we noticed we have a lot of polls with only 20-25 citizens voting. where is the rest? we restarted the registry only a few weeks ago and have 57 citizens, so why dont the other 32-37 vote?

i would like all citizens reading this post to vote here! Even if they normaly dont vote.

If you state "no" please also post why you dont vote. Maybe we can improve things then.

The poll will be online for 14 days.

and remember:

Its your duty as a citizen to vote ALL polls!

Good question. Something I've been wondering about too. I hope they've not all been too sedated by the luxuries available in Pheonatica. :sleep:

No offence, but this poll won't work. You will only get 20-25 voters and they will all be yes. :)

well, but then we know we only have 20-21 active citizens...
thats one thing... but maybe i can provoke some of the "nono"'s to post why....

Originally posted by Zur
Good question. Something I've been wondering about too. I hope they've not all been too sedated by the luxuries available in Pheonatica. :sleep:

I'm to busy using your incense to vote.:smoke::sleep:

This sounds like some trick question. :lol:

OT, you can't expect total full participation fr ALL citizens at ALL times. At any time, the attention lvl will rise and wane depending on individual circumstances. That's why we need fully-committed ppl in the govt so that the rest of us lazy citizenry can slip in and out of active participation freely. ;)

Give us a break. ;)

I'm to busy using your incense to vote.

OK, no more incense for our citizens. I'm keeping all of it! :satan: :crazyeye: :D

Originally posted by disorganizer
we noticed we have a lot of polls with only 20-25 citizens voting. where is the rest? /.../

and remember:

Its your duty as a citizen to vote ALL polls!

I´d like to believe this is not a jail... :rolleyes:

Anyway, you asked so I will try to answer. Right now I am too busy, being governor for Phobos and Deimos in the Civ 2 demo game takes all my time. But that is not really the answer, I quit this game when I still had enough time and for other reasons. I already stated why in the War Church thread, but will try to elaborate my thoughts a little more.

The main reason is that since I can´t participate in the turn chats, I have no influence on how the game is played. I may spend as much time posting in the forum as I want, but since all decisions are taken in the turn chats I can´t influence them anyway. This is something I noticed early, when I still did participate. The military leader had several good thoughts regarding his departement and there were several good and valid discussions on the forum that ended in what I percieved as well thought through and well discussed decisions, with a broad majority of the paricipants behind them. Hence I asumed those ideas would be implemented in the game. But no, the turn chats were dominated by other people who had not even participated in those discussions and the "decisions" where always overrided by the small but loud chat minority. So why would I continue to waste my time participating in useless discussions, when I have plenty of better things to do?

Secondly, I don´t like the "we are better than you" feeling about this game, ie the division between goverment officials and "mere" citizens. This is manifested in discussion threads where only "officials" are allowed to participate and citizens are not welcome. I noticed this first in the military thread, and it truly pissed me off. Having "clean" government threads for referense purposes is a good thing, but when discussions take place everyone should be welcome to participate.

Third, I don´t like the arrogance by which the chat people answered questions about what had happened during the sessions. The only answer I ever got was "read the chat log!". I have neither time nor patience to screen through tons of chat garbage, an accurate summary is a much better option IMO.

To make things better, I suggest you get rid of the turn chats. That is the far most important thing you can do. The duty of the ministers should be to make suggestions regarding their areas to be discussed by both citizens and other officials equally. The ministers then make decisions according to what they percieve as the current consensus. If there is lots of disagreement, polls could be a good idea but otherwise they are not needed. The president plays the game alone (without chats) and has to follow the decisions to the best of his ability. After each session he writes a detailed summary for the rest to read. He should have the right to override forum decisions if the situation demands it. This would ensure all citizens equal chance to influence the game by forum discussions no matter what timezone you live in, and also streamline the game decision processes. If you want a working example, please check out the Civ 2 democracy game.

I realize that you will all give me a good bashing for this. It is to be expected, after all only those who are satisfied with the current situation have stayed. Those who are likely to agree with me left a long time ago.

Originally posted by Mr Spice
I already stated why in the War Church thread, but will try to elaborate my thoughts a little more.Not in the War Church thread I think; I looked thru the whole thread but didn't find anything much. ;)

You know what, Spice? I actually agree with you wholeheartedly. There's pretty much nothing for the average non-chat-attending mere citizen to do to affect the game.

Sure I'll vote. But then we should make all polls sticky in a subdirectory.

Oh yeah, and you lose your civil rights when you don't vote: we should change the name of the game in 'game of meritocracy'...
:eek::whipped:

i think mr.spice's points are valid. maybe when our officials read the thread, we could change something to the better. dof, gf, +++ ? any comments on this?

Spice. Your concerns are very valuable and they are valid. They are also very common. I've been asking a few citizens myself why they haven't been by lately & their concerns were very much like yours. Thanks for the input.

I can't speak for last term, because I was a 'mere' citizen then & didn't follow the game or turn chats as closely. Actually, I almost lost interest completely, before I was nominated for a position in the cabinet. This term, it seems there is a lot going on in each department thread & the citizens forum for everyone to discuss. However, I've noticed far too few citizen postings compared to officials.

Most of the citizens concerns, of the people I have asked, have been mostly about the following points. I've kept them for a couple days, trying to come up with more answers. I haven't been able to come up with much, but your response has prompted the concerns out of me:

- Lack of incentive to come out to the forums or chat turn.
I'm not sure why. It seems citizens have all the power. Voting in polls, asking for actions from their advisors. If citizens aren't supposed to to post in department threads, I think that's wrong.

During chats, citizens should be included in spot polls and the demo game chat. It adds clutter, but would add to the feeling of participation, not as aristocratic. If people come out to flood, they can then be de-voiced. The first time I came out to a turn chat last term, I was told I could do or say nothing. Thanks, guys. Is this the game where everyone has a voice?

- Lack of the sense of power.
Having attended the past few turn chats, I don't think right now much goes on that wasn't planned & posted in each dept threads. As part of the cabinet, I don't feel I'm controlling the game any more than I did when I was a citizen. I'm not the military advisor, but I really don't do much but make suggestions & vote in spot polls.

That said, I am not sure the President is to blame either. He usually seems to be following the advisors' list of demands, not the advice of the cabinet (they are 'advisors', aren't they?). Then, the advisor goes on a tirade if the list isn't followed. It might help if the advisors set more policies for the President to follow & fewer demands. That way, the entire turn would be played over policy - something that is very debatable for citizens all the time, & less to do with opposing points in the short time frame between turns. In order to make this a game for everyone, we may need to take some power away from the advisors. The current system allows for it, if enough citizens object the advisors' plans, but the citizens have not been objecting lately, resulting in the appearance that the advisors are running the game.

The President should have more direction past the first turn. Most of the rounds I've played took about an hour to go through the first turn, reading all the departments' requests & implementing them. Then, after that, there is little to go on for the President, & therefore the rest goes quite quickly, as the President sees fit.

