gedren_y

Shall we discuss the regional divisions on the map? What do we call these regions? I was thinking about calling them Constellations (or some variation on that). The reasoning being these regions would be made up of islands that are not likely to be directly next to each other. Take the map, remove all areas that firmly belong to another faction (leave on the shared and the disputed), make those islands white and the seas black, and connect the dots in groupings that make sense. That's where I get Constellations. Neither of the terms state or province makes much sense for a group of loosely related islands. Think about it: The Colonial Constellations of Eslandola.

Results! Be still, my heart! That and a pre-Thanksgiving binge of Gilmore Girls. Hugs all around. Now the damaged Lego pieces, and the kitchen floor that must be mopped before tomorrow won't get me down. So says this domestic house minifig.

How fortuitous. My next build will dovetail this nicely.

The latest chapter in the story of Dearji the Windsong: Sailing to Trador

Outbound from Stedor to Trador is the Puppy Hustler, the only ship bound for the area with space for a passenger. Business must be booming for MAESTRO, since Governor Damaximus purchased the Puppy Hustler from the indebted Captain Tammini Cole, and retained the completely female crew at a competitive salary. The need to move cargo to the new trade port must have been great. For this Dearji the Windsong is grateful, since the Crahaish neh Triuri have charged her with the responsibility of arranging the construction of a shrine to the Triuri on La Sombra. With the plans, and monetary capital, in her gold-colored trunk, Dearji hopes to get a shrine built by the Winter Solstice. This evening Dearji is quite toasted. Blessing the wombs of the whole crew (involves uisge) had her near to giggling fits by the time the captain was to be blessed. Tonight she will sleep well on her bag of rice, down in the hold. "Shzee whaa leee," Dearji slurs the song about male fertility, "G'nooohn baah mmm." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The small scale LDD model of what the Puppy Hustler is supposed to look like.

Shrine in the snow.

@Kolonialbeamter That actually helped fix the stern issue. I added five more small sections staggered inward, repositioned the gun ports, and in the last few sections placed some windows instead of gun ports. Now she has 32 gun ports on each side. I continued the angular look to the upper bow. I think I will have her described as a modified vessel, created from the hulls of three damaged ships. Like most of my other ships, she'll be an amalgam of designs.

I reworked the base a little, and then built it out . . . a lot. (full image) I have 28 gun ports on this one side. I'm not sure about the bow. I've got two types of prefab hull pieces, and my own angular bow design all mixed into this. I'm still playing around with the stern as well, but there's less I can do there.

With all these WIP ship ideas, it made me want to try something. This is just a hull piece in LDD. I don't know if I'll actually use this, but the file is saved for a maybe future big ship.

Bricklink has the listing: 271606-1 Knight Racer foil pack that comes with the Lego Magazine Nexo Knights (Polish) 2016 Issue 6

Well, the drama in King's Harbor lies in the Governor's strongbox.

I thought of the PM as the chief executive, not the chief legislator. He would only be involved in legislation if there is a tie. The problem with this is that much of the executive powers belong to the leadership. The position would be largely ceremonial, unless the PM could be in on the major decisions like diplomacy, naval deployments, or expeditions. The Continental Council's legislative decisions would still just be the leadership, so the PM would only affect the Colonial Council. The PM could be responsible for placing a bill before the assembly for a vote. If a bill meets the criteria to pass, then the PM signs it into law. There probably should be an MOC for that. If we go with regional seats, that would cut down the player control needs, and keep the probability low that a player would control multiple seats. I still say the size of the cities in the region should help determine the number of votes for the region. The character voted to a seat with more than one legislature vote would be the head of a group of characters that would each cast one of the votes. These additional characters could split the votes, if the player chooses. Also, players should have something built in the region to run for office there, and vote in the regional elections. That should give people more incentive to build in more places. Finding out who is eligible to vote for what seats might be the Supervisor of Elections' responsibility. The seafarers' seats' running/voting eligibility will depend on the player's TC membership status. I still think the Continental Council should consist of twelve characters, nine province leaders and three royalty. The fact that there is an odd number in the leadership means that there won't be a tie there. Each leader gets four characters in my scenario. As to the titles, something close to the Spanish/Portuguese language is fine by me. The Truachesh have a Celtic style old tongue, but we are still a minority.

