I took the liberty to start up a thread like Ginger Ale's. Another important aspect of the demogames is the government. This thread will be for discussing things concerning the government. I'll first list some things I think are important, but there could be others off course.


Approximately, how many offices should there be?
Which offices?
Will there be a difference between offices (like Triumvirate), or will all offices be equal?
Will officials have the power to make decissions for them selves, with a possibility of being recalled, or will officials have to poll most/all descissions?
Will all offices be filled every term, or will there be some offices that may be filled, but may be open to?
How many deputies will there be for each office? Will there be deputies at all?


There may be things I forgot, so please add more topics. I'll come back tomorrow and post my own opinion.

Okay, this is probably were discussion will take the longest. In any case, here we go.

As I see it, there are three main systems we can use as a "template" for us to base our ideas off of. They are:
The Triumvirate (used in this game)
The Flexible System (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3568853&postcount=61) (proposed at the beginning of DG1; Oct_X already wrote a CoL for it, mostly complete, that we could just edit).
"Traditional"/Civ4-based (basically a President, and then advisors from the game as the officials, with some merging, say of Trade and Foreign, or Religion and Civic)

My thinking is that we should use the Traditional, old DG-style for now. We've seen that the Triumvirate is a tad too complicated, but I'm not sure that going to the Flexible system is the right move just yet. It may get a bit too confusing at first, who knows. We've seen that the Traditional system can work, but that doesn't mean we can't change parts of it. Here the officials I'm thinking of:

President (nominations/elections, all great people, turn playing)
Minister of Defense (all combat units, promotions, military plans)
Minister of Domestic Affairs (workers, sliders, settlers)
Minister of Trade and Foreign Affairs (trading, declaration of war/peace, gifts/threats, spies)
Minister of Science (technology path)
Minister of Civics and Religion (civics, religion, missionaries)

(that is also the Chain of Command if need be)

There - that's 6 core people. If we follow it up with a Judiciary system (which we need to overhaul, I think), that's 9. Add 1 Governor (as in Civ4, there aren't nearly as many cities, so they can all fit into 1 province), that's a grand total of 10 people. I think we should easily be able to keep 10 people active if we keep the game moving! :D

And yes, call me crazy, but I didn't put a DP pool there. I'm not that big of a fan of it, and without it, the President has much more to do. Anything else I missed?

I'd like the officials to post discussions and polls, but it should be so that the citizens can comment on the official's suggested instructions. But overall, everyone should be working together, and the official should use the citizens' ideas to formulate similar instructions.

I would also allow people to be appointed by the President (or next person in CoC) to an empty slot, if no one ran for it, with preference given to those that don't already have an office.

DEPUTIES - let's just make this the runner up in the election; if none, the official can appoint one

The Judiciary is certainly something we need to look into.
I would however give officials the power to appoint their own deputies instead of the runner-up. Otherwise running for office would automatically give you a deputy position unless more than 2 people run.

Another point to think about maybe: How many deputies will there be for each office?

Let's keep it at 1. We still want some non-elected, non-deputy citizens!

What do you think about the officials I listed (and the fact of no DP Pool)?

Needing just 6 people would be good, I don't know about the DP-pool. I could imagine someone would like to be president but he can't DP (especially post middle ages, these games really kill your computer).

There were 2 points to the DP pool:


There are some outstanding leaders, who would make great Presidents, but who can't be the DP every session for a whole month.
The chance to actually be the one to play the game is attractive to some players, who will just leave if they don't have that opportunity.


The chance to be a deputy if you lose is what prompted people to run for office in the first place. There is no point in going up against someone with a 90% approval rating, so you find a lot of declined nominations. OTOH, with runner-up deputies, accepting a nomination actually means something even if you know you're gonna lose.

I think the DP Pool has proven to be a success. I doubt this DG would have survived this far without it.

I've got a radical concept for the Judiciary - 1 person. (not so radical - see DG1). They make all rule decisions for that term. They will also refuse a case if they feel it is best handled by the citizens via the amendment process. Any and all trials are presented directly to the people if this Justice thinks they are valid. If either side cannot find an advocate, sorry.

Basically, they should resolve abiguities, verify amendments and neutrally conduct any trials. If a request involves something not addressed by the ruleset, it needs to go to the people for an amendment.

This would also cut down on the number of officials. I think that we only need a handful - 5 tops, plus people to watch the cities. We're a smaller group. We don't have 30 - 40 people playing. Until we get back to that level, reduce the size of the government.

-- Ravensfire

if you want to have competitive, exciting races for President every term, then you need to have a DP pool. people either can't play civ 4, don't have the time, or would be ok with being Pres, but not DP. a DP pool lets multiple people play and no one is responsible for a whole month of playing, thus less slipups.

I think the DP Pool has proven to be a success. I doubt this DG would have survived this far without it.

-- Ravensfire

I was originally against (very strongly) the DP pool. However, I'll have to agree with Ravensfire here. It turned out to be a success... so lets keep it.

Ok you may for read this partially from the other discussion thread. I am only giving my opinion on the executive branch, not the judicial. Everything I type in black is rule set, everything in red is example or comment. Please critique.

Executive Branch
The executive branch shall consist of elected officials and their deputies

1. The President
A. The President is:
I. in charge of all diplomatic negotiations
II. in charge of settlers
III. responsible for elections and nominations
IV. responsible for poll validation (censorial duties)
V. responsible for all Census conducted.
V.A. A census must be conducted once every two terms, although may be conducted as frequently as seven days.
B. The President does not have to fill any deputy positions although he may have deputies.
However, I would like the first President to set the precedent of having a censor for the censorial duties.

2. The Military Adviser (Secretary of War, Grand General, whatever name)
A. The Military Adviser is:
I. in charge of all military units
II. in charge of all naval units
Although we didn't have any naval wars in this game, I don't think that the military might should be split between the military adviser and the President who controlled the navy. In overseas battle navy means everything.
III. in charge of all spies
B. The Military Adviser does not have to fill any deputy positions although he may have deputies.
He could have someone to control the navy, or someone in control of the garrison of cities etc. Although during peace I see no reason for precedent.

3. Domestic Adviser
A. The Domestic Adviser is:
I. in charge of taxes
II. in charge of culture slider
III. in charge of science (technology)
B. The Domestic Adviser does not have to fill any deputy positions although he may have deputies.

4. The Infrastructural Adviser
A. The Infrastructural Adviser is:
I. in charge of workers
II. in charge of cities
II.a. Build Queues and Citizen Production
B. The Infrastructural Adviser must have a non-elected governor position filled by someone for each state. He may also have other deputies, and his governor's may have other deputies such as mayors.
I. With the exception of a lack of workforce. In the event of a lack of workforce or citizens confirmed by a census, the Infrastructural Adviser may opt for no deputies (including governors.)

War and Wonders
War and Wonders must first be approved through a majority vote in the elected officials (cabinet, excluding deputies.) Once passed it must then go to the legislative branch (citizens assembly) and pass a majority vote.

The Judiciary was not touched upon here and the citizens assembly slightly. Let it be known that anything an elected official (and elected officials represent deputy decisions) is responsible for and performs that action that he does not have to ask for the citizens approval. The citizens may vote to veto and recall that action however.

Obviously this is just a rough draft, please feel free to input an critique. I only did my ideas on positions, not the whole workings. I left out such as types of polls and what not.

ice2k4: First off, we haven't even truly agreed on a set list of officials. Second, it's near impossible to start WRITING the ruleset only 10 posts into this thread. BTW, use indents please (and capitalization).


ravensfire, a 1 person Judiciary sounds good to me. I've never liked all those positions within the system (JA? CJ? PD? Why not just 3, or 1, justice, all equal?). It also sounds much quicker, and helps people to focus on the game, not the rules of the game.

DP Pool is fine with me, either way.

President, Domestic, Trade & Foreign, Military, Technology, Religion & Civic, Justice, Governor -- that's 8 people, not too bad (not including DP Pool, but that's seperate). We could even combine Domestic and Technology if we want to.

Anybody have any objections to using the above-mentioned officials? Comments?

ice2k4: First off, we haven't even truly agreed on a set list of officials. Second, it's near impossible to start WRITING the ruleset only 10 posts into this thread.
I know we haven't agreed upon anything. I didn't mean to start writing a ruleset as I clearly stated I left most things out that a ruleset would include. I simply answered the questions:

# Approximately, how many offices should there be?
# Which offices?
...
# How many deputies will there be for each office? Will there be deputies at all?


BTW, use indents please (and capitalization).
Tried using indenation, but when i submit or edit the post, the forum ignores my indentations. (Ive indented with space bar, as I can not use tab, since tab just switches you to something else on the webpage, such as other links.) Capitalization is used where it should be. If you read it said "The President is:" all lines that follow should be lower case since they are in the middle of a sentence.

Is there a way to indent without using the dreaded [code] bbcode on these forums. It'd be quite useful to know.

Ah, ok, that was your way of answering the question. My bad. :)

You can indent using the tags.

PS: Did you forget some sort of Foreign/Trade advisor?

No problem. And thanks for the tip, I'm going to format it now for bet readability.

No, I described trades as diplomatic negotiations, which I gave to the President.

I would say we go with the combination of the Flexible System and the Traditional. I realy disliked the Triumvirate mainly because they are too limited and plus they are not allowed to have deputies.

I know we haven't agreed upon anything. I didn't mean to start writing a ruleset as I clearly stated I left most things out that a ruleset would include.

I'll use this comment to bring up a point which we might want to have in its own thread. You say there are other things a ruleset would include, but I would say don't be too hasty in assuming a complex ruleset is a good thing. Specifying procedures for how officials should do their tasks has turned out to be bad more often than it has been good. Once someone disagrees with our in-game direction, a detailed process provides a built-in opportunity for the minority to use the rules to stifle the majority.

Just define what the offices do, in broad terms.

I'm going to draft my own suggestion for offices here, having read but not memorized the other proposals and not referring back to them... in no particular order:


President
Exploration & Settlement
Foreign Affairs & Trade
Science & Infrastructure
Culture & Religion
Military
Governors


Phase out exploration & settlement when there is nothing left to settle and/or explore.

Governors should be a sliding scale which results in a max of 5 cities per, and evenly distributed. Redistribute cities to governors as often as needed. We can use the social (role play) aspects of creating province / state divisions, but again limit the proceduralism aspect. The settlement position might phase out around the time a 2nd governor is needed.

Cutting the judiciary to one might help with elections a bit, though it could also hurt the people who don't have Civ4.

Let's make it easy for officials to delegate their authority. Less rules may help with that.

Those work fine for me, DS. One note, though; since I don't like offices that won't have much to do for a large portion of the game (Exploration & Settlement, as you said yourself), why not delegate Exploration to the Minister of the Military/Defense* and the Settlement to the Minister of Science and Infrastructure?

* Or, if we want to be a bit more organized, we could do the following: President controls non-combat units, Military controls combat units. No exceptions, except Missionaries go to Culture & Religion (speaking of which, who's is charge of civics?).

And lastly, for your governor proposal, are you saying it would go like this: 1 governor for our first five cities. The next city, and up to 4 others, belong to the next province? When would you determine the borders of the provinces, especially if they need adjusting? What I'm trying to say is, if we found our 6th and 7th city on both the western and eastern side of nation, would you split up the current province into two 3- and 4-city provinces?

Otherwise, very nice. Once we can agree on a list of officials, then we can easily just start writing what areas of the game they are responsible for (and let's try to keep this brief, not very detailed).

I was thinking more along the lines of eliminating the post of exploration & settlement after we're done exploring and settling, like a built-in sunset clause. That way we can have a military leader who is advocating building offensive and defensive capabilities, and a exploration leader who wants scouts and caravels. Just a thought, and one we'll have to see how the people react to it.

For the governors I was thinking more along the lines of splitting the existing territory when we get to each boundry:
5
3 3
4 3
4 4
5 4
5 5 =10
4 4 3 =11
. . .
5 5 5 =15
4 4 4 4 =16
. . .
5 5 5 5 = 20
5 4 4 4 4 = 21

Once we can agree on a list of officials, then we can easily just start writing what areas of the game they are responsible for (and let's try to keep this brief, not very detailed).

We could also start with a list of areas of the game, and then amalgamate that into officials. That way we don't miss something like civics. In a previous life (game ;) ), I asked people to identify and record the decisions they needed to think about while playing a game so that we could make such a list, and got no traction. Perhaps now that we have more civ playing under our belts, someone (preferably several someones) would accept that assignment?

Great People for example can win you the game if used correctly. I think someone should be watching GPP-odds in the cities (maybe the governors themselves). This way, we won't end up with >60% odds of getting a great artist like in this game.

I think governors (or a mayor, if a governor appoints someone to be in charge of just one city) are responsible for GPP, based on their building of world/national wonders and specialists.

However, I think we should leave the actual Great People up to the President (unless you want to give them to the individual Ministers).


We could also start with a list of areas of the game, and then amalgamate that into officials. That way we don't miss something like civics. In a previous life (game ), I asked people to identify and record the decisions they needed to think about while playing a game so that we could make such a list, and got no traction. Perhaps now that we have more civ playing under our belts, someone (preferably several someones) would accept that assignment?

Isn't it pretty clear that the Foreign and Trade Advisor is in charge of charge of trades, diplomatic relations, and gifts/demands, that the Military advisor is in charge of all combat units and their deployments? I don't think we need to list every action that each advisor is in charge of - let's just paint some broader strokes and we can work from there and change it in-game if we need to.

BTW: your governor's proposal is brilliant. Works for me. I don't agree with having the Exploration and Settlement position still - when do you determine there is no need for more "exploration"? What happens if we raze a city in the modern age and then want to found a new city, but the E&S advisor has been eliminated now? Let's just assign those particular aspects to permanent advisors - I think we can trust the Military advisor to explore early in the game.

