Legal Discussion - Constitutional Articles C-E

[Provolution]

Legal Discussion - Constitutional Articles C-E

Discussion is hereby announded, and will last 48 hours before a mock poll will be announced. This is a needed revision of the constitutional articles C-E based on game developments.

EXISTING LAW

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

PROPOSED LAW

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

EXISTING LAW

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.

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. The President also leads discussion on how
to use military and scientific great leaders.

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 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.

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. Controls movement of
settlers and settler carrying transports.

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.

PROPOSED LAW

Article D. The Strategic Branch consists of the President and the four Strategic Lords of the Realm. The President and Lords are tasked with the defined responsibilities for the grand designs of Fanatannia.


1. President - Leads discussions crossing over multiple
areas of different Lord. He/she will also decide on
any strategic tasks not designated to another Lords
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. The President also leads discussion on the long term
overall strategic planning for the 130K strategy.

2. Lord Chancellor (LC)- LC crafts the strategy for developing the
Fanatannian land and oversees the long term settlement of
new cities, long term worker plans for national infrastructure, and
long term city development objectives. The LC plans government
switches, war economy and mobilization as well as charting
provincial boundaries.

3. Lord Protector (LP)- LP crafts the long term Fanatannian military
strategy, including leading discussions on military target size
and military budget policies (upkeep and budget/slider related)
and will lead discussions on force composition, organization of
formations and strategic deployment of the military. LP also leads
discussions on major military upgrades and military disbands as
well as the useage of military heroes, and also lobbies the Lord
Steward for military technologies and upgrade budgets. Finally,
the LP leads the planning of legitimate national interests in
foreign territories in case of war.

4. Lord Ambassador (LA) is in charge of all geopolitical planning in
balancing culture, trades, military balance, technologies and
security agreements with all foreign nations, and sets policies on
all foreign agreements and trades with all nations for the term.
LA leads discussions on rules of engagement for foreign units
trespassing national interest areas or national borders as well as
acting upon a declaration of war.

4. Lord Steward (LS) - LS decides on the Fanatannian long term
technology planning, long term wonder strategy planning, long
term fiscal policies and is in charge of the welfare of the people
living in the cities of Fanatannia. LS leads discussions on cultural
and science building policies as well as preparing budgets for
major military upgrades, major foreign relations activities, major
rush policies and a national monetary reserve. Lord Steward is
also in charge of planning long term strategies in curbing
corruption and is therefore in charge of capital and forbidden
palace localization debates, as well as science leaders,

Article E. The Operational Branch consists of the the officials in charge
of operational aspects of the game, within the boundaries of
the Strategic Branch's policy. The Operational Branch consists
of the officials below.

1. Grand Marshal - Makes in-game decisions on all operational
military activity, from troop and naval movements to military
strikes against foreign countries. Commander is also in charge of
naming all military units in sequence of citizen registry.

2. Prime Minister (PM)- The PM decides on specific foreign affairs
and trade agreements and adjusts exact technology queue.
The PM is also in charge turn to turn handling of the budget slider
budget slider and approves/denies requests from leaders
regarding the use of gold. The PM Also decides on specific
espionage missions and the establishment of embassies.
The Prime Minister is also in charge of distributing workers to
provinces, and labeling the workers by their Provincial ID.
Finally, the Prime Minister assess the settlement options in the
game and run discussions on the localization of cities.

3. Governors - Each Governor shall determine any policies
and procedures needed to carry out their duties within their
respective province. Governors are responsible for the
management of their provincial 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. The governors are also in charge of managing the
workers allocated by the Prime Minister to their province.
Finally, governors are in charge of monitoring culture and
corruption in their cities and observe the strategies crafted by
the King and Lords

Wording revision note, Consul to be replaced with Lord.

 

[Provolution]

MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS FROM OLD PROPOSAL

Legislation

Vice President omitted as a position and a legal paradox, VP as a concept is terminated as a Chain of Command concept and a legal problem.
Fewer positions to handle gives clear fields of responsibility

President given the authority to lead for 130K Culture win

Democracy

• 
  More competition for less posision give better elections (4 less, one new)
  
  All positions in Chain of Command and City naming list are now elected
  
  More city name rights for citizens (3 more)
  
  VP is not appointed anymore, deleted, all CoC positions are now elected
  
  Each position has more clearly defined accountable tasks
  

Efficiency

• 
  More useful tasks for each position
  
  Viable and powerful offices
  
  Removal of redundant positions
  
  Workers transferred to Governor control (End of Director of Infrastructure)
  
  Culture strategic leadership transferred to DP (End of Culture Consul)
  
  Wonders transferred to technology planner
  
  Culture and science building planning to technology planner
  
  Foreign agreements and trade agreements combined back again (Lord Ambassador)
  
  No more confusion over settlers and escorts and military units, all settler and military units now handled by one office. (End of Director of Expansion)
  

Checks of balances

• 
  Reestablishment of separate long term military planner and separate long term
  international relations planner.
  
