Simple question: should we build an Ancient Age wonder at all?

As a Presidential strategy poll, this supercedes any and all polls on this subject.

Yes
No
Abstain

There is so much discussion on this issue that linking it all would be pointless.

This poll will remain open for 72 hours.

Well, if this is the case, we should probably cede the cultural leadership from Culture Consul to the President as proposed in my Constitutional amendment proposal. The President has now proven the redundancy of the Culture Consul by a strategic override poll. The very presence of this poll suggests that we need to reform and reshuffle the cabinet, adding Culture to the Presidential portfolio.

I disagree on the program intention of abandoning the Great Lighthouse Project, but I constitutionally agree on the fair method of doing so as an imminent signal of the need for a reform based on factual application of power, not on a spurious work description backed by no real mandate. As this is the undoing of all work conducted by the Culture Consul in Term One, I now suggest that Term Two is the last term we have a Culture Consul.

Well, if this is the case, we should probably cede the cultural leadership from Culture Consul to the President as proposed in my Constitutional amendment proposal. The President has now proven the redundancy of the Culture Consul by a strategic override poll. The very presence of this poll suggests that we need to reform and reshuffle the cabinet, adding Culture to the Presidential portfolio.

I disagree on the program intention of abandoning the Great Lighthouse Project, but I constitutionally agree on the fair method of doing so as an imminent signal of the need for a reform based on factual application of power, not on a spurious work description backed by no real mandate. As this is the undoing of all work conducted by the Culture Consul in Term One, I now suggest that Term Two is the last term we have a Culture Consul.

No, the reason this poll is here is that the current Culture Consul ignores the clear will of the people not to build a wonder at this time, as evidenced by current poll results. Times change, strategic realities change, and opinions change. Nothing is permanently decided until it is actually done in the game.

If we were on continents or archipeligo, or didn't have to fight to get enough land, then this would be different.

Friends, if you really want to build an AA wonder, then please confirm that is your will. I will support your decision whether I agree with it or not. If you really don't want to build an AA wonder, then confirm that. All I want out of this is a clear yes or no answer.

I have abstained and urge all to abstain. This seriously undermines any authority for the Culture Consulate in Term 2. This should be a Term 2 decision to be discussed and polled by the Culture Consulate.

I personally consider this poll to be invalid as I don't believe the President has the authority to make this decision. Should either non-abstain option win I will submit a JR to seek resolution of authority.

If I win the election (slight lead right now) there will be a Y/N/A confirmation vote on building The Lighthouse in each potential city at the appropriate time. The poll will include both the Where and When involved. The Culture Consul should also co-sponsor discussions with the Domestic Ministry on allocating cities for wonder construction.

Provolution, a note: IMNSHO, the poll on What wonder we should build did not recieve a "significant" mandate to build this wonder. It was 17 in favor and 14 opposed. Of that 3 vote lead 2 people indicated they wished to change their vote to opposed (after the close of the poll I think) and 1 (me) indicated that they wanted this wonder but not now (ie: only after the issues of Expansion and War were resolved.) If the 2 votes were changed as indicated then this would now be 15 in favor and 16 opposed.

Provolution,
I would like to request that you change your vote to abstain in opposition to this flawed idea.

Regards - MOTH

Moderator, please change my vote to Abstain.

MOTH, done as requested, good luck with next term.

MOTH, I both agree and disagree with you. Likewise, I agree and disagree with DS.

Wow - did I actually say anything there?

I cannot question the need for a poll of this type. Further, I doubt that anyone can. Look back through the polls and discussions on this matter - there was never an up or down "Should we build AA wonders this term?" or even a "Should we build AA wonders at all?" Likewise, there wasn't much of an effort to determine which wonder, just a "Should the Lighthouse be our first wonder?" Not a good effort by our Cultural Consul (CC).

I'm glad that DS put something like this up - it's sparking some badly needed discussion on this. All of the previous polls that the CC has posted are done in isolation. We're strongly considering going to war, and no mention of this is made?!?! Also, we're nearly at the end of the term - this really should have been passed on to the next CC, as common courtesy.

