Daily Commander Vote

[NewSith]

The concept is easy as hell.

There're guys with maxed out commander tree. They all have continental chat. Every day at 18:00-22:00 a global commander vote pops up. People vote. The one who wins the vote gets his nickname attached to a small "Global Commander: <Nickname>" line to the lower left of the screen. People see who their commander is. The elected person gets the access to global chat and Empire missions.

That's it.

[Zulthus]

No. The majority would always vote for the same person who did something right, no one else would get a chance. Plus, what's the point of people training in commanding if he never gets to use it? They should not restrict it to one person a day who may or may not be on for more than half an hour.

[sylphaen]

Solo people trying to command a zerg that has not joined a group because they want to solo and be left in peace. In the end, having one super CR5 is not much better than a group of CR5.

I say no.

[NewSith]

No. The majority would always vote for the same person who did something right*, no one else would get a chance. Plus, what's the point of people training in commanding** if he never gets to use it? They should not restrict it to one person a day who may or may not be on for more than half an hour.

* Noone plays 24/7, plus the thing would stimulate the commander to do "something right".
** Continental chat. And this chat exists exactly to do this "something", so he can get elected next time.


Solo people trying to command a zerg that has not joined a group because they want to solo and be left in peace. In the end, having one super CR5 is not much better than a group of CR5.

"not joined a group because they want to solo" people usually have outfit and outfit shall define goals for them. While the rest is usually zerging because they don't have a group YET.

[Death2All]

Voting system could easily be abused and exploited. Besides, just because some guy is CR 5 doesn't mean you have to listen to him. You can always ignore them and do whatever the fuck you want. I sure as hell know that's what I'm doing in PS2.

[NewSith]

Voting system could easily be abused and exploited.

How are you going to abuse a vote system with thousands of people voting and machine counting the results?

[CutterJohn]

Why is a vote even necessary? What is a commander supposed to be? Commanding troops.

Squad leader commands his squad.
Platoon leader commands the squads in his platoon.
regiment leader commands the platoons in his regiment
Continue as necessary for the population.


There are your commanders. Congratulations.

[Trolltaxi]

A free game may have a zillion of retards who will vote someone acting like a complete moron just for the fun.

Outfits will vote on their own members.

Outfits will decide on their own.

TR won't follow an elected leader. The leader must be da biggezt ork around. And TR needs at least 3 of them, we know TR needs at least 3 of anything to be in par with other empires.

NC would simply refuse to follow a leader. Or they would sell the leader's shares, his company would loose it's value and then the NC would refuse to follow someone who's company just gone into blast, wouldn' they?

VS won't follow anyone but Vanu himself. Well, if you are called Briggs, you still have some chance.

What if the elected leader doesn't feel like global leading that evening? What if he looses connection? What if his baby wakes up in the middle of the night and our allmighty leader has to leave to change diapers?

I like the idea to approve those talented in leadership. We could just send "likes" or "thumbups" or similar and if he is willing to show he could present his points in the chat (autamically, after his name). This could still be abused (morons upping their members), but maybe 1 vote during a session, or 1 vote in every 12 hour, or 1 vote after 4 hours of playing (not agglomerating) would prevent that a minority abuses the system for their own fun.

[Goku]

What Trolltaxi said. No reason to give such power to one person when it will likely be a moron elected by morons.

[NewSith]

A free game may have a zillion of retards who will vote someone acting like a complete moron just for the fun.

Outfits will vote on their own members.

Outfits will decide on their own.

I think with 1500+ the people will vote right. Also there're outfits like MercenaryS, Soul Reapers etc which are basically Black Ops outftis that will vote for somebody out of their ranks due to... the fact that they're going to do their own thing anyway, but having a commander that can support them with zerg may come in handy.

What if the elected leader doesn't feel like global leading that evening? What if he looses connection? What if his baby wakes up in the middle of the night and our allmighty leader has to leave to change diapers?
You can always have several global second-in-commands, voted the same way. This would also come in handy for TR. :lol:
But on a true note - I recall Werner TR having several people commanding at the same time. As in cooperatively commanding.

What Trolltaxi said. No reason to give such power to one person when it will likely be a moron elected by morons.
You're seriously underestimating it. The thing worked fine in quite a few MMOs I... let's just say saw.

[Crator]

I sincerely hope that in PS2 the command role abilities are better defined.

