Democracy Game: government positions

[Locutus]

As I said in the 'main' Democracy Game thread, the biggest problem with a possible CtP2 Demo game will probably be the small community. So it is IMHO key to keep the number of government (as well other official functions) as small as possible. But of course, there should still be enough positions to keep the workload of government official acceptable and to keep things fun (it would seem to me that the more officials, the merrier...) Let's discuss the positions we should/want/need to have here. My proposal is to have the following break-down of responsibities (this is an initial proposal, feedback required):

President/Grand Apolyton
- The only person who actually physically plays the game
- Distributes the savegames to whoever needs them (government officials, maybe others - TBD)
- Organizes turnchats and communiticates with the members in other ways
- Organizes new elections
- In charge of in-game 'government affairs' (government type, location of the capital)
- Naming of cities
- Has the decisive vote in case no decision can be reached on certain issues (maybe a right to veto certain decisions?)

Minister of Domestic Affairs
- Responsible for City Management
- Responsible for Infrastructure (PW)
- Sets Domestic Policies (Worday, Rations, Science, etc)
- Controls the Imperial Expansion agenda (where to found new cities, what to do with conquered cities)

Minister of Science, Trade and Diplomacy
- Determines what advances to research
- Conducts diplomacy with other Empires
- Responsible for all (national and international) Emperial Trade
- Since this seems to me a rather 'lightweight' function, could serve as Vice-President as well (i.e. helps President wherever needed, replaces him in case of absence)

Supreme Commander
- In charge of Army, Navy and Airforce (as well as all unconvential units)

Do we need/want a Historian?

[centrifuge]

Good Idea Locutus, Yes, it will have to remain small, so four positions would probably be ideal for getting it started.

Originally posted by Locutus

Do we need/want a Historian?

What would the role of the Historian be?

Edit: oops, I mean't 4 (5 with the historian )

[Turambar]

Sounds good Locutus.

A historian would write the history of the Civ I'd assume.

[Locutus]

Yes, the historian would write a nice story of everything what happens, for posterity and possibly (not sure how other Demo games do this) for decision making. See the Succession game threads for how we do that there (particularly the posts by Hermann, IW and hex are excellent examples), or Vel's Celtic AAR. If you don't have a historian, I guess the president would have to write a brief, factual report of the most important events (I suppose he would have to do that anyway, to give the historian something to work with).

[mapfi]

Ha, those gov positions make you realize that CivIII is in certain aspects more develloped after all... Well, hopefully, being newer!
I think an SMC in Ctp2 has a great power, so we should at least take some of it away - I'm strongly for giving the command over the specialforces to a secret agency which we could give to the science,trade,diplomacy minister. Would make sense - since those actions don't always have military reasons (e.g. slaving, franchising, converting, diplomacy...)

Distributes the savegames to whoever needs them

No public posts? Works fine in C3DG.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by mapfi
Ha, those gov positions make you realize that CivIII is in certain aspects more develloped after all... Well, hopefully, being newer!

How's that? I don't really see a big difference...

I think an SMC in Ctp2 has a great power, so we should at least take some of it away - I'm strongly for giving the command over the specialforces to a secret agency which we could give to the science,trade,diplomacy minister. Would make sense - since those actions don't always have military reasons (e.g. slaving, franchising, converting, diplomacy...)

Yeah, I was in doubt about what to do with UW. Giving it to the Minister of STD would make sense as well...

No public posts? Works fine in C3DG.

As I said, that's TBD. I think C3DG has them public, C2DG and ACDG only have them available to cabinet members and people who specifically request it, or something like that. We could vote on that...

[mapfi]

TBD, oh yes - I get it now...
As for CivIII, foreign affairs on itself is keeping one official really busy, and then they need one for the workers... But I mostly thought of diplomacy and trade.

Oh and yes, a history like in the succession games would be nice.

[Locutus]

Hmm, maybe I should be a little more conservative in using abbreviations? (In case it's still not clear to some people: TBD = To Be Determined)

Yeah, I guess you're right in that respect: the resource system in Civ3 makes Diplomacy and Trade more important...

[mapfi]

I hope we won't have long constitution discussions like the C3DG!

Since we won't be too many people we have to think of the voting process - since we couldn't assure that any non-participant would vote on polls which would have a great effect with only 15 participants! we should vote with posts. I don't think Markos can provide us with anything else (he couldn't do it for the others).

[Locutus]

I hope not, but we'll see

If we vote through polls, the accessibility of the demo game would be higher, perhaps making it easier for new people to join in...

Edit: Plus, polls are anonymous, which could be significant as well for some people...

