Revisiting limits on political runs

[anon3108047]

In the times before… you had one governor with dictatorial power. All the money from production fees went to their corporation account.

I don’t recall if it was limited to being only governor of one planet at a time, though I do recall several major players recruiting players to manage planets for them as a puppet government (here’s the funds, run this program).

You had the players lowstrife recruited, the players that DogeConomy recruited, the YI Consortium which did a bunch around the YI sector and so on.

Even with the “you can only govern one planet at a time” constraint this worked against having more players involved in the running of planets.

Today’s system does indeed have a “here’s the score of players who have accrued enough trust across the years” problem (if that is a problem).

Furthermore, that system is unlikely to return. Progress Update - Development Log #430 | Prosperous Universe

In July last year we have been able to finally share the good news with you: Our application for funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action has been greenlit (devlog #393). The application consisted of three major parts:

• A German translation of the game and related pages
• Part one of the politics extension: parliaments and motions
• Part two of the politics extension: infrastructure

The system we have now is part of the grant that funds the game. Rolling back or moving away from parliments and motions is unlikely to ever be on the table.

[YuLun]

@radstarfox

That shouldn’t mean they get ostracized for it to the point they join a non-official discord server

Who ostracized you?

@radstarfox

you want to be able to control the direction of the game, and don’t like it when other people steer the game in a direction you don’t like.

How did you conclude that I YuLun want to be able to control the direction of the game? Oh I made a post on ideas to expand logistics part of game? It’s idea it’s not “devs you better implement these as-is or I’d find your office in Germany”. Unless you have zero acceptance on different ideas and mindsets. And if I want to do that I’d chose to get the “Cluster” supporter tier which I could literally design a commodity to practically steer the game in a way I want. Rather than right now having each tier below it.

@YuLun

You have no ability to create a constructive suggestion or discussion on politics update, so you take your anger out on the existing post for your own disability on creative thinking, by going after those who can.

Still valid statement, I don’t see any of your constructive interactions other than engaging with me and promoting a discord server.

I’d put this on pause it’s very off the topic from original post.

[YuLun]

Not sure about others, but in Chinese community there’re some criticisms on the existing parliament system. Claiming it being inefficient and instead prefer a more dictated government, but keep the motion part and independent accounting. Not sure how practical to make both mode exists and able to switch between.

[anon31180274]

Hey, I am no expert at all. But I see two problems for your proposals.

#1. It scales with power/time/money/influence
#2. It scales with power/time/money/influence

And to grasp the unfairness of it, look at the following player, which is impossible that he should have been able to get these amount of bases with the little amount of played time. Also, from COSM.

[Hevlikn]

@anon3108047

got derailed with issues pertaining to certain individuals.

Can’t imagine why that’d happen, or that it’d happen again?!

One thing that dissenters have mentioned, that i consider valid, is that HQ-Level (or any other metric like faction rank etc etc) is essential just a stand-in for age of player/company, and somewhat gates governance from newer players .

The other thing to consider is that any sophisticated enough organisation can mechanically circumnavigate controls through sock-puppets (not illegitimate accounts, per se, but valid users being stood without declared allegancies). It must be remembered that joining a corp isn’t (nor should be) necessary, (and even if it was, 1 person corps are a thing)

Perhaps then, we could look at some ideas that don’t default to preference long-term geriatric players.

• Paying To Run a candidacy - some sort of fee (based on population size?) per candidacy; an analog of political campaigning that requires monetary supply to facilitate the candidacy;

• • This could be a material need (OFF?) to drive the economy further.
• • This could be simply destroyed (see thread on MM’s and currency sinks), or collected by the government (and have rates set by government?)
• • Have HQ level or some other qualification reduce this cost (perhaps faction rep on faction planets/ hq level on non-faction?)
• • Have this cost returned inversely proportional to votes attained? ( 0 Votes = 100% loss; 100% votes = 0% Loss?)
• • Have this cost increase proportional to number of candidacies run/held?
• • The Idea here is to not gatekeep governance from newer players, while limiting the scope of a single actor to have broad control.

• Cooldowns on multiple candidacies. Some sort of time-based factor to reduce the number of elections you can run for within a certain period of time

• • (EVE Online’s Jump Fatigue could be a useful inspiration here)
• • somewhere ranging between a 1h-1d cooldown depending on how much ‘campaign fatigue’ is accumulated, fatigue could last between 1d-30d (numbers could be adjusted)
• • This would put a hard cap on the number of positions that could be held/applied for (as the rate at which you could apply would be limited)

• Prefer Candidacy with attached bases/permits

• • Make it free, or a cost reduction, to run (in cooldown or fee terms) on planets where you have a base (permitting, but penalising remote governance)
• • This cost reduction could be related to permit investment

• Limit number of votes per base owner to the size of the parliament

• Limit new candidacies to the pre-election period - While the election is active, you cannot run, maybe reduce election period to compensate? Current government could be exempt while they decide whether or not to re-run?