Okay, if we do away with the MOC competition aspect then, here are my ideas: The Colonial Council should then have all seats as player controlled, but the seats will have different votes value. The seafarers' seats should then be a simple one seat/one vote for the TCs and independents. The islands' seats should be one per city, but the size of the city should determine the amount of votes their seat gets: small-3, medium-5, large-7. The different vote values are to add incentive to build for the towns' size. The PM gets one vote only if there is a 50/50 tie. Among the Colonial Council there needs to be a Speaker of the Assembly. This would be a council member who gets voted on by the assembly, one seat/one vote. This is modeled after the US House of Representatives. Their responsibilities will be to receive all legislation players wish to bring to the assembly (probably PMs), and create the assembly voting threads for legislation. Those threads would also include 'speeches' for and/or against the legislation. Extra pay for extra work. There should be a legislation vote period, and a week seems fair. If you miss it, your vote(s) gets registered as abstain. To be eligible for any government office, you must be an Eslandola citizen. To be eligible for any islands' seat you must be a builder that adds to that city's size (so hinterland builds count). To be eligible for a TC seafarers' seat you have to be a member of that TC. Any non-TC member is eligible for the independents' seat. Any Eslandola citizen is eligible for the PM (or whatever we name it) office. Who votes on what: To vote for a seat, you should be eligible for that seat. Elections process: We need a Supervisor of Elections (one of the leadership?) to be responsible for managing an elections thread. The thread should consist of a list of all seats available, and who is eligible for/can vote on the seats. This is where a character should state their intent to run for a seat. There should be a week for the intent statements. Then each character running should create a campaign thread, and make at least a small vig (min 8x8) announcing their character's candidacy. These should be made by a week after the intent deadline, and links to these should be added to the intent statement posts. There should then be an additional campaigning period, where the candidates make their case, and reply to questions, in their thread. Additional campaign MOCs should be linked in this thread. Voting should begin a week into the campaign period, and continue for four days after. Eleven days to get your ballot in should be enough. This would give us a 32 day elections cycle: I'm thinking May 1st to June 1st. Ballots could look like this: PM, or whatever title: name of character (name of player) Seafarer seat name: name of character (name of player) Island seat name: name of character (name of player) Other island seat name if eligible: name of character (name of player) If we want secret ballots, they could be in a PM to the Supervisor of Elections. If not, then a single ballot post in the elections thread. After all the Colonial Council members are voted in, they have a public vote on the Speaker of the Assembly, with an intent period (4 days) and a vote period (5 days). If you miss the vote, yours gets registered as abstain. Just like with legislation, the PM only gets one vote in case of a tie. Since there are likely to be more seats than players wishing to be in government, a player should be able to run for as many Colonial Council seats as they are eligible for, but each seat would require a separate character. If you have a character running for PM, you should not have another run for any other office.

I'm hoping for a "The sandwich saved me." style sandwich costume. Netflix Marvel fans will know what I'm referring to.

The criteria for judging could be about story, or the creative use of a common part. The point is the more members that build for their given side, the higher their score goes. Depending on the type of build, these could also be licensed, and build up Eslandola as a whole.

The math on the vote numbers that I came up with, where the 2/3rds islands' vote that is apportioned in an MOC competition could conceivably get >50% without the players' votes, if the supporting side overloads with MOCs. To get 2/3rds of the full assembly, though, would require enough players' votes. The 2/3rds passing vote would make a bill veto proof, meaning the Continental Council couldn't strike it down if they wanted to. A passed bill would be signed by the PM, and possibly the reigning monarch if he/she supported the bill. I know we have a King now, but if he dies, who's in the line of succession?

Son? Lord Vladivus' father? If that is the case, Kasalia would be happy to see her grandfather.

Who gets the player controlled seats could be determined by the Eslandolan builders who's builds go towards a settlement's status. A simple settlement PM for the decision. Someone wants to MOC campaigning for the seat, by all means.

