Discussion: Slider and Budget Controls

[Octavian X]

I'm beginning to think that, while putting our budget into the hands of the Senate was a good idea, it's an unworkable one.

This term, we've been lucky to have at least one governor voting in all the Senate polls, despite the fact that a total of three people could've voted in them. This leads to some of my fears...

-No active governors. Our nation could be thrown into turmoil if we lost all our governors to inactiviy.
-Inactive VP. Believe me, there isn't much that keeps a VP from slipping into inactivity. 5 terms in that spot in DG2 taught me THAT much.
-Pork-barrel spending. Governors may be tempted to start spending more frivously later in the game on their own cities. No evidence to back it up, it just bothers me in the back of my mind.

I think that if we wish to salvage this system, we should give the VP a little more emergency power. Specifically, should no governors vote in a budget poll, the VP should decide. I'm basing this off of Shaitan's infamous 0-vote spot council overrides (At the 0'dark thirty chats, he'd call a council spot override vote. Of course, no council members are present, meaning a 0-0 'tie.' Shaitan got to cast the deciding vote.) We could also empower the Senators to chose their own 'President Pro-Tem' (like the real US Senate) to act as head of the Senate when the VP goes absent.

However, something tells me this may not be enough. I can see one other solutions to the budget quandry, which takes this power away from the Senate.

Give all budgetary powers to the President. When you really think about it, the President has no actual power when it comes to making game decisions.

Hopefully, he has the best interests of the nation at heart, and can rise above other ministers or Senators who wish to use the budget, a national tool, for themselves.

Since this does give the President slider control, we may be able to solve the pesky question of lux slider in times of civil disorder. He'd be legally able to change the lux slider to quell disorder in the middle of a TC, since he would be legally in charge of setting of the slider in the first place.

Thoughts on my random babbling?

 

[DaveShack]

There is a lot to be said for having responsibility for each aspect of the game ultimately reside in one individual. The problem with the current Senate is that without a single responsible individual to drive it, nothing really gets done.

The previous system of having the Domestic Leader responsible for the budget seemed to have worked pretty well. There were two arguments against sticking with that structure. First, the Senate was seen as having no responsibility, other than as the individual governors. When we changed the amendment process to not require Senate approval, that change essentially took away the only power the senate had.

Second, the Domestic Leader was viewed as having too much power, to the point that some of our more vocal rule-mongers took to calling it the "all-powerful Domestic Leader". While not completely accurate, this was an understandable sentiment, especially because it seems that many of the game's most powerful citizens tend towards that position. (Not that I consider myself especially powerful when measured against the legends at that position from DG1 and DG2)

It is a very accurate observation that the President has very little in-game responsibility, in fact far less than the title would suggest. Our current President has gone so far as to say that working under a cloud of constant threats of PI / CC proceedings for the slightest misstep takes too much of the fun out of the Presidency for him to continue. Giving this responsibility to the President, with proper citizen input of course, would improve the balance of the leadership roles, and eliminate the current problem of not having a single driving force for the budget.

 

[Rik Meleet]

See what not controlling the budget and the sliders have let to...

My concern about the budget (and sliders) in the Senate instead of Internal affairs or the Precidency have proven themselves to be correct.

Sure the senate should have "something to do", but this term has shown that shouldn't be key-game-aspects which tend to fluctuate a lot within a few turns.

Budget, workers, sliders are a national thing.
Buildqueues, labor placement are a regional thing. The Governors should decide on these things. Cooperate to finetune the cities so they build the right things on the right times.

I'd even consider adding the workers to the senate, as they are more closely linked to improving the production/popgrowth/land-improvement etc. But not the slider and definetely not the budget.

 

[RoddyVR]

having not played in previos games i dont know how it worked before and cant say which way is better. but when i read that the senate has to approve each request for money that is needed for a city, that seemed odd. even in the US (about as bad a beurocracy as it gets) the senate does not fund INDIVIDUAL PROGRAMS, they fund whole departments. so i could see the senate having control over HOW MUCH money the president can "allocate" in a given turnchat, and maybe even give "budgets" to the other executive departments.

i think it'd make sence to have a "standing" budget that gets amended by teh senate whenever they feel it should be.
something like:
the president can spend upto 100 gold each turnchat, any way he sees fit.
the foreign afairs minister can spend upto 200gold each turnchat. (he's the one that trades, right?)
the defence minister can allocate upto 50 gold (to help finish units that he thinks he needs quicker)

and so forth.

that way, they still control the big picture of the budget, but are not needed to aprove every little thing.