- Lack of understanding of what is going on.
The forums are still quite confusing. There is not a single place where one can get a quick & considerable understanding of what is going on. What happened last turn, without reading the last log? What are the current issues? Turn chats are usually every other day. Sometimes they are missed (for which should be a very heavy penalty). However, this gives officials very little time to get a plan together. If they don't get it out by the morning following a turn chat, there is little time to debate it & change it before the next turn chat comes up. I'm not sure if extending chat intermissions to 3 days will help, but it might. Here's a quote from a disenchanted citizen (not sure why it was chopped):

"ideally I'd love it if there were 2 or 3 sticky threads to follow which contained all the actual "news": what decisions were made (turn and organizational), what happened in turns; then one other place which contained all the "game" decisions and associated polls, so I could visit just the bits that I wanted, not have to read through politics, war churches, and everything else related to any game activity just to get at the actual ev"

The demo game has a lot more potential than what we are living with. I think it should be a place where everyone has a voice. Everyone does right now. How we implement everyone's voice is still debatable...

Mr. Spice's and Chiefpaco's comments should be required reading for all government officials.

We are not only losing citizens we are losing government officials as well. Cyc seems to have left goverment for much these same reasons and I wouldn't be surprised if Bill_in_PDX left for similar reasons. General Charis has a government position but has been quiet here lately.

Well, there is hope for our domestic leader has seen the light and is now argueing that those at turn chat have too much power.

Originally posted by Mr Spice
The main reason is that since I can´t participate in the turn chats, I have no influence on how the game is played. I may spend as much time posting in the forum as I want, but since all decisions are taken in the turn chats I can´t influence them anyway.
I think I know how you feel. But that isn't totally correct. All major decisions are based on discussions and polls from the forum. Discussions that every citizen can partizipate in. And polls that the citizens "Should" be the major part of. Which they still are, but the cabinet is a large percentage of the citizens.
Allthough, some things are improvised and decided during chat, unexpected and unplanned things. This could be avoided though...

This is something I noticed early, when I still did participate. The military leader had several good thoughts regarding his departement and there were several good and valid discussions on the forum that ended in what I percieved as well thought through and well discussed decisions, with a broad majority of the paricipants behind them. Hence I asumed those ideas would be implemented in the game. But no, the turn chats were dominated by other people who had not even participated in those discussions and the "decisions" where always overrided by the small but loud chat minority.

This is something I don't seem to know about?

I thought that the Military leaders plans last term was the ones that were followed and done the most. We were in war almost the whole last Term and I feel that our military leaders thoughts and plans were well implemented. Or is that just me?

Almost ALL of our funds were used for Military upgrades etc...

So why would I continue to waste my time participating in useless discussions, when I have plenty of better things to do?

I don't think it's a waste of time, I voice my opinion in almost every discussion I have the time to read and participate in, and I vote for EVERY poll. That's where I have the best chance of a say in this game!

Every citizen have a voice, it's time for you to use it!

Secondly, I don´t like the "we are better than you" feeling about this game, ie the division between goverment officials and "mere" citizens. This is manifested in discussion threads where only "officials" are allowed to participate and citizens are not welcome. I noticed this first in the military thread, and it truly pissed me off. Having "clean" government threads for referense purposes is a good thing, but when discussions take place everyone should be welcome to participate.

Having a clean clutter free discussion is one thing. BUt allowing people to discuss is another.
Everyone is allowed to discuss. And even though sometimes some of these discussions shouldn't be held in the officials thread, there are. And as I said everyone can participate in these. Although, I would prefer that these discussions would take place in threads of their own, and then could the discussion be held there, and an URL could be posted in the Officials thread.

Third, I don´t like the arrogance by which the chat people answered questions about what had happened during the sessions. The only answer I ever got was "read the chat log!". I have neither time nor patience to screen through tons of chat garbage, an accurate summary is a much better option IMO.

This is something I havn't experienced.

And yes I would like to do, or have someone to do an accurate summary for me. But since the chat ends at such a late time for me (at 4-5 AM), I just don't feel like it, I only feel like sleeping...

To make things better, I suggest you get rid of the turn chats. That is the far most important thing you can do. The duty of the ministers should be to make suggestions regarding their areas to be discussed by both citizens and other officials equally. The ministers then make decisions according to what they percieve as the current consensus. If there is lots of disagreement, polls could be a good idea but otherwise they are not needed. The president plays the game alone (without chats) and has to follow the decisions to the best of his ability. After each session he writes a detailed summary for the rest to read. He should have the right to override forum decisions if the situation demands it. This would ensure all citizens equal chance to influence the game by forum discussions no matter what timezone you live in, and also streamline the game decision processes. If you want a working example, please check out the Civ 2 democracy game.

I feel that with the TurnChats we can improve the Democracy game. And that is also why they are implimented.
And the civ3 democracy game is already run like the Civ2 game, but with the turnchat as an Addition.

I realize that you will all give me a good bashing for this. It is to be expected, after all only those who are satisfied with the current situation have stayed. Those who are likely to agree with me left a long time ago.

I hope this wasn't considered as a Basshing.

And I also hope that whoever left the game for any reason, or for the specific reasons above, can come back to work with us on these problems. Because without the citizens there is no Nation.

I feel I must insert a quick statement here. As the first Cultural Minister, I always tried to give a quick run-down of the key events and information of each chat. I always posted between chats, I put up maps, etc. I tried to include all the main decisions and point to future ones. I guess Mr. Spice never read the Cultural Report.

Since my name is mentioned in the thread, I will reply.

donsig, you are correct, many of the issues Mr. Spice addressed were at the heart of me losing interest in the game, though I do come back weekly to check on my beloved PDX.

I think the downfall of this process is the combination of turn chat based decision making along with no useable updates or narrative to describe for the citizens the current status of their nation.

I DO NOT condemn anyone in the cabinet, most specifically Grey Fox and Eyrei, for this situation. I think our fundamental model is flawed for participation by anyone other than those who can attend a turn chat.

There have been multiple instances in the short history of our nation where small poll results have been effected by lobbying during game chat, and the well reasoned thought that went into the posts in a department's thread are ignored. I do think that people get tired of investing the effort in something they do not control.

I think anyone who wasn't at the chat, would find that the chat log itself is relatively worthless as a tool for keeping up. This results in even less understanding of the situation. I don't expect our President to do this himself necessarily, but it is an important part of the game. Without the history of the game and events, what exactly are we simulating here?

I do find that the us vs. them mentality pervades many an organization no matter that it be online or in person. I am disheartened by Grey Fox's recent comment in this thread that citizen's discussions should be shunted off to a different thread and only referenced via a link. Such URL links are easily ignored as our fine officials decide for themselves what to do, usually justified by "time constraints" or the "nature of the changing game".

For me, the bottom line question remains the same from the one I posted in the thread discussing pop rushing. Is this a game where we are watching Grey Fox and Eyrei play it out in the most expiditious way? Or, are we simulating a democracy, where yes, sometimes going back to the people is a pain in the butt, but guess what, that is your job? (okay, sorry, run on question there).

If it is the former, then by all means, get out of the way, as Grey Fox and Eyrei are both better players than myself. If it is a democracy game, then lets focus on playing it.

Just my two cents....not intended as a flame or personal attack.

Bill
Who was Trade Leader when we had only enemies to trade with...

A citizen: "ideally I'd love it if there were 2 or 3 sticky threads to follow which contained all the actual "news": what decisions were made (turn and organizational), what happened in turns; then one other place which contained all the "game" decisions and associated polls, so I could visit just the bits that I wanted,

Good idea!

