Definition of offices in Alternative government structure

[DaveShack]

Yes, but you consistently misspelled it as "Decreet", so I was confused.

 

[ravensfire]

Ah - but you forgot the smiley, DS, so the humor was missed.

-- Ravensfire

 

[Provolution]

Also it looked like you were going to post 4 proposals but there only seem to be 3. Am I misreading it?

Sorry, I was writing a research proposal and had to leave, I will add the fourth shortly.

In defining a constitution, we don't want to be too detailed. Can the details of interactions go in a lower form of law, or in a "guide to playing the positions" type document?

Definitive -it has to be a lower law, or we would see numerous transgressions, and a guide would not suffice. However, the guide can be written as well.

For several games we have toyed with the idea of adjusting responsibilities based on what age of the game we're in. You seem to be suggesting adjustments based on victory condition? If so, how do we write generic job descriptions to result in a constitution which is valid for every victory condition?

I think each Consul has a different focus, Finance and Technology is all about
the Space Race in the long term, since it is a question of tech parity and finances to rush space parts to win this race. Of course all consuls are all round, but this would make much more sense. However, the adjustments are based on the need to cover various fields.

Separate Military Consul
We just disagree on the need for long-term military strategy. My opinion is that either we're warlike and we produce as many units as we can, or we're not and we focus on diplomacy. Beyond that, what possible debate is there on long-term military? Who to attack is a function of analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of our opponents, and by definition whomever we're not attacking are the ones we need treaties with. The same person can deal with all our opponents.

I can be convinced however. Can you describe a situation where there is long-term military planning required, which is non-trivial, not tactical in nature, and does not overlap the function of classifying opponents and deciding which ones to make the victims and which are friends?

It is not that easy as we can write off military strategy from foreign policy, these two need to be independent entities for a plethora of reasons, and we are basically going against all tradition in real life in this manner. It is the very dynamics between foreign policy and military planning that makes this game fun, or we could just play it single player. The dynamic of hawks and doves require two separate institutions to balance out these interests.

Again, a good long term military planner know what target of military units is required to handle a given job, which reflects on upkeep per turn, force composition, major upgrade projects in the multi-1000 gold class, military roads, fortresses, watchtowers and airstrips are all areas where the long term military planning is required, as well as lobbying for certain military technologies to adjust the research queue. Also, deciding on which units should be obsolete, and disbanded is another touchy matter, especially now that we got named pet units and so on. All these areas should be discussed on a higher level, since this will reflect on the military expenditure, economic costs, combat readiness, operational flexibility and so on.

So back to the main area you only concentrated on, war objectives. Several in this game want us to have prepared "national interests" of cities we are "allowed" to take according to long term interests, so the long term planner decides on red and green areas of another nation in case a war erupts, war objectives, or even more extensively, doctrines. A simpleton could merely designate x amount of target cities in each civ, a more thorough player could add even more criteria. This also reflects on the military organization, which is important, as every unit needs to be accounted for, placed in a formation and
designated to a military district. This will affect military police density, ready task forces, standing army groups and so on. Many of us are not too happy with some lazy military planner churning troops out when needed with no accounts, no structure, no plan, no organization and no control of military budget, and absolutely no idea on how to handle "unexpected" wars.
I ran an election against a guy on the program of organizing this long term, and I won 75 % to 25 % , since this is what people wanted.
Bare minimum long term planning stinks for the military.

Additionally, military intelligence on each neighbor is required to do all this well, and I would say long term military planning is both powerful and work intensive if done right.

Culture
Culture is weak, and we all know it. The underlying reason is that every time we mention an overriding authority which can make governors build the improvements we need for culture in the correct order, it gets shouted down as handcuffing the governors and demeaning their office. At least as a separate planner, the Culture Consul can force the WOTP to be recognized, if culture is what the majority wants. We tried combining culture with domestic once before, and the result was the governors did whatever they pleased.

