discussion on provincial borders

I think it is too early to do any serious work on provincial borders because the explored area is still a little too small to make an informed decision. Postponing this work is a little too large to do without citizen input, so please, discuss away!

What laws have been passed that apply to the formation of provinces?

CoL C.2.b deals largely with the foundation of new provinces:

As we’ve only just uncovered enough tiles for one province and have already found coast to the north, south and east of us (although as the Russians came from the east there must be a land bridge of some kind) I think it is too early to actually set the boundary – we could be on a peninsula after all! We can however start thinking about the general principles – do we prefer our first province centred about our capitol, or do we prefer our capitol to be on the side of one province so that our currently explored area would be split between two provinces. The latter would give 2 provinces with similar (although obviously not equal) corruption levels. We still have a lot of exploring to do and where the coast actually goes will have a big influence on the borders we set.

I agree with Furiey in that I believe it's too early to be deciding any Provincial borders at this time.

In re-checking the save, I would say that we need to explore 20 tiles to the South of the Capital and 20 tiles to the NW/WNW of the Capital before we are ready to determine good Provincial borders.

More exploration in the directions suggested by Cyc is definitely a good idea.

A follow-on question, anyone have any thoughts on who should control cities #2 and 3 while we wait for provincial borders to be drawn? Internal Affairs can handle it but does not want to take too large a role without some comment on this matter.

Comment (and law) has already been made on this, DS.

CoL Section B.2.e.3 states:

e. Ministry of Internal Affairs
1. Is responsible for settler placement.
2. Is responsible for wonder building, including
prebuilds.
3. Governor of cities that do not have a provincial
governor.

Plexus is our first Governor and is in control of all cities in the first Province. I would say that until we form Provincial borders, all of our cities are in the first Province. Any city outside those borders would go to the IA Dept. until a Governor was assigned to control them.

Originally posted by Cyc
[BI would say that until we form Provincial borders, all of our cities are in the first Province.

Any city outside those borders would go to the IA Dept. until a Governor was assigned to control them. [/B]

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(whitespace added)

There are two conflicting statements here. Everything inside the borders of the provice belong to the first province, but we have no borders. Everything outside the borders is IA, but we still have no borders.

The only thing really to be concerned with is moving cities out of the initial province and into some other province, after they have already been governed as part of the initial one.

On a separate but related note, I'm taking the approach that queues for new to be built cities are handled by IA until a governor is assigned.

No, DS. That was not two conflicting statements. The problem may have been the whitespace.

As it is now, there are no borders (I wish I could draw you a picture). That means all of our cities regardless of their location are in the first AND ONLY Province. Once we draw borders on our map, that borderline for the first Province will not envelop more than 126 tiles (by Law). That borderline will form a shape in which the ends will meet. (Think of a circle or a sqare, whatever.)

Now, any cities located outside of that borderline, that has not been assigned to a Governor-at-Large, will fall under the control of the IA Dept.

Please go back and read the first statement again.

Originally posted by Cyc
As it is now, there are no borders (I wish I could draw you a picture). That means all of our cities regardless of their location are in the first AND ONLY Province. Once we draw borders on our map, that borderline for the first Province will not envelop more than 126 tiles (by Law). That borderline will form a shape in which the ends will meet. (Think of a circle or a sqare, whatever.)

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Technicalities, technicalities. This is what we get by having so many rules. Cyc, If there are no borders then how can we have any provinces? *donsig wonders if we need a JR *

Cyc, it is possible (though highly unlikely) that we could build our initial cities (before setting any boundaries) in such a way that we cannot construct a province (no matter what shape) that contains only *about* 126 tiles. Now we (as a group) could argue technicalities back and forth and cause even more hard feelings (since we can't rationally discuss them) or we can get off our collective behinds and set some borders.

Is there anything in our blasted Three Books that prevents us from setting partial borders? Can we decide which provinces we want our new cities in and create partial borders now to establish said provinces and then complete the borders after we explore more?

Originally posted by donsig


Technicalities, technicalities. This is what we get by having so many rules. Cyc, If there are no borders then how can we have any provinces? *donsig wonders if we need a JR *

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donsig, if we don't have a Province, why do we have a Governor? JR this issue if you want, donsig. All of the land we have uncovered thus far IS the first Province, until we restrict the tiles used for Province 1 with borders.

Cyc, it is possible (though highly unlikely) that we could build our initial cities (before setting any boundaries) in such a way that we cannot construct a province (no matter what shape) that contains only *about* 126 tiles. Now we (as a group) could argue technicalities back and forth and cause even more hard feelings (since we can't rationally discuss them) or we can get off our collective behinds and set some borders.

