Politician Archive
Thread: This week in politics 2/17/04
This is weekfiveof "This Week in Politics."
I'll make a new thread each Monday for use throughout the week for youto let me and the rest of the Politician community hear how things are going in your city, events planned, tips you might have learnedlike ways ofusing specializations efficiently, new facilities being placed, any interesting dynamics like mergers with new partners to grow your cities or issues of disagreement between your citizens, anything having to do with your politician skills, new skills, skills sold back, newissues, frustrating bugs, or just a quick status report. It will be easy for me to keep up with a digest version ofthe goings-on of the community this way, and perhaps a way for you all to get to know each other as players dedicated to the concept of building communities in the Star Wars universe.
Things have really settled down for our city. Population has been pretty stable at just a bit over the number required for metropolis, so although we might like to build up a bit to give us a bit of a pad, we are about as big as we are going to get under our current vision for the city. Unless we do something big like put down a faction base complex or decide on some other radical redesign, the building of the city is pretty much concluded.
I'm sitting on close to 40k of politician XP, since at any point I'm more likely to unlearn some of my Politician skills than to pick up any new ones. The big lump of politician XP gives me the ability to quickly jump back up and grab a lost skill if needed, but so far, that hasn't been necessary.
Playing politician is much more about roleplaying and about taking on interpersonal challenges and activities than it is about the skills and the XP anyway, which is at the same time the thing I love most about being mayor and the thing that made it to number one on our list of biggest issues with the profession. For example, this week the big even in our city was a wedding. The ceremony was to be held in the central open space square of our city, near city hall and our largest garden. The happy couple requested the removal of one large monument garden that would stand in the path of their wedding procession, and also the placement of a pathway of streetlights to lead the party the 250m from City Hall to the large garden where the ceremony would be held. Being able to take that request and making the event work the way they wanted it to is a nice part of the job.
What do you like about being mayor? What kind of requests have your citizens made of you recently?
mayor of Dohrian on Talus in the Gorath sector.
Our city is also somewhat slow at the moment. We are far from finished building the layout. We aren't near metropolis but are nicely set in the city range. We are having the biggest problem with taxes and have found no way to combat this problem. Most cities depend on donations but I'm trying desperately to shy away from that. Sure I'll except them but who wouldn't?
Our cantina (for which I'm also the owner) has now hired a regular band (of which I'm a part of) and is starting to pick up. Being a RP city it was nice to have an overt IMP in full ST armor show up and do his own shakedown of the cantina. In fact one of our customers must have been caught with contraband cause he tried to arrest her and chased her outside. I found the ST deathly ill laying on the ground and unsure as to what had happened. Much fun was had! We're planning on having a lot more RP events in town. I'm now trying to find comedians for Monday nights.
If any of you know of any funny people in the Gorath sector tell them to give me an email.
We have just placed a large zoo/arena and are starting the whole decorating process. We're very excited about that.
Other then that we're just adjusting houses here and there to properly shape the city and it's streets etc.
So come by and visit the city of Dohrian on Talus. We're just east of Daeric. You can even run here if you don't want to drive or take the shuttle.
For example if your city has Research Specialization and you drop from 4/x/x/x to 3/x/x/x does your city lose that Specialization?
Padre
Things are fairly quiet in Brenn as well. Business as usual continues and the city added a few citizens to go into the low 130s. Turnover seems to be down quite a bit from where it was a month or so ago - I think people are really starting to settle in for the long haul.
One exciting moment we had was when a shop in our commercial area finally decayed after about 2 months of being idle and me not being able to do anything about it. The lot will fit a medium sized house andwas in a very nice location across from the shuttleport - of course,I immediately started receiving messages asking if people could move into the lot. Our commercial area is very competitive and this nice location would be a significant advantage for businesses. The idea we came up with to distribute the lot was to run an auction that was open to anyone interested in running a legit business - the proceeds from the auction of course would go towards the city treasury. While I expected there to be a lot of demand for the lot, I was not expecting what happened... bidding currently stands at 10 million credits and there is still a day or so left on the auction (http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=shadowfire_trade&message.id=18213). I was aware that a realestate market was developing in the city because several shops had changed hands privately for some money, but I didn't think it was quite advanced to that level yet
Message Edited by Arrya on 02-17-2004 12:05 PM
PadreBook wrote:
Yes or no: if you drop the ability to give the city the specialization that it has already does the city lose that specialization?
For example if your city has Research Specialization and you drop from 4/x/x/x to 3/x/x/x does your city lose that Specialization?
Padre
I did exactly that so that I could answer this question from full first hand knowledge, and it does appear that you keep your specialization and its benefits. I say "appear" because since there is no feedback that tells you "city specialization in effect on this experiment" or something like that, it is difficult to assess whether a specialization is actually working. However, we still have our city tagged as a research center, you get the message that it is when you enter the city, we have the maintenance payment withdrawn every week for it, and I have received zero messages from our crafters about any suspicions that we may have lost our specialization benefit.
Bajeezus wrote:
PadreBook wrote:
Yes or no: if you drop the ability to give the city the specialization that it has already does the city lose that specialization?
