This is the first of the big three Articles dealing with the Branches of Government in the next Constitution. Article D deals with the Executive Branch. Discussing the Executive Branch and any future changes is the purpose of this thread.

Article E is for the Legislative Branch and Article F is for the Judicial Branch. Discussions on these branches can be found in other threads.

Article D from the DG2 Constitution reads as follows:

D. The Executive Branch is headed by the President, who shall be the designated player of
the game, and shall include a council of leaders, each of whom heads a department that
is responsible for one major facet of the country. These departments are Domestic,
Foreign, Military, Science, Culture and Trade. Each of these departments will be
generally responsible for the items found under the respective Advisor in the Civilization
III game and esoteric aspects that fall under their department name.


One of the main points in this discussion will be the number of Leaders in DG4. So far there have been several proposals about this, ranging from 3 to 6 Leaders. As an example, I've listed FortyJ's proposed changes below:

The Council of Ministers shall be composed of the heads of the three primary departments: Internal Affairs, Trade and Technology, and Foreign Affairs.

FortyJ proposes that the Minister of the Interior (Internal Affairs) would be responsible for all matters related to Dometic and Culture. The Minister of Trade and Technology would of course handle the Trade and Science Departments. The Minister of Foreign Affairs would be responsible for all matters related to the defense of the nation and our rights abroad (Military and Foreign Affairs Departments).

There have been other proposals, such as eliminating the Culture Department or other groupings similar to the one above. Shall we shake the Executive Branch and see what falls out, or should we leave it as it is? And what precisely is the role of the VP? Will there be a VP? Will there be actions taken by the Council of Ministers as a whole?

What do you think?

I like 40J's proposal - anything for a change! I would like a small clarification - control of the slider resides with who?

As an alternative split, I would suggest the following:

Ministry of the Interior:
-- Combine current Domestic and Science roles

Ambassador:
-- Combine Trade and Foreign Affairs

Ministry of Defense:
-- Military

Move culture to a citizen office (has as been suggested elsewhere).

-- Ravensfire

Wow. I'm glad somebody liked at least part of what I proposed. ;)

With respect to your split of duties: I had considered putting Trade with Foreign Affairs, but then decided against it because we will likely get many of our techs from trade (especially at higher difficulty levels). Keeping Science and Trade in separate offices would lead to jurisdictional issues.

Domestic goes nicely with Culture, but if Culture is moved off the council, the Domestic leader shouldn't cry foul - he'll/she'll have enough to do as it is.

Military and FA are a nice grouping, but could just as easily be kept separate if we don't want to reduce the council to 3.

Originally posted by FortyJ
With respect to your split of duties: I had considered putting Trade with Foreign Affairs, but then decided against it because we will likely get many of our techs from trade (especially at higher difficulty levels). Keeping Science and Trade in separate offices would lead to jurisdictional issues.

Domestic goes nicely with Culture, but if Culture is moved off the council, the Domestic leader shouldn't cry foul - he'll/she'll have enough to do as it is.

Military and FA are a nice grouping, but could just as easily be kept separate if we don't want to reduce the council to 3.

My concept was to keep similar duties together, and try to reduce possible conflict between leaders.

Science will always cause issues. The slider directly impacts it, techs can be traded for, and both of those tasks could potentially be in different hands. Either approach will work well, your reasoning is right on point about the trading for tech.

How about this:

Minister of the Interior: Domestic
Dept. of Defense: Military
State Dept: Foreign Affairs, Trade, Science

Of our current offices, Military and Domestic are by far the most intensive. Science and Trade have become a poll-posting office with minimal though required. FA has some activity, but not at the same level as Dom and Mil - so we merge FA, S and T.

-- Ravensfire

Originally posted by ravensfire


Science and Trade have become a poll-posting office with minimal though required.
I've never been science leader so I won't comment on that, but from my experience the trade office can become a time consuming nightmare once contact with all other nations has been made and trade routes established if one chooses to do the job thoroughly. This increase of workload would tend to occur at roughly the same time that the FA situation begins to get more complex, so concentrating responsibility for both facets of the game upon one individual would seem to me to be a mistake and I believe that the leadership of such a department would swiftly become a chore to the imcumbent in the game's later stages.

Well, EK, it depends. If we reduce the number of ministers and give each a broad range of responsibilities it could work out well if we allow them to *hire* people to help them. For instance, whoever ends up in charge of science could pick someone to lead science discussions and post polls, etc. He or she could do the same for other areas of his or her responsibility. The Minister would then be responsible for managing his or her ministry and posting the proper instructions. This could work if we're willing to let the ministers hire and fire helpers as they see fit - without official appointments and confirmation polls. I'm just afraid that will our current insistance on *restrictive* rules leaders may not be willing to try this sort of innovative structure.

As for the actual division of authority, I think the military should be seperate. The Fa / trade combo makes sense. How about combining domestic and science? This would make slider control by domestic more sensible and less conflicting.

Why not take the power of the purse away from domestic? Why should our military and FA leaders need permission from the domestic leader to upgrade our forces or made a trade? What about giving the power of the purse to the president or the Senate?

Originally posted by donsig

Why not take the power of the purse away from domestic? Why should our military and FA leaders need permission from the domestic leader to upgrade our forces or made a trade? What about giving the power of the purse to the president or the Senate?

What? Give the Senate an actual JOB? A real TASK?

That's crazy talk man! Crazy talk!

liking the idea, I am.

-- Ravensfire

Hmm, i like the idea, especially if we go for 5-6 size provinces. If we don't, we'll have a hard time trying to get elected anywhere. In DG3, there was culture where you could be elected with a one post count.

There was the president, the 6 advisors, the 3 judicial and the 5 (DG3 end) legislative. If we go for it, we'll have the president, 3 advisors, unknown judicial and unknown legislative. That's ok, if we can get atleast 3 more governors for a similar country size.

To get to another of the questions raised: Role of the VP

I feel the official role of the VP should be that of any other deputy. Each President may, or may not, expand that role by assigning duties, but that should be up to the President.

-- Ravensfire

Originally posted by Fier Canadien
Hmm, i like the idea, especially if we go for 5-6 size provinces. If we don't, we'll have a hard time trying to get elected anywhere. In DG3, there was culture where you could be elected with a one post count.

There was the president, the 6 advisors, the 3 judicial and the 5 (DG3 end) legislative. If we go for it, we'll have the president, 3 advisors, unknown judicial and unknown legislative. That's ok, if we can get atleast 3 more governors for a similar country size.

Fier, I plan to strongly campaign for more, smaller provinces for our country. I also would like to see these provinces based more in a wheel pattern around our Palace and FP cities, to ensure that all provinces have some strong producers. Few people would want to govern a province of "fishing villages".

I feel that the smaller province size will encourage more people to get involved as Governors due to the reduced time commitment. I also believe that the provinces will receive better management with the fewer cities for the Governor to look at.

-- Ravensfire

Originally posted by donsig
Well, EK, it depends. If we reduce the number of ministers and give each a broad range of responsibilities it could work out well if we allow them to *hire* people to help them. For instance, whoever ends up in charge of science could pick someone to lead science discussions and post polls, etc. He or she could do the same for other areas of his or her responsibility. The Minister would then be responsible for managing his or her ministry and posting the proper instructions. This could work if we're willing to let the ministers hire and fire helpers as they see fit - without official appointments and confirmation polls. I'm just afraid that will our current insistance on *restrictive* rules leaders may not be willing to try this sort of innovative structure.

As for the actual division of authority, I think the military should be seperate. The Fa / trade combo makes sense. How about combining domestic and science? This would make slider control by domestic more sensible and less conflicting.

Why not take the power of the purse away from domestic? Why should our military and FA leaders need permission from the domestic leader to upgrade our forces or made a trade? What about giving the power of the purse to the president or the Senate?

Quite contrary to my normal impulses, I like everything said here. I would prefer the Senate having the power rather then the President, however. It just makes more sense.

Originally posted by donsig
Well, EK, it depends. If we reduce the number of ministers and give each a broad range of responsibilities it could work out well if we allow them to *hire* people to help them. For instance, whoever ends up in charge of science could pick someone to lead science discussions and post polls, etc. He or she could do the same for other areas of his or her responsibility. The Minister would then be responsible for managing his or her ministry and posting the proper instructions. This could work if we're willing to let the ministers hire and fire helpers as they see fit - without official appointments and confirmation polls. I'm just afraid that will our current insistance on *restrictive* rules leaders may not be willing to try this sort of innovative structure.

Many people may not realize this, but we did have this in previous DGs. Mayors. Look through DG3 - are Mayors mentioned anywhere? Nope - but we had them! Several mayors were removed due to lack of participation, several set new standards for city threads (Hi Cyc!). This may be one of the few examples of where the DG3 ruleset was used, and interpreted correctly.

The T4 Judiciary explicity recognized the right of all leaders to delegate duties as they deem fit. The responsibility stays with the leader, that's the only restriction there should be. I tried to get some citizens to help me out on various tasks during my term as President, but didn't have any takers. If people don't use aides in the coming DG, it's probably not because of the "current insistance on restrictive rules", but unwillingness to change, and not knowing they can assign tasks.

I would like to see something in the CoL that explicitly allows an elected official to delegate a task to a citizen of their choice. No confirmation poll, no transfer of responsibility and the leader, or any succeeding leader, may remove the citizen from that role.

-- Ravensfire

Originally posted by donsig
Well, EK, it depends. If we reduce the number of ministers and give each a broad range of responsibilities it could work out well if we allow them to *hire* people to help them. For instance, whoever ends up in charge of science could pick someone to lead science discussions and post polls, etc. He or she could do the same for other areas of his or her responsibility. The Minister would then be responsible for managing his or her ministry and posting the proper instructions. This could work if we're willing to let the ministers hire and fire helpers as they see fit - without official appointments and confirmation polls. I'm just afraid that will our current insistance on *restrictive* rules leaders may not be willing to try this sort of innovative structure.
The idea of letting leaders delegate is absolutely fine by me, but I'd prefer it if departmental workloads were not so great as to leave their heads no choice but to do so. Some people - myself included - like to exercise a level of control over the way in which their department is run that can only be guaranteed by their doing every last thing themselves. Both approaches should be possible, which will not be the case if the workload is too large.

Originally posted by Eklektikos
Some people - myself included - like to exercise a level of control over the way in which their department is run that can only be guaranteed by their doing every last thing themselves.
This could be exactly the thing that is driving people away from the DemoGame. The tasks are too large to do if you have only limited time and the main players are reluctant to let go of control of their domains. There is no delegation of duties, there is only limited democracy through polls that are stacked in the favor of the poll creators... That may not be the way it is with the PI structures you guys are always arguing about, but it appears that was to the casual DG citizen.

Originally posted by donsig
If we reduce the number of ministers and give each a broad range of responsibilities it could work out well if we allow them to *hire* people to help them.
I was also struck by the similarity of this relationship to Govenor/Mayors. I was happy to be mayor of a 'fishing village' because it meant that my limited time was put to good use on a semi-frequent basis.
If the main players were to delegate some of the tedious tasks and not have to get approval of the entire nation to do it, it would allow more people to meaningfully participate without a huge time commitment.
If it works for Mayors, why can't it work for other tasks? Heck, some of the CIV newbies might even learn something about the game you love so much.
Originally posted by Cyc
The Minister of Foreign Affairs would be responsible for all matters related to the defense of the nation and our rights abroad (Military and Foreign Affairs Departments).

I don't think the Military and Foreign Affairs are a good match. A conquest type player is drawn to the Military. He wants Foreign Affairs duties only so he can arrange to go to war with the smallest WW ramifications. Foreign Affairs is concerned with keeping the peace, maintaining trade relations and draws the diplomatic type player.

I like the idea of giving some responsibility to the Senate - the power of the purse. If the Senate actually had duties to fulfill on a regular basis then there might be interest in being the governor of a fishing village province because the governor would be just as powerful as any other in the Senate. And it makes sense to not have one minister retain power over other ministers.

I am still not sure about combining minister positions. I have seen many times in my short tenure work that could have been done that wasn't; what I mean is the position is what you make of it, and many do not make much of it. On the other hand, it makes sense to reduce the number of elected officials when you consider the number of active players in the game. It seemed that while I was here most active players had an official position. It would be nice to have a large number of active citizens that were not elected to a position.

I agree with what donsig said (it seems I keep saying that) about a minister being able to "hire" assistants. As mentioned, a great example of this was the use of mayors. Maybe a section in the CoL or CoS (I have no idea which level that would go in, but that is another discussion) mentioned the ability of ministers to do this would encourage the practice.

Ok, now some nitpicking on wording.

1. The Executive Branch is headed by the President, who shall be the designated player of the game,

Leaving this as written could be interpreted as the President is the only one that can be the designated player. I think the DP position should be seperately defined in a differenct section, and then a chain of command for the DP position be defined in the CoL. And "headed" needs to be fleshed out somewhere too - what does that mean?

2. and shall include a council of leaders, each of whom heads a department that is responsible for one major facet of the country. These departments are Domestic, Foreign, Military, Science, Culture and Trade.

We are disccussing this....

3. Each of these departments will be generally responsible for the items found under the respective Advisor in the Civilization
III game and esoteric aspects that fall under their department name.

This is fine as long as we get specific in the CoL, otherwise we need to define their responsibilites here.

After reading along, this seems to be the best approach after all. :) I haven't done the best job of leading so far, so I am going to follow along for a spell. Some thoughts:

1. Military and FA offices should definitely not be combined. Huge conflict of interest, as it could allow the General to write his own ticket for a war.

2. I have always liked the idea of having the VP hold the deciding vote in the Senate. Of course, the role of the Senate would have to be enhanced greatly for this concept to amount to anything.

3. That said, I like donsig's idea about having the Senate bicker back and forth about the budget. If we go this route, we should make sure that we start the game with 3 senators and add a fourth when we found our fourth province etc.

4. Don't give the Domestic Department too much responsibility--- aka keep the Six Advisors. I guess I will play the hardline traditionalist in maintaining the status quo on this matter.

5. Smaller provinces. More Senators. Better management. Love it. :)

6. If we have a game that ends up more structured around Senators, I could see allowing the drop in Cabinet positions. We would have to consider 3-4 city provinces(states?) for this to happen.

Yer not alone DZ. I'm also in favor of keeping the 6 Leaders. I'm also in favor of splitting up the responsibilities of the overburdened Leaders to those less occupied Leaders. We could send the Provincial Borders to the Senate, or to Culture. We could also delegate the budget out to the Senate.

Mayors and Governors could handle special tasks asked of them by various Leaders (like naming terrain features, etc.) I think Governors should be eligible for Leader status and can only hold one Leader position at a time. Mayors on the other hand are not Leaders and can become one of the 6 Leaders or a Governor.

Some of us are talking about reducing the number of Leaders and then going to the extra trouble of not only writing laws allowing it, but going out and finding others to help share with the work load. :huh?: Why would we create all this extra work for ourselves? Because it's different? Let's keep the people involved in the elected Leader positions, divy up the work somewhat to make it more equal, and then worry about looking for people with free time to fill in on a work schedule.

Cyc, do you have a proposal that uses all six leaders, divides up the workload somewhat evenly and doesn't have over-lapping spheres of influence?

Originally posted by donsig
Cyc, do you have a proposal that uses all six leaders, divides up the workload somewhat evenly and doesn't have over-lapping spheres of influence?

Well, donsig...this thread is just to discuss Article D. I would be willing to discuss the different responsibilities of each Leader in a discussion for just that in the CoL book. Those ideas don't go in the Constitution. The ideas listed in the CoL would then spawn the guidelines listed in the CoS. Ibelieve that once we get past the initial acceptance of how many ministers we're going to use, we cab then concentrate on the details appropriate for each supporting book. I can't see spending a lot of time working up a very detailed proposal, like you say and then refine it with discussion until it's suitable and then flush it down the toilet because we decide to go with three Leaders. That's a waste of time.

Generally, I think we can spread the work around and I don't think It would take much time if we worked together as a group once we knew what direction we were going in.

On the other hand, if we say "Let's reduce the number of Leaders and increase their workload, then let them figure it out!", we're just brushing off our responsibilities as citizen of DG4. This is a group effort. We need to make accurate decisions, and we need to make them together. We shouldn't be relying on some 1 to come up with the winning proposal. I don't like the idea of condensing the workload onto 3 people and saying "Good Luck! I hope our experiment works...".

Whoa, Cyc. What's the point of article D? It should be to define the composition and duties of the executive branch in a general way. If we can manage to do that without being so vauge as to be meaningless we can just go ahead and hammer out the specifics in the CoL and be done with it - we won't need to make general laws then specific standards.

Now I don't see how we can decide the number of ministers we want unless we get a pretty good idea of what we want them to do. I've nothing against keeping the six leaders per se, but I do not accept your implication that reducing the number of leaders increases the workload on the remaining leaders. What workload did the culture leader carry? None in DG3. What about the overlapping areas of responsibility? The science leader has to go to the domestic leader to get the science slider changed. He has to go to the trade leader to trade techs. What about the all powerful domestic leader who controls the sliders, the gold and wonders? Should we not take some of the workload off this leader?

Yes, we have to make decisions together but you seem to be advocating no decision at all until we work on the CoL and CoS! If we don't make decisions now we might as well make article D read:

The executive branch will consist of some leaders who will have some responsibilities.

Or we can just trash articles D, E and F and leave it at: The government will consist of the executive, legislative and judicial branches.

If we don't want to do that then we must at least come up with some idea how we can keep six leaders, reduce conflicting spheres of influence, distribute the workload evenly and give all six leaders some tanglible duties and responsibilites - or make changes along the lines suggested.

As donsig just said, the Constitution should lay out the general titles and roles of our elected officials. These roles should be stated in a general way, then detailed more in the CoL.

The Constitution should give us the broad framework to base our system on. Difficult to change, it will remain fairly constant throughout the game.

The next body of law should describe in more detail the duties of each official. Easier to change, but still within the guidelines of the Constitution, this allows us to alter some aspects of our leaders as we progress.

-- Ravensfire

So, after about 40 hours of discussion and 20 replies, we basically have a mixed bag. Scanning the replies, it looks like we have 3 people who wish to have 3 Ministers, 3 people who like the idea of 6 Ministers, and 4 people who are undecided. These figures are debatable, but we seem to be drifting of course a bit.

A lot of the responses seem to be dependant of the role of the Senate in DG4. I think we can agree that Provinces will be smaller this game, so there will be more Governors. But we would have to start the game with a minimum of three if we are going to give the Senate specific duties. Unless we make the Senate comprised of Leaders other than Governors.

Can we please have the people posting here be a little more specific about what they would like to see in the Leadership structure. We don't have to be sprcific on job duties in these replies, but we do need to concentrate mor on the number of members in the Executive Branch. We're kind of going about this backwards. If we knew how many Leaders there were to be, then we could delegate responsibilty out to the different Departments. Discussing the responsibilities and trying to determine if they can be mixed or matched or farmed out after the elections is taking the long way to our goal.

I haven't had a chance to toss in my 2 gold before now due to the arrival of our new baby, but will try to squeeze in a few minutes now for that.

I like the idea of keeping all 6 leaders, and redistributing power. Ideally everyone who is elected should have roughly equal power, although that is unlikely in practice. We're trying to model splitting the brain of a single player into 9-20 parts, and certain sets of things like (tech rate and tech trading) and (happieness and lux trading) are inseparable.

Anyway, here are a few observations about effects I saw during DG3 which should be addressed here.


Science chooses a tech queue, but there should be a strong interaction between what tech is researched and how high the slider is. This is really only an issue early in the game when a choice between min and max research is needed. How many civs we are in contact with is also a factor.
Science needs to be linked with wonder building. We had two occurrances of choosing a research priority which rippled into wonder prebuilds not getting started, which meant that we didn't get the wonder.
Under the system where the budget is owned by Domestic, often rushes are not requested, and in the case of my two terms as DL, I generally got an apathetic response when trying to discuss how the surplus should be used.


Making the senate responsible for the budget sounds appealing, as does ensuring that province size is held smaller. Also trying to make the provinces closer in production capability is a good idea. These ideas increase the chance that I'd be interested in being a governor.

