jamescfm wrote:It has to be supported by a 2/3rds majority of all players with seats (not just those with seats who vote) and over 50% of the seats in the legislature. Also, at least two of the players sponsoring the bill must have been currently continuously active in the nation (ie. no inactivations) for at least 2 months.
These provisions highlight the problem I'm referring to. Most countries don't have enough players who have been active long enough to pass this. Even if they do, you're lucky if more than a handful of players vote on any given bill in Particracy.
There is an argument for making it easier for players to pass motions requesting Culturally Open status. If the requests were considered unreasonable or whatever, Moderation could always turn them down.
Anyway, my point was that it is
not the case that the current system permits "an entirely arbitrary group of players determine the culture of a country for the entire history of the game", which is what you suggested. There are opportunities to remove Cultural Protocols, and there are also, of course, opportunities to change them by increments over time.
Also, bill vote skipping is not quite so common as you suggest; we do have 3 day inactivations on request and a rule against "party-sitting".
There are a number of points to be made about the proposed "Cultural Map", but I do not have time right now, so I may return to that later. One thing I will mention now, though, is that at least two of the English-speaking nations (Solentia and Mordusia) have been removed. Given that such a large proportion of players prefer English-speaking nations, I am not entirely sure that further reducing the number of them is a great idea.