Politician Archive

Message Edited by Darthdarklord on 11-14-2004 01:13 PM

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Darthdarklord wrote:

Ok the new changes are positive in some wasy alowing mayors to step down better but also these changes are in alot of ways open to greef...and some of it devestating!!!

#1. All city members have access to see the names of all members of the city so here is one way for greef.

a) There are 2 mayors running the incumberant mayor and the new mayor. The INC mayor gets 10 people to vote for him while the other mayor stelth mails all city members but the INC mayor about voting for him...but not to vote untill the last day... on the last day 1 hour before the vote the second mayor receves 18 votes (while the INC mayor is offline) boom hostial takeover....and the city gets disbanded..or the INC Mayor get stelth voted out.

A good politican has many loyal citizens who span across the population of your city. If you do not hear about this email, then its your own fault for not staying informed about what is going on in your city. Also any politican knows (expecaly when XP is involved) that you can never have enough votes. If somebody was running against me I would be suspicious and try to get as many votes as possable. Its always been possable to do this an hr before the polls close.

b) Small cities... the small city of 15 members get a few new memebers and and the city is ready to expand...at that time there are 20 houses of an enemy faction houses..outside the city expantion area...after the city expands the 20 new houses are declared and votes are set up for a different mayor...the INC mayor loses and .. city is disbanded or greefed..

This method has been in place all along; however, giving 3 weeks for an election improves your odds defeding against this tatic. Recruit 6 more people to your city so you are the majority faction again. Infact you can do it 1 hr before the polls close, while the other canidate is logged off. If you are having trouble recruiting 6 people to your city, especial inan Alliance vs Empire situaiton, maybe your not the best politican.

c) INC mayors who are running guilded citys long time mayors who might not want to lose there city...per say they have been ruinning the city for a year or more might lost the city to a new mayor sporting a campain of NO tax and beniftis for all and massive positive changes to the city.....but mean while not being able to deliver these changes without bleading the citys funds dry and then not being ableto pay for the city (big problem when citys that cost half a million a week or anywhere around that $$)...then the old mayor who balanced the buget up till now get the city back 3 weeks later with no money left in the city..or a dammaged city...or the NEW mayor does not want to lose it so they disband the city!!

Our profession is not titled "city manager" if it were I would agree with your argument here. We are politicans, most of your residents understand why taxes are nessecary, you may have to campain to get your message across to your voters. If you are a good politican you are going to have many loyal citizens who will understand the danger and assist you in getting your message across to the voter base. You now have 3 weeks to get your message across instead of one. If your opponet gets a majority of the vote, then he was the better politican, he may not be right, you may have Homer Simpson as your garbage commissioner, but he won and thats how the political game is played.

d) any mayor losing the battle for the city NEW or old might decide too.. lets see...in the case where a master mayor is losing to a Nov mayor...in the last few days decides to pick up (HIS (MADE or bought)(Shuttle Port Clone Center BANK)terminals trainers ect.. and leave a Metro City without all those things for months...because the new mayor would have to build up the points to re-place them..and they would have to find all new buildings.....

Hey campain with a city wide email, "If you vote for this nutball, im going to pull all the civic structures such as the shuttleport and take them with me"

As in my case I have balanced the tax in my city for over 16 Months our citys taxed are a little high... but our city has 6 million in the bank....what if some guy goes up against me and talks about how the city would be so much better without any tax... I lose and then after a few months there is no money left in the city.. then i take back control of the city (if its not disbanded) and i have to MAX the taxes.. to make up for the loss.ORDUMPMYOWNMONEY into the citypay to for it all...

Most regular players have no idea how hard running a city can be... you have to either put in alot of taxes to be in the green.. or pay out of your own pocket or do the donation thing... We have to look for new people to join the city on a constant basis to replace old members that have come and gone....

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Also in the case of the the INC mayor having the city set up in a logical way shuttle port bank and ect.. all in a good location....Houses set up like streets ect orderly and nice...then the NEW mayor comes along and lets ANYONE place houses anywhere in the city... or takes a private city (eg. one that requires permission through granting zoning rights) and turns it into a free for all city...(in my case our city is IMP and Neutrial only) the NEW mayor could alow rebels to come into the city making our IMP only city a new mixed City...when that was not the idea of the city in the first place....causing greef to the guild that runs the cityor again the possability of disbanding again...