What's been missing is a good, solid discussion about our long-term cultural plans. We flat out haven't had a good one. There have been a few attempts, but they've been pushed aside for the Lighthouse. How much culture do we need *now*? How much culture do we need *this term*? We've got a goal for a 130K culture win - how are we going to do that? There's a thread about working towards this, with not a single post by our term 1 CC.

MOTH, it appears that you'll be the Term 2 Consul for Cultural Policy. Look at the confusion and lack of clarity we have in Term 1, and please, please rectify that. Give our Governors the strong sense of direction and goals that's missing. Work with the Governors and Directors on implimenting the policies you create, not try to slam things down their throats and ignore them. For example, you suggested polling each city individually - don't. Ask each Governor to make presentations on which cities they control should build a wonder, and why. The Governors control the build queues - work with them, help them; don't ignore them and belittle them.

This poll is a good idea - it should spark some badly needed discussion about something that needs some more talk in light of current events. I agree with MOTH that this shouldn't have been done as an override - this is still within the purview of the CC. I view this as an informal poll, posted by citizen DaveShack.

As such, I voted, and choose to keep by vote as NO. We should not build any wonders in the Ancient Age. We should focus our time and resources on expansion and conquest.

-- Ravensfire

Ravensfire

Cultural discussion was held, but all citizens wanted military units and settlers and a few workers, and I took the hint and did not call for any tempels due to our early wine and expansion policy. In fact, 30 March, today, no temple has been needed, and we are short of both garrisons, escorts and scouts, not to mention a military.
Most people agree on that, and making this a personal attack on the Culture Consul, an office where both candidates made it an issue to go for going Lighthouse is nothing but preposterous and counterproductive.

I also posted a Culture discussion the President himself commended, and none of the criteria for building a temple or wonder was met (we have not literature yet).
That this vile accusation comes at the very end of the term, where no cultural builds have been needed, requested or wanted in Term One, but a majority wanting the Great Lighthouse and a minority split in the Great Library and no wonders proves that the Culture Consul has followed the Will of The People.

The polled long term technology plan also dictated which scope of wonders we could choose between, and I saw no other wonder debate raised by citizens.

So I can only say that Ravensfires isolated criticism can be counted as null, void and non-valid, and can at best be considered a need for putting a non-existant blame somewhere and at worst be a natural product of a conspicious political behavior.

5 days for continuing to bait Ravensfire into a flamewar. You can add to a discussion without attacking other members.

Ravensfire

Cultural discussion was held, but all citizens wanted military units and settlers and a few workers, and I took the hint and did not call for any tempels due to our early wine and expansion policy. In fact, 30 March, today, no temple has been needed, and we are short of both garrisons, escorts and scouts, not to mention a military.

And yet you're still pushing the Lighthouse through? Come on - that doesn't make sense.

For the rest of the comments - re-read mine. Sorry, the critisicm is accurate and correct. Provo, you ran Culture with a well-defined, but very narrow focus. Look at the overall strategy thread for the 130k victory - no posts by the Cultural Consul. Where is the overall discussion for a long-term cultural plan - none. Where is a poll asking bluntly "Should we build any AA wonders?? - here and only here.

Some of these points will make excellent and useful discussions for CC next term.

-- Ravensfire

Again, no room for cultural buildings term one, as is evident with the present situation.
We need every settler and every escort we can get out, and possibly the wonder.
But now that the Lighthouse is put on halt, it is not my table anymore.

Frankly put, I was given no tools to develop a cultural strategy for term one.
A wonder build was all that could be built. I also presented a strategy to culture flip Dutch cities, nothing else could be done with the six cities we had.

I rest my case.

Provo - read your post above Ravensfire's.


Back to the game (and thread) - I think in our state, we need to concentrate more on building swordsmen to attack India. (I'd rather do India first, then the Dutch).

I agree with MOTH, although I voted no since I joined up after the Lighthouse decision was already made and didn't get to vote on that. However, I would not fault the President for posting this poll as it seems the Culture Consul was unwilling to do so. In fact, I was going to post a similar discussion (after the changeover to Term 2) on whether we still wanted to build a wonder at all since we'll soon be at war.

