Suggested fixes Fall 2022

[OrangeP47]

Faction leader should be restrictive, but I do see the point about the confirmation rules.  Problem being we can't knee jerk out of a problem we knee jerked into.

[ShortKing]

2 minutes ago, pman said:

Doesn't easily overwhelmed neither hurt or help the meters? Doesn't it essentially cancel the position out. Therefore he won't help or hurt the meters.

it gives you 50% chance -1 admin and then yeah the meters can not be moved either way, which might be fine when times are good, but a crisis would ideally need to be solved at some point

[pman]

2 minutes ago, OrangeP47 said:

Faction leader should be restrictive, but I do see the point about the confirmation rules.  Problem being we can't knee jerk out of a problem we knee jerked into.

Yeah, again, faction leader is a problem that will essential be fixed by controlling multiple factions within a same Party. So if you don't like the concept you can circumvent it in the CPU version which is why I don't think we need to change it that and as you said- people like FL selection being restrictive. 

Edited March 23, 2023 by pman

[pman]

1 minute ago, ShortKing said:

it gives you 50% chance -1 admin and then yeah the meters can not be moved either way, which might be fine when times are good, but a crisis would ideally need to be solved at some point

Of course the -1 is effectively non-important since the pol with the trait doesn't impact the meters anyway. As for the meters, doesn't other positions impact Dom Stab. Like Labor, etc? The rule could be used to shorten the number of admin that have effect on key meters. Essentially, Warren is better with that trait because then he can't hurt the meters and dom stab is left to fewer positions. If any of that makes sense.

[Willthescout7]

I FOUND THE PROBLEM: 

We are equating "blocking" with "voting." Different terms that mean different things. 

Yes, you can't block a cabinet member if you fall in the discussed criteria. It says, later in the rules, "For both committee and full Senate votes, Senators will follow the vote of their controlling player, with the following exceptions:..."

The bit you are all complaining about is a typo. It should say Majority Leader, not Faction Leader. So yes, SK cannot block them and most of the time you can't. BUT BUT BUT SK can control his votes in confirmation. The rules are Fine!
 

[Willthescout7]

The typo just needs to be changed.

 

[OrangeP47]

Yeah the other more important thing is I'm pretty sure that's now how we've been doing confirmations our confirmations fail all the time.

[ShortKing]

1 minute ago, Willthescout7 said:

I FOUND THE PROBLEM: 

We are equating "blocking" with "voting." Different terms that mean different things. 

Yes, you can't block a cabinet member if you fall in the discussed criteria. It says, later in the rules, "For both committee and full Senate votes, Senators will follow the vote of their controlling player, with the following exceptions:..."

The bit you are all complaining about is a typo. It should say Majority Leader, not Faction Leader. So yes, SK cannot block them and most of the time you can't. BUT BUT BUT SK can control his votes in confirmation. The rules are Fine!
 

this was my original reading as well, but my gm understood it differently. I’d be fine with this interpretation, but I’d like to make sure this was the intention and then clarify the language

[Ich_bin_Tyler]

2 minutes ago, Willthescout7 said:

I FOUND THE PROBLEM: 

We are equating "blocking" with "voting." Different terms that mean different things. 

Yes, you can't block a cabinet member if you fall in the discussed criteria. It says, later in the rules, "For both committee and full Senate votes, Senators will follow the vote of their controlling player, with the following exceptions:..."

The bit you are all complaining about is a typo. It should say Majority Leader, not Faction Leader. So yes, SK cannot block them and most of the time you can't. BUT BUT BUT SK can control his votes in confirmation. The rules are Fine!
 

Was just about to say that blocking and voting are different.

[ebrk85]

4 minutes ago, Ich_bin_Tyler said:

Was just about to say that blocking and voting are different.

Where are these rules specifically for blocking?

[Ich_bin_Tyler]

Just now, ebrk85 said:

Where are these rules specifically for blocking?

They were there at one point because you could filibuster picks for select reasons. The remnants of them can be found in 2.8.5- Senate Confirmation where it redirects you 2.3. I think the rules were deleted during the last editing.

[Willthescout7]

4 minutes ago, ebrk85 said:

Where are these rules specifically for blocking?

Looks like there was a deletion on accident. There was a list of reasons that the Majority Leader could pick from, and if the block was successful then the President had to pick a candidate that met the objection. 

2 of them were 'too extreme' and 'too controversial.' 

 

[ebrk85]

2 minutes ago, Ich_bin_Tyler said:

They were there at one point because you could filibuster picks for select reasons. The remnants of them can be found in 2.8.5- Senate Confirmation where it redirects you 2.3. I think the rules were deleted during the last editing.

Yea I've seen them referenced there before. I guess that is the point I am making. I believe that section of the rules was replaced by what we are now discussing now.

My interpretation as SK referenced isn't mine but comes from what I was told last time I was going through confirmations.  I can't remember if that was Ted or V now that explained it to me.

[Willthescout7]

Just now, ebrk85 said:

Yea I've seen them referenced there before. I guess that is the point I am making. I believe that section of the rules was replaced by what we are now discussing now.

My interpretation as SK referenced isn't mine but comes from what I was told last time I was going through confirmations.  I can't remember if that was Ted or V now that explained it to me.

@MrPotatoTed @vcczar what happened to the list of reasons the majority leader can block a cabinet appointment. Also, we need confirmation that 'blocking' and 'voting' are two different things in regards to appointments. Because they should be. Using different words to mean the same things is no bueno. 

To recap: the rules say two things: 

A player cannot block a non-controversial nominee from confirmation unless they are two ideologies away from their faction leader’s ideology. Thus, a moderate faction leader would have to support a conservative or a liberal. A faction with a leader that is “harmonious” will not block a non-controversial nominee. A faction with a leader with “integrity” will not block a nominee with “integrity.”  which sounds like a majority leader specific rule with a typo faction leader, and the rules say For both committee and full Senate votes, Senators will follow the vote of their controlling player, with the following exceptions.... 

I will grant to @ShortKing that if the rules got changed and it is not just a typo, that it is a bit restrictive, but that if my interpretation is correct then it is fine. 

[Willthescout7]

5 minutes ago, ebrk85 said:

Yea I've seen them referenced there before. I guess that is the point I am making. I believe that section of the rules was replaced by what we are now discussing now.

My interpretation as SK referenced isn't mine but comes from what I was told last time I was going through confirmations.  I can't remember if that was Ted or V now that explained it to me.

It doesn't make sense to me to be like that. For the reasons SK said. In addition, It's in the section talking about the majority leader, which culminates in a direction to proceed to the full senate confirmation process. Which has individual senators voting. Actually, reading it again, it's not a typo, but is still referring to the majority leader's faction but based off faction leader, which is where the enthusiasm lies points are. All it needs is clearing up to make it clear what is being referred to. IF your faction leader is harmonious, or anything else, then you can't block. If not, you direct your majority leader to block. It's a direct path and line of thinking (at least to me). 

It should also be pointed out that this is really only about the Top 4 cabinet offices, the rest get autoconfirmed unless are controversial, or are low skilled. Which was the compromise made in the last cabinet kerfuffle. 

[MrPotatoTed]

16 minutes ago, Willthescout7 said:

Looks like there was a deletion on accident. There was a list of reasons that the Majority Leader could pick from, and if the block was successful then the President had to pick a candidate that met the objection. 

2 of them were 'too extreme' and 'too controversial.' 

 

Not looking at the rules right now, but from memory, I don’t believe the deletion was an accident. We intentionally rewrote how it worked, based on playtest experience at the time.  Then it turned out our rewrite meant nobody was ever surviving confirmation, so we rewrote it again to be more historically accurate where the overwhelming majority of candidates are approved regardless of anything.  I mean, how high do you imagine Ben Carson and Betsy DeVos’s admin levels were in the real world when they were confirmed in 2017?  Haha.

 

I do see above someone flagged that there might be a faction/majority typo.  Entirely possible. I’ll take a look.

[Willthescout7]

1 minute ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Not looking at the rules right now, but from memory, I don’t believe the deletion was an accident. We intentionally rewrote how it worked, based on playtest experience at the time.  Then it turned out our rewrite meant nobody was ever surviving confirmation, so we rewrote it again to be more historically accurate where the overwhelming majority of candidates are approved regardless of anything.  I mean, how high do you imagine Ben Carson and Betsy DeVos’s admin levels were in the real world when they were confirmed in 2017?  Haha.

 

I do see above someone flagged that there might be a faction/majority typo.  Entirely possible. I’ll take a look.

I actually don't think it was a typo now. Just a badly worded note. The issue is that 'blocking' is being conflated with 'voting' when according to the rules these two terms are not the same and contradict if equated. 

Clarifying that a block is not a vote doesn't make it harder to get through or easier, just explains that players still have some agency. 

[Willthescout7]

If anything, that note could be removed, since the new rules already cover the majority leader calling for a full hearing, with that note being worked in to achieve the spirit of the rule. So the rule about a full hearing becomes this (or something similar):

      If a Senate Majority Leader (not PPT) has iron fist, they can require a hearing on any nominee of their choosing, unless the Majority Leader  is 'harmonious'  at which point they will not call for a hearing for a nominee who is 'non-controversial,' or if the nominee is within 1 ideology of the majority leader, or if the nominee has integrity. 

Italics are my additions. This preserves the spirit of the rule, cleans it up, and makes it clear what is being referred to. 

[Willthescout7]

Then, we continue to follow the rule chain, and the Top 4 and any selected nominees would go to the voting process. 