Well, then you had a weak Domestic Minister being churned down by angry governors, and I would say this was a result more to a weak lobbying and/or character of the Domestic-Culture minister than anything else. Governors should work for minor cultural achievements, since it is in their interest to protect their cultural borders. Culture is a very hollow ministry, and the work intensity of the other areas is so heavy, and especially with a commercial Civ, gold would be our prime instrument, so economic management is essential.

for example, the Norwegian military has a scandal these days where the budget was broken by 400 million USD, and the Defense Minister will be impeached due to poor economic budgeting. The Army branch was the sinner, as they fired 40 % of their economic planning group, where the Navy preserved their economic planner group, but cut costs other places.
I saw last DG, when we left long term planning, governors built unnecessary units like crazy. What I did was to set a moderate cap on our unit count, and save costs where I could, gaining us 10 % more on the research slider.
I hope you get the point. Military is not just sending out a lot of units when it is war, it is more than that.

When I get in a worse mood I may fish up an example from last game.

 

[Provolution]

Yes, but you consistently misspelled it as "Decreet", so I was confused.

DS

Decreet is a certain form of decree, whereas The Decree is a defined singular one. So I would not call it a consistent misspelling, it is indeed a correct English word, yet, since these Decreets could vary in nature, I altered it, and since you did not seem to know what it was, I amended it to uncertain form.
You can roll eyes and make smileys all you want, but now you got the definition up at least.

 

[Strider]

Culture

Culture is weak, and we all know it. The underlying reason is that every time we mention an overriding authority which can make governors build the improvements we need for culture in the correct order, it gets shouted down as handcuffing the governors and demeaning their office. At least as a separate planner, the Culture Consul can force the WOTP to be recognized, if culture is what the majority wants. We tried combining culture with domestic once before, and the result was the governors did whatever they pleased.

Acutally, if you notice I took several steps in my proposal to make culture more powerful. The main one are placing culture incharge of both national and provincial boundaries (so culture is incharge of settlement and formation of provinces), and also allowed them to rush an improvement inside of a city.

This does an excellent job of removing some of the power from Domestic, which has always been far to powerful.

 

[Black_Hole]

As I said before, this is repetive. If you plan on using the same article about deputies from DG5 (or if you plan on using mine), this will have to be removed.



Once again, not detailed enough. What the hell is long-term? The Domestic Consul will become un-needed by about the midevil ages, so there is atleast one wall in the way of efficiency. The External Counsul is useless also, the tatical people will most likely plan most of the wars and "long-term" foreign affairs is crap. If the counsul even bothers with it, it'll likely just be blown away by a declaration of war.



Mainly just the tradational poistions with acouple merged, not much to screw up on here. Although I can find a hell of alot of mistakes. The Director of Commerce poistion is far to powerful, you mainly took four poistions (foreign affiars, science, trade, and domestic) and merged them together. Trade later on inside of the game is hard enough to do, but having one person handle trade, science, domestic, and foreign affair duties is unrealistic. Meanwhile, you have Infrastructure and expansion, quite possibly the weakest poistion in the entire game, ever if they were put together. Infrastructure is useless, it should be the governors/DP choice as to what we do with our workers. We've tried micromanaging it before, and well... it was obviously removed. Now just one person controlling settlers, might be okay at the start of the game, but by the end it's going to be another useless poistion.

Other than that, you have no one charged with the formation of provinces, you have no single person charged with managing our budget, and you've also left out the spaceship parts. So.... while our Director of Commerce is managing the entire game, Expansion is twiddling his thumbs, and Infrastructure is jumping onto every single pollution spot that appears.

Congratulations, not only have you turned this game from a direct democracy to a represenative democracy, you've also placed all of the power under one person (who doesn't answer to the citizens), and somehow managed to forget why we made provinces in the first place.

Commerce really isnt overpowered, as it must answer to 2/4 of the consuls. Its trades and foreign stuff must fall within the guidelines of the External Consul. Its commerce and research stuff must fall within the guidelines of the resources and technology consul... Infrastructure and expansion only have to listen to domestic consul and armed forces only has to answer to external.

