ScifiFan wrote:
And I can also say that the word senate will instantly conjure the images of USA or Roman empire.



Let's have a poll shall we?



Let's see how many people instantly think of USA/Roman empire when it comes to the word "senate" as compared to the word "council" as related to German Democratic Republic or USSR.



Just like you said - it's only a placeholder.



And why can't the person replying to my comment just keep his mouth shut and let me have the freedom to express my opinion?



Who is starting these whole debate anyway ?



Or are you saying that I don't have the freedom to express my opinion here and yet he is allowed to say whatever he wants?



Also - why are you only quoting me and not the person replying to me who stubbornly keep insisting on the word "senate"?



If you want to be fair then you should have also quoted the person who replied to me either.



And by the way I'm very strongly against having no choice than to use the word "senate" instead of the freedom to use other words.

Calm the F** down you're the one who started a debate on that the placeholder senate was non-neutral and we told you your replacement words are just as non-neutral. Stop getting so riled up about everything. Like seriously, you're the one telling people to "keep their mouth shut and let me have the freedom to express my opinion". It's just a placeholder, if it's not entirely neutral that's the point of it being a placeholder, and stop getting riled up that people having a meaningless debate about a placeholder telling you you're wrong are somehow taking away your right to free speech.

Slowhands wrote:
Hi all -

[LIST=1]

Keep comments civil and respectful. This is not an option.

For the record, "senate" to me indicates "republic", which for a far-flung empire of star systems seemed to be a pretty good analogy for a basic government (my working definition for a republic being a group of separate political entities who give up certain rights and powers to a centralized government while maintaining some level of autonomy).

Direct versus indirect representation and theories of political structure is a whole separate topic that we are not discussing here!

We could have used "parliament", "assembly", or some other word, but please note that these all merely indicate the term for the governing (basically meaning democratic and legislative) body, and not at all the system of government -- that would be words like dictatorship, monarchy, democracy, anarchy, etc.

"Council", "committee", and similar terms do not, for me, indicate that the will of the people (and we are talking about our population mechanics here) is in any way represented; they tell me that things are being run but not that the governed have a voice in it. That is why we ended up choosing the word we did, for better or for worse.

[/LIST]



With that in mind, please pile in with comments on our game design for the "senate"!

I believe the main reason that the term "senate" has been argued about so much is that many of us are worried that it does relate to the form of government after all. None of us want to see Cravers holding elections, and it takes some conscious effort to separate the term "senate" (or any other term for a political body) from the types of government it is usually associated with.

"The will of the people is in any way represented" is, after all, exactly what we don't want to be true for all factions. We want gameplay that fits the hive mind of the cravers, the weird hierarchy of Horatio, or even an outright dictatorship.



P.S. We should not forget, however, that it was the Roman Senate who gave Julius Caesar the position of "dictator in perpetuity."

Romeo wrote:


...



SciFi fan, when someone like Cat-O-Nine-Tails takes the time to respond to you, maybe take note, the guy has been a core part of the community here since the first Endless Space. For disclosure's sake, I do find myself agreeing with Sinnaj and Cat-O-Nine-Tails...

One thing for sure : I personally respect Cat-O-Nine-Tails much more than Sinnaj63.



Cat-O-Nine-Tails didn't nitpick on other people's every comment as compared to Sinnaj63.

"When a bird is alive, it eats ants. When the bird is dead, ants eat the bird !

Time and circumstances can change anytime so think twice before you devalue or hurt anyone in your life !"

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:
Scififan, I want to say that I did not mean to attack your opinion that Senate is a term with strong connotations. I respect your opinion on that, and I agree that it is a term that strongly reflects our western cultural background. I was merely trying to say that we are unlikely to find any term that is truly neutral to everybody here.

Language is by its very nature arbitrary and conventional. The developers have arbitrarily picked the term "Senate" (arbitrary at least from our point of view, as we are not privy to the reasoning behind the decision), and as they are the authority on the designs discussed in these threads, they have thereby established a convention. Establishing a different convention would certainly be possible, but following the convention provided by the devs would be a better course of action for the sake of simplicity and consistency, allowing anybody who comes into the thread after reading the initial post to understand.



