Constitution Discussion. Article C-E

[Nobody]

DS, add military escorts to settlers, as well as War Economy and Mobilization.

i say they should go to the military, but use great purposal its got my vote

 

[vikingruler]

i'm pro-DS's ammendment.

 

[mhcarver]

I would like to propose DS's proposition for a secretary of state with Provo's addictions(changes in bold)

Secretary of State: Determines external friends and enemies. Handles intelligence and threat estimates, and high level who to attack first and who to make treaties with. Responsible for embassies, investigations, and intelligence operations,military escorts to settlers, and coordinating funding with other departments. Determines wartime objectives, wartime economy, and wartime mobilization. Responsible for scope and timing of Declarations of War, Peace Treaties, Military Alliances, Rights of Passage, and Mutual Protection Pacts, coordinates with other departments related to use of funds, technology, and resources.

 

[Nobody]

wartime economy and wartime mobilization? do you mean the same thing, or do you mean during a war the Sec State would be able to control all of economic aspects of the game?

 

[Provolution]

Wartime Economy and Mobilization is a one time button thing in the Domestic Screen.

 

[Nobody]

thats what i thought, just for a idea, i liked the old way when the nation Mobilized the military leader became DP. thats pretty cool

 

[DaveShack]

I suspect we have sections mixed up. The Domestic leader should be in charge of mobilization and settler escorts. Secretary of State would be the new term for the External Consul.

 

[mhcarver]

I suspect we have sections mixed up. The Domestic leader should be in charge of mobilization and settler escorts. Secretary of State would be the new term for the External Consul.

Your right I just copied and pasted without thinking

 

[Provolution]

DS, please add these things to your Domestic proposal, so we do not have to go several penal rounds.

 

[DaveShack]

Now I understand the changes that Provolution requested. They are things we have pretty much always had the Domestic office do, and they are things we just about always forget to include in the law, so there is always a JR on them. This does not substantially change the proposal, it is merely correcting an omission, so the 24 hour clock does not need to be restarted.

New Mock Poll:

Do you approve of the attached legislation amending Article D and Article E, and the provisions for its activation?

Yes
No
Abstain
This poll is public and will be open for n days. (not sure how many n should be, the Judiciary should fill it in.)

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

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.
            
. . .  section 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.

. . .  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.

. . .  remainder of Article E unaffected

New text, article E

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, escorts, and settler carrying transports.
                Plans switching the economy between normal and mobilized.


. . . 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.

 

[Provolution]

Go ahead, Polll it. Chief Justice. Please add in settler escorts too, as well as war mobilization. (War economy and mobilization are separate in game functions).

 

[Provolution]

Now, run through the Secretary of State one and the other ones.

 

[DaveShack]

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.

I think we should develop this idea, but giving it enough time to be a really solid proposal. It would be a complete rewrite, something we've already had a great deal of shouting about just to get us where we are now.

 

[Bertie]

I think we should develop this idea, but giving it enough time to be a really solid proposal. It would be a complete rewrite, something we've already had a great deal of shouting about just to get us where we are now.

I agree with this.

I haven’t thought through what I'm about to propose so I hesitate to raise the issue. But when has that ever stopped me?

Anyway, in addition to some of the changes being discussed, I suggest we eliminate the Judiciary. The purpose of the Constitution is to serve the citizens of Fanatannia, not the other way around. We’ve made a fetish of our Constitution. All that the Constitution should be is a means of organizing ourselves so that we can collectively play a game. If we decide what we are doing isn’t working, it should be easy to correct this rather than jump through the hurdles that the current system mandates. The Judiciary serve as gatekeepers in a process that isn’t needed IMO (I know there can be abuses to this, which I’ll get to) and also act in a semi-prosecutorial role that just seems a little strange to me. (CC’ing each other seems silly; if someone does something particularly egregious, suspend or ban him from the game.)

There will be disputes and there will be times when laws and procedures need clarification. I’d replace the Judiciary with an Arbitration Board or Board of Elders or something like that. Their charge would be to make a decision that would be in the spirit of the best interest of the game and not necessarily in strict accordance with the Constitution. The Constitution can be wrong. We all seem pretty clear on the idea that it isn’t perfect. The Arbitrators would make a decision based on current circumstances, with a nod towards past practices and tradition. Why not just do what works and makes sense for those citizens that are currently playing the game? If the composition of active players changes dramatically from, for instance, Term 1 to Term 6, why should the Term 6 citizens be stuck with rules that worked fine for Term 1 players who may no longer be involved in the game? Half of the people most interested in writing an elaborate Constitution aren’t actively involved in playing the game.

End of Bertie’s rant.

 

[Provolution]

I totally agree with Bertie, that is why I decided to run for Culture and CJ in order to abolish the first and neutralize the second. The Judiciary can be a true pest if it becomes a powerful roadbloc, a moralizing stage or a platform for vindication and cronyism.

At least the Culture should be merged with Finance OR science, and the Judiciary needs to be severely dethroned, leaving most of the work to moderators.

