How do YOU want to handle the budget?

[DaveShack]

My Fellow Citizens,

I need your guidance on how you would like the budget to be handled. Prior to the start of this thread, for term 3 and the beginning of term 4 we have operated under the principle that the Domestic Leader has control of the budget, and there has not been much activity which would require discussion, and no dissent so little obvious need for polling.

Now we're starting to discuss major projects, like rushing 300g worth of workers in outlying areas to move to the inner cities, or 200g in temples for border towns to fight a cultural battle, or upgrading Spears to Muskets at a cost of 80g each. Even with a large treasury, this is starting to get into serious cash.

I'd like to hear some input from the general citizenry on what you think should be done. Should the DL set his/her own threshold for small vs. large, handle the small stuff, and open discussions and polls on the big stuff? Would you feel more comfortable with a set limit in terms of % of the treasury? Should certain types of budget requests be deferred to polls while other types of requests are handled directly?

Please let me know what you think.

[deshelbr]

I think you should figure out the cost vs. revenue of every province, and figure out the cost of the Military (if any). Then allow those governors a certain amout of spending of the national treasury (not all of it) based upon their percentage of the overall national profit.

This way the governors have to sign on to any Size 12 Plan or Military Adventure for it to work.

[ravensfire]

In general, I support Domestic having control over the budget. I think that asking citizens periodically how much of a reserve "cushion" would they like will give enough guidance for spending.

Large expenditures probably should be polled as well.

Other than that, we elected you to handle most of it - I certainly don't want to sweat the small stuff. I've got too much I'm dealing with already!

-- Ravensfire

[zorven]

Great question DaveShack. Like ravensfire said, we elected you to handle this and whatever system works for you and accounts for the will of the people is fine with me.

That said:

Should the DL set his/her own threshold for small vs. large, handle the small stuff, and open discussions and polls on the big stuff? Sounds fine to me.

Would you feel more comfortable with a set limit in terms of % of the treasury? Not sure what you mean.

Should certain types of budget requests be deferred to polls while other types of requests are handled directly? I can't think of any that should.


@ deshelbr - the governors already have to sign on to any plan as they control their own build queues.

[deshelbr]

Yeah, you're right. I was just thinking we could give the governors a little bit of power to directly rush something they wanted rushed. Right now there isn't a mechanism for a governor to decide to rush anything because they don't have any of their own spending cash.

[donsig]

Rushing workers is not a priority. Our cities will grow naturally with a little care. Our gold would be better spent rushing cultural improvements on our borders and completing other city projects. We do not really need to upgrade our spearmen either since it would be more economical to recruit new musketmen in our core cities to send to the perimiter.

Having a stockpile of gold also allows us to keep our science rate pushed up to the point of running a small deficit. If we're to resch for the stars we need a good tech lead.

[Donovan Zoi]

I agree with donsig that we don't need to upgrade spearmen, and that we should maintain a somewhat healthy treasury --- about 600g.

Where we part ways is on the growth of our cities. Right now, we only have 33 workers for 40-odd cities. The cities he claims will grow with a little TLC will most likely not be helped in the short-term and will therefore take 10-20(or more) turns to grow to the next population point. We have opportunities to take advantage of unused yet fully improved land in some of these cities, but our cities grow to slowly to do so. This is why we need to rush Workers and growth improvements so that we may implement the Size 12 Plan.