Honestly, I find the Asian government systems boring

[Akim]

Now first: this is just my opinion. It isn't a review. I knew about Asian history somewhat enough to know this is "how it was", more or less.

First I played the Mandala System in SE Asia. When I swapped from the tribal start to Mandala I was instantly reduced to 2 regions and then had to "die" my family up to God-hood. Gods, this was so boring and mindless. As much as I dislike Christianity (me being Pagan), at least they just used honest force to come and say, look here are 10,000 men and you do as we say, no piety will save you.

I didn't try Japan or Korea yet.

I played two times in China, once as unlanded family, once as landed "count". I just can't for the grace of Zeus recall those titles, but what gives. Now look: I read Confucius and many Chinese Classics, some most people don't even know, like the Huaanianzi. Like the big full version, the book of rites. All those shenanigans. I mean in RL.

But being inside such a system -- oh boy. And landless I went well in the examns, and first off: I HATE THEM. I mean, I went well in them. But it is such an absurd reality. You debate some dogmatic idea and that gives you brown nose points. Urgh. At one time, me given some title I can't recall and having conquered a few counties, I challenged my duke, defeated him, only that he took the titles away just like so, despite me standing with 3000 man inside his fancy manor and he had like 20 men left.

So I thought, maybe if I start landed it goes better. Well, it went better inasmuch I COULD take the land, but now I was stuck at level 8 metocracy and as far as I understood I would have to give up all my land to become some silly bureaucrat groveling my way up having no land and orderering the Emperor's shoes until I would be so good with cleaning shoes that I might rise to count his pigs. I mean, I had had an army of 3500 men when I gave up my land. So I went back to the save before I gave up my land, with China in a big civil war, I marched my 3500 men to Chang An and just made myself Emperor. Kinda like Cao Cao, my great idol.

Honestly, all those lying, fake smiling bureaucrats, all this groveling up on your knees was such a revolting idea to me, when I just could take men into the Imperial Capital and MAKE myself Emperor. But now I have 30 different meaningless bureaucrats myself, instead of the simple 5 from the Feudal system. This is such a drag. Maybe I am too much a barbaric westerner, but I prefer honest force, standing with my men in front of the Pope and make him declare me Emperor or I will sack the city, over this pretending, sniveling, groveling face saving and reciting Confucius for the Nth time just to be allowed to herd over a village with swine and sheep. There is SO MUCH to do, so many place to visit to oversee, so many tests to make, I mean you know it, I don't have to tell you.


To finish with a word from Cao Cao

"If the wise were so wise, why aren't the wise ruling now?"

PS: Is there a way as Emperor to just get away with all that Confucian shenanigans? Because I feel less like an Emperor rather than a super accountant.

PPS: No offense, if you like it, all power to you, I don't regret having bought it, because I kinda expected it. I just wonder, Gods how did these regions even survive with those rules? I really don't want to throw shade on other cultures. I was there and liked the people and all. But at the end I prefer to be a western barbarian.

"There are two types of people, those with guns and those who dig. You dig."
- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

[Harris]

Back when I was a teen, I was quite fond of roleplay servers in GTA: San Andreas. The population was organized into factions, much like modern society - cops, robbers, politicians, et cetera. Some of those servers were pretty popular and their 500 slots were filled most of the day.

Every faction had a leader, who wielded quite a lot of power, mostly in terms of hiring people and giving them ranks with authority and pay. Like I said, the server community was large and there was only a handful of such positions, so they were highly-coveted. In a way, they were seen as progression, something to strive for in the game. At the same time, most of the players were kids, mostly dumb kids, to be honest. Giving them any real control over factions was a recipe for disaster.

