Reducing President Powers

    Due to a disagreement on tactics, the 2 biggest Associations can no longer work together for 1 Megacity in our Region. We have been working very hard to level up our hometown and made into the EG. This despite the abusing of President his powers.
    The abuse of powers were:
    * pretending to level up his hometown, while they were sure of the Endgame
    * when the City Bonus was moved to my town by 1 of his teammembers, because the President's hometown didn't made any progress in leveling up for 7 hours and even had a negative trend for the last 3 hours (the president himself was hauling to the LM), he moved it back to his hometown
    * he fired 2 cabinet members (1 from his own Association and 1 from my Association), so only his puppits remained in the cabinet


    What we already saw for weeks, he demonstrated very clearly: he is a dictator and not afraid to abuse the powers as President.


    Most of the time a President will stay in his/her seat for the entire game. Just 25% of the players in a region make a real choice between the candidates, the rest just votes for the nr 1 to complete the assignment for voting from Lucy.


    To reduce Presidents power and make it more fair the following suggestion:
    1) An elected president is in power for 1 era only;
    2) every era there is an election for president in which all precious votes are cancelled and all candidates start at 0 (zero)
    3) from the 10 cabinet members, the president can appoint only 5 of them and only remove the 5 members he appointed
    4) the 5 by the president appointed members should have all a different hometown, so every city is represented in the Cabinet.
    5) the remaining 5 seat in cabinet will be filled by a representative of the 5 biggest Associations in the region, these members can only be removed via a voting in Cabinet after a 7/11 majority. The 7/11 majority is needed to avoid that 5 by the president appointed members + himself, still can remove every other member who is a representative of the 5 biggest Association. If a representative of an Association is removed after the voting, he/she will be replaced by an new member of the same Association as long as that Association is still amongst the 5 biggest Associations in the Region.
    6) Limit the members of Cabinet coming from 1 Association to 5 members excluding the president
    7) a removed cabinet member cannot be appointed again in the cabinet within the same Era.


    Maybe some might be added, to make it even more balanced.


    Often the president comes the biggest Association in the region, while the Association only has 20%-25% of the total number of players in a region. With the present powers of the President, he can act like a dictator and only handles in his own interest, his own hometown and his own Association, and don't care about 75%-80% of the other players in the region. In real life this is called "The Terror of the Majority" (with majority is not ment 51%, but is ment: the biggest group).

    I have to agree to many of your points, Erkie.


    Back on classics and US scenarios, the leading groups had/have a leader, who attracted a lot of players by good leadership, by motvational skills, by charisma. They ware/are able to LEAD, not to rule the others around. I like good leadership much more than dictatorship, so the old leaders get much more support by players acting to their suggestions and adding good ideas.


    Also, if we forget about the US president (who is an exception, but fits into the picture) presidents and kings or queens just are nice people, who smile and wave and represent their countries and their peoples. But they do not rule. The work is done by chancellors and cabinets, who make laws and do decisions.


    Players on SoE experience presidents that act like dictators. They give out rules (but break them themselves), they get involved in fights and are more than willing to fight back, they do not movivate by making good suggestions, but by ruling all others.
    i would say, the cabinets and town leaders should do the work, but I often see the presidents just rule them: "Set the bonus to A-town as 6 a.m."
    Well, to be sure, there ARE presidents acting different ... but I have rarely seen them.


    They get into trouble with players who "know better". They accept the fight and argue back, but not on strategy, they argue about persons.


    I like some of your suggestions.
    For example, to be president gives carreer points, but with 10 regions there are 10 presidents, 10 of 1000 get a carreer point, Only 0.1% ... not really fair, so I like the idea that presidentship can only last 1 era. Next era would start with a new election.


    My idea about the cabinet was, that those 10 members are elected by the 5 towns, each town sends 2 members, and the president has no vote on them. Like in real life, the elections are done by the people, not by the president. This way the president had to demonstrate cooperation skills, he has to work with those, who are sent by the players, not with those, he likes most.


    Well, many presidents are not presidents, but dictators. They take command, they rule, for complete 12 weeks, the quarter of a year. And next round the same 10 presidents rule again, taking the carreer points ... and at the end this leads to strategies that are always the same .... and boring (like leveling 1:1 for 8 weeks).


    There are good reasons to think about the president powers, would be great to read of others.
    That is, why I wrote a little one-sided ... would be good to read arguments against my experiences.

    Drei Gruppen sagen immer die Wahrheit:

    1. Kinder 2. Betrunkene 3. Jeder, der verdammt noch mal stinksauer ist.

    Speaking from experience of being president 3 times now, it's not easy work.
    At least from my point of view, I'm just ending 1 round on the big ben server as president and I can tell you I'm completely spent when it comes to how much time goes into trying to do it well. And it's not like I'm getting paid for it, the small amount of career points is a fkn joke in comparison with the work, and I don't think I'm going to sacrifice anymore time on precidencies, it's just not worth it as it is now.


