Politician Archive

Some interesting things, to say the least, have been happening in my city, and I thought I'd share the story with you and see what you thought, and maybe provide some advice for what I should do.

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sorry, pressed the button accidently.

I bought the game a few weeks ago, and was recruited into a Guild almost immediatly after I got on for the first time. The guild i joined was one that had its own city, so naturally I became a citizen. After a few weeks i was feeling pretty comfortable with the game when an argument broke out about between a couple of members and the mayor. The players were told that to remain in the guild they needed to move into the city and they opposed this. The players left with minor incident. A few weeks later another guild moved into the city and the mayor seperated himself from the guild in order to remain impartial. The new leader of the old guild started gearing it twords a more PvP centered community. He basiclly said, "Unless your PvP, get out of the guild." Hence, about half of the guild left and formed another guild in the city. After some other coflicts between the old guild and the new offshoot guild, most of new guild has decided to leave the city and start another on a different planet. The mayor has also decided to part, citing that he can no longer put up with being the Mayor of anything. I had by this time moved in about 10 new members and started a Hunting Club in city. The mayor asked me if I wanted to take over for him, and I, up for the challange, agreed. I am as yet running unopposed. This exodus has left our city with no crafters over anything but Novic Artisan and I am trying to consider ways to stabalize the city politics and provide our city with a good economic growth.

Any input is greatly apreciated

Well, a lot of the information necessary for the best advice is missing, namely the state of the city today (citizens, buildings, ranks, location near POIs, etc). I'll do what I can, though.

Your first priority is stop the bleeding. Talk everyone who's thinking of leaving out of it. If you start dropping city ranks, you'll start losing city services, and then you're up the creek. Do whatever it takes, make promises you can't keep (you ARE a politician, after all) - offer to "look into" critical problems in vague terms and find a compromise that annoys everyone slightly but upsets no one. Beg for time. You're a new administration, don't let yourself be tarred by the problems of the old. You can always recruit new citizens later.

Priority 2 is restore/improve city services. Get to as high a rank as you can and place every service building you can afford (if this isn't all of them, you better review your budget) and qualify for. You'll be a novice, so this might take a few weeksduring which you can focus on ...

Priority 3 is recruitment. Your goal here is to bring people in faster than you annoy them in #1. As long as you do this, SWG makes it nigh-impossible for you to lose an election. Pick a philosophy (i.e. no imperials, crafters are desirable, etc.) and recruit people that will be benefitted by that philosophy. Pander to them and they'll support you for life. The guild will lose control of the town to you - but that's what you want (assuming you're a politician at heart) and that's what's best for the town in any case. The guild hasn't done a bang-up job of administration so far, has it?

Priority 4 is money. To some extent you will be constrained by your operating philosophy from #3. However, cities don't cost so much to run that you can't do it on reasonable taxes. Your problem is making sure everyone realizes how reasonable they are. Before you get to this phase, travel around to other cities and find the one with the most draconian tax rate. Drop occassional references along the lines of "I never realized it cost so much to run a city! XYZVille charges ABC tax!". Anyone talking about cities with no taxes should be politely dismissed with a "well, they're funded by donation from individuals or a guild and we don't really want that, do we?" - people will be falling all over themselves to show you what great folks (or a great guild) they are by donating. They'll get tired of this, but it should give them time to get used to the idea of taxes.

Hope this helps!

- Syd

ROFL! Great reply, and I agree to an extent...but then, Tradewinds is not in the dire straights yours is, Boban. While realizing I'm going out of town, please feel free to call on me should you need some artisan/architect handiwork. I'll do my best to help out.

Good luck!

Along with Tradewinds, which is a excellent city, Maris Paradis would also like to offer support. If it's some cash or deeds you need to make you comfortable while you handle the interpersonals, I am sure we can do that. Contact Riis in game for this.

Further, you should know that I have some skill as an arbitrator, so if you need just an impartial guy to sit in and listen and make a couple suggestions in specific, please call on me.

I think until cities become attractive to players, we all need to work together to keep them around.

