So I thought, the next time I do the whole hood-building thing, I’m going to cut back and chose to focus on the community. Small town dynamics and relationships, which is what The Sims is best at showing.

But what if the town had a say in its rules? I could start with a blank slate and let the ‘citizens’ choose what is best. Think about it – the sorts of rules that people play their hoods by are actually real-life political issues: immigration restrictions, taxes, criminal laws, corruption. What kinds of political opinion would exist in a Sim world?

I’ve sketched out a rough idea of two political factions or parties.

Conservatives would be made up of the self-made, founding families, who are sick of paying fees and taxes for everything. In effect, they would represent the ‘normal’ gameplay – freely spawning townies, money from nowhere, etc.

Radicals, community-minded and poorer Sims, would agitate for welfare and more local services. They would represent ‘rules and restrictions’ – career caps, income taxes, population control, etc.

Yes, I have very BROADLY stereotyped the politics here. The point is, Sims in my Hood Project will take sides, and the ‘rules’ of the hood will depend on which side is strongest.

Here’s how my system worked: each household would have one candidate, typically the one with the most political interest. All single-Sim households get one candidate between them. I would look at each Adult/Elder Sims’ relationship and record their vote – ranking each candidate on relationship score with a few guidelines:

• Sims always vote for themselves at #1
• Sims vote for family and lovers before (best) friends
• Sims vote for same-sex friends over opposite-sex friends (I call this the ‘bros-before-hoes’ rule)
• Sims never vote for their enemies/negative relationships
• Sims might vote for a 0/0 acquaintance, depending on the number of other Sims they’ve ranked, to reflect voter apathy.

These weren’t rigid rules, and a bit of randomness was sometimes involved (e.g. donkey voting).

The great thing about OpenSTV is that it lets you test out several different vote counting systems. Although it’s designed around single transferable voting, that system works terribly with neighbourhoods of Sims. There are too many coin-flip ties.

I personally found the Borda count best; it provides a numerical rank for each candidate, much like the ‘community score’ on some other Sims websites.

The system I was using, in retrospect, has quite a few flaws. Most Sims just vote for their housemate. And voting based on friendships isn’t the most realistic model. Maybe I’ll think of a better way to simulate politics by the time I get to work on my Hood Project.

Finally, here’s an example of the system in action, using Pleasantview as a test hood.

Election title: Pleasantview Council
Method: Borda without ballot completion
Number of total ballots: 13
Number of invalid or empty ballots: 0
Number of ballots used in the count: 13
8 candidate running for 1 seats.

 R|Cass|Don |Darr|John|Herb|Dina|Bran|Mary|Exha
  |andr|LOTH|en D| BUR| OLD| CAL|di B|-Sue|uste
  |a GO|ARIO|REAM|B   |IE  |IENT|ROKE| PLE|d
  |TH  |    |ER  |    |    |E   |    |ASAN|
  |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |T   |
=====================================================================================================================
 1|  49|  47|  41|  46|  39|  37|  42|  63|   0
  |------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  | Borda count totals.

Winner is Mary-Sue PLEASANT.

Probably who you expected to win, right? ;)