The Back Room

[The_Mather1]

I'm just saying how this works IRL: The government orders for example a bridge at a certain place, then companies place their tenders and the government chooses the one that's the most tempting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Request_for_tender

[archimage_a]

In real life there is a system known as procurement outsourcing, and it is commonly used in Govenment and large bussiness...because most of the time you don't want to spend...lets say you have a department of investigations...30 people in the department, for a country, £25,000 a year per person, plus medical, plus rent, electricity, ect ect..... you are talking about a million a year per county, and 98 counties in Britain...so almost 100 Million Pounds a year.

Thats kinda hard to justify as a money saving group. (The jury is out on whether it is actually worth it, as, if Britain spends 2.2 trillion a year then they would only need to save 0.5% to break even.)

 

So they use Procurement Outsourcing.

Which means that the Government has sat down [Anything up to 25] years ago and said 'All of our bridges will be built by company X.'

And then, for the next 25 years, all bridges are built by company X.

 

 

Why is this?

 

Well, quite simply...Efficency.

If I have a factory making ironware I need people to make and design pots, to make and design collinders, to make and design buttons...All very costly.

My five competitor businesses also need people to make and design pots, collinders and buttons.

As a result, none of us are very good at making any specific product.

 

If the Government, and some businesses go 'Ok, we are going to buy all of our pots from Company X, all of our collinders from Company Y and all of our Buttons from Company Z', then I can reduce the staff in my Collinder and Button making divisions, buy bulk orders of pot making equiptment, hirer the designers and what not from Company Y and Z, and pass those savings onto the Government and/or businesses.

Why? Because I know that for the next 25 years I am going to get orders for those items, and reduced orders on the other two products.

 

Or at least that is the theory.

In another theory what happens is the Government gives a deal to someone, they invest in that, kill off all the competition, and then they sit back on their laurals because they have formed a monopoly.

 

The truth is somewhere inbetween...Because, while competition is good for keeping on the cutting edge, and for keeping the price of goods low, though makes for delays when making bulk purchases...There is some truth to the argument that a monopoly is also good for keeping near the cutting edge, and keeping the price of goods relatively low, but also producing bulk orders.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A good comparison is thus:

You buy a laptop, you can either buy an extended warrenty (Procurement outsourcing...You making a long term agreement that you will come to these people and only these people) or not (Requests by Tender...If there is a problem you shop around and find the best price for the repair)

(There is also the argument that you could get out there and do it yourself. However it doesn't fit the metaphor (The Government can't go and build bridges themselves.)

[The_Mather1]

True, but that only aplies to stuff you can carry. No one produces structures as you can't transport a bridge or building. Structures are buildt per order on site, and as far as I know, governments don't hire workers, they hire entrepeneurs. But when it comes to entrepeneurs, you don't just call then and tell them to do a job, you put out a request for tender and those that feel up to the job estimate the cost of doing the work and send it to you as a tender. Then what you do is to hire the one with the most lucrative tender.

[archimage_a]

I can say, with some certainity, that Kent County Council use Outsourcing Procurement for building their bridges, their buildings and even their monuments.

 

OP is used a lot.

[The_Mather1]

Companies do PO (Procurement Outsourcing), not governments.

[archimage_a]

Kent County Council is a Government. :mellow:

 

 

And we just call it procurement, so...

[a_bert]

epic

[H2PM]

Now that is very interesting.

[Nexaduro]

I think I missed something.

 

What's epic?

[archimage_a]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggXmKPMaHMo

[The_Mather1]

I just got an idea, instead of a Hegemony with just increased focus on economy, there should be one where warfare is practically banned, like modern day (since all the wars going on at the moment are counter-terrorism wars). Here all warfare would be either technological (like the Space Race) or economical (trying to take over the market through funding and research for companies and driving your "enemies" bankrupt).

[Retech]

I don't see how that is any different.

[The_Mather1]

You get rid of the Zerg rush strategy and make the game more realistic for a modern setting.

[Icuownage]

I've been running hegemony ideas through my head for months now.

 

I was thinking of setting one in a similar setting to Archi's space. Where the world is finally starting to enter space, except of course there would not be the unity, there would not be super intelligent AI's either.

 

I would also have the UN being either more active or completely gone. Cause most people simply ignore the UN so why have it there? But the UN also provides a good defense agaisnt people who really love to expand stupidly.

 

I would also have some stuff stolen from EU 3, cause I believe that it has some good rules about warfare, such as core provinces, attrition, occupation.

 

They also have a good random event system, and the tech system is rather basic, which is actually quite nice to have for a change, although I would probably not keep the tech system.

 

The only thing that I believe I would not take is the trade system, because people simply do not trade in hegemony, and if they do they probably expect some weird effect from it.

 

 

 

Also

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggXmKPMaHMo

 

I laughed quite hard at this.

 

 

 

 

Also

 

New mouse today! It's.... Beautiful... I can click and scroll now... Celebrations are in order.

[archimage_a]

In which case...I call Britain/Switzerland.

 

I plan to abandon Earth in favour of Europa so I want to know if there are any decisions I can take to give me cores on Europa, in exchange for cores on Earth.

[Icuownage]

Depending on how you hype the event up (Such as release huge news story and hype up the event for the public) you could get a core for colonisation, as people begin rushing to live at Europa, as it becomes the 'new in thing'

[The_Mather1]

Hehe, while you struggle with fine-tuning Europa, I'll just be making some flying colonies on Venus. :twisted:

[Icuownage]

I think even mercury is easier to colonise than Venus :P

[The_Mather1]

Actually, no, Venus is among the top priorities for colonization. It used to be at the very top but now it's right after the moon and Mars.

[archimage_a]

Mmmm, Venus is a good idea, as it is essentially Earth, minus the Carbonatous Rock (aka Chalk and others).

As such the Carbon is in the atomsphere, as CO2, rather than in the ground as CaCO3

 

 

 

 

Of course, reversing global warming is no mean feat.

[The_Mather1]

Especially when the colonies are already using oxygen and nitrogen rich air to float. They're practically balloons floating above ground with people living in them. Planting vegetation would reverse the effect quite drastically since the air is almost pure fuel for them, resulting in the oxygen levels rising and the colonies very slowly landing. After that you just have to produce an inert gas to avoid simultaneous oxygen and CO₂ poisoning.

[Icuownage]

Erm, plants would simply not survive the harshness of venus.

 

I'm not if this way would work, but one crazy way to do it would be to bombard Venus with a huge amount of UV(and above) radiation to literally rip apart the molecules. Although I am not sure what would come after that so it would need to be worked on before you would use it. Also the amount of energy required is too high to even benefit you.

[The_Mather1]

If you overcome the lack of water, then Venus would be a paradise for heat-resistant plants, due to the CO₂ the temperature barely changes at all, you could also plant lichen in the permafrozen craters which contain ice.

If not for the temperature and lack of oxygen, Venus would be a paradise.

[archimage_a]

Errr....Just gonna point this out....The temperature is uniform because of global warming, and the distance from the Sun...

If you reduced global warming then the temperature would not be uniform, and increases the distance from the Sun would be tricky.

[The_Mather1]

Yes, it would become less stable as it approaches Earth conditions, but that's obviously because it becomes more like Earth.