u/Symbiocracy

Hey everyone,

I'm working on a post-WW3 political survival game called Symbiocracy. To stop absolute power, the new government is split into two ruthless, opposing factions:

• ⚖️ The Regulator (Client): You control the national budget, award contracts, and run the secret police to audit your rival. But you can't build anything.
• 🛡️ The Executive (Contractor): You hold the monopoly on physical construction and the national education system. But you have zero budget power.

This is a game of extortion, mechanism design, and psychological warfare.

How to win (and play dirty):

• The Tofu-Dreg Hustle: As the Executive, you can secretly inject "Fake EV" (shoddy materials) into construction projects to embezzle the contract money.
• The Witch Hunt: As the Regulator, you can deploy your Intel division to hunt down those Fake EVs, fine the opposition into bankruptcy, and take a massive "whistleblower" cut.
• Brainwashing 101: Objective performance doesn't matter if the voters don't believe it. Use your Media division to "Spin" the narrative. Use the Education system to lower civic "Sanity," making the public easily manipulated by your propaganda.
• The Nuclear Option: If contract negotiations fail, you can trigger a political crisis that forces the two parties to instantly swap roles.

Note on current state: This is an early build. The AI opponent is basically a hard-coded sociopath right now—it doesn't play optimally, it just wants to extort you or catch you in a lie.

I’m putting this out here because I want to see how you break the economy, find loopholes in the budget negotiations, or achieve absolute dominance.

If you're into political simulators, game theory, or just want to run a corrupt government into the ground, I'd love to hear your feedback!

\[Why Does Traditional Democracy Fail?\\\]

The fatal flaw of traditional democracy is the "Winner-Takes-All" trap. The ruling party controls a fixed budget and absolute power. Since the payout is fixed regardless of performance, the cost of actually improving governance is far higher than the cost of political manipulation. Naturally, parties choose infighting and stagnation.

\\\[Our Solution: The Symbiocracy Framework\\\]

Symbiocracy uses Mechanism Design to transform political competition into a performance-based contract system:

1. Power Restructuring: Majority Regulator (R) vs. Minority Executor (H)

The Majority (Sovereign/Regulator 'R'): Responsible for "pinning" national strategic plans and setting standards, but is strictly prohibited from direct execution.

The Minority (Candidate/Executor 'H'): Responsible for actual implementation. Their revenue is strictly tied to the Project Achievement Rate—they only earn what they successfully deliver.

The Iron Rule: Regulation and execution powers are physically isolated forever, blocking corruption at the source.

2. The Core Game: "I Cut, You Choose" & Dynamic Swap

The system introduces the classic "I cut, you choose" logic, forcing a dynamic equilibrium:

Preventing Sabotage: The Majority "cuts the cake" (sets the plans and difficulty). If the plan is too harsh or unfair, the Minority can trigger a Swap, forcing the Majority to execute the very sweatshop plan they just created.

Preventing Incompetence: If the Majority feels the Executor is underperforming, they can actively demand a Swap to take back execution power. The catch? They must personally bear the risks of failure and face ruthless auditing from their political rivals (who now occupy the Regulator seat).

\\\[Our Final Goal\\\]

This is an open-source lab with final goal on Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) simulation to stress test Symbiocracy design. We aim to prove: With the Swap mechanism in place, the only rational choice for a self-interested party to avoid being destroyed by their rivals is to "cut the cake fairly" and "maximize performance."

game link cannot be posted here sorry

I’m looking for people to point out where this model would fail, what incentives it creates, and what kinds of behavior it would likely produce.

I’m working on this because I think modern democracy, even with separation of powers, still often assumes that people in power will more or less carry out the responsibilities attached to their office. Symbiocracy is different in that it does not assume good faith. Instead, it deliberately separates rule-making from execution, then lets different parties pursue their own interests within that structure to see whether relatively stable outcomes can still emerge.

The state is divided into three systems:

S system (Sovereign system): handles national survival functions such as defense, intelligence, and emergencies.

H system (Health system): handles administration and civil governance.

R system (Regulator system): handles oversight, the judiciary, budget supervision, and institutional adjustment.

Power is allocated like this:

The largest party controls the S system and leads the R system.

The second-largest party controls the H system.

Other parties participate in the R system in proportion to their seats.

Let total national resources be T (tax).

A share, S value, is allocated first to the S system, so the S system receives T × S value.

The remaining T × (1 − S value) is then divided according to H value:

H system receives T × (1 − S value) × H value

R system receives T × (1 − S value) × (1 − H value)

(How S value is set can be discussed separately if anyone is interested.)

So the higher the H value, the more resources go to the H system; the lower the H value, the more resources go to the R system.

The H value is not a natural quantity. It is institutionally constructed.

The R system first defines the indicators, calculation method, and evaluation standard for the H value.

The H system then operates under those rules and generates the relevant data.

The R system then verifies that data and publishes the final H value.

For example, the H value could be built in a way similar to New Zealand’s Living Standards Framework. Suppose that in one period it uses only two components:

Housing score = 1 − proportion of households spending more than 30% of income on housing

Employment score = 1 − unemployment rate

The R system would predefine:

H value = 0.6 × Housing score + 0.4 × Employment score

The H system would then generate the relevant data under those rules, and the R system would verify and publish the result. That result would determine the next period’s allocation between the H system and the R system.

Another deliberate feature is that resources inside each system are not restricted by public or private purpose. In other words, once a system receives its resources, they can be used for policy, vote-buying, private gain, or even buying a private yacht. The only hard constraint is that resources cannot be moved across systems without declaration. So the model does not rely on moral constraints on use, only on boundaries between systems.

There is also a one-time no-confidence mechanism:

During a term, the largest party and the second-largest party may each propose one no-confidence motion, but at most one can actually take effect during the entire term.

Once triggered, the two parties swap control of the H system and the R system, while the S system remains unchanged.

So before no-confidence:

Largest party = S + R

Second-largest party = H

After no-confidence:

Largest party = S + H

Second-largest party = R

After that point, any further change to the H value evaluation standard requires co-signature from both parties.

Any criticism is welcome, especially criticism that can break the model directly.

Much thanks.