An idea that I tossed out sometime in term 3 or 4 was the possibility of having the leader roles evolve as the game evolves.

For example, the relative importance of the Science Leader changes as the game progresses. The decisions of what to research and how much to spend on science are critical early, but as some have noted once we get to 4 or 5 turn research, there are few important choices left to be made.

Several people have suggested that the culture leader handle the cultural aspects of the forum in addition to those functions in the game. I'll also note that if we tried for a culture victory, then the CL would need to look at how early improvements and wonders can be built to achieve that victory type, while if we're going for another kind of victory the importance of that role diminishes.

That rambled a bit (baby interruptions :) ), so I'll toss something concrete in and see what happens.

The problem of balancing leader roles could be addressed by treating the 6 leaders as a council, with the President (or VP) holding a tie-breaking vote. Distribute the decision power for those items which span leader positions (science rate, science trades) by giving the council decision authority over those items.

quoting Ravensfire:
As donsig just said, the Constitution should lay out the general titles and roles of our elected officials. These roles should be stated in a general way, then detailed more in the CoL.
________________________________________________

I'm not really agreeing with this statement. I think the only real roles defined in the Con would be those implied by the Title. Again the Con is a doc that should remain vague by design and one that is open to interpretation on a lot of issues that are laid out in it. There is no need to write any job descriptions in the Con. That is what the CoL and the CoS are for.

I've just finished writing Chapter 3 of the DG1 game history, where donsig invoked the Presidential veto on a Constitutional amendment. He claimed that there was no way a regulation about TCI procedures went into the Con, it belonged in the CoS. I find his reversal kind of amusing.

We don't need that much detail in the Constitution donsig and Ravensfire. :wavey: Hi Ravensfire! We just need to list the Departments or those Department Leaders.

Now, Cyc, I haven't undergone any transformation. I still think the TCI procedures should be made by the president - at the president's *whim* to use someone else's term. If you're going to make judgements about my position then please use the definitions as I use them, not as you do. To me the CoS should be a set of procedures dictated by leaders, not a set uf rules made by citizens as you think they should be.

I am not striving for alot of detail in this article. But I do not think deciding the number of leaders we will have is much detail. In order for me to form an opinion of how many leaders we should have I need an idea of what each will be doing. If you want us to wait until we write the CoL to decide all that then let's just leave this article out.

Originally posted by donsig
Now, Cyc, I haven't undergone any transformation. I still think the TCI procedures should be made by the president - at the president's *whim* to use someone else's term. If you're going to make judgements about my position then please use the definitions as I use them, not as you do. To me the CoS should be a set of procedures dictated by leaders, not a set uf rules made by citizens as you think they should be.

I am not striving for alot of detail in this article. But I do not think deciding the number of leaders we will have is much detail. In order for me to form an opinion of how many leaders we should have I need an idea of what each will be doing. If you want us to wait until we write the CoL to decide all that then let's just leave this article out.

Hey donsig. I must insist that you have reversed your stance. I've just finished reviewing all the posts involved with the veto in DG1. You went to the extreme of invoking a Veto on a Constitutional amendment that was already approved by the citizens and had virtually passed a Council Vote approval because you felt the amendment was improper for the Con. You specifically requested (or demanded) that it be placed in the CoS as a procedure. You did not suggest that the procedures be left up to the President. If you are inferring that "whim" was a term I used, it was not in the context you use it in for the President. And I still believe the people should determine the procedures and laws of the nation by poll approval.

You're right about the number of Leaders not being much detail. We're all pretty much aware of the responsibilties of each of the 6 current Leaders, so determining the re-distribution of those responsibilities shouldn't be to difficult to figure out with a pen and paper if you know how many Leaders there will be. If you want to do it your way, donsig, work it out so that you take ALL of the duties necessary to move the game along and try to hone it down to as few Leaders as you can. That way we can have a short list of Leaders that determine most of what goes on in the game. That way, although it will be less Democratic and more burdensome to the elected officials, you can come up with the number of Leaders you desire. But you see, I already know what bases need to be covered and 6 Leaders seem to be the right number to cover those duties. It's more Democratic also. Plus more people get to experience the fun of being a Leader. But that's just me. I also thought we were trying to get this done by the end of the year, not bring up pointless questions and propose criss-crossing across this entire process to prove one's point. ;)

Bold items Originally posted by Cyc
Hey donsig. I must insist that you have reversed your stance. I've just finished reviewing all the posts involved with the veto in DG1. You went to the extreme of invoking a Veto on a Constitutional amendment that was already approved by the citizens and had virtually passed a Council Vote approval because you felt the amendment was improper for the Con. You specifically requested (or demanded) that it be placed in the CoS as a procedure. You did not suggest that the procedures be left up to the President. If you are inferring that "whim" was a term I used, it was not in the context you use it in for the President. And I still believe the people should determine the procedures and laws of the nation by poll approval.

Cyc, my friend, when I was talking about the CoS in DG1 I was talking about procedures that would be made solely by leaders. I was not talking about the proving ground that Shaitan turned the CoS into. IIRC, the technical reason I objected to the TCI amendment was that it called for the save to be attached to a post rather than uploaded to the server. I had hoped to use the technical reason to show the sillyness of putting TCI procedures in the constitution. (To change from attaching the save to uploading the save with a link would have required another amendment!) In other words the technical reason should have illustrated the general reason for the veto. The general reason was that there were some things of an administrative nature (like the TCI thread) that our elected leaders should have some control over. Use the CoL to make the instruction thread mandatory and define things like who can post there but for crying out loud let the leaders format the details! My position has not changed since DG1. Citizens do not have to be polled on every detail.

You're right about the number of Leaders not being much detail. We're all pretty much aware of the responsibilties of each of the 6 current Leaders, so determining the re-distribution of those responsibilities shouldn't be to difficult to figure out with a pen and paper if you know how many Leaders there will be. If you want to do it your way, donsig, work it out so that you take ALL of the duties necessary to move the game along and try to hone it down to as few Leaders as you can. That way we can have a short list of Leaders that determine most of what goes on in the game. That way, although it will be less Democratic and more burdensome to the elected officials, you can come up with the number of Leaders you desire. But you see, I already know what bases need to be covered and 6 Leaders seem to be the right number to cover those duties. It's more Democratic also. Plus more people get to experience the fun of being a Leader. But that's just me. I also thought we were trying to get this done by the end of the year, not bring up pointless questions and propose criss-crossing across this entire process to prove one's point. ;)

Yes, Cyc, I am aware of the resposibilites of the leaders as we have used them. I am also aware that domestic is too powerful, while culture has no power at all. I'm also aware that trade and science overlap. I asked you earlier how we could at least come up with some idea how we can keep six leaders, reduce conflicting spheres of influence, distribute the workload evenly and give all six leaders some tanglible duties and responsibilites but you never replied. You say you have the magic number of leaders but you avoid the tough questions that have been raised here. I see no point in electing impotent science and culture leaders. If the science leader is only going to post polls about the science queue I'm sure a real leader can find someone to do that well enough. We will not achieve greater democrary by having more leaders. We will achieve greater democracy through proper discussion and polling practices.

Unless you can come up with a means of fixing the ills of the six leader system we've been using I'm in favor of throwing the power of the purse (including the sliders) to the Senate / Governors (especially if we have mayors doing build queues), and having three leaders (domestic/culture, foreign/trade/science and military).

donsig, my friend, I do not want to argue with you anymore. I have read your explanation of your Veto addressed to the public and it does not coincide with your above statement. I also conversed with you at that time through PM's and by these conversations, I was brought into your motivations for invoking the Veto. I guess that about sums up my opinion of your last post.

As far as your next paragraphs, you seem to have gone to the great effort of deciding that 3 Leaders is what you wish to have. It's that simple. Why do we need to argue about this? You're done. Now you can move on and assign duties to your three Leaders. :) Of course it might be better to wait and make sure 3 Leaders is what wins the poll. Also you may not want to hold onto the idea of saying that we only need three Leaders because we're going to shovel a lot of work onto some phantom Leaders that will go unregulated. A bad idea.

I'm done arguing.

EDIT: Post 4300

It seems that we're stuck in the 6/3 leader idea. How about polling it and then continuing discussion considering only the winning option?

I have no strong feeling either way on 6 vs. 3. Unless 3 is the option, then I am certain I would prefer Military and FA seperate.

I think the Constitution merely has to define what jobs are required. The specific details of those job responsibilities should be in the CoL, especially if we are going to experiment with the idea of shifting responsibilities.

Originally posted by Cyc
donsig, my friend, I do not want to argue with you anymore. I have read your explanation of your Veto addressed to the public and it does not coincide with your above statement. I also conversed with you at that time through PM's and by these conversations, I was brought into your motivations for invoking the Veto. I guess that about sums up my opinion of your last post.

As far as your next paragraphs, you seem to have gone to the great effort of deciding that 3 Leaders is what you wish to have. It's that simple. Why do we need to argue about this? You're done. Now you can move on and assign duties to your three Leaders. :) Of course it might be better to wait and make sure 3 Leaders is what wins the poll. Also you may not want to hold onto the idea of saying that we only need three Leaders because we're going to shovel a lot of work onto some phantom Leaders that will go unregulated. A bad idea.

I'm done arguing.

EDIT: Post 4300

Veto address. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=308841#post308841) I'm glad you're done arguing Cyc because I re-read my veto message and I don't see how my earlier post in this thread contradicts what I said back in DG1.

As for making up my mind to go with three leaders instead of six I guess you are right since the concerns I have about having the old six leaders have not been addressed. Now the question is, do we have to wait and poll 3 versus 6 leaders before we can write this constitutional clause?

Originally posted by donsig
Now the question is, do we have to wait and poll 3 versus 6 leaders before we can write this constitutional clause?

I would suggest the following poll:

Article D of the Constitution defines in broad terms the offices of the Executive Branch. The discussion has reached a decision point on how this branch of Government should be structured. Therefore, it is requested that the People answer the following question: Shall the Executive Branch consist of a President and six leaders, the approach used in the previous games, or use an alternate structure to be determined in future discussion. Please note that the duties of each leader are NOT implied in this vote, only the general structure of the Executive Branch.

Usual poll stuff goes here.

As a another option, I would suggest gathering 5 or 6 (or more) options, then post a multi-choice poll. We would then return for more discussion on the top 3 choices for 2 or 3 days, then vote amongst those options.

Regretably, I think that any discussion on the Legislative Branch will be stalled until this issue is resolved as several of the proposals shift duties traditionally held by the Executive Branch to the Senate and require changes to that Branch.

-- Ravensfire

With regards to the idea of having the Senate control the purse strings - I really like that idea. It has been correctly pointed out that should we go with such an option, we will need to have at least three members of the Senate at all times.

To do this, I would propose that we immediately elect 1 Provincial Governor. They would control all cities built during that first term of office, assuming no new provinces were created. In addition, a new position, Governor-at-large, would be created.

We would elect either 1 or 2 Governors, enough to assume that, at the beginning of the term, there would be an odd number of Senate members. As new provinces were created, instead of mid-term elections, the at-large Governors would take over, using total votes to determine seniority.

Comments?

-- Ravensfire

In the 5 and a half days of discussion, we've seen only proposals for 3 Leaders serving the President and 6 Leaders serving the President, Ravensfire.

In your first suggested poll, you have 6 Leaders facing any change what so ever. Every change what so ever has not been brought up in this thread. That's pretty much impossible.

In your second suggested poll, you have six Leaders serving the President against 4 or 5 other choices. Again the people have not proposed 4 or 5 other choices.

These are very slanted polls in my opinion. As stated above, only 2 choices have been raised and discussed and only 3 should be on a poll for this issue. They are 3 or 6 Leaders, and abstain. Please refrain from making biased or lopsided polls.

I proposed something of the same when DG2 started, rather using the term senators-at-large (which, imho, makes a bit more sense, as they don't have governing powers).

If we are to give the Senate more responsibility (something I do honestly like), I'd like to see the VP set in charge of the Senate, to run it's daily affairs. Gives something for this office to do.

However, if donsig's Article A-C proposal does go through, I'd just call this whole discusion moot for the moment. It seems to me that we shouldn't bother to define the positions in the constitution, as I see those positions and their responsibilies as more fluid items that should change as the game progresses.

Originally posted by Cyc
In the 5 and a half days of discussion, we've seen only proposals for 3 Leaders serving the President and 6 Leaders serving the President, Ravensfire.

In your first suggested poll, you have 6 Leaders facing any change what so ever. Every change what so ever has not been brought up in this thread. That's pretty much impossible.

In your second suggested poll, you have six Leaders serving the President against 4 or 5 other choices. Again the people have not proposed 4 or 5 other choices.

These are very slanted polls in my opinion. As stated above, only 2 choices have been raised and discussed and only 3 should be on a poll for this issue. They are 3 or 6 Leaders, and abstain. Please refrain from making biased or lopsided polls.

Cyc,

To be accurate, it's just about anything other than biased. A 3 leader, 6 leader or abstain poll is quite biased against any other option. Rejecting it before anyone proposes it is folly. Please refrain from prior restraint of ideas.

My decision for the 6 or some other process is based upon the decision that has already been made to base things off of DG2, unless a change is decided upon.

Well, do people want to change the current Executive Branch or not? Let's poll that, and see if we need bother further with this discussion.

-- Ravensfire

My point remains basically the same Ravensfire. You want to include "whatever" in the poll. Whatever has not been discussed in this thread.

It has been 36 days since you first posted about putting together a DG4 Constitution. 36 DAYS. So for we are down to Article D and trying to figure out how many Leaders we should have in DG4.

Do what you want.

I think the poll should be 6 or 3.

Perhaps we need to decide the role of the Senate / governors here as well. I never liked the governor = senator idea for it mixes the executive and legislative branches. By giving governors the power of the purse and removing their legislative responsibilites we can include governors in the executive branch and cover them in this article.

Can we somehow combine the *governor-without-a-province / governor-in-wating / governor-at-large* idea with the *science and culture leaders are useless* idea? If we need three governors to start out let's have them be:

Governor #1 in charge of capital city
Governor #2 the science guru
Governor #3 the culture guru

With all three governors (as a group) controlling the treasury and the sliders.

Of course they would still be governors ultimately responsible for build queues but if we have mayors helping out the work load should be bearable.

If we decide we want to keep the traditional six leaders we should let culture handle wonder building and let science set the sliders. The power of the purse could remain with domestic or go to the governors - but which ever way we go the *power of the purse* should be spelled out in the constitution and not left for the code of laws.

I would propose a compromise to this debate, but I'm not going to, so don't read this post.

Instead of eliminating the Culture Advisor (which has been suggested in other posts), we should combine it with Domestic. The roles are compatible, if not redundant.

Also, there have been terms in recent DGs in which the Science Advisor basically does nothing but watch the Trade Leader acquire advance after advance. I remember numerous criticisms of the Science Leader for not having posted a discussion thread and related poll for a science queue over several terms. Why not combine those two offices as many of our trades will involve technologies (either outgoing or incoming).

Other than that, leave the others alone. FA can still direct all embassies and intelligence agency activities as well as oversee any and all alliances. Military can still control deployment and use of military forces.

Four advisors is a fair compromise between those people that feel that too many offices exist in the Executive branch and those that feel that three advisors is too few. My non-proposal is four advisors: Internal Affairs (formerly Domestic and Culture), Trade & Technology (formerly Trade and Science), Foreign Affairs, and Military.

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Also, this certainly belongs in another thread, so ignore this as well....

I would suggest a revamping of the Legislature. A fixed Senate of 3 senators oversees the allocation of funds and the passing of laws. The senate would have direct control over the distribution of national funds (ie. the sliders).

The second tier of the legislature would be made up of all the mayors in the nation. Mayors would be voted in by the local residents of each city except for the capitol and FP city which would be governed by the Internal Affairs advisor and his/her deputy respectively.

Thank you for not reading this and please do not interpret this as my desire to take part in this debate.

Originally posted by ravensfire
With regards to the idea of having the Senate control the purse strings - I really like that idea. It has been correctly pointed out that should we go with such an option, we will need to have at least three members of the Senate at all times.

To do this, I would propose that we immediately elect 1 Provincial Governor. They would control all cities built during that first term of office, assuming no new provinces were created. In addition, a new position, Governor-at-large, would be created.

We would elect either 1 or 2 Governors, enough to assume that, at the beginning of the term, there would be an odd number of Senate members. As new provinces were created, instead of mid-term elections, the at-large Governors would take over, using total votes to determine seniority.

Comments?

-- Ravensfire

Hmm, I would like this idea. :). At least the Senator-at-Large can be resurected into a govenor :).

@Ravensfire - Please respond to my apology PM. I am terribly sorry for my actions in the MSDG :(.

Originally posted by Cyc
My point remains basically the same Ravensfire. You want to include "whatever" in the poll. Whatever has not been discussed in this thread.

It has been 36 days since you first posted about putting together a DG4 Constitution. 36 DAYS. So for we are down to Article D and trying to figure out how many Leaders we should have in DG4.

Do what you want.

As with you, my point remains the same. You want to remove any discussion of ideas that might be produced in the future.

Your timeline comment is interesting. As should be obvious, it was decided to take a different approach to creating our ruleset than I proposed. This decision was to base it on DG2, making changes from that. Due to that, and to a massive time crunch, I've pretty much backed off, especially with DZ keeping an eye on things.

As you so eloquently put it, we are down to Article D, and getting into one of the most important sections - our leadership structure. We've recently brought what will be Article E into this - the Legislature. We've had a variety of proposals, and the concepts keep changing.

Yet you would silence anyone who just might possible think outside the current proposals. Fine. Go ahead, do as you wish. Poll the 6 or 3 or abstain. At this point, I want to know if the People wish to change the current system or not. I know my preference, but do you know the general preference?

-- Ravensfire

Just some more food for thought....FortyJ proposed that we fold the Culture and Science Depts into Domestic and Trade. If we choose to get rid of those 2 offices, we could fold those into the President's office or give those responsibilities to the Senate.

Here's another idea.

Why should we continue to think as the departments lead by singular leaders? In real life, this responsibility is divided up among groups of people.

So, why not elect a small council to fill the duties of a smaller number of departments? The highest vote-getter in an election would head the committee, with the next few vote getters following his lead. This little council would share the responsibilities of the department.

I envision three councils, each consisting of three people. The three departments these three councils would run would be the Domestic Department (an amalgamate of domestic, science, and culture), the Foreign Affairs Department (an amalgam of FA and Trade), and the Defense Department (consisting of miliatary).

Just a thought...

Octavian X - With your scenario we would go from 6 elected positions to 9. I would be afraid that we would not have enough participants to be able to do this.

Now we seem to finally getting to the core of this issue: do we want to increase or decrease the number of elected positions in the demogame?

Current numbers:

Executive Branch: 14 people (Pres, VP, 6 advisors and their deputies)

Legislature: 0-20 (governors and deputies - depending on the number of provinces)

Judiciary: 3 people

If we assume a maximum number of governors of 7, then we currently need 31 people to fill all the positions available with no duplication of offices. Removing deputies (which can also serve in other offices), we would still need a minimum of 18 people to fill the leadership positions. And then there's the mayors of the cities....

Simply reducing the executive council to 4 people would reduce this participation requirement to 27 (minimum of 16). Replacing the governors with a fixed senate of 3 members reduces the participation requirement drastically - 16 people (minimum of 12).

Mayors will still present a problem due to the large number of cities we will inevitably control. To solve this, we would need to allow mayors to hold other offices (and possibly even govern multiple cities).

Placing mayors in the legislature might encourage participation in this important office as well. Citizens that wish to participate in the demogame but are shunned from the recent elections will still be able to participate in various levels of the government as mayors (by controlling production and improvements within their city of choice and by serving on the legislature writing important legislation for our nation).

Originally posted by zorven
Octavian X - With your scenario we would go from 6 elected positions to 9. I would be afraid that we would not have enough participants to be able to do this.

