Traditional Government

ravensfire · Dec 9, 2005

It's just a framework right now, many of the details will be the same as DG VII in terms of duties, etc.

A more traditional government structure

We have the flexible structure, and the Triumverate. As an alternative, I suggest the following structure. This structure would be the Code of Laws underneath the Constitution.

Link to the Constitution

Changelog:
12/9 - posted outline
12/12 - posted detailed version
12/13 - Added sections: Game Sessions, Playing the Save, Deputies, Vacancies and Confirmation Polls.

1. Executive
The Executive Branch provides leadership and guidance at a national level through discussions, polling and decisions.

The President is the ultimate leader of <NAME>. When other leaders are in a dispute, the President resolves the matter. This includes over-spending of the available resources. The President also determines how to use Great Leaders, sets the slider and handles any other task not assigned to another leader.

The Minister of Defense is responsible for ensuring a strong and capable military and leading those forces in times of war. The Minister of Defense controls the movement of all military units as well as the upgrades and promotions of military units.

The Minister of the Interior is responsible for the health and development of <NAME> as a whole. They determine city placement, establish provincial boundaries, coordinate the construction of wonders and assign workers to provinces or national tasks.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs controls the diplomats of <NAME>. They determine and execute all treaties and espionage activities. This includes trade embargoes, demands of foreign nations and all other diplomatic matters that are not purely trade related.

The Minister of Trade and Technology sets the science research goals and handles the trade negotiations. They determine the research path for our scientists. They also determine the trades with foreign nations that should be executed.

The Minister of Social Affairs monitors the social structure of <NAME> and determines when changes are needed. They determine the civic structure and the status of specific religions.

2. Legislative

The Legislative Branch is the Assembly and the Senate.

The Assembly is comprised of all citizens of <NAME>. The Assembly retains the sole power to declare war through a poll posted by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Assembly is also charged with the creation of new laws and amendments of existing laws. All such proposals must be presented to the Judiciary for review prior to an acceptance poll.

The Assembly may also Impeach an elected official through an Impeachment poll. Any citizen may create a thread calling for the Impeachment of an elected official. Should 2 more citizens confirm the request for impeachment within 24 hours of the initial post, the Judiciary must create a recall thread. This is a private poll, asking in Yes/No/Abstain format if the elected official should be removed from office. This poll should run for 4 days.

If 2/3 of the citizens voting support the recall, ignoring abstain, and the total number of votes is greater than 1/2 of the census, the citizen is removed from office, and the office is declared Vacant.

A Recall may be requested no sooner than 7 days after a previous attempt in the same term on the same official.

The Senate is comprised of the Provincial Governors. Each Governor is responsible for the care, maintenance and growth of the cities they control through build queues, labor allocations and prioritization of worker actions.

3. Judicial
-- No changes from the framework.

4. Designated Player Pool
During each regular election cycle, a separate thread will be created during the nomination process for DP Candidates. Any citizen that wishes to be a DP must post in this thread. When the election polls are posted, a separate poll, in multi-choice format, listing each candidate will be posted. Citizens will vote their approval for a candidate by selecting their name.

A citizen may run for an elected office and apply to be a DP in the same term. The DP Pool does not count as an elected office.

Each candidate that receives a vote from more than ½ of the citizens that vote in the poll will be accepted as a DP for that term. The Election Office will put together a list of the Designated Players, ordered by the number of votes in support for that term. In the event of a tie, the order of posting in the nomination thread will be used. All DPs that actually ran a game session in the previous term will be put below those that did not, regardless of the number of votes. This list will determine the order that the DPs will be used for game sessions. If there are more game sessions than DPs, start again from the top of the list.

Should the DP pool be empty, the President is responsible for determining who will be the DP for each game session, using any citizen of Fanatikos to serve as DP.

Members of the DP pool may exchange places as they desire, so long as all citizens involved agree.

5. Game Sessions
All irreversible game actions must be made by a Designated Player during a game session using instructions posted in a game session instruction thread.

