What should be the fate of the Culture Ministry?

[Bootstoots]

Over this past demogame, the Culture Ministry has become less and less important. It has become apparent that it has no real power, as all cultural buildings are handled by the Governors, Wonders and rushing of improvements is handled by Domestic. The only things that the Culture Department can do are advise on cultural flips and monitor our culture compared to other nations and advise on cultural victory, all of which can easily be handled by Domestic. There have been no meaningful posts in the instruction threads by the Culture Ministry in at least two months and the three-term cultural minister Plexus said at the end of Term 4 that he wouldn't be opposed to abolishing it. From what I can see, there are two things that we can do:

-Give it some real power and responsibilities.
-Abolish the Culture Ministry.

We shouldn't leave it in the state it was in DG3; an essentially worthless office. So, what should we do?

 

[Fier Canadien]

We should give it powers (I tried, but it didn't work), like integrate the History office and the Cartography office to it. The Culture department doesn't need to have the same leader/dep/chat rep structure that all the other executive/legislative deps have.

I'd propose the following re-structure:
1. Culture Leader
2. Culture Deputy, Map Maker, Historian (yes, 3 people at deputy position)
3. Culture chat rep, Cartography deputry, Historic deputy

The two "sub deps" have their own threads, but aren't elected, and are under the command/appointment of the culture leader.

 

[Bootstoots]

Why would we need a Culture leader to oversee those? They function just fine on their own as non-elected offices, and it wouldn't really give the Culture ministry any real power.

 

[FionnMcCumhall]

keep it, we just need to define the office better and PI those that dont do their elected jobs!

 

[Cyc]

I agree with Fionn. You've got to admit the list of Culture Leaders that have been most recent have not been very attentive to their duties. They were all going to do a "great" job and then went on vacation...

 

[Bootstoots]

What powers should the Culture Ministry have? They need to have some concrete power, like the other departments do, something to post in the instruction thread every turnchat.

EDIT: I agree that we should take measures against Culture Leaders being idle once we give it some responsibilities.

 

[Cyc]

I thought I went over this extensively last time you people tried to trash the Culture Dept. You have the ability to think outside the box, so why don't you do it? The Cultural Minister doesn't explicitly need any "POWER". Just some class. There are many other ways for a Minister of Culture to perform than touting their oppressive influence on the game... In fact, that's all been said before too.

 

[Bootstoots]

Cyc, please tell me, what should an effective Cultural Minister do? I didn't start this thread for the express purpose of canning the Culture Ministry, I just want to see how the Culture Department can and should be useful, and trash it only if necessary.

 

[FionnMcCumhall]

@boots: Culture ministry hater

They should always be allowed to supercede governors orders in regards to cultural buildings. Assuming the governor is only building military and uncultural buildings.

They should lead discussions and bring up ideas like the National Literacy Campaign and assimilating captured workers into our cultural base. They should also lead discussions on wonders. Work closely with the Domestic Department. im sure i could think of others and will add later on

 

[Donovan Zoi]

I always thought that the Culture Dept should lead discussions on Wonder building, since a majority of the games' Wonders carry considerable cultural weight. We can also have the Cultural Dept monitor happiness.

I realize that there is a mindset out there that would like to see the Domestic Department absorb all of the Culture Department's duties, but I say that Domestic has plenty to do as it is. Rik Meleet is the only one I have seen that would effectively handle such a full plate and I don't think we can count on him running for DL each term.

Keep the Culture Department and give it a bit more power.

 

[zorven]

A few suggested powers:

1. able to overrule governor instructions as appropriate for "culture battles"

2) be responsible for deciding what wonders to build and where to build them

3) be responsible for defining provincial borders

 

[Octavian X]

In RL nations, Culture Ministries (IIRC, France has one), deal with various things involving culture. This may include the upkeep of museums, the sponsership of events native to the nation, etc.

I see the Culture Ministry as having more forum responsibilities than in-game. It's rather useless to give the Culture Dept. power in-game, so I would advocate a role for it almost purely forum-based (stories, etc.)

 

[FionnMcCumhall]

Originally posted by zorven
A few suggested powers:

1. able to overrule governor instructions as appropriate for "culture battles"

2) be responsible for deciding what wonders to build and where to build them

3) be responsible for defining provincial borders

I like all but number 3. Defining provincial borders shall always be a domestic power no matter what. Borders have nothing to do with culture unless we have cities on the border with another civ that has equal to or higher culture.

 

[zorven]

Originally posted by FionnMcCumhall
Defining provincial borders shall always be a domestic power no matter what.

Why should this be set in stone?

 

[FionnMcCumhall]

because its the way we have done it for the past 3 games.

i mean come on why would a culture ministry be in charge of coming up with the borders to a nation, yes it semi works that way within the game itself since to expand your borders you must build culture but seeing as we have modeled this game after aspects in real life a culture minister hasnt defined any countries borders. Defining borders is an Interior (domestic) issue

 

[zorven]

That is no reason to not consider making a change. Would you apply that logic to all aspects of the ruleset? I would assume the answer is no, so why apply it selectively?

 

[FionnMcCumhall]

i would apply any logic to anything i think doesnt make sense in the aspects of power. It sounds to me like we are just throwing things over to the culture ministry just so they have some powers. Culture shouldnt be a cut and paste ministry, taking bits and peices from each department just to give culture a use. We need fresh new ways to get Culture back into this game along with the guidelines that culture used back in DG1

 

[Bootstoots]

Originally posted by Octavian X
In RL nations, Culture Ministries (IIRC, France has one), deal with various things involving culture. This may include the upkeep of museums, the sponsership of events native to the nation, etc.

I see the Culture Ministry as having more forum responsibilities than in-game. It's rather useless to give the Culture Dept. power in-game, so I would advocate a role for it almost purely forum-based (stories, etc.)

We should have an office elected almost solely for roleplay purposes? I don't think we should do that, if there's some roleplay that comes with it then I wouldn't mind, but I don't think we should have a culture ministry without some in-game powers and responsibilities. However, I do support the proposals to make it responsible for wonder-building, happiness, Culture battles, and laborer assimilation.

 

[Donovan Zoi]

Fionn, since I wasn't there, can you elaborate on what made the Culture Department successful in DG1? I am hoping that will help us to better understand what needs to be accomplished here.

Maybe you can also link to a successful DG1 Culture thread, perhaps that of our First Cultural Minister??

 

[donsig]

Well, back in DG1 we had a system of over-rides. The culture minister could, under certain circumstances, over-ride the build queues of certain cities. Even then this power was restricted by the fact that the domestic leader holds the power of the purse. Also, in DG1, the culture minister was the one who took care to be sure our cities didn't flip. The best thing though was CAP - the Cultural Assault Program devised by our first Foreign Affairs leader. (Who remembers him?) The DG1 culture ministers adopted that program and it was great fun.

The real trouble with the culture ministry is the fact that the domestic leader still has way too much power. Why in heaven's name does the domestic leader handle wonder building? Different wonders do different things but one thing they all have in common is they produce culture. I've been trying to chip away at the domestic leader's power ever since DG1. Originally the domestic leader did everything as in DG3 - in addition to acting as governor of the core province! Talk about power. Anyway, move the wonder building responsibilites to the culture minister and see if that helps. I would hesitate to eliminate the position.

I think a big part of the problem is that everyone thinks this position is powerless. I would remind everyone here that *power is where power goes*.