On a side note, I object to the wording of the question. I am not opposed to the building of an AA wonder. I'm oppposed to said building at this time (i.e. before a war).

MOTH, your solution is acceptable. The point of this poll was to show conclusively that the result of one poll does not preclude the people changing their mind in a subsequent poll. Creative interpretation to undermine the people's choice is not an acceptable method of persuasion.

For the record, my position is that this poll can supercede past polls on the subject, but can not supercede future polls. If the people change their minds again and say they do want a wonder built, I will most certainly not stand in the way.

Provolution, believe it or not your efforts were most appreciated. You did exactly the right thing by pushing for a wonder to be built, and in getting a clear, though narrow, choice of which one. This was an excellent example of how a leader who takes on the position with passion and energy can be successful in upholding the principle of the office. I hope that other leaders of all branches will follow your example of doing the job completely, and doing it right.

If you had accepted the quite reasonable interpretation that 52% voting never or abstain in the "when" poll, and 80% (IIRC) voting abstain in the "where" poll was a clear indication that the people were saying the previous poll was overturned, then this would not have been necessary.

The authority for this poll comes from this phrase in the Constitution.

President - Leads discussions crossing over multiple areas of different Consuls.

Building a wonder is the primary responsibility of Culture, and was led appropriately in all respects, except for the part about coordinating the build itself with External (balancing need for production of units) and Domestic (we should have a classification of which city is the wonder producer). Even so these would not warrant intervention except that there were clear disconnects evident in all the discussions.

Simple question: should we build an Ancient Age wonder at all?

As a Presidential strategy poll, this supercedes any and all polls on this subject.

Yes
No
Abstain

There is so much discussion on this issue that linking it all would be pointless.

This poll will remain open for 72 hours.

I may be risking my coveted VP spot but I must take issue with this idea of a Presidential stategy poll superceding any and all polls on this subject. If you want to revisit a prior decision in hopes of overturning it that's fine but I object to doing so in such a sweeping fashion. What's next, a poll to give the President the power to correct all our bad decisions?

Moving on to the specifics from the general, IIRC, we have already voted to build the Great Lighthouse. (Just as we voted twice IIRC to try the Philo Gambit.) I voted to build the GL (or is it GLig? :confused:) and even tried making a speech in favor of the project. (The speech never happened because I lost my loin cloth again. Or is it lion cloth? :confused: ) Anyway, we voted to build it so let's build it for crying out loud. So what if it's not the best thing to do to get us a really, really high score. Who gives a darn?

We are a seafaring nation. One of the first things we did was make one of those curragh things and we floated it almost all the way around the bloody world already! That ocean out there is ours. Someone is going to build a Great Lighthouse and it ought to be us!

To tell the truth I'm surprised we haven't built it already!

Ravensfire

Cultural discussion was held, but all citizens wanted military units and settlers and a few workers, and I took the hint and did not call for any tempels due to our early wine and expansion policy. In fact, 30 March, today, no temple has been needed, and we are short of both garrisons, escorts and scouts, not to mention a military.
Most people agree on that, and making this a personal attack on the Culture Consul, an office where both candidates made it an issue to go for going Lighthouse is nothing but preposterous and counterproductive.

I also posted a Culture discussion the President himself commended, and none of the criteria for building a temple or wonder was met (we have not literature yet).
That this vile accusation comes at the very end of the term, where no cultural builds have been needed, requested or wanted in Term One, but a majority wanting the Great Lighthouse and a minority split in the Great Library and no wonders proves that the Culture Consul has followed the Will of The People.

The polled long term technology plan also dictated which scope of wonders we could choose between, and I saw no other wonder debate raised by citizens.

So I can only say that Ravensfires isolated criticism can be counted as null, void and non-valid, and can at best be considered a need for putting a non-existant blame somewhere and at worst be a natural product of a conspicious political behavior.

5 days for continuing to bait Ravensfire into a flamewar. You can add to a discussion without attacking other members.

