Suggested fixes Fall 2022

[jnewt]

My suggestion would be two parts:

1. A screen appears saying that “the country is in a constitutional crisis, and that congress must immediately pass a succession act to save the future of the country” (or something along those lines). If Congress successfully passes a succession act, it’s automatically signed into law and whoever it designates as next in line to the Presidency becomes President. 

2. If congress fails to pass a succession act right away, a random faction leader usurps the Presidency. If this random faction leader has both “Controversial” and either LW Pop/RW Pop or “Military Leader”, then follow the successful coup rules in 3.0.2. If the random faction leader doesn’t have these traits, then the new President is essentially treated as the legitimate President (or acting President). Either way, domestic stability drops three spots. 

Personally, if this situation were to ever arise, I think the in-game solution should represent the chaos that would ensue if it were to happen in real life. 

[MrPotatoTed]

15 minutes ago, jnewt said:

My suggestion would be two parts:

1. A screen appears saying that “the country is in a constitutional crisis, and that congress must immediately pass a succession act to save the future of the country” (or something along those lines). If Congress successfully passes a succession act, it’s automatically signed into law and whoever it designates as next in line to the Presidency becomes President. 

2. If congress fails to pass a succession act right away, a random faction leader usurps the Presidency. If this random faction leader has both “Controversial” and either LW Pop/RW Pop or “Military Leader”, then follow the successful coup rules in 3.0.2. If the random faction leader doesn’t have these traits, then the new President is essentially treated as the legitimate President (or acting President). Either way, domestic stability drops three spots. 

Personally, if this situation were to ever arise, I think the in-game solution should represent the chaos that would ensue if it were to happen in real life. 

Thanks. I know it's borderline pedantic, but the issue there is in the logistics.  Who proposes a succession law, and more importantly, there isn't anybody to sign the bill into law because there is no President.  Nobody can become President via the new succession bill until it is signed into law, but there is no President to sign it.  So the succession law cannot create a President while the seat is empty.

This is why I'm saying "Who becomes President if it becomes vacant with no successor in place" is separate from "How do we pass a succession law after a succession law is needed?"

The answer to the second question is that you don't.  You can't turn a bill into a law without a President.  So the focus is on determining who the President is, independent of whether Congress decides to pass a succession bill or not.

In this case, the steps are 
A) Figure out who is President.

B)  Then pass a succession law if you're so inclined to avoid future headaches like this.  

That's why it seems the only real options are Have an Election, Have the House choose a President, or Immediate Game Over.  (Arguably, coup is valid too but the rules reference the stats of the sitting President, so it would need to be rewritten for this scenario if we were going down that path.)

Edited May 30, 2023 by MrPotatoTed

[jnewt]

21 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

So the succession law cannot create a President while the seat is empty.

Right, but I don’t see how this is any different from saying “No one can succeed to the Presidency while there is no succession law”. They’re both equally impossible.

I’d argue that Congress agreeing on holding an election or choosing a President on their own without the constitutional prerogative is at least equally unlikely as them passing a law and agreeing to operate by it despite it not being signed by the President. 

In reality, there would be a massive constitutional crisis and complete chaos. I could see Congress agreeing on a President, but holding an election in a government that’s bordering on anarchy (with no provisions to actually hold said election) seems highly unlikely. 

[Arkansas Progressive]

The real question is, which situation is less impossible. 

[DJBillyShakes]

There is some precedent for holding a special election. While it obviously never happened, the succession laws of 1792 and 1886 both specified that a special election would occur if somebody other than the VP became president. But that's statutory and not written in the constitution.

[Arkansas Progressive]

10 minutes ago, DJBillyShakes said:

There is some precedent for holding a special election. While it obviously never happened, the succession laws of 1792 and 1886 both specified that a special election would occur if somebody other than the VP became president. But that's statutory and not written in the constitution.

Funnily enough, it's constitutional though definitely interesting to see it play put in US history like this. 

[OrangeP47]

Option A:  Wait for Orange to get home and just explain what the original post meant.

I meant the dead acting pres picks what law to be voted on, congress votes, whoever is elevated (and resigns old spot) and signs the law.  Yes, it's major sketchy that they're signing they're own ascension into law, hence the dom stab drop.  But frankly, IRL it'd be a hot mess, so people would just have to deal with it.

[ShortKing]

A suggestion for Appointments, Section 2.3:

- regarding confirmation votes, the trait "controversial" has effectively served as a ban on serving in the Cabinet, even under the most generous circumstances. 