 

[DaveShack]

Originally posted by RoddyVR

i think it'd make sence to have a "standing" budget that gets amended by teh senate whenever they feel it should be.
something like:
the president can spend upto 100 gold each turnchat, any way he sees fit.
the foreign afairs minister can spend upto 200gold each turnchat. (he's the one that trades, right?)
the defence minister can allocate upto 50 gold (to help finish units that he thinks he needs quicker)

and so forth.

that way, they still control the big picture of the budget, but are not needed to aprove every little thing.

That's very similar to how it was handled in previous games by the Domestic Leader (now Internal Affairs).

Also the science slider instructions should usually be something like the following. The Senate (or whomever the budget ends up with) should be setting the + and - numbers and leaving the rest to the DP.

Set science to the highest rate which results in GPT between +10 and -5. If more than one setting produces the same number of turns, use the lowest such setting, in which case a surplus may be larger than +10gpt. If it is impossible to stay within this range, then go with a lower percent (higher +gpt). In each of the last two turns on the tech, reduce the slider to the lowest level which keeps it two and one turns respectively. If specialists are available, scientists may be used instead of gpt if it results in the same number of turns.

 

[Will_518]

What if a minister needs 51 gold, when only 50 is available to him? i don't think that'll work. Why don't we just let the president decide how to set the slider, and have the senate voting on rush jobs, and DP still has power to over-rule senate in extra-ordinary situations, e.g. barbarians about to attack a defenseless city.

After all, the president's job is running the country. That way, there'll be much less beaurocracy.

 

[Chieftess]

Originally posted by Will_518
What if a minister needs 51 gold, when only 50 is available to him? i don't think that'll work. Why don't we just let the president decide how to set the slider, and have the senate voting on rush jobs, and DP still has power to over-rule senate in extra-ordinary situations, e.g. barbarians about to attack a defenseless city.

After all, the president's job is running the country. That way, there'll be much less beaurocracy.

That's partly what Spot Votes used to be for. Suppose there were some circumstances where the amount of gold was lowered more than expected. (whether by miscalculation, extra units being built, AI demands, etc.) In the past, the Domestic Advisor would say something like, "The President can rush the temple in XYZ border town for 51g on turn 3, but must not go below 200 gold". Maybe it was forseen that there would be just enough gold (251g), but maybe something was built, and on turn 3, there was only 249g. That's where the problem occured.

The origanal intent of the demogame (besides mimicing a succession game in some forms) was to mimic the civ3 word, and that meant ALL advisors, and everything those advisors did. The Civ3 advisor controled the budget (if you press F1, you'll see that). The demogame origanally started out not having a real senate, or governors (how they were used) (there were big debates on those, and I was a supporter of having a senate, with the citizens as the congress. Granted, it seemed like a good idea at the time, and may have worked back then. I think now, the demogame is becoming more of a bueracractic behemoth with every game, making is less and less flexible for the DP to make decisions. (One of the intents was to play 10 turns, take it to the forums, and the citizens would "play out" the life of the civ -- one of the roleplay aspects). Take a look at DG1, you'll see a game that was much more fun, and continued pretty much smoothly (save for a certain, donsig PI... which I still have that chatlog of. )

 

[eyrei]

If a certain level of common sense and decency is practiced, any of these will work. If not, none of them will work.

 

[Chieftess]

I think these current laws prohibit common sense, since even common sense has to be an instruction...

 

[ravensfire]

Originally posted by Chieftess
I think these current laws prohibit common sense, since even common sense has to be an instruction...

Thanks for the laugh CT - needed one today.

We've had one term under a fairly different system. Surprise! We ran into some problems. Some people did not adjust, others all but refused to adjust. I'll be the first to admit that rushing to complete the ruleset, especially over the holidays, really hurt the editing, and too many loopholes exist.

Apparently, the only fix that some people to come up with is to change the rules mid-stream. Hounding or elected leaders to do better? Overrated! Challenging candidates in the elections? Too exhausting!

Right now, Will_518, DZ and donsig are in a close race for at-large govenors. While I don't know Will that well yet, he's been an active participant so far, questioning and pushing. Hopefully, we'll have two active at-large govs this term. The new batch of leader will hopefully give the DP better instructions, and more guidance on matters.

-- Ravensfire