[Dev Diary #31] Political Parties, Coalitions, and Elections in Gilded Destiny

Salutations industrialists!

I'm Marc, a Producer on Gilded Destiny. In today's dev diary, we will discuss Political Parties, including enacting Policies, leading Political Parties, holding Elections, maximizing Party Attractiveness, forming Coalition governments, adopting Policy Stances, and making compromises to stay in power.

We also have a video version of this Dev Diary, which includes detailed examples of how Political Parties work in the game.

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Without further ado, let's dive in.

Setting the Political Stage

The time period during which Gilded Destiny unfolds is a tumultuous time where the ways of the elite, backroom politics of the old gave way to the dawn of mass participation. Informal factions of wealthy landowners and business magnates evolved into sprawling, ideologically-led parties with mass membership and distinct party platforms.

In Gilded Destiny, Political Parties are not simply an avatar representing a single ideology or political opinion. Parties are dynamic, ever-changing, and appear and disappear over time—representing the schisms and alliances that defined the era. Multiple Parties with the same political ideology might appear in game, each with a slightly different perspective on what that ideology means. For example, free-trade vs. Protectionist conservatives.

The overall design goal with Political Parties is to represent the chaotic, dynamic, and evolutionary nature of politics during this time, where the only constant is change.

Political Primer on POPs and Leaders

In Gilded Destiny, both your Leaders and your POPs have Political Opinions, which represent the historical ideologies you'd expect to see (liberalism, conservatism, socialism, communism, and fascism). As a reminder: POPs are portions of the Population, each with a specific configuration of Culture, Religion, and Profession that is unique to the province in which they're located.

This system, combined with a POP's Political Power (which is derived from your nation's voting policies, and POPs' Professions and Social Classes), determines which Political Parties get into power, and how popular or unpopular Policies themselves are to the people.

How popular or unpopular a Policy is determines how much Authority it would cost to enact. So when it comes to Political Parties, we add a new layer on top of this existing framework.

Summary:

• Pops have Political Opinions that incline them to support a Political Party

• A POP's Political Power is determined by its Professions, Social Class, and national Voting Policies.

• Political Opinion and Political Power determine which Political Parties and which Policies are successful.

• The Popularity of Policies determines how much Authority they cost.

Political Parties in Detail

Basics

Each Party has 1) a Party Leader, who is chosen from among the Leaders with the highest Politics skill, and 2) Party Members.

Political Parties have a Political Opinion, like POPs and Leaders. However, instead of a single "conservative" or "liberal" label, a Party in Gilded Destiny can have multiple Political Opinions. This system allows for single-issue parties, big-tent parties (representing opinions across the political spectrum), and centrist coalitions (appealing to liberals and conservatives to oppose more ideologically-led parties).

Summary:

• Political Parties consist of Party Leaders and Party Members.

• Parties can have multiple Political Opinions—allowing for a single-issue party or a broad coalition.

Party Attractiveness

All Parties have a stat called Party Attractiveness. As POPs themselves can have multiple political opinions, Party Attractiveness determines how much of a POP group would vote for a specific Party. That is, multiple Parties might