Game sessions may not be held less than 3 days after the previous session, and should be held no later than 7 days after the previous session. The instruction thread for the session must be posted at least 2 days prior to the start of the game session by the Designated Player for that session. This thread must contain the start time of the session, the format (on-line vs off-line), a link to the save to be used and a link to the previous game session. The President may create a temporary instruction thread if one is not created in a timely manner.

All official instructions must be posted in the current game session instruction thread. Instructions must be clear and defined. Officials must post their instructions at least one hour before the scheduled start of the game session. However, officials may make changes to their instructions up to an hour before the chat, so long as those changes are clearly noted. Officials that do not post instructions for a game session are considered to have given the DP complete control over their area for that game session.

A special session to accomplish a specific, short goal may be held by the President if there is significant public support. These special sessions do not count as a regular game session.

6. Playing the Save
The game session may last for as long as there are relevant instructions, until a posted instruction says to hold the session or when the DP decides to end the session. During the session, the DP must maintain a log of their actions, detailed enough to allow other citizens to roughly recreate their actions. This may be done through manual or automatic logging of actions.

Once a game session is over, the DP must post a summary of that session, activity log, and a save in the instruction thread.

If the DP for a session does not show up, or is unable to continue, a substitute DP can be chosen for that session. This substitute is chosen from the President, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Defense, the Minister of Trade and Technology and the Minister of Social Affairs, in that order.

7. Deputies
All Executive and Governor positions will have a deputy. The Deputy is permitted to conduct the affairs of the office as directed by the elected official, or during a planned Absence of the elected official. If no instructions have been posted for an office within 24 hours of the upcoming Game Session, the deputy for that office may post the official instructions for the office.

The Judiciary does not use deputies. In the event of an Absence, a pro-tem justice(s) may be appointed by the Chief Justice (or Judge Advocate if the Chief Justice if absent) and confirmed by the President and the remaining justice if not also absent.

If both the Chief Justice and the Judge Advocate are absent, the Public Defender may appoint pro-tems to the other seats, with Presidential approval.

8. Vacancies
The President will appoint a citizen to any Vacant office. If a deputy exists for that office, the President must offer the appointment to that citizen. This appointment may be challenged by any citizen by that citizen posting a confirmation poll within 24 hours of the appointment.

If an elected official does not post in the DG forums in 7 days without prior notice, any citizen may request the Judiciary to investigate. The Judiciary, by a majority vote, may declare the office Vacant at the conclusion of the investigation.

9. Confirmation Polls
A confirmation poll is used, where permitted by law, to give citizens the opportunity to challenge certain actions. If a challenge poll does not exist for such an action, any citizen may create such a poll. This poll must be created within 24 hours of the action, should ask “Do you approve of <description of action”>, contain Yes, No and Abstain options, and run for 2 days. If the action concerns a citizen, the poll must be marked private. Otherwise, it must be marked public. When the poll closes, if the majority of citizens, not including abstain, voted No, the action is overturned. Any other result confirms the action.

-- Ravensfire

Provolution · Dec 9, 2005

I think we should redo a lot of things from Civ3, and let new ideas into the open.
Half of the fun with Civ4, is that it has some brand new concepts.
Therefore, we should wipe the slate clean and rethink things.

DaveShack · Dec 9, 2005

Provolution said:
I think we should redo a lot of things from Civ3, and let new ideas into the open.
Half of the fun with Civ4, is that it has some brand new concepts.
Therefore, we should wipe the slate clean and rethink things.

Yes, there are three areas which might need additional government members over the Civ3 government, or reassignment of duties. Religion, Civics, and Great People (that you have control over) are big areas with lot of influence.

The point of a thread like this is to open the possibility that we might want to just modify the structure we already have instead of coming up with something completely new. It's up to each citizen to decide how they want to proceed.

Leave open the possibility that starting with a clean slate we might just come up with the same thing we had before, because it is a good system.

Nobody · Dec 9, 2005

I like this but we would need atleast one for culture&religion and science should be independant again, its a big topic in civ4. Also i think civics should domestics

ravensfire · Dec 9, 2005

I'm planning on splitting Religion and Civics into their own minister. Science should stay with trade - there just isn't enough there for a full position.