If you go back through the thread, you will find that in my first post here. I repeatedly put the word "senate" in quotation marks, as I am well aware it is strongly colored by cultural associations. However, I stick to the convention for clarity.

I really appreciated that.



I was really angry by the way Sinnaj63 nitpicking on my comments and I might be too harsh in judging your previous comment.

KnightofPhoenix wrote:
"Senate" may be the safest word to use universally, but I find it more interesting from a lore point of view to have each faction name and present their form of government differently at least, since we seemingly cant have them be fundamentally different.

Exactly. +1

"Senate" may be the safest word to use universally, but I find it more interesting from a lore point of view to have each faction name and present their form of government differently at least, since we seemingly cant have them be fundamentally different.

Slowhands wrote:
Hi all -

[LIST=1]

Keep comments civil and respectful. This is not an option.

For the record, "senate" to me indicates "republic", which for a far-flung empire of star systems seemed to be a pretty good analogy for a basic government (my working definition for a republic being a group of separate political entities who give up certain rights and powers to a centralized government while maintaining some level of autonomy).

Direct versus indirect representation and theories of political structure is a whole separate topic that we are not discussing here!

We could have used "parliament", "assembly", or some other word, but please note that these all merely indicate the term for the governing (basically meaning democratic and legislative) body, and not at all the system of government -- that would be words like dictatorship, monarchy, democracy, anarchy, etc.

"Council", "committee", and similar terms do not, for me, indicate that the will of the people (and we are talking about our population mechanics here) is in any way represented; they tell me that things are being run but not that the governed have a voice in it. That is why we ended up choosing the word we did, for better or for worse.

[/LIST]



With that in mind, please pile in with comments on our game design for the "senate"!

Though a senate does not mean automatically Republic it is by far the best term to pick up for this game.



In a Senat cooperations, religous groups and other factions who are possessing influence in an empire can get seats in it. So a "Senate" leaves the RP fantasy of the player the greatest freedom.





To end my post with a quote:



"The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I've just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away."

―Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin

Hi all -

[LIST=1]

Keep comments civil and respectful. This is not an option.

For the record, "senate" to me indicates "republic", which for a far-flung empire of star systems seemed to be a pretty good analogy for a basic government (my working definition for a republic being a group of separate political entities who give up certain rights and powers to a centralized government while maintaining some level of autonomy).

Direct versus indirect representation and theories of political structure is a whole separate topic that we are not discussing here!

We could have used "parliament", "assembly", or some other word, but please note that these all merely indicate the term for the governing (basically meaning democratic and legislative) body, and not at all the system of government -- that would be words like dictatorship, monarchy, democracy, anarchy, etc.

"Council", "committee", and similar terms do not, for me, indicate that the will of the people (and we are talking about our population mechanics here) is in any way represented; they tell me that things are being run but not that the governed have a voice in it. That is why we ended up choosing the word we did, for better or for worse.

[/LIST]



With that in mind, please pile in with comments on our game design for the "senate"!

Scififan, I want to say that I did not mean to attack your opinion that Senate is a term with strong connotations. I respect your opinion on that, and I agree that it is a term that strongly reflects our western cultural background. I was merely trying to say that we are unlikely to find any term that is truly neutral to everybody here.

Language is by its very nature arbitrary and conventional. The developers have arbitrarily picked the term "Senate" (arbitrary at least from our point of view, as we are not privy to the reasoning behind the decision), and as they are the authority on the designs discussed in these threads, they have thereby established a convention. Establishing a different convention would certainly be possible, but following the convention provided by the devs would be a better course of action for the sake of simplicity and consistency, allowing anybody who comes into the thread after reading the initial post to understand.



If you go back through the thread, you will find that in my first post here. I repeatedly put the word "senate" in quotation marks, as I am well aware it is strongly colored by cultural associations. However, I stick to the convention for clarity.

Step 1) Go to public forum

Step 2) Criticize the public forum for being a public forum

Step 3) ???

Step 4) Profit!



SciFi fan, when someone like Cat-O-Nine-Tails takes the time to respond to you, maybe take note, the guy has been a core part of the community here since the first Endless Space. For disclosure's sake, I do find myself agreeing with Sinnaj and Cat-O-Nine-Tails, the default wording makes sense, and there's really a way of "prettying" that up. A "council" to me has the most negative connotation of all those terms, Senate the most palatable.