ChiefPaco: citizens should be included in spot polls

No, this would put more power into the hands of the people who can attend turn chats compared to those who can't. :(

ChiefPaco: As part of the cabinet, I don't feel I'm controlling the game any more than I did when I was a citizen.

In the Trade Department thread, most of the decisions are discussed by Chieftess, myself and other government officials. This would be fine except that we're not even getting input from the citizens forum from ordinary citizens! So I find it difficult to implement the wishes of the people but easy to implement the wishes of the government! So maybe Mr. Spice does have a valid point in that citizens do not have enough power to influence the game. This is called a demogame, not a government-controlled civ game.

ChiefPaco: we may need to take some power away from the advisors.

I agree with this. POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!! :hammer: :hammer: :hammer:

I always vote and am I a regular poster and reader, but I must say all the bickering has really turned me off lately. Claims of corrupt, power-hungry leaders are ridiculous, IMO. Who would actually try to take over something like this? If one wanted to do that, they would play their own game where they can be a dictator. I think everyone is just trying to do their best for Phoenatica. I don't know of anything here that is 'unfair'. I see a lot of posts where someone is accused of one thing or another, but rarely do I also see supporting evidence. It is not fun to see reams of posts with debates about leaders. I want us to just try and play the game. We have votes on all major issues between turns. During turns the representatives vote. That's what they are there for. IF the people have a problem, then don't vote for that leader.

I'm not sure that I will have much to say that hasn't already been said, and it has been a long day for me, so this may not make as much sense as I would like, but I feel that I should express my opinions regarding the concerns expressed by many of our citizens.

First, I had no experience with the Civ2 Demo Game, except to read a few of the threads when they first started talking about this Civ3 game, so I can't compare this game with that. I do remember the points Bill_In_PDX raised about the objectives of this Democracy game during the great pop-rushing debates, and perhaps that is an area that we should discuss in more depth. I am not sure that most of us do have a common understanding of the "goals" or purpose of this game, just a vague sense of how, not why.

I looked at it as an opportunity to play a cooperative game, with different people contributing ideas, experience, and strategies to come up with a result that would be more interesting than a solo game, combined with some elements of roleplaying. I agree that it does not make for the most efficient way of playing the game, but I still think we are all trying to suggest efficient strategies in the game.

As for the issues of citizen power, I think that the power of any citizen is a reflection of the amount of involvement in posting on the threads. If you look at most of our recent additions to the cabinet, such as the new governors and deputies, they were citizens who posted frequently, and therefore recieved nominations. Even Donsig, the leader of our loyal opposition, was recommended for Deputy Domestic Leader, primarily because his many passionate posts showed he was interested and involved in the game.

From this respect, the game rather accurately reflects the real operation of most modern democracies, in that an individual citizen will have only a limited ability to influence legislation or officials, but activists who consistently get involved in issues will be able to get elected first to local office, then move on to national positions. I have seen several posts about "government conspiracies", and frankly I think some of it is unfair. We are only half way through our second term, as more governorships come up and we have more elections, I think you will see a greater accessibility to government positions. I did not even know most of the cabinet members when I joined our nation, but by consistent posting and involvement in different threads, I have gotten to know many people in our nation, and I do believe everyone is trying to do what they feel is best for our nation.

Two points that definitely do need to be addressed are the turn summaries, and the relationship between the turn chats and the forum threads. I subscribe to all official threads, and try to read through all new threads, usually checking the board at least 3 times a day, and I still have trouble figuring out what happened when I miss a turn chat. I would love to be able to say that the new Phoenatican Weekly Standard will solve all this (shameless plug), but it won't, and isn't even intended to. Maybe we need to create a new position for National Press Secretary to attend the chats and post a summary.

Second, the turn chat. Again, it seems that people have different opinions about what the turn chat is supposed to accomplish and/or represent. I thought that most issues were to be decided prior to the turn chat, that is what the official threads and polls are for. Then, the chat is to implement them, and react as needed to events in the game. It sounds as though some think that rather than specific instructions, we should put forth general guidlines, and the president implements those as he sees fit. However, by my understanding of the constitution, the President does not have the power to override a Minister without a cabinet vote. Actually, the president does not have much power after all in our current system. He/she must implement the instructions of the ministers.

Then again, the ministers are supposed to be acting in the will of the people, as expressed in the polls and threads. I am not sure what level of detail this is supposed to to take. Do we poll for every decision, or just the major/controversial ones? Should a governor open a poll for every city to develop a build queue? Or present a slate of builds, and ask for a vote? Or present their recommendations, and if there is no objections, it becomes policy? The last is basically how the U.S. Federal Government issues regulations (Whether or not the U.S. Government is the BEST model for a Democracy is another topic, but it certainly is a recognizable one). If the first choice is the case, I am probably as guilty as anyone, because I generally make my recommendations after analysis, and have only gone to polls when I think the decision will have a major impact or generate debate.

Meanwhile, I think I have rambled on enough, but I want to take whatever steps we can to encourage the participation of all our citizens, and I think it begins with a better common understanding of what we are trying to accomplish/simulate. The turn summary issue is certainly one that we must address immediately, regardless of how the other issues are decided, that is one of the responsibilities of any form of government. (Maybe we were just waiting for the printing press?). The turn chat issue requires more discussion, but is probably more central to the long-term direction of the game.

I agree with Mr. Spice on one point, the turn chats are on a difficult time(realy late in some timezones), which makes it difficult for many citizens to participate, the result is that those citizens do not get to influence as much. But who can you blame, the sun?

Secondly, I don´t like the "we are better than you" feeling about this game, ie the division between goverment officials and "mere" citizens.
What is this? As a "mere" citizen I strongly object to these accusations. I feel it`s quite the opposite, the president, military leader and practicly all other elected officials answear and show great interest in the peoples opinions. I wish the governing of Norway(where I live) was close to half as democratic as Phoenatica.

I feel a citizen can greatly influence the game. Just a couple of days ago I opened a thread concerning our military,I got a huge response and the military leader(Falcon02) even started a poll where the citizens could decide whetever to change our defences or not.

I think that the design of the game is not flawed, but that circumstances have made it very difficult to implement. We have a lot of territory and a lot of cities. Our territory is so large that it will not fit in one screenshot anymore. This is certainly to our benefit as a nation, but the larger a nation gets , the harder it is to govern. One of the reasons so many things are decided during the turn chat, is because they were not addressed in the forum or were not obvious in the forum. The turn instructions threads should help immensely here, and may clear up other problems as well.

Originally posted by eyrei
I think that the design of the game is not flawed, but that circumstances have made it very difficult to implement. We have a lot of territory and a lot of cities. Our territory is so large that it will not fit in one screenshot anymore. This is certainly to our benefit as a nation, but the larger a nation gets , the harder it is to govern. One of the reasons so many things are decided during the turn chat, is because they were not addressed in the forum or were not obvious in the forum. The turn instructions threads should help immensely here, and may clear up other problems as well.

I think this fact is the fundamental flaw with the game :lol:

It's not anyone's willfull mishandling of the situation, it is the reality of the game. If we are successful, then the nation will be big quite quickly.