  Making the Short Term planners on the level of influence with long term
  planners by removing two offices and keeping two.
  
  Transferring workers to governors, making these more powerful

IDENTITY

Names does sound more British-like with King, Lords, Grand Marshal and Prime Minister and the titles are more in character with the nation we picked. Consuls and Directors titles are ok, but more British sounding titles would be fun.

CITIZEN INPUT


ASHBURNHAM

I prefer combining FA with Trade only, not Culture. Give Culture to the Science/Finance office

Done

TimBentley

I think revolution would better fit under domestic consul. Government only has a minor (I basically ignore it) effect on foreign affairs. And I thought you wanted province border discussion under the culture consul, or the proposed FTC consul.

Done, with Province borders to Domestic.

mad-bax

I would make the Presidents role much more powerful. I would make that position responsible for creating a coherent overall strategy based on individual consular strategies, which in turn is based upon the will of the people.

How the strategic offices are divided up doesn't really bother me, except in that they should be made interesting. More power and fewer positions would increase the competition for positions and make the polls more interesting. The first poll discussions for this game were a bit toothless I thought, and lacked any real passion.

FWIW I think that the infrastructure job should go too. Let the governors use the workers they build. The governors could then horse trade between provinces. "I'll sell you a worker in exchange for a rifleman to defend Xville" kind of thing.

Done, Culture is now the strategic responsibility of the President, now King.
Governors now get the workers. Strategic offices made more interesting.

BERTIE

I really like the idea of reducing the number of offices and giving officeholders more to do (and also allow them a little more freedom to act). I would also agree with giving governors more power and reducing or eliminating the number of infrastructure positions. Mad-bax’s point about fewer offices leading to more spirited campaigns for office is excellent. I would hope the candidates in their debates would take the opportunity to more fully develop their strategies for how they intent to conduct business for the upcoming term. Then once they take office they can spend more time accomplishing rather than formulating their goals.

I’m a n00b so I’m somewhat unschooled about the mechanics of the Demo Game anyway, but I find it confusing that in some cases we have similar, related discussions spread out among several different threads. I think combining related duties and functions in fewer offices would lead to more focused discussion and a better-played, more enjoyable game.

Done, as you asked for.

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

I am completely opposed to the idea of King/Queen. You don't elect those folks, and I cannot see what changing the name accomplishes.

I also don't like the idea of the military controlling settlement.

I see some good ideas here, but again I ask, how is this better than what we are doing now? I think less elected positions is not the optimal way to encourage participation in the game.

 

[Provolution]

Bill

Fair enough, I can see what an edit of the King to President back, as well as divide military and settlement. I transferred settler to the Prime Minister position.
So now we got three checks of balances on the implementation side.
Military, Civilian and Provincial authorities.

Less elected positions is needed to get elections at all. We cannot have too many walkover elections before the game loses its nerve and fervor.
The last elections proved this very much so. And soon we will have several governors.

And finally, I have seen this "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" jingoism a tad too many times, it is better to discuss on topic not on vacuous arguments.

 

[DaveShack]

And finally, I have seen this "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" jingoism a tad too many times, it is better to discuss on topic not on vacuous arguments.

Hmm, too bad vbcode doesn't have a "TM" tag. You're welcome to copy and paste "vacuous argument" by the way.

 

[eyrei]

Why couldn't this have been done before the game started? Why would you want to make sweeping changes right after the game starts? I almost guarantee all but a very few citizens will not even read this thread carefully enough to form an opinion on it. Just play the game...the system in place works...it may not be perfect, but neither is this proposed fix.

And saying that the current system is fine is hardly 'vacuous'. Just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't mean they have no idea what they are talking about.

 

[Chieftess]

Is it a rule that whenever we play an emperor game, someone has to propose a king/queen?

We already spent 2 months building the ruleset. Why did you have to wait until now to propose this one?

