Playing Championship Manager --- and having, like many others, wasted countless hours playing it --- I have always longed for a political equivalent to it, especially for all those political nuts out there like myself. You know, the ones that can't really get their hands on power so resort to cyber-megalomania.
Think about, you can select your MPs for your upcoming elections --- local, European and general. Allocate funds to constituency parties. Hell, you could even abolish constituency parties. Formulate policies. Commission opinion polls. Face backbench revolt. Appoint ministers. Once in government, you can implement your policies and, perhaps, face all the problems with it --- terrorism, natural disasters, and so on and so forth. Decide the budget. Dissolve Parliament. Nationalise the railways. Reform the Lords. Reform the electoral system. Fire your Chancellor. Watch as the results for elections pour in, and decide (if you're the opposition) what the government should be quizzed on in Parliament and PMQs of that week. Decide also where you're going to visit that day.
Each MP could have a libertarian/authoritarian (or right wing/left wing) rating, and have specialist skills (like in Championship Manager) with oratory, co-operation, loyalty, innovation, ideological coherence and so on. Potentially this could affect their loyalty to your party's legislative programme.
There is so much that could be done but, sadly, this dream shall proved nothing but fruitless and half-baked.-- drew_uk, May 05 2002 Fantasy Politics http://www.newstate...uk/fantasypolitics/Fantasy Politics run by the New Statesman [[ sctld ], May 05 2002] Balance of Power 1985 Edition http://www.the-unde...+%281985+edition%29Played this back in the day. Geopolitical simulation with very heavy cold-war overtones. [phoenix]Balance of Power 1990 Edition http://www.the-unde...+%281990+edition%29"...for Windows 1.0" Now with color graphics! "There's no better geopolitical game on the market, even a decade after its release. If you have even a slight interest in politics, this game is a must-have." I couldn't agree more. [phoenix]Political Compass http://www.politicalcompass.org/For more accurate representations of political views [phoenix, May 07 2002, last modified Oct 21 2004] Balance of Power 1990 Edition http://www.the-unde...+%281990+edition%29"...for Windows 1.0" Now with color graphics! "There's no better geopolitical game on the market, even a decade after its release. If you have even a slight interest in politics, this game is a must-have." I couldn't agree more. [phoenix, May 07 2002] Political Compass http://www.politicalcompass.org/For more accurate representations of political views [-alx, May 08 2002] Hundred Years War http://hyw.com/Tried to find "Origins of World War I" online, but can't … there seems to be multiplayer capability at this site. [reensure, May 08 2002] Ars Regendi - Political online game and economic simulation http://www.ars-regendi.comYou may also try this completely new browsergame :) [Malone, Oct 10 2007] Illuminati http://en.wikipedia...i/Illuminati_(game)Mainly a card game but also available in a play-by-email version. [DrBob, Oct 10 2007] Malone http://www.politicaltest.net/a political alignment test site, where you can compare your political alignment with other partipicants [Malone, Jan 11 2012] Huh? What's "Championship Manager?"
Is this supposed to be an idea about a game or some sort of commentary on a political system?-- bristolz, May 05 2002 It's an idea about a game --- Championship Manager is a computer game in the United Kingdom where you control a football (soccer) team, select the squad, watch them play, build up your club's finances and so on.
I've always wondered what a political equivalent to it would be like.-- drew_uk, May 05 2002 I'm pretty sure that you can do this online already. An Championship Manager actually sells all over the world, not just in the UK.-- [ sctld ], May 05 2002 Do it where?-- drew_uk, May 05 2002 If this isn't baked - I would have to give you a 'yes' vote, it might not be a big seller, but as an educational tool I would buy it. My children play on Championship Manager but I would prefer them to play on a more informative game, (unless they grow up to be managers of Manchester United) if you could make it entertaining enough (which could be difficult) for kids it could be a hit.-- arora, May 05 2002 Such a game would require its own tactical/strategical element which could potentially attract players. It would probably be more attractive to older people though.-- drew_uk, May 05 2002 There was a political game in the 80s for the ZX81 (an old UK home computer) which was based more on resource management. However you only won if you implemented Conservative policies. Essentially these games can be very biased.
I recommend that MPs should have Left/Right, Mundane/Eccentric, Cooperative/Awkward, Loyal/Treacherous, Law Abiding/Jeffery Archer, Dowdy/Sex Symbol, Flexible/Pig Headed and Grey/Inspirational scores.
These seem to describe most MPs ...-- Aristotle, May 06 2002 That seems to be a good idea. It would decide who a party leader would select as his/her candidates. Certainly, of course, it should depend on the constituency --- he might field loyal supporters in safe seats. Nevertheless, even the most unattractive of politicians (say, potentially criminal ones) should have their mixture of advantages and disadvantages. Otherwise it would be no fun.
I never knew about that political game in the '80s. What was it called?-- drew_uk, May 06 2002 you would have to use imaginary politicians or hire the same law firm as private eye-- chud, May 06 2002 Or they could do l ike footballers do and set up a 'Players' assosciation and franchise out the rights to use their names.-- [ sctld ], May 06 2002 Sounds like the old game 'Diplomacy'. <Which did have a computer version...> Also the BBS game 'Geopolitik', where you played against others. <I once got nearly completely wiped out, turned my no-land country into a KGB-For-Hire and prodded buttock.>-- StarChaser, May 07 2002 What's the spread on the next US presidential candidate being a crossover from the NHL, NASL, NASCAR, or any franchise besides America's Cup?-- reensure, May 07 2002 [drew_uk] I thinking back I seem to recall the game was the 70s when i was a schoolkid. I can't remember the name of the game though.
