The Government of the Triumvirate

Section 1 The Federal Government

A) The Legislative Branch
I. This branch consists of one house known as Citizens Assembly.

II. The Citizens Assembly shall consist of all citizens of the Nation. The Citizens Assembly shall be presided over by the Censor.

III. Only the Citizens Assembly may decide five things: Declare War/Make Peace/Alliance, to change civics, to begin construction on a Great Wonder/National Wonder/Project, a change in Taxes (the science/treasury/culture meter) greater that 30% more than once every 5 turns, and where to build new cities.

IV. Decisions of the Citizens Assembly are made by a Floor Vote which is a poll carried by a simple majority (50.01%)
IVA. Debates and Votes may be called and posted by any member of the Citizens Assembly.

V. The Executive Branch must enforce a vote of the Citizens Assembly even if they disagree with the decision.

VI. The Citizens Assembly may bring a no confidence vote against the Triumvirate and impeach members of the Cabinet. Details in Section 7 Impeachment.


B) The Executive Branch
I. This branch consists of the Triumvirate and any and all elected and appointed Cabinet Officials and their deputies.
IA. The Triumvirate will consist of the President, Secretary of State, and the Secretary of War.
IB. The Cabinet Officials will be any office that we the citizens deem necessary to have that is not included as part of the Triumvirate, the Judiciary, a Gubernatorial office or the Designated Player. The Cabinet currently consists of the Censor, Minister of Interior, Minster of Culture, Minister of Science, and Director of Intelligence.

II. The Powers and Duties of the Triumvirate.
1. During a time of War the Triumvirate may decide that a state of mobilization is necessary for [our nation] and declare that a State of Mobilization exists.
2. State of Mobilization
A. A State of Mobilization can only be declared in a time of War.
B. A State of Mobilization may not last more than 15 game turns. However, if Peace is declared and a State of War exists with no Civilization, the State of Mobilization ends immediately.
C. A State of Mobilization may not be declared until at least 45 game turns have elapsed since the ending of the last Mobilization.
D. A State of Mobilization may be ended prematurely by a 6/10 (60%) vote of the Governors Council after at least 7 game turns of Mobilization have passed.
1. Should Mobilization be ended prematurely, it may be declared again in only 25 game turns.
E. Effects of Mobilization:
I. The control of all workers goes the Triumvirate during this period, but the Minister of the Interior and the Governors retain control until a worker is specifically requested by the Triumvirate. The Triumvirate may not force a worker to quit an action assigned to it by the Minister of the Interior or a Governor, but must wait until that particular action has completed or is ended by the original authority.
II. The Triumvirate may change what is under construction in any city except for those that have begun a Citizen Assembly approved Wonder or have begun prebuild for approved Wonder. The Triumvirate may only order that military units or building may be built.
III. The Triumvirate may take up to one half of the prewar garrison of a city in to the regular army during a State of Mobilization.
IIA. The Powers and Duties of the President
1. During the Turnchat the President, or a Representative of the President, may order the ending of play if continuing requires a decision to be made that can only be made by the Citizens Assembly. If the Turns are being played offline the Designated Player must end play if he is forced to make a decision that can only be made by the Citizens Assembly, provided that no vote on said decision has concluded.
2. The President will define a budget that all other official may not exceed without permission.
3. The President retains all powers not expressly given to another official and not reserved by the Citizens Assembly.
4. The units the President controls:
A. The President shall control all Settler and the defensive units assigned to them.
B. The President shall control all naval units.
IIB. The Powers and Duties of the Secretary of State
1. The Secretary of State shall have control of the Foreign policy of our nation with the exception in the Declaration of War/Peace/Alliance and the trade of cities.
A. The Secretary of State needs the permission of the Citizens Assembly: War/Peace/Alliance or the giving away of one of our Nation's cities.
B. The Secretary of State has the power to accept a city.
IIC. The Powers and Duties of the Secretary of War
1. The Secretary of War shall have control of all military land units with the exception of garrisons under the control of Governors and units assigned to settlers.
A. The Secretary of War may not attack a city or unit of a neutral or allied Civilization, without the permission of the Citizens Assembly.
2. The Secretary of War shall have control of all air units.

III. The Cabinet
1. Addition and Subtraction of Offices from the Cabinet.
A. To add an Office to the Cabinet requires a Yea vote of 51% of total votes from the Citizens Assembly. Any Office added will be last on the seniority list.
B. To remove an Office from the Cabinet requires a Yea vote of 58% of total votes from the Citizens Assembly.
IIIA. The Cabinet shall consist of, in order of seniority, the Censor, Minister of Interior, Minster of Culture, Minister of Science, and Director of Intelligence.
IIIB. The Powers and Duties of the Censor:
1. The Censor shall be the Official in charge of all elections.
2. Censor shall be responsible for the official results of an election and for validating an election.
3. The Censor is also responsible for validating any other official polls.
4. The Censor shall be responsible for maintaining a list of names for the naming of cities, units, and other appraise items, approved by the Citizens Assembly.
IIIC. The Powers and Duties of the Minister of Interior:
1. The Minister of the Interior shall be in control of all workers not assigned to Governors.
2. The Minister of the Interior shall work with the Governors and create a plan of which city improvements shall be constructed in a city and when.
3. The Minister of the Interior shall keep track of the resources in our territory and where they are.
4. The Minister of the Interior shall control all Great Engineers.
IIID. Powers and Duties of the Minister of Culture:
1. The Minister of Culture shall keep track of the Culture buildings in each city, the Culture of each city, and the religions in each city throughout the Empire, and shall may this information available to any citizen upon request.
2. The Minister of Culture shall control all Great Artists, Great Merchants, and Great Prophets.
3. The Minister of Culture shall be in charge of all Missionaries.
4. The Minister of Culture will keep list of all of our Cities, their current culture level, how fast they are gaining culture, a projection of when they will next increase in culture, their current level on the Great Person Bar, how much is being gained on that bar per turn and when that city will produce a Great Person.
5. The Minister of Culture may require a culture building to be built in a City once every 4 buildings, if none of the previous 3 buildings produced any culture. And what building it shall be.
IIIE. Powers and Duties of the Minister of Science:
1. The Minister of Science shall choose what technology will be researched.
2. The Minister of Science shall keep a list of at least three technologies that are to be researched next and in what order.
3. The Minister of Science shall control all Great Scientists.
IIIF. Powers and Duties of the Director of Intelligence:
1. The Director of Intelligence shall keep records of all known Empires; the cities, religion, military units, wonders, and civics of those Empires. Records shall also be kept of the size, religion, improvements, and anything else deemed necessary about their cities.
2. The Director of Intelligence shall have complete control of all spies.
3. The Director of Intelligence shall be appointed by the Triumvirate.
4. The Director of Intelligence, being an appointed position, shall not be affected by term limits.
5. The Director of Intelligence may be fired by the Triumvirate.

IV. Vacancies
IVA. Should a vacancy occur in the Triumvirate the President shall take over the duties of the vacant office. Should the Presidency be the vacant office the Secretary of State shall take over the duties of the President. Should both the offices of President and Secretary of State be vacant the Secretary of War shall take over the duties of both offices. Should the entire Triumvirate be vacant the most senior of the Cabinet members shall take over the duties of Triumvirate until a special election can be held.
IVB. Should any vacancy occur in the Cabinet the Deputy shall take over the duties of that office. The word acting shall be included in the title of office. Should there not be a deputy the President shall appoint an acting office holder.


Section 2 The Local Government

A) Governors
I. Governors are the elected officials that run cities or states.
IA. The Powers and Duties of the Governors:
1. The Governors may move any workers or garrison units assigned to them anywhere in there city's radius or state boundaries.
2. The Governor shall work with the Minister of the Interior to decide which improvement shall be built.
3. The Designated Player shall act as Governor of any cities build during his play session at the end of which, the office is declared vacant.
4. The first elected governor of a city or state may select the official flag of that city or state.
IB. Powers and Duties of the Governors Council:
1. The Governors Council shall consist of the Governors of all Cities and States.
2. Any vacant Gubernatorial offices will be filled by an appointment of the Governors Council.
3. The Governors Council may veto the actions of any member of the Cabinet with a 6/10 (60%) majority.
4. The Governors Council may end a State of Mobilization prematurely by a 6/10 (60%) vote after at least 7 game turns of Mobilization have passed.
IC. States
1. No states may be created until our Civilization owns at least five cites.
2. A minimum of 3 cities must exist in a proposed state at the time of its creation.
3. The Creation of a state requires a 6/10 (60%) majority of both the Citizens Assembly and the Governors Council.


Section 3 Items affecting both Federal and Local

A) Deputies

I. Deputies
IA. Members of the Triumvirate and Judiciary shall not have a Deputy.
IB. All members of the Cabinet and Governors shall have a Deputy, appointed by the principals of those respective offices.

