CoL Discussion: Section D(Legislative Branch)

[ravensfire]

Originally posted by Cyc
I am actually referring to the 126-tile process used in DG1 that was pretty much a success. Late in the game redistricting was allowed to better serve the nation. But the wording here is important, as I believe this allows the DG1 system.

After a brief search, I could not find anything about that system. Could you explain it here? Thanks!

-- Ravensfire

 

[Cyc]

Originally posted by ravensfire


After a brief search, I could not find anything about that system. Could you explain it here? Thanks!

-- Ravensfire

Here's a link from the Provincial Borders discussion that took place in the begining of November, where I re-introduced the system.

Tile-based Borders

If you hold on, I can go back to the DG1 forums and get a more detailed summary for it.
Here's a detailed description of the system. It icludes maps, so those on dial-up may have to wait a bit to see them. This is the second part of the description in response to donsig's request. The first part is on a previous page.

126-tile system

Here's the Council Vote that approved the system.

Council Vote

It is also in the DG1 History Section of the Demogame Website.

 

[ravensfire]

Sorry for the delay in responding to this.

The 126 tile looks good - the justification for it is very reasonable.

I'd be quite happy with such a process.

-- Ravensfire

 

[ravensfire]

Current proposal (includes tile based + production equity attempt). Note that amending the CoL is now it's own article.

D.  The Legislative Branch 
  1.  The Senate (Governors) 
    A.  Structure
      1.  The Senate shall be comprised of all Provincial Governors
        A.  Should the number of provinces at the beginning of a term 
            be less than 3, a number of At-Large Governors shall be
            elected.
          1.  The number of At-Large Governors shall be that needed to 
            bring the total number of Governors to 3.
          2.  Should a new province be formed in mid-term, and an
              At-Large Governor exist, the At-Large Governor receiving 
              the most votes in support during the election shall become 
              the Provincial Governor of the new province.
      2.  The Senatorial President shall be the Vice-President
        A.  The Senatorial President shall be empowered to vote only when 
            a Senate vote is tied.
            
    B.  Provincial borders are tile-based and will be approved 
        by the Congress. 
      1.  A province should contain no more than 6 cities and approximately 126 tiles
      2.  All provinces should be of approximately the same size.
      3.  All provinces should contain approximately the same number of productive cities.
      4.  Provincial borders shall be defined well ahead of expansion. 
      5.  When a defined province grows to 3 cities in the middle of an 
          term, a temporary governor may be appointed by the President.
          A.  Any citizen may post a refusal poll
          
    C.  A governor organizes the production of their province.
      1.  A governor organizes the build queues of the cities in thier province
      1.  A governor organizes the tile use in their province. 
      2.  If a tile is unused, it may be used by a city in a neighboring 
          province. 
      3.  A governor organizes tile development in their province. 
      4.  A governor may determine if population rushing is to be used
          in a city within their province.
          
    D.  The Senate shall meet prior to each turn chat and vote on the slider 
         settings for the next game play session in a Senate Slider poll.
      1. The setting with the most votes shall be the approved setting.
      2. The results of this vote shall be posted by the Senatorial President 
         in the game play session instruction thread.
      3. Should the Senate fail to determine the slider settings, the 
         Designated Player shall determine the slider settings.
          
    E. The Senate shall meet prior to each turn chat and vote on all cash rush 
       requests in a Cash Rush poll. 
      1. These requests should be made in the Senate thread, or another 
         designated thread indicated in the first post of the Senate thread.
      2. Each request should be considered individually unless the requestor 
         specified otherwise.
      3. Each request should be voted on seperately.
      4. Each request receiving a majority of votes in support shall be 
         considered approved.
      5. Should more requests be approved than funds available, rushes shall 
         be conducted in the order determined by the Designated Player.       
          
  2.  The Congress (Citizens) 
    A.  Comprised of all registered citizens of Fanatika. 
    
  3.  Legislative Polls
    A.  Senate Polls
      1.  Slider Polls
        A.  Proposal shall list all options under consideration.
        B.  Poll shall be in open response format (normal post option, not 
            a poll).
        C.  The minimum duration for this poll is 24 hours.
      2.  Cash Rush Polls
        A.  Proporal shall list all cash rush requests.
        B.  Poll shall be in open response format (normal post option, not
            a poll).
        C.  The minimum duration for this poll is 24 hours.
    
