Is the Grass that much Greener?

[Kylia Quilor]

That would seem to me to be again, part of the problem, that Europeia can't get behind any single project long enough see results, right now.

I don't think its anyone's fault, so much as the fault of, essentially, too much diversity of opinion

 

[hyanygo]

That's not the reason. We have big goals but forget that the plan is as important as the goal.

 

[Kylia Quilor]

Making a plan would be part of the sticking behind a single project.

 

[Common-Sense Politics]

I think there are a few ways out of our rut. But a grand project, such as my Good Neighbor Policy, could be one of then.

Could be a way to throw in the towel on our foreign policy direction of the last two years too. Not going to happen.

 

[North East Somerset]

I agree with most of what Skizzy said. I'd emphasise that Vinage has a huge amount of work, which we seem to be taking for granted here. A less competent President could soon turn things into a mess and we'd be in a crisis of some sort within a couple of months. After two terms of the same President, people will always get restless, and this is merely symptomatic of that. Vinage is no fool, he won't run again because he knows this will occur. Equally, I think some people earlier on in this thread would be wise not to be foolish either, and unnecessarily criticise one of our finest ever Presidents and an extremely hardworking and intelligent Europeian. In my opinion, our finest home grown President ever.

Vinage hasn't had any grand ideas, but he's managing a region now that is much greater than anything Pope Lexus ever presided over. If we put Lexus in Vinage's position there is absolutely no guarantee he'd thrive under the pressure or the environment that now exists, where we need to do a considerable amount of work just to maintain the status quo. Lexus moved Europeia away from being a small town region and put us on track to greatness by applying some of the techniques and principles he had seen in action from his wider experience in Nationstates before he joined here (Gatesville, Jethnea, etc). What Lexus did here was akin to taking a regional fast food chain and turning it into an international company of significance, aka. Red Rooster into Burger King. But we've come a long way since then. Vinage is now managing McDonalds. This is a very different situation. Horses for courses. I think belitting Vinage is foolish. I don't believe Lexus would necessarily be able to do as good as job this term as Vinage has. In fact I don't believe many people could.

The only criticism I'd have on Vinage is that he is sometimes light on the ground policy wise. He wants to please everyone. And that will never last forever. We've reached a sort of environment in FA terms where it appears other people are driving the agenda now not the President, which is creating somewhat a power vacuum. There's some pressure now starting to come down from a few sources to turn Europeia anti-raider, in ways which aren't well thought out and which don't necessarily lead to making us stronger and retaining our independence. And equally some imperialist proposals starting to emerge which again don't make much sense as the direction we want to take Europeia. Meanwhile it's not clear what this Administration believes in, where it wants to go, and what individual Minister's role within the plan is. To an extent we seem to be going back to a Foreign Policy being run more by personalities than policies, and there's a worry that Ministers are pursueing their own individual agendas rather than uniting under one banner.

 

[Common-Sense Politics]

Vinage hasn't had any grand ideas, but he's managing a region now that is much greater than anything Pope Lexus ever presided over. If we put Lexus in Vinage's position there is absolutely no guarantee he'd thrive under the pressure or the environment that now exists, where we need to do a considerable amount of work just to maintain the status quo.

I was saying this to PhDre last night as we were chatting about this piece. You're absolutely correct.

 

[McEntire]

I definitely understand what HEM is saying here, though. I mean, we've held the line, which is a feat on its own, but we're really just normalizing our systems and treading water. Have we broken any ground? No. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. It's not a criticism of Vinage, it's just that we have to go for something bigger and bolder if we want Europeia to stand for independence, rugged individualism, and intellectual courage. We've been known, at least since I first heard of Europeia four and a half years ago, as a stable, massive republic that is hugely successful. That's not bad, and that's the spirit the Vinage administration operates under.

 

[North East Somerset]

I can see there's an element of people worrying about where we go next. Any politically wily character knows that maintaining the status quo is exceedingly difficult, no, impossible, long term. If we don't take the next big step forwards next term, then it'll be increasingly hard to deny we're deliberately maintaining the status quo. And as soon as you accept that, you're in trouble, people will lose interest, and once the gravy train stops rolling, it's a bugger to get it started again. Often you need to roll all the way down the hill to somewhere flat to get another run up.

So a lot of people have been thinking about what do we want to do to move Europeia forwards. The words "radical", "bold", "bigger", "better" may be flung about. But where's the meat? A lot of the criticism is FA orientated, and new grand external schemes seem to be the natural domain for a successful region to expend its resources in.

I'd really prefer that not to be liberating allied raids with defender hegemonists - because that won't lead to a greater independent Europeia, it'll lead to our politicians selling out to superregional organisations. This will take us backwards, take away our resources, people and most importantly, our freedom. We may well recover if we change back our course within a couple of terms, but it would be a disasterous foray for the region.

But neither do I think we should throw our significant but finite resources behind some crackpot imperialist scheme which will never give a good return on investment. At least it would return some of our investment, but it would be a case of being lucky to get back half of what we put in, never mind a positive return on investment.