Not necesairily. For one, as I had planned it, they'd have no deputies. Secondly, as I also saw it, the head of the council (or President) would be able to remove deadbeats after a relatively short period of unannouced activity. Shorter allowable periods of inactivity would allow for a more effective leadership. Third, three would be set as a maximum number for that council. If not enough people were elected, that department could still function without a few council, even if the responsibilities are temporarily concentrated on one person.

@FortyJ: I'm still not sure where governors / senators fit. I'm inclined to view them as executive with the legislature being comprised of the citizens. I don't like the idea of governors / senators having to ratify laws.

That said, the point about the number of elected officials is great. I'm a big proponent of giving mayors the power of their city's build queue, and a believer in elections but think local elections should be held for mayors. Mayors should be allowed to *rule* only one city but there is no reason a mayor cannot also hold a national office as well.

I also suggest that citizens be allowed to hold one - and only one - national level office. I also suggest citizens be allowed to run for only one national level office at a time.

We could do away with the VP job if we use the Chain of Command. We could further reduce the number of participants needed at first but not having deputy governors. If we are to have 3 governors to begin with - when we have only one province or provinces with only one or two cities - can we not work something out so that they can back each other up?

So, are we any closer to making any decisions on this article?

For the purposes of this discussion, I would suggest tabling the entire issue of deupties, including the VP, and push that off to a later, seperate discussion. Same with the CoC stuff.

We've now got a variety of proposals, can we draw a conclusion from this that there is general support for a change in the structure of Article D?

-- Ravensfire

Originally posted by donsig
@FortyJ: I'm still not sure where governors / senators fit. I'm inclined to view them as executive with the legislature being comprised of the citizens. I don't like the idea of governors / senators having to ratify laws.I would do away with governors altogether. Put the senators in charge of the allocation of funds, and let the mayors run their cities. Any ungoverned cities would fall under the jurisdiction of the Internal Affairs Advisor and his/her deputy.

That said, the point about the number of elected officials is great. I'm a big proponent of giving mayors the power of their city's build queue, and a believer in elections but think local elections should be held for mayors. Mayors should be allowed to *rule* only one city but there is no reason a mayor cannot also hold a national office as well.

I also suggest that citizens be allowed to hold one - and only one - national level office. I also suggest citizens be allowed to run for only one national level office at a time.I have no problem with this.

We could do away with the VP job if we use the Chain of Command. We could further reduce the number of participants needed at first but not having deputy governors. If we are to have 3 governors to begin with - when we have only one province or provinces with only one or two cities - can we not work something out so that they can back each other up?If we do away with governors, then there will be no need for deputies either. With a fixed senate in charge of the budget, confirmation votes, and legislation, and with mayors in charge of build queues, the role of governors becomes somewhat redundant - not to mention the elimination of provincial borders makes the cartographers job that much easier. ;)

So, are we any closer to making any decisions on this article? God, I hope so.

I am against the idea of having citizens running for only one office. This is exactly like in Demogame 1 where a citizen can only run for one office weather or not he was an incubant Leader. I am also against the Idea of removing the Vice President's Office.

I like this approach:

3 initial governors, with the number to grow as new provinces are created. Governors would be responsible for the sliders and budget allocations. The governor of a province is responsible for any build queue in a city without a mayor.

Mayors, with local elections, control the build queues of their own cities. Some sort of override for national emergencies would be necessary.

The VP position is eliminated. The exec branch is President/DP, Foreign Affairs, Military, Domestic (include Culture), and Science/Trade.

Based on initial numbers, the Exec, Legislature, and Judiciary would be relatively equal in numbers and voices. it will not stay that way obviously, but by the time we reach four provinces, the key decisions in the game have been made.

Darn it, Bill. I was hopin' we could reach the three day mark without any replies. :D j/k

I like this plan.

As far as the local elections for mayors go, wouldn't it be easy for someone to proclaim citizenship of a city and immediately declare themself mayor before anybody else could move in? I would favor a system where the governor appoints mayors with citizen approval, and is obligated to ask for applicants for mayorships.

Originally posted by Bill_in_PDX
The VP position is eliminated.

I am totaly Against Removing the VP. I would like to see the VP possition to remain as it is, untouched.

I agree with CG, the VP should stay, in fact, I would like to see more power added to that position, to give it somewhat more importance.

Originally posted by Bootstoots
As far as the local elections for mayors go, wouldn't it be easy for someone to proclaim citizenship of a city and immediately declare themself mayor before anybody else could move in? I would favor a system where the governor appoints mayors with citizen approval, and is obligated to ask for applicants for mayorships. If we are going to allow mayors to govern their own cities, then I strongly disagree with the idea of allowing governors to appoint mayors. There is no incentive for the governors to appoint them expeditiously.

Besides, allowing citizens to "move" to a new town in the hopes of governing that city should result in a dramatic increase in participation across the board. It could be quite possible for everyone to be directly involved in the course of the game.

Finally, your concern about immediate declarations can easily be solved by mandating a 48 hour waiting period between the time the town is established/captured and the time that local elections can be held.

I think some more suitable system of mayoral election can be made. A new citizen moves to a town, the first one there. He must call for town mayor elections, which occur 48 hours after the initial annocement. This gives some time for people to move in and try to run. New elections for mayor could be called again in, say, 2 weeks. There would no set term for a mayor, who's term would only end when a citizen calls for mayoral elections.

As for the VP, I'd be in favor of making that positon it's own independently elected position. Give him Presidential back-up powers, as well as allowing him to preside over the Senate. We would need someone to break ties and to organize the Senate, anyway.

Originally posted by Octavian X
As for the VP, I'd be in favor of making that positon it's own independently elected position. Give him Presidential back-up powers, as well as allowing him to preside over the Senate. We would need someone to break ties and to organize the Senate, anyway.

I am willing to accept this as a compremise to keep the Vice President possition.

No offense to Octavian and CG, but this is a terrible idea for the demogame.

Essentially, the role of the VP would be to serve as a backup for the President. Who better to hold that spot than the person receiving the 2nd most votes in the Presidential Election? This proposal would instead annoint someone to this spot that didn't even want to run for President in the first place.

In fact, the only reason for allowing the VP to run in a separate election is to accommodate a running-mate type election with a pair of individuals running for Pres and VP as a team. I doubt that I need to remind anyone here what the general consensus is on that idea.

I say No to this idea. I do prefer that we have a VP for the purpose of continuity and backup for the Pres (in case of absence), but let the runner-up in the Presidential Election hold this office.

EDIT: I have been reminded that the VP is rather redundant due to the Chain of Command. However, I would suggest that requiring an Executive Council Member to not only fulfill his/her duties, but to also fill in for the President in the event of absence or for some other reason may be too much to handle. Another concern may be that it would be too much power for a single individual to wield.

The VP may not be needed often, but if the President must retire in mid term or take a leave from the forums for a brief period of time, it may prove quite useful to have a VP that can step in and do the job without sacrificing the responsibilities of the office to which he/she was elected.

I agree with 40J, partly. He's hit the nail on the head about letting the runner-up in the Presidential Election hold the office of VP. That is IF we are forced to have a VP. Personally, I don't believe we need one, but it would reward a Presidential Candidate that just missed being President with a title. The Chain of Command would take care of any Presidential absence. The Domestic Leader could step up and take over the DP duties un til the President returns or until the end of the Term. If the Domestic Leader (DL) didn't have time to do this, he could either transfer authority to a back-up DP or it could fall to the next person on the COC. I don't think the burden would be that great.

But I definitely can't see a reason to have a separate election for a VP. If you don't want to be President and run in the Presidential race, then you don't want to be VP either. You would just be taking up space.

As far as elections of Mayors, I would rather see that than the appointment of Mayors. Although up to this point I was fully for Governors appointing Mayors, this game is changing, so this rule should also. The appointment process would cause problems, I believe. The incentive of winning local elections for Mayors will increase movement and participation, as 40J said.

I'm not sure I like the idea of doing away with Governors and letting the Mayors handle the city build queues. With that the build queues would not be grouped by Province. Towards the end of the game, we'd have 50 some posts for build queues and this would be too much pre-turn work for the President/DP. Grouping BQ's in Province posts is much better.

Overall, I still say Bill has a well rounded plan or approach to the situation. I have abandoned my stance for 6 Leaders, as it appears the people want change. But let's not spend a lot of time here, we need to move on.

Originally posted by Cyc
I'm not sure I like the idea of doing away with Governors and letting the Mayors handle the city build queues. With that the build queues would not be grouped by Province. Towards the end of the game, we'd have 50 some posts for build queues and this would be too much pre-turn work for the President/DP. Grouping BQ's in Province posts is much better.You've come across my only concern with mayorial control of build queues. However, if we're going to retain provincial governors, then we could have the mayors submit their queues to the governors and let the governors post the summary for their respective provinces in the instruction thread. Any city whose mayor fails to submit instructions to the governor may have its build queue overridden by the governor.

A good mayor would theoretically post a full queue for his/her town - not just "City A builds unit X". Posting a list of production items for up to 20 turns into the future should allow a mayor to submit changes to the queue as needed with sufficient time for the governors to collect and summarize the instructions for the official instruction thread.

But let's not spend a lot of time here, we need to move on. :confused:
I don't get it. You mean there's more to discuss? ;)

I'm going to come out against the idea of a local mayor having absolute control over the build queue of a city.

Assuming we have local elections, a good mayor, by definition, must be concerned with their city first, the province second, the country third. As a local voter, I will always vote for a mayor that looks out for my city first, the country second. After all, the President and Senate are supposed to look after the country, right?

Many times, cities must be managed for the good of the province/country. An example are the many fishing villages that are developed. In DG3 we have several such cities that grew so large they were taking land away from larger, more productive cities.

I'm also extremely concerned about workers and worker actions. During my term as President, the only part of the game I dreaded was the chaos of handling demands from Governors. I had the Governors list their top three request, now I have to deal with requests from Mayors?

Staying with the instructions, Cyc is correct that from about the mid-point on, it takes a fair amount of time for the DP to compile all the listed instructions from just the Governors. Several times there were no instructions posted from a Governor. More often, a Governor was able to step in and post instructions for a mayor that didn't do their job. At least if an entire province is missing, the cities are grouped together, making the management easier.

