Blue and Orange Part V

Now, this is the one thing which, like, a year ago, I thought would be the greatest addition to Black and White (I hadn't actually played the game at the time, I was just toying with the idea). The Caste System.

Castes have Requirements and Dharma. Requirements are, as you might think, the things you must be or do to be a member of the caste. The Dharma is things you either have to or get to do as a member of that caste. Everything that's a Requirement can also be a Dharma, but some things (race and gender come immediately to mind) can only be a Requirement, because you can't really change them about a person.

So, Requirements include: Being of a certain race (where race means culture in general, not just skin color: Picts and Gauls would be separate races even though they're both white), being of a certain gender, having a certain job, living in a certain kind of house, being of a certain age, having committed a crime, or any combination of the above. You can set Requirements to be either "X and Y" or "X or Y." It's possible to have a person who fits all the requirements for two separate Castes. In this case, they'll be sorted into whichever Caste is highest on the list. A villager can't belong to more than one Caste. You start with one Caste called "Villagers" which has no Requirements or Dharma and is automatically the bottom of the Caste list. The name and Dharma can be changed, but the Requirements (or rather, the lack thereof) cannot, and it can't be deleted. This way, if a villager goes through the entire Caste list and doesn't fit any of the Requirements for your custom-built Castes, they end up in the default Caste.

Castes effect how happy your citizens are, and if the caste system makes your citizens happy or unhappy, it effects how good or evil a god you are. So if you have a caste system that makes some citizens a little bit unhappy and all the rest very happy, it'll push you in the direction of being good. If you have the reverse, a small, happy upper class and a vast, miserable slave caste, it'll constantly push you in the direction of being evil.

How good or evil your caste system is can be measured based on two things: Fairness and Equality. A Caste system is Fair when moving from one Caste to another is something that can be done under your own power, for example if the Requirements of being in a Caste are that you have a certain job or that you've committed no crimes. A Caste system is Equal when none of the Castes get rewards like having a better house or immunity to certain crimes for having a different Caste. The unhappiness generated by being in a worse position due to an unfair or unequal Caste is greater than the happiness generated by being in a better position, however if you only have so many Palaces to go around, the happiness generated by having people live in them will usually outweigh the unhappiness generated by having others live in comparatively worse housing. An unequal or unfair system's unhappiness will be greater if the two different Castes live in the same village.

Now I have a request from my readers (both of you). I want you to find a way to break this system. Find a way that you could make a horrible society that the system would still read as being fair and equal, or find a way that you could make a utopian society that the system would read as being unfair and unequal.