Be warned of two things. If we do nothing but attempt to maintain the status quo, we may end up going so slowly we lose traction, and we will find ourselves going downhill and it'll be very difficult to arrest the fall for some time. We were actually going downhill before Vinage took office and he did an amazing job to get us back on track. But if we do something stupid, the same thing will happen.

So it's quite simple. We have to come up with positive initiatives that are achievable, pay dividends in terms of activity, and move the region forwards. Such projects are elusive but not non-existant. For a start, responding to the opportunities that will inevitably be presented by change will prove lucrative and lower risk than engaging in a forced shift agenda.

 

[Lethen]

I wouldn't place his Administration in the same category as Nlhp's Presidency, first and foremost. Second of all, while I'm glad that we're doing well with areas like Citizenship Integration, Interior, and the Navy, I'm frustrated that a lot of the things done in Foreign haven't materialized or merited public announcement (not our fault), and the quality of Culture has gone down a lot. The quantity? No, its on the rise. The quality? We've seen a precipitous drop.

 

[Christopher Bishop]

I wouldn't place his Administration in the same category as Nlhp's Presidency, first and foremost. Second of all, while I'm glad that we're doing well with areas like Citizenship Integration, Interior, and the Navy, I'm frustrated that a lot of the things done in Foreign haven't materialized or merited public announcement (not our fault), and the quality of Culture has gone down a lot. The quantity? No, its on the rise. The quality? We've seen a precipitous drop.

For Culture, they could invest in trying to increase role-play activity, and other forum activities.

 

[Gustavus Adolphus Rex]

I wouldn't place his Administration in the same category as Nlhp's Presidency, first and foremost. Second of all, while I'm glad that we're doing well with areas like Citizenship Integration, Interior, and the Navy, I'm frustrated that a lot of the things done in Foreign haven't materialized or merited public announcement (not our fault), and the quality of Culture has gone down a lot. The quantity? No, its on the rise. The quality? We've seen a precipitous drop.

For Culture, they could invest in trying to increase role-play activity, and other forum activities.

I've been trying a lot of different things to get roleplay activity up specifically, and forum activity in general. RPing is pretty difficult to nail but I feel that with Winterfest coming up, the planned pushes from the Culture Ministry with regards to RPing will help give that new life.

 

[Lethen]

Easier said than done in regards to RPs. You can find as many willing participants as you want, but the chances of actual commitment are way too low. Its annoying. flail.gif

 

[Gustavus Adolphus Rex]

Easier said than done in regards to RPs. You can find as many willing participants as you want, but the chances of actual commitment are way too low. Its annoying. flail.gif

Exactly. I'll do my best though, especially with the Broken Kingdom RP, and I believe I've given my best effort in every area I've tried to improve about Culture.

 

[Lethen]

Easier said than done in regards to RPs. You can find as many willing participants as you want, but the chances of actual commitment are way too low. Its annoying. flail.gif

Exactly. I'll do my best though, especially with the Broken Kingdom RP, and I believe I've given my best effort in every area I've tried to improve about Culture.

ProTip: focus on everything but RPs

Or outsource them to people that want to run them and hope for the best.

 

[Kylia Quilor]

I can see there's an element of people worrying about where we go next. Any politically wily character knows that maintaining the status quo is exceedingly difficult, no, impossible, long term. If we don't take the next big step forwards next term, then it'll be increasingly hard to deny we're deliberately maintaining the status quo. And as soon as you accept that, you're in trouble, people will lose interest, and once the gravy train stops rolling, it's a bugger to get it started again. Often you need to roll all the way down the hill to somewhere flat to get another run up.

So a lot of people have been thinking about what do we want to do to move Europeia forwards. The words "radical", "bold", "bigger", "better" may be flung about. But where's the meat? A lot of the criticism is FA orientated, and new grand external schemes seem to be the natural domain for a successful region to expend its resources in.

I'd really prefer that not to be liberating allied raids with defender hegemonists - because that won't lead to a greater independent Europeia, it'll lead to our politicians selling out to superregional organisations. This will take us backwards, take away our resources, people and most importantly, our freedom. We may well recover if we change back our course within a couple of terms, but it would be a disasterous foray for the region.

But neither do I think we should throw our significant but finite resources behind some crackpot imperialist scheme which will never give a good return on investment. At least it would return some of our investment, but it would be a case of being lucky to get back half of what we put in, never mind a positive return on investment.

Be warned of two things. If we do nothing but attempt to maintain the status quo, we may end up going so slowly we lose traction, and we will find ourselves going downhill and it'll be very difficult to arrest the fall for some time. We were actually going downhill before Vinage took office and he did an amazing job to get us back on track. But if we do something stupid, the same thing will happen.

So it's quite simple. We have to come up with positive initiatives that are achievable, pay dividends in terms of activity, and move the region forwards. Such projects are elusive but not non-existant. For a start, responding to the opportunities that will inevitably be presented by change will prove lucrative and lower risk than engaging in a forced shift agenda.

If the Protectorate feature being considered in Technical and in the Summit, would you think something like that might be useful for Europeia?

(My answer is obvious, of course, but I'm curious as to your thoughts, given the mechanics change of it)

 

[Lethen]

The answer is never obvious with NES :lol: