Simulation Reflection
For our most recent project, I decided to work alone, and looked at game simulations. This was the shortest amount of time that we have had, so it was rather difficult for me to try and figure out how to use my time in a way that would get the project done on time. I thought about what I might want to simulate, and decided that I was interested in forms of government, pulling from the idea of my government election project earlier this year. The first week I focused on looking at the forms of government, and had created a list of different possible styles I could recreate:
A section from my notes
Military Dictatorship: Stratocracy
Religious: Enlightened absolution - Theocracy
Singular Leaders: Monarchy, Elected Monarchy-Self-Proclaimed Monarchy, Despotism, Regent,
Dutchy
Multiple: Diarchy, Timocracy, Oligarchy, Ochlocracy, Isocracy, Democracy, Consociationalism
Alternatives: Isocracy, Anarchy, Tribalism
After writing out different game plans I finally decided to just make the government a dictatorship, simplifying things by having only one person in power. Then I sat down and finalized the rules to the game so I could explain the game thoroughly:
The situation is that you are creating a new society. This is the dictator version of the game, so the first step to start playing is to elect your dictator. The now elected dictators table represents the dictators government. There is the second in command, The Foreign Minister, and The Interior Minister, all of which the dictator will decide. The rest of you are the people of this new society, and each of you will be assigned a profession. Now you know what you are, your going to have to split into groups. The government will be given the ten amendments of the constitution in which they can add to or take away from at any time. They will also be given a type of budget they deal with. 20% of government money goes to each branch of professions (Education, Construction, Farming, and Business). The government also starts with 20% of the budget. The dictator can alter these percentages at any time, and the more money the government keeps, the more powerful they are.
The people will be discussing what they want from the government, and sending requests to the dictator. The people want cheaper food, then they need to increase the farming budget, but the increase must be taken away from another branch. The dictator has veto power over any requests, and has a final say in what happens. In order to keep the dictator in check there will be a catch. The people can revolt at any time. The conditions are that there must be a two thirds consensus as to wether or not to revolt, and there is risk that if the government catches any individual person conspiring, the government will cut your salary to what ever they would like.
At first the game functioned well, but as it progressed there were some considerable flaws I could see. First of all, there was no motivation to keep your percentage high. If you were to have a small percentage of money, there was no consequence to it. I just couldn’t think of incentive to drive the game. There were also some lolls in the game between deliberations, and it left people wandering without purpose. I’m still deciding whether or not to continue improvements on the game, or start fresh with a new simulation. Either way I am interested in pursuing these game simulations.