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I worked hard for my city i have envested more then a Year into my city and do you thinkthat all the money and resources and time i put intothe city could be all for nothing if someone beats me out with onevote??

Did you remember to vote for your self?

I can understand that if i did a horable job running the city people would want to oust me.. but i have not had many complaints up untill now - a few about the taxes... butalot of people dont understand that citys costmillions of$$$ a year to run... andsome idiot with a 0 tax plan could come in and oust me because of false hope and broken promises...

To run our citysince day one (very clost estimate) it has cost, $16,800,000 since it has been operating (thats $350,000 a week times 4 weeks times 12 months....Our city has costed anywhere from$80,000 the first week up to$490,000 a week when we where Metro for3 months the rest of the time we where never under City status except for the first 3 weeks it took us to get to CITY...we grew every week for 3 weeks and then got metro about 1 months later....then after 3 months re-droped to city and have been that wayup untillnow.And i know for a cact that there are citys out there that are spending over $500,000 a week for them they have run costs up to 24 million $$$.

And if somthing like that was to happen there is a chance that by the time the people of the cityfigure outwhat it willand can cost us, itcan beto late to save the city..

Our city was not the first city on our server put up... but it was the first city placed on our planet..as i placed it about3 minutes after the server went live on the day citys went live...If i lost the city that i have been running for over a year and 4 months i dont think i would want to play the game any further... especialy if it came down to one vote... or stealth votes...

I'm sure i will be able to maintain the votes of my city and guild members...but the chace is still there for me to lose the city...as because with this system anything can happen....and it will take 3 weeks to make changes...and by then its could be to late....

Message Edited by Darthdarklord on 11-14-2004 01:13 PM

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I think your selling the inteligence of many of your citizens short. If you have been running the city for a year you should have many many loyal citizens, who would question anybody who tried to run against you. Elections always have favord the incumbent and with this method it should be the same, we just have to work a bit harder if somebody runs against you. But this is how the politcal game is played, some people will only do it for the power, thers will do it for greifing purposes , but its how the game is played world wide and if you cant swim with the most timid of sharks you shouldn't be in the water to begin with.

I agree with most of the things stated here.

I do not have problems at all with another politician running against me, that's the way it is meant to be.
On the other hand, now that it IS possible to be outvoted (another YAY for the devs for that) City griefing may be a concern.

In my opinion a mayor, founder of the city or not, should be unable to remove the whole city (i.e. the city hall) without another election. No city belongs to the mayor but it belongs to the citizens, so the mayor alone should not be able to remove the cityhall without a vote. Maybe make an exception to this rule for outposts.
Of course, 66% of the citizens have to vote for a city removal to be effective.

Additionally, a mayor ist able to remove 50k from the Treasury each day. At the moment, with votes every week, in theory you can "steal" 7x50 = 350k from the Treasury before the citizens could do something about it (i.e. vote another mayor). After patch the mayor will be able to get a whopping 1.050.000 Cr. out of the city before the next election hits. This may cripple smaller cities so maybe the mayor should only be able to remove a fixed amount of money from the treasury, say, double the city cost max, but still only 50k per 24 hour period.

these would be minor changes, but may be worth a discussion.

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Dawney wrote:
I agree with most of the things stated here.

I do not have problems at all with another politician running against me, that's the way it is meant to be.
On the other hand, now that it IS possible to be outvoted (another YAY for the devs for that) City griefing may be a concern.

In my opinion a mayor, founder of the city or not, should be unable to remove the whole city (i.e. the city hall) without another election. No city belongs to the mayor but it belongs to the citizens, so the mayor alone should not be able to remove the cityhall without a vote. Maybe make an exception to this rule for outposts.
Of course, 66% of the citizens have to vote for a city removal to be effective.

Additionally, a mayor ist able to remove 50k from the Treasury each day. At the moment, with votes every week, in theory you can "steal" 7x50 = 350k from the Treasury before the citizens could do something about it (i.e. vote another mayor). After patch the mayor will be able to get a whopping 1.050.000 Cr. out of the city before the next election hits. This may cripple smaller cities so maybe the mayor should only be able to remove a fixed amount of money from the treasury, say, double the city cost max, but still only 50k per 24 hour period.

these would be minor changes, but may be worth a discussion.

