CN Political Compass

[Delta1212]

Well obviously that's what a good compass is, but as I said, no scale that tries to classify groups of people will ever be perfect. Nobody has the same exact view of each other. Anything like this would just attempt to classify alliances by what the general worldview of them is.

Personally, I would put poison clan towards the upper middle of the scale, and slightly to the left of the center.

It doesn't presuppose anything. You are just looking at the extremes of the chart and assuming that's all there is.

If the same chart said Anarchist on the left and Fascist on the right, would you claim that anyone who isn't a Fascist is an anarchist?

You don't use things or qualities that you would expect to find at the extremes of axes as the label for axes. I would an axis of Less government-more government not Anarchist-Fascist because a libertarian isn't a degree of anarchist. Your labels are trying to quantify too many things at once. A good political compass picks one quality that is believed to be important or key to many different philosophies and uses that. Avg NS is not the key to many political philosophies other than "having more of it is generally good" since the higher your Avg NS the more NS you have all other things being equal.

The lulz-honor scale is even worse as you can be extreme or entirely lacking in both. If the middle is for alliances that are both very lulzy and very honorable, where do you put serious alliances with no honor? They don't even register on the scale. And making it Moral-Immoral is incredibly ineffective because except in the rare instances where you have something like the Unjust Path playing the bad guy for kicks, everyone thinks they're the good guy of their own story. This means the alliances you'd put at the immoral end of the spectrum would put themselves at the moral end and probably

put you at the immoral end. That's a terrible way to run a politcal

compass. It would be like putting Realist-Naïve or Pessimist-Optimist. The correct way of wording something like that is Pragmatist-Idealist. If half the people like one end of the spectrum and dislike the other, and the other half are reversed, then you have a good spectrum. If everyone thinks they belong at one end, then you have a pretty useless political compass.

Edited September 8, 2009 by Delta1212

[lordliam]

I'd say this is the best thing invented since pre-sliced bread!

[anenu]

i think lulz is the right word but honor is not as honor is subjective and as such cannot be judged. Instead i propose changing Honor to seriousness which is the opposite of lulz

[brokenhead]

I think it's great that you came up with this, and even if its imperfect (as all political scales will be since they are reductive), I don't think it's "silly." If it were completely silly, you wouldn't generate any debate at all.

I do, however, agree with Delta's point that "lulz" and "honor" are implicitly valued terms, and "morality" as you use it is especially value-laden. I would point out that the NPO's vision of things, as expressed in Francoism, has been the hegemonic moral viewpoint for quite some time on Bob. While the NPO is not entirely anti-lulz (e.g., Sir Paul), it has come to define what is acceptable lulzy behavior (e.g., political satire) and what is unacceptable (any number of IC and OOC actions).

Rather than lulz <-----> honor, then, I would propose an x-axis scale that would measure subversion <----> tradition. The granting of white peace runs in the face of tradition, and so would be left-wing. Anarchic, or counter-"hegemony" (here the label makes some sense) movements like Vox would be left-wing. NSO's poaching of neutral alliances would be left-wing. Huge reps, treaty webs, anti-raiding and anti-spying positions would be right-wing. This would give the added benefit (or frustration) of being continually in process, and alliances that were once right-wing could slide to the left and vice versa, depending on their current political positions. It's still somewhat vague, though, and would need some further definitions.

As for your y-axis, I think it's one valid measure of in-game politics that may have certain RL parallels.

Edit: I agree that "business" or "seriousness" (or seriuzbznss) might be a good replacement for "honor." It could even apply to what I proposed above: white peace, poaching are lulzy; anti-raiding and treaty webs are seriuzbznss.

Edited September 8, 2009 by brokenhead

[Diogenes]

This is an awful scale.

Delta has pointed out the flaws of the chart pretty adequately -- namely that there is no political difference between an alliance with a high average nation strength and an alliance with a low average nation strength, and that honor and a sense of humor are not mutually exclusive. It's also worth noting that there is no explanation given as to what it means to be placed in any of the four quadrants.

[Delta1212]

A much better scale would look something like:

Structured

|

Isolationist----------Interventionist

|

Individualist

Where the vertical scale determines the level of individual organization vs the freedom of the membership to do their own thing (rules/no rules) and the horizontal is determined by the degree of political interaction by the alliance through treaties and military actions. NPO would be top-right historically. TOP would be more upper-middle. WTF (from what I understand) would be more bottom-left. Various "rogue" alliances would probably fit well bottom-right. Aircastle or OBR (especially until recently) would be good examples of top left.

Edited September 8, 2009 by Delta1212

[LegendoftheSkies]

That's... actually pretty good there Delta.

My only question would be where does raid policy fit into that?

