Politician Archive

I must confess, I am one of those mayors who treats my city (Fort Oasis on Starsider), as pretty private community. Not just mine in a sense, but my entire guild. In an RP sense, we are a dictatorship (guild has no elections). However, the voting terminal in our city hall is open for election, and even though I am a master politician already, the citizens of my city continue voting for me because they feel I am the mayor that's right for them. Fort Oasis is guild exclusive only, it's their place to call home, and make it feel like their own. Only a handful of citizens are non-guildies, but it's Imperial only.

I've ran the city for 2 years, watched grow from a disorganized trash bin of an outpost, to the most popular Imperialmetropolis on Tatooine. I've invested countless millions, time, and dedication to fund my city, recruit citizens, and make it one of the biggest and the best. My guild trusts me, and they too know the ammounts of dedication it took to make them this city. Taxes go down the tubes when it comes to player cities, a large chunk comes out of the mayors pocket. If someone was to vote against, I'd take it personally. If somone were toregister for mayoragainst me; somone who ran against a mayor that did nothing to upset the citizens; somone who ran for mayorwith no political expertise were to run, I'd take it pretty personally. At the same time however, I'd laugh. The citizens of this metropolis no better than for some stranger to run against me as mayor. I'd win by a landslide. In my 2 years history of mayor, I've never gotten one person to run against me.

Now if this person who ran against me knew the ropes about being a mayor, was an Imperial who befriended it's citizens, etc, then he might have a good election. The only thing he'd lack is a reason to put me out of office. If there is a corrupt mayor who mistreats his citizens, visitors, etc, then yes; it's the obligation of the citizens to overthrow him and run the city as their own.

Is my city private property? In a sense I believe it's my guilds, but visitors are always welcome. The only thing they cant do there is build a home.

Lexx

As far as property and income tax, yes, they do work, and they can in fact support a full size city. I run a 125 citizen city that has only recently taken some donations due to the massive amount of gardens and decorations that were recently added on top of those already existing. 4-6 gardens less and the city would be completely self-sustaining on taxes alone once again.

Now, Kinshi, I would like to inform you that there are in fact cities in which open and honest elections have been held. I for one won my current position in such an instance when the previous mayor announced that he would like to step down. I had only one challenger from another guild residing in the same city, and I came out on top.

Still, I have to say that your expectations of how elections should be viewed by an incumbent are highly unrealistic for the game setting or even RL. It is a very naive and/or idealistic belief to think that a person who has worked for their position would behappy about having that position challenged. Some would be more accepting than others of such a situation, but very close to none would receive any form of joy from it. Even in RL, right here it the US as you brought up, politicians are very reluctant to let go of their seats. Many take illegal steps to try and secure their position a bit longer. This is not speculation, do some research in news papers and history books on the subject if you don't believe me. Now, I'm not saying it is right, I am only trying to explain that it is far more common and in more arenas than you appear to believe.

Starting a city in SWG at this stage of the game is indeed a daunting task. Leveling politician parallels that task as well. Personally, I find nothing wrong with that. Even though I took over a city that was already a metropolis at the time, it still took me over 6 months to master politician. We averaged about 15 votes per cycle in a city that had at least 95 citizens the whole time, so don't think that leveling is that much easier for people in charge of a larger city. Still, I stuck with it and 6 months later I'm master politician, I have reshaped the city to a great extent in my own design, and have managed to raise our population by roughly 30%.

How long have you been working at politician? If this is your first attempt, I suggest a deep breath, and coming to terms with the fact that it is a long and up-hill journey for most. I would venture to say it may be more difficult at this point to become master politician than to template a jedi (pushing it perhaps . Whether it is your first attempt or not, I would recommend reading the FAQ's and looking up the section on recruiting, some excellent ideas have been shared on here in the recent past. I'm currently giving some guidance to a former citizen who left my city to start a new one of their own. It's slow going, but they are doing just fine and are waiting on the city cycle to gain the rank their current citizen count warrants.

Message Edited by KhoevenNalarDre on 07-25-2005 10:13 AM