What if, instead of a voting system, they took everyone with a high enough command rank that is able to be a global commander and then randomly picked a person (with the option for the person to opt out). All other people who were a part of the global command pick were then randomly chosen to be sub-commanders! See below for details on sub-commanders:

Sub-commanders would be picked in the same way the global commander is. Sub-commanders must exist on different continents (one or two per continent). Sub-commanders can send global chat to the continent they are on as well as participate in the Command Only chat channels which has the global commander and all other sub-commanders in it.

If a global commander quits the game or doesn't want to do it anymore then the process happens all over but with the option to give current sub-commanders the ability to keep their position or opt in to try and get the global commander position.

[Zulthus]

I still don't see why you think this is a good idea. If people in an outfit want to lead, let them. There should be no limit on how many people can be leading at once, if they so choose. Voting on a daily leader is just stupid.

[CutterJohn]

You already have picked your leaders. Why are you in that platoon if you didn't want that platoon leader leading you? Why are you staying in that platoon if he sucks?


The guy in charge of you is your squad leader. You chose to be following him. The guy in charge of your squad leader is the platoon leader he picked. The guy in charge of your platoon leader is the guy he picked to be regiment leader.

This isn't rocket science. Pick good leaders. If you don't like who your squad leader picked, bail, and join something else. Start your own squad.

[Crator]

Thread is about commanders, not squad or platoon leaders...

[CutterJohn]

Thread is about commanders, not squad or platoon leaders...

I... don't honestly know how to respond to this.



You guys are trying to replace CR5s.

CR5s were never needed in the first place. The people that need the tools to command and the tools to coordinate troops are the people in command of the troops, not a separate class of player.

[Xyntech]

I... don't honestly know how to respond to this.



You guys are trying to replace CR5s.

CR5s were never needed in the first place. The people that need the tools to command and the tools to coordinate troops are the people in command of the troops, not a separate class of player.

Well, it's nice to have something in place to help organize the solo players. The mission system should take care of that though.

It sounds to me like the command skill tree will be great for giving squad, platoon, and outfit leaders some good tools to help them lead.

[Crator]

I... don't honestly know how to respond to this.



You guys are trying to replace CR5s.

CR5s were never needed in the first place. The people that need the tools to command and the tools to coordinate troops are the people in command of the troops, not a separate class of player.

No, you got that twisted... And the bolded statement is wrong how I see it. That is exactly the issue we are discussing, isn't it? The problem is there were way too many people that got the commands tools in PS1 thus ensuing chaos upon the battle field.

[NewSith]

No, you got that twisted... And the bolded statement is wrong how I see it.

The reason is, I'm quite sure that John is cr5, like most of the people here. Thing is... I'm not. I refused to go for cr5 exactly because there were too many. And especially too many without common sense.

Note - I am a zerg-o-grunt, I follow cr5s when I'm zerging. So have all the right to say that there were too many pseudo-commanders.

[CutterJohn]

No, you got that twisted... And the bolded statement is wrong how I see it. That is exactly the issue we are discussing, isn't it? The problem is there were way too many people that got the commands tools in PS1 thus ensuing chaos upon the battle field.

No, CR5 twisted it. Why does joe schmoe need all the CUD tools and contalls and globals if he's not even bothering to be in charge of a squad/platoon?

Squad leaders can send messages to anyone in the enemy soi.

Platoon leaders get /contalls

one tier up from that, I'll call it regiment leaders, get access to globals.

Ofc you'll need some minimum number of people in your squad/platoon/regiment to unlock those things, so people can't just make a 2 man squad and access the tools. And of course you have the other command tools sprinkled in where necessary.. Give squad leaders the cr1/2 tools, platoon leaders the cr3/4, and regiment leaders the cr5.

The people in charge are constantly in flux. If the person in charge is annoying, people can leave his squad/platoon/regiment, thus denying him access to those tools. The number of people in charge is not fixed, but scales with player populations.

[Lonehunter]

Leaving the leadership roles of an empire to be decide by teenagers' votes is not a good idea. The abuse people are talking about is picking the same guys over and over, or who ever is the most popular. Why pick a new CR 5 when you know a CR5 who leads a prestigious outfit? I agree the amount of CR5s needs to be limited but this just isn't the best method.

[NewSith]

Leaving the leadership roles of an empire to be decide by teenagers' votes is not a good idea. The abuse people are talking about is picking the same guys over and over, or who ever is the most popular. Why pick a new CR 5 when you know a CR5 who leads a prestigious outfit? I agree the amount of CR5s needs to be limited but this just isn't the best method.

