Deep Dive Feedback: Presidential Appointments & Confirmation Process

[Cal]

I'd just like to weigh in and say that cabinet negotiations, nominations, and confirmations is one of the more fun aspects of the game in a game with several human players. Historically we've had like what, 25ish nominations that have been rejected or rescinded? While it's definitely more accurate that most nominations have been relatively easy, we've also seen cases IRL where a nominee that is qualified is simply rejected out of spite. 

I think of the example of John Tyler: He nominated several cabinet members who were otherwise qualified, but he had pissed off both his own party and the opposition and thus his nominations failed. That just isn't possible if nominations are auto-confirmed. There's also more consideration than just ability: A good nomination has to consider regional harmony, faction promises, specific legislation they'd like to push through, etc. If the President gets the only say on it then it takes away an important check on the President that exists IRL. 

Another good example is Roger Taney when nominated by Andrew Jackson. Was he qualified? Surely, as much as most nominees are. Why was he rejected? People were pissed off at him for his anti-bank positions and closeness to the President. 

[matthewyoung123]

1 minute ago, Cal said:

I'd just like to weigh in and say that cabinet negotiations, nominations, and confirmations is one of the more fun aspects of the game in a game with several human players. Historically we've had like what, 25ish nominations that have been rejected or rescinded? While it's definitely more accurate that most nominations have been relatively easy, we've also seen cases IRL where a nominee that is qualified is simply rejected out of spite. 

I think of the example of John Tyler: He nominated several cabinet members who were otherwise qualified, but he had pissed off both his own party and the opposition and thus his nominations failed. That just isn't possible if nominations are auto-confirmed. There's also more consideration than just ability: A good nomination has to consider regional harmony, faction promises, specific legislation they'd like to push through, etc. If the President gets the only say on it then it takes away an important check on the President that exists IRL. 

Another good example is Roger Taney when nominated by Andrew Jackson. Was he qualified? Surely, as much as most nominees are. Why was he rejected? People were pissed off at him for his anti-bank positions and closeness to the President. 

And Taney ended up as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. ;-)

[Willthescout7]

 I will of course yield to Vcczar. That said I disagree that this will make it a ahistorical free for all. Players are still kept inside the historical bounds, especially with the CPU how it is set up. 

1840, 1772, and 1960 have all had stories that rival Daniel Hiester because we vote. The attempts to block Alan Greenspan simply because players didn't like tbe other player, 1772 wrecking the career of John Tyler Sr, 1840 trying to bridge sectional divides. This is all good stuff that is missed by getting rid of the majority of confirmation votes. It at least needs to be a toggable option. 

I understand that others don't share this concern and want to move on, so I'll stop with my objections noted. 

Edited September 16, 2022 by Willthescout7

[MrPotatoTed]

I'm about to do cabinet appointments in the single-player 1772 game, for those that want to follow along and see the new rules in action.  We'll see how it goes!

[Vols21]

If you set the CPU rules to confirm in the conditions you set, that’s not quite auto confirm except maybe in a solo game, but at least leaves open for human games.

one criteria that should at least be added is ideology.   RW or LW will likely garner more attention and chances to vote against by the rival side.     Traditionalist / Progressives would be next to get extra scrutiny.    But in the middle3, probably most do get confirmed.    A President with a minority in Senate would be more likely to put forth more from the middle rather than the fringes if the fringes would be voted on (and good chance they might not pass).    Using auto confirm in this case takes away the Senates check and balance and keep things from going too extreme.   (Same argument in the Supreme Court)

[MrPotatoTed]

9 hours ago, Vols21 said:

If you set the CPU rules to confirm in the conditions you set, that’s not quite auto confirm except maybe in a solo game, but at least leaves open for human games.

one criteria that should at least be added is ideology.   RW or LW will likely garner more attention and chances to vote against by the rival side.     Traditionalist / Progressives would be next to get extra scrutiny.    But in the middle3, probably most do get confirmed.    A President with a minority in Senate would be more likely to put forth more from the middle rather than the fringes if the fringes would be voted on (and good chance they might not pass).    Using auto confirm in this case takes away the Senates check and balance and keep things from going too extreme.   (Same argument in the Supreme Court)

I do already have populists voting against moderates and moderates voting against populists…and some traits voting against anyone who doesn’t match their personal ideology…provided that there is a vote at all.  
 

