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You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Node Council and Vice Mayors
Lodrig
Member, Alpha Two
I'd like to make a proposal for extending the Node managment and Mayoral systems. Their are two primary components I am proposing a small 'Node Council' and one amoungst them acting as a designated 'Vice Mayor. The purpose of these are as follows.
The purpose of the council is too
The purose of the Vice Mayor is too
Structure
The Node council is comprised of an odd number of players, the first member of the council will always be the person who came in SECOND in the monthly mayoral contest and thus is potentially changing monthly with the mayor. This immediatly provides for a viable successor with some degree of legitimacy. It also acts as a consolation prize, and incumbant mayor who lose re-election almost certainly getting to remain on the council which may act as a springboard back into the mayorship.
The remainder of the council is composed of citizens of the node who are apointed to their positions, these apointments are subject to change at any time by the authority which apointed them but are otherwise permanent. Only if an apointed council members ceases to be a citizen of the node are they removed from the position and a vacancy is created, likewise if an apointed member should become the 2nd place finisher in a mayoral contest they shift to occupy that seat and the apointed seat becomes vacant. The same person can not occupy two seat in the council so any apointing authority must pick a citizen not already on the council.
Each Patron guild of the node my apoint 1 member (any citizen not nessarily a guild member), and the mayor apoints an Equal number. This guarantees a bit of power to the Patron guilds while still putting just shy of the majority of council seats under the control of the mayor. The number of patron guilds a node has incresses with node level and thus the council size is equal to 2X+1 whiere X is the number of patron guilds. My understanding is that the Patron guild count is 0, 1, 2, 3 for Nodes of tier <=3, 4, 5, 6 respectivly which leads to a council size of 1, 3, 5, 7 respectivly, a reasonable progression in my opinion.
Powers
Each Councilor would be able to open the full mayoral UI viewing all data available to the mayor (I'm assuming their is data normally private to the mayor and not open to all citizens). Their UI is simply not capable of executing changes to the Node the way the mayors can. The execptions are the designated Councilor powers which are reserved to them and not subject to alteration by the mayor.
These would include 1 commission slot each which is in addition to the ones the mayor controls and control of 1 building plot within the node. And possibly a slice of the budget authority likely <5% each and no more then 20% in total which can be allocated to their commissions and plot. No tax setting authority is allocated to them. The intent here is not for councilors to do the mayors job for them but to introduce alternative priorities for node development which come from the Patron guilds and or other interest groups which the mayor can dole out to apease/reward such groups and thus engage in intra-node politics.
The council and mayor might also share a private chat channel for their exclusive use, this is might be integrated directly into the mayoral UI as a message board rather then the normal chat system UI.
Lastly and most importantly a plurality vote of the council will designate the Vice Mayor. This is done by a single public vote for a council member which is transferable at any time, voting for oneself is valid. The designated Vice mayor retains their position untill votes allign sufficiently to change the position to a new councilor, so a tie results in retention of the position.
Vacation and Abducation
If a mayor wishes they can abducate the mayorship for the remainder of their monthly term to the current vice mayor. This has no impact on ability to run in future mayoral contests and if the vice mayor was the mayoral contest runner up then the abducated mayor takes their place on the council, while if an appointed position was the vice mayor then the vacancy in the apointed position is simply filled by the new mayor as they wish. Any ban/suspencions of account or the like acts as an immediate abduction for that player.
No system of Impeachment or removal of the mayor is present as the monthly contest is adaqate for that.
To allow players who are mayors to have a life outside of the game they may make use of a vacation mode toggle, this transfers all mayoral powers to the vice mayor who becomes the 'acting' mayor untill the mayor turns off the toggle and resumes all their normal powers. The mayor who toggles vacation mode on is still able to otherwise play the game and retains the ability to open and view the mayoral UI and view all actions taken by the acting mayor. Upon taking back mayoral powers any action or desisions could be recinded exactly af if the mayor could recind their own incomplete actions.
Due to the 1 person council size at Village level the vice mayor will always be the 2nd place finisher for nodes of that level. Mayors may or maynot be friendly with that person, but at higher levels of development the way the council seats are asigned a mayor should mostly be able to control who the Vice mayor selection if they can retain the support of atleast 1 of the patron guilds plus their own apointees.
The purpose of the council is too
- Provide a way for players to familiarize themselves with the mayoral UI and systems without having to take on the full responsibility of the system.
- To temper the mayors authority with the input of other major stake holders in the node by giving small slices of power to the council members.
- To act as principle lutenients of the mayor in node wars/seiges, weilding similar 'rally' powers and fitting the multi-objective and and multi-front nature seen so far in such battles
- To act as a stepping stone in player advancement to mayoral power by the aformented experience and demonstation of intent/skill to other node citizens and thus incressing the competetivness of mayoral selection contests and preventing total incumbancy lock-in.
The purose of the Vice Mayor is too
- Provide a designated success to the Mayor in the event of their abducation or if they suffer an account suspension/ban at the hands of Intrepid disiplinary GM's.
- Provide a designated stand-in to assume Mayors duties temporarily via a 'vacation mode' to accomadate real life obligations of a player who is mayor.
