Revival Proposal

[afleitch]

I'd be willing to play, but not with this party system. You've essentially created a center-right party that would alienate most of it's potential supporters on here as well as give the country two left wing parties against one right wing party

[afleitch]

I won't participate in any re-start which has parties imposed.

Ok, well at least can ya help with map making or something along those lines?

I'll indulge in some mapmaking...

[afleitch]

Here we go. This is based on the real, uninhabited island of St Kilda (but alot bigger) The province/state boundaries are in red, capital cities in pink. The national capital is the biggest city. The island to the north west is a potentially cecessionist island. That's for me and Hash

[afleitch]

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I'd be keen on having the island settled by the British...but who knows.

[afleitch]

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I'd be keen on having the island settled by the British...but who knows.

I meant labels on the map. Names of provinces, cities, etc.

I don't mind naming them. See what people think

[afleitch]

Okay. So here's the idea.

The nation is a big island in the North Sea between Scotland/England and Norway. As such it was settled by Danes/Norwegians, Scots and the English. The place names are all bastardized. Peterford and Lindsay are 'English', Fiskby, Bronseland and Marksland are 'Danish/Norwegian' and the Island of Pitfarris is 'Scottish'. Of course the nation itself has been independent of all these nations since the 1500's. The old language was a mix of Danish and English but has now been mostly replaced by English. Pitfarris is somewhat more isolated and more independently minded.

[afleitch]

Possible Parties

Social Democrat/Socialist
Christian Democrat/Conservative
Liberal
Nationalist (SNP/Plaid etc) for Pitfarris

[afleitch]

Just to note that Pitfarris should have a functioning (but non playable) Assembly; similar to Scotland/Wales. The hope is that what goes on in Pitfarris can 'parody' the constitutional struggle about to happen in Scotland

Blurb;

The Island of Pitfarris is geographically to the west of Antilla. The side of the island facing Pitfarris is extemely mountainous, making accessability difficult. The west of Pitfarris, in which Auldurgh is situated is relatively flat. It was here, that Scottish settlers, under mandate of the King of Scots landed and founded the city of Auldburgh in 1470. In 1468 Pitfarris was pledged by Christian I, in his capacity as king of Norway, as security against the payment of the dowry of his daughter Margaret, betrothed to James III of Scotland. As the money was never paid, the island became subject to the Scottish crown. Pitfarris thrived and boomed after the Union of The Crowns in 1603. Apon the Act of Union in 1707, Pitfarris was detached from Scotland and combined with Antilla to the anger of Pitfarris nationalists ever since. Upon Antillan independence, Pitfarris remained part of the new state.

[afleitch]

Some random numbers for our parliament... let's say a parliament of 150 seats. This isn't a big country, after all. As for parties... I think we have to have an unclear election result, right? At least to start with. So...

Social Democrats - 54
Popular Movement Party* - 31
Liberal Party** - 23
Pitfarris Nationalist Party - 22
Cooperative Party - 14
Independents - 4
National Patriot Party - 2

Which gives us a parliament without a natural majority and with significant representation for a very wide range of interests.

*I'm assuming that this is Conservative or Christian Democratic in some way.
**I'm assuming that these guys will be fairly right-wing as well.

Is everyone OK with Al's proposal?

I am.

[afleitch]

I'm not arguing for uniformity. I just think it would be a good idea for the smallest region to be populous enough to have several MPs, so that multiple players can represent that region if they so choose. That region could still be dominated by rural interests, it would just be a bit more populated.

I meant uniformity within regions - obviously no one is calling for the regions to be equal in population terms!

My point is that if these are ancient divisions of some kind (with the exceptions of the carve-outs for the cities), then there can be significant variation within them. There's also no need for the regions to = the pr constituency boundaries.

I agree.

I think at this point, one person or a group of people should 'adopt a region' (preferrably one they are in) and set about creating it's character; it's economy, the sort of people who live there and issues they face. Basically build up each region in order to create a national varied picture.

[afleitch]

Potential Flag



And one for Pitfarris

[afleitch]

The issue of the governance of Pitfarris has been mentioned elsewhere; I'm fairly sure that Andrew intended the politics of Pitfarris to be (to an extent) a satire of the politics of contemporary Scotland, so an Assembly of some kind is as a given. Anyway, a proposal for the government structure, more generally:

Island of Pitfarris

1. Island Assembly (ideally a better name that someone else can come up with).

2. The four Counties and the City of Auldburgh.

3. Either very weak municipalities of some kind, or some variant on that weird divisional system Scottish local government used to have.

Island of Antillia

1. The five Regions and the five Cities.

2. Districts (in rural areas) and Municipalities (for the towns). Districts would have very little power, municipalities a little bit more.

3. Some form of parish/commune setup.

I was I thought it was worth parodying given recent events (though no doubt the Scottish Government will out do it...) and the inability of the UK government (and opposition parties) to deal with the situation.