That said, I don’t know that people worry all that much about the ideology of, say, the Secretary of Agriculture.

[MrPotatoTed]

Having now run the new cabinet nomination and confirmation process, I've made a few tweaks:

1)  If the nominee only has a 1 in the relevant skill, there's a 50/50 chance a Senator  will vote nay even if they otherwise would be an aye.

2)  I've added CPU rules for how a Senate Majority Leader selects the five people they recommend to replace a defeated nominee (generally, they recommend the 5 most qualified candidates -- but traits and ideology can come into play, just like they do with voting.

3)  In response to all the voodoo dolls people have made of me after making the recent changes, I'll switch it so that "Top Four" nominees (State, Defense, Treasury, War) must always go to a full Senate vote.  (I'm still not willing to do it for the rest because most cabinet votes aren't close at all, but I offer this as a compromise.)

Edited September 16, 2022 by MrPotatoTed

[MrPotatoTed]

I'm not sure that I love how I have the priorities set for CPU nominations, for positions that aren't in crisis.  Right now, I have CPU set to consider literally everything else before admin level (trying to avoid penalties to domestic stability, party preference, enthusiasm, etc) if the position isn't in crisis.  However, this will lead to 1 star nominees, as we saw in my playthrough.  (Granted, those 1 star nominees were defeated).

Open to feedback on whether that needs to change.  For those who have played human factions, how do you weigh admin level versus lobbies, regional balance, etc for positions that aren't in crisis?

[MrPotatoTed]

Added a CPU rule that faction leaders from the President's party will be inclined to support cross-party nominees, unless traits dictate otherwise.  

Edited September 16, 2022 by MrPotatoTed

[MrPotatoTed]

Whoops, delete.

Edited September 16, 2022 by MrPotatoTed

[ConservativeElector2]

56 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

3)  In response to all the voodoo dolls people have made of me after making the recent changes, I'll switch it so that "Top Four" nominees (State, Defense, Treasury, War) must always go to a full Senate vote.  (I'm still not willing to do it for the rest because most cabinet votes aren't close at all, but I offer this as a compromise.)

As a supporter of as much confirmation votes as possible 😛 I have to ask what 'must always' mean? Does it mean, that under certain circumstances it might be possible to see other nominations coming before the Senate as well.

It might also be noteworthy that due to the hostile environment the relevancy of lower post confirmations might change in due course. I expect all nomination to become  partisan battles rather than bipartisan agreements. Let's not forget Betsy DeVos's narrow confirmation to a rather unimportant post.

[MrPotatoTed]

29 minutes ago, ConservativeElector2 said:

As a supporter of as much confirmation votes as possible 😛 I have to ask what 'must always' mean? Does it mean, that under certain circumstances it might be possible to see other nominations coming before the Senate as well.

It might also be noteworthy that due to the hostile environment the relevancy of lower post confirmations might change in due course. I expect all nomination to become  partisan battles rather than bipartisan agreements. Let's not forget Betsy DeVos's narrow confirmation to a rather unimportant post.

Yes, take a look at 2.3.  I already have a list of ways that all nominations (including military and ambassadors) might go for a full vote.  For example, if the Senate Majority Leader is ironfisted, if the nominee has controversial, if the nominee doesn't have at least a 3 in the applicable skill...that's for all positions.

The only time someone is auto-confirmed is if they have at least a 3 in the relevant skill AND they don't have controversial AND the Senate Majority Leader isn't iron-fisted AND it's not one of the top-four positions.

[Cal]

Prepare for a long read 😉 

I think that the awarding of "incompetent" to defeated Controversial cabinet members is not historically accurate. However, I've come locked and loaded with an analysis of the 9 defeated cabinet members in United States history to back up that claim and provide an alternative solution. 

