Discussion – proposal for regional administrators and city governors.

[Captain]

say we want to build some more cities and form a new province. Why would someone want to build settlers for someone else's cities? The National IE Minister and the National City Planner would have to intervene.

interesting. maybe the city that sends out the settler has a loyalty claim on whatever city that settler founds. the new city is bound to the old province. sure it might make for complex boundaries, but so what? that just makes it more interesting - and I'm sure there will be provision for the city to switch provinces if strongly called for.

[Captain]

Also, just for clarity, I think Mayor is a more appropriate term for a city ruler. Governor should be used for the RA.

As for number of ministers, I think it's fine. We just could have an "inner cabinet" of the powerful ministers. Having lots of "outer cabinet" ministers lets us meet the (unofficial) quorum for holding turnchats since they can take over for each other.

[disorganizer]

i think decentralization of the administration is always good, as it:
a) improoves citizen responsibility and participation
b) cuts down cabinet size
c) improoves rpg-aspects of the game
d-z) is more fun

i also like the idea of having the city (but i would propose province to not have it decided by maybe 1 person) to decide where to go for the settler. and also having the new city bound to the old province... but:
if you only have 1 starting province, you cant get any further provinces?!? how to resolve this?

in phoenatica, we tried to implement natural boundaries as borders for provinces. we even had 2 border reoganizations during the game.
this reflects the real life example best. we planned the provinces far ahead (as we learned to do so in the first term when we suddenly had provinces without governors) and also include enemy territory in this planning (we call it "occupied land").
we always have a circle of unused provinces around our land. so if we expand in any direction, we imediately have our new province borders. this will of course lead to some redesigns later, but improoves decission speed during the occupation of new land.

[Kuciwalker]

Disorganizer - has there ever been a revolt in Phoenetica?

[disorganizer]

i believe once upon a time, a revolt of a province was planned, but because the governor then somehow disappeared was never done.
we had public investigations, but no revolution. i think we wanted to wait for ptw to start a revolution ;-)

[Kramerman]

Here ae my two cents that Ive been throwing around everywhere. I might as well post them again here, eh? Ive already put it on a dozen other threads.

I wasn't sure from the earlier conversation, but were you talking about a governor for every town? That would be a great idea, from a role playing perspective. All the citizens are in the main city to begin with, then once a scond city is founded, half the demo game pop goes there. Then the populations of each city can vote for a governor who would have control, unless ordered to do something specific by the demestic advisor. The different cities can then vote for senators and representarives to represent them in a national congress, ontop of the national positions, like justices, ministers, and president/VP. This would foster fun, but constructive rivalry between the citieis, like which one was the first to build a library, which city is the biggest and most developed, which is the best all-round. Every city can have their own roster of residents and stuff, and people could move from city to city, if they want, i guess. This would definately require sub-forums though, so the different cities dont get mixed up with other cities' affairs. It would be kinda like a state level and then a federal level government. But, I dont think thats very likely to happen... just a fun thought, I guess...

But just for fun, there would be a two house congress, representatives in a number proportional to each cities' population (civ population, not real people/demo game pop) and a senate made of a specific number of senators from each city. there would be a court, like the one we have now, and ministers like skywalker has described, but i would personally prefer a seperate science advisor, so their is no military bias for research - though im not particularly upset about that. Governors could have polls on what their residents want to build, and then ministers and stuff could have polls for citizens on the national level. The main purpose of the congress would be to authorize funding for anything (i.e rushing a project, buiding embassies) and also for passing 'laws' (things that aren't ammendments). But perhaps senators in particular could be the ones to represent their cities in the turn chats - to make them more efficient and orderly (this would make senatros quite a bit more powerful than representatives). The general public would still have its voice in polls on both city and federal levels, and also would be needed to pass amendments and other things. I haven't really thought this through, Im just kinda writing as it comes to me. But this would definately allow for much more people to be more heavily involved on the game, and allow for more fun all around, i think. Just some fun ideas for next time, whether thats soon because we get our ass kicked, are a longtime from now because we rise victoriously...

This is alot of too radical stuff. just pay attention to the city governor stuff.

[Kramerman]

Technically, couldnt this create radically different areas of the nation? Like a bunch of "War Sectors", and few "Culture Areas"? Basically breaking down into UFC controlled Sectors and DIA Controlled Sectors? Where people who live in a sector have one political blief and vote that way over and over again? Are there term limits on Govenors?

It wouldnt be unlike Americas states and how they generally break down into republican states and democrat states.

[Kloreep]

Originally posted by Kramerman

It wouldnt be unlike Americas states and how they generally break down into republican states and democrat states.

Yeah, but do we want that to happen here?