(No offense nor trolling)
Do you realise that it sounds as if you want to command, yet this system can rob you of this posssibility? This argument, which was now brought by several people, can pretty much be viewed like that.

The whole point is - Nobody's "notorious by default". And if 1500+ people select a person, then it can hardly be a grief. The one selected is selected because people want him, not just because somebody likes to press random buttons.

PS: FFS, people, I am the Russian here, yet I am the one recounting the meaning of democracy to you!

[Trolltaxi]

Maybe they have seen how democracy can backfire in cases... :)

One leader could hardly get the absolute majority. Say, we have 1500 players. Half of them won't give a damn to voteing so we have 750 left.

Those 750 who tends to care may play in squads, platoons, most of them will be a member of an outfit. If only 500 of this 750 has his loyalty towards his group, they will vote on their leader. 500 men may have at least 10 leaders they favour so one leader may get 50 votes. He will statistically receive less than 1/10 of the votes of those 250 who actually care (because there may be good leaders, valid choices amongs those not in an outfit, rare, but possible), but don't have strong bonds to any particular group.

In this case, an average leader (speaking of a decent one) may get 75 votes, maybe 100 if he is a really good one.

Now 100 men of the 1500 vote on someone and he can be global commander. See the problem? You can assume that everyone cares, in this case he has 200 votes out of 1500. Still nowhere near to a leader everyone is willing to follow. Actually, 1300 didn't want him.

And this was a prudent valuation. Now you can imagine what happens when a group "occupies commandervote" and makes an event to promote a complete moron! A relatively small group can make their "king", and we would be forced to listen to his stupidity for hours.

So much effort and almost no positive effect!

There are other ways, not so direct to organize an empire. Just before the last merge I remember Ostekake to share his dream to form The Alliance, based on Werner TR. He claimed that unifying the major outfits under one lead would mean such a great population, that it would mean global leading instatly simply by stating the next target of The Alliance (at least 50% of empire pop). Those not in the alliance it would have meant a "take it or leave it" situation, as they didn't have any option but to follow the majority.

Luckily this theory has never worked. The outfits intended to form it were still strong enough even by their own. If it had came true, most of the empire would have hopped to NC or VS seeing this tyranny. :)

But Oste was right. That is how you can increase the weight of your word. Form alliancies (or at least make good friends) with other outfits so you can ask for (or provide) support when needed. Outfits' cooperation was the peak of PS for me. The ultimate PS experience.

[Crator]

No, CR5 twisted it. Why does joe schmoe need all the CUD tools and contalls and globals if he's not even bothering to be in charge of a squad/platoon?

Squad leaders can send messages to anyone in the enemy soi.

Platoon leaders get /contalls

one tier up from that, I'll call it regiment leaders, get access to globals.

Ofc you'll need some minimum number of people in your squad/platoon/regiment to unlock those things, so people can't just make a 2 man squad and access the tools. And of course you have the other command tools sprinkled in where necessary.. Give squad leaders the cr1/2 tools, platoon leaders the cr3/4, and regiment leaders the cr5.

The people in charge are constantly in flux. If the person in charge is annoying, people can leave his squad/platoon/regiment, thus denying him access to those tools. The number of people in charge is not fixed, but scales with player populations.

Oh, I see where you are going with this then... Actually not too bad of an idea you got there...

[Crator]

The reason is, I'm quite sure that John is cr5, like most of the people here. Thing is... I'm not. I refused to go for cr5 exactly because there were too many. And especially too many without common sense.

Note - I am a zerg-o-grunt, I follow cr5s when I'm zerging. So have all the right to say that there were too many pseudo-commanders.

I'm exactly the same way as you then...

[Bravix]

Can I vote for Basteg, our glorious emperor?

[inigma]

Check this out:

forums.station.sony.com/ps/posts/list.m?start=0&topic_id=300519350


your post reminded me of something similar I put together. I'd love your thoughts.

The idea is simple:

1. players auto-set their voting preferences for a senator (up to 100 names in a preference order).

2. 9 senators per empire based on highest votes immediately known.

3. once support is immediately lost, a senator remains so for a short time (15 min) to maintain political stability during any transition.

4. 5 senators required to vote for a global commander. 5 senators required to vote on treaty with other empires (war or peace).

5. once senatorial support is immediately lost, global commander immediately loses privileges.

