Politician Archive

Greetings Fellow Politicians,

I am writing this thread in the hopes of improving the chances of successful cities being constructed by politicians. Currently the success rate for a city is extremely low. This does not reflect well on the profession and is not in my opinion anywhere near where it should be. The following will be aimed at the Novice Politician, but my hope is that there will be enough in here that hopefully even advanced Politicians will find the information useful. I will not be including very many bugs, unless they are strictly applicable. This thread is more aimed at outlook and direction then specific things to avoid.

I will break it down by general suggestions and questions you should ask yourself. Then explain the answers that were applicable to my city which has been a success. This should help give a broader understanding of the implications of each decision I hope.

Requirements
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Before I begin some absolute basics. If you are aiming to build a metropolis you will need both time, capital, and if possible an architect. None of it is explicitly necessary, but it will drastically help and may make or break the project. I would say our city cost us 5 million credits in maintenance, and core civic structures over the first 3 months... and thats being kind... so make sure you have a little stocked up... at minimum make sure you can afford a city hall, 10 small homes, and 500,000 to 1,000,000 credits for emergency maintenance. That should cover your ass if you're desperate.

Determining a Look and Location
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

When starting a city you should first thoroughly discuss all aspects of what you wish to acchieve. This will have a lasting impact on the location and layout that your city will take. You should determine the following to narrow down the location and layout:

1) Faction Affiliation? - Neutral, Imperial, or Rebel... what faction will your citizens be composed of exclusively or primarily? you will need to pick a location that is either safe from the opposing faction or antagonistic to it, and will probably need to account for factional structures in your layout.

2) Type of character? - Mixed, Crafter, Fighter, Roleplayer, Race... your cities goals will be directly effected by the kind of character it caters to, you may for example wish to build a site exclusively for fighters in which case tough npcs/creature missions will become key, as well as faction bases and the like. On the other hand you may wish to make a crafting city in which case your city would revolve around a bazaar, factories, and harvestors, or a mix. Think about this question carefully. Furthermore look carefully into it if you are a roleplaying or racial city as these can even more drastically determine how your city should look or be located.

3) What types of structures do you wish to have in your city?... this is purely asthetic but can play an important role... if you don't know what buildings look like you can view them at:
Player Houses Index

For your reference the building type and the planet they can be placed on:
Generic Buildings - Corellia, Talus, Tatooine, Lok, Dantooine, Naboo, or Rori...
Corellian Buildings - Corellia, and Talus
Tatooine Buildings - Tatooine, Lok, and Dantooine
Naboo Buildings - Naboo, and Rori

Please note that no other planets are populatable at this time.

4) Figure out several scenarios and bring them before your initial citizens (or guild if you are a guild city) and discuss it further. This is the most important decision about your city that you will be making... EVER...

Our City:
---------
Faction: Imperial (Purely)

Type of Character: Mixed (Crafter,Fighter)

Structures: Headquarters

Resulting Decision: Needed an advanced planet (tougher npcs for fighter classes), isolated location (dominantly rebel server) to protect hqs... crafters would have to be accomodated as best possible until such a time as our growth was large enough to drive customers to us.

Ok... so you have your Faction and Character-type in mind for your city, this should give you an idea of where you would like to plant your city. If not perhaps your building preference can help. Now don't build the city hall just yet. Go to the planet(s) that apply to your above choices and look for a location that has:

1) 900m diameter circular land of buildable (preferably flat, but not necessarily) land... this is assuming you'd like to grow to metropolis eventually.. if you are looking for a small community you'll need 300m diameter for up to 20 citizens, 400m diameter for up to 30 citizens, 600m diameter for up to 55 citizens, 800m diameter for up to 85 citizens... this is to allow for maximum flexibility in your building. Again its a suggestion, but will help you long term. Once you find a location that suits your needs then build your city hall, but do not place it yet.

Our City:
---------
Location: New Suntir, Lok (Foot of Mount Chaolt)

Reason: 900+ metres of glass flat land, an advanced planet for missioning, 11 kilometers from the nearest starport/shuttleport (at time of original placement), therefore met our key criteria.


Placing City Hall
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Ok you have your city hall, I'd recommend several things at this point.

1) Make enough small home deeds for every citizen you expect to move in eventually. This will minimize delays and any access will eventually be used up if you expand as you hope.

2) Use the map layout tool by tiaga located at:
Tiaga's Map Tool
This tool is stellar and I wish I had it when I made my initial city map... its not perfect but will save you a lot of grief. When designing your city be creative, but keep in mind that you will need to be able to expand at each level, if you do not have 20 citizens within your 300m initial diameter you'll never expand city level. This means either you'll have to move citizens once you reach a certain size, or you'll have to design your initial layout with this in mind keeping residential areas close to your city hall. If you decide on the moving citizens at a later date option make sure you make an initial map and a final objective map, this means you can keep your goals in site and spot potential problem areas long term. I would further recommend that you always keep the goals determined in "Determining a Look and Location" at the forefront of your design objectives. For example if you have a fighting city you may wish to have mission terminals on the edges of your town to make missioning quicker, it also allows for missions to be taken across the city so that your visitors/citizens can take a mission from a terminal on the west end of town that is located on the east end thus avoiding all agros by travelling through your city. This is particularly important when placing your factory districts and HQs if they are to be placed within city limits. Finally you will have to carefully consider how you would like to deal with different sized buildings... will you have all small homes in one district? have it randomly mixed together? have city lots? where will the roads be located?