Yes, now we're having war. Hey guys, remember when someof us wanted to attck India? There was overwhelming opposition to war with India. Ok, so we move on and decide to build the Great Lighthouse. Now all of a sudden the people want war and so we undid the first polls about war with India and now we're trying to undo the polls about the Great Lighthouse. (Along the way we also decided to try to undo the Philo Gambit poll, too.) We should change our name to the Schizofanaticans. :mischief:

It seems to me that if we have a poll on whether to build the Great Lighthouse that poll implies the question of building an ancient age wonder or not. :rolleyes: I do not agree with ravensfire's critisms in this thread but he has the right (even duty) to voice his concerns. He did so in way that seems proper. Provolution has the right (and duty) to reply to such critisms and personally I do not see any thing wrong with what he posted in this thread.

I know I'm technically violating forum rules by talking about a moderators action in public but I feel a duty to the demogame to do so in this case. The banning of Provolution by Chieftess in this thread truly takes away much of the fun in the demogame. It would be one thing if Chieftess were not involved in the play of the demogame but as she is actively involved and has publicly taken a position against building the Great Lighthouse it appears on its face to be nothing more than one person using her power to silence her opposition. I've said it before and I'll say it again, demogame moderators should not be active in the demogame. If you want to play, Chieftess, then you should not use your moderator powers within the demogame threads. If you see a problem you can always go to one of the many other CivFanatics forums moderators, point the problem out to them and let them take any necessary action. In that event you could never be accused of misusing your powers.

On the other hand Chieftess, if you want to continue exercising your moderator's authority in the demogame threads you should drastically reduce your activity level in the demogame.

I know I'm technically violating forum rules by talking about a moderators action in public but I feel a duty to the demogame to do so in this case. The banning of Provolution by Chieftess in this thread truly takes away much of the fun in the demogame. It would be one thing if Chieftess were not involved in the play of the demogame but as she is actively involved and has publicly taken a position against building the Great Lighthouse it appears on its face to be nothing more than one person using her power to silence her opposition. I've said it before and I'll say it again, demogame moderators should not be active in the demogame. If you want to play, Chieftess, then you should not use your moderator powers within the demogame threads. If you see a problem you can always go to one of the many other CivFanatics forums moderators, point the problem out to them and let them take any necessary action. In that event you could never be accused of misusing your powers.

On the other hand Chieftess, if you want to continue exercising your moderator's authority in the demogame threads you should drastically reduce your activity level in the demogame.

If it makes you feel any better, I would have taken that same action as soon as I saw this thread. At any rate, public discussion of moderator actions will end now, as usual. Eyrei.

Skipping casually past a brewing civil war...

Initially I voted yes for the Lighthouse, then realised it wasn't really what I thought would be best, but I still think we should aim to build one ancient wonder.

If we don't build any AA Wonders, then I really don't see any way we can reel in a 130k Cultural Victory. But then again, I didn't want a 130k Victory anyway. :lol:

We need of few cities to be producing units, not easily captured Ego-structures. No Ancient Age Wonders until we get rid of the Dutch.

If we don't build any AA Wonders, then I really don't see any way we can reel in a 130k Cultural Victory. But then again, I didn't want a 130k Victory anyway. :lol:

We need of few cities to be producing units, not easily captured Ego-structures. No Ancient Age Wonders until we get rid of the Dutch.

We could swing a 130K victory without any wonders at all. Stay tuned to my Culture Consulate strategy threads on how to accomplish this. The only wonders that help significantly are wonders like Smith. If we haven't pulled the win off by the Modern Age then the Internet is invaluable as its easily worth 2-400 cpt depending on how many cities we have.

Warning: Nasty math ahead:
(Sir Robin Runs-Away)

Consider the Great Library. 6 culture per turn. Assuming we built it by 10 AD we would get about 100 turns of 6 cpt and then 12 cpt there after for maybe 200 turns (bring us to turn 420). By turn 280 this is only 1320 total culture. If instead of building the GL we built 13 Horses by and send them to capture 3 towns by 10AD and each town builds a Library (3 cpt) by 450AD they will have 1080 culture by turn 280 and 18 cpt there after. By turn 320 we will have broken even with both having 2040 culture. Over the next 100 turns the 3 towns will outpace the GL by 600 culture. This doesn't even consider building temples and other culture buildings in the new towns.