I think we have to take power away from the turn chats and move it to the forums again. I know that makes the game go slow, but this game is pretty much at the assured victory stage already, and it is only a month and half old.

So we will run into these very same problems in the near future with CIII - Demo2 and so on.

Obviously other disagree, as noted in this thread, but I decided to answer the question posed, and my answer is that since I cannot attend a turn chat in the middle of my workday, I cannot keep up with the game because the major decisions are being made in chat, the only description of what is going on happens during chat, and there is no useful after the event history and description of our situation, I cannot stay involved with what is going on in Phoenetia, let alone remain engaged.

It has evolved into a game where basically those who can make it, meet to chat and play collaborative game.

That's not a bad thing by the way, probably very rewarding for those who's time zones meet the prerequisets. But that collaborative game is not in my opinion what this game set out to be.

Just my .02 US$

Bill

Bill, I do not understand your points. I would like to go a bit deeper in your points, to see why I don't understand.

Originally posted by Bill_in_PDX ...I cannot keep up with the game because the major decisions are being made in chat, the only description of what is going on happens during chat, and there is no useful after the event history and description of our situation, I cannot stay involved with what is going on in Phoenetia, let alone remain engaged.

Perhaps you would like to give an example of a major decision that was made during the chat that was not discussed on the forum beforehand or covered by departmental policy. Maybe this happened before the turn instruction threads were introduced? I think the turn is implemented as closely to these as possible. The policies and decisions are open for debate between turns. Did we once go on in a game where we should have stopped? Did we once go against our plans where emergency did not call for it? I don't see how it would be any different if it were just the President playing the game.

I agree with you the forum could be better organized in the summation of our events.

Originally posted by Bill_in_PDX It has evolved into a game where basically those who can make it, meet to chat and play collaborative game.

Again, I don't see the reasoning here. I think turn chats exist so that the President may share the game with anyone interested in seeing the game as it progresses. If we did away with the turn chats, the game isn't collaborative anymore, and is even more exclusive, because then President then owns the game. If you're implying that turn chats are an excuse for officials to not design policies & procedures between turns, then that would be a point, yet I do not see a specific case of it happening.

Originally posted by Bill_in_PDX That's not a bad thing by the way, probably very rewarding for those who's time zones meet the prerequisets. But that collaborative game is not in my opinion what this game set out to be.

Perhaps you'd like to say what you envision our game to be? I'm not disagreeing with you, but saying why I don't see it the same way & why I don't understand your reasoning. If you have some evidence to support some of your statements, I will certainly back you.

Originally posted by chiefpaco
Perhaps you would like to give an example of a major decision that was made during the chat that was not discussed on the forum beforehand or covered by departmental policy. Maybe this happened before the turn instruction threads were introduced? I think the turn is implemented as closely to these as possible.

I believe there was much discussion in the first term regarding city builds, military deployments, and plans that were overridden during the turn chat. Perhaps the new turn instructions have addressed that, but I can't tell because I can't find a summary of what is happening in the game :D

Again, I don't see the reasoning here. I think turn chats exist so that the President may share the game with anyone interested in seeing the game as it progresses. If we did away with the turn chats, the game isn't collaborative anymore, and is even more exclusive, because then President then owns the game. If you're implying that turn chats are an excuse for officials to not design policies & procedures between turns, then that would be a point, yet I do not see a specific case of it happening.

There are actually numerous examples of it from term 1, including an instance where those in attendance at chat were encouraged to go vote immediately in a new poll set up on a very short notice basis. But a recent example of progress is illustrative. It involved Shaitan (who has done remarkable work in this government), who was proposing an agreement with China, and that agreement was soundly defeated opposed in the thread...you chiefpaco being one of the stronger voices, yet he casually mentioned in the thread that oh, if we aren't doing a ROP, I'll give them gpt, which launched another discussion.

In the past, that casual mention would have simply occured in chat, and if the opposition to Eyrei, GF, and Shaitan cannot attend, then the deal goes through. I am very glad Shaitan brought that up, even if it was inadvertant, because it does show progress, and perhaps my comments are too term one focused.

My whole point in that direction is that turn chat directly and indirectly encourages the decision making to occur at chat, and the leader can always fall back on the usual reasons for doing so.

Perhaps there is no way to address the issue. But if the President executes the plans in private and reports back on the results and status, that actually opens the game more in my eyes compared to the current method. How does the CIVII game do it I wonder?

Perhaps you'd like to say what you envision our game to be? I'm not disagreeing with you, but saying why I don't see it the same way & why I don't understand your reasoning. If you have some evidence to support some of your statements, I will certainly back you.

I envisioned the game to be more thread based and perhaps a bit slower because of that. I observed a lot of what was happening in the CIV2 game and thought it would be fun to do here. But without a understanding of what is happening in our nation, it is difficult to remain involved.

Hope that helps
Bill

to get it right on the point:
we need a turn-chat summary...?

well, gf did it in the first term in the presidential thread. maybe that idea should really be implemented. a turn-thread where the major actions are summarized in words rather than a chat-log.
(i think this is also a proposal in the forum-redesign thread in the main civ3-demo-forum).

right?

Originally posted by Bill_in_PDX


I envisioned the game to be more thread based and perhaps a bit slower because of that. I observed a lot of what was happening in the CIV2 game and thought it would be fun to do here. But without a understanding of what is happening in our nation, it is difficult to remain involved.

Hope that helps
Bill

Good point. I think the game is a bit TOO forum based.

1. There's just too many forums to look at (it's hard to guess where the important discussions are currently taking place)

2. The turn chats take place a bit quick now. With all of these forums (and there's other stuff on this board - SGs, tourny, GOTM), that it's hard to absorb everything and reply, while doing a half dozen other things. I think the turn chats should be atleast 3-4 days, if not only on the weekends. It might get better in the summer (it looks like most players are high school/college age).

i just posted in the president's forum to let our president get this ideas noticed. i made a proposal there to solve this issue compiled from other threads, and i hope i did it right...
Proposal Post in President's Thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=285869&t=7213#post285869)

I was severly tempted to let this issue drop, but have decided to give it another try. The reason why you are loosing players is that quite many people find this game boring, or at least I think we can safely asume that is the reason. Why is it boring? Well, from now on I can only speak for myself, but I believe my opinions are shared by a significant number of those who decided to leave. Judging by this thread they are even shared by some people who have stayed.

Why did I join in the first place? Because I wanted a chance to play a game of Civ 3 together with other people. The Civ 2 demo game was fun and I thoght it would be nice to move on to Civ 3, a game that I appreicate even more. I was expecting everyone to participate in dicsussions and decisions equally. I expected a chance to voice my opinion at the same conditions as everyone else. Just to make things clear, I did not expect all decisions to be in agreement with mine, that is neither possible nor desireable.

What did I find? I found a game where some people´s opinions mattered more than others. Some decisions were taken solely by the ministers instead of by all citizens in equal discussions. Lots of decisions were taken on the turn chats, solely by the people who happened to live in proper time zones. I also found that some discussions were meant exlusively for ministers. Sure, they did tolerate a few incursions from ordinary citizens, but ideally the government threads were supposed to be "clean from noice", ie citizen comments. The "noice" was then supposed to take place in different threads, that the ministers promised to read closely. How noble.