Isn't it pretty clear that the Foreign and Trade Advisor is in charge of charge of trades, diplomatic relations, and gifts/demands, that the Military advisor is in charge of all combat units and their deployments? I don't think we need to list every action that each advisor is in charge of - let's just paint some broader strokes and we can work from there and change it in-game if we need to.


Those are obvious of course, and we shouldn't need to list details like that. I'm thinking more along the lines of making sure we don't miss something major, and halfway into the game we take a whole month of judicial battles because multiple officials are fighting over the choice assignment like pirhana over an unlucky swimmer. ;)

I don't agree with having the Exploration and Settlement position still - when do you determine there is no need for more "exploration"? What happens if we raze a city in the modern age and then want to found a new city, but the E&S advisor has been eliminated now? Let's just assign those particular aspects to permanent advisors - I think we can trust the Military advisor to explore early in the game.

After re-examining this, I think it's missing something. I don't think any of us has mentioned planning for location of the small wonders. I had to think of things I don't do well in my play to realize we need someone to take on these particular missing decisions. It's not something we can leave to the governors to handle, because as we have shown time and again, it isn't feasible in this environment to expect a committee to be productive. So...

I think we should change "Settlement & Exploration" to Domestic in that list, and include allocating small wonders and other production coordination.

Why not task the President with all Small Wonders?

-- Ravensfire

Got one question....

I agree Deputy's are good... however I do feel like at least the early Civ III DG's they really had nothing to do, especially if the prime candidate was on the ball..... so....

What exactly are the Deputy's responcibilities?

And if it's just to take over in the Secretary's absence, what do they do when the Secretary is there? Especially if the Secretary never has any real absences during the month?

And if we do institutionalize some responcibilities for the deputy we've gotta make sure we don't cause conflicts with the Secretary.

I think it's really whatever the official wants it to be.

Maybe the deputy would be in charge of taking screenshots, or starting the discussion threads...but, yes, he's also responsible in case the official is absent/disappears.

Well, my concern comes from my experience DG1, I had several different deputies. For the most part my deputies didn't really do much, not so much because they were lazy, they just didn't really have anything to do beyond participate in discussions with slightly more authority then the average citizen. So the Deputy position didn't seem like it was worth very much.

There are a few people who will only be active if they have some kind of role, even if that role is being a deputy with no powers. There have been countless examples of deputies who did odd jobs to prove their worth to the voters, and then went on to win elections later. And there have been many times when we didn't have a deputy and an area got no attention, because officials are absent a lot more than you'd think, and it's not all planned. :)

I agree Deputy's are good... however I do feel like at least the early Civ III DG's they really had nothing to do, especially if the prime candidate was on the ball..... so....

I do have to agree on this one, though this is comming from experiance. Normaly I see deputies in the early demogames tossed in a cubical forgotten and the deputies themselves are afraid to bring up something new in the department because the top canidate is rolling his ideas through where the deputy is left in a stagnant state.

Got one question....

I agree Deputy's are good... however I do feel like at least the early Civ III DG's they really had nothing to do, especially if the prime candidate was on the ball..... so....

What exactly are the Deputy's responcibilities?

And if it's just to take over in the Secretary's absence, what do they do when the Secretary is there? Especially if the Secretary never has any real absences during the month?

And if we do institutionalize some responcibilities for the deputy we've gotta make sure we don't cause conflicts with the Secretary.
Well for one, as a governor of a state, I would most certainly have mayors for each city as deputies. Micromanaging cities is what can win you the game. I might want to be a governor, but don't have the time to post screen shots and look into each of my cities, to move around citizens and maximize produciton. I certainly don't trust the AI to do an efficient job with my cities.

Well, when it comes to governors/mayors it may not be 100% effective to have a mayor for each city, given the number of cities and the number of people.

I think it might be better to have "County Officials" who are responcible for say 3 cities. Reduces conflicts between cities for tiles and doesn't require us to have 20+ people available just to be Mayors.

Well with deputies, one governor, can have as many cities that are in his state. If he feels he is not able to fully take all 5 or whatever the number may be, he can hire mayors for 2 cities or maybe even all 5. If he feels he can handle it, he doesnt have to hire mayors.

Another thing, I think there should be a "History Department" either appointed or elected that would be responcible for keeping historical archives maintained and they would be responcible for introductions for new players to get caught up.

A perfect example of a history thread can be found in MTDG 1 for civIII, team MIA. I really helped me get into the game.

We should definetly have a history department. Would really increase the number of people who join mid-game.

Regarding having a Domestic position with control over settlement, small wonders, and production coordination...

Why not task the President with all Small Wonders?

-- Ravensfire

Settlement is a big and very important job, one I strongly advocate assigning to a position instead of what we had in C4DG1 with ad-hoc decision making. City placement, and even the number of cities, is a lot harder in Civ4 than it was in Civ3. City specialization is even more critical. So I think we need an official to oversee the big picture for cities, like we had in the earlier Civ3 games.