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I pretty well agree here... I also have an Idea for helping Mayor and all Politicians to be put on the map so to speak. As is Mayors are unknown personally, they say oh the mayor is so and so's alternate... Come look at this idea you may like it. It would helpPoliticians be Important people in the community.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Politician&message.id=42525

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YukiGoGo wrote:

MTolwyn, you have a valid point, but I think you aren't looking at it the right way, maybe. If a new mayor had only 20 citizens, and didn't "recruit" new ones, then yes, you have it pretty much right. But, why would someone start a city and not try to recruit new citizens? Anyone planning on making a city work should plan on putting in some serious work, and getting more and more citizens is key to that. So, if the new mayor does so, exp increases, and time needed for skills and growth decreases. Yes, maybe it's considerably slower, but that isn't necessarily all that bad. One thing that has plagued many servers is the large number of shake-and-bake cities that pop up over night, explode in size, take up space and numbers on each planet/server's alloted cities (Last I checked, Naboo and Corellia were full in Gorath for some time), and generally cause a mess when a majority of them became ghost towns.

Now building a city is a more serious investment of time and energy. That's a wonderful thing. Hopefully, only the truly serious and dedicated groups will undertake this project, and that will lessen the aforementioned problem of shake-and-bake cities.

As for your citizens wanting quick benefits, well, they should be made aware of the time needed to reach certain goals from day one. If they are dedicated to the city, along with the mayor, then it won't be an issue. If they can't wait, then maybe you (implied of course, i.e. new mayor) should look for different citizens, or just not make a city at this time. If the citizens understand that their voting is CRITICAL to the growth of the city, that should motivate them to step up and vote.

As for Militia, I think this shouldn't be an issue. It may be tricky sometimes, as we all have lives to live, but people should understand this, and be willing to work with the Militia and mayor to get in and get zoning rights.

Now, the three week voting cycle has many people in an uproar too. Though I can see problems with this, mostly, I think it is ideal for larger cities, where it's difficult to get the large number of citizens to vote within one week. This will give those people that just can't be on every day (Not me! Woot! I spend toooooooooo much time in game. Silly me, but I love it soo much.) enough time to make their vote.

I'm not saying that all of these changes are perfect. But, overall, I think the devs got it right. I think making people devote more time and consideration to building and running a city. It's alot of work, but can be very rewarding.

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my point was that a new mayor of a new city cannot offer anything for the first 3 weeks
no terminals, no trainers,...... and has always to be there to grant zoning himself

till now we had a steady flow of developement
now we ll make jumps every3 weeks

devotion of their mayors is what keeps most cities alive and that s good but new changes just make new room for griefing and abuse, thing s we don t need.

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Plzurpilot wrote:

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Darthdarklord wrote:

Ok the new changes are positive in some wasy alowing mayors to step down better but also these changes are in alot of ways open to greef...and some of it devestating!!!

#1. All city members have access to see the names of all members of the city so here is one way for greef.

a) There are 2 mayors running the incumberant mayor and the new mayor. The INC mayor gets 10 people to vote for him while the other mayor stelth mails all city members but the INC mayor about voting for him...but not to vote untill the last day... on the last day 1 hour before the vote the second mayor receves 18 votes (while the INC mayor is offline) boom hostial takeover....and the city gets disbanded..or the INC Mayor get stelth voted out.

A good politican has many loyal citizens who span across the population of your city. If you do not hear about this email, then its your own fault for not staying informed about what is going on in your city. Also any politican knows (expecaly when XP is involved) that you can never have enough votes. If somebody was running against me I would be suspicious and try to get as many votes as possable. Its always been possable to do this an hr before the polls close.

This is true...but these are just examples of what could go wrong...and i'm just using my city as an example. But some guild run citys that have 2 or more leaders that are spliting can also take the strugle to the city as well having both side fight for control of the city...in this case to rival could gain control of the city and disband it if they are not given total control of the guild... (these are harsh thoughts but i have seen it happen with guild that split and whole citys lost because of it!!!

b) Small cities... the small city of 15 members get a few new memebers and and the city is ready to expand...at that time there are 20 houses of an enemy faction houses..outside the city expantion area...after the city expands the 20 new houses are declared and votes are set up for a different mayor...the INC mayor loses and .. city is disbanded or greefed..

This method has been in place all along; however, giving 3 weeks for an election improves your odds defeding against this tatic. Recruit 6 more people to your city so you are the majority faction again. Infact you can do it 1 hr before the polls close, while the other canidate is logged off. If you are having trouble recruiting 6 people to your city, especial inan Alliance vs Empire situaiton, maybe your not the best politican.