 

[Black_Hole]

I totally agree with Bertie, that is why I decided to run for Culture and CJ in order to abolish the first and neutralize the second. The Judiciary can be a true pest if it becomes a powerful roadbloc, a moralizing stage or a platform for vindication and cronyism.

At least the Culture should be merged with Finance OR science, and the Judiciary needs to be severely dethroned, leaving most of the work to moderators.

the only thing moderators should be doing is enforcing forum rules, not enforcing game rules, not deciding game/constitution decisions

 

[mad-bax]

Well, unless we can strip the BS out of the discussion, nothing will change. People who advocate change and then drop some kind of bomb that someone else will react to are basically putting a knife in the back of the people who really want reform. This needs to grow up into a technical discussion.

First we need to describe the problem. Then we need to isolate the root cause(s) of the problem, and then we need to fix the root cause. It may not even turn out to be the constitution that is at fault. It may even be that there is no problem at all, but just a bunch of kids sulking that mummy didn't buy them the flavour ice-cream that they wanted.

Unhelpful when people don't choose their words carefully isn't it?

 

[mad-bax]

Here is my my first stab at getting Daveshacks suggestion moving. I would like to say from the outset that it has nothing to do with it being based on a proposal I made. Just that I support the idea of taking a longer and more considered view of government structure.

The problems

1. The division of responsibilities between offices is ambiguous.
2. The area of responsibility between offices is not equal.
3. The competition for offices is not as high as it could be.
4. The designation of worker tasks is too difficult/complex to write down as an instruction.
5. Deputies are not chosen by the people. In particular, the VP position is the second in command in the CoC and is not elected.
6. Control of the in-game finances is more or less control of the entire game.
7. There is no mechanism to resolve conflicting policy between departments.
8. There is no obligation on candidates for office to state their intentions should they be elected. People will usually therefore be elected on personality, presence and reputation rather than the way they want to drive the game.
9. Interpretation of the constitution by the Judiciary is done behind closed doors with no input from the people. The consequences of their decisions may not have been fully elavaluated, there is the possibility of personal prejudices and aspirations being incorporated into law. The intention of the constitution and the best interest of the game may not be fully respected.
10. There is no hierarchy in the governmental organisation. There seems to be no obligation on one official to respect the policies of other officials.

If we can discuss this problem statement, and refine it to reflect what people in general believe to give us a problem in the game, we can then move on to deciding what causes those problems. The problem statement I have written is really extremely bad, because I have implied the solution to the problems in many cases and I shouldn't do it. Hopefully people will help me refine it into just a problem statement rather than a list of possible solutions.

 

[mad-bax]

Assuming that some of the list in my previous post are agreed as being problems, here is a list of possible causes of these problems.
Again, I invite discussion and hope that others will help refine this.

Possible Causes.

1. Ambiguous wording in the current constitution. Incomprehensible wording (lagalese) in the constitution. Peoples prejudices based on previous constitutions. Judicial processes not capable of interpretation in-line with the intent of the constitution or the best interests of the game.

2. Allocation of duties based on obvious in game boundaries like culture, war and peace, commerce etc. Changing workloads as game evolves. Strengths and weaknesses of various officers means some exceed their area of responsiblility where others do not fulfill their entire obligation.

3. Too many offices for the number of people playing. Jobs are not interesting enough. People convinced they couldn't get elected for various reasons. People don't like the in-fighting. People can't commit to the time and effort involved. People don't understand what they have to do.

4. Impossible to dictate exact worker movements for 10 turns in advance. Difficult to communicate worker movements via instruction without extensive maps and such. As game progresses job becomes more and more difficult. Cannot respond to changing requirements within a turnchat.

5. Not enough people involved to deputise each position. Election process for deputies cumbersome and impractical since most people will be standing for the full time role anyway. Traditional use of deputies from previous and more actively supported DGs carried over into DG6. May not be appropriate for today.

6. Most in-game actions have an impact on finances. Slider settings seem to take precedence over other demands on the treasury ATM.

7. No government hierarchy or reporting lines. All policy is equally applied. There is no provision for over-riding or choosing between conflicting policy.

8. Officers are under no obligation to Poll anything. Officers are under no obligation to state their intentions before taking office. Well known people who are nominated by other people have an advantage over those that self nominate.

9. Judicial procedure is not subject to the scrutiny of the people. Judgements are not passed into law directly but are buried in a thread. Reading the CoL or Constitution after a ruling would not enlighten the reader as to how a ruling affects them.

10. Similar to 7. Specifically for this point, micromanagement functions are not confined by the policy of their macromanagement counterparts. They can frame policy that is not in-line with "Long-term" planning and it must be implemented with equal vigour. Macromanagement and Micromanagement functions provide instructions within the TCIT.

 

[mad-bax]

Overall idea behind the proposed changes.