IMO, the provincial administrators (RAs, governors, whatever they'd be called) should be elected by the citizenry at large. That will hopefully shift it from politics to ability. But politics could still be brought into it, and the majority party could gain control if that's the case...

Heck, I think we'd just have to trust the voters.

[GodKing]

Just to help clarify:
The RA position (Provinces, states, whatever they each are called - and all can be called different ie state of insanity, province of Bubba, whatever) oversees several cities, but shouldn't interfear unless the governor/mayor/local despot ends up missing. They don't gen much in the way of compensation other than the good fealin' that they helped us out.

The local despot (or whatever) manages the city, and as compensation gets the city named by him.

I like the idea of letting some of the workers fall under the RA's, but how to do this so that it doesn't interfear with the overall workings of our great society....?

[GodKing]

Bump...

Found this on page 4. I want people to relook at this again, and, particularly as I am running for the city planner position, if elected I want to impliment this with some of the changes mentioned.

Please, I know elections are soon, so please, please, please comment. Soon the city planner job will become very powerful. This will help redefine the role.

[Togas]

I think the roleplay aspects of having every citizen choose which city he lives in, then being able to directly choose that city's leader cannot be ignored. It could add another level of involvement to the game. The city's mayor would just have to worry about managing his own city and politicing to, say, get approval for a Great Wonder or build the Military Academy there.

We ought to have a few regional governors, elected by the mayors in their province.

Regional governors could override the mayors.

The City planner (or like job after the revision) would be able to override the governors.

Mayors and governors would not be precluded from also holding a Minister or Justice position.

--Togas

[Panag]

hi ,



just one Q ; shall all these post's not make the game more and more dificult , ......

and with all these jobs , what a bout election time , ....that is going to be a HUGE thing , with 100 people in the local and federal governments , .....

have a nice day

[disorganizer]

a concept could be to have 3-4 mayors per county, 5-7 counties per province.
this would total in 15-28 cities per province with 1 governor and 5-7 mayors=8 people.
having about 100 cities would then lead to 32 people in the administration+the domestic department=2=34 people in total.

the trick here would be to seperate the local elections and the national election. the governors and leaders will be elected lets say on the 28th of a month, the mayors will be elected on the 15th (just an example).
the question is:
need mayors to be elected every term?
what about the following approach:
the first citizen moving to a city becomes the mayor of this city automatically. any citizen comin into this city later on can request a election on the next 15th of a month. nominees for the election are then accepted and elections are held then. those could also be open ballots for the citizens living in the city. so there will be very few additional elections going on. with the mayors being forced to live where they reign, this also prevents people from forcing elections in 20 cities at a time, as they can only force an election if they live there and then they have to stay there until election is over.

with 100 cities in the above example, it would be hard to find enough mayors for all of them, so all unmayored cities will be handled by the governors.

the command chain could be mayor->governor->domestic dpt.->president, which will give each upper-chain institution a veto right against the decissions of the institution being lower in the chain of command.

this would not remove the powers from the directly elected(!) governors, as they still have veto rights against the proposals of the mayors.

[Panag]

Originally posted by disorganizer
a concept could be to have 3-4 mayors per county, 5-7 counties per province.
this would total in 15-28 cities per province with 1 governor and 5-7 mayors=8 people.
having about 100 cities would then lead to 32 people in the administration+the domestic department=2=34 people in total.

the trick here would be to seperate the local elections and the national election. the governors and leaders will be elected lets say on the 28th of a month, the mayors will be elected on the 15th (just an example).
the question is:
need mayors to be elected every term?
what about the following approach:
the first citizen moving to a city becomes the mayor of this city automatically. any citizen comin into this city later on can request a election on the next 15th of a month. nominees for the election are then accepted and elections are held then. those could also be open ballots for the citizens living in the city. so there will be very few additional elections going on. with the mayors being forced to live where they reign, this also prevents people from forcing elections in 20 cities at a time, as they can only force an election if they live there and then they have to stay there until election is over.

with 100 cities in the above example, it would be hard to find enough mayors for all of them, so all unmayored cities will be handled by the governors.

the command chain could be mayor->governor->domestic dpt.->president, which will give each upper-chain institution a veto right against the decissions of the institution being lower in the chain of command.

this would not remove the powers from the directly elected(!) governors, as they still have veto rights against the proposals of the mayors.

hi ,

, it all sounds nice , but can it be done , ....

so a new person in this demogame would have to decide where he or she live's , vote more , keep track of who is who , etc , ....

it seems very complicated when you now next to nothing from the start , and come from a country where english is not the first language , ....

have a nice day

[GodKing]

I have concerns about having people live in particular cities.... adding another layer of complexity.....

I want this to make things simpler, not more complex.

Please note: I have decided to wait until the end of the elections to revise/update this - so this weekend or early next week. Thanks.