History, Cartography, Help Desk, Chat Office, and Elections should all be volunteer departments. Allow these positions to be recalled if someone's head gets too big, but otherwise no further structure is necessary. Doing it this way helped role play in previous games, and regimenting these areas is a symptom of the decline of the game because it took away some fun.

Especially the history department. People could contribute freely.

Okay, this is probably were discussion will take the longest. In any case, here we go.

As I see it, there are three main systems we can use as a "template" for us to base our ideas off of. They are:
The Triumvirate (used in this game)
The Flexible System (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3568853&postcount=61) (proposed at the beginning of DG1; Oct_X already wrote a CoL for it, mostly complete, that we could just edit).
"Traditional"/Civ4-based (basically a President, and then advisors from the game as the officials, with some merging, say of Trade and Foreign, or Religion and Civic)

My thinking is that we should use the Traditional, old DG-style for now. We've seen that the Triumvirate is a tad too complicated, but I'm not sure that going to the Flexible system is the right move just yet. It may get a bit too confusing at first, who knows. We've seen that the Traditional system can work, but that doesn't mean we can't change parts of it. Here the officials I'm thinking of:

President (nominations/elections, all great people, turn playing)
Minister of Defense (all combat units, promotions, military plans)
Minister of Domestic Affairs (workers, sliders, settlers)
Minister of Trade and Foreign Affairs (trading, declaration of war/peace, gifts/threats, spies)
Minister of Science (technology path)
Minister of Civics and Religion (civics, religion, missionaries)

(that is also the Chain of Command if need be)

There - that's 6 core people. If we follow it up with a Judiciary system (which we need to overhaul, I think), that's 9. Add 1 Governor (as in Civ4, there aren't nearly as many cities, so they can all fit into 1 province), that's a grand total of 10 people. I think we should easily be able to keep 10 people active if we keep the game moving! :D

And yes, call me crazy, but I didn't put a DP pool there. I'm not that big of a fan of it, and without it, the President has much more to do. Anything else I missed?

I'd like the officials to post discussions and polls, but it should be so that the citizens can comment on the official's suggested instructions. But overall, everyone should be working together, and the official should use the citizens' ideas to formulate similar instructions.

I would also allow people to be appointed by the President (or next person in CoC) to an empty slot, if no one ran for it, with preference given to those that don't already have an office.

DEPUTIES - let's just make this the runner up in the election; if none, the official can appoint one


I like this idea.

As for history and the other offices, I agree in that they should be volunteer.

And yes, call me crazy, but I didn't put a DP pool there. I'm not that big of a fan of it, and without it, the President has much more to do.

I would like to bring up the original DP pool idea.

Before the DP pool, we had the Chain of Command, with the President at the top. We were starting a new game using C3C, and I wanted to separate the leadership responsibilities from the game playing responsibilities, to allow the President and other elected leaders to be people who didn't have C3C.

The 1st attempt was a suggestion to just allow the President to delegate the DP responsibility to anyone, on a chat by chat basis. Some people, rightly so, said they didn't like the idea of non-elected, and thus non-approved, people playing the save. The 2nd idea was to have confirmation polls for the appointments, to give the people a chance to veto an appointment by voting NO in the poll. That was seen by a very select few as too much opportunity for personalization of that no vote, so we ended up with the multiple choice election we have now.

Let's revisit the original concept. I would very much like to allow every official the right to delegate authority to others. Someone who wants to delegate a lot can, someone who doesn't want to delegate can just do the whole job. The responsibility would always rest with the official -- if a subordinate breaks the rules, it is also the official's fault. We could make the willingness, or not, to delegate a campaign issue. Give the people a mid-term check on the power to delegate (recall does the trick IMHO) and just loosen it all up.

I dont think that having one office play the save is efficient for two reasons.

A) This means that the President has to not only have a working copy of civilization iv, but also has to be able to hold a standard map size on their pc.

B) IT also may drag out playing times because only one person is playing rather then 4 or 5 people who can work out times.

I think historically the chain of command has worked quite well, I say we return to it.

Why don't we just make it as such:

The DP pool consists of all elected officials (in some order, like the Chain of Command). If an official wants to/can do a turnchat, then he becomes a DP for one turnchat. If not, the DP responsibility for the next turnchat simply goes to the next in the chian.

So, you saying it would rotate around the Officials or only go down the line if those higher up are unavailable?

Or we can do something like this.

Schedule turn chats in advance, so we turn chats aren't delayed and they move at a pace that we like.

In the turn chat thread, any elected official can post if they can play it at that time. If two or more people insist upon playing it, we will go to a set chain of command. If the citizens don't feel one of the officials should play it they may ask to exclude him from playing the saves, or he can simply step down and never ask to play them.

