Constitution Discussion. Article C-E

classical_hero · Apr 7, 2005

Provolution said:
There have been raised questions over the Constitutional Articles C-E.

Since I promised not to present any amendment proposals, I would still like to see some originate from an up to date discussion, and process it quickly through the system when the situation warrants it.

Please feel free to go ahead with this needed legal discussion.

This was originally posted by Provolution, but he seems to forget where to put a discussion, So I have started this discussion in it's rightful place. For point of Reference, the article in Question will be displayed in this OP.

Code:

Article D.  The Strategic Branch consists of the President, the Vice 
            President, and the Consuls. The Consuls, as listed below, 
            are in tasked with deciding on the broader picture of how 
            Fanatannia will operate.
            
            1.  President - Leads discussions crossing over multiple 
                areas of different Consuls. He/she will also decide on 
                any strategic tasks not designated to another consul 
                in this constitution. The President is the primary 
                designated player. He/she has the following 
                responsibilities, and may appoint a citizen to oversee 
                a responsibility: Naming of Cities and Units, 
                Elections, and Polling Standards. These appointed 
                officials remain in office until removed by a 
                President. The President also leads discussion on how 
                to use military and scientific great leaders.

            2.  Vice President - Assistant to the President. He/she may 
                take over the President's tasks when the President is 
                absent. If the President should be removed from office 
                for any reason the Vice President will then take the 
                position of President and appoint a Vice President. 
                The Vice President must be approved by a majority of 
                the consuls, if the Vice President is appointed mid-term.

            3.  Consul for Domestic Policy - Oversees long term 
                settlement, long term worker plans, and long term city 
                development objectives. Plans government switches.

            4.  Consul for External Policy - Oversees long term planning 
                of policy regarding other nations. This includes 
                military plans, long term foreign affairs, and long term 
                trading goals.

            5.  Consul for Cultural Policy - Monitors culture. Pushes 
                for culture improvements. Fits science and religious 
                improvements into the big picture. Plans wonder 
                strategy.

            6.  Consul for Resources and Technology Policy - Decides on 
                long term tech queues, long term resource policies, 
                long term fiscal policies.

Article E.  The Tactical Branch consists of the the officials in charge 
            of micromanagement of the game, within the boundaries of 
            the Strategic Branch's policy. The Tactical Branch consists 
            of the officials below.

            1.  Commander of Armed Forces - Micromanages the military 
                operations against foreign countries and unit 
                (excluding worker, settler, and non-military transport) 
                movements.

            2.  Director of Commerce - Decides on foreign affairs and 
                trading. Sets exact tech queue. Manages budget. Adjusts 
                slider and approves/denies requests from leaders 
                regarding the use of gold. Also decides on espionage 
                missions.

            3.  Director of Infrastructure - Controls the worker 
                actions. Reviews requests from governors about worker 
                requests and accepts/denies these.

            4.  Director of Expansion - Decides on where to settle with 
                settlers. The Director of Expansion also oversees the 
                creation of provincal boundaries. Controls movement of 
                settlers and settler carrying transports.

            5.  Governors - Each Governor shall determine any policies 
                and procedures needed to carry out their duties. 
                Governors are responsible for the care, management, 
                use of the cities, and use of lands of a province 
                through the setting of build queues, allocation of 
                laborers on tiles, population rushes and drafting of 
                citizen soldiers.

As you can see there are there too many positions doing the same job. We need to streamline the work so that the game is efficent. You may now start discussing.

DaveShack · Apr 7, 2005

Provolution hasn't forgotton how to start a discussion, he's just making a point that the Judiciary should not legislate. IMO there wouldn't be any problem with anyone, as a citizen, proposing any legislative change, however if any individual wants to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest, I'm ok with it.

Let's start with an easy one. The Director of Expansion was always intended to be a position which sunset when it is no longer needed. I propose the tasks currently performed by the DoE should be merged into the Internal Consul position, effective at the start of term 3.