Bouncing around a bit, I really like the idea of 1 city, 1 mayor for the entire game. Remove them for cause, but let them run the city otherwise. I just can't see local elections working well, barring a game variant. We have 20-30 active citizens, figure 2-3 people per city except for older cities. No, let the governor appoint a mayor, not an election.

Local elections also introduces more issues - how often to elect? Same election cycle? Secret ballot, or public? If it's secret, how to restrict? If it's public, why only for local, not for national?

There are more reasons, but I've run out of time for now. Please, keep mayors the way they are. The current system works, and works well, let's keep it that way.

-- Ravensfire

Some random thoughts:

1) Governors can still control land use within a province. If the fishing villages are using land that should be used by more productive cities then let the governor adjust the use of land.

2) Local elections would require a census. We could appoint a census officer (who wouldn't mind doing some work). We could set a monthly census time for the purposes of establishing residency. Say the 10th of the month. The census officer compiles the official list of where everyone lives on the specified date. That is what is used for local elections. Why not have mayors elected for one month as well? We could have local elections on the 15 of the month. Let the governors *be in charge* of local elections. Make them open where each citizen that wants to vote for mayor has to post their vote. BTW, I would do this for national elections as well for it would eliminate any taint of suggested election fraud.

3) Workers have been a problem throughout the demogames. If we're not comfortable with letting the president handle the workers then we need a way 1) divvying up the workers and 2) getting legal worker instructions posted. I thought individual units could be named in PTW and such a devise would enable workers to be tagged which might help keep them grouped by province or city. of course using PTW was nixed once again...

Originally posted by ravensfire
Bouncing around a bit, I really like the idea of 1 city, 1 mayor for the entire game. Remove them for cause, but let them run the city otherwise.Err... no offense, but if they have control over neither the build queue nor the land development, then what exactly are they responsible for while "running" their cities?

Mayors are a novelty to the game in their current fashion. If we desire to keep them that way, so be it. But I still don't see why we can't let the mayors run their cities, report their instructions to the Governors, and let the governors report those instructions to the DP in the official thread. It would be like a government within a government - beautifully decentralized - a democratic utopia.

Local elections also introduces more issues - how often to elect? Same election cycle? Secret ballot, or public? If it's secret, how to restrict? If it's public, why only for local, not for national?I would let them hold office indefinitely, or until somebody called for a new election. Especially if they are held locally. To keep this simple, the mayor could be responsible for posting a link to the Census Office in the first post of his thread, or even listing the citizens in his/her city. Elections could even be held within the City Thread.

Originally posted by FortyJ
Err... no offense, but if they have control over neither the build queue nor the land development, then what exactly are they responsible for while "running" their cities?

Mayors are a novelty to the game in their current fashion. If we desire to keep them that way, so be it. But I still don't see why we can't let the mayors run their cities, report their instructions to the Governors, and let the governors report those instructions to the DP in the official thread. It would be like a government within a government - beautifully decentralized - a democratic utopia.
City Thread.

Actually, yes - I do want to keep them as they were in DG3 - advisors. Governors should be elected to run the province. To me, that means land allocation, worker requests and build queues. A good mayor is invaluable in assisting a Governor, but the ultimate authority should always lie with the Gov. We have centalized responsibility with localized advice.

If there is a concern within a province, the citizens know where to go. If a leader has a specific request (more workers / settlers / troops), they only need to post in the Provincial threads to make the Governors aware of the request.

The entire local election idea is a hopeless pipe dream, ripe for abuse. How many citizens do most of our cities have - one. The mayor. Yes - a true democracy! One citizen - one vote!

So in a vain attempt to bring this back to the so-called topic, where, oh where, is this discussion going? How many different options for our government structure do we have now? Where is this runaway process going? Is there a desire amongst the citizens of our country to change the structure of the government? If so, how radical of a change?

-- Ravensfire

Ravensfire, our cities never get any citizens to move there because there has never been any reason to do so. Give mayors some power, have them elected locally and citizens will move about the country. It would add another dimension to the game and give more people reason to participate. Let's try it and see. If it's a pipe dream then we'll know soon enough and can drop it.

As for where the discussion is going, well, it's going no where. What's the point in this discussion? We seem to have come to agreement on preamble through C but there are those who do not want to finalize any decision. If we're not goping to make decisions why discuss them?

Originally posted by ravensfire


Actually, yes - I do want to keep them as they were in DG3 - advisors. Governors should be elected to run the province. To me, that means land allocation, worker requests and build queues. A good mayor is invaluable in assisting a Governor, but the ultimate authority should always lie with the Gov. We have centalized responsibility with localized advice.

If there is a concern within a province, the citizens know where to go. If a leader has a specific request (more workers / settlers / troops), they only need to post in the Provincial threads to make the Governors aware of the request.

The entire local election idea is a hopeless pipe dream, ripe for abuse. How many citizens do most of our cities have - one. The mayor. Yes - a true democracy! One citizen - one vote!

So in a vain attempt to bring this back to the so-called topic, where, oh where, is this discussion going? How many different options for our government structure do we have now? Where is this runaway process going? Is there a desire amongst the citizens of our country to change the structure of the government? If so, how radical of a change?

-- Ravensfire

Heheh. Now you're starting to sound like me. Ravensfire. Mere moments ago you were telling me how you wanted to radically change the structure of the government, just to have a change. :crazyeye: Me thinks you have reversed your stance be cause someone has proposed something you don't agree with. ;)

Originally posted by Cyc


Heheh. Now you're starting to sound like me. Ravensfire. Mere moments ago you were telling me how you wanted to radically change the structure of the government, just to have a change. :crazyeye: Me thinks you have reversed your stance be cause someone has proposed something you don't agree with. ;)

Nah, just want to get the process going. I've got a slightly different idea of the route, but we both want to get to DG4!

I guess you are right though, some ideas are a bit too radical for me. I talk the radical, but walk the moderate! Just don't start telling me to listen to Rush* - I'm not that drugged up! :D

-- Ravensfire

* The guy from Missourah, not the trio from up north! And yes, the spelling is intentional - that's just about how they pronounce it in Cape.

quoting Ravensfire:
* The guy from Missourah, not the trio from up north! And yes, the spelling is intentional - that's just about how they pronounce it in Cape.

You mean Limbaugh wears a cape now? Man, that guy is on good drugs... :D

I would like to formally propose that we drop this article from the constitution.

Originally posted by donsig
I would like to formally propose that we drop this article from the constitution.

We really didn't need another wrench thrown into the gears from out of the blue, but I suppose you've now introduced another proposed alternative for us all to consider.

It's not out of the blue Cyc. I suggested it earlier in this thread. We should either make a decision about this we can live with or decide to decide later and completely drop it for now so we can move on.

Originally posted by donsig
I would like to formally propose that we drop this article from the constitution.


Sounds good to me! Who needs the executive branch anyway?


-- Ravensfire

Well, if we could ever agree to nail down article C we'd have an executive branch. Article D is not about *will we have an executive branch* it is about *the form the executive branch will take*.

I still don't see the need for a VP, and if we give them more power, it comes at the expense of another office, or the Presidency itself, both of which are bad ideas, IMHO. But, again, as a predetermined backup, I think it has some value I suppose.

I think mayors, with a citizenship requirement along the lines donsig outlined is a good way to spur participation, and if a mayor or two is going against the desires of the President, then good for them. It become incumbent on each group to discuss their reasoning and compromise. Either way, it keeps the forums moving with discussion about the game.

Originally posted by Bill_in_PDX
I still don't see the need for a VP

I personaly beleve that there is a need for a Vice President. What if the President cant make it to the desginated Scedualed Turn Chat and the Vice President is present. The Vice President can take over for the President while the President is away (IE away due to RL Obligations).
During the time that the President is still present in the forums. The Vice President can be used as the persion incharge of the senate and can cast a tie breaking vote in the senate section.
In conclusion, I beleve that the Vice President is the most esential part of the Demogame since it gives the persion who is an aspiering president to get a chance to play the save and to get the real feel of DPing.

I am happy to go along with the VP thing, it isn't that big a deal to me. I just point out that all of those things you ascribe to the VP, can in fact be done by a Chain of Command in the executive branch.

The VP is a "what if" type position. Perhaps we need that in reserve, but most VP's never end up doing anything, compared to say, a domestic leader, or military leader.

Originally posted by Bill_in_PDX
I still don't see the need for a VP,

So let us ask ourselves, what is the VP?

DG3 doesn't even mention the VP - it was a carry-over from previous games.

DG2 mentions the VP - "The Vice President assumes all powers and responsibilities of the Presidency during the absence of the President."

Basically, the VP is the only deputy with a title other than, well, deputy. That's a good way to keep it - a deputy. I don't see any need to expand the role of this, or any other deputy in a body of law. If the elected official wants to delegate duties to their deputy - that's fine with me. But let's leave that up to the official.

-- Ravensfire

You pretty much summarized my feelings on the role of the VP perfectly, ravensfire. He/she is essentially the Presidential Deputy.

My concern with removal of this position is not centered on the turn chats or the playing of the game, but rather the time between turns. If the President is unable to fulfill his/her obligations between turns, it would be better for the VP to take on that responsibility instead of delegating it to any member of the Executive council who is already burdened with the responsibilities of his/her office.

Originally posted by ravensfire

Actually, yes - I do want to keep them as they were in DG3 - advisors. Governors should be elected to run the province. To me, that means land allocation, worker requests and build queues. A good mayor is invaluable in assisting a Governor, but the ultimate authority should always lie with the Gov. We have centalized responsibility with localized advice.

I agree here also. Governors are the grass roots contact for the President to the nation. Mayors are the grass roots contact for the Governors. Governors should be responsible for posting the t/c Instructions, but they should take into consideration any instructions (or requests ;) ) from their Mayors. Just as it would be wise for Mayors to forward the requests of the cities citizens, it would also be wise for Governors to forward the requests of the Mayors. Irritating the people below you in the food chain is not a good campaign strategy. ~ As a side note, this is the same way I see the DP in the t/c. Ultimate authority goes to the DP with the Council/Citizens as Advisors. :)


The entire local election idea is a hopeless pipe dream, ripe for abuse. How many citizens do most of our cities have - one. The mayor. Yes - a true democracy! One citizen - one vote!