II. Control of Units
IIA. Workers
1. Workers, when created, are under the control of the President. The President must assign the workers to either the Minister of the Interior or a Governor before or after a play session; if the worker is not so assigned it will be under the control of the Designated Player for the duration of the play session.
2. The assignment of a worker is permanent unless the party that has control over the worker releases it back to the President.
IIA. Military Land Units
1. Military Land Units, when created, are under the control of the Secretary of War.
2. The Secretary of War may assign units to guard settlers or as garrisons in cities.
A. Units assigned to guard settlers are under the control President until the settler founds a city. At the founding of a city the President may assign the units guarding that settler to be part of that city’s garrison or may shift control back to the Secretary of War as long as at least one half of the units, rounded up, that guarded the settler become part of the city’s garrison.
B. Units assigned as garrison units fall under the direct control of the Governor of that city.
3. Should a unit be left unmoving in a city or a city radius for at least 5 consecutive turns the governor of that city may claim that unit as a garrison unit as long as it has not started to move again.
A. There are three exceptions: if a unit is healing, the 5 turns start when healing is completed; if the unit is in defensive works of some sort; or if the unit is picketing the border.

Section 4 The Designated Player

A) The Designated Player
I. The Designated Player is the person who is tasked to perform the instructions of the officials in the game.
II. The President shall choose at the beginning of his term whether he shall be the Designated Play or if the saves will be played by members of the Designated Player Pool.
III. Nominations and elections for the Designated Player shall occur at the time as the other nominations and elections.
IIIA. Elections for Designated player shall be a multiple choice poll with any and all nominees gathering over 50.00% being elected to the Designated Player Pool.
IIIB. The Designated Players will play in the order of .
IV. A Designated Player shall choose whether his Play Session will be online or offline.


B) Actions of the Designated Player
I. Instructions of Elected and appointed officials:
IB. The Designated Player shall follow all instructions from elected and appointed officials regarding their respective areas.
1. If no instructions from a given office are posted for a game session the Designated Player assumes the powers of that office for the game session.
2. The Designated Player must refuse all illegal instructions. The Designated Player may request a Judicial Review to determine the validity of an instruction and delay play until the Judicial Review has been completed.
IB. Legal Exploits
1. Any Legal Exploits pertaining to Article E section 4 of the Constitution will go here.


Section 5 Elections

A) Triumvirate Elections
I. Elections of the Triumvirate shall be of all nominated candidates who have accepted their nominations.
II. Nominations for Triumvirate positions may be self nominations or a citizen may be nominated by another citizens.

B) Cabinet Elections
I. Elections of the Cabinet shall be of all nominated candidates who have accepted their nominations.
II. Nominations for Cabinet positions may be self nominations or a citizen may be nominated by another citizens.

C) Gubernatorial Elections
I. Elections of the Governors shall be of all nominated candidates who have accepted their nominations.
II. Nominations for Governors may be self nominations or a citizen may be nominated by another citizens.

D) Judicial Elections
I. Elections of the Judiciary shall be of all nominated candidates who have accepted their nominations.
II. Nominations for the Judiciary may be self nominations or a citizen may be nominated by another citizens.


Section 6 Term Limits
[Term Limits will go here after the Poll has concluded]


This is only sections 1-6; 7-10 are below.

I have no room to keep v5.1 or v5.2 on this thread so if anyone wants to see it, PM me. V5.0 is in a post below.

It is not completely up except for some items that require polls.

@Stilgar08: But this should be more than enough to find typos. ;)

-the Wolf

Sections 7-10 of v5.3


Section 7 Impeachment

A) Impeachment of the Triumvirate
I. The Citizens Assembly may bring a No Confidence Vote against the Triumvirate as a whole.
II. A No Confidence Vote requires a 6/10 (60%) majority to pass.
III. A successful No Confidence Vote shall remove the entire Triumvirate from office.

B) Impeachment of Cabinet Officials
I. The Citizens Assembly may bring an Impeachment Vote against any Cabinet Official.
II. An Impeachment Vote requires a 51/100 (51%) majority to pass.
III. A successful Impeachment Vote shall remove the specific official named in it from office.

C) Impeachment of Governors
I. Governors may not be Impeached.

D) Impeachment of Judges
I. Judges may not be Impeached.


Section 8 Limit to Running and Holding Offices

A) Limits to Running for Offices.
I. No Citizen may run for more than one office during an election cycle.

B) Limits to Holding Offices.
I. No member of the Triumvirate or the Judiciary may hold a second office.
IA. An exception to this is a member of the Triumvirate assuming the duties and powers of a vacant Triumvirate office.
II. A member of the Cabinet may hold one other Cabinet office, Gubernatorial office or a Deputy position.
III. A Governor may hold one other Gubernatorial office, a Cabinet office, or a Deputy position.
IV. A citizen with no other positions may hold two Deputy positions.
V. Being a member of the Designated Player Pool is not considered holding an office.


Section 9 Code of Standards

A) Creating a Code of Standards
To create a Code of Standards a poll will need to be taken and at least 50.01% of votes cast on said poll will need to vote yea. Different proposals may then be considered. A poll will be taken between the different proposals with the winning one being put up for ratification. The ratification poll will need at least 50.01% of votes cast to vote yea to ratify the Code of Standards.


Section 10 Amending the Code of Laws

A) Amending the Code of Laws
I. The Code of Laws may be amended by a 60% majority of votes cast in a public poll which shall be open for no fewer than 4 days.
II. Minor changes to the Constitution, such as correcting typographical and clerical errors, reorganization and reformatting for better readability, and addition of text which does not impact legal definitions (such as a preamble) may be made at any time.
IIA. If any citizen objects to a minor change within the 48 hour period commencing when the minor change is proposed, the change shall be considered an amendment and must undergo ratification as such.

B) Steps to Amend the Code of Laws
I. A Citizen may posts an idea about the amendment as a thread.
II. Amendment is debated in the thread.
III. After at least 48hours the proponent posts a posts a proposed poll.
IV. Once 24 hours have passed with no significant comments to the thread poll, the issue goes to the Judiciary for review.
V. After Judicial Review passes, the ratification poll is posted.


I would like to thank Ravensfire for telling me what a Change Log is.
Change Log
V5.3
Section 1, Sub-Section B, Clause II, Sub-Clause IIA, Point 3 added: The President retains all powers not expressly given to another official and not reserved by the Citizens Assembly.
Section 1, Sub-Section B, Clause II, Sub-Clause IIB, Point 1, Sub-Point B changed: The Secretary of State no longer needs the Triumvirates Permission to accept a city.
Section 1, Sub-Section B, Clause III, Point 1, Sub-Point A changed: for clarity.
Section 1, Sub-Section B, Clause III, Point 1, Sub-Point B changed: for clarity.
Section 1, Sub-Section B, Clause III, Sub-Clause IIID, Point 4 added: The Minister of Culture will keep list of all of our Cities, their current culture level, how fast they are gaining culture, a projection of when they will next increase in culture, their current level on the Great Person Bar, how much is being gained on that bar per turn and when that city will produce a Great Person.
Section 5, Sub-Section A changed in its entirety to be more inclusive.


-the Wolf

It is allot nicer to read and understand now, makes it a harder decision for the vote.

the no member of the Triumvirate shall not have a Deputy

This dosent sound right.

Also the censors job is responsable for maintaining the cencus what is this and what is it used for?

Also for Ammending the constitution it should have a judical review in their somewhere. and the whole ammending rule seems funny, say 3 people agree and 3 disagree but a good dicussion is taking place, do they need to poll instanly

It is allot nicer to read and understand now, makes it a harder decision for the vote.

This dosent sound right.

It was fixed on my computer I had forgotten to update here, it's fixed.

Also the censors job is responsable for maintaining the cencus what is this and what is it used for?

Another example of fixing it on my computer but not here.

Also for Ammending the constitution it should have a judical review in their somewhere. and the whole ammending rule seems funny, say 3 people agree and 3 disagree but a good dicussion is taking place, do they need to poll instanly

I included the judicial review. I included the part about the poll so even if those in power disagree with the change they can't kill it by doing nothing.

Thank for the comments.

-the Wolf

A. IV. (manner of how citizens assembly decides issues) is not something that can be left out and get my vote.

Edit1:

I'm still against ever disallowing self nominations. Any such rule will probably result in my nominating everyone in the citizens registry to ensure that everyone who could possibly want an office gets their chance.
I posted the conditions under which I would accept preemption of power in the thread on that subject. In short, before preempting anyone else's normal powers, the official doing the preemption must ask the other official to make changes, and must allow a reasonable chance to conform before putting on their jack boots.


My wife is beating me up about cleaning before our trip. If I'm lucky, I will edit this post and add more.

dont being picky when you clean it up next the numbering is wrong sometimes like Article 10 A, and A

My wife is beating me up about cleaning before our trip. If I'm lucky, I will edit this post and add more.

Me glad me caveman. ;)

I like this government.

DaveShack I like that you are commenting, but sometimes your comments leave much to be desired, I'm also sorry if this turns in to a rant, which it probably will.

A. IV. (manner of how citizens assembly decides issues) is not something that can be left out and get my vote.

I changed that specifically because of an earlier comment by you about how floor votes were a bad idea if they were the only way of doing thing, so I left this blank to be added in later after comments and suggestion of what should be there. I looked at what you put in the flexible government and it says that items will be solved by a poll with a simple majority, which is what a floor vote was. [pissed] I will include the language from an earlier version there.