    There is also the amount of abuse presidents often have to take from people in their region, who will keep harassing and whining about everything no matter what. I had an experience like that recently as president of the central region on the Tower bridge server, where I basically took over the presidents position after the 2 first presidents got kicked out through voting as both turned out to be useless(neither did anything).
    So with that experience I would say it's hardly impossible to have a bad president changed out. and also that a presidency is a coin with two sides.


    I have a feeling the changes you suggest will create more problems than they solve. I think there is less complicated ways to deal with this problem, that wont make the presidency crippled in the beginning of every single era, just because a very few rare regions that probably suck regardless of the selfish president in question anyway, can't handle electing a new president.


    I would rather look at how voting power works. Right now every registered bot account gets 1 vote. That vote stays even if the player gets inactive.
    I agree that it is a problem that votes stay forever from players who just totally neglect the elections.


    So let me suggest the following alternative to your solutions;


    1. The vote of anyone who is inactive for more than 72h is removed no matter when it is. This includes when a player is getting help from a sitter during that time.
    2. a) Instead of 1 player = 1 vote, every players personal PP = their amount of voting power. Better players tend to be more engaged in the game, and more attentive to what is going on on the larger scale, so it makes sense that they have more voting power.
    2 b) The leader of each association can also vote for president with the association prestige points. This grants stability and connects the influence of associations to the presidency.
    3. Players with less than 50% personal prestige than the average player in the region has no vote. Un-engaged players shouldn't dabble in voting for stuff they probably don't understand anyway.
    4. Presidential votes are counted every 6 hours instead of every 24 hours, so that replacement can happen faster.


    This would be an improvement in RL democracies as well, today we have too many idiots on welfare with the same voting power as the people who have to pay for their welfare programs etc. People who don't pay taxes shouldn't have a vote irl and players in RN who don't make PP for the region shouldn't have a vote for the presidency.

    Now excuse me, I've got a train line to run!

    While I agree with some of your points Locomotius, having been a president that had to deal with idiots questionning the strategy every day because it was something new, and something new is by definition something that does not work in RN (that's how people think anyway).


    I strongly disagree on your suggestion to vote based on your PP. That's basically saying that the only ones that are fit to vote in real life are the rich and the mighty. And while it is how it works behind the scenes in real life, I believe the RN system is better. Yes, I get your points on stupid people making stupid decisions, I live in CH, we have 3 voting subjects every 3 months. But giving the power to the best players is definitely not the way. If they want it, they will get it regardless, because they have a lot of voting power in the association, and are much too strong to be angered in a given region.


    The inactives should obviously lose their vote, yes.



    To Erkie, I also like some of your points, but I believe that a member of the cabinet that cannot be removed is a danger to a region also. What if he become rogue ? Does the region lose all access to any bonus for the time it takes for him to be removable (2 weeks) ? That's way too long, and you shifted the problem, making it worse. I think that removing the votes of the inactives is already a good first step to deempowering bad presidents. If they only have the votes of the active players, then it should reflect quite closely what people would vote every 2 weeks.

    Fr-201 Bad Wolf de coeur

    en pause indéterminée - away from the game until next interesting server


    Likely coming back for clash!

    Thanks for tha additional suggestions and the made remarks.


    @Locomotius Prime
    I disagree with your suggestion 2a and 3. I strongly believe like in real life 1 person, 1 vote. People should have the choice to vote or not. That is why i suggested t set the counter on zero at each election. This will automatically lead to that lesser active players will not vote and the active players automatically will have more influence on the elections, but with setting the counter to zero, less active player still have the choice to vote or not. Not every player starts at day 1 of a new round. Last server that finished i start at day 20 in the game, so i will have no voting powers for weeks and that wouldn't be fair.
    Your point 4 cannot be implemented on international servers, as the voting will take place when people on the other side of the world will be sleeping/working/ schooling. Most regional servers are becoming more and more international too, so shortening the voting period isn't fair.


    @sacroima
    A cabinet member can be ousted every day after a vote inside the cabinet with a 7/11 majority (if the president has voting power too) or 6/10 majority (without voting power for the president).


    People who cannot handle power and/or abuse power, life everywhere in every part of the world, so we find them also in the gameworld. The main goal is to avoid 1 bad President is spoiling 12 weeks of playing fun for 100, 200, ..... 500 players. I also understand making a new rule, will lead to abuse of that new rule, it is almost human nature to bend to rules into their own favor.

    Interesting discussion going on here.


    We are also thinking about cancelling all votes at the beginning of each era.


    But some of the mentioned points are not true:


    - Votes of inactive players > 72 h are already deleted (since ever) and
    - Players don't have to vote in the tutorial anymore (was changed a few months ago)

    I do not think major changes are needed.
    We have been able to vote out "dictators" before.. that only takes an announcement on the regional forum and maybe some personal messages asking ppl to change their vote..