Structure
The Node council is comprised of an odd number of players, the first member of the council will always be the person who came in SECOND in the monthly mayoral contest and thus is potentially changing monthly with the mayor. This immediatly provides for a viable successor with some degree of legitimacy. It also acts as a consolation prize, and incumbant mayor who lose re-election almost certainly getting to remain on the council which may act as a springboard back into the mayorship.
The remainder of the council is composed of citizens of the node who are apointed to their positions, these apointments are subject to change at any time by the authority which apointed them but are otherwise permanent. Only if an apointed council members ceases to be a citizen of the node are they removed from the position and a vacancy is created, likewise if an apointed member should become the 2nd place finisher in a mayoral contest they shift to occupy that seat and the apointed seat becomes vacant. The same person can not occupy two seat in the council so any apointing authority must pick a citizen not already on the council.
Each Patron guild of the node my apoint 1 member (any citizen not nessarily a guild member), and the mayor apoints an Equal number. This guarantees a bit of power to the Patron guilds while still putting just shy of the majority of council seats under the control of the mayor. The number of patron guilds a node has incresses with node level and thus the council size is equal to 2X+1 whiere X is the number of patron guilds. My understanding is that the Patron guild count is 0, 1, 2, 3 for Nodes of tier <=3, 4, 5, 6 respectivly which leads to a council size of 1, 3, 5, 7 respectivly, a reasonable progression in my opinion.
Powers
Each Councilor would be able to open the full mayoral UI viewing all data available to the mayor (I'm assuming their is data normally private to the mayor and not open to all citizens). Their UI is simply not capable of executing changes to the Node the way the mayors can. The execptions are the designated Councilor powers which are reserved to them and not subject to alteration by the mayor.
These would include 1 commission slot each which is in addition to the ones the mayor controls and control of 1 building plot within the node. And possibly a slice of the budget authority likely <5% each and no more then 20% in total which can be allocated to their commissions and plot. No tax setting authority is allocated to them. The intent here is not for councilors to do the mayors job for them but to introduce alternative priorities for node development which come from the Patron guilds and or other interest groups which the mayor can dole out to apease/reward such groups and thus engage in intra-node politics.
The council and mayor might also share a private chat channel for their exclusive use, this is might be integrated directly into the mayoral UI as a message board rather then the normal chat system UI.
Lastly and most importantly a plurality vote of the council will designate the Vice Mayor. This is done by a single public vote for a council member which is transferable at any time, voting for oneself is valid. The designated Vice mayor retains their position untill votes allign sufficiently to change the position to a new councilor, so a tie results in retention of the position.
Vacation and Abducation
If a mayor wishes they can abducate the mayorship for the remainder of their monthly term to the current vice mayor. This has no impact on ability to run in future mayoral contests and if the vice mayor was the mayoral contest runner up then the abducated mayor takes their place on the council, while if an appointed position was the vice mayor then the vacancy in the apointed position is simply filled by the new mayor as they wish. Any ban/suspencions of account or the like acts as an immediate abduction for that player.
No system of Impeachment or removal of the mayor is present as the monthly contest is adaqate for that.
To allow players who are mayors to have a life outside of the game they may make use of a vacation mode toggle, this transfers all mayoral powers to the vice mayor who becomes the 'acting' mayor untill the mayor turns off the toggle and resumes all their normal powers. The mayor who toggles vacation mode on is still able to otherwise play the game and retains the ability to open and view the mayoral UI and view all actions taken by the acting mayor. Upon taking back mayoral powers any action or desisions could be recinded exactly af if the mayor could recind their own incomplete actions.
Due to the 1 person council size at Village level the vice mayor will always be the 2nd place finisher for nodes of that level. Mayors may or maynot be friendly with that person, but at higher levels of development the way the council seats are asigned a mayor should mostly be able to control who the Vice mayor selection if they can retain the support of atleast 1 of the patron guilds plus their own apointees.
1
Comments
For example: Science node - democracy, where the mayor is not 1 player, but group of 11 for example, that vote for decisions.
For Economy node: is something like your suggestion, where there is council that can veto some of the mayor decisions, or control some aspects of the decision making (like having full control over decisions of structure building),
military node: some sort of senate that makes all decisions, BUT during war against other node, the mayor (Emperor) gets full control.
For divine nodes: 1 mayor that have full control
All nodes have a monthly mayoral contest which determine mayors, it's that the nature of it varries, but their will always be a 2nd place finisher. Likewise all nodes will have Patron guilds. So the council and vice mayor work the same for all nodes by intentionally avoiding touching on the unique mayoral contests.
About the learning the different mayoral types - there will be 200 youtube videos for each. So dont think it will be problem.
And for the complexity for development. Well yes it will be harder to make, but not much harder. The System will work the same way. And that is you choose building you want to build, or some node mastery tree, or some diplomacy or whatever, The only difference will be for selecting particular building for example, in 1 type you will have voting of 11, players, in other will be single handedly decided by 1 and ect. The end result doesnt change.
But seriously, I think the point is not having stable political leadership unless said leader is actually benefiting the node. It’s that struggle between the so called allies that makes an interesting game.
