Author: thehopehitman2
In recent rounds, people in Virtua have found that getting in touch with their mayor isn’t as easy as it may seem. Due to the current system, citizens rarely find their mayor online and available to talk to in person, this forces them to leave posts in the town hall that could take up to a day or more to be received by the mayor. This is not the mayors fault, but rather an area of the cities that could use improving.
Most mayors have a very low online time. After the first few days of the round when the infrastructure is formed and trading settles in, the mayors are rarely on more than once or twice a day for short amounts of time, mostly to set exims. This system works fine until a citizen needs to get in touch with them, an emergency occurs in the city etc. How can we fix this problem of inactive mayors? The answer is simple, make the job more fun and interactive. Although in the current system the mayor has a lot to do in the first week when trade is booming, officers are being hired, exims being set, and roads being built, little is needed of the mayor after this time.
I do not suggest changing the mayor position completely, just adding duties to it. Some things that could make it more interesting are things like making a column in the Miniconomist for mayors to report on how their cities are doing at that point in the round, what problems may have arisen, and their future plans. Also some in game changes like adding more infrastructures to the cities, may be found worthwhile. Some ideas include train stations. Train stations would need to be added to each city by the mayor, just like a road would be, with eximed products from the citizens. Once built, the mayor could then build trains that could be made available for public transport to other cities just like a car. The mayor would be completely in charge of this form of transportation just like some cities are in charge for their subway systems, buses etc.
What this would add is an alternative form of transporting goods to other cities in bulk. Also, it would add another use for gas (a product that is not as profitable in the current economy) in the exim. Citizens would have to exim the gas to supply the city’s needs. Also this would add another form of income for the city budgets. Every trip made, or good imported would make the city money. The mayor might also put additional taxes on goods flowing through the train stations.
Adding things like this to the game has many benefits for the citizens in every city, not only does it make the job of mayor more fun and intriguing, it also increases the need for mayors to be online, thus increasing their online time and availability for in person conversations with citizens. Also, it will reduce the need to fire mayors for inactivity because it will make the position of mayor more desirable and boost the amount of candidates in the running. The mayor manual has been long standing, but is now in need of an update.