[Method]

Originally posted by Locutus
I think C3DG has them public, C2DG and ACDG only have them available to cabinet members and people who specifically request it, or something like that.

just to clarify: ACDG posts the save files in the turn report thread. since you're trying to cut back on positions, i'd suggest you don't even bother with a vice-president. we went without one for the whole month of october (he disappeared) without trouble.

historian: we only have a weekly newspaper. it's not an official position, just something someone wanted to do. EDIT: here's an example
domestic affairs: we split that up into 3 places: industry and energy, terraforming and colonisation, and base production. that might be a lot for 1 person to do.

as for the consitution: stay away from C3DG. it's too long, and unnecessarily complicated. the ACDG's started with the 1st 3 articles, and the others were added later. you should take a look at it as a reference; it's pretty straight forward

[centrifuge]

I think historian is a nice Idea. "Without history, the future is meaningless" A once a week update as in ACDG would be great.

[Locutus]

Thanks for your comments, TKG, us DG n00bes can really use the voice of experience in this phase

Originally posted by TKG
since you're trying to cut back on positions, i'd suggest you don't even bother with a vice-president. we went without one for the whole month of october (he disappeared) without trouble.

Yes, that's why I merged this position with one of the ministers. When needed, he can help out the President, but if the President can do the job on his own, that's fine too (it's is actually standard practice in RL Dutch politics - the position of VP has been a ceremonial one for decades AFAIK).

historian: we only have a weekly newspaper. it's not an official position, just something someone wanted to do.

Yup, it's not needed but we have some very talented writers in our community, it would be a shame not to exploit that fact

domestic affairs: we split that up into 3 places: industry and energy, terraforming and colonisation, and base production. that might be a lot for 1 person to do.

Yes, good point on the workload. I must say I'm not entirely sure if 1 person could handle the workload of Minister of Domestic Affairs. Perhaps we should simply give it a try and split the responsibilities over 2 ministers if it turns out to be too much work (Infrastructure & Imperial Expansion and Domestic Policies & City Management)...

as for the consitution: stay away from C3DG. it's too long, and unnecessarily complicated. the ACDG's started with the 1st 3 articles, and the others were added later. you should take a look at it as a reference; it's pretty straight forward

Makes sense, C3DG is of a much larger scale in all areas anyway, so I think our game will turn out to be much more similar to ACDG anyway...

[mapfi]

I can see the workload of a Domestic Minister increase a lot later in the game - but since we'll be stuck with city caps of 10 or 15 for quite a while, it'll be long until that

[Lemmy]

Another option is too create minister once they're needed, for example, you won't need a diplomacy minister at first, and later in the game, you may not need a colonozation minister, or let it merge with the domestic minister.

Some suggestion for ministers:
Minister of Infrastructure:
Controls what happens to the PW pool, has to mediate between other ministers

Minister of Internal Affairs:
Control the the empire settings: ration, production, wages.
Set's the science goals.
Can take over other minister's job if there isn't much to do,

Minister of Production:
Controls what is being built in the cities

Minister of Defense
Control the units

Minister of Exploration:
One of the positions that is very usefull early on, controls all the exploring units (released for exploring by the MoD), this could be done by the MoD, but it could become too much if there is a war going on, and there is still some exploring to do.

[Locutus]

That's not a bad idea, Lemmy, creating ministers when they're needed. I for one like it...

IMHO your list of ministers you mention is a little longish though: for now we have to assume our community is very small, so we have to be careful not to create more minister positions than participants

The Internal Affairs Minister you mention doesn't do very much, so that one can easily be merged with the Production Minister. The Exploration Minister could perhaps be merged with/evolve into the Infrastructure Minister as early in the game, there isn't much PW to spend while later on, there's more PW but exploring becomes less important...

[adaMada]

Here to counteract what TKG's saying . (Just kidding, but will answer any questions about the C3DG).

We've just finished rewriting our constitution and (though it is long) I believe have created a quality and workable structure. From what I've read, I'm sure at least some parts of this are applicable to CtP-2 (though I've never honestly had the opportunity to play), and I'd urge you guys to at least check it out, if not adopt some of the principals there.

We've found that the best way by far of distributing the game is by posting it on the forums.

We had a historian for a while, but don't anymore. We do have a newspaper, people who write newzupdates for the Newspages, and a directory, but all of this (so far) is volunteer work.

From my thoughts on the Civ 3 Demogame's government structure, Locutus's original structure seems pretty good. We've decided to go with a four elected officials and everyone else appointed type system in our new proposal, since we found ourselves overrun with Government positions and a lack of people to run for them, as well as pointless positions.

I'd be happy to answer any questions, or give any thoughts I have on stuff from my experiences working on the Civ3 Demogame's new government.