Privileges of a global commander are:

1. power to designate continent commanders (cr 4s)
2. enhanced benefits to nearby personnel (continent range).
3. ability to set global waypoints and mark maps for all players (default on, but toggleable off for players)

Continent commanders:

1. enhanced benefits to nearby personnel (base SOI range)
2. ability to set continent waypoints and mark maps for all players (default on, but toggleable off for players)

That's the idea in a nutshell. Pretty balanced and stable too if you think of it. Popular outfits will only be able to fill up a few senatorial slots, but not at all times. Auto votes make it a set and forget experience for most players, and are only counted when they are online, and senators can concentrate on politics while players just fight.

[Princess Frosty]

The orgainized groups, such as guilds on TS would abuse this and all agree to vote one way, so we'd end up with the same set of commanders in charge every night. You could argue that's a good thing but I'm not so sure.

Besides outfits and groups of organized players are going to either follow or elect their own local commanders, leaving the only real people to care being the common zerg of randoms and they're not going to make meaningful votes anyway.

[Hmr85]

We had a few threads on this earlier in the year and I was all for the voting method. But after looking back on it. No

Voting would be a horrible Idea. It would definitely get abused. The Largest outfits with the biggest player base would always be in charge. I do however, really like Cutterjohn's Idea though. That sounds like a great way of doing it.

[Tikuto]

★★★★★
Vote Up!How about this way:

The continent you're on has an 'Active Commanders' list. You must have selected up to # commanders, which is already done by default. These # leaders are the designated continental commanders though they are not directly leading your Outfit, of course. One commander is too powerful for 1 player of 500 players.. Upon arriving to a continent the defaults are used unless manually selected.

Defaults (Auto):
Outfit players: Priority pre-select one of your highest-ranked Outfit officers/leader (single). 1ST priority over continent's Squads & Platoon leaders.
All players: Pre-selects most active commander-players (multiple). Squad & Platoon leaders 2ND priority if 'Active'.
Manually:
You manually re-arrange your selected commanders from pre-select or before pre-select.
Still may only select one (single) of your Outfit member. Ignored: Players on your ignore list can not be manually selected.
Self-Correct:
When commander logs-off, the game re-selects Defaults.
Refreshes 'commander team' each hour.


This gives Outfit leadership an extra stepping-stone in becoming part of a continental 'commander side-squad'. Small Outfits will have no chance because too few members pre-selected their member whereas big Outfits will. General populace is substitute to not having any Outfit leader in the continental 'commander's side-squad'.

Ultimately players will be inclined to join leading Outfits, weeding-out the smaller Outfits in the game. Outfits will be forefront of battle. Altogether promotes competitive leadership and that bolsters improved leadership. Still there must be compromise, however for younger competitive Outfits to join the 'round table'.

[Hamma]

This won't work, all you need is one zerg outfit to elect their members everyday. Even if you have thousands of players they can still easily sway the vote since there is no organization otherwise.

[Tikuto]

This won't work, all you need is one zerg outfit to elect their members everyday. Even if you have thousands of players they can still easily sway the vote since there is no organization otherwise.Yea but making players only select one Outfit member amongst a whole continental list to multiple-select from can affect players all-round.

A list of multiple players to select from. You select a 'team' and not a single person, and the vote is accumulated by the game so decide 'team' selection.
Where the Outfit may only select one member, highest-ranked by default, can affect that wannabe commander. That Outfit player who is never selected and is so damn good at being a leader may have to consider leaving his Outfit.

Ultimately, this 'Active Commanders' continental list where only one Outfit member can be selected could greatly change the power of Outfit simply because the pre-selected highest-rank Outfit member (single) amongst other players (multiple) has the ability to be selected for his confidence and renown as a leader. If he can't he'd leave to join the 'commoners' or form his own Outfit to prove his ability. It would be almost as if the game-system and the players work together for sieving-out the best leaders of the game, which in return improves everyone's gameplay. Outfit leaders should eventually become the forefront team of continental commanding, by average, every time.

Can you see how this can make Outfits and imperial leadership in general a much more impressive thing? O_




holy crap this is actually awesome idea (http://www.planetside-universe.com/forums/showthread.php?p=623313#post623313)

[Hamma]

I see no point at all for an overall commander. Regardless of what is appointed people and outfits will do their own thing to support the fight. Continental broadcasts and chat imo are a thing of the past. It was simply a popularity contest that encouraged asshattery.