In the 1948 playtest, Dems have a trifecta and the iron-fisted Senate Majority Leader commands 79 out of 104 seats in the Senate and yet the nominee for Secretary of State, a 3 admin pol with geostrategist, automatically loses the vote of every Senator with integrity (because he is also controversial) and so is defeated. I understand that it should be more difficult to confirm a controversial nominee, but if LBJ can't manage it with 79 Senators under his thumb, I think it might need some tweaking. 

For me, I think changing it from being automatic to a roll, maybe a 50/50 shot would be good, another proposed idea has been that Senators with integrity vote against controversial nominees automatically unless the Senate Majority Leader has Iron Fist. I'm open to suggestions as well as feedback if controversial nominees manage to get confirmed easily in other playtests, it just seemed egregious in this instance and so I wanted to raise the issue. 

[MrPotatoTed]

Thanks!  I'm inclined to keep it as is, but willing to hear more feedback on it.  I'm not aware of a lot of cabinet confirmations for nominees who were known in advance to be controversial -- especially any who were widely supported by Senators known for their integrity. 

Trump certainly had some controversial nominees, but I wouldn't describe that Senate as overflowing with integrity.

[Murrman104]

8 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Thanks!  I'm inclined to keep it as is, but willing to hear more feedback on it.  I'm not aware of a lot of cabinet confirmations for nominees who were known in advance to be controversial -- especially any who were widely supported by Senators known for their integrity. 

Trump certainly had some controversial nominees, but I wouldn't describe that Senate as overflowing with integrity.

Currently the problem is the senate is overflowing with integirty because its an automatic gain if you vote for a nominee who was shot down. Another idea would be to change that to  a roll so we dont have so many paragons in the senate

[jnewt]

34 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Thanks!  I'm inclined to keep it as is, but willing to hear more feedback on it.  I'm not aware of a lot of cabinet confirmations for nominees who were known in advance to be controversial -- especially any who were widely supported by Senators known for their integrity. 

Trump certainly had some controversial nominees, but I wouldn't describe that Senate as overflowing with integrity.

I’d also argue that it’s a bit easier to become controversial in-game than who we may consider controversial IRL. (Same for integrity.) I think this has led to there being more controversial (and high integrity) politicians in-game than politicians IRL who were known in advance to be controversial. 

I think SK’s suggestion of turning it into a 50/50 roll along with making Integrity a bit rarer would better reflect real life. 

[MrPotatoTed]

30 minutes ago, Murrman104 said:

Currently the problem is the senate is overflowing with integirty because its an automatic gain if you vote for a nominee who was shot down. Another idea would be to change that to  a roll so we dont have so many paragons in the senate

I agree with this, I was actually thinking of changing it to maybe a 20% roll for each individual senator instead of 100% for all of them.

[DJBillyShakes]

Yeah, that could do a lot to fix it. Right now in the 1948 playtest, with a 104-person Senate, 26 senators have Integrity (25%) and 18 have Controversial (~ 17%). So ~42% of the Senate has one of those traits.

[ebrk85]

58 minutes ago, DJBillyShakes said:

Yeah, that could do a lot to fix it. Right now in the 1948 playtest, with a 104-person Senate, 26 senators have Integrity (25%) and 18 have Controversial (~ 17%). So ~42% of the Senate has one of those traits.

And its about to become a lot more because I didn't add in those about to gain it because they voted down a nominee yet.

[Ich_bin_Tyler]

Yeah, we’re also seeing like a solid 1/3 or the senate gaining integrity and dooming most controversial appointees even if they are like a 4 admin (which you would think people might overlook bc of competency).

 

While we’re on the topic of the cabinet, I’m finding the cpu fails too many nominees of the other party to the point where having the opposite party in  control of the senate leads to almost always failed nominees. I feel like earlier eras have more bipartisan support for cabinet and the current rules make it hyper partisan and not really realistic. We’ve also seen it in the Insanity playtest but not sure how to fix it other than to maybe have different rules for different eras or loosening how often the cpu votes against the opposite party. 

[MrPotatoTed]

On 6/4/2023 at 12:53 AM, Ich_bin_Tyler said:

Yeah, we’re also seeing like a solid 1/3 or the senate gaining integrity and dooming most controversial appointees even if they are like a 4 admin (which you would think people might overlook bc of competency).

 

While we’re on the topic of the cabinet, I’m finding the cpu fails too many nominees of the other party to the point where having the opposite party in  control of the senate leads to almost always failed nominees. I feel like earlier eras have more bipartisan support for cabinet and the current rules make it hyper partisan and not really realistic. We’ve also seen it in the Insanity playtest but not sure how to fix it other than to maybe have different rules for different eras or loosening how often the cpu votes against the opposite party. 