RbT

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Syd1 wrote:

Well, a lot of the information necessary for the best advice is missing, namely the state of the city today (citizens, buildings, ranks, location near POIs, etc). I'll do what I can, though.

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There are at last count 54 people, i have been recruiting like crazy to try to get us stable at 55, but it seems like for every newbie i find 2 expierienced veterens leave. We are currently a City and have all of the ameneties which that alone grants us. ie: Shuttleport, med facility, Cantina (but the owner of the cantina is quitting the game as soon as we find a replacement, but no luck so far) etc. We are not near any POIs but we are within spitting distance of the largest (at least on the planet) imperial run player city. I have thought of trying to find some reb pvpers who would be interested in joining, but it's hard to find any that aren't already in guilds.

Our city was also hit pretty hard by a bug that caused us to have 3 elections in the span of a day. This wiped out our treasury but we have been able to get enough from donations to pay off the week. The CSR's were contacted and apologized but did not give us a refund.

Thanks for your help, and I forgot to mention that my city is Destiny's Harbor (formerly New Alderaa) on Talus, in the Ahazi Server.

LMAO....that was funny Syd "make promises you cant keep"

Evil.....first and foremost you better make sure that you dont lose that level 4 or goodbye shuttle port. No idea where your at in your next update but if it is a day or so away then that is your number 1 priority....

Just curious, how many citizens did the city have prior to the problems and people leaving????

It was originally sunday, but i think it got pushed back to tuesday cause of the glitch elections.

Some funny replies here, but I am going to take a shot at this, and offer you some straight from the hip advice.

Your city is suffering from low moral. The citizens are confused, angry, upset. Regardless of the circumstances surrounding it's decline, you are experiencing what I call a "trickle down effect".

Let me explain.

In most communities, you havefive kinds of players (there may be other kinds in the minority but for our purposes, we will stick to these):

• those who are self-centric


• those who are followers


• those who are leader-wannabes


• those who crave attention and care


• those who are charitable

All of these players however, have somethings in common:

• they are proud


• they are emotional


• they want to be successful

When a condition exists that promotes one or a few players to exit a community in great fan-fare and trumpet (as happened in your city), they are your "pied-pipers", and leave a trail for all to follow. Regardless of how illogical it may appear on the surface, those who remain behindFEEL left behind. It's kinda like the last kid to be picked to be on a team in a school basketball game. Remember that? Remember how you felt? You were demoralized and dejected.Finally being chosen to participate did little to boost your spirits.

So when a few leave, you get this "trickle-down" effect, setting up a reaction much like pushing down a standing row of dominoes. Everyone wants to get on the band wagon, and instead of stopping to fix what went wrong, there is this snowball of activity focused on removing themselves from a failing community.

This is where you, a leader -- steps in.

I agree that your job is to 'stop the bleeding', but I would also advise that your first step is to make a commitment to your citizens to be honest with them. They have already been lied to, and they already are in disdain with any kind of leadership, even more so with aless experienced leader with no track record.

Those five different kinds of players that I listed above, all must be satisfied. You need to find a common ground that each of them can commit to. Your fuel to harvest this is to utilize what they already have in common: pride, emotions, and the desire to succeed.

Gather your citizens at a meeting, and request that they allattend. Tell them that you have a proposal that will allow them to individually fulfill their own expectations while at the same time unite them as a community. Stress that this is a meeting where you will hear and listen to their ideas. Keep it focused and don't let them rant. You will need to be firm in your expectations of meeting behavior, but not overwhelming. During this meeting you should be able to evaluate what appears to be important to your citizens and what is not. Those who still ride a fence on whether to stay or leave your city will make a decision in their own interest. Let them go. Your goal is to weed out those who will not work together as a team to rebuild your community.

After the dust settles, take a look around and make a promise to them. Something you CAN keep. This will start to build trust. If you are asked to do something beyond your scope, tell them so. Take it one step at a time. Build a plan, together. Remember that you are the organizer, the guy who will make things happen for your community. You will need their support and their ideas and their committment to work together.

Get creative. Give them jobs to do, goals to meet, objectives to work towards but always remember --

Before you can become a good politician, you need be a humanitarian and always walk a mile in your citizens shoes before you polish your own.