*I'm still against ever disallowing self nominations. Any such rule will probably result in my nominating everyone in the citizens registry to ensure that everyone who could possibly want an office gets their chance.

That is your right as a citizen and I respect that. It is, however, not a good argument.

*I posted the conditions under which I would accept preemption of power in the thread on that subject. In short, before preempting anyone else's normal powers, the official doing the preemption must ask the other official to make changes, and must allow a reasonable chance to conform before putting on their jack boots.

You have previously said that you do not want such language that states how the relations between officials must be in the Code of Laws.....
I did not say the Triumvirate *must* declare Mobilization just that they *may*. I would assume that they would first request and give the Governors some time, but if they don't the Governors can end Mobilization, if they choose. To quote you, DS, this "must ask" and "must allow" sounds very much like "Mother may I?".

My wife is beating me up about cleaning before our trip. If I'm lucky, I will edit this post and add more.
Vegas should make up for that.

I hope that you will put up some more comments. Also please remember that this is my first Demogame, I do NOT know everything, do not expect me to.

-the Wolf

dont being picky when you clean it up next the numbering is wrong sometimes like Article 10 A, and A

Done

A. IV. (manner of how citizens assembly decides issues) is not something that can be left out and get my vote.

I changed that.

-the Wolf

I changed that specifically because of an earlier comment by you about how floor votes were a bad idea if they were the only way of doing thing, so I left this blank to be added in later after comments and suggestion of what should be there. I looked at what you put in the flexible government and it says that items will be solved by a poll with a simple majority, which is what a floor vote was. [pissed] I will include the language from an earlier version there.


My mistake, sorry. The previous comment was in two parts, and I wasn't clear that there were two issues.

I didn't like the process for having a floor vote. Having one person request it, and then two more agree, and then the Censor posts a poll was too much process. You fixed that in an intermediate version, I think.
The way this section and the Tri sections were written made it seem like the only way citizens could give input was via floor votes. I tried to ask if the citizens could give their input any other way.
... about I'll nominate everyone if I have to to prevent self nominations from being disallowed
That is your right as a citizen and I respect that. It is, however, not a good argument.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to argue the point. How about this.

It is entirely possible that someone wants to be in office, but nobody in the DG would think of that person as a good candidate. Not because it's a bad idea to have them as a candidate, they might be a tremendous citizen. Just they might not be someone who springs to mind when the monthly task of nominating someone comes along.

Should such a citizen have to go beg someone to nominate them? Should they be forced to drop little hints like "I would love to run if someone would just nominate me?" Why demean potential leaders in this way. If they want to run, then let them self-nominate.

I can't think of a single reason why we should not allow a self nomination. I will listen to such a reason, and if it is sufficiently convincing I might be willing to soften my stance on this item.


You have previously said that you do not want such language that states how the relations between officials must be in the Code of Laws.....
I did not say the Triumvirate *must* declare Mobilization just that they *may*. I would assume that they would first request and give the Governors some time, but if they don't the Governors can end Mobilization, if they choose. To quote you, DS, this "must ask" and "must allow" sounds very much like "Mother may I?".


The way I'm reading the proposed law, if the Tri is power hungry and does declare mobilization without just cause, they are scot-free for some number of turns, and totally in charge with no recourse. This might be too narrow a reading, but that's what I think I saw. This is something that is worth a little process before it gets implemented.


I hope that you will put up some more comments. Also please remember that this is my first Demogame, I do NOT know everything, do not expect me to.

It's my 6th CFC Demogame, and I'm far from knowing everything. Nothing pisses me off more in the few people who have been here longer than for them to try to claim a little more longevity makes their ideas better. If I, or anyone else, seem to act that way, please slap us with a large fish. Don't forget the smilies so the flames don't get fanned, but if we act "better" than newcomers we deserve to get what's coming to us. :lol:

Edit: Just realized that last comment was a little too general to avoid the trout. We vets reserve the right to disagree on philosophical grounds or from experience telling us something is a bad idea. What I won't condone and will try never to do is to use the "just because I've been here longer" style that parents are known for using on kids. :)

Very nice Alphawolf. I read the entire thing and found nothing i considered wrong or bad, i only thought of a couple constructive desires.

1. There should be some kind of emergency power able to be granted to the secretary of war for control of the navy.

2. During a state of mobilization, the citziens assembly should be able to vote to allow the Secretary of war to

I. Force specific worker to quit action
II. Put wonder on hold( requires 65% majority)
III.Take more than half of a cities garrison.

This can only happen with a CA vote of 60% or in the case of II 65%

I have no comments at the moment just questions of clarification before I answer you.
It is entirely possible that someone wants to be in office, but nobody in the DG would think of that person as a good candidate. Not because it's a bad idea to have them as a candidate, they might be a tremendous citizen. Just they might not be someone who springs to mind when the monthly task of nominating someone comes along.

Should such a citizen have to go beg someone to nominate them? Should they be forced to drop little hints like "I would love to run if someone would just nominate me?" Why demean potential leaders in this way. If they want to run, then let them self-nominate.

I can't think of a single reason why we should not allow a self nomination. I will listen to such a reason, and if it is sufficiently convincing I might be willing to soften my stance on this item.

For clarification you do understand that this only applies to the President, right?


The way I'm reading the proposed law, if the Tri is power hungry and does declare mobilization without just cause, they are scot-free for some number of turns, and totally in charge with no recourse. This might be too narrow a reading, but that's what I think I saw. This is something that is worth a little process before it gets implemented.

If anything your reading is not too narrow but too broad. I think about adding a caveat, but you do understand that this can only be declared during war and by no means are they totally in charge.


It's my 6th CFC Demogame, and I'm far from knowing everything. Nothing pisses me off more in the few people who have been here longer than for them to try to claim a little more longevity makes their ideas better. If I, or anyone else, seem to act that way, please slap us with a large fish. Don't forget the smilies so the flames don't get fanned, but if we act "better" than newcomers we deserve to get what's coming to us. :lol:
I'll use a catfish, they have spines.

Edit: Just realized that last comment was a little too general to avoid the trout. We vets reserve the right to disagree on philosophical grounds or from experience telling us something is a bad idea. What I won't condone and will try never to do is to use the "just because I've been here longer" style that parents are known for using on kids. :)
Wolf pickes up catfish, throws catfish, hits the "thinker" statue with catfish.

-the Wolf

Very nice Alphawolf. I read the entire thing and found nothing i considered wrong or bad, i only thought of a couple constructive desires.

1. There should be some kind of emergency power able to be granted to the secretary of war for control of the navy.

2. During a state of mobilization, the citziens assembly should be able to vote to allow the Secretary of war to

I. Force specific worker to quit action
II. Put wonder on hold( requires 65% majority)
III.Take more than half of a cities garrison.

This can only happen with a CA vote of 60% or in the case of II 65%

Interesting ideas I'll take under advisement, but according to our ratified constitution, nothing can require more than 60% to implement.

-the Wolf

For clarification you do understand that this (ds: self nominations) only applies to the President, right?

Yes, but the principle is the same no matter what office it is.


If anything your reading is not too narrow but too broad. I think about adding a caveat, but you do understand that this can only be declared during war and by no means are they totally in charge.

You're right, narrow should have been broad. The concern is a slippery slope syndrome, once the section is there, adding things to it becomes psychologically easier.

We're getting darn close.

Additional comments:

Please change all article -> section. This makes the Judiciary's job easier because Article == Constitution, Section == CoL. I'll keep making comments in article terminology for now.

Article 4 -- where is it defined who the DP is, how they are selected, etc? I suggest lifting the DG7 definition, and then making a slight change. In prior DG's the President was the DP. In DG7 the idea was to add a pool of candidate DPs, but we lost the concept that the President could choose to play any turnset him/herself and make the DP pool optional. I would like us to consider making it optional this time, and allowing the President to be DP for whatever terms he or she wants to.

We don't actually need articles 5 and 8. Article 9 is implied by the Constitution "and any lower forms of law which may follow".

For article 10, what has worked well before is:


Citizen posts an idea about the amendment as a thread.
Other citizens comment.
Once debate has died down (a subjective term) the proponent posts a mock poll.
Once 24 hours have passed with no significant comments to the mock poll, the issue goes to the Judiciary for review.
After Judicial Review passes, the ratification poll is posted. As written the process could result in a poll being posted before any chance for true discussion. At a minimum that possibility should be fixed.

Yes, but the principle is the same no matter what office it is.
No, it's not. As you are so fond of pointing out the Tri is hierarchal this makes the principle different, you can't have you cake and eat it too. :) I'll answer this in the morning when I'll be able to make coherent sense.

You're right, narrow should have been broad. The concern is a slippery slope syndrome, once the section is there; adding things to it becomes psychologically easier.

We're getting darn close.
There's not a question or argument there. Explain if you would, but please do not claim that this gives the Triumvirate total control, it does not.