EDIT: Changes made.

DaveShack · Dec 12, 2005

It's getting to be crunch time. If there is any further discussion on this proposal it needs to be soon.

ravensfire · Dec 12, 2005

DaveShack said:
It's getting to be crunch time. If there is any further discussion on this proposal it needs to be soon.

Excellent! I'll be putting the full verbage up tonight then. Expect pretty plain-spoken, clear language that will read easily. Minimal "legalese" will be used.

-- Ravensfire

DaveShack · Dec 12, 2005

I'm thinking of a three step process, a selection poll between the major alternatives, a fine tuning phase where the selected government structure gets a high-intensity update from everyone, and a final ratification.

ravensfire · Dec 12, 2005

Worked great for DGVII - should do just as well here. Much, much better than the section at a time version. It allows everyone to argue their preference, then work to make the chosen approach the best possible.

-- Ravensfire

Ginger_Ale · Dec 12, 2005

I would be happy to use this system we have used for previous games - most of us are familiar. If we do decide to use this proposal we might want to tweak the positions a bit for the new features in Civilization 4 (I see you have some covered, but we'll see if we need to make any more changes later).

ravensfire · Dec 13, 2005

The initial post has been updated with a more detailed version of the traditional ruleset, using much of the language from DG VII. Please, I invite your comments and suggestions!

-- Ravensfire

Stilgar08 · Dec 13, 2005

First of all I think this is a good approach. Naturally it is "grown-up" during the DG's that took place and therefore it seems thorough to a newb like me.

Since I'm most familiar with the tri-approach of Alphawolf naturally I'm going to compare his structure with this one but before I do I have a question:

With this government it's still mandatory that the DP has to be able to play the game online, right??
I don't like that at all. We must find a way (regardless of the type of gov. we choose) that offline players can play as DP or member of the tri... ! BTW, this comes from a completely biast point of view - I AM an offline player

Could we make it by letting the other members send instructions to the DP and the DP has to do as the assigned office-holders say apart from doing his own duties during the game? Two problems here:
1. When foreign civs demand or offer the Sec. of State needs immediate availability and
2. I tslows things down... Personally I don't have a problem with this at all but others might see it differently...!!!

But now back on this approach:

On a basic note: A lot of declarations have yet to be set here, but you pointed out, this is sort of a draft. The tri-approach is ahead in this field, I'd say...

ravensfire said:
1. Executive
The Executive Branch provides leadership and guidance at a national level through discussions, polling and decisions.

The President is the ultimate leader of <NAME>. When other leaders are in a dispute, the President resolves the matter.

As kind of a juror or as primus inter pares? Or does he just decides who's right?

This includes over-spending of the available resources. The President also determines how to use Great Leaders, sets the slider and handles any other task not assigned to another leader.

There are no restrictions in how long or how radical he has to fulfill the tasks assigned to him? He determines Great PEOPLE, (not great leaders

) and doesn't have to ask anyone? I would like to be DP here since he has too much power, IMHO.

The Minister of Defense is responsible for ensuring a strong and capable military and leading those forces in times of war.

Only in wartime? The rest of the time the DP's responsible?

The Minister of Defense controls the movement of all military units as well as the upgrades and promotions of military units.

The gov is out here concerning garrisons, right?

The Minister of the Interior is responsible for the health and development of <NAME> as a whole. They determine city placement, establish provincial boundaries, coordinate the construction of wonders and assign workers to provinces or national tasks.

small typo in bold...
So there is not poll about city-placements, no discussion (necessary, I mean. The Sec. of Interior could decide that on his own, if he wants?)
How does the SoI gets back the assigned workers? Anytime the gov's are willing to let them go again? That's a flaw, IMHO - At least it's no better than the tri-approach here...

The Minister of Trade and Technology sets the science research goals and handles the trade negotiations. They determine the research path for our scientists. They also determine the trades with foreign nations that should be executed.

Again the SoTT is the only one who can decide? It must be lonely at the top...

