What about politics?

[Mayor Abe 3]

One of the things that has been missing from most of the Sim City games (and it seems, won't be in this one) is the lack of political simulation. I think that Tropico 3 actually gives a very good model of implementing this, from factions to elections. In short:

• perhaps having different factions based on the makeup of the city, such as public sector unions, the poor, environmentalists, etc.
  
• return petitioners to the game
  
• have regular elections every 5-10 game years, with the ability to campaign and make speeches.
  
• have unpredictable, randomly occurring political events based on factors in the city (for example badly funded police officers are more likely to have an incident of excessive force, or badly funded schools might face a scandal for having dingy classrooms)
  

I wrote a longer blog post detailing this, but those are the basic outlines.

[Supertask 29]

Tropico 3 did have a good political simulation, and political simulators can make very good games, but that's just not Simcity. You're called the Mayor but the character you really play is a rather powerful municipal corporation/god. Having elections, for example, would presumably create the risk that you would lose, which would remove the open-ended aspect of Simcity, where you can do what you want and your city responds in kind, but you can't actually lose*. The trouble is, now we play Simcity and create the city how we want, for good or ill, but if elections were introduced it would be far more focused on creating the city so that you win the next election... And that's before we even get into how it would work with regions, if I'm booted out of office in one of my cities in a region, but am doing fine in all the others, does that one get taken over by an AI or something? As for factions, they would always be kind of caricatures. This is fine in Tropico, because that is the games style and it carries it very well, but in Simcity the more nuanced approach, where you get rated in general on aspects of your city like environment and public safety, is a more realistic approach than shuffling all citizens into broad factions.

*Well in SC3K you could lose, but you had to be really deep in debt.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

I think an election every decade would be good.

[RyanMorgan95 144]

This is getting away from the freedom of SimCity - it's purely a city builder. Even if politics were to feature in SimCity, how would it be implemented? Elections every five years, meaning you could be pushed out of office, then what? I much prefer to be an immortal dictator-god that can do whatever he pleases.

  Edited June 13, 2012 by RyanMorgan95  

[Ocram's Razr 963]

Your opponent could be another player in your region OR Mayor DeFacto (but he would only last 2 game years) and you could always have special counting methods.

[Supertask 29]

So your penalty for losing the election is that a bunch of stuff gets built and done in your city by the AI and you have no control?

[Ocram's Razr 963]

By the way, I lost in SimCity 4 as well. Your debt has to exceed a signed long integer. The good thing is I did not save for a long time so I loaded it up (I was afraid the city would be deleted) and enacted some serious "austerity measures."

Of course if your opponent is another player in your region, you might never get your city back.

  Edited June 13, 2012 by OcramSeattle  

[Mark Waybill 242]

If we have politics we might as well have war, and zombie invasions from Hell, and so forth...

[uhcougar31 7]

Maybe something could be implemented where the Mayors of a region could opt for a "state" office. Each candidate could have a checkbox of issues (crime, traffic, gambling, curfews, etc.) they are for/against, and then the sims could vote for who they want. The winner would then get to choose laws/ordinances in which the entire region must abide over. Elections every 5/10 years? Max. number of consecutive terms?

  Edited June 14, 2012 by uhcougar31  

[2farnorth 26]

Elections could be in a different mode. There could the sandbox mode, and election mode. Election mode would be having to keep the mayor rating over a certain number at a certain date. If not, random AI building spree.

The spree would be a realistic city builders worst nightmare, so that's why there should be 2 separate modes.

[astondb9 7]

If Simcity had politics people would be complaining about anything being built ever, you could forget wind turbines and motorways.

Although doesn't the first video show people protesting about the 'power outage'?

[Essex 322]

I hate politics in real life, so NO in my favourite "escape the mondane world" game.

[SparkleMagic91 23]

Adding elections would be a step in the opposite direction IMO.

The beauty of Sim City is that you are able to build any city you want without the many restrictions and hassles that would other wise stop you in the real world. Elections would certainly make it almost impossible to get anything done.

  Edited June 24, 2012 by SparkleMagic91  

[Mark Waybill 242]

Politics could work but should be optional

[DCMetro34 576]

Eh, when you get into politics, and the finer points of the government in general, you start to drift away from the "city-simulation" game, into something that has really never been seen before, as SparkleMagic91 touched on. While it is a neat idea, I think if it were to be implemented, it would need to be in a different game, maybe one that is centered more around the political aspect, rather than the managing a city aspect.

[Mayor Abe 3]

I would say that the political simulation option should be able to be turned-off. As for what happens when you "lose" elections, perhaps after the end of a term (in region mode) another mayor could come in and run the city, and then be subject to the same electoral test. in the co-op mode, elections could be turned on or off in the entire region. As for in the single player (hoping that is fully fledged), it would best be like tropico in that you could simply reenter the city some period before the election and try to win (or carry out city policy differently).

[Catmando 7]

What I would prefer is to have you win the election each time, but with new political promises. For example, let's say your city's pollution is beginning to get out of control and citizens are getting sick. An interest group tries to spread awareness of it, and at a certain point you automatically make a promise to listen to them (because realistically speaking, they're threatening your election). After the election, you now have a promise to cut back pollution before the next election. You don't have to do it, of course, but if you don't your Sims will become unhappy with you.

This could be a way for the citizens to incentivize you to make certain choices without necessarily forcing you or anything, similarly to how things like pollution already do that, because with higher pollution you need more hospitals and it lowers desirability and so on.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

I think that if you can use election fraud and you can legitimately win with a 35% approval rating, elections, would be a good thing. It could mean that your neighbor can take over your failed city.

[rbchaffe 9]

Perhaps the result of an election would be a virtual mayor that sets the tax rates. Instead of allowing the player to set them. Would realism be applied, I wonder, and we would see sims/businesses leaving higher tax cities for the lower tax cities, resulting in lower revenues for the former and more businesses/jobs in the latter?

[vocar 80]

What I would prefer is to have you win the election each time, but with new political promises. For example, let's say your city's pollution is beginning to get out of control and citizens are getting sick. An interest group tries to spread awareness of it, and at a certain point you automatically make a promise to listen to them (because realistically speaking, they're threatening your election). After the election, you now have a promise to cut back pollution before the next election. You don't have to do it, of course, but if you don't your Sims will become unhappy with you.

This could be a way for the citizens to incentivize you to make certain choices without necessarily forcing you or anything, similarly to how things like pollution already do that, because with higher pollution you need more hospitals and it lowers desirability and so on.

That could be a nice solution and a neat way to implement "politics" into SC. No need to permanently expel the major, but if, for example Green party win the elections, in the next 10 years city politics will be to build as much parks and recreation sites as it can, or Workers party - raising the wages, making working places, or making residental areas better etc. All the results could be seen in major rating and in riots if demands are not satisfied enough. This already exists in the game, but could be nicely improved.

[Moskva 75]

Nice thread! I've always wished that i could choose between capitalism and socialism. Making a socialist city would be TOTALLY different story bro! Perhaps way more challenging! I'd have a guy with soviet coat and classic military hat with red star telling me what the politburo wants to be done instead of smiling Neil Fairbanks. "Tovarich mayor, today politburo has asked you to bring prodution levels of tanks manifacturing industry to 140%, accomplish and the politburo will be satisfatied with you!" (image russian accent please >_<). Also it would take the public transportation to all a new level. Socialist countries always (most of them, USSR especially) based their system on a very strong military production, and could not take care of giving a car to everyone, for example. So the public transportation would've been taken to all a new level. This would be so great implemented in SC4. I would fell like orgasmic.