*Edited for grammarfail

Edited September 8, 2009 by Legend of the Skies

[brokenhead]

This is an awful scale.

Delta has pointed out the flaws of the chart pretty adequately -- namely that there is no political difference between an alliance with a high average nation strength and an alliance with a low average nation strength, and that honor and a sense of humor are not mutually exclusive. It's also worth noting that there is no explanation given as to what it means to be placed in any of the four quadrants.

How's this:

Replace "honor" with "seriuzbznss" (or create a subversion <----> tradition x-axis)

Replace "high ANS" with "high AS" (i.e., alliance strength)

Replace "low ANS" with "low AS"

The median (?) AS is about 1 million NS, but you may want to make "high" even higher than that.

So:

Red = Rebels (Mushroom Kingdom, Viridian Entente, the Karma bloc)

Blue = Hegemony (NPO, IRON)

Green = Tokers (Bel Air)

Purple = Wannabes (Crimson Guard)

Edited September 8, 2009 by brokenhead

[Mathias]

This wasn't well thought out at all.

Honor would be juxtaposed with self preservation or Infra > All. Lulz would be contrasted with SRS BSNS. ANS has nothing to do with politics or how an alliance is run, so it doesn't even make sense to have that as part of your political compas.

[Delta1212]

That's... actually pretty good there Delta.

My only question would be where does raid policy fit into that?

*Edited for grammarfail

Along the vertical axis. A raid policy that limits who you can raid and under what conditions would be more individualist than a full ban on raids, but more structured than an open "attack anything" policy.

Edit: Though you could also make a case that allowing raiding adds toward interventionist and disallowing it adds to isolastionist as well, though to a lesser degree as it would be on a national level rather than an alliance to alliance level in most cases. (A policy favoring organized raiding of alliances would certainly be interventionist).

Edited September 8, 2009 by Delta1212

[TheListener]

A much better scale would look something like:

Structured

|

Isolationist----------Interventionist

|

Individualist

Where the vertical scale determines the level of individual organization vs the freedom of the membership to do their own thing (rules/no rules) and the horizontal is determined by the degree of political interaction by the alliance through treaties and military actions. NPO would be top-right historically. TOP would be more upper-middle. WTF (from what I understand) would be more bottom-left. Various "rogue" alliances would probably fit well bottom-right. Aircastle or OBR (especially until recently) would be good examples of top left.

This is the best Idea I've seen so far on a possible compass like this, now to come up with questions...

Edit: Also for the bottom right that would be alliances like Vox...

Edited September 8, 2009 by TheListener

[lordliam]

How's this:

Replace "honor" with "seriuzbznss" (or create a subversion <----> tradition x-axis)

Replace "high ANS" with "high AS" (i.e., alliance strength)

Replace "low ANS" with "low AS"

The median (?) AS is about 1 million NS, but you may want to make "high" even higher than that.

So:

Red = Rebels (Mushroom Kingdom, Viridian Entente, the Karma bloc)

Blue = Hegemony (NPO, IRON)

Green = Tokers (Bel Air)

Purple = Wannabes (Crimson Guard)

I would replace low AS with high MB (i.e., Member Base) to remove the negative. and replace seriuz...what? with Diplomacyiscool-ist

[brokenhead]

I'm putting my former post in graphical form.

HIGH AS

|

|

LULZ/SUBVERSION ------------------SRS BSNS/TRADITION

|

|

LOW AS

Upper-left quadrant: Rebels (Karma, MK)

Lower-left quadrant: Bohemians (Bel Air, Vox)

Upper-right quadrant: Hegemony (NPO, IRON)

Lower-right quadrant: Wannabes (CG)

Edited September 8, 2009 by brokenhead

[Delta1212]

This is the best Idea I've seen so far on a possible compass like this, now to come up with questions...

Edit: Also for the bottom right that would be alliances like Vox...

There you go, Vox would be a good example of bottom-right, especially at its inception.

[Ephriam Grey]

A much better scale would look something like:

Structured

|

Isolationist----------Interventionist

|

Individualist

Where the vertical scale determines the level of individual organization vs the freedom of the membership to do their own thing (rules/no rules) and the horizontal is determined by the degree of political interaction by the alliance through treaties and military actions. NPO would be top-right historically. TOP would be more upper-middle. WTF (from what I understand) would be more bottom-left. Various "rogue" alliances would probably fit well bottom-right. Aircastle or OBR (especially until recently) would be good examples of top left.

I have a feeling that the insane politics of CN might call for a Z axis. Not sure what it would be, exactly, but I just have a gut feeling that a Z axis would work really well.

[brokenhead]

There you go, Vox would be a good example of bottom-right, especially at its inception.

The only problem with that, though, is that if we are to make a chart that means anything in terms of real-life politics, Vox would not be right-wing. That's why I think my chart is better because it actually makes sense in RL terms, in my opinion.