This way, the game moves at a set pace, and won't slow down.
We will have a variety of people playing the save.
There is a certain chain of command.
And disagreeing citizens may vote to exclude a certain official form playing.

I really see no flaw in this system.

The DP Pool needs to be accountable to the people, especially if you are planning to let them make decisions in chat. The approval for DP Pool participants during the election cycle should be 60%. Lastly, the President has the right to play all turns if they so choose, with the DP Pool available for backup if needed.

I personally feel the DP pool should be abolished, Chain of Command (CoC) allows only people voted in by the people to be able to play turn chats. I don't like the concept of the DP pool, at least with the CoC you got a constant order of play priority, and all officials are checked via elections.

Also, as DZ seems to favor anyway, the President can play ever turn a term freely so long as he's available.

Let's put this to a poll then - retain the DP pool, use only the CoC, or go with a mix of the two (Pres chooses to play, or use the DP).

The DP Pool worked for my main goal when I proposed it - it allowed people that did not hold (and in some cases did not want to hold) to actively participate in the game as a player. Early in the DG when we had high levels of participation, we had a good sized pool. That's a good thing - the system was working.

Why the hate? What about the DP Pool wasn't working in your view?

-- Ravensfire

Why the hate? What about the DP Pool wasn't working in your view?

-- Ravensfire

Well, in all honesty, I did not witness the implementation of the DP Pool, especially in it's "golden era." My objections to it are based on the fact that CoC worked very well before, and I see various potential problems with an open DP Pool which leaves things open for potential abuse and confusion.

So I can't say what "wasn't working," but I can say what concerns me about it.

Either way I still would like to go back to my idea posted above. Whatever you decide, is it possible that we can schedule turn chats well in advance (at the beginning of the term) so we can control the pace of the game. This way if you have a CoC, the President can plan more properly and if something comes up where he can't make it, the CoC gets it to a person who can make it. Or if we do a DP, the DP's do not have to go in turn and can work it out where someone will be able to play.

I think planning turn chats right after finishing one really slows down the game and does not allow us to effectively control the pace. If some kind of discussion comes up where we need more time, of course we could delay, but for the majority, the game would be controlled. You must remember one of the main problems we had was the pace of the game.

Edit: Realized this should go in the chat matters thread. If you would like to discuss this post, please post in the [DG2] Chat Matters Thread.

Another reason for using a DP pool is the ability to spread the play session times around. If I'm President and we don't have a mechanism to assign others the DP responsibility, chats are all going to be at 10pm or 11pm MST GMT-7, where if others are allowed to DP then we can get a variety.

Is there any disagreement with the President having the responsibility to get play sessions scheduled and arrange someone to play them? If we can agree on that, then the remaining question is how others (if any) are selected to play.

Also, ice's idea is a good one, except for the possibility that events cause us to take longer than the predetermined number of days to make the next set of decisions. What can we do with the offices to ensure that the planning process goes on if someone isn't getting their part done? Deputies are one answer, designated backups are another. Another option is to support citizens who fill in the gaps when there is a need. Anything else?

Is there any disagreement with the President having the responsibility to get play sessions scheduled and arrange someone to play them? If we can agree on that, then the remaining question is how others (if any) are selected to play.

Agreed, It's the President's responcibility to schedule and play (arrange for someone else to play) the sessions. However, whether CoC or DP Pool it should just be a matter of highest person on the list who is able to play and in attendance. Deciding the most likely person that will be ahead of time may save time during the turnchat, but a person shouldn't be feel like he's "Forced" to play just cause he's was selected. Even if they agree to it, things in real life interfere sometimes, such as running late at work, and you don't have the chance to give the forums/chatroom a heads up to your absence. We should have leway for people in attendance to at some point decide "okay, let's stop waiting and get this thing started, who's top of the list?" Say 10 minutes after the scheduled chat the highest ranking person starts up the game.

Also on another (more on topic) note, here's the CoC as I see it based on GA's offices

President (nominations/elections, all great people, turn playing)
Minister of Domestic Affairs (workers, sliders, settlers)
Minister of Defense (all combat units, promotions, military plans)
Minister of Trade and Foreign Affairs (trading, declaration of war/peace, gifts/threats, spies)
Minister of Science (technology path)
Minister of Civics and Religion (civics, religion, missionaries)

Only one slight change, making Domestic second in command and Defense third. The reason why I feel Domestic goes above Defense is I still sorta have a DG1 view of Domestic organizing the Governors and thus "manager" of queues and such with a more of a "claim" to playing the save. Other then that I think that about covers it.

Sure, a designated play order is fine. Even better if that order can be set on a per chat basis, so the same people aren't on the top of the list for the whole month.