The Minister of Social Affairs monitors the social structure of <NAME> and determines when changes are needed. They determine the civic structure and the status of specific religions.

To all of the lower members of the cabinet I think it's not good that they can decide so much without polling... Polls are a way to let people participate. It slows things down but functionality shouldn't go before democracy, especially in a DG...

2. Legislative
The Legislative Branch is the Assembly and the Senate.

The Assembly is comprised of all citizens of <NAME>. The Assembly retains the sole power to declare war through a poll posted by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Assembly is also charged with the creation of new laws and amendments of existing laws. All such proposals must be presented to the Judiciary for review prior to an acceptance poll.

Naturally when I criticize, that your government has too much power binded together I feel that the Assembly hasn't got enough powers... I would like to be able to do more from the ranks than to just "let people do".

The Assembly may also Impeach an elected official through an Impeachment poll. Any citizen may create a thread calling for the Impeachment of an elected official. Should 2 more citizens confirm the request for impeachment within 24 hours of the initial post, the Judiciary must create a recall thread. This is a private poll, asking in Yes/No/Abstain format if the elected official should be removed from office. This poll should run for 4 days.

So there's no speaker and therefore any citizen could call for impeachment... How abotu double-posts in the past, threads who had to be merged? Must have happened, no? I like the speaker-position because he coordinates these things and if he's good he'll manage to keep a good overview in the forums...

3. Judicial
-- No changes from the framework.

-- Ravensfire

what is this framework exactly? I lost track - can you give us a link in the first post?

Generally I see that this is a far more simple approach than the tri-government, but I still would favor the tri... Maybe it turns out that the tri is unplayable but that's the risk you always get when trying something new.
I feel that the tri-approach would lead to more involvement of no-office-holders, it's more of a "base-democracy" approach whereas it tries to keep a working structure...

It's interesting to see how in this thread mainly vets are posting and saying that this is a good one! I'm sure it is, since it already proved it works! But I'd like to try something new!

It's a new approach either way and a lot of work is to be done, that's for sure...

DaveShack · Dec 13, 2005

Stilgar08 said:
With this government it's still mandatory that the DP has to be able to play the game online, right??
I don't like that at all. We must find a way (regardless of the type of gov. we choose) that offline players can play as DP or member of the tri... ! BTW, this comes from a completely biast point of view - I AM an offline player

Heavens no, it is not mandatory that play be online. Most of us do it that way, but it is quite easy to play the entire session from the instructions prepared in advance.

Could we make it by letting the other members send instructions to the DP and the DP has to do as the assigned office-holders say apart from doing his own duties during the game? Two problems here:
1. When foreign civs demand or offer the Sec. of State needs immediate availability and
2. I tslows things down... Personally I don't have a problem with this at all but others might see it differently...!!!

We simply prepare instructions which account for every possibility. Yes, this is a ton of preparation work.

Sorry I have to respond to this piecemeal, gotta run... more later probably.

DaveShack · Dec 13, 2005

Stilgar08 said:
Ravensfire said:

The President is the ultimate leader of <NAME>. When other leaders are in a dispute, the President resolves the matter.

Click to expand...

As kind of a juror or as primus inter pares? Or does he just decides who's right?

I can see from similar other questions in your post, one for each leader asking basically whether the leader is the sole decision maker, that we've overlooked an education step. This is not any fault of yours, the more experienced people should have realized this would happen.

Taken from the Constitution we find this restatement of the Power of the People, previously known as the Will of the People, or WOTP (TM). This is the part which has been distilled through at least 7 DG's before this one, and part of the reason you find so many comments from me on the Triumvirate where the Tri violates POP.

Constitution said:
The Power of the People can be delegated to officials of the game in one or more of the following ways, or in other ways which may subsequently be discovered.

By Mandate as evidenced in a citizen's selection to hold office via the elective process.

By Constituency as evidenced by citizen comments in favor of a decision, in a public discussion.

By Opinion Poll in the form of the results of a non-binding poll

By Referendum in the form of an official, binding poll which has force over the current decision only.