I'm happy with the Island Assembly which would ne unplayable. If people can trust me not to to use it for my advantage, I may assist with annoucing what that Assembly is up to if it affects the Antillian Parliament.

The four counties also contain 'burghs'; so yes it's a carryover of the pre-'74 arrangement.

Also remember Peterford and Lindsay are essentially 'English' in character.

So far, counties/towns i have are:

Sorland (North, 50,756) Main Town - Fairhairfjord
Vanaheimr (Far North, 50,485) Main Town - Freyjasby
 - I'm looking at making the topography mountainous in the north here, and thus mining is an old and current industry, fishing is still going to be big, heavily Nordansk speaking.

Kystenland (South Coastal east metro, 38,345) Main Town - Kaupangen
Aesirheimr (West, west metro, 30,681) Main Town - Godfridham
Vikingrlag (Metro, 25,349) Maint Town - Halfdanberg
 - These will be more like valleys, better farming areas. All southern, metro counties, wealthier, commuter to some degree but farming and sheep hearding are still important but dwindling due to influct of commuter communities.

Hvite Dalen (Far West, 11,773) Main Town – St. Olaf
 - A valley between mountains to the north and south, heavily english, farming.

Kristiana - second largest city, royal city, cultural city (3 universities, museums, etc), trying to make it more an opposite of St. Marks which would be the economic and legislative centre of the country. Arts would be huge so i think TV production (home of the state owned network RTA), animation, IT would be new industries
thoughts?

I quite like that It may be helpful for you to 'bastardise' the placenames a bit to make them sound Anglified.

So Aesirheimr could be Ashirhammer and Kaupangen could be Copangham etc.

[afleitch]

This is an administrative map. It's been done (a little unrealistically but aesthetically nice) to create either districts/burghs/wards of approx 10,000 people within the county divisions (wards for the cities) The Red and Blue map is a varying map of left v right economics; right wing rural areas, left wing urban areas, middle class bits to the west of cities etc.

The Red, Blue and Green map is a 'parity' map'; where if the left block, right block and nationalists would 'win' if they got a third of the vote share each.

[afleitch]

The Red, Blue and Green map is a 'parity' map'; where if the left block, right block and nationalists would 'win' if they got a third of the vote share each.

Are the liberals to be counted with the right block?

In all honesty, it's simply hypothetical. The party situation isn't too clear.

[afleitch]

It might be more fun and worthwhile for the game if Pitfarris had no assembly yet, and was instead working to get a special devolved arrangement/statute of autonomy.

I'd be concerned that would be bogged down with laws concerning the creation of an assembly that ends up unplayable anyway. I'd be happy with an Assembly with limited powers to start off with; probably even slightly less than Wales was given in 1999.

[afleitch]

Very, very good work. The topography for Pitfarris is spot on too. Really like the political maps too.

[afleitch]

I don't know about you guys, but I'm feeling rather intimidated by the prettiness of the maps generated so far, and thus feel like any contribution on my part would be inferior to what has already been presented

Ilikeverin... i wouldn't worry about it at all! i thought the same thing too and i'm pretty happy how mine turned out and i had a blast making them... go crazy! i'm sure your maps will be great. What region are you working on?

Attention to all!! here is my thoughts on where Antilla lies in the North sea (yes now i'm map crazy)So its rather large, Almost the size of scotland, i think the location makes sense for the amount of Nordic influence as its in the middle of their historical shipping and colonizing (or raiding routes). And English/Scottish influence. Thoughts?

YES, YES, YES, YES, YES, YES

Thank you. Pitfarris is at the right place to have been gifted to Scotland.

[afleitch]

Come on people We're almost there. Keep it going.

What else needs to be done?

Let's get government structure sorted, but keep the debate going in the Parliament trhead as a taster for the game.

[afleitch]

I'd be up for it

[afleitch]

If there's a desire to do this I'll help out again. I suggest you don't go for a US setting. Indeed it may be better to aim small and perhaps emulate the political system of a small European nation or of the UK/Canada/Australia etc.

[afleitch]

How about Luxembourg? Seriously.

[afleitch]

Problem with Australia (and the UK for that matter) is that the party choices are like choosing between sh-t and sh-te I think it would be fair to adopt that Australian model but not necessarily their party system having a left of center Labour or Social Democratic party, a centre-right Conservative party and a centrist Liberal Party and a few others.

The reson why small parties and party 'blocs' are beneficial in a simulation game rather than in an election game (like Atlasia) is that if Party A defeats Party B with a majority, then all the Party A players vote yes and all the Party B players vote no because if they don't do either, they are whipped. That's essentially all that will happen; almost every piece of legislation proposed by the party in power will pass in some form.

A multi party system with voting blocs makes things more interesting (and more stable) in a government sim.

[afleitch]

Seems fair. Though are we playing Australia or an Australia clone? We could have a fantasy southern hemisphere island or something that's basically Australia in everything but name.

[afleitch]

Ironically I'd end up in Labor.