-- Ravensfire [/B]

I disagree here. The local election deal is good in my opinion. I even included this idea in the RPG proposal I made. I see nothing wrong with someone moving to an empty city and delaring themselves Mayor. If a group of Citizens wanted to move to a town and put their Mayor in, they could do so. I just don't see a problem here.

DG2 mentions the VP - "The Vice President assumes all powers and responsibilities of the Presidency during the absence of the President."

Basically, the VP is the only deputy with a title other than, well, deputy. That's a good way to keep it - a deputy. I don't see any need to expand the role of this, or any other deputy in a body of law. If the elected official wants to delegate duties to their deputy - that's fine with me. But let's leave that up to the official

If we are going to keep the VP, I agree with this definition of the position.

Does anyone care to summarize the proposals so we can create a poll?

Unless someone gets to it earlier than tonight, I'll have them up. For the day before thanksgiving, I've had way too much to do at work. You are correct, we do need one. I think we're getting close to 10 distinct proposals, based around 3 or 4 different structures (number and type of leaders)

Grrr, need to remind testers that not everything is a defect. If the screen goes blank in 15 minutes, it might, MIGHT be a screensaver, not a defect in a web application.

-- Ravensfire

There's been three different discussions in one thread. To summarize proposals...

Executive Branch Structure - copied and pasted
1. The Council of Ministers shall be composed of the heads of the three primary departments: Internal Affairs, Trade and Technology, and Foreign Affairs.

2.
Minister of the Interior: Domestic
Dept. of Defense: Military
State Dept: Foreign Affairs, Trade, Science

3. Keep current structure

4. I envision three councils, each consisting of three people. The three departments these three councils would run would be the Domestic Department (an amalgamate of domestic, science, and culture), the Foreign Affairs Department (an amalgam of FA and Trade), and the Defense Department (consisting of miliatary).

5. Four leaders - Domestic, Foreign, Military, Trade (Just added this one as an afterthought)

Powers of the purse

- To the Senate
- To Domestuc

City control
- All to Mayors
- All to Governors
- Divided up

After all this, and even advocating some change myself, I'm about ready to sorta give up and say it's not broke so don't fix it.

Originally posted by Cyc
This is the first of the big three Articles dealing with the Branches of Government in the next Constitution. Article D deals with the Executive Branch. Discussing the Executive Branch and any future changes is the purpose of this thread.Good to know. More on this, later in the post.

Article E is for the Legislative Branch and Article F is for the Judicial Branch. Discussions on these branches can be found in other threads.Ok, I apologize for proposing my legislature ideas earlier in this thread, and I seriously suggest we table all discussion on these issues until Article D is resolved and a new thread is opened specifically for these purposes.

Article D from the DG2 Constitution reads as follows:

D. The Executive Branch is headed by the President, who shall be the designated player of the game, and shall include a council of leaders, each of whom heads a department that is responsible for one major facet of the country. These departments are domestic, Foreign, Military, Science, Culture and Trade. Each of these departments will be generally responsible for the items found under the respective Advisor in the Civilization III game and esoteric aspects that fall under their department name.Basically, it seems that we have a few proposals that specifically relate to this subject:
Status Quo - President, VP, six council members (and deputies) in charge of each of the six departments (Domestic, Trade, Military, Foreign Affairs, Culture, & Science).
Council of Three - President, VP, three council members (and deputies): Internal Affairs (Domestic, Culture), Foreign Affairs (Foreign Affairs & Military), and Trade & Technology.
Council of Four - President, VP, four council members (and deputies): Internal Affairs (Domestic, Culture), Foreign Affairs, Military, and Trade & Technology.
Parliament - single election with highest vote-getter becoming President and the various offices are divided amongst the various runners-up.
Councils Cubed - President, VP and three councils of three members each: Domestic Dept (Domestic, Science & Cuture), Foreign Affairs Dept (Foreign Affairs & Trade) and Defense Dept (Military).

I think that about covers it. I believe these five options represent the most legitimate proposals to date for Article D. If I have missed any, I apologize and please post them below.

Otherwise, I again call for the question. Let us poll these options now and be done with this so we can move on to the next sections.

Note: anyone concerned about what each branch is responsible for (ie. slider control, etc.) should remember that this article deals solely with the structure of the executive branch - not necessarily what each office is responsible for.

OK, I like the structure of ForyJ's summary. It deals solely with the structure of The Executive Branch. I believe that is the main purpose of this thread. Each proposed option basically defines the Offices of the Branch. Customary duties and responsibilities associated with each Office can be assumed with the Office option definitions posted by FortyJ. Additional dutites and responsibilities can be defined in the Code of Laws or the Code of Standards.

I will post a poll about 6 hours from now unless we get a rash of posts indicating a need for a change or whatever. The poll will look like this:

Please choose one of the options listed below to be the basic structure of the Executive Branch as defined in Article D of the Demogame 4 Constitution ~

Status Quo - President, VP, six council members (and deputies) in charge of each of the six departments (Domestic, Trade, Military, Foreign Affairs, Culture, & Science).

Council of Three - President, VP, three council members (and deputies): Internal Affairs (Domestic, Culture), Foreign Affairs (Foreign Affairs & Military), and Trade & Technology.

Council of Four - President, VP, four council members (and deputies): Internal Affairs (Domestic, Culture), Foreign Affairs, Military, and Trade & Technology.

Parliament - single election with highest vote-getter becoming President and the various offices are divided amongst the various runners-up.

Councils Cubed - President, VP and three councils of three members each: Domestic Dept (Domestic, Science & Cuture), Foreign Affairs Dept (Foreign Affairs & Trade) and Defense Dept (Military).

This poll will remain open for 7 days.
Disussion can be found here.
Blah, blah, blah...

Good: Poll! We're quite late if we still plan to begin on January 1st. We still have half the constitution not even talked about and there's the CoL and the CoC after that.

I propose to blitz trough the remainder of the constitution and then overview the CoL (as it may well be long).

Originally posted by Fier Canadien
Good: Poll! We're quite late if we still plan to begin on January 1st. We still have half the constitution not even talked about and there's the CoL and the CoC after that.

I propose to blitz trough the remainder of the constitution and then overview the CoL (as it may well be long).

More than just that, start multiple discussions. We need to start the thread on Article E, Legislature. I'd like to use the Reforming the Judiciary as the Article F thread.

We can also start threads on the CoL/CoS parts for Articles A and B. Once the polls for each article close, a new thread should go up for the CoL/CoS sections that might be needed.

-- Ravensfire

ps - good summary and poll!

Please vote in the Poll for this thread! (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?threadid=70259)

This may just be a preliminary Poll, let's see what the results are.

People, let's not forget to vote in this poll. Right now we have 14 votes! If you haven't voted, please click here. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?threadid=70259)

Whenever we do get around to writing this article, I believe it would make sense to attach something more to it. The purpose of it would be to define the executive positons as 'leader' positions, or something like that. More specifically, such a change would be impleamented to put a concrete block between the idea of a leader and his deputy. Rather than a seperate article altogether, Article D seems a sensible enough place to do this.

The poll (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=70259) is closed and the winner is:

Council of Four - President, VP, four council members (and deputies): Internal Affairs (Domestic, Culture), Foreign Affairs, Military, and Trade & Technology.

Now we need to come up with the wording for this Article and poll it. If you have a specific proposal for the wording, please clearly mark it as such such we can easily track them.

Bumping this thread.

I am pressed for time this morning, so please read zorven's post above and start the wording of this article. It should hopefully be as simple as renaming the old set of leaders with the new.

For reference, here is the current wording of Article D:

D. The Executive Branch is headed by the President, who shall be the designated player of
the game, and shall include a council of leaders, each of whom heads a department that
is responsible for one major facet of the country. These departments are Domestic,
Foreign, Military, Science, Culture and Trade. Each of these departments will be
generally responsible for the items found under the respective Advisor in the Civilization
III game and esoteric aspects that fall under their department name.

Originally posted by zorven
The poll (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=70259) is closed and the winner is:

Council of Four - President, VP, four council members (and deputies): Internal Affairs (Domestic, Culture), Foreign Affairs, Military, and Trade & Technology.

Now we need to come up with the wording for this Article and poll it. If you have a specific proposal for the wording, please clearly mark it as such such we can easily track them.

D. The Executive branch is responsible for determining and implimenting the will of the People. It is headed by the President who shall be the primary Designated Player. The President shall be advised by a council of 4 leaders and by the Provincial Governors.
I. The Minister of Internal Affairs shall be responsible for Domestic and Cultural activites.
II. The Minister of Foreign Affairs shall be responsible for matters with Foreign nations, excepting trades of any nature.
III. The Minister of Defense shall be responsible for all Military troop activities.
IV. The Minister of Trade and Technology shall be responsible for all Trade and Technology activities.
V. The Provincial Govenors shall be responsible for the care and maintenance of the land and cities within their Province.


As usual, details to be fleshed out in the CoL.

-- Ravensfire

I say this looks ok, but as I also see nothing wrong with the original wording of Article E, I believe we should take subsection V. out of ravensfire's proposal. Governors can still be deemed Leaders without being in the Executive Branch. :crazyeyes: Funny, I don't remember Governors even being in the poll options. Oh, no! donsigism is spreading...

it sounds good to me, also easy to figure out.

Cyc: do you propose to keep Governors in the Legislature or to be part of no branch?

Cyc and zorven,

In all actuality, the discussion about the place of Governors really hadn't started when the poll was posted, we didn't even think about it as an option. The core of that poll, however, is that the Council should have 4 members, and that is within my proposal.

We need to settle where we're putting the Governors, and soon. How about a poll, running for 3 days, with two options - Executive and Legislature. Based on the results of the poll, we put the Governors in that branch and proceed from there.

-- Ravensfire

Ravensfire,

Your suggested poll is probably a good idea. I think that needs to be decided before we can finish either Articles D and E.