 

[Black_Hole]

and el next version:

Article X. The government will consist of four branches: the Strategic Branch, Tactical Branch, Judicial Branch, and the General Assembly,


Article X. 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 $COUNTRY_NAME will operate. The majority of the Strategic layer's policy is based on discussions and polls.

1. President - Leads discussions crossing over multiple areas of different
Consuls. He/she will also decide on any strategic tasks not designated to
another consul in this constitution. The President is the primary designated player. He/she has the following responsibilities, and may appoint a citizen to oversee a responsibility: Naming of Cities and Units, Elections, and Polling Standards. These appointed officials remain in office until removed by a President.

2. Vice President - Assistant to the President. He/she may take over the
President's tasks when the President is absent. If the President should be
removed from office for any reason the Vice President will then take the position of President and appoint a Vice President. The Vice President must be approved by a majority of the consuls, if the Vice President is appointed mid-term.

3. Consul for Domestic Policy - Oversees long term settlement, long term worker plans, and long term city development objectives. Plans government switches.

4. Consul for External Policy - Oversees long term planning of policy regarding other nations. This includes military plans, long term foreign affairs, and long term trading goals.

5. Consul for Cultural Policy - Monitors culture. Pushes for culture improvements. Fits science and religous improvements into the big picture. Plans wonder strategy.

6. Consul for Resources and Technology Policy - Decides on long term tech queues, long term resource policies, long term fiscal policies.


Article X. The Tactical branch consists of the the officials in charge of micromanagement of the game, within the boundaries of the Strategic layer's policy. The Tactical layer is not required to receive instructions from the people as long as their policy is within that of the Strategic layer's. However any citizen my start a discussion about the decision of a Tactical Leader. The Tactical layer is consisted of the officials below.

1. Commander of Armed Forces - Micromanages the military operations against foreign countries and unit (excluding worker, settler, and non-military transport) movements.

2. Director of Commerce - Decides on foreign affairs and trading. Sets exact tech queue. Manages budget. Adjusts slider and approves/denies requests from leaders regarding the use of gold. Also decides on espionage missions.

3. Director of Infrastructure - Controls the worker actions. Reviews requests from governors about worker requests and accepts/denies these.

4. Director of Expansion - Decides on where to settle with settlers. The Director of Expansion also oversees the creation of provincal boundaries.

5. 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.


Article X. The Judiciary or Judicial branch is tasked with upholding, defending, and intereperting the laws of $COUNTRY_NAME. The Judiciary also upholds the rights of all citizens. The Judiciary may create Judicial Procedures which define how the Judiciary will opearte. It must be approved by 2/3 of the justices. This set of laws is lower than the Constitution and Code of Laws, meaning it must be within the boundaries of the constitution.
The Chief Justice, Judge Advocate, and Public defender make up the court.

1. Chief Justice - Organizes and heads the affairs and discussions of the court. May take place of other Justices if there is no pro-term justice.

2. Judge Advocate - Prosecutes Citizen Complaints if the Citizen Complaint is filed anonymously
or the accuser wishes to have the Judge Advocate prosecute. He/she ensures CCs are following
constitution, code of laws, and court procedures guidelines.

3. Public Defender - Acts as Chief Attorney for the accused, unless the accused wishes otherwise.
Ensures the accused understands his/her rights and the accusation.


Article X. The Citizens
The Citizens make up the General Assembly. The General Assembly is tasked with the creation of laws and leading the elected officials. After a law is created or changed by the citizenry, it is presented to the Judiciary to ensure it is following the correct format and is within the constitution.

Mostly followed RF's ideas with a few other small changes...

 

[Strider]

Commerce really isnt overpowered, as it must answer to 2/4 of the consuls. Its trades and foreign stuff must fall within the guidelines of the External Consul. Its commerce and research stuff must fall within the guidelines of the resources and technology consul... Infrastructure and expansion only have to listen to domestic consul and armed forces only has to answer to external.