...
For the record, my position is that this poll can supercede past polls on the subject, but can not supercede future polls. If the people change their minds again and say they do want a wonder built, I will most certainly not stand in the way.
...

DS, does this mean that we could abandon our cultural victory strategy based on a simple poll? If so, any specific conditions attached to it?

Let's take a trip back to Demogame 5...

Once upon a time there was a nation called Japanatica. They had it all; a palace, temples, even Ancient Wonders! But, one thing they didn't have was a Forbidden Palace. This upset the people, so they decided to build it one day. All they had to do was pick the city. How about that one? No, that one! Oh, that one over there! We don't own that city. Well, how about that one then?
They finally sound a suitable place to build the Forbidden Palace--long after the topic was first put forth. But, just as the FP was about to finish...the people changed their minds again! Whoops! The entire project was scrapped, only to begin again in a different city. How about that one...

The morale of the story is: Make a decision and stick with it!! If people want to build a Wonder, let's build it. If not, let's not. But we can't have contradictory polls going up every week, totally changing the strategy of our nation. Personally, I don't see any reason why we shouldn't build an AA Wonder. But, I'm willing to bow to the will of the people, as long as that will doesn't change between every poll. Let's come to a decision, already!

DS, does this mean that we could abandon our cultural victory strategy based on a simple poll? If so, any specific conditions attached to it?

My opinion is yes we could, just as we can change our minds on any decision. This is not a universally accepted opinion, of course. For it to be valid I would expect there to be supporting discussion, either from existing threads or in a thread dedicated to that purpose, or some other indication that the people have an interest in changing course. It would also need to follow the generally accepted polling standards, in particular have a clear, unbiased question and options which do not force people to vote differently than they want to, along with clearly defined interpretation of the results which don't unjustly advantage or disadvantage any option.

The morale of the story is: Make a decision and stick with it!! If people want to build a Wonder, let's build it. If not, let's not. But we can't have contradictory polls going up every week, totally changing the strategy of our nation. Personally, I don't see any reason why we shouldn't build an AA Wonder. But, I'm willing to bow to the will of the people, as long as that will doesn't change between every poll. Let's come to a decision, already!

There are really two questions here. Can we change our minds, and should we.

I will always answer the "can we" question with an emphatic yes. To say anything else would be inviting in-game suicide. In the case this poll was aimed at, there was clear evidence that we should change our minds and skip the wonder. There was also strong evidence that a majority wanted to do just that. We're on what appears to be a pangaea map, where the extra movement point will help but it won't make a big difference in the short run during the period when the Lighthouse is really useful. We desperately need military units, and diverting hundreds of shields could make the difference between winning a war for survival or losing.

In every case we have to ask the question should our strategy change based on conditions? If the answer is yes, then we need to be able to let go of the past and move forward with vigor.

To add to that, should we organise regular polls on major long-running issues to identify how people feel about the subject? For instance, we are currently motivated by a 130K cultural win. Once a month we should ask ourselves if that is still the case. My initial vote was for conquest (no specific reason, just thought it would be fun), but happily accepted the cutural path. Perhaps the newly appointed president (btw, since we're supposed to be the English, should be called Prime Minister) could, as a first duty, establish that our key assumtion(s) are still valid.

There are really two questions here. Can we change our minds, and should we.

Yes, we can change our minds. In this case we shouldn't.

There is another question though. How do we change our minds? Do we first decide to do something specific and then change our minds with a general sweeping *let's not do any of this sort of thing* poll. NO! If we make a specific decision it should only be changed by asking the same specific question over again.

If we make a specific decision it should only be changed by asking the same specific question over again.I agree with this, I also believe it should clearly state what has changed in the situation to require a rethink. If nothing has changed we don't want the same question continually reasked until it gets through by polling fatigue.

I disagree though that in this case we should not be able to change our minds, I think enough has changed to require it. So maybe the first question should be: This is what we decided, this is what has changed, does the change justify revisiting this?