LeeT911 · Apr 7, 2005

I propose that R&T be dropped. Commerce sets the tech queue anyway. As to keeping track of world resources, we can probably hand it off to Commerce as well. I mean, it's really just a bookkeeping exercise.

I'm a little worried about Infrastructure. Is it going to be overloaded when we have 100+ cities and hundreds of workers/slaves running around?

DaveShack · Apr 7, 2005

LeeT911 said:
I propose that R&T be dropped. Commerce sets the tech queue anyway. As to keeping track of world resources, we can probably hand it off to Commerce as well. I mean, it's really just a bookkeeping exercise.

I'm a little worried about Infrastructure. Is it going to be overloaded when we have 100+ cities and hundreds of workers/slaves running around?

I was thinking about this too, but more on the lines of having R&T set tech and trade guidelines and let the DP optimize the tech queue, specific trades, and sliders appropriately. Put cash rushing and overall budget in Culture, and unit upgrades under the Commander. If I haven't missed anything this would eliminate Commerce.

On a historical note, this would be leading us in the direction of one of the two competing layouts for DG4. In that game we went with Domestic+Culture, FA, Trade&Tech, Military and then added Finance & Infrastructure. The alternative was Domestic+Culture+Finance, FA, Trade, Tech, Military and the discussion was that Domestic would be too powerful while Tech would always be dependent on Trade. My proposal above would be Domestic, FA+Intel+Plans, Military Operations, Trade+Tech, Culture+Finance, Infrastructure.

The problem with Infrastructure is that too much detail in the instructions actually ends up being a problem for the DP. I didn't know this and used to argue for someone other than the DP to provide instructions, but I'm now leaning heavily toward guidelines instead of detailed instructions. This then becomes a problem of worry over the DP being too powerful.

Let's expand a bit on my latest idea.

FA+Intel+Plans determines external friends and enemies. Handles intelligence and threat estimates, and high level who to attack first and who to make treaties with. Determines wartime objectives. Need a catchy name for this.

Military Operations Develops specific plans to obtain military objectives. Handles force composition, upgrades, unit movements, military strength assessments.

Internal handles city classification, settlement (defunct), provincial boundaries, government switches, and stuff I can't remember right now. :crazyeye:

Trade & Tech handles tech objectives (which branch to follow, priorities for acquisition, "don't acquire" techs, and trade guidelines like do 2x1 lux deals but not 3x1, don't sell saltpeter, don't trade away monopoly unless for a small fortune, etc.

Culture & Finance handles culture wars, pushing culture buildings, wonder decisions, high level budget, and cash rush.

Infrastructure handles worker allocation (but maybe not turn by turn instructions), pushing improvements other than culture, recommended tile allocations, and workforce managemenet (how many workers we need, when to join back).

Total 6 executive positions. The focus on long-term planning would be accomplished by having instruction be posted in the form of long term plans with more specifics left to DP discretion based on in-game conditions at the time.

Provolution · Apr 8, 2005

FA+Intel+Plans determines external friends and enemies. Handles intelligence and threat estimates, and high level who to attack first and who to make treaties with. Determines wartime objectives. Need a catchy name for this.

I suggest Secretary of State, which is also a British position.
I think that is quite catchy.

Military Operations Develops specific plans to obtain military objectives. Handles force composition, upgrades, unit movements, military strength assessments.

"Lord Protector"/"Secretary of Military" /"Lord Marshal"/"Chief of Staff"

I have written a very detailed proposal for this before, in fact posted several times to some people's distress, and you see too much generics always create a need for Judicial Reviews. A detail focus to the actual in-game mechanics avoids future Judicial Reviews. Numerous JRs suggest a very poor set of Articles.
Every tiny piece of in-game decision-making needs to be localized under each position, also for long term strategy decisions. Herein, Disband policies, Upgrades, upkeep, force composition, Military organization (Yes, this is very important for the forum readers to know we have army groups and navies designated for future tasks, which is long term planning. This position should also appoint generals and admirals to include more people. In fact, the military position is one of the most information intensive duties, and should always be handled by one of the more capable players.