The real power rested with admins, the god-kings by virtue of having the ability to ban players they simply dislike. Nominally, a position of admin is supposed to be separate from one of the player due to obvious conflict of interests - but in reality, this was either circumvented with having a "player account" or by outright combining "divine" and "secular" power in a single character, depending on the server in question. So to solve the above issues, god-kings basically did two things:

1) they instituted positions of "ministers" which was a secular term used by an overseer admin, and every faction had such an overseer. What the overseer did was basically instituting rules how the faction is supposed to be run. And then the elected leader (normally through applications so theoretically merit-based, but then you had to talk to god-kings on Skype, you can imagine the rest) only had the power to operate within those constraints set by an overseer. This led to a situation where a dumb kid couldn't press the big red button by accident - on the other hand, a smart kid would be bored when constrained by such system due to inability to conduct reforms. So in reality, the role of the faction leader was reduced to giving promotions. And, of course, that was a highly regulated process that was supposed to take place according to tangible criteria - like a soldier standing at his post for 10 hours, taking screenshots every 30 minutes. Yes, for many people this constituted actual gameplay.

2) they instituted the "cursus honorum" of sorts, where you spawned in as a new arrival and you couldn't just go play as a politician. First you needed to have "years of residence in the state" which was the slang for in-game level. Simply put, you first had to spend X hours grinding simple manual jobs like haul around boxes until you get high enough level. Then you could join the military. After reaching a certain rank, you could transfer to a lower rank in the police, or continue climbing ranks in the army if you aimed to become general - though leaders were mostly appointed from the "outside" through applications process as opposed to internal promotions, which still happened but were rare. Then from the police you could at some point transfer to FBI. From FBI you could eventually transfer to the city hall. And the mayor/governor represented the highest power you could have, though still limited by your admin overseer.

Does this remind you of anything? An incredibly stupid system of arbitrary restrictions and stupid rules that had nothing to do with merit and everything to do with enforcing stagnation and, above all, enabling any idiot to reach the top of the political ladder provided he climbed long enough. I'm not sure whether one of the god-kings at some point took a course in Chinese history, or it's all just an ironic coincidence, but SA:MP roleplay servers were run much like a Confucian bureaucracy.

And this system really only benefited those at the top. As a server owner, you got a stable online of players who took a while to go through all the steps of the "cursus honorum". As an overseer admin, you had your own faction where you had all power and no responsibility. But as random truck driver who was killing time until level 5 by delivering supplies to the police station because without those supplies cops can't get their weapons - that was a pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥ system to be a part of. But hey, at least you weren't one of those level 1 shmucks who can only carry around boxes at the docks and don't even get a truck to drive. After all, getting a drivers license was its own important part of the cursus honorum. Next to learning super-important stuff like how many "wanted level" stars you have to issue for every kind of offense as a cop. Sure, it could all be automated with a comfortable menu - but then people wouldn't have to print a 5-pages document and keep it near the PC while playing... and where's the fun in that?

[Viceroy Günther von Lichler]

tl:dr

[Devil_JCS]

Originally posted by Akim:

PS: Is there a way as Emperor to just get away with all that Confucian shenanigans? Because I feel less like an Emperor rather than a super accountant.

There's quite a few ways.

If you're a vassal, you can do the classic ways to take over the realm (like claiming your liege's title or staging a coup as regent). If you can get independence and are strong enough, you can just declare war for it (you get the whole darn thing if you win). Having the dynastic cycle hit division is another option, as it will outright destroy the hegemony title along with everyone having a CB that can claim entire realms in the area.

Just try to avoid the advancement era if you want to expand more when you take over, as that prevents you from declaring war (you can only expand through that great campaign project, if the darn thing actually works like it's supposed to). Hell, you can't even vassalize anyone unless they're Celestial (advancement era is meant for playing tall I guess).

[100% escape rate]

Originally posted by Devil_JCS:

Originally posted by Akim:

PS: Is there a way as Emperor to just get away with all that Confucian shenanigans? Because I feel less like an Emperor rather than a super accountant.

There's quite a few ways.

If you're a vassal, you can do the classic ways to take over the realm (like claiming your liege's title or staging a coup as regent). If you can get independence and are strong enough, you can just declare war for it (you get the whole darn thing if you win). Having the dynastic cycle hit division is another option, as it will outright destroy the hegemony title along with everyone having a CB that can claim entire realms in the area.

Just try to avoid the advancement era if you want to expand more when you take over, as that prevents you from declaring war (you can only expand through that great campaign project, if the darn thing actually works like it's supposed to). Hell, you can't even vassalize anyone unless they're Celestial (advancement era is meant for playing tall I guess).