@MrPotatoTed @ebrk85 @ShortKing

 

[ebrk85]

5 minutes ago, Willthescout7 said:

If anything, that note could be removed, since the new rules already cover the majority leader calling for a full hearing, with that note being worked in to achieve the spirit of the rule. So the rule about a full hearing becomes this (or something similar):

      If a Senate Majority Leader (not PPT) has iron fist, they can require a hearing on any nominee of their choosing, unless the Majority Leader  is 'harmonious'  at which point they will not call for a hearing for a nominee who is 'non-controversial,' or if the nominee is within 1 ideology of the majority leader, or if the nominee has integrity. 

Italics are my additions. This preserves the spirit of the rule, cleans it up, and makes it clear what is being referred to. 

I agree and like this.

The note in question is actually the newest addition to the rules and was added in after we last changed the confirmation process and top 4 and so on.

[OrangeP47]

Didn't interrupt because too many people posting at once is really ugh, but it's a good resolution to come to, and generally the understanding a lot of us had after the last time this came up.

[MrPotatoTed]

@vcczar The Carlisle Peace Treaty is a scripted event that offers the Continental Congress President two choices.  One of the choices (rejoining England with representation) results in an automatic game end.

Even though 100% of our players wanted to keep playing, we just came extremely close to hitting that game over situation anyway due to several situations:

1)  We're playing with 4 humans and 6 CPU, so the human players' ability to influence anything even when they work together across party lines, is somewhat limited (I consider that to be a good thing, generally).

2)  We had a CPU Continental Congress President, and the CPU rules led him to choose the peace option.

3)  CPU rules led to all six CPU teams to choose the game-over peace treaty.

4)  The CPU teams hold a majority in 5 states.  The human teams hold a majority in 4 states.  The other 4 states are split 50-50 between humans and CPUs.

This led to 5 states voting in favor of ending the game (CPU), 4 states voting in favor of continuing to play (humans), and 4 states abstaining.  Clearly, "End the Game" won the majority.

Our only saving grace is that we happened to trigger the Articles of Confederation that round, which require 2/3 of the states to vote in favor of a proposal.  We only had 55% voting in favor, so the peace treaty lost.

However:

A)  It was sheer luck that we had the Articles of Confederation to fall back on.

B)  It was, ironically, sheer luck that we had a CPU President who preferred game-ending peace.  If a human happened to be in the role, they would have chosen the "continue fighting" option -- but they would have lost the vote with only 45%, and the game-over ending would automatically trigger as the only other possible option.

In other words: in games where the CPU has a significant number of factions in the era of Independence, the game-over peace with England outcome is very likely to happen.  Especially in single player games.

How do we fix this?  Simplest way would be to give more weight to the "keep fighting" option for the CPU to see it as appealing.  Right now, it only gives points to the Nationalist faction (and we don't even have a nationalist faction in our game).  Consider adding more ideologies or especially the Military Industrial Complex to it, that should be enough to make the CPU prefer to keep fighting and not ending the game most of the time.

[MrPotatoTed]

@vcczar For the Dunmore proclamation, one of the options is to denounce slavery and encourage states to ban slavery.  This doesn't actually do anything other than grant points. But I think it's assigning points wrong.

It says "Opposite of A", which means Traditionalists get points and moderates lose points.  For denouncing slavery?  That doesn't seem right to me.  

I think maybe you meant to say "Opposite of B," which would help LW Populists and Civil Rights while hurting Conservatives and Traditionalists.

The Dunmore proclamation also references slave states and free states, but it's likely to fire when every state is still a slave state.

Edited March 24, 2023 by MrPotatoTed

[Ich_bin_Tyler]

This seems to have happened a few times but the Presidential Ailment general event has a chance of taking a President down to 0 command. The event text states that The CPU will resign their president, unless the president still has at least 3 command or if the president has leadership, charisma, or iron fist"

If a President has one of the traits but falls to 0 command what happens?

• Do they stay in office but as an acting President, unable to run for the office next election?
• Do they resign since you have to have at least 1 command to be President?

Personally I am in favor of the second since the command minimum is a hard rule in the game. The fix could just be adding that if they fall to 0 command then they are forced to resign.

[matthewyoung123]

1 minute ago, Ich_bin_Tyler said:

This seems to have happened a few times but the Presidential Ailment general event has a chance of taking a President down to 0 command. The event text states that The CPU will resign their president, unless the president still has at least 3 command or if the president has leadership, charisma, or iron fist"

If a President has one of the traits but falls to 0 command what happens?

• Do they stay in office but as an acting President, unable to run for the office next election?
• Do they resign since you have to have at least 1 command to be President?

Personally I am in favor of the second since the command minimum is a hard rule in the game. The fix could just be adding that if they fall to 0 command then they are forced to resign.

If any politician falls below the minimum skill to hold office (Leg, Gov, Command, Admin, Mil, or Judicial), then they should immediately resign.