ScifiFan wrote:
You're the one who should calm the F* down.



You're the one who started criticizing every comments that I wrote and have these whole debates began and now you become angry?



Ask yourself will you?



If someone keep pestering you by criticizing every small nitty gritty details then won't you also tell the person to keep his mouth shut and mind his own business?



This is not the only thread where you keep pestering me - in that other developer diary about Galaxy & Exploration you also did the same thing.

Well yeah because I think your ideas, the ones I replied to, anyway, are shit. That's why I explain how they're being shit. And now look at your comment and then at mine and say I'm the one being more angry.

Sinnaj63 wrote:
Calm the F** down you're the one who started a debate on that the placeholder senate was non-neutral and we told you your replacement words are just as non-neutral. Stop getting so riled up about everything. Like seriously, you're the one telling people to "keep their mouth shut and let me have the freedom to express my opinion". It's just a placeholder, if it's not entirely neutral that's the point of it being a placeholder, and stop getting riled up that people having a meaningless debate about a placeholder telling you you're wrong are somehow taking away your right to free speech.

You're the one who should calm the F* down.



You're the one who started criticizing every comments that I wrote and have these whole debates began and now you become angry?



Ask yourself will you?



If someone keep pestering you by criticizing every small nitty gritty details then won't you also tell the person to keep his mouth shut and mind his own business?



This is not the only thread where you keep pestering me - in that other developer diary about Galaxy & Exploration you also did the same thing.

As a personally religious person who takes umbrage with the notion that "religious" people are inherently opposed to "scientists", I recommend renaming the former faction to something like "traditionalists" - broader implications with broader applications for multiple factions and less negative connotations towards real-life demographics.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:
Sorry to say, but I'm not convinced "council" or "committee" are more neutral. When I hear "committee" I immediately think of corporate structures and heavily bureaucratized states.

When I hear council, I think of the German Democratic Republic, or that famous world power that had the word "council" in its very name: The USSR (for those not aware: "soviet" is Russian for "council"). To be clear here: I don't think of those as being ruled by councils as the dictionary would define a council, but they nonetheless claimed to be, at least in their original conception.



The only term I can think of for it is "body of government officials," and even that will carry a more positive or negative connotation depending on who hears it.





They have repeatedly stated that this is just a placeholder term for the GDD. The word "Senate" might never even appear in the finished game.

So could we please stop arguing about the word and discuss the game mechanics and implementation instead?



Speaking of which: I am strongly in support of having different terminology for different styles of political systems in the game, and of each faction beginning with different political systems and potentially even being restricted to which systems they can adopt. As I mentioned before, I think it would be possible to display widely different political systems simply by adjusting how votes are counted (percentage, winner-takes-all, no votes at all, etc) and I hope that if it isn't part of the core game, it will at least be stored in the xml files for easy modding.

And I can also say that the word senate will instantly conjure the images of USA or Roman empire.



Let's have a poll shall we?



Let's see how many people instantly think of USA/Roman empire when it comes to the word "senate" as compared to the word "council" as related to German Democratic Republic or USSR.



Just like you said - it's only a placeholder.



And why can't the person replying to my comment just keep his mouth shut and let me have the freedom to express my opinion?



Who is starting these whole debate anyway ?



Or are you saying that I don't have the freedom to express my opinion here and yet he is allowed to say whatever he wants?



Also - why are you only quoting me and not the person replying to me who stubbornly keep insisting on the word "senate"?



If you want to be fair then you should have also quoted the person who replied to me either.



And by the way I'm very strongly against having no choice than to use the word "senate" instead of the freedom to use other words.

ScifiFan wrote:
I said instead of the word "senate", have it changed into something like "council" or other more neutral words.



So what if the word "senate" is just a placeholder? There is no reason whatsoever to not have it changed to other more "neutral" words such as "council", "committee", etc.



When it comes to "senate", I'm sure that most people will straight away have some idea of what cultures/countries associated with that word.

Sorry to say, but I'm not convinced "council" or "committee" are more neutral. When I hear "committee" I immediately think of corporate structures and heavily bureaucratized states.