• • On a similar theme to above, maybe instead of banning the practice, penalise it?

• Corporation Limits / Party Lists

• • I have some ideas here that i can’t quite realise, with the idea to introduce, but limit, coordinated control without excessive circumnavigation via non-affiliated candidates

• Votes of No Confidence

• • In the GOV panel, a secret ballot where, if reaching 50% of base holders, a new election is ran immediately

• Limits on MOT

• • Prevent Harassment and spam - a number of motions (maybe 10 per government member?)

Besides mechanical intervention - the playerbase could be encouraged to develop tools (such as journalism into candidates) and awareness into electoral views; and those running for governance should be encouraged to participate in chats/discords/forums.

[SLKLS]

Though the election system should be updated so that it isn’t “the winner takes it all” and that all seats are weighted the same (except gov as tie breaker). But I have talked about that often enough already.

[radstarfox]

Idk why you’re losing your mind over this. Picking apart every single sentence I say and acting like an analyst doesn’t make you right. I think there’s a different way to play the game, and other people agree with me. We’re tired of paying for pro and still being locked out of pro features by a handful of people. Because you asked me to put the discussion on pause because it’s gotten off topic I will. If you want to create a new topic about this you can.

[BlueManul]

i also propose to limit candidatures but not on the HQ level but on the number of bases you have.
and only limit the new elections candidature. maybe: cap = 3 + nb_bases * 2.
if already in parlement, the application to the next election does not increase the election candidature cap.
This allow to be on more planets, depending on how you do the job of the governor.( if you are re-elected )

[Hevlikn]

HQ level but on the number of bases you have.

This is a meaningless dististinction, as bases are locked behind HQ Levels, and would unnecessarily penalise certain styles of play (adding additional permits to a smaller number of bases; trade/shipping focus)

[BloodDweller]

While reading through the posts here, it sends to me that the central issue is a lack of checks and balances on the abilities of those in government. I think these checks and balances can roughly take two forms:

1). Hard limits imposed by the game. (Eg. limits on number of positions one person can hold, requiring a base on the planet, etc)

2). Soft limits in the hands of other players. (Vote of no confidence, voting strategically, etc)

I think this is a helpful distinction to make in our discussion.

My thoughts:

While any complete solution probably involves both types of limits, i would like to see more of type 2. One of the things I really loved when I first started playing Prun was that the market, contracts, economy, and production lines are put into the community’s hands. I think the disagreements regarding government come from a place of insufficient toys in the sandbox, so to speak.

What does that look like? I would suggest a more complex government structure either superplanetary or intraglobally. Let me make suggestions for those separately:

Superplanetary government:

What if there was an additional layer of government above the planet? The easy answer would be the faction. What if the faction had a senate or council comprised of representatives of each planet with a government? This body could then, by vote, cast sanctions on governments that are out of line. The main two issues is that this would only work in faction space, and some individuals would represent multiple planets, but safeguards could be built for the lattercase.

What about outside faction space? Similar ideas could include such governing bodies for each sector. This would provide opportunities for per-sector tariffs (which would be an interesting approach, as tariffs have been long discussed), inter-sector cooperation on gateways or other infrastructure, and possibly trade negotiations (especially if tariffs are involved).

[I may have talked myself into the per-sector idea as I wrote this lol]

Intraglobal government:

I think reasonable changes to planetary government could include adding more offices. For example, having a treasurer or secretary of finance who has more control over financial transfers, a minister of trade, who has similar controls over taxation or is involved in the COGC, or in the same vein, a minister of… population? I dunno. The exact rules should be discussed by those more experienced than myself.

What do those controls look like? Perhaps just extra voting weight on motions? Again, i leave details to the experts. The governor would likely retain any positions on the super-global governing bodies mentioned above.

Those are just some thoughts and ideas for how players could gain more control and accountability in governing. I will agree with one thing AGR said: ‘those interested in governing should have the space to play that way.’ (Paraphrased) I just think more accountability should exist.

Finally, if you made it this far, thanks for reading my essay! I am the first to admit i have little experience in the government side of this game, so I welcome [CIVIL!!] discussion, debate, and commentary!

[CoinCrafter23]

@BloodDweller

While any complete solution probably involves both types of limits, i would like to see more of type 2. One of the things I really loved when I first started playing Prun was that the market, contracts, economy, and production lines are put into the community’s hands.

I agree so hard!!! If it can be put into the players hands, do it.