By Initiative in the form of a binding poll initiated by the citizenry, which has force over a current decision and future decisions of the same type

By Recall of an official and selection of a replacement via election or appointment

If the people speak up on an issue, in discussions or a poll, then the leader is always bound to do what the people say. The leader can choose to interpret discussion which is almost universally for or against something as being the people's decision, or poll an issue if it is unclear. If the people are happy with what the leaders are doing, they are not required to give any input. In that case, the leader has a mandate by virtue of being elected.

Back on topic of the Presidential power as supreme leader, this refers to being the driving force in the game. The President can lead any discussion but usually drops the other officials a hint in their government threads, and only jumps in when someone is not getting the job done. When there is a dispute between leaders, the President can mediate, but cannot force one or the other to concede the point. The Judiciary can decide who is responsible by interpreting the rules.

===================================================

The question to be put before the people is whether we want to continue this decision making style which adjusts itself to the changing activity level of the citizens, or go with something less democratic and more centered on the leaders.

If we agree on leadership style between the Triumvirate and Traditional, then duties of the offices are primarily what divides the two approaches. The Triumvirate has cooperation enforced by the rules and two layers of offices, the upper Tri layer and lower Cabinet layer. We tried that in DG6 and many people had trouble getting into the division aspect.

ravensfire · Dec 13, 2005

Stilgar08,

There's a phrase at the opening of the Executive section "The Executive Branch provides leadership and guidance at a national level through discussions, polling and decisions." While I like to avoid implied rules, I deplore continual restating if it can be done somewhere just once (ohhh, ruleset abstraction!). I hope that by putting this phrase at the top, people will read it and understand that it's applied to all the executive branch leaders. They lead and make decisions based on discussions and poll, then issue the instructions to the DP.

I'll address some of your comments here, and the rest in a more general post on playing the save (and the entire process involved).

The President is the ultimate leader of <NAME>. When other leaders are in a dispute, the President resolves the matter.
As kind of a juror or as primus inter pares? Or does he just decides who's right?

There will be times that the areas of various leaders come into conflict that's not settled in the ruleset. A good example is various leaders trying to spend cash, with the end result being more is spent than available. Should this happen, someone needs to resolve the matter, usually fairly quickly. I leave it up to the President to determine how to handle this.

The gov is out here concerning garrisons, right?

Correct - the Defense Minister controls all military units. Now, it certainly behoves the MoD to make sure there's adequate defense, or he'll have Governors loudly proclaiming that the MoD is leaving them undefended! Also, you'll have Governors negotiating with the MoD that "If I produce this defensive unit, you'll keep it in my city, right?" This is the great check in the power of the Governors - they rule supreme in their city, but they are dependant on the national government for troops and workers, even if they build the units!

How does the SoI gets back the assigned workers? Anytime the gov's are willing to let them go again? That's a flaw, IMHO - At least it's no better than the tri-approach here...

Workers are assigned, and unassigned, at the discretion of the MoI. Each game session, the MopI will have to post how many workers are assigned to each province/national pool. Workers assigned to the National Pool carry out projects as assigned by the MoI that are national in scope. These would be road networks, defenses, etc. This generally would NOT be building farms for a city, etc. The MoI may NOT use the dodge of "this is a national project" to maintain perpetual control of workers. If they want to improve the land of a city, they must assign the worker to the Province, which makes the worker subject to control of the Governor.

So there's no speaker and therefore any citizen could call for impeachment... How abotu double-posts in the past, threads who had to be merged? Must have happened, no? I like the speaker-position because he coordinates these things and if he's good he'll manage to keep a good overview in the forums...

Yup - that's possible. It's somewhat unlikely though, because threads of this nature WILL attract attention. If it does happen, people will gravitate towards one or the other, or the mods will merge the threads. While this is a bit more chaotic, it keeps the ultimate power of control in the hands of the People. Imagine if someone wanted to impeach the Speaker!

what is this framework exactly? I lost track - can you give us a link in the first post?