Then again, I just want my chart to rocket into superstardom.

Edited September 8, 2009 by brokenhead

[anenu]

As a political compass has nothing to do with nations score i suggest something along the following

isolated

|

lulz-----------------------------------------------------seriousness

|

treaty lover

however i would like to see a graph that shows if their is any sort of predicable ANS depending on how lulz vs serious an alliance is.

[lordliam]

I have a feeling that the insane politics of CN might call for a Z axis. Not sure what it would be, exactly, but I just have a gut feeling that a Z axis would work really well.

A political CUBE? A great puzzle indeed!

[lordliam]

As a political compass has nothing to do with nations score i suggest something along the following

isolated

|

lulz-----------------------------------------------------seriousness

|

treaty lover

however i would like to see a graph that shows if their is any sort of predicable ANS depending on how lulz vs serious an alliance is.

Lulz x 9000 = nations ZIed ANS

[brokenhead]

As a political compass has nothing to do with nations score i suggest something along the following

isolated

|

lulz-----------------------------------------------------seriousness

|

treaty lover

however i would like to see a graph that shows if their is any sort of predicable ANS depending on how lulz vs serious an alliance is.

AS would have a lot to do with an alliance's politics, because high AS gives an alliance strength and influence. High AS alliances can dictate, to a large degree, what is lulzy or not (spying, treaties, raiding, what alliances can even exist, etc.). At the same time, sometimes Low AS alliances, like the Vox "Bohemians," can manage to damage High AS alliances.

Edited September 8, 2009 by brokenhead

[Doitzel]

There you go, Vox would be a good example of bottom-right, especially at its inception.

I like that scale because it gives us our own quadrant.

[890765]

Along the vertical axis. A raid policy that limits who you can raid and under what conditions would be more individualist than a full ban on raids, but more structured than an open "attack anything" policy.

Edit: Though you could also make a case that allowing raiding adds toward interventionist and disallowing it adds to isolastionist as well, though to a lesser degree as it would be on a national level rather than an alliance to alliance level in most cases. (A policy favoring organized raiding of alliances would certainly be interventionist).

Structured seems like a very subjective term. My alliance is highly structured. We plan lots of tech raids in a very structured fashion.

Also, I like brokenhead's suggestions. I knew there would probably be a problem with Lulz/honor when I made the chart, but he was the first who actually made a viable suggestion. I appreciate the constructive criticism.

There's the updated version. As far as alliance strength goes, I was thinking about using score as a measure. Score usually is a decent measure of how much impact an alliance has pixel for pixel.

Edited September 8, 2009 by 890765

[brokenhead]

Structured seems like a very subjective term. My alliance is highly structured. We plan lots of tech raids in a very structured fashion.

Also, I like brokenhead's suggestions. I knew there would probably be a problem with Lulz/honor when I made the chart, but he was the first who actually made a viable suggestion. I appreciate the constructive criticism.

There's the updated version. As far as alliance strength goes, I was thinking about using score as a measure. Score usually is a decent measure of how much impact an alliance has pixel for pixel.

I like it. Now we just need names for the quadrants.

Red = Rebels (as organized, powerful bohemians)

Blue = Hegemony (those who support the status quo)

Green = Bohemians (changed from "tokers")

Purple = Sycophants? (changed from "wannabes" - but I'm looking for something non-negative. Minions?)

[anenu]

AS would have a lot to do with an alliance's politics, because high AS gives an alliance strength and influence. High AS alliances can dictate, to a large degree, what is lulzy or not (spying, treaties, raiding, what alliances can even exist, etc.). At the same time, sometimes Low AS alliances, like the Vox "Bohemians," can manage to damage High AS alliances.

I don't see what AS has to do with its political ideologies. When you do a real life political graph you don't go measuring a persons muscle mass but that can effect how they feel about things.

[brokenhead]

I don't see what AS has to do with its political ideologies. When you do a real life political graph you don't go measuring a persons muscle mass but that can effect how they feel about things.

I think AS relates to political ideologies in CN much better than in RL. There's no easy correlation, although there could be (U.S. politics are not determined by muscle mass, true, but they are shaped by our collective strength: our nukes, our military force, our economic might - all of which entangle us in global politics). In CN, AS likewise allows an alliance to determine what can and can't be done on Bob - or to put it another way, what is moral or immoral. Just think of the NPO's destruction of all potential threats, and the general lack of lulz that everyone complains of during the reign of the Hegemony.

Perhaps using AS is slightly vague, but I wonder what other empirical measure we could use instead. The x-axis is not based in empirical data, but it can still be determined, by vote if necessary, what the majority of nations find morally acceptable or not, and thus status quo.