Please change all article -> section. This makes the Judiciary's job easier because Article == Constitution, Section == CoL. I'll keep making comments in article terminology for now.
:confused: ? I don't think you understand how this is laid out.
A. To add an Office to the Cabinet requires a Yea vote of 51% from the Citizens Assembly. Any Office added will be last on the seniority list.
This is Article 1, Section B, Sub-Section III, Clause 1, Sub-Clause A.

Article 4 -- where is it defined who the DP is, how they are selected, etc? I suggest lifting the DG7 definition, and then making a slight change. In prior DG's the President was the DP. In DG7 the idea was to add a pool of candidate DPs, but we lost the concept that the President could choose to play any turnset him/herself and make the DP pool optional. I would like us to consider making it optional this time, and allowing the President to be DP for whatever terms he or she wants to.
These were the types of comments that I wanted (To tell me what I had missed) I’ll reword the relevant areas soon.

We don't actually need articles 5 and 8. Article 9 is implied by the Constitution "and any lower forms of law which may follow".
For Articles 5 & 8:
A lower form of law may specify judicial procedures and standards for the conduct of Judicial Reviews and Citizen Complaints. If the law does not define such procedures, then the responsibility for setting procedures is granted to the Judiciary.
I don’t see the problem; I am within the constitution to do so.
A lower form of law may specify a procedure which must be followed to amend the Constitution.
Once again I don’t understand your problem with it. Also if you are so concerned with slippery slope, wouldn’t you want it codified that anyone can start an amendment? Is doesn’t say that anywhere in the Constitution, or was this intentional and you plan on becoming a tyrant? :)
For Article 9 I have learned (Ravensfire) that it is always better to codify something than to leave it implied.


For article 10, what has worked well before is:

Citizen posts an idea about the amendment as a thread.
Other citizens comment.
Once debate has died down (a subjective term) the proponent posts a mock poll.
Once 24 hours have passed with no significant comments to the mock poll, the issue goes to the Judiciary for review.
After Judicial Review passes, the ratification poll is posted. As written the process could result in a poll being posted before any chance for true discussion. At a minimum that possibility should be fixed.

Thank you for the ideas, I’ll think about it. What is a mock poll?


-the Wolf

III. Only the Citizens Assembly may decide five things: Declare War/Make Peace/Alliance, to change civics, to begin construction on a Great Wonder/National Wonder/Project, a change in Taxes (the science/treasury/culture meter) greater that 30% more than once every 5 turns, and where to build new cities.


I think there should be a Minister of Treasury and Industry, to handle this exclusive Foreign Policy, , and also control potential Great Merchants. Someone needs to propose this in an orderly fashion

Minister of Treasury and Industry should cover:

Wonders, National Projects
Tax Reforms
Great Merchants
Gold Treasury
National Resources (Health resources, strategic resources, luxury resources)


3. The President will define a budget that all other official may not exceed without permission.



This should be handled by a Minister of Treasury and Industry, which could even be appointed by the Triumvirate as the Director of Intelligence.


IIID. Powers and Duties of the Minister of Culture:

1. The Minister of Culture shall keep track of the Culture buildings in each city, the Culture of each city, and the religions in each city throughout the Empire, and shall may this information available to any citizen upon request.
2. The Minister of Culture shall control all Great Artists, Great Merchants, and Great Prophets.
3. The Minister of Culture shall be in charge of all Missionaries.
4. The Minister of Culture may require a culture building to built in a City once every 4 buildings, if none of the previous 3 buildings was a culture building. And what type of building it shall be.


I think Great Merchants should be handled by the "Minister of Treasury and Industry" and Great Prophets handled by the Director of Intelligence.
I would go as far as telling that missionaries serve as intelligence agents in the early age, and that religion is an intelligence matter. This means that each minister should only cover one subsection of Great People. Great Prophets are normally used only for religious buildings and for initiating Golden Ages, where the Great Artist is the "Cultural Bomb" with Great Works.

You're right, narrow should have been broad. The concern is a slippery slope syndrome, once the section is there; adding things to it becomes psychologically easier.

We're getting darn close.

There's not a question or argument there. Explain if you would, but please do not claim that this gives the Triumvirate total control, it does not.


You're seeing an artifact of the paragraph system... What I meant was this separation shown below. The "we're getting darn close" thing is a completely separate comment meaning the whole thing is close to being ready. :D It made perfect sense when I wrote it -- I wrote the 1st comment, read the thing for 20 or so minutes, then came back and wrote the rest of it. :lol:

You're right, narrow should have been broad. The concern is a slippery slope syndrome, once the section is there; adding things to it becomes psychologically easier.
==========================================
We're getting darn close.
==========================================


On the 1st half of the two things you said...

The section about mobilization does not give the Tri total control.
What it does is give the people the idea that it might be OK to add stuff to that section in order to give the Tri more control. This is a slippery slope syndrome.


:confused: ? I don't think you understand how this is laid out.

This is Article 1, Section B, Sub-Section III, Clause 1, Sub-Clause A.


You don't understand what I'm objecting to. Don't start the first level as article, start it as section. That way there can be no ambiguity if someone says Article X they mean Constitution, and if they say Section X they mean CoL.


For Articles 5 & 8:

I don’t see the problem; I am within the constitution to do so.

Yes, but you don't need to have them. I would prefer if we didn't -- one person's opinion. If we do need them then the same comment here as for section 10.


Once again I don’t understand your problem with it. Also if you are so concerned with slippery slope, wouldn’t you want it codified that anyone can start an amendment? Is doesn’t say that anywhere in the Constitution, or was this intentional and you plan on becoming a tyrant? :)
For Article 9 I have learned (Ravensfire) that it is always better to codify something than to leave it implied.

It is codified, since an amendment is a floor vote, and a floor vote can be started by anyone. :crazyeye:


Thank you for the ideas, I’ll think about it. What is a mock poll?

You put the text to be changed as a post in the thread which proposes the amendment. See post 5 in this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140334).

Multiple offices; I new I forgot something, thanks for the link, DS.

-the Wolf

I have updated the first post to include v5.1, this post is the text of v5.0.

v5.0 in its entirety:

The Government of the Triumvirate

Article 1 The Federal Government

A) The Legislative Branch
I. This branch consists of one house known as Citizens Assembly.

II. The Citizens Assembly shall consist of all citizens of the Nation. The Citizens Assembly shall be presided over by the Censor.

III. Only the Citizens Assembly may decide five things: Declare War/Make Peace/Alliance, to change civics, to begin construction on a Great Wonder/National Wonder/Project, a change in Taxes (the science/treasury/culture meter) greater that 30% more than once every 5 turns, and where to build new cities.

IV. Decisions of the Citizens Assembly are made by a Floor Vote which is a poll carried by a simple majority (50.01%)
IVA. Debates and Votes may be called and posted by any member of the Citizens Assembly.

V. The Executive Branch must enforce a vote of the Citizens Assembly even if they disagree with the decision.

VI. The Citizens Assembly may bring a no confidence vote against the Triumvirate and impeach members of the Cabinet.


B) The Executive Branch
I. This branch consists of the Triumvirate and any and all elected and appointed Cabinet Officials and their deputies.
IA. The Triumvirate will consist of the President, Secretary of State, and the Secretary of War.
IB. The Cabinet Officials will be any office that we the citizens deem necessary to have that is not included as part of the Triumvirate, the Judiciary, a Gubernatorial office or the Designated Player. The Cabinet currently consists of the Censor, Minister of Interior, Minster of Culture, Minister of Science, and Director of Intelligence.

II. The Powers and Duties of the Triumvirate.
1. During a time of War the Triumvirate may decide that a state of mobilization is necessary for [our nation] and declare that a State of Mobilization exists.
2. State of Mobilization
A. A State of Mobilization can only be declared in a time of War.
B. A State of Mobilization may not last more than 15 game turns. However, if Peace is declared and a State of War exists with no Civilization, the State of Mobilization ends immediately.
C. A State of Mobilization may not be declared until at least 45 game turns have elapsed since the ending of the last Mobilization.
D. A State of Mobilization may be ended prematurely by a 6/10 (60%) vote of the Governors Council after at least 7 game turns of Mobilization have passed.
1. Should Mobilization be ended prematurely, it may be declared again in only 25 game turns.
E. Effects of Mobilization:
I. The control of all workers goes the Triumvirate during this period, but the Minister of the Interior and the Governors retain control until a worker is specifically requested by the Triumvirate. The Triumvirate may not force a worker to quit an action assigned to it by the Minister of the Interior of a Governor, but must wait until that particular action has completed or is ended by the original authority.
II. The Triumvirate may change what is under construction in any city except for those that have begun a Citizen Assembly approved Wonder or have begun prebuild for approved Wonder. The Triumvirate may only order that military units or building may be built.
III. The Triumvirate may take up to one half of the prewar garrison of a city in to the regular army during a State of Mobilization.
IIA. The Powers and Duties of the President
1. During the Turnchat the President, or a Representative of the President, may order the ending of play in continuing requires a decision to be made that can only be made by the Citizens Assembly. If the Turns are being played offline the Designated Player must end play if he is forced to make a decision that can only be made by the Citizens Assembly.
2. President is the only officer that may ask the officially ask the Citizens Assembly for a Declaration of WAR. Other officials may request a vote on War from their positions in the Citizens Assembly, but only the President may ask for War.
3. The President will define a budget that all other official may not exceed without permission.
4. The units the President controls:
A. The President shall control all Settler and the defensive units assigned to them.
B. The President shall control all naval units.
IIB. The Powers and Duties of the Secretary of State
1. The Secretary of State shall have control of the Foreign policy of our nation with the exception in the Declaration of War/Peace/Alliance and trade of cities.
A. The Secretary of State needs the permission of the Citizens Assembly: War/Peace/Alliance or the giving away of one of our Nation's cities.
B. The Secretary of State needs the permission of the Triumvirate to accept a city, if applicable.
IIC. The Powers and Duties of the Secretary of War
1. The Secretary of War shall have control of all military land units with the exception of garrisons under the control of Governors and units assigned to settlers.
A. The Secretary of War may not attack a city or unit of a neutral or allied Civilization, without the permission of the Citizens Assembly.
2. The Secretary of War shall have control of all air units.