When I hear council, I think of the German Democratic Republic, or that famous world power that had the word "council" in its very name: The USSR (for those not aware: "soviet" is Russian for "council"). To be clear here: I don't think of those as being ruled by councils as the dictionary would define a council, but they nonetheless claimed to be, at least in their original conception.



The only term I can think of for it is "body of government officials," and even that will carry a more positive or negative connotation depending on who hears it.





They have repeatedly stated that this is just a placeholder term for the GDD. The word "Senate" might never even appear in the finished game.

So could we please stop arguing about the word and discuss the game mechanics and implementation instead?



Speaking of which: I am strongly in support of having different terminology for different styles of political systems in the game, and of each faction beginning with different political systems and potentially even being restricted to which systems they can adopt. As I mentioned before, I think it would be possible to display widely different political systems simply by adjusting how votes are counted (percentage, winner-takes-all, no votes at all, etc) and I hope that if it isn't part of the core game, it will at least be stored in the xml files for easy modding.

Sinnaj63 wrote:
It makes sense for most of the faction to have some sort of democratic or not-so-democratic government in place that limits what you can do as the ruler though. And it was already explained by a dev that senate was mostly a placeholder name. I'm not sure what posts you're "+1ing", you should probably just quote them so people actually know what you think is good.

I said instead of the word "senate", have it changed into something like "council" or other more neutral words.



So what if the word "senate" is just a placeholder? There is no reason whatsoever to not have it changed to other more "neutral" words such as "council", "committee", etc.



When it comes to "senate", I'm sure that most people will straight away have some idea of what cultures/countries associated with that word.



Just because you like certain cultures/countries, it doesn't mean you have the right to criticize other person for suggesting more neutral words.

Technocrate wrote:
I like the idea of a galactic senate

But i think it shoul be an achievement or a technology unlockable by those who want diplomatic aproach

KnightofPhoenix wrote:
I too would have preferred completely different political systems and mechanics depending on faction. However, I understand that can be too difficult / resource intensive.



But I do think it is imperative that the universal political system is portrayed differently depending on faction. What I mean by that is that the name of the political institution and the way things are phrased / presented changes. It would be very weird and immersion breaking frankly if as Cravers, we have a "senate" and we vote for "laws." So while the same mechanic can still exist with the Cravers, it would be called and shown as something different. Perhaps their "senate" is a hive queen collective, with each representing a demographic and their share of "votes" represents how many Cravers they have in their respective hive colony.



Horatio could have Emperors each represent a fiefdom or how much influence they have (in the artbook, emperors rank below Horatio Prime as Feudal lords of sorts). The Hissho could have clans, each representing an ideology....etc.



Please don't end up having a "senate" for everyone, with the same terminology and the same presentation, for the sake of immersion and lore. It might be just fluff, but it is important and should be easy to do.

Those are the quotes that I referred in my previous post.



It should be optional instead of being a mandatory requirement.

ScifiFan wrote:
+1 to Technocrate and also to KnightofPhoenix



I also prefer to have senate as achievement or a unlockable to for those preferring to have such form of government.



Definitely a big no to have it as a mandatory requirement to have a government.



Something like 'council' instead of 'senate' is also sounds better to me as it's more neutral and not referring to certain culture(s)/countries on earth.

It makes sense for most of the faction to have some sort of democratic or not-so-democratic government in place that limits what you can do as the ruler though. And it was already explained by a dev that senate was mostly a placeholder name. I'm not sure what posts you're "+1ing", you should probably just quote them so people actually know what you think is good.

+1 to Technocrate and also to KnightofPhoenix



I also prefer to have senate as achievement or a unlockable to for those preferring to have such form of government.



Definitely a big no to have it as a mandatory requirement to have a government.



Something like 'council' instead of 'senate' is also sounds better to me as it's more neutral and not referring to certain culture(s)/countries on earth.

GogglesMcgum wrote:
Sorry if this has been asked before, but is there a release schedule for these GDD's? It seems to be roughly a month between them or is it just whenever the content is ready to be discussed publicly?



P.S. Love what I have been hearing so far!

Some elements take longer than others as internal discussion or feedback processing takes a little longer than expected. As a result, things tend to generally be ready when they're done, and we haven't committed to a schedule.



So yeah, pretty much option #2.

I can't say that I fully understand the system, but replacing the Tax Rate slider with something more fun seems like a good idea to me.