3) Once you have a map you can easily see where to place your small homes... move as many citizens as you can into the right spots ahead of time (at minimum 9 citizens) and have them all declare residence. This means that when you place your city hall it will immediately have enough citizens to survive after 24hours and you won't have to scramble for citizens.

4) Finally place the city hall in the appropriate location and double check the citizens list to make sure you have enough to retain your city (at least 10 total, though more for safeties sake might be better.. =)... )

Our City:
---------
Small Homes: we purchased 50 small tatooine homes for our first citizens, then 50 more at a later date as we grew this greatly helped us move people as we could set up temporary homes for people to store items while they moved and then /transferstructure to them at the appropriate time.

Map: constructed our map based on the maximum 900m diameter possible with a metropolis... crammed everyone around city hall with the understanding that they would have to move after an expansion of city radious (this was largely driven by our design need for a massive central city square. We also determined that we would allocate a large house lot to every citizen in the city thus allowing them to enlarge their home as they see fit over time without displacing any other citizens or losing what could possibly become prime real estate. Our first city map consisted of a tent bazaar infront of city hall contained in a massive central square imagine city hall as the central square of a tic-tac-toe board... thats the scale of our city center... we also included a defensive block around our shuttleport of 4 detachment hqs... (note i say first city map, being a first day city many things changed that we had to adjust to... expect to have to alter your city over time, but I doubt if you follow these steps you will have to do much in this way as most of the player city core bugs are worked out now and unlikely to change drastically... in our case the biggest change was moving our military base because POI boundaries were instituted blocking expansion)

SIDE NOTE: Military Headquarter Sizings
-------------------------------------------------
All Factional Headquarters have a 9x9 square footprint... this means that they will show up green on the overhead placement map if you have 9 squares horizontal by 9 squares vertical free for placement. HOWEVER this footprint expands upon placement to a 15x15 circular footprint for small and mid-sized Factional Headquarters and a 16x16 circular footprint for tactical and detachment headquarters... WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? If you are placing multiple HQs account for 4 additional squares on all sides in a circular area from what you see when you are placing the HQ... if you are placing the HQ beside a standing structure or another HQ you may place it closer then 16x16 sometimes because the initial placement is 9x9, this will depend upon how many HQs you are dropping and how they overlap, so when mapping it out keep in mind that you are working with this limitation. (its hard to explain, but once you see what i'm talking about with the overhead projection of the footprint before planting the structure hopefully this will be clearer)

Growing A City
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

There are obviously many things that help to grow a city. An overall vision as I've mentioned previously in this thread is key to this. By understanding and having everyone on board with the initial goals, the city will probably prosper, with enough time and effort. The following are the things you'll have to deal with:Zoning: I mentioned earlier that you and your core citizens would have to decide if you were role players, factional, or race-based. Right away this will apply in the decision whether to institute zoning. In my opinion zoning is essential to a player city, regardless of whether or not you choose to be a democracy or a dictatorship (there is large discussion on whether dictatorships should exist, but that is neither here nor there). This is because anyone with an axe to grind, or just as bad anyone without patience can mess up the design and goal or your city layout. You should activate zoning immediately. If you wish a more free layout then i would recommend activating zoning at least until the core city area is filled up with the most important buildings then releasing the zoning. This way the core living area of your citizens will not be effected by misplacement of structures.

Militia: Currently militia have the ability to cityban, grant zoning rights, and receive a defensive bonus while defending the city should the Stronghold city specialization be purchased. There are benefits and negatives to militia. The negatives are that cityban and zoning rights open the door for corruption, city ban is an ineffective tool of policing and causes more problems in my opinion then it is worth (ie. complaining guild leaders over their members being banned for X reason) and zoning rights opens the possibility of messing up your city as described above in the discussion of Zoning. However, militia having the grant zoning right allows for the appointment of city managers. You can appoint directors of market or military districts that can greatly releave the burden on your shoulders, and believe me settling the core citizens and decorating your city and canvasing if applicable will take a lot of your time.

Taxes: Again if you are a dictatorship this will be whatever you think is right, if not I would recommend a town meeting. Determine the cost for city maintenance (and upgrades if applicable) and set the tax accordingly. I recommend against taking anything out of the treasury ever. First off its unlikely to be in the black for a long time, and secondly 50,000 credits (which is the daily treasury withdrawal cap) won't get you far and citizens will get annoyed if they keep getting a "mayor has removed 50,000 credits from the treasury"... it just looks bad on you... if you need funds open a donations fund from your citizens, most cities don't mind helping out... they can usually see what effort is being required of you....