I'm willing to agree that the 'seafarers seats' should be given the same proportion each time, like they are a solid constituency, but the characters and players controlling them should be voted on with the candidates coming from within their group. Think primary elections for a party that is in the solid majority. About the players controlling seafarers seats; one from each group. About the assembly seats; the reason I went with a 2, 2, 2, 3 layout was so that a TC getting the independents to vote with them could gain a majority among the seafarers. They would still need the islands seats' votes, but it adds a layer of intrigue. We need a scale of how we apportion the assembly votes for the various islands, how many player controllers for each island, and how many assembly votes the player gets. The player controlled assembly votes should only be a third of the islands' assembly votes total. The remaining votes should get apportioned by MOC contest, splitting the vote totals by team faction totals. Judging, well I think the leadership can devise a fair method. I think the settlement sizes should determine the number of assembly votes an island gets: small-6, medium-9, large-12. This would help provide incentive to build up communities. The PM election should be an MOC campaigning event, and then a members' vote. If there is somehow a 50/50 assembly split in the Colonial Council, the PM casts the deciding vote. The idea that the Continental Council (leadership controlled) can veto anything below a 2/3 majority is fine by me. I still say for realism, the assembly should be 12 characters: royals-3, provinces-9. Since the current leadership is three people, the only problem in getting a quick decision might be if one of them becomes unreachable. Then maybe the PM player joins the decision making. The idea of carrying out governing incentives is fine by me. Favoritism happening makes for good story, and can spur some reaction MOCs.

My point was that there are fewer actual players that are independent. Player controlled seats are more likely to be held by TC members than not. I am not talking about TC appointed players, but just people who wish to hold office that happen to be members of a TC. Whether or not the TC as a whole has influence on how these people exercise their control would depend on the player. That is why I think the total block of player controlled votes should be less than that needed to pass a bill.

I have no problem with aftermarket parts. I use them all the time. I don't have any Alt Bricks leaves, but have read reports that say some of their connection points have trouble connecting to 3mm bars. This is manageable, but it limits their usability for some tree designs. They are a good buy for filler for dense leaf coverage, and offer colors TLG doesn't. Their base colors don't quite match TLGs, but for leaves that can be a good thing.

I see what @Capt Wolf means about the bills and elections being more spaced. I don't think the TC player controlled seats should always be automatic. The first round, yes, but after that all the 'seafarers seats' I described (including the independent seats) should be up for 'election', however we do it. Think of the TCs as the money backing the major political parties. Money in politics, that's Eslandola alright. The islands' seats control positions would be competed for by other TC members in any event. The King's Port Advertiser might have something to say about all this.

Thank you, @Garmadon. The assembly size needs to be representative of the Eslandolan population they are representing. The characters who's votes get controlled by players should be limited. The remaining votes should be apportioned by some kind of MOC competition, however it is judged. How we decide who the controlling players are is another matter. However the decision is made, it should have to be redone every election cycle. You want to maintain power in the Colonial Council, you have to get reelected. Unless there is a pressing matter, there should probably be only one bill before the Colonial Council a month, to minimize the load on the overall game play. Elections for PM by MOC as well? Maybe if one of the criteria being story, and that it have a minimum of multiple builds.

Periodically a bill goes before the Colonial Council, and will need a certain number of votes to pass. There should be some players that represent Council members for the vote, which in total should be less than the number needed to pass a vote. A build off with the interested factions, multiple builders on each side. Team score wins votes for the faction, and the top score from each faction casts the votes how they see fit. That way there is room for the 'faithless elector' that can choose to vote against party. The builds themselves should be thematic to the bill, but still be period. This format also lends to the larger Council numbers.

For the Colonial Council seats number, I was only referring to proportional population representation. Player control of responsibilities had nothing to do with it. The reason I went with the larger numbers was to allow for fractional division within the various parties. The TCs could be divided among its members on a particular issue, and it also gives room for lobbying among the independent seafarers as well as the islands' representatives. About player control, I do think MOCs are a good way to apportion the how the Colonial Council votes.