Oh, they have to answer to the consuls? Where does it say that? All I see is that they have to follow the consuls general goal.

Nope, it's not in there. All they have to do is somehow do what the consuls say (which is very easy), and there good to go. Complete control over everything.

Also, your "edited" version still lacks every problem I pointed out. All you've managed to do is play word games.

 

[Black_Hole]

Oh, they have to answer to the consuls? Where does it say that? All I see is that they have to follow the consuls general goal.

Nope, it's not in there. All they have to do is somehow do what the consuls say (which is very easy), and there good to go. Complete control over everything.

they have to listen to 2 consuls, meaning their choices are sqooshed in...

 

[Strider]

they have to listen to 2 consuls, meaning their choices are sqooshed in...

They don't have to listen to anyone, and there choices are the exact same. They can research every single technology before they research the consuls goal, and still be doing exactly what the consuls decided. Same goes for workers, settlers, and anything else.

It does nothing.

 

[Black_Hole]

They don't have to listen to anyone, and there choices are the exact same. They can research every single technology before they research the consuls goal, and still be doing exactly what the consuls decided. Same goes for workers, settlers, and anything else.

It does nothing.

im not shur what you mean, lets say the R & T Consul says "Research to Republic First" then the Commerce Director is going to research everything else than go to republic? This could happen without the alternate government, it is just because a leader doesnt listen... usually a CC would be filed...

 

[DaveShack]

They don't have to listen to anyone, and there choices are the exact same. They can research every single technology before they research the consuls goal, and still be doing exactly what the consuls decided. Same goes for workers, settlers, and anything else.

It does nothing.

I think you're slighting the hypothetical Consul's intelligence a bit. A more realistic plan would give enough details to prohibit straying from it while leaving the exact means open. For example, "obtain Republic by the most direct available acquisition method".

 

[Provolution]

Too simple (by the way, my detailed comments are not responded to and the smallest common denominator seems to lead the theme of discussions), a long term tech leader would develop the entire research strategy for Term One, and set the criteria allowing the director to choose a deviation from the course. However, this means that the Consul basically drafts one or two plans, depending on the pace of the Term, quite detailed plans, and allow the Director to interpret and act according to this detailed plan.

 

[YNCS]

Mr. Chief Justice Black_Hole,

Your latest articles are riddled with typos. Would you object if I cleaned them up?

 

[Black_Hole]

Mr. Chief Justice Black_Hole,

Your latest articles are riddled with typos. Would you object if I cleaned them up?

feel free, the only reason i havent checked grammar yet is because I will be updating them
Thanks

 

[Provolution]

Mr. Chief Justice Black_Hole,

Your latest articles are riddled with typos. Would you object if I cleaned them up?

They are not only riddled with typos, but there are several black holes, like defining what is military and non-military transports, which for me is navies in war time and peace time, which also means for example that the Director of Expansion will be in charge of settler escorts AND non military transports (read: Peace time navy). And there are several other key functions in the game omitted. I can see now how people voted for this craftsmanship...

 

[Black_Hole]

They are not only riddled with typos, but there are several black holes, like defining what is military and non-military transports, which for me is navies in war time and peace time, which also means for example that the Director of Expansion will be in charge of settler escorts AND non military transports (read: Peace time navy). And there are several other key functions in the game omitted. I can see now how people voted for this craftsmanship...

what other functions are missing besides the transport stuff(will be cleaned up)?

 

[Strider]

I think you're slighting the hypothetical Consul's intelligence a bit. A more realistic plan would give enough details to prohibit straying from it while leaving the exact means open. For example, "obtain Republic by the most direct available acquisition method".

Doing that then eliminates any possibility of changes. What if The Republic is researched and we need to switch? Or something else happens where it would be best to veer off from the direct path for one tech and then get back on?

It's either to much freedom or not enough freedom. Both of which have been proven not to work.