So essentially if you play China you're going to be either managing your merit until you become emperor and then you even delegate external wars to your vassals? I wonder what's the point...

[Sledjer]

Originally posted by 100% escape rate:

So essentially if you play China you're going to be either managing your merit until you become emperor and then you even delegate external wars to your vassals? I wonder what's the point...

Only if you are in one of the inferior eras. In the expansion era you can declare war as usual and in fact are probably in the top 3 most expansionist possible positions (following Greatest of Khans and restored Roman Empire).

[TurtleShroom]

Originally posted by Akim:

Now look: I read Confucius and many Chinese Classics, some most people don't even know, like the Huaanianzi. Like the big full version, the book of rites. All those shenanigans. I mean in RL.

But being inside such a system -- oh boy. And landless I went well in the examns, and first off: I HATE THEM. I mean, I went well in them.

Why yes, I do think that's is the ideal system, how can you tell?

This post is exceeding levels of based and I, having also been studying the Five Confucian Classics and Four Confucian Books (I just finished the Book of Changes and am moving onto its second concordance, that is, Confucius' commentary); I am only being given more proof that the Chinese solved how to govern mankind thousands of years ago.

(Note: in RL, Confucianism is not a religion nor is it incompatible with Christianity, at least in its classical sense. Neo-Confucianism, however, is tainted by pagans' idolatry. Confucius never sought to be worshiped and never claimed divinity. IIRC he wanted to return to the "Good Old Days" under the Zhou Dynasty.)

Originally posted by Akim:

You debate some dogmatic idea and that gives you brown nose points. Urgh.

At one time, me given some title I can't recall and having conquered a few counties, I challenged my duke, defeated him, only that he took the titles away just like so, despite me standing with 3000 man inside his fancy manor and he had like 20 men left.

Originally posted by Akim:

mean, I had had an army of 3500 men when I gave up my land. So I went back to the save before I gave up my land, with China in a big civil war, I marched my 3500 men to Chang An and just made myself Emperor. Kinda like Cao Cao, my great idol.

All I am seeing is the Superior Man who bid his time in great crisis and waited for opportunity to rise, as Heaven intended. Someone read the Book of Changes.

Originally posted by Akim:

Honestly, all those lying, fake smiling bureaucrats, all this groveling up on your knees was such a revolting idea to me, when I just could take men into the Imperial Capital and MAKE myself Emperor.

Giga-Chad behavior right here, good sir.

Originally posted by Akim:

Maybe I am too much a barbaric westerner, but I prefer honest force, standing with my men in front of the Pope and make him declare me Emperor or I will sack the city, over this pretending, sniveling, groveling face saving and reciting Confucius for the Nth time just to be allowed to herd over a village with swine and sheep.

Easy there Kublai.

Originally posted by Akim:

How did these regions even survive with those rules? I really don't want to throw shade on other cultures. I was there and liked the people and all. But at the end I prefer to be a western barbarian.

Well, I mean, the Book of Changes DID say it was for the Superior Man. I guess you weren't based enough to win by the pen.

Frankly I understand why the Ancient Chinese were such obnoxious, snobby know-it-alls.

You become that way if you literally figured everything out on how to run a state. It's a shame their great sin was Sloth.

[TurtleShroom]

Originally posted by Harris:

Back when I was a teen, I was quite fond of roleplay servers in GTA: San Andreas. The population was organized into factions, much like modern society - cops, robbers, politicians, et cetera. Some of those servers were pretty popular and their 500 slots were filled most of the day.

Does this remind you of anything? An incredibly stupid system of arbitrary restrictions and stupid rules that had nothing to do with merit and everything to do with enforcing stagnation and, above all, enabling any idiot to reach the top of the political ladder provided he climbed long enough. I'm not sure whether one of the god-kings at some point took a course in Chinese history, or it's all just an ironic coincidence, but SA:MP roleplay servers were run much like a Confucian bureaucracy.

HOLY BASED

Maybe I was too hard on "Grand Theft Auto" my entire life.

[TurtleShroom]

Originally posted by Viceroy Günther von Lichler:

tl:dr

No way dude, this is one of the best threads I've ever seen. Read the whole thing.