-- adaMada

[Method]

that's a good idea: creating positions as needed. up until saturday, we had had 2 positions that had done nothing so far (foreign affairs, social engineering), and our Peackeeping operations director had only made 1 poll.

EDIT: i havn't seen C3's new constitution, just the old one. so if the new one isn't as unnecessarily complicated, i withdraw my earlier statement

[Turambar]

Positions as needed sound great.

And after reading Vel's AAR I think he'd make a great historian/paper writer .

[Pandemoniak]

Position when needed would involve to freeze the game for elections : ie, without a minister of foreign affairs, when you meet some other civ, you have to freeze the game, wait for nominations about three-five days, let the campaign goes for about three-five days as well, and then attend elections, usually three days. that makes a 9/13 break !! It sounds better to have one position for backup ministers, who only show up when needed. Ie : Minister of Backup () is only called if no minister can do the job. Campaign is based on every "non-needed" ministers.
Do you see what I mean ?

[Locutus]

Originally posted by adaMada
and I'd urge you guys to at least check it out, if not adopt some of the principals there.

Yeah, I for one most certainly have and will. I've been reading up on various DG forums already to get an idea on how to approach things (where else did you think I got my initial post from? ). It would be silly for us to have to reinvent the wheel all over again...

We've found that the best way by far of distributing the game is by posting it on the forums.

I like this as well...

We had a historian for a while, but don't anymore. We do have a newspaper, people who write newzupdates for the Newspages, and a directory, but all of this (so far) is volunteer work.

Most DGs seem to do this as volunteer work, I guess would make sense for us to do the same here...

From my thoughts on the Civ 3 Demogame's government structure, Locutus's original structure seems pretty good. We've decided to go with a four elected officials and everyone else appointed type system in our new proposal, since we found ourselves overrun with Government positions and a lack of people to run for them, as well as pointless positions.

Lack of people? For Civ3? That means we CtP2ers are doomed

I'd be happy to answer any questions, or give any thoughts I have on stuff from my experiences working on the Civ3 Demogame's new government.

That's great We'll probably be taking you up on that offer in the coming days/weeks (I have no idea how long the setup phase will take...)

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Pandemoniak
Position when needed would involve to freeze the game for elections : ie, without a minister of foreign affairs, when you meet some other civ, you have to freeze the game, wait for nominations about three-five days, let the campaign goes for about three-five days as well, and then attend elections, usually three days. that makes a 9/13 break !! It sounds better to have one position for backup ministers, who only show up when needed. Ie : Minister of Backup () is only called if no minister can do the job. Campaign is based on every "non-needed" ministers.
Do you see what I mean ?

Good point. But we could start with a core set of ministers that have many tasks and split up the responsibities as they get more demanding: start out with 2 or 3 ministers (the 3 I listed in my first post, maybe with the Domestic and STD ministers merged) and when the ministers find that their workload starts to get too heavy, they can request new positions to be created and maintain responsible for all their old tasks until a new minister has actually been appointed (i.e. 9-13 days later)...

But even then, a Backup Minister would probably still be good to have - it's not at all unusual for some people to just disappear for a while (I myself am a prime example )...

[Locutus]

Originally posted by adaMada
I'd be happy to answer any questions, or give any thoughts I have on stuff from my experiences working on the Civ3 Demogame's new government.

Well, here's one thing I'm curious about but isn't really clear to me based on what I've read so far: how long does the President play? I assume the President gathers all the info he needs from his ministers and other advisors, then plays for a while and then goes back to the forum to report what has happened and ask for feedback on how to proceed. How long does he play? One turn at a time? A fixed number of turns? Until something important happens? Until the advise he was given expires? How does this work in C3DG (and/or other DGs, if people know about them)?

[adaMada]

Originally posted by Locutus

Well, here's one thing I'm curious about but isn't really clear to me based on what I've read so far: how long does the President play? I assume the President gathers all the info he needs from his ministers and other advisors, then plays for a while and then goes back to the forum to report what has happened and ask for feedback on how to proceed. How long does he play? One turn at a time? A fixed number of turns? Until something important happens? Until the advise he was given expires? How does this work in C3DG (and/or other DGs, if people know about them)?

In the C3DG, the President normally plays five turns at a time, and the ministers publically post five turns worth of orders. The President also often goes into an IRC chat room, and we all meet there to help him play, play along, and enjoy the game in general.

-- adaMada

[adaMada]

Originally posted by Locutus


Good point. But we could start with a core set of ministers that have many tasks and split up the responsibities as they get more demanding: start out with 2 or 3 ministers (the 3 I listed in my first post, maybe with the Domestic and STD ministers merged) and when the ministers find that their workload starts to get too heavy, they can request new positions to be created and maintain responsible for all their old tasks until a new minister has actually been appointed (i.e. 9-13 days later)...