X.  Amending the Code of Laws
  1. Polls to amend the Code of Laws shall be posted by the Judiciary
     upon succesful completion of a Judicial Review.
  2. Polls are to be in anonymous responder format (standard Forum 
     poll option). 
    A.  Proposal must be in Yes/No/Abstain format. 
    B.  Polls will stay open until: 
      1.  All votes have been cast, or; 
      2.  A quorum has responded and further votes cannot 
          affect the outcome of the vote, or; 
      3.  The posted poll closing time has been reached. 
        1.  Minimum duration to run a poll is 48 hours. 
    C.  The quorum for changes in the Code of Laws is 1/2 of the 
        census. 
    D.  A simple majority of support is required to adopt or alter a law.

-- Ravensfire

 

[ravensfire]

Immediate concern - what is a "productive city" - DaveShack - any ideas on a good way to state this? Or anyone else?

-- Ravensfire

 

[Cyc]

I believe the term "productive city" was directly related to "equitable distribution". In other words DS wanted to more equally distribute productivity, by radiating our Provincial borderlines out from the Capital City in an effort to share the corruption reduction element of the Capital City, in each Province. Think pie chart. Each Provincial pie slice would point directly at the Capital City, thus getting as many corruption-free tiles as the next Province. This would allow "equal distribution of productive cities. DS is hoping to reduce the number of Provinces containing only "fishing villages" because of their distance from the Capital City. This is why he wishes that our Provincial Borders will "radiate" from the Capital City.

Is this correct DaveShack?

 

[Octavian X]

That's a difficult one to define. Generally, I think the idea that we should have radiating provinces is a silly one. The goal it attempts is a good one, but figuring out the distribution will be hard. Don't forget the possibility that we'll move the palace - reconfiguring the provinces after that will be an absolute nightmare.
Also, what if our empire stretches out the way it did in DG2? If you'll remember, we won because we controlled 66% of the earth's surface. Even at half that size, we'd have provinces that would be very difficult to define if we tried to divide up good cities equally.
The reason provinces worked in the first place is because people could at least have a fairly good idea of where each province was located, since we all had a general idea of what features of the terrain seperated the nation.

Face it - for provinces to be at least coherently defined, a system of radiating provinces just won't work. They will be difficult to divide in the first place, and confusion will inevitably set in as no one would truly be sure where each city belongs.

 

[TerminalMan90]

I think the terrain will also make it difficult to make the pie shaped provinces difficult to balance. A mountainous region will never have as much food production and a desert area will be poor no matter what our workers do to improve it.

There will always be poor provinces and rich provinces. Wealth sharing will come through gp, cash rushing, worker and population redistribution. I think given the constrants of terrain and chronology, it is impossible to make all provinces equal.

That being said, it does seem unfair to have the capital province straddling all the best (i.e. closest to the capital) cities without 'spreading the wealth'. I don't think the province borders need to be static. We will start with one province. When the number of cities increases to the point where a second province can be 'spawned', province boundaries should be re-negotiated....

... I just looked at some of the thread on this issue, and I come to the conclusion that I don't know Jack. Carry on fellas.

 

[zorven]

I think the proposal outlined by Ravensfire looks fine. However, I think B.3 (All provinces should contain approximately the same number of productive cities) would be too difficult to execute. I sympathize with the goal but it would be highly dependent on the terrain presented to us as to whether it is feasable or not. I think we should define provinces as they are required and not worry so much that some provinces are not "equal" to others. The more powers we give the Senate the more "equal" the governors become. Heck, maybe some governors don't want alot of work planning city production

 

[ravensfire]

Okay, bit more time to think about things.

First, toss the balanced production stuff - rely upon the citizens to help with that. If people want unbalanced production, give it to them.

Second, put in a clause explicitly allowing redistricting. Say, must meet quorum with 2/3 support of redistricting. All provincial borders may then be redrawn. New borders then accepted as usual, changes not official until they are accepted.

-- Ravensfire

 

[zorven]

Ravensfire, that sounds fine. Also, shouldn't section D.1.B actually be D.2.B as it is a function of the Congress and not the Senate?

 

[Octavian X]

Provincial borders still need a bit of work, imho. I'd removed D.1.B.1 as well, since it's an unnecessary restriction. We should be keeping our options open, in my opinion.

A redistricting cluase would help as well.