This would be the Constitutional Framework that DS is currently polling after a fair amount of discussion. I'll provide a link in the main post - good idea! :goodjob:

Generally I see that this is a far more simple approach than the tri-government, but I still would favor the tri... Maybe it turns out that the tri is unplayable but that's the risk you always get when trying something new.
I feel that the tri-approach would lead to more involvement of no-office-holders, it's more of a "base-democracy" approach whereas it tries to keep a working structure...

It's interesting to see how in this thread mainly vets are posting and saying that this is a good one! I'm sure it is, since it already proved it works! But I'd like to try something new! It's a new approach either way and a lot of work is to be done, that's for sure...

Thanks!

I tend to forget that not everyone here has done DG's before, so many of the processes that I'm used to dealing with aren't in here. They are in the Constitution, so I just didn't bring them over. I think that sections on playing the save, the DP Pool and others do need to be developed. I'll try to get to them today.

Thanks for the comments!
-- Ravensfire

ravensfire · Dec 13, 2005

Main post updated!

Added:
-- Game Session section
-- Playing the Save section
-- Deputies section
-- Vacancies section
-- Confirmation Poll section

Changed:
-- Nothing

-- Ravensfire

Provolution · Dec 13, 2005

There is a big big difference in natural resources from Civ3 to Civ4.
First of all, all resources count as "strategic" and "luxury resources". However, there is even more to consider. Frankly, I think we have to remake the Civ3 structure completely on the science/trade schism. Science and trade is much much more complex this turn around, so I would possibly split up the positions into the following:

Minister of Trade and Agriculture (all health related foodstuffs and luxuries)
Minister of Industry and Mining (all production related resources)

The first minister could trade goods that is not touching directly on military affairs, and can readily handle this without closer scrutiny from the other leaders.

DaveShack · Dec 13, 2005

Provolution said:
There is a big big difference in natural resources from Civ3 to Civ4.
First of all, all resources count as "strategic" and "luxury resources". However, there is even more to consider. Frankly, I think we have to remake the Civ3 structure completely on the science/trade schism. Science and trade is much much more complex this turn around, so I would possibly split up the positions into the following:

Minister of Trade and Agriculture (all health related foodstuffs and luxuries)
Minister of Industry and Mining (all production related resources)

The first minister could trade goods that is not touching directly on military affairs, and can readily handle this without closer scrutiny from the other leaders.

This is an interesting observation. I had not thought about this at all.

Another complication is that it is no longer possible to mix cash value and long-term committments in the same trade. You can't sell tech for resources, or even GPT -- it has to be cash or another tech. It also seems you are allowed to run a negative GPT as a result of a trade, though I've never tried that out myself.

Trade in general needs to be more strongly linked to the other departments than ever before. The AI's are very touchy about trade -- often potential trades will be shown as impossible in the screen, and if you mouse over it says "we just don't like you enough" which is pretty weird the first few times you see it.

ravensfire · Dec 13, 2005

Trade is indeed going to be much, much harder than Civ 3. I'd like to get a better idea of just how much work will be involved.

How about we temporarily hijack the Warmup forum? We'd post a thread with a game save and explain what we're looking for. Basically, have people identify the viable trades for our nation, maximizing benefit the benefit to us, and post how long it took.

We'd probably want to do 2 or 3 saves - middle age, industrial age and modern age.

Provo, I see where you are coming from about splitting them up. Let me think a bit on this. I'm concerned right now that splitting them up might result in a great deal of duplication, as trades can often cross the boundaries you suggest.

-- Ravensfire

Traditional Government

ravensfire

Member of the Opposition

Provolution

Sage of Quatronia

DaveShack

Inventor

Nobody

Gangster

ravensfire

Member of the Opposition

DaveShack

Inventor

ravensfire

Member of the Opposition

DaveShack

Inventor

ravensfire

Member of the Opposition

Ginger_Ale

Lurker

ravensfire

Member of the Opposition

Stilgar08

Emperor

DaveShack

Inventor

DaveShack

Inventor

ravensfire

Member of the Opposition

ravensfire

Member of the Opposition

Provolution

Sage of Quatronia

DaveShack

Inventor

ravensfire

Member of the Opposition

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