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[WertyMiniBot]

What if the different DF civilizations had different forms of government? It would make sense, because in real life different countries have different governments. There are several forms of government commonly seen in real life civilization:

Autocracy:The most basic form of government, where a single person has control over the entire population. In DF this would be represented by having a single royal noble for the entire civilization.

Monarchy:A form of government where a single royal family rules the entire civilization. In DF, a monarch, a consort, and their children would be the only royal nobles in the civilization.

Feudalism:A form of government where people work for a noble that in return gives them protection, and who himself works for a higher up noble. The current version of Dwarf Fortress already models this pretty accurately, with barons being under counts, counts being under dukes, and dukes being under the high monarchy.

Oligarchy:Also know as Aristocracy, Oligarchy is a form of government where a few rich people make the decisions for the country. This would be modeled in DF by having the richest of the population in a civilization (Up to one 100th) as aristocrats. Every once in a while, these aristocrats will attend assemblies to decide what happens in a civilization.

Democracy:A form of government where the people rule. This would be simulated in DF by having no nobles, but instead having the population attend an assembly to decide on a law.

Republic:A form of government where people vote for an official to represent them. Basically, an indirect democracy. In DF, this would be modeled by having a single noble for each town that takes the votes of the citizens, and whatever is the majority the noble represents for the town. This would probably be prefered by most sizable civilizations in DF, as a democracy would probably require everyone in the civilizations to stop work and go to attend the assembly. Smaller civs with 2 or 3 towns close together would probably prefer democracy, though.

Anarchy: A lack of government; basically, it's every man for themselves. Civilizations with anarchy will have everyone fighting over power, with no laws or nobles to control them. In DF, this would usually occur when a civilization is changing government (fairly rare). It would be extremely rare for any civilization with decent ethics to have anarchy in any normal circumstance.


So what forms of governments would each sentient species in DF prefer? Here are my suggestions:

Humans:Very probably feudalism or monarchy, as it was back in real life medieval times.

Dwarves:Possibly biased towards democracy. (We all know how much dwarves hate nobles.)

Elves:Completely balanced chance.

Kobolds:Usually autocracy, sometimes anarchy.

Goblins:Probably the only species to favor anarchy. May also choose autocracy.

Animal People:Almost always autocracy.

(Remember that you are just an omnipotent overseer of the fortress's development, who will help the dwarves to follow the government's requests.)


Well, that's my suggestion on government. If you have any other form of government to suggest, feel free to post it here.

[StagnantSoul]

I like it. The tired noble system seems a bit too broad for me, some finer details like this would be nice.

[smjjames]

I can see the dwarves and humans forming merchant republics, especially with major and powerful trade hubs.

[Putnam]

Dwarves already have a very specific fuedalist system. No other civilization has that, so I figure they'll stick with that.

[smjjames]

The humans already have what looks like a feudalistic system though, might be closer to some form of aristocracy.

[Azerty]

A republican government should be modeled after the Ancient model, that is, several nobles such as Consuls or Quaestors - see the two Regent-Captains of San Marino; occasionaly, during troubles, a Tyrant should take over the town. Republic and democracy should be merged, expect if we speak about small villages.

Oligarchy could be the regime of rich merchant towns - see the Hansa; they should also include the situation of aristocratic republics, such as Poland-Lithuania.

Monarchy and feudalism should be merged.

[pisskop]

I like the concepts, the implementation and balance of these will be harder to do.

[Bohandas]

This sounds like a good idea to me

[Scruiser]

   I think I would prefer it as a sliding scale of several parameters rather than a straight division between monarchy/autocracy/oligarchy/democracy/etc.  For example, the game could track how different noble positions are weighted relative to each other.  I single lord/lady accumulates enough political power, then the government could transition to monarchy from feudalism.  As the transition happens, it is not necessarily a binary switch from monarchy to feudalism, it could be a gradual shift in roles and responsibilities and political power.  Or on the scale of democracy to republic, it is more an issue of direct representation versus indirect representation.  Again, it is more of a spectrum of ways of dividing power as opposed to a binary division.
   Yeah, so overall I want more forms of government, but I would prefer it as combinations and permutations of political structures as opposed to a direct implementation of monarchy/democracy/etc. 

Dwarves:Possibly biased towards democracy. (We all know how much dwarves hate nobles.)

It seems to be an ongoing thing that player's head-canon ignores or contradicts what Toady has actually implemented or intends to implement.   I understand the origin of the meme in player responses to annoying nobility behavior, but that behavior is only possible in the first place because dwarf society gives a lot of prestige to various nobles.