    Resetting each era, makes it a bit to much about voting to my taste. It is a game about running trains not about running (political) campaigns :)
    Instead of automatic cancellation of votes or revote every era. (for speed that means every week)


    i like the options to limit amount of players from eihter 1 town or 1 asso.
    2 of each town sounds fair.
    for asso members I would say max 3 members.


    combined with the (home)town limit of two this allows in low populated regions with few asso's that the primairy two-three asso's can have enough members in cabinet to change bonuses but also ensures that smaller asso's in a town have a chance to get into cabinet (since 1 asso cannot control 2 cities fully)


    voting in cabinet members would also be an option.

    Driver2927 wrote:

    i like the options to limit amount of players from eihter 1 town or 1 asso.
    2 of each town sounds fair.
    for asso members I would say max 3 members.

    Then cabinet members cant change their home town to get points for the Home Pride achievement.

    So, then you stepdown as cabinet member just before the endgame


    That is happening now also in the top regions that are going for the win
    90% of the players incl city council and mayor of other towns will stepdown to change Home to the agreed EG city


    Regional cabinet members don't have any special powers during end game
    the achievement is based on your home town at end of the game onyl

    Interesting discussion indeed, however, if the inactive accounts are already deleted I don't believe there is anything else to be done.


    It's an elected role and people can change their vote and the new president will take power at the nearest recount, there is already a mechanism in place to change the president, it's called "get together the associations and decide who's going up next because the present one doesn't benefit the region".


    I could find a shorter name, but the above gives the idea.

    Currently playing on:

    M1.201 Scandinavia

    Erkie wrote:

    Thanks for tha additional suggestions and the made remarks.


    @Locomotius Prime
    I disagree with your suggestion 2a and 3. I strongly believe like in real life 1 person, 1 vote. People should have the choice to vote or not. That is why i suggested t set the counter on zero at each election. This will automatically lead to that lesser active players will not vote and the active players automatically will have more influence on the elections, but with setting the counter to zero, less active player still have the choice to vote or not. Not every player starts at day 1 of a new round. Last server that finished i start at day 20 in the game, so i will have no voting powers for weeks and that wouldn't be fair.
    Your point 4 cannot be implemented on international servers, as the voting will take place when people on the other side of the world will be sleeping/working/ schooling. Most regional servers are becoming more and more international too, so shortening the voting period isn't fair.

    Why do you think you should have a vote after joining way later than everyone else? It just keeps things open for bot-acc voters and nothing else. It's clearly worth a lot more to lose 1 or 2 voters in each regions to remove the chances of bot-votes/multi acc votes.
    If i assume you are not alone on your region there will be others who started from the beginning who will be at least as invested in the happenings of the region as you are.
    The real life thing; well giving everyone a vote is one of the biggest and worst mistakes ever implemented in modern democracy, as it promotes idiocracy over meritocracy.


    Point 4 is to re-count the votes, not re-make the votes. So if I miss the 22:00 vote-count and vote 23:30, it's counted in after I'm at work/sleep in a new 02:00 count instead. All votes remaining.
    Right now that vote-count is 1 time every 24h.
    What it means is that it will more often take up to 18 hours instead of up to 2 days to oust a bad president if everyone loggs in 1-2 times a day.




    I agree with the first part, it's already doable to switch out president in any region that is active enough to matter. If you are in the rank 5-10 region, then who cares anyway, your game round is a failure and the presidency is unlikely to be the problem.


    I also agree that I don't want to attend to the business of voting every era. I've never played in a region that wasn't already a complete sh1tshow with or without the president where switching president was a problem.


    The one thing I really see as necessary is getting rid of inactive votes from players who are clearly not active. The "active players" as defined by the game in a city is also a VERY questionable metric in the game, although it has nothing to do with the presidency it sheds light on the "active" definition being questionable at best.
    It appears to only measure who has logged in or something, which is a shit metric.
    If not a minimal amount of PP then maybe a minimum amount of [tonnes]*[distance]*[active trainslots] or something. Just get the retards running 22% maintained donkeys in era 3 out of the voting. NOBODY can make a case that a vote of such players is worth considering for anything. period.


    Now for the parts I dissagree with below the dotted line.
    I don't like limiting people from towns or associations, because it's usually hard enough to find enough cabinet members who are helpful even without this restriction. From my experience I'm lucky if I find 2-3 who are actively helping, and putting limits on this will cripple a lot of presidencies from getting a decent cabinet.
    Also on low population servers you might only have 1 decent association in a region, some regions might not even have that!


    Voting for cabinets and councils? Hell no. Enough voting with the mayor and president. If the mayor and president can't pick their own cabinets, they wont last in their offices in most haöf-decent regions anyway. the one version i could see of this is if each mayor automatically also gets a cabinet seat(unless they are already president). But even that I would prefer if it didn't happen, there is a lot of crappy mayors elected because they are the leader of their rank #57~association, who absolutely NO CLUE about anything, with even worse members.

    Now excuse me, I've got a train line to run!

    The post was edited 1 time, last by Locomotius Prime ().