As a citizen I was expected to discuss things with other citizens, while the important discussions took place elsewhere. The citizen groups served as such threads, but I once saw someone being told to bugger of because he was no member of that group. (I don´t remember what group, who it was or who told him to beat it unless he was a member. It is also not important.) I was also supposed to vote in polls, as this would somehow ensure my influence of the game. Doing so was even stated as my "duty". Voting in polls is not my idea of fun, and neither is watching others play. I want to participate in discussions, speak my own mind, have the same chance to influence decisions as everyone else. I am not looking for a chance to simulate the political system of some western democracy, I am looking for an opportunity to play a game together with other people. I want to reach decisions together with everyone else by the use of discussions, not stand by and watch other people make decisions for me. (Disclaimer: I realize though that sometimes polls are needed to settle matters when there is huge disagreement.)

I have not been here for a very long time, but just read a small number of active threads here. It seems as if citizens have not been allowed to speak during the chats, because the "noice" they create will make it harder to play the game. Apparantly you have decided to change that, because now citizens are allowed to "speak when asked to" by the officials. As far as I understand citizens are still not allowed to speak when they want to themselves. I am the first one to admit that lots of people in a chat makes it very confusing. This is another reason why you would be wise to drop the chats. They obviosly are not suited for equal discussions.

There is a fundamental conflict between the turn chats and forum decisions. Chats are bound to be restricted to a small group of people, not only because of the time-zone problem but because they guickly get out of hand with too many participants. I you keep the chats you will by necessity make it impossible for everyone to make decisions by open discussions, in which every one get the opportunity to speak their mind. I can safely say not many people would settle for listening and voting. If listening and voting are your options, you will defenitely loose interest and find something better to do, just as so many people already have. It is no coincidence that most people who left didn´t have official positions.

The turn chats have to be dropped. Reforms such as allowing people to speak when called for will make no difference. They have to be dropped completely. Doing so is the only way to ensure all participants in this game access to all discussions and decisions. This in turn is the only way to make the game interesting even for non-officials.

Please note that I don´t accuse anyone of being power-hungry or manipulating. I am sure all ministers perform their work with the best intentions and to the best of their ability. :)

Edit: A number of mispellings

Originally posted by Mr Spice

What did I find? I found a game where some people´s opinions mattered more than others. Some decisions were taken solely by the ministers instead of by all citizens in equal discussions. Lots of decisions were taken on the turn chats, solely by the people who happened to live in proper time zones. I also found that some discussions were meant exlusively for ministers. Sure, they did tolerate a few incursions from ordinary citizens, but ideally the government threads were supposed to be "clean from noice", ie citizen comments. The "noice" was then supposed to take place in different threads, that the ministers promised to read closely. How noble.

Just to make it clear. At the outset, The Duck of Flanders explained that he wanted the ministers to make most of the decisions, to speed the game up, and make it less likely to collapse. None of us having played the Civ2 game, we had nothing else to go on, so we followed these instructions. No offense, Duck, I do not think it was a bad idea for the reasons you gave. We might have tried it the other way first, I guess, but it was very successful in that the game got off to a very strong start at a very good pace.

As a citizen I was expected to discuss things with other citizens, while the important discussions took place elsewhere.

Almost all discussion has taken place in the citizens sub forum for the last couple weeks. The departmental threads mainly contain information and proposals by the leaders, to be discussed in other threads so that these sticky threads do not become 400 pages long.

I have not been here for a very long time, but just read a small number of active threads here. It seems as if citizens have not been allowed to speak during the chats, because the "noice" they create will make it harder to play the game. Apparantly you have decided to change that, because now citizens are allowed to "speak when asked to" by the officials. As far as I understand citizens are still not allowed to speak when they want to themselves. I am the first one to admit that lots of people in a chat makes it very confusing. This is another reason why you would be wise to drop the chats. They obviosly are not suited for equal discussions.

There is a fundamental conflict between the turn chats and forum decisions. Chats are bound to be restricted to a small group of people, not only because of the time-zone problem but because they guickly get out of hand with too many participants. I you keep the chats you will by necessity make it impossible for everyone to make decisions by open discussions, in which every one get the opportunity to speak their mind. I can safely say not many people would settle for listening and voting. If listening and voting are your options, you will defenitely loose interest and find something better to do, just as so many people already have. It is no coincidence that most people who left didn´t have official positions.

The turn chats have to be dropped. Reforms such as allowing people to speak when called for will make no difference. They have to be dropped completely. Doing so is the only way to ensure all participants in this game access to all discussions and decisions. This in turn is the only way to make the game interesting even for non-officials.

I agree that it would be wise to drop the chats. We would have to make sure that all instructions are made clear, and the president would need to post a detailed summary afterwards. (Note: This has nothing to do with my not being able to attend the last few chats. That situation is supposedly being corrected as I am at work today.)


Please note that I don´t accuse anyone of being power-hungry or manipulating. I am sure all ministers perform their work with the best intentions and to the best of their ability. :)



We have tried. I for one have also wished for a greater involvement in discussion by citizens.

A common thought here is to extend the time between turns to give more chances for discussion, analyses, etc. I'm definitely on this boat. It's very difficult to analyze the save game and post suggestions for the next turn in time to get responses and refine the plan. This last chat being a day late helped greatly for me.

We're going to a fixed schedule for turn chats. With our nominal 2 day time frame that would be 3 games per week. If we went with 2 games per week (Saturday/Tuesday for example) we would have 3 or 4 days to analyze, discuss and refine. What do you folks think of this idea?

I want to clarify something that Bill said.

It involved Shaitan (who has done remarkable work in this government), who was proposing an agreement with China, and that agreement was soundly defeated opposed in the thread...you chiefpaco being one of the stronger voices, yet he casually mentioned in the thread that oh, if we aren't doing a ROP, I'll give them gpt, which launched another discussion.

In the past, that casual mention would have simply occured in chat, and if the opposition to Eyrei, GF, and Shaitan cannot attend, then the deal goes through. I am very glad Shaitan brought that up, even if it was inadvertant, because it does show progress, and perhaps my comments are too term one focused.
The ROP had 2 dissenters out of 8 respondents so I kept that in the turn instructions. When the dissention came up I updated the plan with a contingency to do a small tribute instead of the ROP if more dissenters showed that the ROP was not popular with the majority. This was an official update to the plan and labeled as such, not an inadverdant mention of it. This was done specifically to get this information to the readers and get feedback on it.

The reason I'm clarifying this is because I was really hoping that the way the Foreign Affairs office and thread is being run would be called out as an example of organization and citizen inclusion.

Originally posted by Mr Spice
As a citizen I was expected to discuss things with other citizens, while the important discussions took place elsewhere. The citizen groups served as such threads, but I once saw someone being told to bugger of because he was no member of that group. (I don´t remember what group, who it was or who told him to beat it unless he was a member. It is also not important.)

The turn chats have to be dropped. Reforms such as allowing people to speak when called for will make no difference. They have to be dropped completely. Doing so is the only way to ensure all participants in this game access to all discussions and decisions. This in turn is the only way to make the game interesting even for non-officials.