 

[Strider]

Too simple (by the way, my detailed comments are not responded to and the smallest common denominator seems to lead the theme of discussions), a long term tech leader would develop the entire research strategy for Term One, and set the criteria allowing the director to choose a deviation from the course. However, this means that the Consul basically drafts one or two plans, depending on the pace of the Term, quite detailed plans, and allow the Director to interpret and act according to this detailed plan.

The key is the bolded part. Take alittle while to reflect on this, and then get back to me.

 

[YNCS]

Here is a cleaned up version of Black_Hole's latest revision.

Article X. The government will consist of four branches: Strategic Branch, Tactical Branch, Judicial Branch, and the General Assembly,

Article X. 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 $COUNTRY_NAME will operate. The majority of the Strategic Branch's policy is based on discussions and polls.

1. President - Leads discussions crossing over multiple areas of different Consuls. He/she will also decide on any strategic tasks not designated to another consul in this constitution. The President is the primary designated player. He/she has the following responsibilities, and may appoint a citizen to oversee a responsibility: Naming of Cities and Units, Elections, and Polling Standards. These appointed officials remain in office until removed by a President.

2. Vice President - Assistant to the President. He/she may take over the President's tasks when the President is absent. If the President should be removed from office for any reason the Vice President will then take the position of President and appoint a Vice President. The Vice President must be approved by a majority of the consuls, if the Vice President is appointed mid-term.

3. Consul for Domestic Policy - Oversees long term settlement, long term worker plans, and long term city development objectives. Plans government switches.

4. Consul for External Policy - Oversees long term planning of policy regarding other nations. This includes military plans, long term foreign affairs, and long term trading goals.

5. Consul for Cultural Policy - Monitors culture. Pushes for culture improvements. Fits science and religious improvements into the big picture. Plans wonder strategy.

6. Consul for Resources and Technology Policy - Decides on long term tech queues, long term resource policies, long term fiscal policies.

Article X. 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 is not required to receive instructions from the people as long as their policy is within that of the Strategic Branch. However any citizen my start a discussion about the decision of a Tactical Leader. The Tactical Branch consists of the officials below.

1. Commander of Armed Forces - Micromanages the military operations against foreign countries and unit (excluding worker, settler, and non-military transport) movements.

2. Director of Commerce - Decides on foreign affairs and trading. Sets exact tech queue. Manages budget. Adjusts slider and approves/denies requests from leaders regarding the use of gold. Also decides on espionage missions.

3. Director of Infrastructure - Controls the worker actions. Reviews requests from governors about worker requests and accepts/denies these.

4. Director of Expansion - Decides on where to settle with settlers. The Director of Expansion also oversees the creation of provincal boundaries.

5. 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.

Article X. The Judiciary or Judicial Branch is tasked with upholding, defending, and interpreting the laws of $COUNTRY_NAME. The Judiciary also upholds the rights of all citizens. The Judiciary may create Judicial Procedures which define how the Judiciary will operate. These procedures must be approved by 2/3 of the justices. These procedures are lower than the Constitution and Code of Laws, so they must be within the boundaries of the constitution. The Chief Justice, Judge Advocate, and Public defender make up the Judiciary.

1. Chief Justice - Organizes and heads the affairs and discussions of the court. May take place of other Justices if there is no pro-term justice.

2. Judge Advocate - Prosecutes Citizen Complaints if the Citizen Complaint is filed anonymously or the accuser wishes to have the Judge Advocate prosecute. He/she ensures CCs are following constitution, code of laws, and court procedures guidelines.

3. Public Defender - Acts as Chief Attorney for the accused, unless the accused wishes otherwise. Ensures the accused understands his/her rights and the accusation.

Article X. The Citizens
The Citizens make up the General Assembly. The General Assembly is tasked with the creation of laws and leading the elected officials. After a law is created or changed by the citizenry, it is presented to the Judiciary to ensure it is in the correct format and does not violate the constitution.