III. The Cabinet
1. Addition and Subtraction of Offices from the Cabinet.
A. To add an Office to the Cabinet requires a Yea vote of 51% from the Citizens Assembly. Any Office added will be last on the seniority list.
B. To remove an Office from the Cabinet requires a Yea vote of 58% from the Citizens Assembly.
IIIA. The Cabinet shall consist of, in order of seniority, the Censor, Minister of Interior, Minster of Culture, Minister of Science, and Director of Intelligence.
IIIB. The Powers and Duties of the Censor:
1. The Censor shall be the Official in charge of all elections.
2. Censor shall be responsible for the official results of an election and for validating an election.
3. The Censor is also responsible for validating any other official polls.
4. The Censor shall be responsible for maintaining a list of names for the naming of cities, units, and other appraise items, approved by the Citizens Assembly.
IIIC. The Powers and Duties of the Minister of Interior:
1. The Minister of the Interior shall be in control of all workers not assigned to Governors.
2. The Minister of the Interior shall work with the Governors and create a plan of which city improvements shall be constructed in a city and when.
3. The Minister of the Interior shall keep track of the resources in our territory and where they are.
4. The Minister of the Interior shall control all Great Engineers.
IIID. Powers and Duties of the Minister of Culture:
1. The Minister of Culture shall keep track of the Culture buildings in each city, the Culture of each city, and the religions in each city throughout the Empire, and shall may this information available to any citizen upon request.
2. The Minister of Culture shall control all Great Artists, Great Merchants, and Great Prophets.
3. The Minister of Culture shall be in charge of all Missionaries.
4. The Minister of Culture may require a culture building to built in a City once every 4 buildings, if none of the previous 3 buildings was a culture building. And what type of building it shall be.
IIIE. Powers and Duties of the Minister of Science:
1. The Minister of Science shall choose what technology will be researched.
2. The Minister of Science shall keep a list of at least three technologies that are to be researched next and in what order.
3. The Minister of Science shall control all Great Scientists.
IIIF. Powers and Duties of the Director of Intelligence:
1. The Director of Intelligence shall keep records of all known Empires; the cities, religion, military units, wonders, and civics of those Empires. Records shall also be kept of the size, religion, improvements, and anything else deemed necessary about their cities.
2. The Director of Intelligence shall have complete control of all spies.
3. The Director of Intelligence shall be appointed by the Triumvirate.
4. The Director of Intelligence, being an appointed position, shall not be affected by term limits.
5. The Director of Intelligence may be fired by the Triumvirate.

IV. Vacancies
IVA. Should a vacancy occur in the Triumvirate the President shall take over the duties of the vacant office. Should the President be the vacant office the Secretary of State shall take over the duties of the President. Should both the offices of President and Secretary of State be vacant the Secretary of War shall take over the duties of both offices. Should the entire Triumvirate be vacant the most senior of the Cabinet members shall take over the duties of Triumvirate until a special election can be held.
IVB. Should any vacancy occur in the Cabinet the Deputy shall take over the duties of that office. The word acting shall be included in the title of office. Should there not be a deputy the President shall appoint an acting office holder.


Article 2 The Local Government

A) Governors
I. Governors are the elected officials that run cities or states.
IA. The Powers and Duties of the Governors:
1. The Governors may move any workers or garrison units assigned to them anywhere in there city's radius or state boundaries.
2. The Governor shall work with the Minister of the Interior to decide which improvement shall be built.
3. The Designated Player shall act as Governor of any cities build during his play secession at the end of which, the office is declared vacant.
4. The first elected governor of a city or state may select the official flag of that city or state.
IB. Powers and Duties of the Governors Council:
1. The Governors Council shall consist of the Governors of all Cities and States.
2. Any vacant Gubernatorial offices will be filled by an appointment of the Governors Council.
3. The Governors Council may veto the actions of any member of the Cabinet with a 6/10 (60%) majority, this veto may be overridden by only the Triumvirate. [Should it be possible to override the veto?]
4. The Governors Council may end a State of Mobilization prematurely by a 6/10 (60%) vote after at least 7 game turns of Mobilization have passed.
IC. States
1. No states may be created until our Civilization owns at least five cites.
2. A minimum of 3 cities must exist in a proposed state at the time of its creation.
3. The Creation of a state requires a 6/10 (60%) majority of both the Citizens Assembly and the Governors Council.


Article 3 Items affecting both Federal and Local

A) Deputies

I. Deputies
IA. Members of the Triumvirate shall not have a Deputy.
IB. All members of the Cabinet and Governors shall have a Deputy, appointed by the principals of those respective offices.

II. Control of Units
IIA. Workers
1. Workers, when created, are under the control of the President. The President must assign the workers to either the Minister of the Interior or a Governor before or after a play session; if the worker is not so assigned it will be under the control of the Designated Player for the duration of the play session.
2. The assignment of a worker is permanent unless the party that has control over the worker releases it back to the President.
IIA. Military Land Units
1. Military Land Units, when created, are under the control of the Secretary of War.
2. The Secretary of War may assign units to guard settlers or as garrisons in cities.
A. Units assigned to guard settlers are under the control President until the settler founds a city. At the founding of a city the President may assign the units guarding that settler to be part of that city’s garrison or may shift control back to the Secretary of War as long as at least one half of the units, rounded up, that guarded the settler become part of the city’s garrison.
B. Units assigned as garrison units fall under the direct control of the Governor of that city.
3. Should a unit be left unmoving in a city or a city radius for at least 5 consecutive turns the governor of that city may claim that unit as a garrison unit as long as it has not started to move again.
A. There are three exceptions: if a unit is healing, the 5 turns start when healing is completed; if the unit is in defensive works of some sort; or if the unit is picketing the border.

Article 4 The Designated Player

A) Actions of the Designated Player
I. Instructions of Elected and appointed officials:
IA. The Designated Player shall follow all instructions from elected and appointed officials regarding their respective areas.
1. If no instructions from a given office are posted for a game session the Designated Player assumes the powers of that office for the game session.
2. The Designated Player must reuse all illegal instructions. The Designated Player may request a Judicial Review to determine the validity of an instruction.
IB. Legal Exploits
1. Any Legal Exploits pertaining to Article E section 4 of the Constitution will go here.


Article 5 The Judiciary
[Procedures and Standard of the Judiciary goes here]


Article 6 Elections

A) Triumvirate Elections
I. The Triumvirate shall be elected as a whole, not by individual positions.
II. Nomination must include all three members of the Triumvirate, self nominations of a group are
allowed.
III. Sun Set Clause
IIIA. A vote will held at the end of the second term if the Yeas number less than 51% Articles I and II will be nullified and Articles IV and V shall be activated. Should the above election law be retained Sections IV and V shall be expunged.
Elections Laws will be replaced by the following set.
IV. The offices of President, Secretary of State, and the Secretary of War shall be elected in their own polls.
V. Nominations
VA. The nominations for President can not be self nominations.
VB. Nominations for Secretary of State, and the Secretary of War may be self nominations or a citizen may be nominated by another citizens.

B) Cabinet Elections
I. Elections of the Cabinet shall be of all nominated candidates who have accepted their nominations.
II. Nominations for Cabinet positions may be self nominations or a citizen may be nominated by another citizens.

C) Gubernatorial Elections
I. Elections of the Governors shall be of all nominated candidates who have accepted their nominations.
II. Nominations for Governors may be self nominations or a citizen may be nominated by another citizens.

D) Judicial Elections
I. Elections of the Judiciary shall be of all nominated candidates who have accepted their nominations.
II. Nominations for the Judiciary may be self nominations or a citizen may be nominated by another citizens.


Article 7 Term Limits
[Term Limits will go here after the Poll has concluded]


Article 8 Process of Amending the Constitution

A) Steps to Amend the Constitution
I. Any Citizens may post a thread in an appropriate sub-forum, stating what he would like to see changed.
II. If at least three other citizens post that they agree with the proposed amendment, the Censor or Deputy Censor has 24 hours from the third agreeing post to post a poll in the Polls sub-forum.
IIA. If the Censor does not post a poll with in 24 hours any citizen may then do so.
1. Should the Censor not post a poll within 24 hours the Judiciary has ground to declare the office Vacant.
III. During the Polling the Judiciary must issue a ruling on whether the proposed amendment contradicts a part of the Constitution that it does not change and whether the amendment is legal.