Please note that I don´t accuse anyone of being power-hungry or manipulating. I am sure all ministers perform their work with the best intentions and to the best of their ability. :)


I was the one who who told someone to 'bugger off' in so many words in the 'Save our Citizens' thread. I started that thread and asked those opposed to rushing under despotism to post there. In hind sight I can see that what I really wanted from that thread was a petition I could present to the government showing how many people were against that issue. A petition thread isn't such a bad idea now that I think of it but such a thread would also have to be 'clean' to be useful, right? This all leads to the idea of specialized threads (some with special rules), which we've been floundering towards. The reason for these special threads is to enhance communication.

I'm beginning to see communication (or the lack thereof) as the reason most decisions are made in the turn chat. If this is so then doing away with turns chats will not solve the problem. That will just end up with the person running the game playing the game. We need a mechanism for making decisions and then communicating those decisions to whoever procces the turns.

Sounds like we need a government. It doesn't matter if we all get together in the forums, the turn chat or you all come over to my house to play the game. Either way we need some organization and order or else we'll never be able to make a collective decision on a game issue. And the more people trying to be in on that decision the more complex the organization and order must become if we seek to let everyone in on the decision making process equally.

Mr. Spice also said the game is boring since there is not much to do. Well, what do you want to do Mr. Spice? Tell us. I sympathize with you. We have some young people in this game and I envy them because they're having fun making maps and web sites for their provinces. I feel like I'm working not having fun.

I've stuck with it this far because I, too, like the idea behind the demo game. I've put considerable energy into how our 'government' should be organized in the hopes that a second demo game will be enjoyable since many of the kinks would be worked out.

As for turn chats, they could be done away with. The last three were marathon events of 4 to 5 hours each. Most of this time was taken up doing pre-trun stuff. 'Pre-turn stuff' consists of things like trades and build queues. etc that had supposedly been decided upon in the forums. It should be a very mechanincal process of simply following forum instructions. It has been a long and frustrating search for those instructions and is only now becoming bearable because of the turn chat instructions thread. Once the pre-turn is done the actual processing of turns goes quickly.
Perhaps we need a two step process for playing the turns. Issues are discussed in the forums, choices made and instruction thread written. Someone then downloads the sav and processes the instructions noted any that can't be followed and why. That person then saves the games without processing a turn, uploads it and posts a report in forum. The only 'new' debates would center around instructions that couldn't be implemented. Once that is resolved and everyone is happy that the President has his instructions for what may lie ahead then he or she can go ahead and play ten turns, save, post, summarize and begin the cycle again.

I can see now that the main reason for wanting the turn chats done away with is to remove the time constraints. With no turn chats we don't need a turn chat time, turn chat notice, etc. For this very reason we should find a way to play without turn chats.

Good job Mr. Spice!:goodjob:

Donsig and I agree on something!:eek: We should beware cataclysmic events! Seriously, I definately like your proposal. I think we could even slow the game down to where we only play turns on the weekend. On Wednesday, we could implement the 'turn 0' instructions, and then debate what to do about those that couldn't be carried out. On Saturday, all additional instructions are posted, and the president plays the game on Sunday, at whatever time is best for him/her.

Originally posted by donsig
Perhaps we need a two step process for playing the turns. Issues are discussed in the forums, choices made and instruction thread written. Someone then downloads the sav and processes the instructions noted any that can't be followed and why. That person then saves the games without processing a turn, uploads it and posts a report in forum. The only 'new' debates would center around instructions that couldn't be implemented. Once that is resolved and everyone is happy that the President has his instructions for what may lie ahead then he or she can go ahead and play ten turns, save, post, summarize and begin the cycle again.
I've been thinking of something along these lines myself but keep hitting obstacles. Let me share the working proposal and what I need help fixing.

Place a 2-3 hour before the chat deadline on turn 0 orders.
The Pres (or Designated Player) does all of the build queues, deals, etc that are possible and writes up a quick summary of anything that went wierd (pretty much like what Donsig said above) and what monies were spent.
At chat time the DP puts the wierdness log out to the chat room (so it's part of the chat log) and has everything ready to go for clicking the next turn button.

The biggest problem I see is figuring the DP. We'd need a deadline for playing turn 0 just like we have for starting the game in the chat turn so the Chain of Command could be invoked to get someone playing if the Pres is delayed or absent.

Next topic
I like the press secretary idea as well. Having one person in the chat room writing up a synopsis (like the turn logs in the SG games) while the game is going on sounds like an excellent solution. The synopsis wouldn't need to be verbose. A brief description of activities taken and deals struck would be fine.

All three of us like the same idea? If Cyc likes this too then I'm going to hide under my desk for the rest of the day. :lol:

Originally posted by donsig

I was the one who who told someone to 'bugger off' in so many words in the 'Save our Citizens' thread.

As honest as that confession is, it is not the event I was refering to. I remember seeing that thread of yours and did consider it as the petition you meant it to be. :)

Mr. Spice also said the game is boring since there is not much to do. Well, what do you want to do Mr. Spice? Tell us.

Sure. I´d like to discuss actions and events with the rest of you, without feeling superflous because of the turn chats. (Didn´t I mention that in my last post?) I am not at all acing for some position, since my governor job in the Civ 2 demo game takes all my time and some more. I would sure appreciate some good turn summaries. If you drop the chats, writing summaries should no longer prove a problem. (The president could then play the game and write summaries at times of his own choice, it doesn´t have to be 5 am in the morning.)

About the government stuff, I´d like to make some suggestions here as well if you don´t mind. :) We have managed to get a very smooth system in the Civ 2 game, and I feel it would be mean of me not to share it with you. The basics are similar to yours and this is what we do:

1. President plays some turns, writes a summary and provides a saved game. (You should see Kev´s summaries, they are really a piece of art. Let me provide you with a link to the latest one (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?threadid=22628). :) )

2. The president posts information on when he expects to play the next few turns. This is often two or three days later, sometimes even more depending on his schedule. We have no rules on how often sessions are needed, but end up with two or three each week. There has to be some time between the sessions for proper discussions, so less than two days is out of the question.

3. Ministers and governors initiate discussions about their area of expertice. The science advisor suggests a plan for the next few technologies to choose, the military advisor makes some suggestions about how to procede on different fronts, governors suggest build ques etc. You know the drill. :D Discussions follow and are ideally concentrated to one thread for each issue and one for each province. If there is huge disagreement we have a poll, but mostly that is not needed.

4. Since the president participates in all discussions, he has good knowledge on what is agreed upon. (We don´t seem to need anything like that turn instruction thread you speak of, but you still have more participants than we so it might be a good idea here.)

5. The president plays the next turns and tries to carry through what was agreed upon in the forum. When new things happen he has the mandate to deal with those issues as he sees fit. Should it happen something very important, he stops the game and returns to the forum. He has a broad mandate to postpone or even change build ques if the situation demands it. Where to draw the line is ultimately up to his judgement, but should the rest of us notice that he crosses the line of what we think is acceptable then he will be replaced extremely quickly. Of course there is a delicate balance here, but so far it has proven to be no problem.

This works extremely well for us, even though we have 42 cities and are at war on two or three different fronts at the same time. There is almost no confusion about what is happening and what we are doing. All participants have equal say in all matters except of course for the president. This can not be avoided, since it is impossible to forsee all events and plan everything in complete detail. But giving a broad mandate for the president to act upon has still proven to be much better than turn chats.