1. Roger B. Taney. I'm pretty sure he starts with controversial, which does make some sense. However, as he was historically rejected twice by the Senate, once for the cabinet and once for the SC, he gets both controversial and incompetent anyway. 

He would certainly have incompetent, which would mean that any same-party president could force him to retire early. That's a wildly ahistoric result for a justice who was one of the longest serving in history at the time, and even today he's still in the top 20% for that record despite the lower average age of dying back in the day. He's also a very valid candidate for a Faction Leader IRL and that would bar him here as well. 

A justice with Incompetent also has a 25% chance of missing each case on the Supreme Court, which is terribly troublesome in this scenario as well. He was known for being an incredibly powerful Chief Justice, and a Controversial one at that. He refused to die and to retire. 

2. Caleb Cushing. Rejected three times by the Senate. So he goes the full route of controversial and then incompetent as well. 

Which really poses a problem because he then goes on to serve as the Ambassador the Spain later in his career 😉 

3. John Tower. He's controversial and loses in the Senate. Gains incompetent. However, he then serves as an advisor to the President nonetheless. 

4. I think that more generally, Incompetent relates to a statesman's ability. For example: If someone in the cabinet gains incompetent while serving, the meters related to their office will automatically lower during the Lingering phase. So it's about inherent ability.

Being defeated in a cabinet nomination doesn't make you suddenly horrific at the jobs you used to be good at. A defeated controversial governor nominee isn't going to go back home and suck at their job all of sudden. (they get a roll for not being able to make gov actions). A defeated Representative isn't going to start forgetting how to vote and passing on proposing. 

5. It's not historically accurate. There have only been 9 nominees actually defeated on the Senate floor.

Of those, there are 4 who aren't really relevant to this discussion as they would not have had controversial in-game. (David Henshaw, James M. Porter, James S. Green, and Henry Stanbery were all kicked down without Controversial, making them irrelevant to this particular discussion)

The remaining 5 would have receiving Incompetent. I've demonstrated why 3/5 that doesn't make sense for. The remaining 3 it probably does make some kind of sense for. Lewis L. Strauss was rejected because he was Controversial (Oppenheimer scandal) and Charles B. Warren was rejected because he was Controversial. (Proximity to the Teapot Dome Scandal)

So, we are currently in a situation where the game rules produce an ahistoric outcome for 3/5 of the scenarios in which it happened IRL.

So, what do I propose instead? 

(1) Change it from a 100% chance for all defeated Controversial nominees to a 40% chance. This is in line with the historic percentage but still feels too harsh to me. However, it is the most minor change here. 

(2) Replace "Incompetent" with "Easily Overwhelmed" in this scenario and either keep it 100% or 40% for historic accuracy. This would mean that the could still attempt to serve in the cabinet again at a later date if they pass a 50% roll. This still bothers me because it's affecting their innate ability to do things in most every aspect of the game, but it's still a step up.

(3) Rather than gain any trait, a defeated Controversial nominee is simply barred from nomination to the cabinet again, though may still serve as an Ambassador or cabinet role not requiring Senate confirmation. This covers every scenario: Taney would still be able to accomplish everything he did IRL, Cushing would still be able to be appointed Ambassador to Spain, Tower would still be able to be an Advisor to the President. Additionally, it would block the other two nominees (Strauss and Warren) from being nominated to any post again as well. This would be my preferred option, both for gameplay and for historical realism. 

[10centjimmy]

3 minutes ago, Cal said:

3) Rather than gain any trait, a defeated Controversial nominee is simply barred from nomination to the cabinet again, though may still serve as an Ambassador or cabinet role not requiring Senate confirmation. This covers every scenario: Taney would still be able to accomplish everything he did IRL, Cushing would still be able to be appointed Ambassador to Spain, Tower would still be able to be an Advisor to the President. Additionally, it would block the other two nominees (Strauss and Warren) from being nominated to any post again as well. This would be my preferred option, both for gameplay and for historical realism

I like this one, but maybe there can be a time period where they are barred from appointment or office? Like 10 years or something, kind of like how Nixon sat on the bench for a spell. Maybe this excludes military who are kicked out permanently. 