Article 9 Code of Standards

A) Creating a Code of Standards
To create a Code of Standards a poll will need to be taken and at least 50.01% on said poll will need to vote yea. Different proposals may then be considered. A poll will be taken between the different proposals with the winning one being put up for ratification. The ratification poll will need at least 50.01% to vote yea to ratify the Code of Standards.


Article 10 Amending the Code of Laws

A) Amending the Code of Laws
I. The Code of Laws may be amended by a 60% majority of votes cast in a public poll which shall be open for no fewer than 4 days.
II. Minor changes to the Constitution, such as correcting typographical and clerical errors, reorganization and reformatting for better readability, and addition of text which does not impact legal definitions (such as a preamble) may be made at any time.
IIA. If any citizen objects to a minor change within the 48 hour period commencing when the minor change is proposed, the change shall be considered an amendment and must undergo ratification as such.

B) Steps to Amend the Code of Laws
I. Any Citizens may post a thread in an appropriate sub-forum, stating what he would like to see changed.
II. If at least three other citizens post that they agree with the proposed amendment, the Censor or Deputy Censor has 24 hours from the third agreeing post to post a poll in the Polls sub-forum.
IIA. If the Censor does not post a poll with in 24 hours any citizen may then do so.
1. Should the Censor not post a poll within 24 hours the Judiciary has ground to declare the office Vacant.


-the Wolf

Comments on 5.1

Section 1.A
IVA. Debates and Votes may be called and posted by any member of the Citizens Assembly. Just a warning - this can get quite chaotic.

VI. The Citizens Assembly may bring a no confidence vote against the Triumvirate and impeach members of the Cabinet.Any details on this process?

Section 1.B
IB. The Cabinet Officials will be any office that we the citizens deem necessaryAny details on this process? Ahh, all the way done in Section III. Wow - that makes it difficult to read.

II.2.E.1. "The Triumvirate may not force a worker to quit an action assigned to it by the Minister of the Interior of a Governor"Typo - Interior or a Governor

Section B.II.2.E.II This section is still a deal-breaker for me. Discuss it, poll it, doesn't matter. I do not, in any way, support overrides. They will cause problems.

II.IIA.1 may order the ending of play in continuing requires a decision to be made that can only be made by the Citizens AssemblyHuh? This doesn't make sense as written.

II.IIA.1 Designated Player must end play if he is forced to make a decision that can only be made by the Citizens Assembly. Add, if no vote on that decision has not concluded. This allows the Assembly to be proactive.

II.IIA.2 2. President is the only officer that may ask the officially ask the Citizens Assembly for a Declaration of WAR. Other officials may request a vote on War from their positions in the Citizens Assembly, but only the President may ask for War.But the President is also a citizen, so why include this? Even as a citizen, the MoW (for example) would surely reference their position. I don't think you need this clause.

III.1 A. To add an Office to the Cabinet requires a Yea vote of 51% from the Citizens Assembly. Any Office added will be last on the seniority list.
B. To remove an Office from the Cabinet requires a Yea vote of 58% from the Citizens Assembly.If this refers only to those that voted, please explicitly state that. 51/58% of what? Total Voters, or census?

III.C 2. The Minister of the Interior shall work with the Governors and create a plan of which city improvements shall be constructed in a city and when.Is this a list binding on the Governors?

Section B.IIID.4 4. The Minister of Culture may require a culture building to built in a City once every 4 buildings, if none of the previous 3 buildings was a culture building. And what type of building it shall be.Deal breaker again - will not ever agree with overrides. Also, gramatical issues with the last sentance.

Section B.IIIE What? No overrides for the Minister of Science? <slight sarcasm there, but only slight. If you're giving overrides out, why exclude other offices?>

Section IV Vacancies Very, very strongly disagree with this process. Far too much consolidation of power. Appoint a citizen to take over the role, subject to confirmation poll.

Section 2
Section 2.A.IA.3. The Designated Player shall act as Governor of any cities build during his play secession at the end of which, the office is declared vacant. Doesn't make sense. Also, session, not secession.

Section 2.A.1B.2. Any vacant Gubernatorial offices will be filled by an appointment of the Governors Council.Appointments should be by the President, subject to confirmation poll.

Section 2.A.1b.3. The Governors Council may veto the actions of any member of the Cabinet with a 6/10 (60%) majority.So now the Governors can override the Cabinet? :rolleyes:

Section 2.A.1B.5. The Governors Council may remove a Governor from his office by a vote of 6/10 (60%).Impeachments should be done by the Assembly. Easy exploit - party gets 60% of Governor positions, and removes non-party members. Gee, that's fair.

Section 4

Renumber first section as 'A'

Section 4.A.IIIB. The members of the Designated Pool shall sort out in what order they will play.Too easy for problems - specify in here what the order should be so no arguements happen.

Section 4.B.IB.2. The Designated Player must reuse all illegal instructions. The Designated Player may request a Judicial Review to determine the validity of an instruction. First, "refuse", not "reuse". Second, in the event of a JR request, this would result in the delay of the game session until the JR is resolved, correct? If so, please state this.

Section 5
Section 5.A.I. The Triumvirate shall be elected as a whole, not by individual positions.Strongly dislike this - cannot see a good reason to allow a person that does not want to form a "group" not to run for an office here. Deal breaker. Ah, a sunset clause. Still, don't like the concept as it places a high barrier of entry to the top three offices.

Section 7
Section 7.DStrongly disagree. Judiciary must make unpopular rulings, and should not have the threat of impeachment over them. They must rule according to their reading of the law. The only time a Justice should be removed from office is through a sentancing poll from a successful CC.

Section 8
Section 8.B.II. A member of the Cabinet may hold one other Cabinet office, Gubernatorial office or a Deputy position. Disagree - no reason for this. We should have more than sufficient citizens. This is a power grab.

Section 8.B.III. A Governor may hold one other Gubernatorial office, a Cabinet office, or a Deputy position. Disagree - no reason for this. We should have more than sufficient citizens. This is a power grab.

Section 10
Section 10.B.III. After at least 48hours the proponent posts a thread poll. Should be "posts a proposed poll".

I like parts of this, other parts are complete deal-breakers. Should this pass, I will offer several amendments to change them.

-- Ravensfire

I agree with you on some points ravensfire but the "overrides" are checks and Balances.:mischief:

I agree though with your idea of conformation polls for filled vacancies. It stops "cronyism" and prevents a Demo game Bush *shudders*

Comments on 5.1

Section 1.A
Just a warning - this can get quite chaotic.
True I can see how it could but chaotic is no reason to remove rights from citizens. Also Democracies are chaotic by definition and I mean the real true definition not the bastardization we have today.

Any details on this process?
Umm yes in Section 7 Impeachment.

Section 1.B
Any details on this process? Ahh, all the way done in Section III. Wow - that makes it difficult to read.
I thought it should be in Sub-section III which actually deals with the Cabinet not where it states who is in the Cabinet.

Typo - Interior or a Governor
Thanks for catching that, I typed most of this when I should have been asleep.

Section B.II.2.E.II This section is still a deal-breaker for me. Discuss it, poll it, doesn't matter. I do not, in any way, support overrides. They will cause problems.
I respect your opinion Citizen Ravensfire, I however do not agree with it.

may order the ending of play in continuing requires a decision to be made that can only be made by the Citizens Assembly
Huh? This doesn't make sense as written
The “in” should be “if,” sorry I was asleep.
Do you mind if I abbreviate your name as RF?
.
Add, if no vote on that decision has not concluded. This allows the Assembly to be proactive.
I added it but change it so it would not be a double negative.

But the President is also a citizen, so why include this? Even as a citizen, the MoW (for example) would surely reference their position. I don't think you need this clause.
I thought I had removed that clause of V5.1 but I guess not. Sorry about that.

If this refers only to those that voted, please explicitly state that. 51/58% of what? Total Voters, or census?
Of votes cast.

Is this a list binding on the Governors?
No, the list is a general plan, a Governor may deviate from it as necessary.

Deal breaker again - will not ever agree with overrides. Also, gramatical issues with the last sentance.
I fixed the grammatical issues in the last sentence .

Section B.IIIE What? No overrides for the Minister of Science? <slight sarcasm there, but only slight. If you're giving overrides out, why exclude other offices?>
:does not answer sarcasm smiley:

Section IV Vacancies Very, very strongly disagree with this process. Far too much consolidation of power. Appoint a citizen to take over the role, subject to confirmation poll.
Your objection is noted.

Section 2
Doesn't make sense. Also, session, not secession.
Yes it does the DP is the acting Governor of any City built during his turn. Fixed the error, thanks for finding it.

So now the Governors can override the Cabinet? :rolleyes:
This was is also part of the Flexible Government, or did you not read it before voting for it?