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You're right, donsig. That is my point. If any city falls outside the borders of our first Province, then it is up for grabs, whether itis immediately assigned to a second or third Province or to the IA Dept. I note your comment on the *about* phrase. That is not my wording, although in our rush to get legislation passed at the end of our rulemaking period, I didn't object to it. I would like to get some borders up too. But the fog is preventing us from setting up logical borders at this time.

Is there anything in our blasted Three Books that prevents us from setting partial borders? Can we decide which provinces we want our new cities in and create partial borders now to establish said provinces and then complete the borders after we explore more?

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Yes, by all means, donsig. Open-ended Provinces have been used before in other DG's. We can take the borderlines out to a point where they disppear into the fog and can be shorten, lengthened, or redistricted later. The problem that confronts you, I believe, is that we can't really do that with the FIRST Province. In the situation we have now, we COULD draw a borderline over some fog-covered tiles just to hurry up the process, but why? The fog will be removed very shortly and let's face it, we only have two cities. Don't get yer panties in a knot there, you little dreamer. j/k, donsig.

This is simply a matter of logistics that will pan out shortly. We don't have to over-complicate this. Relax.

Originally posted by Cyc

donsig, if we don't have a Province, why do we have a Governor? JR this issue if you want, donsig. All of the land we have uncovered thus far IS the first Province, until we restrict the tiles used for Province 1 with borders.
too. But the fog is preventing us from setting up logical borders at this time.

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Well, Cyc, the whole point of a JR on the issue would be to clarify things since out Three Books are not clear. Your interpretation is reasonable but it is not the only reasonable interpretation. It is just as reasonable to interpret our laws in these two ways:

1) Since no provincial borders have been officially set there are no provinces, hence we have only at-large governors and the domestic minister (or whatever he's called in DGIV) *governs* the cities.

2) The first province is defined as the borders of our capital city with any subsequent cities being on no province (and hence under domestic control) until borders are formed.

I'm sure if I tried hard enough I could come up with even more reasonable interpretations. I'm more than willing to request a JR on this but it seems we could discuss the matter, make a decision or three and set some sort of boundary. We could even do our best under the circumstances to be logical about it, and then revisit the border situation when more info is at hand.

The key point here is we should be setting some provincial boundaries in advance of expansion as called for in our laws. There is no reason for us to found a city without there being bno question whatever about which province it is in when founded!

I suggest we draw a north-south line through the hill with the gold. That's a six tile border. Everything east of the tile is our second province while anything west is our capitol province. We can then restrict these two provinces to their proper size after exploration.

Here's a current (2430 BC) map (note: the gold looks like a sea-shell thanks to the GOTM) :

To go along with donsig's point - we have a nice, simple process to handle redistricting if we need to.

Let's draw up a few possible borders. In a term or two, we can look at changing them some, especially after we've built the FP.

-- Ravensfire

Well, sorry. I have a problem with donsig's suggestion. If we draw a line through the gold hill seprating the East from the West, with everything in the West being our Capital Province, that would make our Capital Province about (guessing) 200 to 230 tiles in size? Why break the law? Let's draw up some plans and discuss them, but we CANNOT purposely break the law because we're in a hurry to assign cities to different individuals, or for any other reason. When the first Province has its borders drawn up we will then find it easier to work the following borders.

All of this bickering is frankly making me disgusted. If we cannot even agree on who controls what build queues then we have far bigger problems, and far bigger egos, than the simple matter of where to draw pretty lines on a map.

Get into the game people.

EDIT to be nicer. All I am asking is that we work to find a way to discuss something simple in the game without everything turning into a legal debate.

With the current laws being dependent on tiles rather than cities, I wonder what we're going to do about that huge desert.

We're going to tile it. What color would you like?

I really don't know how to reply here without getting into the legalities of the situation. I offered a suggestion in good faith, one that I think is legal. It gets shot down, not because it's a bad idea but because it is supposedly illegal. Setting the rules aside for now, would it make sense to draw the border I suggested? Once we decide where we want a border (even a temporary one) we can address the legalities.

I'm reminded of a story about J. P. Morgan. Morgan had a plan one day and went to his lawyer who said, "I don't think that's legal." Morgan told the lawyer, "I don't pay you to tell me what I can and can't do. I pay you to tell me how I can do what I want to do."

Can we not figure out some basics about our provinces now and then figure out how to make our decisions legal?

I just don't see why donsig. We now have a whopping three cities (last time I looked). Governor Plexus has the ability to govern three cities, why not let him do so? I have no problem with this, as soon we'll have all of the fog removed from around the Capital City. This will mean having full knowledge of all the terrain around us. Borders will be easy to place with full knowledge of surrounding terrain.

I've got an idea, why don't you draw up a proposed Provicial border map and we can discuss it. Then when other maps are drawn up, yours can become part of the many that we can vote on.