If we go with an office based CoC, I'd like to build in a way to avoid a certain situation which came up this game. Certain people who shall remain nameless but are often testing new versions of the game should be encouraged to hold offices, but restricted from playing the save while distracted by said new versions of the game. :rolleyes:


:D

Edit: forgot to also say, domestic should play above military in times of peace, but it is really handy to have military be the DP in times of war.

Sure, a designated play order is fine. Even better if that order can be set on a per chat basis, so the same people aren't on the top of the list for the whole month.

If we go with an office based CoC, I'd like to build in a way to avoid a certain situation which came up this game. Certain people who shall remain nameless but are often testing new versions of the game should be encouraged to hold offices, but restricted from playing the save while distracted by said new versions of the game. :rolleyes:

:D

Who?

Just kidding! ;)

Edit: forgot to also say, domestic should play above military in times of peace, but it is really handy to have military be the DP in times of war.
I would have to agree here - really useful. Didn't we have something like this in the earlier Civ3 DGs, where the military leader could change build queues set by governors in times of war?

DG1 and 2 I think Military Leader could change a build queue if the region had active enemy units inside it's territory (or something like that).

But for the most part it wasn't necessary, Governors were pretty cooperative about military units. I did get "called out on it once" where I requested one military unit in the queue be replaced with another during the chat. I was "sued" and got out on that technicality because there were enemy units in the territory at the time. Felt like a hallow victory, I felt I was in the right, but didn't win because "I was right."

Now that you bring that up, I kinda feel regardless though, the Military leader at the very least should be able to change one military item in the queue to another (assuming the impact on later queue items isn't majorly effected).

On another note... try to avoid DP's who get called to help his parents with a "quick" errand which takes 45 mins. to an hour.... :blush:

Edit: forgot to also say, domestic should play above military in times of peace, but it is really handy to have military be the DP in times of war.
In times of war I think that the military adviser should automatically be at the top of the CoC.

Personally I feel the President should always have priority, though I can understand Military being second during time of war.

Though In the end, when I was Military leader I tended to prefer to not play the save. Going through it turn by turn via text in the turn chat sometimes helps one to take a step back and put more deep thought into your actions. Instead of going ahead and doing what first comes to mind and realizing you screwed up and would have realized the error if you'd just thought about it a bit more.

What about giving the War-guy (Secretary/minister/whatever) the right to play the turns if we're at war? He doesn't have to, but he may.

What about giving the War-guy (Secretary/minister/whatever) the right to play the turns if we're at war? He doesn't have to, but he may.

Honestly, that's how the whole CoC works in my mind, no one is "obligated to play" they can always pass on playing the save.

Honestly, that's how the whole CoC works in my mind, no one is "obligated to play" they can always pass on playing the save.
I was assuming this as well when I wrote my previous statement.

Anyone interested in putting up a poll to settle some of the issues (DP Pool, CoC, deputies, length of terms, etc.) that need to be finalized?

Well first, before polls are put up, do we feel that we have discussed all possibilities, and are ready for such polling? I feel that there could be a bit more discussion, but then again the conversations have slowed a bit, which may reflect the fact that we have come to a general conclusion.

So firstly is there anything anyone would like to say before we rush to the polls?

I guess we can conclude that nobody has anything left to say, at least not yet...

Are we ready to poll? Once we poll, get the majority, and start to write this part of the ruleset up, maybe some others will have comments.

I would list each poll here, and the options you plan to include, and see if that turns up anything new - then poll the sucker and get this moving!

While I'm against "drop dead" dates, I think it would be cool to get the announcement posted around the new year, and have the first term last through the end of February. You get the general excitement of a new year, plus people that have just gotten into the game, to push it. Take that energy, and use the first week for debates in the nomination threads, and get things going!

I think that waiting until Febuary would cost some of that energy, and some of the momentum that's going right now. But that's just me!

-- Ravensfire

Proposed poll options (note: I broke them down into separate questions, just for ease of reading. When we put them in a poll, we can just through them all togethere.)

Should we have deputies?
No Deputies
Deputies - runner up in election
Deputies - appointed by official-elect
Other (please explain)

Who plays the save?
President (with Chain of Command as backups)
Designated Player Pool (not necessarily elected officials)
Chain of Command (just elected officials)
Other (please explain)

What officials should we have (for Judiciary and Governors, see next questions)?
President, Domestic, Trade & Foreign, Military, Technology, Religion & Civic
President, Exploration & Settlement, Foreign Affairs & Trade, Science & Infrastructure, Culture & Religion, Military
President, Domestic, Military, Infrastructural
Other (please explain)

How should the Judiciary be organized?
1 Chief Justice
3 Justices (Chief Justice, Public Defender, Judge Advocate)
Other (please explain)

How many cities should a Governor be in charge of?
All Cities
5 Cities maximum (see DaveShack's proposal here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4792183&postcount=18))
3 Cities
An individual number as voted upon by the citizens
Other (please explain)

And...that's exactly 20 options to poll, the maximum that will fit in a poll! :) Hopefully there's nothing I missed - let me know if you want something to be added, otherwise I'll put up this poll (and link to it here) soon.