This mission system will replace it and people can select empire wide missions if they want to or do not want to.

[Grognard]

Personally, I like this concept in its base form, and given that I also agree with a lot of they nay-sayers... Ill tell you why I like this concept, and how I see its posibilities. I'll try to be organized...

My reason for liking this idea... is because of the difference between personal charisma vs. bestowed authority. I believe the nay-sayers are concerned about bestowed authority, and I agree... A big outfit will bully the vote, so I agree with them. However, if implemented correctly, and the outfit leader sucks... end result is the same, hes back to just commanding the outfit. So, I think that it should have zero to very few perks, per se.

I see this as more of a strategic commander, than a tactical commander, that can inspire (especially the zerg), or be ignored, as people see fit. The true game bestowed authority would still be the commanders who have earned their tools by advancing the skill tree in the current system.

There are still some perks though, that could signify someone that has the recognized charisma, or community recognized "leadership", to be "trusted" by enough people to be "voted in", so to speak. This system would not be a single daily leader system, rather a confidence threshhold system... In fact, a given elected leader does not preclude another... It simply becomes a way for us to say, via willingness to vote, that you do a good job. Thereby signaling to other players, that s/he probably has something going for them, that we find useful to further the goals of the faction.

There are still some possible problems like the big outfits voting their own guy in all the time, which can be pre-sniped by not allowing votes by same outfit members to count, or some such method that attempts to produce a truer confidence-based system. Also, how many votes are required to become "elected"... how long does the term last... should the vote be a toggle (allows immediate recind of vote)... is there a minimum population per continent to even allow a vote... etc. In the end, even a vote that is 100% for a single fantastic super dude, does not require anyone to follow him. I still argue that it is likely there is a reason why a person would be voted in time after time. This could be viewed as a playerbase, faction specific, reward for someone who gets things done right, and leads well, consistently. Not, however, a substitute for those who have access to skillset tools.

So how do we know who this guy/gal is? This is where the military "flavor" NewSith mentioned comes in... I myself prefer a prefixed moniker of "Field Marshal", or "General" to the screen name, as it is a rank, and militaries often have more than one field officer in a given area, so it would not be strange to see more than one elected strategic grade officer. Also, it would not hurt at all for an outfit leader to get the prefix by his whole oufit voting for him/her in. It even makes sense from an orgaizational size point of view anyway. Even if s/he sucks... history is replete with high ranking idiots, which we all hope will not be the case here (LOL, I have a sick hope for at least one, cause they are halarious...). It would even help the real leader spot his big numbered outfits.

So in summary, I think this idea has a lot merit, but only if it does not, in any way, circumvent the folks who devote their time and effort into developing their command trees. These are the folks that have, rightly, the true authority to use the tools of the trade, and in a perfect world... these are the guys/gals who will get voted in because of their skills with those tools. I think this can work beneficially for everyone. Folks... we will have commanders with tools to do so, but some people are... leaders.

[Arrow]

(No offense nor trolling)
Do you realise that it sounds as if you want to command, yet this system can rob you of this posssibility? This argument, which was now brought by several people, can pretty much be viewed like that.

The whole point is - Nobody's "notorious by default". And if 1500+ people select a person, then it can hardly be a grief. The one selected is selected because people want him, not just because somebody likes to press random buttons.

PS: FFS, people, I am the Russian here, yet I am the one recounting the meaning of democracy to you!

This would only be true if there were no such things as outfits. But seeing as the outfit that has the most zerglings you could say that theyd have a biased vote to vote for their outfit leader. FLAWED IDEA seee ya good bye and good riddance.

[Tikuto]

This mission systemah yea forgetting about that

[Bittermen]

We had a few threads on this earlier in the year and I was all for the voting method. But after looking back on it. No

Voting would be a horrible Idea. It would definitely get abused. The Largest outfits with the biggest player base would always be in charge. I do however, really like Cutterjohn's Idea though. That sounds like a great way of doing it.

And this is a bad thing? The biggest outfits obviously have the best leadership.

[acosmo]

the only leader i will follow is my outfit leader. i believe i speak for the majority when i say this

[NewSith]

This would only be true if there were no such things as outfits. But seeing as the outfit that has the most zerglings you could say that theyd have a biased vote to vote for their outfit leader. FLAWED IDEA seee ya good bye and good riddance.

But why does it work in other games? I recommend reading Grognard thoroughly, he has a point about leaders and commanders.
Also - define "zergfit". With exmples.

