Nations with Governments - Suggestion

Plugin category: [SEC][GEN][INFO][MECH]

Suggested name: Nations​

What I want: See Below (Wall of text)

Ideas for commands: /n province settax 5.0, /n nation settax 7.5, /n town setname CoolTown

Ideas for permissions: nations.nation.cancreate, nations.province.canlead, nations.town.canjoin

When I'd like it by: Any time, this is less a request for a specific plugin and more a suggestion for features in future nation-management plugins. Of course, I wouldn't discourage anyone interested in creating it.

Similar plugin requests: None.​

__​

Intro​

I've been working with the plugins Faction and Towny on my own and other servers a lot lately, and I've seen they're quite useful for war and land management. However, they lack some of the features which I feel give depth to a proper nation server. Namely, they both lack features in the political area. I'd like to request a new nation management plugin which addresses this lack of politics and policy. To add to the feel of the game, we'll base the new facets of this system in reality. All the features proposed here are different parts of any real nation's political landscape, and these aspects of politics are what most people use to contrast one nation to another in real life.

__​

Power Structures​

We'll start with Power Structure. The power structure is how powers are distributed in its government. In the real world there are four widely recognized power structures; Unitary, Federal, Confederal, and Anarchist. For our purposes we can leave out anarchy; it is less of a power structure and more of a lack thereof. To understand the differences in power structures, we must first understand the different powers available to a political unit like a nation or town (for the rest of this document I will use "political unit" as an umbrella term which includes nations, provinces, towns and so on). These powers include, but are not limited to

• Setting property taxes
• Kicking members
• Inviting new members
• Adding/removing the political unit to/from a larger political unit (A town into province, or a province into a town)
• Declaring war
• Claiming land

Now, in Towny these powers are limited only to the town leader and his/her assistants. The nation which the town is part of has very limited power over the town itself. Under our system, the creator of a nation could decide what kind of power structure he wanted his nation to have. In a Unitary State, the government can supersede all the powers of its provinces, towns, and members (change their taxes at will, kick members from them). In a Federal State the government has some powers (declaring war, adding/removing political units, setting a national tax), but the governments under it keeps some powers that can't be overridden (claiming land, setting property tax, inviting/kick members). In a Confederal State the top-level government has very few powers (Perhaps only declaring land and adding/removing political units), and the lower governments keep the rest unique to themselves. The decision of power structure can even be extended down to the minuscule level of towns; perhaps in a Confederal Town only members have the authority to claim land or invite new members, and all the government can do is set taxes.

This is all very complex, but it does provide the owners of political units with the chance to decide how to expand their control over the server. Will they choose a strong unitary state which is easy to control but stifles freedom and discourages new members, or a weak confederal state which the owner has little real power over but has the potential to attract new people looking for more freedoms? Of course, all this distribution of power is fruitless if we don't have a power source!

__​

Power Sources​

So, if we want to be able to distribute powers, which must have a source from which all these powers flow. In real life the three most common power sources are Aristocratic, Democratic, and Theocratic. For our purposes, we can drop Theocratic. Religions are so varied and open to interpretation using one in our plugin would only open us to controversy. In states with aristocratic power sources, a minority few who are chosen by the leader (in our plugin, the creator of this nation/province/town) such as the nobility hold power. In this plugin that would mean the government can use their powers without being consulting with or being accountable to their lower levels of government (For a nation that would be consulting the provinces, for a province that would be consulting the towns, for a town that would be consulting the members). In states with democratic power sources, a majority holds the power. This would mean elections are held to choose the leader of the nation/province/town.

These two choices, aristocratic and democratic, present the owner of a political unit with another decision. An aristocratic government which can make rapid (but possibly poor) decisions without worrying about possibly being voted out, or a democratic government where the leader/assistants are more accountable to the people, but risk not making decisions so they don't upset people and can be reelected? However, these concepts of political structures and power sources are made useless without multiple levels of government.

__​

Political Units​

Now then, we have a political structure and we've chosen a power source. However, it is difficult to govern 30 people crammed into one town. We can ease the burden of leadership by dividing our members into political subunits. Each town is made up of members led by a Mayor. These towns can then by grouped into provinces led by a Governor. Finally, these provinces are grouped into a Nation led by an Executive.

So here comes the real fun! Each political unit has its own government. For example, an aristocratic unitary town can be part of a democratic federal province, which can be part of an arisocratic confederal nation. This example entails some interesting things;

• My town's Mayor is not elected by me because it is an aristocratic town, and since the town is unitary, he can set taxes on me and take my property at will.
• My province's Governor is elected by me because it is a democratic province, and since the province is federal, he can set provincial taxes on all towns in the province, but he can't take my property since it isn't in his authority as a federal governor.
• My nation's Executive is not elected by me because it is an aristocratic province, but he can't set taxes on me or take my property, since it isn't in his authority as a confederal executive.

__​

Fanfare​

With all these options (power structure, power source, and arrangement of power in political units), we can guarantee that the server's political and cultural landscape is as unique and varied as the real world's. No two nations will be alike again, which means increased competition as they vie for power, all while working with the context of their unique governments!​

__​

Conclusion​

In conclusion, I'd like to thank to thank you for reading my massive wall of text and perhaps taking into consideration some of my ideas. I realize this is a very, very, very large request, so I'm less interested in having a plugin written to these exact specifications than I am in introducing these ideas into the community and perhaps influencing new nation-management plugins.​

Thanks!​

~ Georgiadawg27​

 

I was considering something similar. Like how a server can have admins, users can setup a political party. This then means they can enter into an election held every say 3 months, with their party. Should they win, they are now the Prime Minister who governs for three months over the server, under the authority of the owner. The prime minister has a cabinet with various ministers, which is chosen. The parliament holds debates to pass bills, and seats are won based on party votes. Worlds have four electorates: the south, north, west and east which can be won by votes from people of that electorate. Contact me if you would like a detailed plan of the plugin

Cheers

- AdmiralMoose