Internal handles city classification, settlement (defunct), provincial boundaries, government switches, and stuff I can't remember right now.

Lord Steward, Secretary of Interior and so on, we need to anglify the titles to sound more British, Consul is a bit too Roman for Fanatannia.

Government Switches, War Economy, Mobilization, Wonders, use of Heroes, Corruption and Waste monitoring, Capital and Forbidden Palace location, Provincial Boundaries, settlement, city classification and specialization, Governor coordination
Special observation of use of Forests (as mad-bax mentioned about maps) and waste and corruption observation, usage of capital locations and building courthouses, forestry development (one-time shields from trees cut down). Forest Map, Corruption Waste Modeling.

The new thing here is a dedicated

Trade & Tech handles tech objectives (which branch to follow, priorities for acquisition, "don't acquire" techs, and trade guidelines like do 2x1 lux deals but not 3x1, don't sell saltpeter, don't trade away monopoly unless for a small fortune, etc.

Culture & Finance handles culture wars, pushing culture buildings, wonder decisions, high level budget, and cash rush.

This is where I deviate from the presented proposal. I would like Trade to be added to the FA portfolio (we should unify the civilization negotiation screen under one banner) and technology added to Culture and Science. As this game is about a Cultural victory, we should link the financial slider policies and budgeting to the science queues, and we know science buildings also produce culture as well. Culture Strategy can then be planned integrating long term technology strategy and build rushes.

Title? Secretary of Treasury

Infrastructure handles worker allocation (but maybe not turn by turn instructions), pushing improvements other than culture, recommended tile allocations, and workforce managemenet (how many workers we need, when to join back).

I suggest to let the worker groups be allocated to the governors with workers labelled by the Province they belong too, and workers to be allocated by the President to the Governors, as the President is the individual most knowledgeable about worker usage.
Governors should also be alotted a sort of simple budget, which should be passed once per Term by the Finance, this budget could be projected as a base target treasury, and a fixed share given to each province. This should not be too hard to do with capable players as we have here.

In sum, this will get us down to 5 Elected positions, which will generate a lot of competition for elections, for real positions, and governors would be more powerful with their own Provincial workers, provincial borders, and a stronger autonomy on cultural build policies, plus provincial target budgets (Governors could run culture wars). A Demogame without a budget law is kind of weak government simulation, especially as the economics of this game is extremely simple.

Bertie · Apr 8, 2005

Over the course of 5 demogames there have been several constitutions, so obviously there never has been a perfect constitution. That people were willing to discard the constitution from the halcyon days of demogames I & II :rolleyes:

suggests to me that perhaps things werent so hunky dory then, either. My point is that the structure of our government wont determine how well we play the game or how much fun it is; only our efforts will do that.

With that said, I support reducing the number of elected positions. I believe our current set up is too unwieldy and a little confusing, as others in this thread have said. I dont have a plan to offer of my own, but I lean towards the general outlines of Provolutions plan, although Im not as enamored of enacting budget laws as I believe him to be. I think 5 elected positions are plenty. I understand the argument of those that believe more positions mean more citizen involvement; but I think more hotly contested elections might actually be a better way of achieving this.

Provolution · Apr 8, 2005

We really do not need the Budget part, but that could top it off if we had qualified people, but even with a skeleton crew with the basic tasks, we will all be fine.
5 tidy positions would create more clarity and access from the gamers side.

LeeT911 · Apr 8, 2005

Here's a thought, why don't we list every responsibility we can think of, and then we can assign these tasks to the different offices.

On a side note, I agree that we don't need that many positions. Last term's elections had less than 40 votes each. We don't need 10 positions with deputies for each.

Octavian X · Apr 8, 2005

LeeT911 said:
Here's a thought, why don't we list every responsibility we can think of, and then we can assign these tasks to the different offices.

On a side note, I agree that we don't need that many positions. Last term's elections had less than 40 votes each. We don't need 10 positions with deputies for each.

On the note of fewer offices, I think that's a good idea. I think we should consider moving toward a system that encourages fewer elections in favor of appointive offices. An example of this system was the Trade Ministry's 'reorganization' in DGV Term 4. In it, he created several subservient offices all reporting to him, who posted the final instructions. Presumably, we could consolidate our offices further, with the expectation that the officers delegate out that authority further. We could possibly achieve the dual goals of allowing elections to be more competitive, while creating new positions in government to encourage greater participation.

Provolution · Apr 8, 2005

Please do not bring in old ****.

DaveShack · Apr 13, 2005

Let's do at least something concrete with this.

I propose eliminating the Director of Expansion (no offense to Snipelfritz who has done a good job) because there isn't really anything for this office to do. The responsibilities can be merged back into Domestic where they came from in the first place.

Old text. Sections unaffected are indicated by ellipses (. . .)

Code:

Article D.  The Strategic Branch consists of the President, the Vice 
            President, and the Consuls. The Consuls, as listed below, 
            are in tasked with deciding on the broader picture of how 
            Fanatannia will operate.
            
. . .

            3.  Consul for Domestic Policy - Oversees long term 
                settlement, long term worker plans, and long term city 
                development objectives. Plans government switches.

. . .  remainder of Article D unaffected

Article E.  The Tactical Branch consists of the the officials in charge 
            of micromanagement of the game, within the boundaries of 
            the Strategic Branch's policy. The Tactical Branch consists 
            of the officials below.

. . .  section 1-3 unaffected

            4.  Director of Expansion - Decides on where to settle with 
                settlers. The Director of Expansion also oversees the 
                creation of provincal boundaries. Controls movement of 
                settlers and settler carrying transports.

. . .

New text, article E

Code:

Article D.  The Strategic Branch consists of the President, the Vice 
            President, and the Consuls. The Consuls, as listed below, 
            are in tasked with deciding on the broader picture of how 
            Fanatannia will operate.

. . .  Sections 1-2 unaffected

            3.  Consul for Domestic Policy - Oversees long term 
                settlement, long term worker plans, and long term city 
                development objectives. Plans government switches.
                Decides on where to settle with 
                settlers. Oversees the  
                creation of provincal boundaries. Controls movement of 
                settlers and settler carrying transports.


. . . Remainder of article D unaffected

Article E.  The Tactical Branch consists of the the officials in charge 
            of micromanagement of the game, within the boundaries of 
            the Strategic Branch's policy. The Tactical Branch consists 
            of the officials below.

. . .  Sections 1-3 unaffected
Section 4 deleted, section 5 renumbered to 4

            4.  Governors - Each Governor shall determine any policies 
                and procedures needed to carry out their duties. 
                Governors are responsible for the care, management, 
                use of the cities, and use of lands of a province 
                through the setting of build queues, allocation of 
                laborers on tiles, population rushes and drafting of 
                citizen soldiers.

This amendment will take effect the beginning of the term after its ratification, and shall be implemented in the election cycle of said term by removing the office of Director of Expansion from the nomination and election process for that term. The Director of Expansion in office for the term when this amendment is ratified shall continue in office for the remainder of the term.

Octavian X · Apr 13, 2005

In the spirit of that proposed amendment, DS, I think that we should also find a way to break up the Office of Commerce (as much as I love my powers

).

Overall, I think it's good to have such an office, though just in terms of keeping the budgetary aspects of government in one place - sliders, treasury, and the tech queue. It's the foreign affairs aspects that I think need to be seperated out into a new tactical offce - the Director of Foreign Affairs, maybe? - so as to balance out the tactical layer and to maintain an equal number of Consuls and Directors.

Black_Hole · Apr 13, 2005

we could create the Director of Infrastructure an appointed position. So the president has the actual power...

YNCS · Apr 13, 2005

DaveShack said:
FA+Intel+Plans determines external friends and enemies. Handles intelligence and threat estimates, and high level who to attack first and who to make treaties with. Determines wartime objectives. Need a catchy name for this.

Supreme Head of Intelligence Targeting.

greekguy · Apr 13, 2005

i definitely approve of DS's ammendment, but i'd like to add my opinion as well.

Commander of the Armed Forces- keep all powers the office currently has and also plans war objectives.

External Consul- this office and this office alone should declare war, but after war is declared, the Commander is in charge of the millitary, including movement and operations. gains power to build embassys and must approve all signings of Mutual Protection Pacts, Rights of Passages and Milllitary Alliances.

Director of Commerce- they should control sliders and can make deals with rival civs. however, all of the following must be approved of by the External Consul: embassies, MPP's, ROP's, MA's. Trade Embargos can be requested but must be approved by the R & T consul.

Resources and Technology Consul- gains power to approve of all Trade Embargos.

Culture Consul- stay the same, no changes.

Eliminate the Director of Infastructure either the President or the Domestic Consul should gain the responsibility of controlling workers.

I think these suggestions (taken in whole or not) could help make our government run more smoothly and effectively. aslo, if anything doesn't make sense or you think that this plan still leaves multiple positions doing the same thing, please tell me.

Nobody · Apr 13, 2005

FA+Intel+Plans determines external friends and enemies. Handles intelligence and threat estimates, and high level who to attack first and who to make treaties with. Determines wartime objectives. Need a catchy name for this.

Military Operations Develops specific plans to obtain military objectives. Handles force composition, upgrades, unit movements, military strength assessments.

Internal handles city classification, settlement (defunct), provincial boundaries, government switches, and stuff I can't remember right now.

Trade & Tech handles tech objectives (which branch to follow, priorities for acquisition, "don't acquire" techs, and trade guidelines like do 2x1 lux deals but not 3x1, don't sell saltpeter, don't trade away monopoly unless for a small fortune, etc.

Culture & Finance handles culture wars, pushing culture buildings, wonder decisions, high level budget, and cash rush.

Infrastructure handles worker allocation (but maybe not turn by turn instructions), pushing improvements other than culture, recommended tile allocations, and workforce managemenet (how many workers we need, when to join back).

Put this foward and you will have nobodys vote. as for the offices name them like the old ones, but let the curretn officals change them i.e. The old military name

Provolution · Apr 14, 2005

I really do not see any hope to see these folks manage to pass it in time.
They will probably sit on it to the 22 and we are stuck with the menagerie for 38 more days. Hooray. I could add some smirk comments, but that would bring in the conventional divine intervention as I am a "usual suspect" here. I really lost interest here.

mad-bax · Apr 14, 2005

Just to stir up the hornets nest again.... I thought I would add my 2 cents...

Balancing departmental Power - A discussion.

A. Macromanagement Departments.

1. Presidential office.
Responsible for overall strategy. Responsible for clarifying conflicts in policy between departments. Has the power to post a binding poll to resolve such conflicts. Organises government switches and palace jumps. Responsible for sanctioning any action which damages reputation. ROP rapes, accepting or declining demands etc. The President himself will be the reserve DP.

2. Home office
Responsible for Research and Technology - sets research paths etc.
Responsible for Culture and wonder builds. Responsible for sliders. Responsible for trade. Has the power to set limits on departmental spending.
Responsible for settlement density, rate and direction.

3. Foreign office.
Responsible for deciding for planning wars (Who, when and to which objectives. Responsible for Declarations of War and Peace. Responsible for gifts to foreign neighbours.Responsible for the maintenance of homeland security, the build up of forces, leader usage, upgrading of units.

4. Intelligenc Agency.
Responsible for All espionage missions. Responsible for all Rop, MA, Trade Embargos. Responsible for establishing Embassies.

B. Micromanagement Departments

Director of Infrastructure.
Reports to the Presidents office and is the DP. Decides on all worker actions.