Impeachments should be done by the Assembly. Easy exploit - party gets 60% of Governor positions, and removes non-party members. Gee, that's fair.
I had not intended for it to be an exploit, Governor can no longer be impeached.

Section 4

Renumber first section as 'A'
Thanks for finding it, it is fixed.

Too easy for problems - specify in here what the order should be so no arguements happen.
Done

First, "refuse", not "reuse". Second, in the event of a JR request, this would result in the delay of the game session until the JR is resolved, correct? If so, please state this.
Done and Done.

Section 5
Strongly dislike this - cannot see a good reason to allow a person that does not want to form a "group" not to run for an office here. Deal breaker. Ah, a sunset clause. Still, don't like the concept as it places a high barrier of entry to the top three offices.
I would personally like to see the experiment.

Section 7
Strongly disagree. Judiciary must make unpopular rulings, and should not have the threat of impeachment over them. They must rule according to their reading of the law. The only time a Justice should be removed from office is through a sentancing poll from a successful CC.
Please do not abbreviate, what is CC? Judiciary and Governors can no longer be impeached.

Section 8
Disagree - no reason for this. We should have more than sufficient citizens. This is a power grab.

Disagree - no reason for this. We should have more than sufficient citizens. This is a power grab.
This was not intended as a power grab. Please explain THIS (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=130149#COLI1) I.1 before I will consider removing it.


Section 10
Should be "posts a proposed poll".

I like parts of this, other parts are complete deal-breakers. Should this pass, I will offer several amendments to change them.
That is your right as a citizen.

-the Wolf

Version 5.2 is now up.

-the Wolf

I wish you the best of luck with this ruleset, AW. It's becoming increasingly difficult to determine the changes, and that makes discussions quite difficult.

-- Ravensfire

Last comment from me here - please review the Triumverate proposal to verify that it follows the Constitution. I think there may be some issues with Article C.

EDIT: Upon further review, I was mistaken.

-- Ravensfire

Version 5.3 is up Change Log on second post and on this one.

I would like to thank Ravensfire for telling me what a Change Log is.
Change Log
V5.3
Section 1, Sub-Section B, Clause II, Sub-Clause IIA, Point 3 added: The President retains all powers not expressly given to another official and not reserved by the Citizens Assembly.
Section 1, Sub-Section B, Clause II, Sub-Clause IIB, Point 1, Sub-Point B changed: The Secretary of State no longer needs the Triumvirates Permission to accept a city.
Section 1, Sub-Section B, Clause III, Point 1, Sub-Point A changed: for clarity.
Section 1, Sub-Section B, Clause III, Point 1, Sub-Point B changed: for clarity.
Section 1, Sub-Section B, Clause III, Sub-Clause IIID, Point 4 added: The Minister of Culture will keep list of all of our Cities, their current culture level, how fast they are gaining culture, a projection of when they will next increase in culture, their current level on the Great Person Bar, how much is being gained on that bar per turn and when that city will produce a Great Person.
Section 5, Sub-Section A changed in its entirety to be more inclusive.



-the Wolf

why no response to my post ?

Congratulations to the Tri, now lets started critiquiing it to perfection, with the full might of the Civ demogamers!

I'm starting a review of 5.3 now. I'm looking for inconsistencies and potential troublespots.

For any others that would like to do that same, I would suggest reviewing the judicial logs from the previous DGs. You'll get an idea of the issues that pop up with the rules.

DG VII Judicial Log (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=124088)
DG VI Judicial Log (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=112551)
DG V Judicial Log (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=94623)
DG IV Judicial Log (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=74295)
DG III Judicial Log (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=56483)
DG II Judicial Log (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=26749)
DG I did not have a real judicial log, and in fact links to the DG II log.

-- Ravensfire

why no response to my post ?

Beatiful post Mr Lution, i loved the apart about goverments ect.

Some comments...

1. Addition and Subtraction of Offices from the Cabinet.
A. To add an Office to the Cabinet requires a Yea vote of 51% of total votes from the Citizens Assembly. Any Office added will be last on the seniority list.
B. To remove an Office from the Cabinet requires a Yea vote of 58% of total votes from the Citizens Assembly.

-It's a nice gesture to us Flexible partisans, but ultimately useless for this government. The positions are too interdependant and will be useful quickly after the game begins, so this provision will never be applied.

-Why give control of naval units to the President? Wouldn't military actions and various invasions be better coordinated if the navy was under the control of the Secretary of War?

-Can we rename 'States' to 'Provinces?' "State" inplies an entiry which exists of its own right, while its clear such instutions of this government are clearly subordinate to the central government, and exist at the government's whim. It's a show of American chauvanism, as a majority of the world's governments use the administrative unit known as a 'province.' 'Province' also fits in more with the Romanesqe theming of this government. There's great potential for confusion with 'The Secretary of State' and 'State of Mobilization.'

On top of all this, there's tradition. We've called those things provinces since before you registered, Alphawolf. :p

-While we're on the subject, just who the heck decides how many governors to elect? How are they assigned? In the beginning, won't we just have one governor, making him excedingly powerful as the Governor's Council? What about cities without governors?

-Rename the 'Director of Intelligence' to the 'Minister of Intelligence' for goodness sake. If they are all cabinet positions, better to give them all the same titles.

-The Minister of the Interior has an very weak position - he may as well be appointed like Intel - it's just a coordinating job. At least give him the power to decide where wonders are to be constructed, as this is not dealt with anywhere and is a potential source of conflict.

-Can we not cosolidate Section 5? The repetivness is killing me...

-Remove garrison control from the governors! It's asinine to believe that the Secretary of War would do something like intentionally leave a city unprotected. It's better for all things military to be controlled by one command chain, so these important matters can actually be coordinated on a national scale to ensure that they're run properly.

-What's the reasoning for not giving the Triumviriate deputies? For such important leadership posts, you'd think that they would need some form of assistants. Besides, that easily removes the muddled chain of command in the vacancy section - again, these are vital positions that are best left to control of one devoted person, not somebody who has to care for two offices during a vacancy.

-DEFINE VACANCY!!!! Is 'vacant' an office without a holder? A leader who has disappeared for two weeks?

-I do like the position of Censor. This is actually a sort of office I've advocated creating in the past.

Legislature:

-- Increase the role of the Censor a bit by
1. Censor posts all votes by the Assembly as instructions as needed.
2. Censor posts all official Assembly discussions and polls.
3. For official discussions, require Citizen to post in Censor's thread and be seconded withint 24 hours.
4. For No Confidence/Impeachment votes, require the same standard above, and add some details about it (ie - private poll, last X days, blah, blah, blah).
5. Alternatively, have each Censor post their own procedures for handling official discussions and polls. This has worked extremely well for the Judiciary.

Reasons: Currently, the Censor just doesn't do much, and the Assembly is a bit too chaotic. You can fix both problems by having the Censor be active and responsive to the Assembly. Informal polls and discussions are quite useful, but you want to have something that you KNOW will be official and enforceable.

Likewise, you want some restrictions/requirements on the impeachments. As written, I could post a poll on day 1, calling for the impeachment of the Triumverate. I'll have it last 3 days. On the fourth day, I'll do it again. I'll repeat for the Cabinet. By the ruleset, I am completely within my rights.

HUGE ISSUE - IV sets >50% as the standard for approval. This really should be "the option that gains the most support." Not every decision is binary, and with Abstain, you really never know. Make the requirement more general, so that if there are 4 different proposals, we won't have poll, after poll, after poll.

Executive:

Question - the President can explicitly end a turn chat. Can the DP also do so? Can another leader, post a Stop instruction relevant to their area? Example: Move troops around to prepare for war, STOP after 3 turns so we can finalize plans. Example: Foreign Affairs - halt the chat should any nation declare war on us.

Adding/Removing office. I agree with Octavian, allow the Amendment process to handle this. If it stays, who posts the polls? How long do they last?

Minister of Interior - The plan of improvements, what do you envision this doing? What if a Governor changes their mind?


General:

What happens if a person disappears from the game? Would we have to impeach them because of their absence? Not a bad idea actually, just want to confirm.

Designated Player clause IIIB is incomplete.

Section 5 can really be consolidated!

Section 10.II refers to the Constitution, not Code of Laws ...

Section 10. V - change "the ratification poll is posted." to "the ratification poll is posted by the Judiciary."

-- Ravensfire

why no response to my post ?

I think you received no response so far because it would be a major change to include a sec. of Treasury and Industry (was it industry?) and no one wanted to go there... Personally I don't have the urge to implement such a position either (at least not right now). I will support your idea if it turns out such a position is necessary in practice...


why no response to my post ?


Beatiful post Mr Lution, i loved the apart (sic!) about goverments ect.