Well thats one defence agains it...but what if the owner of the city have only 15 people and the rival guild sets of 30 houses...chances are the new Guild will not be able to to over power that number..and the city is lost... (some guilds have 130 people or more in one city....so for them to lose 40 members for a day or to will not affect them.....but it sure will affect the new guild)

I have also seen this used as well in game..is a sick thing to do...but it has happened!!!

c) INC mayors who are running guilded citys long time mayors who might not want to lose there city...per say they have been ruinning the city for a year or more might lost the city to a new mayor sporting a campain of NO tax and beniftis for all and massive positive changes to the city.....but mean while not being able to deliver these changes without bleading the citys funds dry and then not being ableto pay for the city (big problem when citys that cost half a million a week or anywhere around that $$)...then the old mayor who balanced the buget up till now get the city back 3 weeks later with no money left in the city..or a dammaged city...or the NEW mayor does not want to lose it so they disband the city!!

Our profession is not titled "city manager" if it were I would agree with your argument here. We are politicans, most of your residents understand why taxes are nessecary, you may have to campain to get your message across to your voters. If you are a good politican you are going to have many loyal citizens who will understand the danger and assist you in getting your message across to the voter base. You now have 3 weeks to get your message across instead of one. If your opponet gets a majority of the vote, then he was the better politican, he may not be right, you may have Homer Simpson as your garbage commissioner, but he won and thats how the political game is played.

Again you have a valid point but some people are just cheap and when they hear that taxes are at 40% (houseing) they tink OMG thats crazy.... and even after you tell them for a small house its only costing them around $4000 a week they are still like wow thats alot...(and it is to newer city members) the older members don't care much..but to new players its high.

And some people still only look at the 40% and not the small amount of money it equils to....

There is one guy in my guild that is like i cant beleve taxes are 40% and the guy has $30,000,000...some times you cant fight stupidity...

d) any mayor losing the battle for the city NEW or old might decide too.. lets see...in the case where a master mayor is losing to a Nov mayor...in the last few days decides to pick up (HIS (MADE or bought)(Shuttle Port Clone Center BANK)terminals trainers ect.. and leave a Metro City without all those things for months...because the new mayor would have to build up the points to re-place them..and they would have to find all new buildings.....

Hey campain with a city wide email, "If you vote for this nutball, im going to pull all the civic structures such as the shuttleport and take them with me"

Well i could do that..and then have the other mayor use that against me as ammo....

NEW MAYOR (look how bad the old mayor is Threating to HARM the CITY just because he is losing....and because the people want change!!!)

In my case i would only use that as a last ditch attempt to keep the city..... even though the city is mine and so are all the buildings in it....

As in my case I have balanced the tax in my city for over 16 Months our citys taxed are a little high... but our city has 6 million in the bank....what if some guy goes up against me and talks about how the city would be so much better without any tax... I lose and then after a few months there is no money left in the city.. then i take back control of the city (if its not disbanded) and i have to MAX the taxes.. to make up for the loss.ORDUMPMYOWNMONEY into the citypay to for it all...

Most regular players have no idea how hard running a city can be... you have to either put in alot of taxes to be in the green.. or pay out of your own pocket or do the donation thing... We have to look for new people to join the city on a constant basis to replace old members that have come and gone....

----------

Also in the case of the the INC mayor having the city set up in a logical way shuttle port bank and ect.. all in a good location....Houses set up like streets ect orderly and nice...then the NEW mayor comes along and lets ANYONE place houses anywhere in the city... or takes a private city (eg. one that requires permission through granting zoning rights) and turns it into a free for all city...(in my case our city is IMP and Neutrial only) the NEW mayor could alow rebels to come into the city making our IMP only city a new mixed City...when that was not the idea of the city in the first place....causing greef to the guild that runs the cityor again the possability of disbanding again...

------------

I worked hard for my city i have envested more then a Year into my city and do you thinkthat all the money and resources and time i put intothe city could be all for nothing if someone beats me out with onevote??

Did you remember to vote for your self?