Director of the Interior.
Responsible for the upkeep of dotmaps for specific settlement patterns.
Responsible for policy regarding use and type of specialists. Responsible for specifying non-production related terrain improvements. Radar towers, airfields, barricades etc.

Commander in Chief.
Responsible for delivering Foreign office war plans. Responsible for naming troops. Responsible for setting unit build requirements. (How many, what type by when etc). Responsible for detailed battlefield plans. Responsible for deciding whether conquered towns should be kept or razed.

Governors.
Responsible for a specified section of territory and the cities within it. Sets build queues through interpretation of macromanagement policy. Responsible for rushing, whipping and drafting. Governors serve the higher offices, and they are under obligation to follow departmental policy.

Deputies.
There should be no deputies. Instead, the Vice-president should be an elected position. He will be third in line DP. If any office falls vacant then the vice-president will fill that position. Any changes he makes to his predicessors policy must be polled.

Voting for officers.
Nominations for office are only accepted if the nominee posts a policy for the considered term in the appropriate nomination thread. Officers will be elected according to the strength of the policy. If elected, any changes to this policy must be put under the scrutiny of a public vote. This vote may be called by the president where he is dicharging the duties of his office.

greekguy · Apr 14, 2005

After reading over what i wrote and what other people said, i've decided to change a few things to my plan. i think there are ways i can refine it and make it possible for official use. so here is my final, revised version, with changes in bold

greekguy said:
President- same as it is now

Vice President- same as it is now

Commander of the Armed Forces- (reworded) Renames units according to rules in place. Makes battle plans and objectives. Gives basic guidlines to what units should be built.

External Consul- Controls actions dealing with all foreign affairs. Decides when we go to war and when we neogtiate for peace. Is in charge of spy operations and building embassies.

Resources and Technology Consul- May request for Trade Embargos. Sets the Tech Queue. Sets the Luxury and Science sliders. Initiates discussion about Resource and Technology trading.

Culture Consul- Pushes for Wondor builiding and must approve all Wonder builds. Has power to declare "Culture Wars". Pushes for building of cultural improvements. If we decide to win by culture, they inititate disscussions about how to reach our goal.

Domestic Consul- In adddition, to what they currently do, they will also choose new settlement spots, control all workers, set province boundaries (don't think they do it now), and they make the decision about whether or not to mobilize our nation.

Governors- Choose build queues, making sure not to interfere with other departments. Decide on labor allocations for each city and are responsible for drafting soldiers and rushing builds.

Now with this new system, each official will have a lot more power. Thus, they might want to/have to give some of their duties to their Deputy. This will allow Deputies to take more part in the game and will allow us to have fewer positions without giving the leaders an overload of work. Also the leader names can be renamed if you want.

ravensfire · Apr 14, 2005

greekguy said:
Now with this new system, each official will have a lot more power. Thus, they will have to give some of their duties to their Deputy. This will allow Deputies to take more part in the game and will allow us to have fewer positions without giving the leaders an overload of work. Also the leader names can be renamed if you want.

Without commenting on the specifics of your proposal, I wish to draw attention to a huge, and incorrect assumption you have made. "Thus, they will have to give some of their duties to their deputy" Full context is quoted.

Sorry, but that will not happen. Sure, some leaders will delegate based on the time, inclination and personal approach. Others have the time, the inclination and the desire to run things on their own. Assumptions, like what you are making, are dangerous when based on some facts, and even more so when proved incorrect in the past.

-- Ravensfire

Constitution Discussion. Article C-E

In whom I trust

Inventor

Eloquent Silence

Inventor

Sage of Quatronia

Prince

Sage of Quatronia

Eloquent Silence

is not a pipe.

Sage of Quatronia

Inventor

is not a pipe.

Deity

Ex-bubblehead

Missed the Boat

Gangster

Sage of Quatronia

Deity

Missed the Boat

Member of the Opposition

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