Reminds me of a forum post Wiz made recently to the tune of "in a game with space dragons, post-scarcity communism that works isn't too bizarre of a fantasy for us to include". Personally, since the biggest impediment to functional communism is human nature, I think it's reasonable to include aliens who can do it. I look forward to a similar treatment to anarchism, especially anarcho-syndicalism and anarcho-tribalism.
social systems gravitate to the stability point/attractor that best conforms with the current level of technology. And that there is an inertia to change, that springs out of existing structures that still rely on how old technologies organize society, giving rise to class contradictions leading toward a revolution that make social systems conform with technology.
By definition any communism would be post-scarcity, the disagreements lie in how to get there. Early contradictions were for example between idealism and materialism, utopian vs scientific socialism. Goalwise, most types of anarchism would conform with communism.
The problem with simulating anarcho anything, is that it will always be window-dressing covering the fact that all the means of control, production and planning are centralized in you--you, the player, sit at the top of the hierarchy that anarcho anything seeks to abolish--like it or not, the 4X genre is structurally either an autocracy, or if you are feeling generous, a communist dictatorship, but it does not yet represent a real system of social re-organization around technology or even popular dissent in a way that models authentic politics.
The closest game to accomplish truly modeling politics is Crusader Kings, and even there it is fairly rudimentary in the form of distinct vassals with distinct opinions all trying to poison you. The best 4x I can think of for actually having technology re-organize society is Fall From Heaven 2--I am thinking especially of the Ashen Veil religion which adjusts to the encroaching apocalypse with civics like "sacrifice the weak", with social implications neatly matching mechanics.
It reminds me of Ian Bogost's argument in Persuasive Games--games are good at representing complicated systems, but in the process of "representing", they tend to persuade players that the systems they represent are accurate and neutral images of reality, rather than ideological positions in themselves.
It is a bit like the recent press statement from the Cree Nation on Civ 6
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/01/05/civilization-vi-cree-nation-cultural-representation/ They appreciate being included and all, but find Civ offensive for making colonialism literally the most basic mechanic within the game, and not including any alternatives (except Science victory, which we all know from Alpha Centauri etc. is just shifting colonial warfare to space)--you *have to* exterminate all nations in your way, either by burning their cities or eradicating their culture by subsuming it into yours: “It perpetuates this myth that First Nations had similar values that the colonial culture has, and that is one of conquering other peoples and accessing their land.”
For the Cree, this is over-writing all other historical social strategies, and especially their own ( although we can extrapolate that the same happens in many other cases e.g. the Roman Empire, notable for tolerating any and all cultural and religious differences so long as the taxes got paid and no rebellions happened) to make the one that specifically destroyed their culture A. totally normal and natural and B. inevitable, which turns a specific and particularly brutal period in history, into history itself--past, present, and future.
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Topic: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE (Read 1679386 times)