Join the new world

With the sad discontinuation of NoTie running for CP due to personal reasons and the fact we only had one CP candidate running for next term I estimated it highly unlikely I would be continuing as MoF. Recent communications surprisingly hinted differently as I had a conversation with our new CP about that. Therefore I halted this article for a while. And although our visions on what is possible don’t seem to be that far apart (In fact I agreed on anything provided there were plans or congress approvement) he almost immediately concluded there were to much differences. Apparently the fact I don’t mindlessly follow his demands when it comes to using gold as imo there first needs to be a plan and congress approval is to much of a difference. And when I think about it it sounds familiar so I guess I should have known. And while odan always demand from others all should be done according to the law has a different opinion on that when he is CP it seems. When my first term ended I rolled forward the budget left to next month to use on the developments worked on. Odan approaced me stating it was the law that forbid that and I should immediately send the leftover cash to EZ. However now his term starts he wants the small leftover budget from last term to be rolled forward.... Well, I announced on forum when I explained my earlier actions I would end it when I would leave office, however decided to leave it to odan as he states he has a lot of plans.
Needless to say however I don’t want to be part of a gov of which the CP on beforehand demands extra budget and gold conversion. Shame as I think NL would have been served well if I continued and the number of players willing to participate in gov are limited already.

Therefore it’s time to say goodbye indeed and publish the article I prepared. And as I still have access to MoF's org I might as well do so via the official channel rather than my via my own Newspaper that I would need to start. In this report I shed a light on my actions. I will not talk too much on the political choices made as that’s something NoTie already did. What I did hopefully helps (financial) matters to become more clear/transparent, prevents errors that seem to have been made earlier and also I hope, combined with other gov actions, helps (re)activate NL a bit due to money actually being spend in favour of the players.

It was a pleasure to serve!



Start of term
When it comes to finances the first thing that struck me was the fact there are no guidelines nor a warm transfer. You are left in the dark and when asking the previous MoF for some explanation he simply stated facts being logical, not difficult or other non-helpful comments. There was one issue however he was helpful about or at least it seemed that way at the time. When I came into office there was a difference between the recorded state treasure and the actual state treasure. According to our previous MoF that was all down to rounding differences. I did find that strange as rounding goes up and down and should therefore, in the long run, result in no difference. However he insisted it was due to that but it just wasn’t done for several month so that caused the amount. I made a correction to our recorded treasure (1.608cc) to make the right start of my first term. I worked my way further through our sheet and how it worked during the first week or so and had a lot of help from a very old MoF that happens to be my eRep mentor as well. And indeed it was not difficult or hard to understand but it helps a lot when someone explains matters to you rather then leave you in the dark so you know for sure what you thought was the case indeed is. Thx. To you know who!



Our finance sheet
Our finance sheet I did find nicely put up and to work with. That is if you look at what is recorded. The way it was handled however did strike me as odd and prone for errors as in stead of using formula’s to link values a lot of numbers were hardcoded while the source could be linked to. And where formulas were used to gather our treasure, the regular extra’s, like the repayment of our tax by Canada, were also hardcoded in a cell by putting a different formula in that specific cell adding a hardcoded amount. So I changed that to all being a standard formula and added two extra columns to make repayments and donations visible so all is transparent and easy to understand for a next (new) MoF. Same goes for setting budget. It all was a hard coded number, that should add up the previous period, rather than a formula. Again prone for error and difficult to check when needed. So naturally budget now is gathered via a formula so all is transparant again.

What struck me as odd as well is the fact there was no detailed recording of our tax income. For a very long time now you can see how the tax is gathered, be it Work tax, Combat order tax or anything else. You can’t see the difference between taxes from sold food or sold weapons, but still we have insight in a lot of data. However nothing is done with it so how can one make choices if you don’t know the facts? So I started recording those figures as well and cross checked them with the already recorded total tax income so rounding differences would become visible over time. Even more importantly however it will help to tune our tax policy in the future so I can only hope a next MoF(s) will continue to do so.

Some further tweaks have been implemented as well. All with one goal; Make the sheet more clear and what is done more visible. For instance by colour coding one can now see the weeks we have received our taxes back and even if tax has been asked back; Re-paid taxes are shown in two shades of green so you can see individual weeks and when marked yellow that amount is already asked back from Canada. Asked back indeed as the agreement I made with Canada’s representative is that we record the lost taxes and ask them back. It’s our responsibility to record and ask. I have to say it is very nice working with Canada. We can be very glad we have them as TW partner and ally!