Right!:rolleyes: What crap are going to do next. A poll was run to determine the structure of Article D. It ran for 7 days. Now that it has concluded, you people want to ignore the results and add another option. Tell you what...after we debate this for a couple of freakin' weeks and run another week long poll, let's hold up discussion on the wording of D (including Governors) so we can discuss whether we wnat deputies to be included in D. Then maybe we can change that and think of someone else to put in the Executive Branch, HEY! Maybe we could put the citizens in there too! Why don't we discuss that? we could tie this thing up untill summer!:mad: :vomit:

I came back to help work on these Articles because when I left, the threads died. Now I'm sorry I came back.

I think governors should be included in this article. It makes sense and causes no harm whatever.

I'm not sure I like the term *advises*. Could lead to some unexpectedly interesting judicial reviews...

Poll will go up tonight on which branch of Government to place the Governors. Poll will run for 3 days.

OTHER THAN THAT SINGLE ISSUE ...

Does anyone object to the wording:
D. The Executive branch is responsible for determining and implimenting the will of the People. It is headed by the President who shall be the primary Designated Player. The President shall be advised by a council of 4 leaders and by the Provincial Governors.
I. The Minister of Internal Affairs shall be responsible for Domestic and Cultural activites.
II. The Minister of Foreign Affairs shall be responsible for matters with Foreign nations, excepting trades of any nature.
III. The Minister of Defense shall be responsible for all Military troop activities.
IV. The Minister of Trade and Technology shall be responsible for all Trade and Technology activities.


Based on poll:
V. V. The Provincial Govenors shall be responsible for the care and maintenance of the land and cities within their Province.


@donsig, I had to think about this a bit. Barring a Court that goes fairly wild and completely ignores the intent of the authors (surprisingly, nobody has brought that up in a JR that I am aware of ...), the Will of the People clause and (hopefully) the CoL that details what the leaders to and what is a Legal Instruction, we should be okay. Actually, after thinking about it, I am not concerned. Reasoning: DP must follow Legal Instructions. Only leader (or deputy) may post instructions for area. The phrase says the Council may advise the President, not the DP. The DP is a role seperate from any position and has it's own set of restrictions. It's all about parsing a sentance very, very carefully.

-- Ravensfire

looks fine Ravensfire.

alright with me.

@ravensfire: suit yourself. I'm running for Chief Justice. Can't wait to void whole sections of the silly CoL as being unconstitutional.

Poll has been posted on the placement of Governors:

Article D/E Clarification Poll: Governors (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=71621)

DZ - Thanks for the poll.

donsig,

We should have an excellent election then! I am quite distressed that you would think about declaring large parts of a document that hasn't even been written as unconstitutional. Not every decision will go your way, I certainly have seen several issue go in a different part (turn chats anyone?). Once the decision has been made, I put my effort behind it, making sure it is well written. I try not to hold on to ideas that have been rejected.

The past 3-4 days have seen a fair amount of progress, mostly from people starting to compromise and work together, rather than the acrimonious debates earlier. I hope your post is not a return to such times. As one of the major participants in this Constitutional Convention, your input is both desired, and needed.

By definition, the CoL should not go against any parts of the Constitution, but fill in the details the Constitution avoids. It MUST work within the Constitution. Your apparent predisposition regarding the CoL is disheartening.

-- Ravensfire

No, ravensfire my post is not meant to be a return to such times. I am not holding onto my own personal choices here. It was decided that we would use appointments to fill vacancies. That is not a decision I agree with. But read what I've been writing. I seem to be the only one willing to draft wording for this article to make it absolutely clear that we will use appointments to fill vacancies. It seems everyone else either wants to leave appointments out of the constitution or say we *may* use appointments. You all decided what you wanted so let's write it that way and move on. I am saying that I will run for Chief Justice and I will uphold what is written in the constitution irregardless of what was intended. Whether I sit on the bench or not I will use the wording of the constitution to fight for what I think is right. If you all want to avoid such fights then make your decisions now and leave no doubt about them when writing the constitution. Always remember that whatever you add into the CoL or CoS must adhere to what you write in the constitution.

quoting donsig:
You all decided what you wanted so let's write it that way and move on.

You mean like the poll for the structure of Article D, where we chose to have the Executive branch consist of the President and four Council Members? or the poll that proclaimed we would use Civ3 Vanilla?

I have supported putting the word appointment in this Article donsig. You are the one changing the direction of your drive in these discussions, so you have no room to talk. These days most people are trying to appease you, just to get some progress here.

donsig,

Vacancies and appointments to them are covered in Article G. For your convenience, here is the currently proposed text:
All elected positions shall have a fixed term. All vacant elected positions shall be filled by appointment of a citizen to fulfill the remainder of the term.

Your most recent comment in that thread regarding this was the use of the word "may" vs "shall" or "will". As you will note, "may" does not appear, in fact most people agreed with you about that point.

Now, does that answer your concerns? As far as I can tell, Article G covers *ALL* elected positions, regardless of branch. I would challenge someone to find to NOT appoint a replacement.

-- Ravensfire

Well, ravensfire, as someone else pointed out, the wording above seriously complicates the use of deputies. According to what you have written, then when a leader position is vacant we'd have to appoint someone to fill the spot and deputies could not move up the ladder automatically.

I am sorry for confusing articles and threads. As I stated earlier, the only thing I don't like about the proposal is the word *advised*. It allows a president to ignore the instructions of a leader - since the leaders can only *advise*. Replace *advise* with *directed by* or cut that while sentence out.

Also, as stated earlier, I am in favor of adding governors to this article.

Originally posted by donsig
I am sorry for confusing articles and threads. As I stated earlier, the only thing I don't like about the proposal is the word *advised*. It allows a president to ignore the instructions of a leader - since the leaders can only *advise*. Replace *advise* with *directed by* or cut that while sentence out.

Also, as stated earlier, I am in favor of adding governors to this article.

Something like this?
D. The Executive branch is responsible for determining and implimenting the will of the People. It is headed by the President who shall be the primary Designated Player. The President shall be directed by a council of 4 leaders and by the Provincial Governors.
I. The Minister of Internal Affairs shall be responsible for Domestic and Cultural activites.
II. The Minister of Foreign Affairs shall be responsible for matters with Foreign nations, excepting trades of any nature.
III. The Minister of Defense shall be responsible for all Military troop activities.
IV. The Minister of Trade and Technology shall be responsible for all Trade and Technology activities.


Hmmm, I can live with that. C'mon people! More comments!

-- Ravensfire

Associating leaders with general areas has gotton us into trouble in the past, and I don't want a Judicial Review of specific responsibilities to be a problem, so here is a suggestion which permits the lower law to define specific responsibilites outside the ones naturally identified with the area, in case there are still items which span across multiple departments.

Originally posted by ravensfire
Suggested Edits in green

Something like this?
D. The Executive branch is responsible for determining and implimenting the will of the People. It is headed by the President who shall be the primary Designated Player. The President shall be directed by a council of 4 leaders and by the Provincial Governors.
I. The Minister of Internal Affairs shall be generally responsible for Domestic and Cultural activites.
II. The Minister of Foreign Affairs shall be generally responsible for matters with Foreign nations, excepting trades of any nature.
III. The Minister of Defense shall be generally responsible for all Military troop activities.
IV. The Minister of Trade and Technology shall be generally responsible for all Trade and Technology activities.
V. Notwithstanding the general areas each Minister is associated with in this Article, specific duties and responsibilities for each Minister shall be prescribed by law.

<ahem>

So, may I assume that this is generally accepted and ready for polling?

-- Ravensfire

I would like to further define the Artricle D header as follows, so that the President is not obligated to take direction from said leaders in the chat.

D. The Executive branch is responsible for determining and implimenting the will of the People. It is headed by the President who shall be the primary Designated Player. The President shall take direction from a council of 4 leaders and from the Provincial Governors via the turnchat instruction thread.

Secondly, I have numbered the balance of this proposal to match the numbering of our Code of Laws. I also removed all unneccesary capital letters. Also, I am not really fond of the word "generally" in our Constitution, and am hoping that my wording will allow us to pare the subsections to four items. So what do you think? :)

1. The Minister of Internal Affairs shall be responsible for all domestic and cultural initiatives, as prescribed by law.
2. The Minister of Foreign Affairs shall be responsible for matters involving treaties with foreign nations, as prescribed by law.
3. The Minister of Defense shall be responsible for all military strategy and troop activities, as prescribed by law.
4. The Minister of Trade and Technology shall be responsible for all tech acquisition and trade initiatives, as prescribed by law.

Good work on both parts, DZ. The wording in the Header will save lots of headaches.

My only suggestion would be as follows:


D. The Executive branch is responsible for determining and implimenting the will of the People. It is headed by the President who shall be the primary Designated Player. The President shall take direction from a council of 4 leaders and from [color=red]other elected officials[/red] via the turnchat instruction thread.


The change is to allow the possibility of Judicial instructions.

-- Ravensfire

How about this then ~

D. The Executive branch is responsible for determining and implimenting the will of the People. It is headed by the President who shall be the primary Designated Player. The President shall take direction from a council of 4 leaders and from other elected and appointed officials via the turnchat instruction thread.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This would include appointed peoples too. :D

Good call, Cyc.

Now THAT'S what I call thinking ahead!

-- Ravensfire

Great ideas, guys. :) So, this is what we have so far. Should we run with it?

D. The Executive branch is responsible for determining and implementing the will of the People. It is headed by the President who shall be the primary Designated Player. The President shall take direction from a council of 4 leaders and from other elected and appointed officials via the turnchat instruction thread.

1. The Minister of Internal Affairs shall be responsible for all domestic and cultural initiatives, as prescribed by law.
2. The Minister of Foreign Affairs shall be responsible for matters involving treaties with foreign nations, as prescribed by law.
3. The Minister of Defense shall be responsible for all military strategy and troop activities, as prescribed by law.
4. The Minister of Trade and Technology shall be responsible for all tech acquisition and trade initiatives, as prescribed by law.

I think we should change the spelling of the word implimenting to implementing and then wait for DaveShack to see what he says.

Done. (I thought that looked strange......) ;)

I will hold off on the poll until we hear from Dave. If he okays this, I will post the poll tomorrow afternoon EST.

I hope that Dave doesn't object.......

Ratification poll has been posted. Please vote here:

Ratification Poll for Constitutional Article D (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=72324)