[MrPotatoTed]

@Cal  Thanks.  Fair point that incompetent impacts a lot of other things I wasn't considering.  I think I'll go with option 3.  Seems the most straight forward.

[MrPotatoTed]

1 minute ago, 10centjimmy said:

I like this one, but maybe there can be a time period where they are barred from appointment or office? Like 10 years or something, kind of like how Nixon sat on the bench for a spell. Maybe this excludes military who are kicked out permanently. 

Just another thing to track.  Realistically, Bill Richardson should totally be a Sec of State, UN Ambassador, at bare minumum our Ambassador to Malta or something.  But his 2008 confirmation got jammed up on a taxes issue, and nobody has thought about him for a single second ever since (even though he's still the go-to guy when we need to negotiate getting hostages out of North Korea)

[MrPotatoTed]

I've edited the rules on what happens to defeated nominees:

1)  Gets controversial IF the 33% chance lands that the President is blamed for a bad nominee.  If the Senate Majority Leader is blamed for politics (33%) or nobody cares (34%), then the nominee does not get controversial.

2)  If the nominee already has controversial and gets denied, they have a lifetime ban against being nominated for Cabinet or Cabinet-Level roles.  

[MrPotatoTed]

I've also changed the chance that traits impact a confirmation vote to 75% (mostly...some are still 100% or 50/50).  Before this change, human players could anticipate with 100% certainty how most cabinet votes would go in advance of choosing a nominee.  You can still be reasonably certain, but could get surprised now.

[Cal]

Looking through many many nominations, I noticed that the actual skill of the administrator was rarely an issue, and that had me thinking about something... 

Hidden Ability as a game-option. Either for all statesmen or just those outside your faction. 

You want to appoint Joe Schmoe as Secretary of the Treasury? When you hover over his Admin stat, here's what you can get:

"Your sources in the Red Party tell you that Schmoe may be a talented administrator." (a hidden skill of 3-5)

"Your sources in the Red Party tell you that Schmoe may be a decent administrator." (a hidden skill of 2-4)

"Your sources in the Red Party tell you that Schmoe may be a poor administrator." (a hidden skill of 1-2)

I don't think this would be too terribly difficult to implement and would be an absolute blast for multiplayer games, but also for my own singleplayer games so I can't just pick the best option by the numbers every single time -- I would have the same limited information as we do in real life! 😉 

[Vols21]

I like that “fog of war” system.  Some Sports games use something similar to where you have an idea how good they might be but not a definite number,

[Cal]

4 minutes ago, Vols21 said:

I like that “fog of war” system.  Some Sports games use something similar to where you have an idea how good they might be but not a definite number,

That's the inspiration! I think it'd be a good toggleable game option to prevent players doing half of the nonsense that I've done before 😛 

A full "fog of war" made would be a lot of fun, but probably more of an AMPU 2 thing. A full mode would "internal" traits hidden too and they could either be scouted or discovered upon appointment. 

For example: 

When I'm hovering over Joe Schmoe's statesman profile, internal traits that he could potentially have are question marks. Hovering over these question marks gives a quick blurb and a list of potential traits he could have corresponding to that blurb.

Joe Schmoe has a question mark over Manipulative, Controversial, Disharmonious, Egghead, Micromanager, and Efficient. 

I hover over the question mark over Manipulative. 

"Our sources tell us that Joe Schmoe is a bit slimy. Rumors back home are that he has a strained relationship with some of his former colleagues. I wonder why?" (Schmoe may have Manipulative, Controversial, or Disharmonious)

I hover over the question mark over Egghead. 

"Our sources tell us that Joe Schmoe takes a hands on approach to most problems. He certainly thinks himself quite capable of handling any situation." (Schmoe may have Egghead, Micromanager, or Efficient)

What do I do with this information? Well, Schmoe may well be an Egghead with Manipulative and Efficient. That would be awesome. He could also be on the other side of the spectrum: I could nominate him only for it to be discovered on the Senate floor that there were some skeletons in his closet and he's actually quite Controversial. 