Well, firstly the changes proposed are intended to deal with as many of the causes of the problems listed above as possible, without causing new problems. The overall concept is that all official positions are elected and have specific duties that encompass an area of the game. Each official position will have a policy which covers the term from day 1, and there is a mechanism for resolving any conflicts between departmental policy. The presidents office is given a job, and each "macromanagement" position has a "micromanagement shadow". The micromanager reports to his macromanager. That is to say micromanagement becomes an executive position which implements the macromanagements "think tank" policy. They provide the instructions to the DP that will deliver the policy. It would be a good idea I think for the macro and micro managers to serve as each others deputies for short planned absences.
This office would also have the ultimate decision over actions which could damage reputation, and changing government.

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.

Macromanagement positions should not post in the TCIT - Lets get that out of the way at the outset. Policy should be divorced from game-play. The presidential office itself is responsible for making a coherent game plan from the various macromanagement policies. If the presidential office sees a conflict between two or more policies it is his job to resolve it. This could be done by polling the sections of the various policies in conflict. The result of the poll would be binding and result in the ammendment of the "losing" policies. The President should not be the DP. Instead, this job should go to the Director of Infrastructure. This is because specifying hundreds of worker turns for an entire turnchat is impossible, both to forsee and to write down in an intelligible manner. The official entrusted with worker turns should play them. If this person is unavailable then the President or the Vice President should deputise. For this reason, all three of these positions would require the person to have access to the software.
The Vice President should be an elected position, and will in effect be the reserve for any official position that becomes vacant long term. When taking on such a role he must implement his predecessors plan (since it was the mandate that was voted for), any changes in policy must be polled.

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.

This office should be responsible for basic gameplay. So it will decide what to research, what to trade, where to settle, the use of specialists and single science research etc. Also responsible for the use of SGLs. How it manages finances is important. It cannot be allowed to veto other departmental spending. Therefore priorities must be set. One way it could work is as follows. The happiness slider is set appropriately. Departmental spending is applied. Science slider is set as required by the Home office. In this way departmental spending is not limited by research rate, but rather the other way round. The Home office would then have a policy for say research tech X in 10 turns max maintaining net positive income of 10gpt minimum, for example. If this cannot be met, because of other departmental spend, then the President does his job.

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.

Could have some fun with this office. Basically, this office would be responsible for all agressive action, whether offensive or defensive. It would decide who is friend and who is foe. Will decide who we will fight and for what reasons. Will decide how many defensive units are required and where, including garrisoning for happiness, and quelling resistance. To add interest could be given powers of veto over trading to delay the learning of some techs, or over ride a tech research choice to learn a military tech this office feels necessary to carry out it's policy. Can also call for war mobilisation. (Interesting in this game, since it could conflict with the overall game plan of 130K victory ) Also responsible for MGL use.

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

Would also be responsible for all exploration, and would get to choose which tech to take in the event of a successful steal. Some of these actions could precipitate a war with a nation labelled "friendly" by the Foreign office. I like the idea of the Intelligence agency being able to do this despite the foreign offices policy. Having a slightly "unnacountable" Intelligenc agency is appealing to me.

B. Micromanagement Departments

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

This job should go to the designated player, and play in-line with the Presidential offices overall policy and in-line with the TCIT. I like the idea of having workers distributed by quota among the various governors and the governors and commander in chief making requests for their use. Please road between these two cities, or please include a stack of 12 workers with our army to road to the enemy. That kind of thing.

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.

In practice this would be a bigger job than outlined here. The Director of the Interior would report to the Home Office and execute the Home Offices policy. He would write the instructions for the TCIT, but would be constrained by the framework given to him by the Home Office.

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.

This job remains essentially unchanged. Exploration would be taken away. Specifying how many defenders of what type should be in each city for defence or MP duty or resistance quelling would be added. Would also decide whether a city should be kept or razed on capture. Would decide if a city should be starved. Would be responsible for build queues whilst a city is in resistance (martial law). This function reports to the Foreign office and all actions must be in-line with foreign office policy. Is responsible for writing the TCIT instructions for the foreign office.

One Office I haven't specified is Spymaster General. I'm not sure if there is enough content in such a job, but the Intelligence agency does need a deputy. Could be responsible for specifics of Intelligence gathering. Moving exploration units, deciding which cities to investigate. Whic embassies when etc. Responsible for writing the TCIT instructions. Reports to the intelligence agency.

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.

The major change to this office is that the higher offices may assign targets for the governor to meet. The Commander in chief may require 7 swords and 3 horses by turn 150. The Director of the Interior may require research capability increased by 25% in the next 25 turns etc.

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.

This is fairly self-explanatory. The idea is to do away with appointed positions. Each office has a macromanagement and a micromanagement person. They can deputise for each other. Where an office falls long term vacant, then it wil be filled by the VP.

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.

I think it is important that when voting people to office that it is clear what people will get. Someone voted to office will then have a mandate that he can implement without deciding what to poll and what not to poll. Of course, as the game unfolds, so will the policy So any changes to policy MUST be polled. Similarly, any policy that conflicts with another department MUST be polled by the president. I think that this will lead to greater democracy, and a higher level of gameplay.

Changes to the Judiciary should be made too. But rather than confuse the issue, I may return to that later.

Apologies for the length of the post, but it's a complex issue and everything needs to be fully discussed.