But even then, a Backup Minister would probably still be good to have - it's not at all unusual for some people to just disappear for a while (I myself am a prime example )...

To be honest, I quite perfer having a core set of ministers who can delegate responsibilities if need be. Though I understand the reason to have a flexible system, it seems like every distruction/creation of a ministry will be a fight, and I think it'll be inefficent in that people won't want to get rid of ministries as soon as they become obsolete, and ministries will only become obsolete or needed slowly -- there probably won't be any one huge event that'll signal the need or lack of for a minister. That's why I like assigning the base powers to four elected officials, and letting them 'delegate down'.

Having said all of that, TKG's demogame seems to be a bit more like yours and he likes the idea, and it is your demogame... either way, I'd suggest you put a great deal of thought into it before making any decisions .

-- adaMada

[Method]

Originally posted by adaMada
In the C3DG, the President normally plays five turns at a time, and the ministers publically post five turns worth of orders. The President also often goes into an IRC chat room, and we all meet there to help him play, play along, and enjoy the game in general.

quite similar to our method. usually what we do is make our polls, and then give our orders in an order thread. then we meet in IRC on a given time (we have a regular time though) and guide him through.

example: commissioner says "what do we build next in $Basename?" the director whose job it was to poll that gives him the answer and he puts the plan into action.

we normally play for about an hour, not a given set or turns, though that method might be better, since we have in the past run out of orders, and we need to hold quickpolls amongst the cabinet.

if you want to tag along to see how we do it, you're welcome to

also, i recently made a FAQ thread as a sleasy recruitment scheme. it didn't take, but it might be helpful

[mapfi]

I like Locutus idea to give the president some power too, not to make him an organizier and player and that's it.
So I think it's a good idea to let him decide the form of government and to give him some veto-powers or a say when a decision is made by an almost 50-50 vote.
And again about polling. Do we really need secret ballots? I'd rather be sure that only citizens voted. So I'm still for voting by posts (unless Markos could restrict voting on polls to a list of users - but I think he can't; what's the current status of that issue in the C3DG where it was the cause of a doubted 2nd term election result?)

[Darkness' Edge]

In our game (ACDG), the Commissioner just plays as long as the orders last.

I also think it could be a good idea to start with having several ministerial positions - then if you have trouble filling them, to cut them down. I like Lemmy's idea for ministers.

It might help create a bit of interest in the beginning.

DE (founder of the ACDG, among other things)

[Gilgamensch]

My opinion on some of the subjects:

I would suggest that we don't have a president at all, because that would depend on the government in use, so why not call him Grand Apolyon, sounds kind of fun

Maybe we should do the same with the Ministers....... Why not calling them petit Apolytons or short PetAp's.

Grand Apolyton (GD):
- able to make the call on drawn polls (50/50).
- should NOT be able to choose government, that should depend on us, the subject/peasant ( by the way what are we ????????)
- executes the orders
-can enable 'war time' rules (with the support of 2/3 of the ministers), enabling him:
- to overrule minister's orders (like making the call, not to defend a city or not to attack/ also applicable if the minister wasn't responding to new situations )
- start re-elections of Ministers and GD.
- start elections for replacing a Minister (if he wasn't shot already)
- war time rules can be cancelled with either (depending on the number of ministers) 75% votes of those, or 66% votes from the people or for sure by the president.


For the length of the acting-period:

1.) length itself, no idea
2.) can be changed with war-time rules
3.) with a poll showing eg 75% not trusting our GD anymore.
4.) GD resigning


I agree with Locutus and other's,
As we are 'still' small, let's reduce the number of burocracy and limit the number of PetAp's for the moment (at least).

One thing I would like to 'change' is, to move the part 'what to do with conquered cities' over to the Supreme Commander. I would say it is his call to enslave a resisting population or enlarge our Empire.



Another thing I thought of:

All 'moves' from the GD and PA's do be posted before, so that WE could run a poll/meeting at a certain time....whatever..., trying to stop an action which WE wouldn't like ( like with 66%/75% majority). WE are ruling (I hope )

And:

YES, I would like to see a Historian, especially like Vel...............but


For important polls, why not make it public? Or we assign 1-3 of our citizens to act as our counters (hoping they can count better than a certain US-state ).


Sorry that it was getting so long.

[Immortal Wombat]

I'm liking the 4 ministerial positions at the top, but maybe a UW post?
Not that we'll let anyone know who holds that post, in case of assassinations...