:lol: Cruel, but funny, Mr. Body! :lol:

Legislature:

-- Increase the role of the Censor a bit by
1. Censor posts all votes by the Assembly as instructions as needed.
2. Censor posts all official Assembly discussions and polls.
3. For official discussions, require Citizen to post in Censor's thread and be seconded withint 24 hours.
4. For No Confidence/Impeachment votes, require the same standard above, and add some details about it (ie - private poll, last X days, blah, blah, blah).
5. Alternatively, have each Censor post their own procedures for handling official discussions and polls. This has worked extremely well for the Judiciary

Sorry, it's early here, so please be patient with me:

Concerning the word "posts" (1.+2.) you mean "open thread" (again, sorry, I'm a bit thick today :blush: )

Reasons: Currently, the Censor just doesn't do much, and the Assembly is a bit too chaotic. You can fix both problems by having the Censor be active and responsive to the Assembly. Informal polls and discussions are quite useful, but you want to have something that you KNOW will be official and enforceable.

Sounds good to me! I concur!

HUGE ISSUE - IV sets >50% as the standard for approval. This really should be "the option that gains the most support." Not every decision is binary, and with Abstain, you really never know.

Makes sense to me, too...

Question - the President can explicitly end a turn chat. Can the DP also do so? Can another leader, post a Stop instruction relevant to their area? Example: Move troops around to prepare for war, STOP after 3 turns so we can finalize plans. Example: Foreign Affairs - halt the chat should any nation declare war on us.

I don't know if the DP or tri-members can do so, but I feel they should be able to do so! In an earlier version this was explicitly written in the government-structure...

Question: Will it be necessary to restrict the possibility to "stop"? I feel uneasy about this...

Minister of Interior - The plan of improvements, what do you envision this doing? What if a Governor changes their mind?

I've been critical against the SoI from the start so I agree here. I think the stuff he decides would be in better hands in the president-office.
Is the "plan of improvement" binding or subject to change even during a play-period. I think we should leave the final decision to the gov's if they wanna stick to the plan or not. Public-pressure and the Chief Justice will hopefully ensure stability...

General:

What happens if a person disappears from the game? Would we have to impeach them because of their absence? Not a bad idea actually, just want to confirm.
Do we really need to impeach absent persons :confused: ?? I never thought about this, but if a person is absent he's out of the office, no? He must make his absence known to the other players, otherwise he's out? Please enlighten me, I think I'm wrong somewhere...

Stilgar

Do we really need to impeach absent persons :confused: ?? I never thought about this, but if a person is absent he's out of the office, no? He must make his absence known to the other players, otherwise he's out? Please enlighten me, I think I'm wrong somewhere...

The hard part is when they are out of the office. How do you make that call, and who does it? DG VII it's 7 days w/o notice, call made by the Judiciary upon citizen request. It's in the CoL for DG VII.

Couple of scenarios, tell me how it SHOULD be handled, and how the 5.3 ruleset says to handle it.

1. Office holder A is gone for a week, posts in an official absence thread. Deputy exists.

2. Office holder B is gone for a week, does not post in an official absence thread. Deputy exists.

3. Office holder B is gone for 2 weeks this time, does not post in an official absence thread. Deputy does not exist.

4. Office holder C posts instructions for 1 game session, then disappears, never posting again. No deputy exists.

5. Office holder D is perma-banned for saying rude things. No deputy exists.

-- Ravensfire

A few more thoughts:

Consider bringing in the Freedom of Information section from DG VII Code of Laws (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=130149#COLD1) - D.1. This requires officials to create official threads, and update them.

Likewise, think about Section J.1 - Polling Standards. It's nice to have a single place to know what requirements there are for polls. Without them, you can easily have biased or misleading polls count as official polls.

-- Ravensfire

Legislature:

-- Increase the role of the Censor a bit by
1. Censor posts all votes by the Assembly as instructions as needed.
This is a good idea.

2. Censor posts all official Assembly discussions and polls.
3. For official discussions, require Citizen to post in Censor's thread and be seconded withint 24 hours.
Sorry, I disagree with both of these items. We don't want to be paralyzed if the Censor is unavailable. If we must have the Censor act as a flapper for the citizen's assembly, make the responsiblity be to request the moderators to do thread cleanup and merges as needed.

4. For No Confidence/Impeachment votes, require the same standard above, and add some details about it (ie - private poll, last X days, blah, blah, blah).
This would better fit a Code of Standards layer, which would make it orthogonal to the existing DG7 setup but with an even higher Constitution on top of the existing one (or dividing the DG7 Constitution into Con and CoL, making some of DG7 CoL into CoS).

5. Alternatively, have each Censor post their own procedures for handling official discussions and polls. This has worked extremely well for the Judiciary.

Reasons: Currently, the Censor just doesn't do much, and the Assembly is a bit too chaotic. You can fix both problems by having the Censor be active and responsive to the Assembly. Informal polls and discussions are quite useful, but you want to have something that you KNOW will be official and enforceable.
This is why I couldn't figure out why the Censor was there in the first place. And I'm still not sure why the Censor should be highest seniority.


Adding/Removing office. I agree with Octavian, allow the Amendment process to handle this. If it stays, who posts the polls? How long do they last?
The way I proposed adding/removing offices was to have the chief executive (either the President or the Tri as a whole) decree the change. If any official affected by the change, or any citizen, objects to the change they can post a non-confirmation poll. If the vote is to not confirm the change, then the offices stay as they are. The change is effective for the current term only unless approved as an amendment. This lets us tinker with changes without making them permanent.

On the Secretary / Minister of the Interior position:

Someone needs to organize City Specialization. This is critically important in Civ4. In Civ3 we could say city1 produces military, city2 produces workers, city3 is a settler factory, city4 builds wonders, and if we changed our minds midstream it didn't really matter. In Civ4, if you want a city to be a Great People producer, you must designate it as such and stick with the plan. We can't have the governors fighting it out in a free-for-all on this issue. Someone needs to organize things.

Another decision we need centralized is how many of each type of unit to produce. We don't have the military advisor telling us we are stronger or weaker than a neighbor. In my painful :rolleyes: experience, the first warning you have that your neighbor is significantly stronger is their SoD crossing the border :eek: , at which time it's too late.

Global comment: Define a majority somewhere as more yes votes than no, and then change all instances of a percentage indicating a majority to the global majority definition. If we got enough citizens, it would be possible to get a majority vote and yet not pass based on the percentages, as they vary. Or just say >50% if you have to use a percentage.

Let's have the Censor be listed as optional for the first term elections (i.e. no 0th term Censor to preside over term 1 elections), since there is not time to elect a Censor with a full election cycle to preside over another full election cycle.

A volunteer election office can handle this, or the rules committee can take on the responsibility.


IIIB. The Powers and Duties of the Censor:

1. The Censor shall be the Official in charge of all elections.

a. When there is no Censor to preside over the next term's elections, a volunteer Election Office shall be in charge of the election, overseen by the forum Moderators as necessary.

2. Censor shall be responsible for the official results of an election and for validating an election.
3. The Censor is also responsible for validating any other official polls.
4. The Censor shall be responsible for maintaining a list of names for the naming of cities, units, and other appraise items, approved by the Citizens Assembly.

That DP system is horrible! Why do we change something when its not broken?!?
Last game we decided on a new system, where we would elect a pool of Designated Players. It worked great! So what do we do? We toss it out for the old system which was unreliable and hard to find people that would DP

If this is not changed back, I will not vote to ratify this constitution

Other Problems
It is just plain too complicated

There are deputies for governors and cabinet members, but not for the triumvirate? If anything it should be the other way around

Numertous typos...

I don't like the mobilazation idea, we will be in many wars, giving the triumvirate many more powers in these times

That DP system is horrible! Why do we change something when its not broken?!?
Last game we decided on a new system, where we would elect a pool of Designated Players. It worked great! So what do we do? We toss it out for the old system which was unreliable and hard to find people that would DP

If this is not changed back, I will not vote to ratify this constitution


Hmm, did you look closely enough? There are only two differences between this DP pool and the DG7 one.

In this DP pool, the President is allowed to play if/when he/she wants to. IMHO this is broken in the current DG7 system, because we end up with a President who doesn't have many powers.
The details of how a DP is chosen aren't filled in. That is because Alphawolf has been editing continuously since day one and its easy to release a version which has something like this missing. I'd be OK with the current system of ordering DPs from highest votes to lowest of the ones who didn't play last term, followed from highest votes to lowest of ones who did play. If you're fine with that too, then we just need Alphawolf to edit it in. :)

Hmm, did you look closely enough? There are only two differences between this DP pool and the DG7 one.

In this DP pool, the President is allowed to play if/when he/she wants to. IMHO this is broken in the current DG7 system, because we end up with a President who doesn't have many powers.
The details of how a DP is chosen aren't filled in. That is because Alphawolf has been editing continuously since day one and its easy to release a version which has something like this missing. I'd be OK with the current system of ordering DPs from highest votes to lowest of the ones who didn't play last term, followed from highest votes to lowest of ones who did play. If you're fine with that too, then we just need Alphawolf to edit it in. :)
oops my bad....
I'm not sure how I missed that section... I think I saw the word Designated Player and assumed there was only one...
oops

I wish to thank everyone who commented and offered suggestions. I am currently editing the Triumvirate government and should have version6.0 up in one to two hours. Sorry of just now getting to it; I had my wisdom teeth removed Wednesday and have been out of it (high on vicadin{sp}). :crazyeye:

-the Wolf