 

[Provolution]

Eyrei, it has been a learning process, and we now realize that some positions are pretty light and futile, and we got many uncontested elections. I know you feel strongly for keeping it as it is, but we are more or less divided on the middle, with a major group that wants both the strategic-tactical layer AND less positions.

If you look closely, these are not really sweeping changes, but an adjustment to Daveshacks alternate proposal. Snuffing out this debate may be good for some, but in a democracy game , at least according to the constitution, we should have the right to discuss how the game is run. As you can read from the threads, we like several aspects of it, but reducing a number of positions but maintaining the core is key.

 

[Provolution]

Chieftess, I retracted the King Queen part

 

[eyrei]

Eyrei, it has been a learning process, and we now realize that some positions are pretty light and futile, and we got many uncontested elections. I know you feel strongly for keeping it as it is, but we are more or less divided on the middle, with a major group that wants both the strategic-tactical layer AND less positions.

If you look closely, these are not really sweeping changes, but an adjustment to Daveshacks alternate proposal. Snuffing out this debate may be good for some, but in a democracy game , at least according to the constitution, we should have the right to discuss how the game is run. As you can read from the threads, we like several aspects of it, but reducing a number of positions but maintaining the core is key.

Some players may desire a 'light and futile' position, as they don't require immense amounts of time. And I don't feel strongly either way, but the game has started, and constant debates about rewriting the structure are disruptive.

And what are you talking about snuffing out this debate? Is the thread still open? Just because people disagree with you doesn't mean they are conspiring to silence you! What will it take to get that through your head? You are not God's gift to the demogame, and neither is anyone else. You are not always right, and people are not always going to agree with your proposals no matter how convinced you are of their superiority to every other way of doing things. If you can't live with that maybe you should stick to single player civ...

And just so you don't get it confused, this post was made as a citizen of the demogame, not a moderator.

 

[Provolution]

Eyrei

Of course I can live with it, I am still discussing. I win some battles and I lose some, and if I won all the time I would get bored easily. And how can an agnostic be anyones God to a demogame? I have never presumed to be better, never said I am better than anyone here. Maybe I got too much attitude for some, but such is life.

This does not take away from the fact we got too much redundant positions, uncontested elections, a VP clause almost everyone wants to get rid off and the fact that the core of DS proposal is very good and something we want to go on.

But seeing people speaking on behalf of the people, I find as an usurping statement, as they are not backed by polls or anything, and there is no political party here. I am also pleased to see that the tone is getting more and more civic in here, which has given me a lot more constructive breathing space, and an opportunity to look into different aspects of the game itself. I can also take constructive criticism, so I constantly reevaluate the proposals by valid inputs. However, saying I am not a god to the demogame or that I should leave to play single player civ is a bit on the side of that.

 

[eyrei]

Moderator Action: And just to make another thing clear, I have no problem with making changes to the rules when they are warranted. The problem arises when every discussion regarding them turns into a fight because any disagreement with a proposal is derided as part of some conspiracy by some pseudo-masonic group to...I don't even know...not change the rules? Go look at your recent posts on such subjects. See how many times you answered someone's argument with some innuendo about being silenced by certain 'powers'. Go look...I'd point them out to you but I am sick of reading it, and clearly others are as well since they react negatively to it. This behavior is extremely disruptive to the game and it is my job as a moderator to deal with such disruption. Please continue your discussion, but if people post their disagreement, you need to learn to accept their opinion, and if you are going to address them, it had better be an attempt to change their opinion through argument and not a derisive or accusatory statement aimed at trivialising their opinion.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Provolution]

I could not agree more, and I am glad the civic tone recently focusses on arguments on the issues, and not on defamation fo the poster, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" and so on...
Now we can talk objectively on the issue, and not the person, and such a climate is more conducive to getting things done.

 

[eyrei]

I could not agree more, and I am glad the civic tone recently focusses on arguments on the issues, and not on defamation fo the poster, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" and so on...
Now we can talk objectively on the issue, and not the person, and such a climate is more conducive to getting things done.

Moderator Action: Then transform your agreement into action and stop adding stuff like that to your posts. Thanks. Eyrei.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Provolution]

Eyrei, is it ok to repost this thread without all the warnings, which kind of came into the flow of the argument ?

 

[eyrei]

Eyrei, is it ok to repost this thread without all the warnings, which kind of came into the flow of the argument ?

Moderator Action: Sure...go ahead...I'll close this one.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889