Yeah, I'll change it into a die roll, something like 10-20% chance of getting integrity/controversial for each individual Senator instead of 100% for all.  I'll make that change now.

As for the other part, most nominations don't need to go to a vote at all -- provided it's not a top four position, not controversial, has at least 3 admin, and you haven't made enemies with an iron-fisted Senate Majority Leader.  Granted, some eras may have that be easier than others, but I don't know which ones -- especially if you start in 1772, your Era of Terror is going to be drastically different than the game of someone who actually starts in the Era of Terror.

Open to ideas on this, but the reality (in my mind at least) is that if you're nominating controversial and/or underqualified candidates when the opposition has the majority, you might be in for a bad time.

[ebrk85]

6 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Open to ideas on this, but the reality (in my mind at least) is that if you're nominating controversial and/or underqualified candidates when the opposition has the majority, you might be in for a bad time.

The issue we had here was they very much had the majority (by a large margin) with 79 out of 104 Senators but still couldn't get any controversial nominee through since there were so many Senators with Integrity.  Changing the chance of gaining Integrity/Controversial from 100 to 10/20% might help this though.

[Ich_bin_Tyler]

13 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Yeah, I'll change it into a die roll, something like 10-20% chance of getting integrity/controversial for each individual Senator instead of 100% for all.  I'll make that change now.

As for the other part, most nominations don't need to go to a vote at all -- provided it's not a top four position, not controversial, has at least 3 admin, and you haven't made enemies with an iron-fisted Senate Majority Leader.  Granted, some eras may have that be easier than others, but I don't know which ones -- especially if you start in 1772, your Era of Terror is going to be drastically different than the game of someone who actually starts in the Era of Terror.

Open to ideas on this, but the reality (in my mind at least) is that if you're nominating controversial and/or underqualified candidates when the opposition has the majority, you might be in for a bad time.

I think what we are running into with 9 cpus is that they A) don't pay attention to if someone is controversial and B) will often select a 2 admin to fit the cards who then gets vetoed by the Senate. You can look back at our confirmations and see there is heavy occurrence of failed nominees. 

[MrPotatoTed]

52 minutes ago, Ich_bin_Tyler said:

I think what we are running into with 9 cpus is that they A) don't pay attention to if someone is controversial and B) will often select a 2 admin to fit the cards who then gets vetoed by the Senate. You can look back at our confirmations and see there is heavy occurrence of failed nominees. 

Aha!  That's useful feedback.

Right now (off the top of my head), the CPU has a two step choosin' process:

1)  Is the position relevant to a current crisis?  If so, nominate the most qualified individual possible.

2)  If the position is not relevant to a current crisis, try to have the most positive impact on ideology enthusiasms.

It's part two that is causing problems, according to your feedback.  So, maybe it should be...

1)  Is the position relevant to a current crisis?  If so, nominate the most qualified individual possible.

2)  If the position is not relevant to a current crisis and your party has the majority in the Senate, try to have the most positive impact on ideology enthusiasms.

3)  If the position is not relevant to a current crisis and the opposition party has the majority in the Senate...

(What should the instructions for 3 be?)

[Arkansas Progressive]

nominate candidate who qualifies best without controversial, going from highest admin to lowest with at least 1 related expertise. Avoid controversial unless it is unavoidable.

 

[Arkansas Progressive]

@vcczar or @MrPotatoTed - Do bills that give points to states with leading industries in the Era of Independence apply to members of the continental congress? I'm guessing no, but should be clarified

[MrPotatoTed]

3 minutes ago, Arkansas Progressive said:

@vcczar or @MrPotatoTed - Do bills that give points to states with leading industries in the Era of Independence apply to members of the continental congress? I'm guessing no, but should be clarified

I’ll defer to V.

[Arkansas Progressive]

Also, is the Dominant Party that controls the CC Pres dominant after scoring legislation?

[Arkansas Progressive]

The CPU fails to support the declaration. either it needs to be foundational (so that we trigger the 75% chance of support) or it needs to appeal to more than just nationalists that like and pacifists that oppose, since it's not very often that a faction will randomly draft a politician with those expertise

Edited June 11, 2023 by Arkansas Progressive

[Arkansas Progressive]

In a nutshell, the Declaration pleases nationalists, and displeases pacifists. So all CPU factions will randomly roll, and depending on what the delegations are like, this will likely take 6 or 8 in unison to agree, which is a very small statistic