Military Unit Funding Proposal
TheSmoke
The purpose of the Military Funding act is to provide a fair and balanced supply system for qualified soldiers to support their efforts on the battle field. There is also funding provided to help build infrastructure within the Military Units. Slave pits, communes and Mentor programs, all of which are examples of approved infrastructure spending areas. The allocation of funding for specific Divisions is based on several factors, those being;
- Division 1 soldiers have a high probability of quitting, making donated money useless. Their influence on the battlefield is not significant enough to warrant large amounts of funding.
- Division 2 soldiers have over come the initial hurdles of deciding to commit to playing eRepublik, thus funding will benefit long term goals. This is an important stage to develop improved training facilities for soldiers. Their Influence on the battlefield is moderate, so no major increase in funding needed.
- Division 3 soldiers should be pretty well developed at this stage, however funding to ensure training facility and company upgrades are completed is still valuable. Their influence on the battlefield is above moderate and deserves a reasonable level of funding
- Division 4 soldiers have reached a maturity level within the game that should allow them to be self sufficient. However, their time and commitment, as well as influence on the battlefield warrants funding none the less.
The total amount of funding for Military Units each week will be broken down as follows
20% for D1
30% for D2
25% for D3
10% for D4
15% for Infrastructure
The following is an example of how the funding process would work. Military Unit active member numbers have been artificially created for ease of purpose.
100,000$ total for MU funding for this week.
D1 = 20,000$ (3 MU's have qualified, and have a combined roster of 100 soldiers in D1.)
CAF (45/100) 45% or 9,000$
COI (35/100) 35% or 7,000$
TCO (20/100) 20% or 4,000$
D2 = 30,000$ (3 MU's have qualified, and have a combined roster of 50 soldiers in D2.)
CAF (25/50) 50% or 15,000$
COI (15/50) 30% or 9,000$
TCO (10/50) 20% or 6,000$
D3 = 25,000$ (3 MU's have qualified, and have a combined roster of 100 soldiers in D3.)
CAF (45/100) 45% or 11,250$
COI (35/100) 35% or 8,750$
TCO (20/100) 20% or 5,000$
D4 = 10,000$ (3 MU's have qualified, and have a combined roster of 30 soldiers in D4.)
CAF (15/30) 50% or 5,000$
COI (10/30) 30% or 3,000$
TCO (5/30) 20% or 2,000$
Total MU funding for fighting soldiers is 85,000$
For the remaining 15,000$, each MU has submitted a proposal for funding. The Minister of Finance and Comptroller has reviewed each application and approved all three for funding.
Each application must outline several simple but key points, those being:
- Current list of programs and Companies involved directly with helping members.
- Roster lists of members involved in programs and companies.
- Financial report outlining the resources involved with said programs and companies
- Goals and objectives for expanding current infrastructure and how funding will assist the process.
Comments
It seems fair enough. So long as qualifying MU's have the same definition of active members. But I think I recall that being written somewhere in the dusty archives of the forums : P
Reposting from ODC forums:
The best way to assure some sort of return & retention for young players is to put them into communes. Have them work for guns and supply on a daily or bi-daily basis (maybe give a couple guns the first day as a "welcome" for retention, then no more freebies).
MUs can still scale their benefits to the young players by increasing their daily wage or giving more guns. IMO it would be better to give them a higher wage so they can build infrastructure of their own instead of more guns to fight-- it's not the new players that win battles.
Also note that unless congress wants to take a MU off the list of official government funded MUs, it's up to the individual MU to change their ways to our liking.
An active member is currently defined as fighting a minimum 3 out of 7 days. This would stay the same.
so I'm in the CAF, and one of 25 sharing 15k, so I would expect my weekly supply to be 600?
Relatively big hitter willing to go where it benefits me the most. Anyone who wants stronger D4s is where I want to be.
Infidel, the numbers I have provided are not current stats, rather I created them to be easy numbers in order to do the calculations. However, since you are currently in D2 you would receive the highest % of funding.
Doggstar, in this system you are still receiving supplies, as well as a supported Commune Program to help provide more weapons. Not trying to disrespect D4 at all, just making sure younger players get a fair chance to fight.
I think this system is flawed in that the basis for funding doesn't necessarily equal what the funding will actually be spent on.
For instance 30% of funding goes to D2. What if the combined number of fighters between the 3 MUs in that division is 10. Does that mean each of them will receive 3000CAD that week for funding?
Using a funding formula that doesn't allow for maximums and minimums is incredibly inefficient and will be thrown by the wayside quickly.
While I can see the merit in your proposal I think it is heading back down the path of over complication and creating too much work for all involved. When the workload outweighs people's interest in the game reports don't get done on time and after a while just don't get done at all, things get missed and the system fails.
Perhaps the current system is over simplified but it was designed to allow for oversight without creating a large workload.
Really simple way of doing it.
Give each MU their alloted funds and let them do what they want with it.
Rely on the honesty of the MU leaders to spend most of it on intrastructure and report back when they become self-sufficient and don't need any more funding.
Idealistic, yes, but it may actually work.
Start with getting the amount of money needed by each MU to become self-sufficient from the MU, and work from there.
Read and voted.
As always this is a great article Smoke.