I think the last poll should include "as many as defined in a state" as we may choose to create one state with 3 cities, and one state with 5. We can always change the state amount if we dont have enough governors.

With "President" for save playing... are there any backups?

I think the last poll should include "as many as defined in a state" as we may choose to create one state with 3 cities, and one state with 5. We can always change the state amount if we dont have enough governors.OK. I'll exchange 10 cities with "An individual number per Governor/province as voted upon by the citizens".

With "President" for save playing... are there any backups?
Well, yeah, we can always have the CoC as backup, but it's the President who's playing the turns. I'll add that in as well.

Well, yeah, we can always have the CoC as backup, but it's the President who's playing the turns.

President's the only one who can play, but with CoC backups who can't play?

I'm confused :confused:

That mean just CoC, will have players cycle around the CoC or what?

I dislike polls with more than 2 options for this setup stuff, because we end up with plurality votes where the smaller of options which gets less than 50% argues that most people didn't want the larger of options which got less than 50%. In polls which actually ask 2 questions, make it 2 polls.

Deputies
- yes
- no

IF deputies pass, 2nd poll, how selected
- runner-up
- appointed by official

Sure, it takes more time this way, but witness DG6, DG7, and this DG as examples where having that 3rd option ended up biting us and resulting in endless bickering and backstabbing.

I dislike polls with more than 2 options for this setup stuff, because we end up with plurality votes where the smaller of options which gets less than 50% argues that most people didn't want the larger of options which got less than 50%. In polls which actually ask 2 questions, make it 2 polls.

Deputies
- yes
- no

IF deputies pass, 2nd poll, how selected
- runner-up
- appointed by official

Sure, it takes more time this way, but witness DG6, DG7, and this DG as examples where having that 3rd option ended up biting us and resulting in endless bickering and backstabbing.


Though, if we agree to look at it intelligently, it shouldn't be too hard to realize that Deputies win even if the No Option gets 40%, Runner up gets 35% and Appointed gets 25%.

And then within that Runner up wins.

Though... "Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers." Even if it's obvious there may still be people who complain and declare it "unjust" (see russia1292000 DG1 at the start of the Domino War)

And I'm not familiar with what happened during DG6 and DG7 (was absent for that).

DS, are you saying you want people to vote first YES or NO, and then, if they voted YES, to vote for either RUNNER UP or APPOINTED, so we can see, first, if we want deputies, and then, if we do, how they are determined? That's fine by me. I agree with Falcon that it wouldn't be too hard to determine that, in his scenario, more people are in favor of deputies (and subsequently being runner-up), but your method is probably a tad easier and more convenient.

In principle that's what I'm saying, though the deputies issue is the one it is least applicable to -- it was just an example.

The hard ones are the "who plays the save" and "what offices" polls. Maybe if we don't get a hard majority, repoll with the top 2?

In DG6 we had a poll for "alternative" vs "traditional #1" vs "traditional #2". Alternative won by a razor thin margin, and then we had to listen to months of complaints about it. Likewise in DG7 we had a poll for "5CC" vs "5BC" vs "no limit". None of the options got a majority so it was counted as a progressive poll, which naturally the middle item won, but then we had people arguing against the compromise position. Of course in this game we had triumvirate vs traditional vs flexible which in retrospect, IIRC, was a tie after DLs were removed.

All that said, if we get a real majority it will be better than if we don't.

At the end of the last setup period, I told myself that I shouldn't be the main driver for this one. There are a couple of things that I do want to lay claim to (for example asking for the forum setup), but not the overall leadership.

So, who's going to open these polls? My previous remarks on polling were mostly aimed at ensuring we don't take a narrow plurality answer as the final answer and then end up with a disgruntled majority.

I'll put (the modified) poll up later today, I guess.

It put it up. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=195695)

It was hard to get some of the options the way you wanted them DS...hopefully we're all smart enough to figure out what we want.

Spies should be under miltary command, not the foriegn office

That's an interesting one. Spies have some covert missions which are military-like, but they can also be used to gather information which can be used in diplomatic efforts.

Since it will be a long time before we can have spies, it's a decision which can be deferred. That's really the main point of the "build as you go" approach. We don't know today which departments might be overworked or underworked, or even if we'll be using spies. If we choose to defer the decision of who controls them until we need them, we'll have better information.