Monetary market
I think you read it elsewhere already but at the start of my first term as MoF we found that the monetary market program silently stopped working. At first I figured it was simply no longer recorded in our finance sheet but the program was halted. NoTie restarted it but tbh I estimate it at a standstill now due to personal reasons(?). I myself don’t have the time as I am only able to log in in the evening and morning, apart from weekends and days off, while you need to be able to act if something happens all the time which I am therefore not.



Commune system
A long time ago, I, and several others, worked in a commune. That way we got supplies (weapons) that kept us going. There have been attempts to tweak that system to a more personal system in which people get Gold, Food, Weapons or a combination of those fitting their needs. However the system was halted for ages now. I was surprised to find out our communes however are still in place. Now without workers it’s hard to produce weapons, however the commune holders also have 88 raw companies in which they can produce raw’s themselves. There is no way in telling if and how much they did do so but given market prices it’s hard to imagine they didn’t. They could sell the raws or use them as source for the workers they might have hired to work in NL’s Q7 companies. I’m very glad to say the commune holders nowadays pay tanks to the state so MoD has resources to hand out when needed. You have seen it in action during the Orion tournament. By having this in place again part of NL's treasure is put to permanent use again!

A new commune system did not come into place however. That needs a lot of work still and I did not even have had the time to help look into it sadly.



Budget
Over the last several months the only thing that govs did was stack cc. Almost nothing was spend, only a few MPP’s each month, and all cc at the end of a term was put in our treasure. Also all gold from taxes was converted to cc. Sadly gold values are not recorded anymore since day 2,214 so if the right amounts of cc are put in the sheet is impossible to tell. Likely there is no issue but it would, once again, have been nice if things were more transparent. The cc from the gold sales were added to budget and by doing so even more cash was stacked at the end of every month.

What was changed in budgeting, first of all, was the stacking off cc. We started handing cc to MoD as that’s almost the only part of the game where cc is needed. MoD now has a budget they can work with by handing supplies, set CO or other matters they need. And in the end that comes down to gov supporting you the players by using taxes to really help players. Which imo is way nicer then to stack cash that you never see again. It needs to be mentioned though the cc will not go back to the players immediately. MoD will use it careful and when needed which means not all cc will be spend in the term it was received. Since we only have a limited tax income MoD also gets small portions of cash. That means sometimes cash will be saved for later to be able to set CO. When a battle is hard fought a monthly budget of NL is something hardly visible. To make a difference one needs a few months’ worth of MoD budget at least to make a difference. You can be assured however, especially with the current MoD, money will be spend wisely and smaller actions will be done to support you. What did help a lot is the fact we do have a great TW partner; Canada often sets CO to keep our TW going smoothly which means be keep a higher amount of cash at MoD as MoD, atm, hardly needs to set CO.

The taxes from gold were no longer converted. And I also did quit printing money. The latter means gov sells gold from our treasure at a rate of 200cc rather then its actual value (400-450). Gold is a resource we don’t need at the moment however we might end up needing it to buy new features (low chance), expand our commune system or help pay training ground upgrades for young players by handing them a loan or gift. And yes, the gold is “stuck” in our treasure and currently the only way to get it out is by printing money. That does not mean however it’s needed to get it out. The size of our treasure does not really invite MU’s to try a dictatorship takeover. So weather it’s in our ingame treasure or on EZ it’s just as safe. Perhaps even safer in the treasure as the only way to get it out is via a congress vote.



Conclusion
As said, it’s been an honour serving for NoTie’s gov. I will not serve under odan’s gov. I’d be willing, yet not when he acts like a dictator. I do hope however the more visible approach in handling our finances and actually use budget to support players will be continued. Whoever will serve as MoF. And if you (the new MoF or just another player) have any questions; Feel free to ask!

Oh before I forget; As there was no difference between ingame and recorded treasure at the end of my 3 terms I think the changes and tweaks I made in our sheet help prevent errors that by the looks of it caused the difference there was at the start of my term’s. And yes there were rounding differences, yet as one can expect both up and down and therefore not causing a difference.

eRepTrader