Thank you for putting your time and hard work into it 🙂
I think it is a great system and I fully support it
Muglack I understand your concern with having no minimum or maximum amounts of funding set. However, the top five MU's being supplied right now have the following members: CAF (147), COI (131), CC (74), NW (15😎, Hope (52) for a total of 562 members and there are 5 other MU's that are currently receiving supplies that I don't have the numbers for. Keeping in mind these are total MU numbers, and not active numbers, we can still make a fair assumption that no division is going to only have 10.
Homer, I know what you mean, as an active member within the CAF and CPF I have a metric shit tonne to do, and sometimes things get pushed back due to time constraints etc. However, in the CAF we have recently set up a supply system where we track weekly active soldiers, but also what Division they are in. Captains and Commanders spend 5 minutes on eGov then the job is done. A lot of information is kept, but its easy and there are several members doing it as a safeguard.
Great thoughts Smoke!
Donna Rush - I agree with you. I would approach each MU that is eligible to be funded and ask them to provide a request form of sorts. But the onus on them to tell the government what they need and why. Based on that the Government can provide the funds. Afterwards a review is done to check and see if things were done as outlined and problem solved. Its still ideal, but i think it is the best way to get things moving
Really simple way of doing it.
Give each MU their alloted funds and let them do what they want with it.
Rely on the honesty of the MU leaders to spend most of it on intrastructure and report back when they become self-sufficient and don't need any more funding.
This
In addition, if people are going to work in slave pits, minimum wage is great but understand that if we want them to invest in their own infrastructure, they will have to sell the weapons they earn. If you want them to fight with the weapons, then infrastructure will have to be developed so they can be paid greater than minimum wage. I went thos route and if I stay close to the DO, I am pretty well self sufficient. Ask me to fight more than the DO and I am not.
@the grinch : "Give each MU their alloted funds and let them do what they want with it."
True.
I'll add : "Give each citizen their alloted funds (VAT...) and let them do what they want with it."
MU funding is not a bad thing, but high VAT must be avoided.
This system is designed to make Canada a stronger country, invest in our new players now so they can bulk up like beef castles early. All Divisions are funded, plus the development of infrastructure for better self sufficiency. We can do accomplish this only if we want to, if we decide that the effort is too much then it is dead on arrival. The only limitations are those of our own will. We Canadians can do some f*cking damage, lets show it.
MU funding is not a bad thing, but high VAT must be avoided.
I do not agree. Do not look at it as a high or low VAT.
What we need is an appropriate VAT based on goals and objectives. Set the goals and objectives, set the taxation to meet those goals. Track the taxation find if high/lower VAT affects income (i.e. a high or low VAT could maximize income and sales) This of course needs to be tested and tracked. Only then can we set an appropriate VAT.
To say avoid high VAT at all costs without testing and tracking is doing a disservice to Canada, just as I would say avoid a low VAT at all costs.
Being objective is key. Just because a tax rate is best for you doesn't mean that it is what is best for Canada as a whole, as we have a wide variety of players and businesses.
All I am saying is lets see what the numbers say and try and avoid our personal biases
The key is not about maximizing government revenues (because it comes from our pockets...), it's more about maximizing eCanada damage output and influence.
One one hand, a high VAT gives more revenues to government, but on the other hand, a high VAT is demotivating for a lot of players.
It's not like if we had the choice between drinking beer and to fight... fighting is the sole and ultimate goal of this game. And fighting can be as strong as it is now (and even more) without high VAT.
A high VAT does annoy active players who need to purchase weapons. It may not bother the unaware clicker who is likely to play the game a couple weeks or a month and then die off like the large portion of new players do. The VAT siphons off a lot of wealth that will eventually go unused anyhow.
MU Funding, on the flip side, can be applied to keep new players active as part of a commune or an MU that hands out rewards. Sure, it is not the most efficient process, but the return on investment is player retention and building connections with players that do stick it out.
VAT does not help the independent self-funded players, but it does give people managers (ie. MU leaders) some resoures to work with in order to get players to stick around.
The trick with VAT is to effectively scavenge off the soon-to-be dead and direct funds to the might-keep-on-living and die-hard players in MUs, all the while not putting too hard a pinch on the indepent players and rocket-part buyers.
I can't say that MUs are effective at retaining new players atm, yet it would be an ideal way to offset a cost on all the other players. Of course we hate paying taxes, but maybe it won't feel so bad if there is a benefit to eCan's growth that we can see
btw, I think it would be a very big burden for slavepit/commune managers if they had to bear in mind the Division of each player they send supplies to. It would add a lot more time to supply drops.
I don't understand why slightly higher taxes are always such an evil thing. Taxes are spent on MPPs which allow us to fight and complete DO's. Secondly the rest goes into supplying MU's which almost all of us are a part of. Its not like the money is being spent on EPD's golden teeth, dun dun dun, or are they?!?!?!?!? tune in next week when The Smoke reveals the golden truth... dun dun dun... dun
As for Plugs last post, it is not up to commune or slave pit managers to decided what amount of supplies to hand out accordingly to Divisions. MU communes and SPs are their own dealings and the government has no say there. If someone buys 10% of a Q7 factory, then they should get 10% of the weapons produced regardless of Division. This funding act would give out supplies according to Division, what members do for work is their own business.
While I appreciate the work you've put into this proposal, Smoke, I have to agree with Homer on this one. Any system that involves more work than say, recording how much CAD was sent to an MU is bound to fail. I've seen it time and time again in this game and it's bound to happen again.
I strongly believe the current legislation should be left in place. If we must supply MUs out of the blood money stolen from the 53%, then at least let the MUs distribute the funds the way they see fit.