SIDE NOTE: If city maintenance is not met objects will be destroyed or damaged by the following process.

1) All city objects will be destroyed as per their maintenance cost. This includes mission terminals, trainers, etc in roughly that order. (if you owe 15000 credits and you have 12 trainers costing you 1500 credits each per week, then 10 of the trainers will be removed and when you next log in you'll have to re-recruit them)

2) If all city objects are destroyed the gardens will be "damaged" according to the access debt. This usually poses little problem. If a structure is damaged from lack of funds however you will not be able to redeed it until it is repaired, if you try it will be destroyed. Civic structures are repaired weekly when the city maintenance is paid via access funds in the treasury. So if a civic structure has 10,000 credits of damage and the next city update comes along and has 7000 credits extra... only 3000 credits of damage will be on the civic structure... the structure will remain in the city until the next week in the hopes of getting the last 3000 credits... however if its entirely paid for nothing happens.

3) If all civic structures are damaged it will start destroying civic structure from the smallest to largest.

City Specialization: Although many city specializations are offered there are only three real viable ones. The first and most common is the Research Center, it costs your city 125k/week and helps keep crafters competitive with opposing city markets. The second is the Improved Job Market, it costs 80k/week and improves mission rewards for fighters. The last and least common useful specialization is Stronghold which provides defensive bonuses to defenders on the militia. You may wish to try entertainer or medical professions if you have a themed city such as a Las Vegas theme might want entertainer since most visitors would be entertainers or those wishing to watch them... but on a daily basis it is fairly impractical.

Our City:
---------
Zoning: Active since day 1. Being a factional city it was in our best interest to prevent griefing. Furthermore, our city is designed to accomodate large house lots for all citizens regardless of their current house size. Therefore precise placement was required at all times.

Militia: We formed a militia initially but removed it when too many people used it to place their homes. While we were confident that it was unintentional it just became too much work to move people after the fact. Furthermore with the removal of citywarn it became a less useful feature of cities. Several people have remained on the militia list exclusively to cityban invaders and thus keep them outta your cloner.

Taxes: Shuttle - 100cr, Income - 2000 cr, Property - 7%, Sales - 5%, Garage - 10%
After much adjusting we found these figures to put us in the black, nobody has complained to date. =)

City Specialization: Improved Job Market - as we mentioned we placed our city with the aim of being isolated and having a strong fighting presence on an advanced planet. We have settled on Improved Job Market because it drives visitors to our city. Anyone wishing to do tough missions will automatically be inclined to go to Lok, now they can get 20% more for their missions both in credits and if factional in faction points. (note Improved Job Market gives 15% bonus only, however missions from HQs give an additional 5%, hence the 20%). We tried Research Center prior, but our crafters prefered to lure customers then have that tiny edge in experimentation. Although we have tried stronghold it has not been worth getting as of yet as we are getting more defenders with Improved Job Market then the 50+ defensive bonus would be worth in a fight. =)

SIDE NOTE: Keep in mind when decorating your city that the civic structure count is seperate from the decoration count. A "City" can have 40 decorations but only 25 Civic Structures. Therefore the total number of Gardens and Banks and the like permissable are a lot less then say lamps, fountains and statues. For your reference a metropolis can have 50 decorations and 31 Civic Structures (I couldn't find that info anywhere, even from the CSRs... =P... )

Conclusion
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

What I am driving at is a philosophy that anyone new to city building, or anyone even having problems getting any growth to their city should adopt. Managed, organized effort will bring people in and make your city thrive. It can be the most remote location in the galaxy it will not matter. People want to play in a fun and active environment. Bring something unique to the table if you can, but bring something solid to the table no matter what. Oh, and for those wondering why I feel I can speak on this at all... =)... a plug...New Suntir, Lok is currently the most active player city on Sunrunner, especially in regards to PVP. It features 9 Factional Bases protecting the shuttleport. A remote location with high-end hunting of mobs and bonus rewards on missions. The city is active enough so that there are almost always entertainers and doctors available and by active I mean at down times in the day you're still looking at double digits missioning from our bases, etc. and the community that has grown out of this has created an environment where there are people loitering around and never leaving the area for long periods of time, much like Coronet Starport on most servers. The market area is managed, meaning that there is someone actively organizing our crafters to keep their vendors stocked, and keeping like goods in the same tents (we only use 6 tents in our bazaar to keep our customers from being overwhelmed) but each tent has 6 or 7 vendors in it... the city is broad in scale yet organized with prominent locations for hospitals and cantinas and massive decoration along our overly broad avenues and primary square (the idea of which came for Moscows Red Square). Hopefully this will improve your success rate in what in my opinion can be a truly rewarding and lasting endevour. Good luck all! /salute

/bump

(pending feedback... if its not useful i'll stop) =)

*checks pits*
*check butt*
*confused*

must be the uniform... =P

lol... funk... i like that lol...

side note: there are some additions and edits i'd like to add to this soon... stay tuned... =P

/bump

haha /bump

i love this guy!