Now, personal note:
You are all saying "OMG ZERG OUTFITS WILL WIN!". Okay then I give up. Let leaders of 10-man [OMGLOOKBOOBIES] outfits spam global with senseless meassages telling to go right when there's no right turn.

Americh, m8s,,,,,,,,,,,,

EDIT: For those who plan on saying that I base on PS1 - If everyone's equal in rights, than there're dicks who abuse their rights. Always. Sorry for being militaristic.

[Crator]

GREAT INSIGHT

Very well said!

[Arrow]

But why does it work in other games? I recommend reading Grognard thoroughly, he has a point about leaders and commanders.
Also - define "zergfit". With exmples.

Now, personal note:
You are all saying "OMG ZERG OUTFITS WILL WIN!". Okay then I give up. Let leaders of 10-man [OMGLOOKBOOBIES] outfits spam global with senseless meassages telling to go right when there's no right turn.



EDIT: For those who plan on saying that I base on PS1 - If everyone's equal in rights, than there're dicks who abuse their rights. Always. Sorry for being militaristic.

Define zergfit? Ghost of the revolution containing over a 1000 players in one outfit. My outfit TRx containing 50. Who will win!? Sturmgrenedier another one containing atleast 1000 player base. It would be to imbalanced in a game where teams are created on a large scale.

Basically what you just said from your last post that my outfit shouldnt qualify because it is smaller. Yet again my outfit did a lot more for TR emerald then a lot of zergfits at times.

[NewSith]

Basically what you just said from your last post that my outfit shouldnt qualify because it is smaller.

EXACTLY! TRx SHOULD NEVER TAKE COMMAND!

But, being a mature person, I have to ask you to point me at where I said that.

Every coin has two sides. Just like you are saying that Big Zergfits will abuse the system, so I say that Small LOLfits will abuse the lack of system. That's all. And, by all means, I don't mean that TRx is a lolfit, you are far from being casual.

Finally to counter your millionthousandpeople voting at the same time - I tell you:

Commander is rather figurative term. (You still refuse to read Grognard's post, don't you?)
They have to be online to vote.
(Elaborating line 1) Outfits will do as they want anyway. Zerg will zerg anyway. So the point is that somebody must just be there, so he accidentally gets zerg's affection, or even outfits' affecttion if he's good enough, and starts to command. If he can't make it the chain is simple:

*He commands, Outfits refuse -> [OPTIONAL] He insults outfits -> Outfits don't select him anymore
*He commands, Zerg refuses - > [OPTIONAL] He insults the zerg -> The zerg doesn't select him anymore
*Rising Star pops up -> He is advertised enough -> Outfits and the Zerg select him
*If new Commander fails -> Repeat

[DviddLeff]

I do not think voting is the way to go.

What I would like to see is Platoon leaders able to join Companies of 3-4 platoons, and whoever joins them together as Company leader gets to be in charge and set Company and Platoon Missions if the Platoon leaders do not set their own themselves. Then the actual commanders decide amongst themselves.

[Arrow]

I'd just rather leave political bs out of the game. It's unnecessary and will boast more drama by the egotistical individuals then it will be fun or help in any situation. If there is a commander he cant have any viable powers (obviously) over other players but if you give people the option to act as if he doesnt exist then what's the purpose of even having one? The idea is just rediculous. The people who will be listened to are the people who deserve to be listened to not some twat whose read war tactic books and thinks he's the sun tzu of planet side because he's labeled supreme commander.

[SKYeXile]

If there were still CR5's in PS2 only CR's been allowed to vote would be acceptable, it does not give more powers to zergfits since there CR5 per capita is lower than other outfits. PS2 could do something similar, perhaps only max level characters can vote, provided it takes some time to levelup.

[Madlaps]

zergfits aren't large because of great leadership.. They are large because they spam recruitment channels and accept anyone who sends them a tell or accepts random outfit invites.

Quantity never equals quality. So why would anyone ever want a vote based system that encourages this?

Squads/platoons/regiments are the way to go. You choose your leaders. If as suggested each leader of a different tier squad/plat/etc gets continental chats - this makes it both player decided on a smaller scale (squads choose their platoons/platoons choose their regiments/etc) and means multiple different sets of players have a say in who has a part in leading the empire. Idiots will be ignored if they are just zergfitting to get reg leader, but atleast there are other 'regiment' leaders who you'd hope might have common sense.

*might*