DGVII uses deputies for all non-Judicial positions, and provides for appointment of citizens to vacant offices. This appointment process is balanced by a Confirmation poll, that allows the chance of an appointment being overturned. We divide tasks into offices to allow more people to experience the game and to prevent a leader from being overloaded.
First of all this is NOT DGVII, it's the first Civ4 DG, so it might be a good idea to start something new with an adjusted ruleset.
If it turns out the other side is right, I will happily bow to you while you say "I told you" 107times! But I want to try something new which has a chance to work! This is definitely the fact with the tri-government.
Don't want to be rude or anything but your second point here is ridiculous! It was the major task of the tri to allow as many people as possible to get involved! There are loads of positions and a lot of polls have to be done in order to verify multiple decisions. Furthermore the level of involvement is sort of balanced IMO and there are different levels of involvement where you can participate!
Presidential Nominations
The Triumverate does not allow self-nominations. This quite honestly makes no sense at all. As DS has suggested, all it takes is for someone to say "I nominate the entire Citizen Registry", and the rule is circumvented. No rational reason for this rule has been given.
How if it would simply be for the feel of the position just like the feel that the DoI is appointed? To me this is a good point for this rule!
DS' point that one could nominate for the whole citizen registy can be circumvented by putting in a phrase like "every citizen is allowed to nominate no more than X citizens for the position of DP..." (X for me would be 3 here). This is not cast in stone!!
The founding fathers you Americans are so proud of were great people, but they were stubborn, snobbish great land owners also. But they knew one thing that all great people know: That they couldn't know or foresee everything!
Same with the tri... We can change the government ruleset when something turns out to make the game unplayable (I doubt that this will be the case!
). The tri is the far more advanced government-type in my opinion the way to go from here!
Triumverate Elections
Part of the ruleset requires that the Triumverate is elected as a whole, and is then contradicted a few clauses later. I'm going to assume that the slate process is the intended process. This ignores the person that wants to run for a position, but doesn't have anyone to run with for the other roles. This person may very well be the most qualified, but because they don't have running mates, they are tossed aside. We, the citizens, will suffer for this.
I have a confession to make: I didn't read the tri-version 5.3 as a whole but only overread it. But where do you get from that the tri- has to be formed before the voting takes place?? An excerpt from the current version:
Alphawolf said:
A) Triumvirate Elections
I. Elections of the Triumvirate shall be of all nominated candidates who have accepted their nominations.
II. Nominations for Triumvirate positions may be self nominations or a citizen may be nominated by another citizens.
There isn't stated that you need mates to be part of the tri! And it isn't implied as well
. This argument is a rather unfair approach against the tri!
Overrides
Just in case nobody's figured it out, I'm rather against overrides. Regarless, the Triumverate has them in multiple places, with multiple conditions and restrictions on top of that. It's not a simple process. The reasons I've seen given for overrides are "add conflict" and "respond to emergencies". Neither of these reasons are particularly strong. They don't "add" conflict, they shift who has the ultimate control. The "respond to emergencies" reason is based on the expectation that the Governor will be unreasonsable and NOT respond when requested.
Nope! The shift of powers and the "respond to emergencies" isn't implying that governors are unreasonable and wouldn't respond when requested! It's about concentration of power in order to raise the ability to respond and respond fast! It's very clear that no matter how fast governors might respond it'll take more time than when the tri can just decide...
I'm all against concentration of powers, mind you! But with the restrictions and the specifications when and how this happens in the tri-frame I can live with it for the sake of playability!
General Structure
The entire Triumverate CoL is rather long, complicated and difficult to read. Sections don't read easily, and there are multiple contradictions.
It is far more structured than the flexible government. The flexible government is easier to read because it's not that thought through, IMHO. Of course it growed from the DGVII in your final version but nevertheless I don't feel it is easier to read than the tri-approach. I encourage everyone here to check it out him/herself! (Especially the "structured" approaches by DS and ravensfire on page 2(?)!
With the Flexible ruleset, you can grab sections from DG VII and plug a clause on adding/removing offices and you're done with a solid, well-defined ruleset. To date, the supporters of the Triumverate haven't taken a critical eye to the ruleset. It's been people that aren't totally in support of it. That's not a healthy sign.
Once again this is not really a good point: The fact that you are into the ruleset isn't implying that tri-supporters aren't. I know you mention this because of the fact of several issues we had in version 4.0 (and might still have??) but in the discussion there I delivered pro's why this is included. The fact that the party supports the flexible approach says enough, I'd say!
Finally a treat for the long read:
Ginger_Ale_Founder of the flexible gov after reading a structured approach of the flexible gov by DS said:
I still feel uncomfortable with this, I'd rather have more of a 'traditional' government system than this, but yes, it works...
q.e.d.
Stilgar
but I would suggest to vote for the tri. Simply put; it's well constructed and well thought through. If it's not perfect so might be it. The flexible government isn't even complete!
. But I'm glad it's not in anymore! 
The word Senator isn't even in the Triumvirate. Could you please explain?