A "good" dictator will mostly do everything that benefits himself, and the population will suffer
No council needed.
I do like a good downvote button.
And while yes, there are examples where the people of e country first chose its leader, which later became a dictator, But after this point you wont see voting for a different "mayor". From that point onward you dont get to choose anymore.
I am not proposing any checks on the mayors powers or changes to how they are selected. I clearly outlined the purpose for the council and vice mayor, none of which is to act to oppose the mayor.
If you don't like the idea of a Vice mayor then answer the question of what happens if a mayor has a real life emergency, or their account is susspended/banned. Is the Node left leaderless and impotent?
If you don't like the Idea of a Council then how is the mayoral contest going to be competetive without a bench of competetors who have some public reputation and enough familiarity witht he systems of mayor to be credible. It's about other peoples perception of them as competent enough, and that requires some space for them to demonstrate competency in a subordinate role. This is also how a mayor would groom a successor.
Their is not a single large guild which organizes itself without subordinate ranks, delegation of tasks etc. And a node is going to be far larger then the largest guilds and possibly larger then guild alliances, indeed it may contain multiple guild alliances inside of it. Some substructure under the mayor is certainly going to be needed, and all MMO's with a guild system provide guild substructure systems like officers etc. I can't imagine that mayors would be effective without an ability to delegate or set up substructures of leadership.
Certainly their can be disagreement on how that structure is created, with a spectrum of totally top-down by the mayor similar to how guilds generally work to totaly bottom-up. I proposed a mixed system but it's certainly debatable where on the spectrum it should be. I would really like to hear from people who actually ARE leaders of large groups and actually have to deal with delegation and group politics.
But mayoral terms in Ashes last just a month, which really isn't a ton of time to make use of any kind of council system (not even touching on how stupidly hard it'd be to coordinate even a council of ten, you ever try to run a D&D campaign? Three people is a struggle)
All in all, it'd just end up muddying the waters having so many hands in the building process who all have different priorities, so the less decision makers the better to keep things moving.
It smells like Hilarity.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)
Their is not need to bring the council together at the same time for any reason, it is not a D&D campaign. Please disregard all of Githal's nonsense about any form of voting on every disission and his ludicous 11 person recomendation, my propsal maxed out at 7 for a METROPOLIS which probably houses >1k players, smaller nodes get smaller councils.
The only vote I envisioned for council members is a selection of the vice mayor and this is done completly asysncronously. If this is unapealing then simply allowing the mayor to freely designate any councilor is certainly an alternative. All the powers I imagined the council members having (commission and building slots) would be exercised unilatterally and individually as their slice of the power pie, again avoiding any coordination road blocks. Now obviously players COULD try to coordinate but that's entirly at their discression, not something mandated by the system. I'm not trying to make the game a beuracratic headache.
Another possibility is to let the mayor specifically designate how many commission and building plots each council members has. That would potentially let the mayor farm out all all of the commission and building plots out in a 'patronage' like system which could lead to interesting internal politics. Alternativly it lets mayors perhapse have 'node managers' who do the day to day managment for them while the mayor dose all the political alliance building, smoozing etc and yet other subordinates who lead the node in battle, lots of guilds have similar divisions of labor.
It’s all fun having a peaceful empire with everyone happy but someone has to be the villain to shake things up otherwise there won’t be any content. A lot of it will come down to benefits too like for mercenaries to join your cause or alliance.
But deals will likely be made beforehand, and mayors will be judged by those arrangements. So I am sure there will be a mix of dictators (more like an elected monarch, since the word dictator seems to imply evil to some) and puppets with their puppeteers.
No, a benevolent dictator uses their ultimate authority for the good of the people. It is, in fact, the best system of government. The problem is that benevolent dictatorships rarely stay this way for long, though most Monarchies tend to come close (because monarchs know they only govern by consent as the French Revolution proved). This is why republics with an election system are typically the 2nd best form of government.
it would be neat if the social organizations also had a leader that could grant or deny additional mandates based on how much favour the mayor has with them.
Regent mayors can tax the vassals' taxes, but not even the players directly.
Your numbers dont add up, it seems like just a typo. 6 positions total with the mayor having 1 would leave 5 others. How do you see them being selected as that's really the key. I'd been giving Patron guilds a seat on the council but their might be other powerfull roles I had not considered, in divine nodes a Temple priest might be a powerfull position that needs apeasing, or maybe a social group organizations. Maybe a more free form system is needed in which the mayor can dole out the council positions to who ever they need to in order to secure support. Who thouse people could varry by a lot and they might not nessarily be the patron guilds.
1 mayor (with 2 votes) and 6 councilmembers creates ties. I caught that and realised there had to be an odd number of councilmembers but failed to change one of the numbers.
I don't see patron guilds having a spot on the council, but maybe the opportunity to give them mandates w hen interests are aligned.
I would see the council being the runner ups to the mayor - which will prevent large groups of people (guilds) from trying to sway a single vote rather than splititng up which would make things harder for them.
Large cities should have multiple angles of political intrigue rather than a single election point.