Balance of Power was an excellent game though.-- Aristotle, May 07 2002 reensure: WWF, surely.-- pottedstu, May 07 2002 "Balance of Power" was the first PC game I ever bought, in '86. I bought an MS mouse the same day (because the game was one of the few that could use it).-- waugsqueke, May 07 2002 rather than a solo game, surely this would be better as a cooperative web game (totally guessing, probably that's the wrong terminology?). Especially for parts like //Once in government, you can implement your policies and, perhaps, face all the problems with it --- terrorism, natural disasters, and so on and so forth// these would be better with players from all around the world. The element of global culture (while obviously limited to those parts of the world where people play on the net and have enough time to get involed in this sort of thing) would surely make it a more rounded experience. I like this idea a lot. Perhaps voting could be done by all visitors to the site, but to become a politician you would have to have gained the respect of a certain number of registered site users. For example (imperfect but) if this site was an initial model, I would vote that if they so desired, I would approve for (e.g.) phoenix and Aristotle to stand for member of Parliament (or whatever the standard title would be). Then once they had gained enough initial approval for that, and got their policies together, and the election came around (at the beginning someone would have to kind of play God to get things going!) all site visitors could vote. Say phoenix won.. then we would watch phoenix implement his policies, perhaps in his real-life country. I think it would be good to keep a fair amount of reality in this game. And so on... yes, I like this idea. Croissant.-- sappho, May 07 2002 Online has potential but there is the difficulty that it may lack realism. Alot may just act outside all rationality (i.e. ban other political parties) which may spoil the game for all.
On the plus side, it does involve real people rather than just a name.-- drew_uk, May 07 2002 stonkingly good? Succulently baked? maybe. I'll give you a croissant, anyway.-- yamahito, May 07 2002 //Alot may just act outside all rationality (i.e. ban other political parties) // ..true - but that is by no means lacking in realism! Those more politically knowledgeable than I could probably cite ten reasonably recent examples of this - I can only think of Myanmar and Zimbabwe - former for anulling a result, latter for banning anyone from disagreeing with the President.-- sappho, May 08 2002 "Each MP could have a libertarian/authoritarian (or right wing/left wing) rating"
Or a bit of both; see the link to the Political Compass...-- -alx, May 08 2002 Aristotle, there was also an entertaining game on the Spectrum called 'The Prince'. It was a multiplayer game in which each player had a turn at the console to carry out actions and issue orders to their cronies. Each character also had some ability that all the other players required use of in order to win, so there was a lot of political bargaining going on away from the computer. Great fun!-- DrBob, May 08 2002 Sappho,
I was referring to the United Kingdom alone, not other states. You do have a point about places like Burma but my initial vision was one of a game solely within the confines of the UK.-- drew_uk, May 08 2002 Ah, well then I don't think the game would be any good. You can't simulate terrorism and natural disasters with info from only one country. At least include Europe (whoops, was that the blue touchpaper?!). Think global, drew. And while we're here, would you take some sane advice in the environs of your decent idea, and delete the crap idea that no-one likes? go on. With this one, you've proved you *can* do ok; with the other one, you're just embarrassing yourself. And your mates.-- sappho, May 08 2002 I wonder why nobody with an account creation date after May 5, 2002 has annotated this idea. Probably just coincidence.-- beauxeault, May 08 2002 I think you could simulate how a government reacts to events like terrorism and natural disasters inside its own country. For instance, what legislation does it introduce, what emergency measures does it take, and so on.
Equally, I believe there could be scope for a foreign policy module to the game --- consider something similar to that on Civilisation perhaps? The only problem there is it might be difficult to simulate war unless, of course, it was a matter of allocating troops and resources whilst you face scrutiny at home.-- drew_uk, May 08 2002 "All wars are political" - discuss.-- -alx, May 08 2002 Marxists probably wouldn't say so but then they did also say that the political is also the economical.
I'm sure economic repercussions could be simulated in such a game.-- drew_uk, May 08 2002 You could turn this into a massively multiplayer online game by haveing players try to join certain parliaments, senates and other political houses. Each collection of political houses could be like an Ultima Online shard and each player could be politican. New players would have to stand for election to enter a house and the equivalent of OU clans and guilds would be political parties.
You would have to have a model that represents the outside world that responds to political decisions but this would be the challenge. Whatever model you choose favours a specific political opinion. My solution to this would be to have a number of models and switch between them from time to time.-- Aristotle, May 09 2002 Beauxeault, I suggest you reread my profile page...-- StarChaser, May 10 2002 StarChaser, I miss your meaning, unless you thought I said "before" May 5, 2002. You may have missed the non-idea to which my annotation actually refers, but I refuse to annotate that one.-- beauxeault, May 10 2002 Succulent idea drew. This would be the perfect birthday present for any wannabe tinpot dictator.-- nickd, May 11 2002 Who? Me? ;)-- drew_uk, May 11 2002 Ah, yes, Who Me, the famous dictator of the oh so well known asian country of North Vietrea, or was it North Korenam?-- [ sctld ], May 11 2002 In the UK, the Local Government Chronicle stages an annual competition for council officers, in which they get to play the part of rather more senior council officials and politicians. The players have to cope with various economic and political events during the game and there's generally a 'disaster' (nuclear accident, terrorist bomb etc) thrown in for good measure.-- DrBob, May 12 2002 You shpuld play "Hidden Agenda" by Springboard ( i think it's abandonware now, so it's for free, give www.the-underdogs.org a try ). It's set in a fictional stat, somekind of mixture between Argentina and Cuba. Even it is a little bit limited ( the setting alone would be limited ) 'cause you play as provisoric president (in some way i would say: dictator) just for a limited period of time, it's very though-through in it's limitation. Main political scales are: Communism - Capitalism Liberalism - Anarchism-- Zytostatikum, Aug 06 2002 Have you tried Republic: The Revoultion?-- gaspode, May 07 2004 random, halfbakery