the system works).
In any case, we have two different possibilities it would be nice to clearly separate: bribing electors (namely the NPC lower nobility, for the players you already can), or rigging the elections (and bribing the elector officers, who are probably not public employees without major loyalties as in modern democracies, but probably servants of the royal or a very powerful house), which should be severely riskier and with harder consequences. The first option is buying the will of the voters, the second is outright fooling them.
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I'm not speaking from a gameplay point of view rather than "what would be medieval." I don't care what happens in real life, whats important is does it keep the game fun for a decent number of people (not just the rich ones.)
This is why I think it's important to have an elected once ruler be transparent not because it's realistic but so the game still has a minimal layer of transparency. I'm all for this buying votes thing but I think we need to seriously consider the impact this will have on the game; especially for the "noobs"
Winning an election doesn't make someone an almighty god. An unpopular ruler can still be protested or rebelled out. Personally, I find one in a lifetime elections are those who matter the *least*, because they weren't democratic at all to begin with anyways.
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I'm not speaking from a gameplay point of view rather than "what would be medieval." I don't care what happens in real life, whats important is does it keep the game fun for a decent number of people (not just the rich ones.)
This is why I think it's important to have an elected once ruler be transparent not because it's realistic but so the game still has a minimal layer of transparency. I'm all for this buying votes thing but I think we need to seriously consider the impact this will have on the game; especially for the "noobs"
You do make a good point there.
But I wonder how big the impact would be. Most people invest heavily in their realm so to risk this would be sort of an all-out move. Either you succeed and your character becomes King or you are discovered, you fail and you're banned for trying or atleast reprimanted harshly.
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You can effectively buy votes now though. Nothing stops someone from straight out bribing others to vote for them.
precisely. the difference being, you are bribing a player who can double cross you. or bribing an npc, which won't. (well, he would if someone else bribe him more, though probably won't rat you out)
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someone people don't want getting on to the throne is no big deal. they'll be protested out the next turn in all probability.
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You can effectively buy votes now though. Nothing stops someone from straight out bribing others to vote for them.
You're right, I can pay half the realm to vote for me. That's just good politics. It's not even cheating!
I don't think this proposal will lower interaction within a realm. In the vast majority of cases, things will unfurl as usual.
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precisely. the difference being, you are bribing a player who can double cross you. or bribing an npc, which won't. (well, he would if someone else bribe him more, though probably won't rat you out)
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someone people don't want getting on to the throne is no big deal. they'll be protested out the next turn in all probability.
Non-sense. Failure and discovery % would obviously be part of the code.
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NPC by definition cannot do the same kind of backstabbing as PC.
imagine some exaggerated scenario:
election with candidates A, B, C
candidate A bribes XYZ, XYZ takes the money, don't tell everyone, but went ahead to vote for B/C because they are in some secret society together or what not and uses the gold to bribe someone else to vote anyone but A.
doing something similar with npc would be a bit complicated, no?
dealing with npc tends to mean they won't screw you. taking your money and running away, sure. failure, sure. but not really screw you. they don't have memories, hold grudges and what not. and that's a very ooc thing.
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NPC by definition cannot do the same kind of backstabbing as PC.
imagine some exaggerated scenario:
election with candidates A, B, C
candidate A bribes XYZ, XYZ takes the money, don't tell everyone, but went ahead to vote for B/C because they are in some secret society together or what not and uses the gold to bribe someone else to vote anyone but A.
doing something similar with npc would be a bit complicated, no?
dealing with npc tends to mean they won't screw you. taking your money and running away, sure. failure, sure. but not really screw you. they don't have memories, hold grudges and what not. and that's a very ooc thing.
But they can call you out, and then *everyone else* will remember.
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yes, but that can be done by pc anyway (with a higher chance)... and not sneaky at all.
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yes, but that can be done by pc anyway (with a higher chance)... and not sneaky at all.
How can you say "higher chance" than a feature which doesn't even exist yet and which's success rate is therefore unknown?
There could also be a sneaky factor, in which random nobles would get "your scribes inform you that X tried to bribe them to have your vote changed in his favor". That person could then be able to blackmail the one who tried to rig the elections.
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because people and npc are inherently different and people will interact with npc differently than with other people. npc do not do things to advance an agenda.
if the idea is to bribe a noble, then bribe a noble. don't need new mechanism for that.
if the idea is to bribe some faceless npc to change how someone else vote, then it would be best not to show too much info for elections, like who got how many votes.
just seems to be complexities that is just unnecessary
mind you, how many people actually pay out gold to bribe elections already? oddly enough, i suspect it'll happen a lot more if there's an ingame function to do it via npc. because clicking links is "better" than writing a letter.
you don't have to anticipate what the other player will do. click a link, if it fails, it fails. big deal.
the random thing to random noble will basically go down the same route as investigation. people inherently trust anything that's in the form of a copy/pasted message.
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mind you, how many people actually pay out gold to bribe elections already? oddly enough, i suspect it'll happen a lot more if there's an ingame function to do it via npc. because clicking links is "better" than writing a letter.
Do you mean to introduce a feature where a noble can offer an bribe to another noble and upon clickling "accept" their vote will automagically be set to this candidate.
Or are you trying to say we should rely on what we have now and just ask people to vote for us in a message and give them money.
Because if it's the latter I've gotta say that if someone ever tried to bribe me for a vote... it would be pretty much be an implied message saying: "don't vote for me, I'm a dirty bastard." In which case I would accept the money and not vote for him ;)
Honestly I think this is why npcs are good for stuff like this. Medieval times are all about saving face (even when it's fairly obvious you're full of !@#$.) Therefore deniability needs to be present always or else nobody is going to stick their neck out (nor should they.)
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Because if it's the latter I've gotta say that if someone ever tried to bribe me for a vote... it would be pretty much be an implied message saying: "don't vote for me, I'm a dirty bastard." In which case I would accept the money and not vote for him ;)
This is why most people who rig elections don't bribe the voters. They bribe the vote counters.