For example if your city has Research Specialization and you drop from 4/x/x/x to 3/x/x/x does your city lose that Specialization?
Padre
I did exactly that so that I could answer this question from full first hand knowledge, and it does appear that you keep your specialization and its benefits. I say "appear" because since there is no feedback that tells you "city specialization in effect on this experiment" or something like that, it is difficult to assess whether a specialization is actually working. However, we still have our city tagged as a research center, you get the message that it is when you enter the city, we have the maintenance payment withdrawn every week for it, and I have received zero messages from our crafters about any suspicions that we may have lost our specialization benefit.
Thank you for your reply. Now I can work on something appropriate for this thread.
Padre
Lok-n-Load on Naritus is doing wonderfuly. We gained another 10 citizens over the last week and are up to 77 now. We made over 1 million credits in sales tax last week (5%) which was driven by huge resource sales from our Mall (we have over 10 million units of resources on the various vendors in our mall). To top it all off, we created a one of a kind PvP Battlefield in the souther half of town. It consists of a Rebel Base and Imperial Base, 2 Dathomir Gnarled trees for each base, and a firepit in front of each one. They are seperated by 200m and they are both 250m from the cloning center. So far we have not had a special event on this battlefield, but many players have shown up just to get some PvP or PvE going and enjoy the 0% decay for overts.
My plan is to host Guild Grudge Matches or other group based PvP tournaments. This is the only place on the server where both sides can quickly and repetedly go overt and fight each other. The only issues I am working on are how to score the event and declare a winning side, how to deal with the influx of other overts from other groups/guilds, and finally how to convince the large Rebel/Imp guilds not to destroy the bases yet!
Currently I have maxed out on garden placement and decoration placement and I can't wait to hit Metropolis.
I would love to give tours of our city to anyone out there who is interested. We have a lovely and organic layout (not too ridgid) and its absolutely beautiful under the soft light of the Lokian nights. One thing that sets Lok-n-Load apart is it is not affiliated with any one guild and is filled with Imps/Rebels/Neutals.
Well, we were burned again for our expansion .. but have observed that one city has dropped, so we are hoping to get the slot .. I've just gotten tired of telling our people week after week (6 now) that we haven't been able to break ground for the shuttleport..
I'm hoping this week will bring happy news.
On a sad note, several of our citizens have uncerimoniously left.. I think it's the hard reality of the "deadbeat list" .. a portion of our residents don't seem to understand that they can't live rent-free (and haven't made other arraigements). But we also have had several move-ins.. so the population has remained relatively stable.
We also have welcomed TheSillyOne and her group to our Cantina.. I was happy to learn that we are going to be the site of a weekly event.. "Tacky Tuesdays at Last Call Bar & Grill" .. so if you're happening by Last Hope at 8PM EST any given Tuesday, stop on in for the party!
It's a constant battle with claim jumpers for the most part. I try to handle each case of homes popping up just outside of our city boundry with a friendly attitude. Sometime's it's hard, because you picture each claimjumper as someone doing it completely out of spite or disregard of the design you have for your city. I try not to dwell on this of course. No one appreciates being told to vacate or be banned. Hatred breeds hatred after all.
Our biggest mistake was building the shuttleport very near the border of the city. So now we have a few houses that have popped up in the vicinity, completely ruining any chance of a flawless marketplace. Sadly the only option is to 1) hope they have their name on the sign so you can contact them, 2) hope it's someone who will be reasonable.
My library project is still in the works. Slowly but surely I've added to it. Right now it is a lack of Sofa Chairs that hinders me. I'll likely open it up partly finished, just so people don't assume I'll never open it.
A busy of a metropolis as any, Krayt's End has continued to deal with the frustrations of a Mayor that finds himself nothing more than a powerless puppet whose strings are malaciously tinkered with by some mystical power even stronger than the force that has come to be known as "the Devs".
While over 100 citizens of Krayt's End wander around in hopes of seeing little improvements (such as a BE-trainer, perhaps a Player Garage, some Spynet Operatives or even useful BH Terminals), they sit there in mild amusement as the Mayor brings the wrecking ball to the Shuttleport Day after day. The mayor has tried to placate these frustrations by placing Gardens... you'd think a garden wouldn't be a difficult thing to create but unless you're building on a piece of land that's flat as an ironing board... it's just not gonna happen.
All are simply awestruck as that powerful wrecking ball passes through the walls of the structure, but absolutely obliterates the ticket vendor and the poor Protocol Droid who has been code-named 1POS. All of the citizens have been eagerly awaiting relocation of the Shuttleport after hearing rumors that STARBUCKS wanted to setup a coffee shop in town.
But things aren't all that boring. A poor decision to bring someone into the Militia that can't be undone leaves us open to the random and malicious placements by other unwelcomed visitors who are granted access by this now Mutinious Militia member who simply refuses to come within 10 meters of the City Hall terminal because he doesn't want to surrender this power.
Mikka Benkariz
Mayor, Krayt's End
Tatooine, Lowca