Canopus Minister Platform

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1. City Groups
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 We need to make sure we are using the proper group for different things. Ideally we need multiple group for different parts of the city infrastructure rather than rely on roles within groups to limit what each user can do. For example, public factories should be on their own group along with their building. Streets should be on their own while governmental building and monuments should be on their own. Bastions should also be in another group.

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2. Bastions
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 We covered today the city with two city bastions which are hopefully maturing (trying to find how we can figure out if they are working as intended). Bastions introduce some issues. According to the constitution of the confederacy anybody can declare himself and his property sovereign. In that case, his property is within Canopus' bastion field. We need to ensure that this property is still usable by the owner, in other words the owner should stay in the bastion group as a member.

 What further complicates things is what happens if the previous owner decides to sell his property to someone else. If the property is legitimately transferred to a new owner then by all means it should remain usable by the new owner. But that also means that the new owner automatically gets access to the bastion field over Canopus. I propose that we gather up every owner of land that falls under the current bastion field and as them to agree (individually) on a solution to this problem which will be binding to every owner and transferable by the current owners to any new owners of land under the field. The two solutions that come to mind are:

1) The entity that manages the bastions will have a right to ask for a fixed amount of diamonds to be payed by any new owners of land to the managing entity as a deposit. In case the new owner uses his newly acquired access to the Canopus' bastion field to grief the city, the deposit will not be returned and will be kept as compensation and his rights will be obviously removed. The deposit may be returned to the owner when the managing entity decides that he can be trusted (eg after a month)

2) Instead of asking new and non-trusted owners to deposit something of value, the managing entity only gives access to the bastion field temporarily (eg for one hour) in order to allow the new owner to apply changes to his plot of land while monitoring him. After some time when the owner is considered trustful the managing entity gives him permanent access to the bastion field.

Regarding people who homestead as sovereigns under the bastion field, they do not have any right to decide how the field affects them since when they homesteaded their land, they did so with the land already covered by a bastion field that does not belong to them. The problem only arises for people that owned land BEFORE the field was placed over it and thus homesteaded a bastion-field-free land.

Finally there's the question of who the managing entity will be, I propose that it is the minister. I don't mind losing control of the two bastions as long as my plot of land is covered.

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3. Defense
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 I believe that we are still too few to warrant having a standing army. Most of the defense in Civ servers is performed by putting bounties on the pearls of those who cause damages. I propose that we a contract with someone that has a vault to keep pearls for those that get caught. Additionally we should consider allying with every single nearby nation to avoid conflict on a national level. Agreeing right now on arbitrators that both us and each nearby nation trusts, before issues arise, is a must for a quick and cheap resolution.

4. Bringing in people
 We are a small city. We are competing with the likes of MtA and other cities to bring people in. The best strategy to cut into a market where someone is already dominating is to try to serve a niche. I propose that we keep a small government, a straightforward legal system and we focus on promoting innovation and individual efforts to improve the city. In simper terms, make a good arbitration system and let people provide the services needed in the city. Advertise the fact that it's individual citizens that provide the services here, and not some big bureaucratic monster.

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5. Laws and arbitration
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 As mentioned we need to start deciding on a simple judicial system that will arbitrate over cases between citizens. This judicial system covers only issues between citizens. For issues between our citizens and foreign citizens, our judicial system should arbitrate internally and then pass its opinion to the arbitrator that governs issues between us and the nation of the foreign citizen (and we need to decide *now* which arbitrator will be governing issues between us and other nations).

 Additionally we should be encouraging citizens to include an arbitration clause in any agreement they have with other citizens (foreign or not) to lighten the load on our system as much as possible but also to give them a choice of what law they'd like to govern their interactions without affecting anyone else in the Canopus.

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6. Decentralize
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 I truly believe that a minimal government is better. There are many projects that we need to finish to make the city better. The best way to finish them is to let each project be managed separately. I propose that we create the following entities, each handling some function that will improve the city, each keeping track of its own finances and each being open to private competition should some citizen seek to compete with the government for that service:

1) Sapling farm. Saplings are in high demand. We should investigate how many we can produce per square meter per day and see if it makes sense to create a tree farm. This will require a research phase which will find the optimal tree spacing and height limitation and a build phase when the actual farm will be built. Afterwards we should invite people to come and live to our city and, if all goes well, enjoy a steady income from the saplings.

2) Bastion field. We are currently covered but as the city grows we'll need more. This project should keep the bastions in operation and make sure that wee expand the field as needed.

3) Rail system. We have a nice line to MtA but coming to Canopus form MtA is probably easier by boat rather than by rail. This needs to be fixed as it will help bring people to Canopus. We should also consider opening rails to other places as well but this is lower priority compared to fixing and improving the existing rail connection.

4) Public factories. This is a low priority project as someone can already provide this service privately. And MtA is not that far from us. But it would be nice to have some factories that every citizen, especially newfriends can use.

5) Defense group. We should consider having someone give PvP lessons to our citizens. Arming everyone with Prot is probably too expensive for now and should be left to the discretion of each citizen. Not very high priority, as it's probably more efficient to just put bounties and let other nations handle most crime.

All of these projects will be financed on a voluntary basis. Nobody shall be forced to pay to finance those projects. Instead we will use a combination of the following:

a) excluding anyone who hasn't paid from reaping the benefits of a project. (eg if you build outside of the bastion field, no bastion for you unless you agree to pay for it (everyone will be free to use their own bastions if they'd like, which keeps the Bastion project in check in case it becomes inefficient)

b) For a project with a budget of 100 diamonds, and 10 citizens, ask each one what's the maximum price they would be willing to pay to start the project. Anyone who doesn't want to pay because they don't need the project can simply say zero. The number of diamonds that each citizen pledges is contractually binding. Lets assume that from 10 citizens we got the following numbers: 0,1,1,5,10,15,15,20,20,35. Then we look if there is enough money pledged. If not, then we go back to the citizens and inform them that the project is not going through unless they increase their pledges. We repeat, until either nobody else increases their pledge (which means that there is no economic need for the project since people would collectively rather keep their money than get the benefits of the project or until the pledges reach the point where the project can be financed. In the case where the project can be financed, we can chose a system that benefits the top contributor in order to encourage people to make an effort to be the top contributors. For example in the above example, the citizen pledging 35 could be only charged 13 diamonds as the pledges of everyone else was enough to cover the 100 diamonds. That way whoever strives to contribute may end up paying less for the project, hopefully decreasing the incentive to be a freeloader.

c) Rewarding those who contribute to the projects: eg the bastion under your house will be fixed with priority if needed. Or even by paying back form any profits that the project has (when applicable).

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7. More frequent Minister elections
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Not a high priority issue but I think 2 months is too much. Real life affects the amount of time players can devote to playing. So ideally we should have the option to change a Minister every month even. Lets put this to a vote ASAP.