Squad Leader Archive

Whether or not a Squad Leader in real life would become a Politician in real life isn't really relevant. I think the real question is, does being a Squad Leader in SWG require a lot of the same skills, abilities and interests as being a Politician in SWG. I think they kind of do. They both require not just people skills, but group people skills. You have to be good at dealing with people in relatively large numbers. You can be the nicest guy in town, but if you can't handle 10 or 20 combatants at a time, you'll never be a good Squad Leader. And if you can't appeal to 100 or 200 people in your town, you'll never be a good Politician. As a Squad Leader, you have to establish a reasonable balance of selflessness and firmness. Too much selflessness is weak, and will lead to a squad that can't be controlled and does whatever they want. Too much firmness is resented, and will lead to an unhappy, unmotivated squad that is reluctant to follow their leader. A Squad Leader with enough kindness to keep his men happy and motivated, but enough firmness to get them to fall in line and do their job when duty calls, will be the best. I think a Politician faces many of the same situations that a Squad Leader must deal with. The fact that one uses a gun and the other doesn't is only a significant point under the assumption that fighters are always fighters, artisans are always artisans, and those annoying little @#$%s who run around asking for credits will always be annoying little @#$%s. I personally don't think fighting is what led most of us to become Squad Leaders. I think Squad Leader is what led most of us to become fighters. If we could have led people in other ways, besides fighting, I think a lot of us would have considered it.

How does Explore IV, Survival IV and Range IV to qualify for SL...and then any of the SL lines equate to politician? It would seem politician would be from the Business line with perhaps some entertainer stuff. Don't think of the politician/general, they are actually fairly rare. Some of the greatest leaders in recent world history were not military men. Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt were never generals. Hitler was a corporal. These were all wildly successful politicians in their own ways. US Grant, a popular general, was the worst President in US history. MacArthur was also another great general but failed politician. If you want SL to be a politician then the new profession would more appropriately be named Despot, not Politician.

Politics has as little to do with Business as it does with Fighting. Politics isn't about business or fighting, it's about people and being their leader. Currenly, Squad Leader is the only thing in the game which shares this quality. Despite this, however, I do believe you will find that knowledge of Fighting AND Business will be beneficial to a Politician, since the Mayor of a town must establish a police force and treasury. My only argument is that these aspects are less significant than the aspect of Leadership which, at this time, only a Squad Leader is really required to have.

Establishing a police force, garbage disposal, transportation network, etc does not require leadership per se, it requires business knowledge. Most buereaucratic functionaries, including politicians, have a fairly good knowledge of business and economics. They are charismatic, for sure, but not really leaders in the military sense.

Given how wimpy our skills are right now, we are mostly political characters anyway. I get a few tells a night from people at popular xp spawns asking me to come organize the group...I guarantee they ain't calling me for my buffs. However, I hope we get some combat skills that are significant and we don't have to be quite so political and can be more tactical. Entertainers also have to be political...their xp is from people listening to them. Merchants are political to some extent...their gains come from people using their stuff. You can probably make reasonable arguements for a lot of profs to be the base for politicians.

I just hope that whatever they do with the politician profession, it isn't an excuse to keep SL gimped.

--Ze'ev

At this point in time in the Star Wars universe, I'd say that no profession is more relevant to a politician than a squad leader. The time of business leaders being the heads of government is over, that was during the Old Republic, when business interests were in control of the senate (as seen by the immense power that the Trade Federation holds). However, after the New Order, I would imagine that the fascist Empire likely took control of many businesses. As we learn in A New Hope, the new order is controlled by fear: fear of their battle station (or more specifically their wider military interests at this point).

Of course, being a mayor doesn't necessarily need to be tied into being part of the empire, but I imagine the most effective leader during this time period would be one that could best martial a group to keep the citizens in line and protected.

That being said, I hope that if politician has a squad leader requirement that squad leader is greatly improved before that happens.

Uuuhhh.... what I got from that was that Politician was going to be a new Base Class, not even an elite Profession... I seem to be alone on this interpretation of the article but I still think that that's the case.

Of course the article doesn't SAY Politician would Elite-Elite, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be. The post was a speculation.

Just from reading that article I too would assume they intended politician to be a base class, but I don't really see how that will work. Are they gonna have players who just start the game on day 1 able to become mayor of a city? Seems a little odd to say the least...

If anything I think the Merchant line from artisan and another line from entertainer would be most logical, making it a hybrid profession. I really hope they dont do that though.

Sure, why not? Many politicains are career bureaucrats, that's all they do.

But I think the reason behind making the politician a base class is because technically anyone can become a Politician, so why should only some of the base classes have the option of becoming so?

On a side note, since there's no thread up for it yet, I think a Mayor should have the option of hiring deputy politicians, then giving them Mayorial powers over perhaps one aspect of the city. That way he doesn't have to do everything himself, he has overriding control over what they do, and more importantly even though I suspect that Player Cities will Spring up in a fair number, there won't be enough for the Politician class to be worthwile for many people, just the mayors of each town and their political rivals.

A Commissioner or Deputy Mayor aspect to the class would add the following:

1) The formation of political parties, rather than simply opposed individuals vying for the same spot
2) An individual who's sole responsibility is one aspect of the city, making them more attentive to the issues there
3) With several low level "bureaucrats" backing him, it makes a lower level Politician more competitive with a higher level one for votes

Further, we should have recall elections if we hate the guy after one day (hehe, just kidding on that last part, man I love living in California )

doesnt matter really becuase we are not going to get an elite elite class. They already said City planner was the elite-elite proff. And SL are not politicians. A politician doesnt get to where he is alone and he doesnt fight in combat. Stop arguing about how an SL is like a politician

unless you are a politician or a Squad leader in the military

---

MadBarbarian wrote:

And SL are not politicians. A politician doesnt get to where he is alone and he doesnt fight in combat. Stop arguing about how an SL is like a politician

unless you are a politician or a Squad leader in the military

---

A squad leader doesn't get to where he is alone either, in fact, he leads squads, which is more or less the opposite of being alone. Politicians do not fight in combat, but many of them send people to fight for them (i.e. George II), much like a squad leader would do.

Leadership skills gained as a squad leader translate well into becoming a politician, much better than any other class in the game. I don't think it's that much of a stretch just because one has guns and the other doesn't. Both have to be able to gain the trust of their inferiors and be able to get them to do their will for the greater (heh) good.

Politician won't be a base class, it's too specific and won't have any derived professions. All base classes are broad andlead to more than one other elite class.