The Will of the Senate - out of character thread

[econ21]

I've been wondering about the mechanics of a mid-term session of the Senate. Given how well the current session is going, I definitely want to insist that we have a compulsory mid-term one.

However, I don't want it to slow down the campaign unduly. So I am wondering about:
(a) after 10 turns of play, the First Consul suspends play;
(b) before that, he gives two days advance notice of when his mid-term report will be submitted;
(c) as soon as the report is posted, the Senate will open for one day (24 hours) for the tabling of emergency motions;
and (d) it will remain open for another one day (24 hours) for voting on those emergency motions.

So basically, the incumbent will only have to take a 48 hours "time-out" from the game. That seems to strike a reasonable balance between the need to keep momentum going and giving the Senate a (small) window to intervene in the reign.

I don't want to put this to a vote, Senate-style, but would welcome reactions and hope we can come to a consensus.

I should also say that the Senate will always remain open for debate, but to avoid over-legislating, I want to restrict the tabling of motions to interregnums but with the safety valve of emergency motions in mid-term.

I was also wondering about some kind of "opinion poll" option, to rate the First Consul's performance in the first term. But on balance, I think that would be out of character for the Senate (too much like modern day opinion poll dominated politics) and anyway Senators can always propose motions of acclaim or censure if they want to.

PS: The admins initial response over Org avatars was encouraging - I'll keep you posted.

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

I was going to write it thought it was a bad idea, but halfway through I decided it was a pretty good idea actually. I'm with you. 24 hours is not much, but the debate should have been continuous since day one, so more time isn't necessary/

[shifty157]

Also remember that the senate may dismiss the consul if they wish and appoint a new one.

I do think that it may be a good idea that the consul should post a screenshot every four turns (1 year) to show the current state of the empire. Its boundaries and the locations of its armies. This would not require any commenting by the consul though he can if he wishes. Just a single screenshot to show the current state of affairs. It will also help the senators to prepare for the midterm session.

If not this then the screenshot should be posted in his two day warning post. Again to give the senators time to think and prepare.

By the way, how many senators are there?

[econ21]

Some interesting ideas - I like the idea of posting screenshots. I'm expecting reports every two days of real life, so including a screenshot in them would be nice.

I'm starting to cool off on the 2 day advance warning thing - the problem is that, with the possibility of other players fighting some battles, the incumbent can't actually control or predict how long it will take to play his reign. It depends on how quickly other senators answer the call if their avatars get into a fight. So a 2 day warning just means adding an extra 2 day hiatus in the middle of a reign.

Instead, how about:
(a) report every 2 days (minimum - one-liner; ideally a screenshot; everything else is icing on the cake)
(b) pauses after 10 turns & produces mid-term report (reasonably detailed)
(c) mid-term Session: two days for Senators to debate and draft emergency motions & one day voting
(d) player continues & we're back to (a)

Ideally, I'd be hoping a 20 year reign would span 2 weekends (with the incumbent trying to blast through 10 turns in each weekend), with a mid-term Senate imbetween.

Then we'd have a full Senate session lasting 5 weekdays, ending with a Friday election and on we go.

In the early game, we might be covering 5 years every two weeks.

Is that an acceptable pace?

I think it's actually the full Senate sessions - rather than the mid-terms - that will slow things down. But a slower pace is a price worth paying to get all 19 of us Senators involved in this PBM at the same time.

[flyd]

That's a fine pace, although I'm not certain we can always do 10 turns over 2 days. While certainly possible to do normally, battles by lower house members other than the consul would slow things down. If the consul and the senator involved in battle are both online and can play when the battles occur, then the delay would be minimal. But we have people from all sorts of different timezones, and if a battle came up at a bad time, it could delay things by several hours. I can see delays of more than 12 hours in really unlucky cases. And then if there are several battles, it might take a while to get through them.

Of course, that's not really a problem. But depending on what happens during a half-term, the time it takes to complete could vary wildly.

Oh, and by the way, there are 18 senators. There is an error in the senator list on the first page of the senate thread, where item 7 is missing.

[Glaucus]

I have a query

since were using the 4 turn patch thing, would the consul still have 20 turns, 5 years? or do we want him to have 10 years as was the original plan?

[econ21]

I have a query

since were using the 4 turn patch thing, would the consul still have 20 turns, 5 years? or do we want him to have 10 years as was the original plan?

No, it's 5 years - 20 turns. 20 turns is usually long enough for anyone to handle - especially mid to end game, when you might have 3-4 battles a turn.

[econ21]

That's a fine pace, although I'm not certain we can always do 10 turns over 2 days. While certainly possible to do normally, battles by lower house members other than the consul would slow things down.

Yes, it's going to be a challenge. We've never tried anything like this before. It could make the experience really fun for those directly involved. Or it could really bog things down. Fingers crossed.

Oh, and by the way, there are 18 senators. There is an error in the senator list on the first page of the senate thread, where item 7 is missing.

OK, I'll send the Senate Speaker to shout at the scribes.

[shifty157]

Just a request. Could we change all the maps in the library to thumbnail links? They are large and a pain to have to continually scroll through and at this point the majority are not entirely necessary.

Also something ive jsut noticed. It is entirely possible that motions 6, 7, and 8 are all voted no. I assume that if this happened then the ruling would stand and the consul could deal as he pleases with the provinces in question. But it may be pertinent to decide whether or not if this were to happen there will be a runoff vote between the two motions with the highest approval (or the lowest disapproval). I believe there would be time if we decided to.

[TinCow]

Just a request. Could we change all the maps in the library to thumbnail links? They are large and a pain to have to continually scroll through and at this point the majority are not entirely necessary.

Done. I would actually like to arrange the thumbnails in a table somewhat in accordance to their positions on a map. This would spread them out horizontally as well and further decrease the scrolling, but I don't know how to do tables in here.

[econ21]

BTW, does anyone know anything about Quintus? Tiberius said he was just "some randomer". So is he fictitious? DDW wondered about role-playing him as the father of the faction, but the ages look wrong. I'd prefer it if he were just leader of the Senate and we let the 4 houses[1] grow up organically and independently.

[1] ie the parts of the family tree headed by the 3 other adult faction members + I guess the house TrickyLady's character will soon start.

[shifty157]

BTW, does anyone know anything about Quintus? Tiberius said he was just "some randomer". So is he fictitious? DDW wondered about role-playing him as the father of the faction, but the ages look wrong. I'd prefer it if he were just leader of the Senate and we let the 4 houses[1] grow up organically and independently.

[1] ie the parts of the family tree headed by the 3 other adult faction members + I guess the house TrickyLady's character will soon start.

Id say this is the best bet. I think itd be rather odd otherwise.

[Death the destroyer of worlds]

BTW, does anyone know anything about Quintus? Tiberius said he was just "some randomer". So is he fictitious? DDW wondered about role-playing him as the father of the faction, but the ages look wrong. I'd prefer it if he were just leader of the Senate and we let the 4 houses[1] grow up organically and independently.

[1] ie the parts of the family tree headed by the 3 other adult faction members + I guess the house TrickyLady's character will soon start.

According to the family tree, we three are sons-in law of Quintus, but I agree to treat them as four distint families. I rather worry that Quintus will nor produce any more offspring however, thus rendering his family extinct eventually.