We do have less players than you do (about 10 active), because of the massive exodus that almost killed us around the time when the Civ 3 game was started. Unfortunately it seems as if those who left are gone forever, no matter what improvements are done thereafter. (This is another reason for you to act now, before you loose more players, btw.) Anyway, this means that all that suits us does not necessary have work here. And I am not suggesting you should do everything just like us, consider what I have written as mere suggestions. Although they are "battle-proven". :)

Another benefit of removing the turn chat is that it would almost always be the president playing the game, as the hours will be entirely up to him/her. We have had a different person play the game the last two weeks, and while I think they have done a good job, they were not necessarily elected to play the game. We should also play fewer turns each time, in my opinion, as this would reduce the chances of unforseen events occuring.

Mr. Spice, I think one of the reasons you have an easier time getting general consensus is that civ2 is a simpler game, where the best strategies to deal with any given situation have been tested over and over. Civ3 strategies are not as well established, and it is more complicated in many ways.

Your are probably right about the conscensus regarding Civ 2 strategies and that there will most surely be more disagreement here. Still, I believe you could use (and are in fact already using) most of the procedure used by us if you decide so. Maybe you need more polls to settle disagreements though. Well, getting rid of the turn chat is the most important change you can make. Once you do that you will most surely work the rest out for the best, whatever path you choose to take. :)

I am reading this and not believing a lot of it. Again, I do not know where the accusation that many decisions have been made at the turn chats. Perhaps I am nieve. Perhaps I did not pay close enough attention to last term. I do not belive it is happening now. I don't mean to disupte that maybe it happened before, because enough people have claimed it to be so. However, I do not believe it has happened recently, perhaps as a result of the spreading concern by our citizens and cabinet members (who are well represented in this thread).

If the new voice rules include "only when asked", I believe that should be changed. I don't think that was the intention of the motion, perhaps a remnant of a rough draft, because I do not support that.

However, I do not see the chat detracting from the experience of the game, only enriching. I have now attended the last few chats, even played the last turn. Let me give you an idea of what goes on, because it seems very few people come out. In fact, very few cabinet members have been able to make it lately (shown by the fact that I was next in the CoC when the Pres & Trade Advisor could not play), so I can not see how they are to blame for making decisions in chat when they are not there. 0 non-cabinet members participated in last night's chat, despite the fact they were encouraged to attend. The game was basically me, a deputy, & 2 cabinet members coming in later. See the chat log for the evidence.

Preturn. 1 hour. Figuring out who is playing. People coming in & dropping out. Some people disappearing or "away from keyboard". This has been a bit messy lately, perhaps because of the business of our President outside the game has forced others into playing, & a lack of organization & familiarity of our part being the player of the game over all.

Turn 0. 2 hours. Going over the turn instructions thread. Making triple sure everything is followed as best as possible.

Turns 1-10. 2 hours. Verifying the build queues were entered right. Shuffling troops & workers around. Hit space bar 10 times.

We had small discussions last night on which no policy existed. For example, should we sell tech to other civs who could pay for it? We did not, because we would not dare face accusations that we did actions during chat. But, our window of oppportunity for these deals would not come up between turns for our citizens to discuss. What to do? Stop the game for a tech deal?

Another example, we have towns outside of anyone's province. What to build there? What do we do? Stop the game & have a vote? No, we chug on.

Which town should the workers improve next?, etc, etc...

My point is that the decisions in the game arise when we are unprepared for events however insignificant. Collectively, we can not prepare for all scenarios. Who makes these decisions in our game now? Well, now it is made by the people who attend the chat. A small minority of the citizens who participate in the game. Who made these decisions before? Just the President. Sounds like to me, the previous system was before more of a Dictatorship than this Democracy.

If the Chinese had declared war, we would have definitely stopped. If they had threatened us, we would have gone over the Foreign & Military policies, & used them to justify our actions. If a worker finishes irrigating by NY, the player just moves it to the next town. My point is, I have not seen major violations recently, but only benefits of having more people there to come up with the best decisions on minor details. We built a settler & did not know where to put it, so we walked it to Philadelphia to be settled by the citizens before the next turn.

I like the turn chats. They enhance the game experience for me. I have a bit of a say on each point that is not covered by policy or procedure, where I would not get that chance before. If you don't like to turn out & sit through the 5 hours, that may be personal preference. For those that gave up, I encourage you to come back, because I do not believe major decisions are made there any more. I think all the advisors have learned not to make the chat room a platform for their proposals. Moreso, if it does happen in the future, I will stand with you in accusing the guilty parties. Getting rid of the chats will get 5 hours of my life back to me every other night or so, so if they were abolished, I guess it would not be all that bad...

Changing gears, I will stand behind the motion that the preturn be played beforehand, with the wierdness log attached. I also think, because of our bigger empire & more decisions, 3 days between turns should now be standard. I am also for the new turn organizational threads.

Bravo chiefpaco. I was not going to reply, but that was a very moving post you wrote. I agree with you all the way.

Mr. Spice, your points are strong and accurate, but there is nothing like the experience of a well played turn chat. You have a very good game going in the Civ2 Forum. It is very well done. It is only played by 10? people and is only battle proven the same length of time as this glorious game. This game has many more participants (at this point I would like to thank Red Rain for attending last night's chat), so different approaches have to be examined. Weekend turns with 0 turn days is one that should be examined before we cut off our hand because we misspelled a word.

Ending chats would seriously hurt our culture. Rave on chiefpaco. I admire your enthusiasm.

I'm with Cyc and chiefpaco. I don't get to most chats (in fact it's about 1 per term) but I enjoy struggling through the logs. They show a lot of interaction between citizens and really help define the likes and dislikes of the participants. I've come to know and trust a lot of Phoenatics by learning about them as a voyeur.

I think part of what Mr Spice is trying to say is that if someone cannot attend the chats, they are left out of the game for the most part.

If you don't attend the chats, then you don't have an idea of what's going on, if you don't have an idea of what's going on, it is hard to try and vote on polls, if you don't vote in the polls, then there's not really anything else for regular citizens to do.

I would hope that chat logs would help with that, but trying to read through them on your own is kinda tedious and doesn't have the same 'feel' as actually being there when it first happened. Maybe the idea of a general turn summary being done can help with that.....?

The problem is that citizens feel outside the game if they cant be at the turn chat I know becouse I have never been to a turn chat ever. Now the game is only fun for people that haves a position in the game or can be at the turn chats regulary. thats why the turn chat shall be taken away, to attract more people. Even I feel that you miss something when you cant attend turn chats.

It would be better if the president get his instructions and follow them and if something major happen he stops the game, and then we can discuss what to do about it, the game would be more slowly, but more intresting when you can find all discussions in the forums. And it would be more equal and time zones would not matter anymore, and all would know the same things, execpt the president who would know more but that cannot be changed. But The president would need to do an extremly detailed summery for this to work.

