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This will be the first article in a series similar to this. If you like the ideas then vote them up so the admins see. They do their own thing, but it couldn't hurt to show them some good ideas ;p

Residency

I’m not a fan of the massive vote moving that occurs on election day. This trend is especially horrid in the eUSA, a nation with 50 regions and only two worth living in. Anywhere other than Florida and California are wastelands due to the game mechanics that encourage the use of Q5 stacks to create fortresses. Fortresses are great, but I think something can be added to change the voting practices we see. First, a bit of background.

In an article exploring the idea of Civil Wars, Lieutenant Scheisskopf mentioned the functions governors could have in such a matter:





“One Twist
I will continue with the proposal without this one idea, but the introduction of Governors to the game, elected officials who purely manage the affairs of their region, would be something worth considering. These Governors would be elected on the same day as Party Presidents (the 15th of each month) and would be able to modify business taxes in their state, initiate hospital and defense system constructions in their state, and could replace Congressmen/women who seemed to be inactive. A “Governor” would also factor prominently in a CW, but the rest of my CW proposal will continue without this one twist to the game. Lastly, Governors would give more opportunity for people to remain active in-game and involved in politics. Something to think about...”

I think the gubernatorial elections should probably take place on their own day and what the office of governor does is worth debating, but I do think things can be done to add to the regional affairs and generally add a level beyond national politics (governorship being one of them). The office would have a critical function in my proposal. Now, on to the idea itself.


Not that type of residency...

In addition to national citizenship, I propose regional (state) residency is introduced. A lot of people, especially politicians for instance, spend a substantial amount of time away from their legal residency IRL. For our (USA) RL congresspersons the place to be is Washington D.C., though they maintain residency in their home district and state as at least the state residency is required to run for office there. Residency in eRepublik would function in this way and a citizen would have to have residency in a state/territory (whether they physically live there or not) to vote or run in the state. Residency could be introduced in one of two ways: whichever state you are in when it goes live is your residency, or you are given a week or so to move to a chosen state and declare your residency. After this, all residency changes would have to be approved by the elected governor of a state, meaning the tried and true and entirely unrealistic and undemocratic vote moving that currently occurs would not happen. The governor could approve as many citizens for residency as deemed appropriate, though I feel any approved during the two or three days leading up to and on congressional and gubernatorial election days shouldn’t take effect until after those elections. After all, this is supposed to discourage and eliminate the need for vote moving.

A few notes concerning regions changing hands: Residency can only be declared in a territory owned by the nation you have citizenship with. If a territory you are the resident of is no longer controlled by your nation you would be notified and allowed to declare a new residency (the governor having no say in this). Newly acquired regions have two possibilities for giving people residency since nobody would have it and therefore wouldn't be able to run for governor or vote in such an election. The first is that the national congress could vote to install a governor who would then be able to allow residency to those who request it. The second is that all residency requests would be allowed and take effect until the next gubernatorial election, when the governor would be elected and take over residency disbursing duties.


This is what we call 'Florida'.

This also allows a super-fortress strategy to be observed without also allowing over 90% of the congress to be elected by less than a third of the population (!) who are actually involved enough to move and vote. I imagine most people would choose their RL state for residency while remaining in Florida or California, thereby avoiding the negative game play ramifications of living in the wasteland that is most of the eUSA. It also seems fine that you no longer have to move to a state to vote or declare candidacy there, so long as you have residency (absentee voting), in fact keeping that requirement sort of undermines this idea a bit when it comes to those who don’t care to have to move to vote.

Import Tax Change

In eRepublik we can change import taxes. We can make them high or low, they then apply to all countries, no matter what their policies are. It only makes sense that we allow import taxes to be set specifically for each country. This is rather simple and common sense. IRL when Nation A increases import taxes on Nation B then Nation B often responds in kind. That’s all this is, straight forward common sense.

Q1 House Raffle


The last winner and his lady enjoying their cozy new home.

Finally, I'll be doing another Q1 house raffle. The setup is the same as the last one. Tickets for a house are $10 USD or .25 gold donated to me. The winner will be announced around 17:00 eRep time the day after Christmas (day 767) and the house donated immediately.
Jamer214 was the winner of the last one.