Allowing the President to "vet" nominees would be another perk of this system. Perhaps the President gets to vote one nominee per post, giving them a high, but not guaranteed, chance of discovering these traits.

It's a lot of fun imagining these sorts of mechanics. I don't think it would be too terribly time consuming, but it's probably better suited for AMPU 2 or a game update after AMPU comes out.

[MrPotatoTed]

1 hour ago, Cal said:

That's the inspiration! I think it'd be a good toggleable game option to prevent players doing half of the nonsense that I've done before 😛 

A full "fog of war" made would be a lot of fun, but probably more of an AMPU 2 thing. A full mode would "internal" traits hidden too and they could either be scouted or discovered upon appointment. 

For example: 

When I'm hovering over Joe Schmoe's statesman profile, internal traits that he could potentially have are question marks. Hovering over these question marks gives a quick blurb and a list of potential traits he could have corresponding to that blurb.

Joe Schmoe has a question mark over Manipulative, Controversial, Disharmonious, Egghead, Micromanager, and Efficient. 

I hover over the question mark over Manipulative. 

"Our sources tell us that Joe Schmoe is a bit slimy. Rumors back home are that he has a strained relationship with some of his former colleagues. I wonder why?" (Schmoe may have Manipulative, Controversial, or Disharmonious)

I hover over the question mark over Egghead. 

"Our sources tell us that Joe Schmoe takes a hands on approach to most problems. He certainly thinks himself quite capable of handling any situation." (Schmoe may have Egghead, Micromanager, or Efficient)

What do I do with this information? Well, Schmoe may well be an Egghead with Manipulative and Efficient. That would be awesome. He could also be on the other side of the spectrum: I could nominate him only for it to be discovered on the Senate floor that there were some skeletons in his closet and he's actually quite Controversial. 

Allowing the President to "vet" nominees would be another perk of this system. Perhaps the President gets to vote one nominee per post, giving them a high, but not guaranteed, chance of discovering these traits.

It's a lot of fun imagining these sorts of mechanics. I don't think it would be too terribly time consuming, but it's probably better suited for AMPU 2 or a game update after AMPU comes out.

It's a fun idea, but that would be much more in the "programming" realm than in the rules realm.  So not much I can do with it.  I'll tag @vcczar in case he wants to bring it up to Anthony.

[vcczar]

17 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

It's a fun idea, but that would be much more in the "programming" realm than in the rules realm.  So not much I can do with it.  I'll tag @vcczar in case he wants to bring it up to Anthony.

@vcczar I thought of the fog of war element for politicians about two years ago, and I think @ConservativeElector2 mentioned vetting at some point as well. 

[MrPotatoTed]

I’ve now run five nomination hearings, and in all five the nominee failed to get committee support.  Including both Hamilton and Jefferson.  Not sure if that’s good or bad. Ha.  Each was problematic in their own way, having controversial or low skill level.

Edited September 16, 2022 by MrPotatoTed

[Willthescout7]

9 hours ago, MrPotatoTed said:

I'm not sure that I love how I have the priorities set for CPU nominations, for positions that aren't in crisis.  Right now, I have CPU set to consider literally everything else before admin level (trying to avoid penalties to domestic stability, party preference, enthusiasm, etc) if the position isn't in crisis.  However, this will lead to 1 star nominees, as we saw in my playthrough.  (Granted, those 1 star nominees were defeated).

Open to feedback on whether that needs to change.  For those who have played human factions, how do you weigh admin level versus lobbies, regional balance, etc for positions that aren't in crisis?

I would have a roll of some sort where they either prioritize admin level even if not the best choice lobby wise, and the other option is that they ignore admin in favor of lobbies. Gives the CPU a choice.

Thank you for making the top 4 require a hearing. I fully support that change and I agree that will alleviate the majority of my concerns.