 

[ravensfire]

Provincial borders:

D.
  2.  
    B.  Provincial borders shall be determined and approved 
        by the Congress. 
      1.  A province should contain no more than approximately 126 tiles
      2.  All provinces should be of approximately the same size.
      3.  Provincial borders shall be defined well ahead of expansion. 
      4.  When a defined province grows to 3 cities in the middle of an 
          term, a temporary governor may be appointed by the President.
          A.  Any citizen may post a refusal poll for the appointment.
      5.  Any citizen may request a redistricting poll be held by creating 
          a new thread in the Citizen's sub-forum with the request.  Should
          more than 2 other citizens second the request, the Minister of
          Internal Affairs shall create a redistricting poll. 
        a.  This poll shall ask the question "Shall we redefine the boundaries
            of our Provinces?" and be open for 4 days.
        b.  If the poll meets a quorum level of 2/3 the census and 2/3 of the
            votes support the question, the Minister of the Interior shall
            immediately conduct a discussion on redefining the boundaries of 
            all Provinces.
        c.  Once all boundaries have been created, the entire plan shall be
            polled for acceptance.  There shall be no quorum level, and the
            poll shall be open for 4 days.  If 2/3 of the votes accept the 
            proposal, the new boundaries shall become active with the next
            election.

For redistricing, I put the MIA in charge simply because *someone* needs to run the discussion. This makes someone start the process. The process is fairly detailed - maybe move the details stuff to CoS?

The part about basing the size of provinces on tiles needs some more discussion though - some want it, some don't. You'll note that I removed the city restriction - I think if a Governor wants a tight province, let 'em! Obviously, that can be readded based on feedback.

-- Ravensfire

 

[zorven]

Some comments on Ravensfire's last revision:

Section 1 - A province should contain no more than approximately 126 tiles

How can you define "no more than approximately"? It should either be "no more than 126" or "should contain approximately 126".

Section 4 typo- change an to a (middle of an term)

Section 5 - I think the request should specify a specific province(s). If a citizen has a problem with only one area of a province and passes step b, then we open a bag of worms by allowing all provinces to be re-worked. This could cause many request and alot of debate to restructure all the provinces instead of just addressing the one point originally made.

 

[Bootstoots]

I think that Section 1 should be stricken entirely from the proposal, and either have no limit in its place or an (approximate) number of cities that the province should contain. Also, section 4 should include some mention of at-large governors. As for section 5, I think that it should be allowed to specify specific province(s), and strike section 5.a; I would much rather see discussion and then a poll rather than a poll before discussion that will be followed by another poll. The provincial border change could require more than two citizens to second it during discussion, and the poll at the end should have a quorum, and I think a simple majority of the census should suffice.

 

[ravensfire]

Originally posted by Bootstoots
I think that Section 1 should be stricken entirely from the proposal, and either have no limit in its place or an (approximate) number of cities that the province should contain. Also, section 4 should include some mention of at-large governors. As for section 5, I think that it should be allowed to specify specific province(s), and strike section 5.a; I would much rather see discussion and then a poll rather than a poll before discussion that will be followed by another poll. The provincial border change could require more than two citizens to second it during discussion, and the poll at the end should have a quorum, and I think a simple majority of the census should suffice.

I don't think section 4 needs a mention of it. The clause defining the at-large position states that if an at-large gov. exists, they get the province. While we could restate that here, it only complicates things.

Section 5 - Resizing only a couple makes sense. I will disagree with you about the poll/discussion/poll stuff. Once we create a province border - it should be pretty tough to change it - people take pride in the province they call their own, changing it should require some effort. The first poll is to see if there is enough support to change the borders - only then should new borders be discussed. Section A needs to stay.

-- Ravensfire

 

[Octavian X]

Here's a thought:

To whom shall we give the power to name/rename provinces?

We traditionally gave the privelidge of naming a province to the first governor of that province. We never did have a system for renaming a province, though that debate came up once or twice in DG2 (ref.: Southwest Province).

 

[Cyc]

It also came up about "The North Province". I don't believe we need to change the name of Provinces. That would be a cruel way of snubbing someone's work.

 

[zorven]

I don't have a problem with limiting the size of provinces if for no other reason than it is something different than last game.

I agree with Ravensfire that changing the provincial borders should be difficult and therefore I don't have a problem with his proposal.

As far as naming provinces, we should probably discuss that in the Naming Rights thread.

 

[ravensfire]

Okay, there appears to be ONE issue left for this section - province borders. Please use this as a starting point and let's try to resolve this. We have drug our collective tails on this, it's got to get wrapped up soon.

Issue summary - please keep answers short and generalized
Province borders
Question 1: Do we want to have provinces of similar size?
Question 1a: If yes, how?

Question 2: Do we want to have provinces of similar production capactity?
Questions 2a: If yes, how?

NEW QUESTION
Question 3: Do we want to have provinces with similar numbers of cities?
Question 3a: If yes, how? Does the final world size impact this decision?

Provincial Naming
Question 1: Does this belong here, or in the naming rights section?

Thanks,
-- Ravensfire

EDIT: Question added