This is just my opinion

I think there are many good posts here and I do not think we are faced with a choice of keeping turn chats or abandoning them all together. If we can come up with a 'turn 0' turn chat that will allow those who want a turn chat to have one. I really think that the 'turn 0' turn chat would be useful since a coulpe people surfing through the instruction and other threads could be helpful. I would also like to return to a question Shaitan raised earlier about the DP (designated player). I haven't put much thought into this but it would really be nice if each minister could download the game and do his or her own things in pre-turn (subject of course to what has been decided in the forums). For example Shaitan could grab the game and do the FA stuff then repost. Chieftess could grab the game and do the appropriate trade deals, etc. Things to be worked out would be a system so that 2 don't have the game at the same time. I don't know how this would affect the play summary that we want though - I said I haven't thought it through, it's just an idea. The domestic advisor could collect all the governors build queues and do those to reduce the numbers of people handling the game.

Doing away with the turn chats as the main way to play the game is still a good idea though since it would eliminate many problems we have experienced. It need not invalidate the CoC since I still think we need a somewhat regular schedule to keep the game moving. If we go back to the original constitution it stated the rate of play as 10 turns every two days. While we may decide that is too fast and certainly want some flexibility as Mr. Spice has sugested we also want to give our duly elected president a chance to do his job! One last item for timing. With the 20 turn deal time in Civ 3 we can't lock things down as easily as in Civ 2. Right now we are one turn away from some trade deals expiring. Playing 10 turns right now could put our trade leader out of the loop at the wrong time. Once again I haven't thought much of this through so I don't have many suggestions.

Well, I just got back from seeing Episode II so I'm not thinking straight anyway.:crazyeye:

im also pro the chats because they give us non-chatters the feeling of taking part in the game (if we read the log). i think if organized well enough they will be good for the game.

Originally posted by donsig
I haven't put much thought into this but it would really be nice if each minister could download the game and do his or her own things in pre-turn (subject of course to what has been decided in the forums). For example Shaitan could grab the game and do the FA stuff then repost. Chieftess could grab the game and do the appropriate trade deals, etc. Things to be worked out would be a system so that 2 don't have the game at the same time. I don't know how this would affect the play summary that we want though - I said I haven't thought it through, it's just an idea. The domestic advisor could collect all the governors build queues and do those to reduce the numbers of people handling the game.



I have considered this before, and almost asked for permission to download the game and tweak some things (particularly happiness related issues) and then repost it for the president to play. It might work, if we figured out a good way to do it.

this was done before in term1 i think. someone was ordered to do some trade-checking and i think there were even some actions taken.

Originally posted by crabapple
The problem is that citizens feel outside the game if they cant be at the turn chat I know becouse I have never been to a turn chat ever. Now the game is only fun for people that haves a position in the game or can be at the turn chats regulary. thats why the turn chat shall be taken away, to attract more people. Even I feel that you miss something when you cant attend turn chats.

Sorry if I am misinterpreting your opinion here, but I am getting pretty passionate about this issue, as you see.

Are you saying that the chat should be taken away because you can not attend? So, the solution for "only some can attend" is for "no one be allowed to attend"? I'm sorry I see it different. We currently do not consider peoples' opinion if they don't post in the forum. I do not see how the chat room violates this protocol.

Originally posted by crabapple It would be better if the president get his instructions and follow them and if something major happen he stops the game, and then we can discuss what to do about it, the game would be more slowly, but more intresting when you can find all discussions in the forums. And it would be more equal and time zones would not matter anymore, and all would know the same things, execpt the president who would know more but that cannot be changed. But The president would need to do an extremly detailed summery for this to work.

This is just my opinion [/B]

How would this differ if just the President played the game without a chat group? Aren't we doing what you say already, just with a few spectators? All I see the chat group doing is answering the President's questions. I think it does nothing but enriches the game experience to those who can attend.

Honestly, I do not see the connection between using the chatrooms for the player to share the game and the problems we have with citizens trying to follow the game. I also hope Duke's point is not thrown into the anti-chat sentiment. If citizens can't follow the game by reading the summary or chat log, how will getting rid of the chat & therefore chat log help?

Furthermore, I don't think we should be electing a President based on his/her writing skills. As you probably can imagine, coming up with a detailed summary of the game can be a lot of work, but I am not sure the President should be forced into it. Alternatively, if someone at the chat was able to record & summarize the events into a little blurb, we may all be better off. I started it last time, but got pulled into playing the game. I did my best to do a turn summary in the savegame post.

Originally posted by Shaitan
The reason I'm clarifying this is because I was really hoping that the way the Foreign Affairs office and thread is being run would be called out as an example of organization and citizen inclusion. [/B]

I agree with Shaitan, and if my post did not come across as one of noting your good efforts in this area, that would be wrong of me.

I am extremely impressed with the dedication you have shown to this game, and I apologize for the misconception.

My point was intended to be that this was a good example of some progress being made, and that early in term 1 we would have been unlikely to discuss that contingency outside of turn chat.

Bill

Originally posted by chiefpaco
I also hope Duke's point is not thrown into the anti-chat sentiment.

Nope. I'm in no way saying that the chat should stay or leave. I'm just trying to add some understanding to what I read into some posts and what others seem to have alluded to.

It does seem that participation has dropped off severly and something needs to be done to help that; what it is, I don't know. The main reason I am hearing from people as to why they stopped playing was that they lost track of the game and never got back into it.

When i set to create this civIII demo game ,i wanted to change the concept of the democracy because the previous system (the civII system) was to erroneus due to the rather enormous power that was given to the coman people.

The civII game was a lot of fun for the people in the beginning ,but graduatly the leader's lost interest because they laked power and had a lot of work.If this hadn't been changed it would have proven devastating for the game.So i set to change it so that the leader's would have more power ,so that they stay interrested.Rather than vote's for every topic in the civII game ,i wanted a game where the leader's would have gotten most of the power (like in real life) ,and that their action's in their time at a position would be reviewed by the people trough vote's. (like in real life)
And i wanted the game to be able to develop on itself.With leader's that would have made new rule's and changing other's ,organize new democratic system's and applying them ,voicing youre oppinion's about forum change's to us mod's ,basicly organizing thing's youreself ,and making the game also fun for the citizin's.I can try to organize all thing's ,but as my previous work hasn't always been perfect neither i couldn't do a perfect job.
The Democracy game isn't a perfect game yet.Althoug we have (a still going ,check it out!) had a test version of the Demo game ,there is always some need to reform's to make all thing's organized.

I to was in the beginning not in favour of those vhat turn decission making ,but i gave it a try ,as (like i said) i wanted leader's to create theire own addapted system's of organization.
Now that is see the chat instruction thread's ,i can see it evolving to a good system where leader's can organize their decission's were the president can find them ,as thus making the need for in chat decission making less likely.

Now we should work on making the forum more transparent for leader's and citizin's ,as well as creating solitr system's in where a citizin can push trough a decission if he aquire's enough support for it.

There is a lot of work at the forum organization.Clearly the sub forum's have made a lot of thing's confusing ,but the one forum solution isn't perfect neither.
We need to simplefy thing's.

Originally posted by Bill_in_PDX


I agree with Shaitan, and if my post did not come across as one of noting your good efforts in this area, that would be wrong of me.

I am extremely impressed with the dedication you have shown to this game, and I apologize for the misconception.

My point was intended to be that this was a good example of some progress being made, and that early in term 1 we would have been unlikely to discuss that contingency outside of turn chat.

Bill
Thanks, Bill. I apreciate that. :)