Thats not my point, what i ment was with the old system it would take alot of votes (over 50% of the population to out vote me, now all it takes is one 3 to vote against me on a day that im at work and have forgotten to ask everyone to VOTE....OR I get only 14 people to vote for me and then my competator gets 15 people to stelth vote andits over.... The way i look at it if the people of my city are happy with me they would alwase vote for me...and if they didnt like me THEN they would vote against me... but again all it takes is for people to forget to vote.. I'n my case i would NOT LET people FORGET......but what if some of the other mayors are not as pro active....there city would and could be open to a hostile takeover....(Yes i would vote for myself as if i wouldent

I can understand that if i did a horable job running the city people would want to oust me.. but i have not had many complaints up untill now - a few about the taxes... butalot of people dont understand that citys costmillions of$$$ a year to run... andsome idiot with a 0 tax plan could come in and oust me because of false hope and broken promises...

To run our citysince day one (very clost estimate) it has cost, $16,800,000 since it has been operating (thats $350,000 a week times 4 weeks times 12 months....Our city has costed anywhere from$80,000 the first week up to$490,000 a week when we where Metro for3 months the rest of the time we where never under City status except for the first 3 weeks it took us to get to CITY...we grew every week for 3 weeks and then got metro about 1 months later....then after 3 months re-droped to city and have been that wayup untillnow.And i know for a cact that there are citys out there that are spending over $500,000 a week for them they have run costs up to 24 million $$$.

And if somthing like that was to happen there is a chance that by the time the people of the cityfigure outwhat it willand can cost us, itcan beto late to save the city..

Our city was not the first city on our server put up... but it was the first city placed on our planet..as i placed it about3 minutes after the server went live on the day citys went live...If i lost the city that i have been running for over a year and 4 months i dont think i would want to play the game any further... especialy if it came down to one vote... or stealth votes...

I'm sure i will be able to maintain the votes of my city and guild members...but the chace is still there for me to lose the city...as because with this system anything can happen....and it will take 3 weeks to make changes...and by then its could be to late....

Message Edited by Darthdarklord on 11-14-2004 01:13 PM

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I think your selling the inteligence of many of your citizens short. If you have been running the city for a year you should have many many loyal citizens, who would question anybody who tried to run against you. Elections always have favord the incumbent and with this method it should be the same, we just have to work a bit harder if somebody runs against you. But this is how the politcal game is played, some people will only do it for the power, thers will do it for greifing purposes , but its how the game is played world wide and if you cant swim with the most timid of sharks you shouldn't be in the water to begin with.

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In the case of most of my arguments i was using my city as an example I doubt i will have any contest if anyone runs against me as our city has become some what of a model for other citys.. Ourcitys houses are all alinged in streets, houses are all properly placed in the group catagories (small Medium Large) all in line with all there house signs in order so as you drive or walk down the streets all houses names are clearly visable..and it very easy to find your house or somone elses even if you dont know where it is. Also as citys where being made people put the shuttle port and all other civic buildings most of the time all over the place where ever there was room...our city is structured with our shuttle port right accross from our mall and all buildings like banksclone center, cantina, and hospitals, even the terminals and trainersare all within 100-200m of eachother as i made it clear that those areas where NO BUILD ZONES.

In my post i was just giving worse case or (problems with the new system that with the old system did not have)

Adding more of the politics into the job is welcome even to me as well...but they could have found a better way to transfer mayor over if the INC mayor wanted to leave.

It would have been a simple fix somone runs against the INC Mayor, TheINC mayor resignes..boom the new mayor is picked either after the next election (cityupdate) or right away.

And as for the current new voting system it will be alot easer to incact greef (not so much for large citys) but the new ones can find them selves in alot of trouble and fast!!

As for the new system mayors will have to be more on guard now fro potential greefers and now also the people of the city will have to make sure they vote every 3 weeks and not forget...as EXP will not be gained...or some of the things i have stated up above...might happen...and alot easer then before.

Message Edited by Darthdarklord on 11-16-2004 09:00 AM

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Trebor0712 wrote:

I agree with the above mentioned. I think waiting three weeks to vote is ridiculous. I like the current voting system and I really never heard any one complain about it. So why change it. It is nice with the 750 xp bonus. But the tripled xp on voting is the same as 100 per week. I am a novice politician and I can see theses changes suck. Leave alone what is not broken. LOL

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There have been many complaints made about the voting system, for two reasons:

1. A Majoy wants to quite and give up leadership to someone else. The old system would not allow this to be an easy task. Since all absent players automatically vote for the Incombent, large cities with many inactive players could not find enough active players to vote the new mayor.


2. A mayor is doing a terrible job. The old system did not allow people to easily vote that mayor out, due to the same situation in reason 1.