[Bohandas]

   I think I would prefer it as a sliding scale of several parameters rather than a straight division between monarchy/autocracy/oligarchy/democracy/etc.  For example, the game could track how different noble positions are weighted relative to each other.  I single lord/lady accumulates enough political power, then the government could transition to monarchy from feudalism.

I like this idea.

Oligarchy:Also know as Aristocracy, Oligarchy is a form of government where a few rich people make the decisions for the country. This would be modeled in DF by having the richest of the population in a civilization (Up to one 100th) as aristocrats. Every once in a while, these aristocrats will attend assemblies to decide what happens in a civilization.

Perhaps these would be better split into two separate types of government as in Machiavelli's Discourses on Titus Livy, where this type of government is called an Aristocracy when it is largely uncorrupt and/or high rank can be attained on merit, and an oligarchy when it is corrupt.

[GoblinCookie]

The humans already have what looks like a feudalistic system though, might be closer to some form of aristocracy.

Humans government is basically Switzerland.  Weak central government and strong local government.  The local ruler is called a Lord or a Lady but the central government has vague names such as Law-Giver implying it is only de-facto. 

Elves are basically a Monarchy/Theocracy cross, similar to Ancient Egypt.

Goblins are basically an Autocracy.  The Master (usually a demon) has absolute power.

Dwarves are basically a Democracy at the local level and an Oligarch/y at the centre. 


Thing is though, virtually everything that WertyMiniBot suggests is actually moddable really easily.  Simply create clones of the existing entities and replace the existing nobles with new ones that are organised as you wish them to be. 

[Scruiser]

Thing is though, virtually everything that WertyMiniBot suggests is actually moddable really easily.  Simply create clones of the existing entities and replace the existing nobles with new ones that are organised as you wish them to be. 

   Yeah, good player modding could implement static versions of all the types of government suggested.  If WertyMiniBot wants something like this in right now, he could go the modding forum and with good instruction, have something done within an hour.  The main limitation would be that each government type would be fixed at the start of world-gen.
   I think it would be more interesting to make it so that the type of government can change under certain conditions.  For example feudalism -> monarchy with centralization of power.
   Also, right now the overall type of government doesn't affect the civilization's behavior that much, if at all. (I don't actually know what affect government can have on civ behavior right now, does anyone know?)  I think the best way of changing this would be to allow leader's personalities to influence the civ behavior.  In a monarchy, the choices of a single king shape the entire civ.  In feudalism, the choices of many individual local lords shape the civs choices.  In a republic, the representative/senators make the choices.  This way, both the type of position, and the number of individual's in that position, could cause different civ level behavior.

[GoblinCookie]

   Yeah, good player modding could implement static versions of all the types of government suggested.  If WertyMiniBot wants something like this in right now, he could go the modding forum and with good instruction, have something done within an hour.  The main limitation would be that each government type would be fixed at the start of world-gen.
   I think it would be more interesting to make it so that the type of government can change under certain conditions.  For example feudalism -> monarchy with centralization of power.
   Also, right now the overall type of government doesn't affect the civilization's behavior that much, if at all. (I don't actually know what affect government can have on civ behavior right now, does anyone know?)  I think the best way of changing this would be to allow leader's personalities to influence the civ behavior.  In a monarchy, the choices of a single king shape the entire civ.  In feudalism, the choices of many individual local lords shape the civs choices.  In a republic, the representative/senators make the choices.  This way, both the type of position, and the number of individual's in that position, could cause different civ level behavior.

The main thing that affects behavior is the ethics of the civilization and possibly it's values.  I also heard somewhere that the personality of the character in charge affects behavior as well.  So yes the single king will decide the behavior of the civilization. 

Goblins and Humans titles are already created by the game engine based upon variable positions.  But despite the name, the position created are never actually variable, pretty much to the point that you can deduce a consistant form of government behind the human and goblin civilization.  The naming indicates the OP's ideas were planned but were never implemented.

[Scruiser]

Goblins and Humans titles are already created by the game engine based upon variable positions.  But despite the name, the position created are never actually variable, pretty much to the point that you can deduce a consistant form of government behind the human and goblin civilization.  The naming indicates the OP's ideas were planned but were never implemented.

Then it sounds like this suggestion is really close to being in the game because all of the basic components are already there.  Toady just needs to expand on the existing framework to allow more variability. 

[Azerty]

Maybe we could inspire the below tableau, resuming Politics of Aristotle, from Wikimedia:



Aristotle-constitutions-2 [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], by Mathieu Gauthier-Pilote (User:Mathieugp) (Aristotle's Politics), from Wikimedia Commons

It would provide a concise yet simple way to describe the differetn types of government.

[Edited for keeping with licensing oligations]