Succession Vote Duration - Input Request

ash88

ash88

Hail to the King Baby -DN
Joined
Jun 26, 2009
Messages
352
Location
Castle Merlot
As you know, the House of Merlot is a Total Monarchy. The King has absolute power in game, and the buck stops with the Administrator for all OOC (Out of Character) and OOG (Out of Game) things. One of these Out of Character things is the "Succession Vote."

The Succession Vote is the reoccuring vote that takes place every x turns to be sure that the King has enough power amongst the nobility to hold on to the throne. The Administrator calls for a succession vote like the one here, and the nobility send in their ballots.

In setting up The House of Merlot I decided that 15 turns was a reasonable number, but I also appreciated that this is one of the few issues that I wanted some input on. Afterall, a longer number means a more stable Kingdom but potentially a bad King in power - a shorter number potentially means a Kingdom in Turmoil!

So what I am looking for here is your ideas - over the next 4 days - for how long you would make it between succession votes and (more importantly) why. A good idea supported by few carrys more weight then a bad idea supported by the mindless masses, so make a good argument.

Cheers,
 
Any monarchy that has had an exceptionally bad Sovereign has also had the impending threat of a revolution - so, in my opinion I believe that we should agree upon a set duration of the Kings "lifespan" - but if we have an exceptionally bad Sovereign, we could also agree upon internal intrigues meaning the Sovereign has to surrender the crown due to a revolution within the Royal Court.

15 turns sounds good to me by the way - another thing to be considered: What if the Sovereign decides that "I want the Succession Vote to be extended to X turns instead of the initally agreed upon Y turns!" - this is after all a tyr.. er.. Absolute Monarchy! So .. How would we deal with that?
 
After thinking about this, it doesn't make sense as a monarchy to hold elections every X amount of turns. If the monarch is so terrible that the nobles lead a revolt against him, that should be the only way to remove him unless the monarch appoints another to take his place.

Perhaps the sucession vote is more like a litmus test of the nobles to gauge the popularity of the king. People can message ash "Status Quo" or "Revolt : Support X for leader". Then the admin can announce the results. I also think it shouldnt happen at regular intervals, but need to be started by the nobles themselves. A Group of nobles could PM ash calling for a sucession vote to begin, something along those lines.

Thoughts?
 
Although I agree with you in a true real life Monarchy, in terms of this game I thought long and hard about this and dismissed this idea for a few reasons:

  • A reoccuring vote encourages participation, and it seemed to me that participation was one area that these games tend to fail, so Team Merlot has a lot of aspects which encourage participation.
  • It also breaks up the image that a really good player could construct that he is unassailable - particularly in the later game and as new players join and such - it keeps things fresh and doesn't allow one person to really keep a lock in without really working for it. Sure - they could do it - lock down the Monarchy of Team Merlot for a long time. But they are going to have to work for it. And if they are willing to work for it then we all benefit!
  • From an administration point of veiw it takes care of issues like, "what is 51%?" Is it 51% of all players ever registered to the team? What if half of our players haven't posted since the first week? What do we consider an active player? By having a set defined vote people have to log in, understand and be involved (and care) enough as to what is going on enough to vote, and vote, and all I have to do is count the people that voted without worrying about active players and what not.
  • Time - it has to happen quick if a change over is going to happen because we are accountable to the game for turns. We need to remain competitive.

I'm sure there are more - but overall I think it makes for a funner experience. And yes, we are all here for a Monarchy, but secretly (and only I am allowed to say this in my role as Administrator, because anyone else would be speaking against the King!) Our primary role is to have fun. But you are right. Not holding a vote and waiting for people to overthrow the Monarch would be more realistic.

So with that in mind I'm looking for the most reasonable timeline to hold the succession vote.
 
I believe 15 turns is plenty. :king:

However, perhaps we should give the first king a bit more chance for impact by upping it to 20-25 for his first regime, as little tends to be achieved then outside of the first turn.:)
 
15 is a good number. In the beginning it is enough for one major categorical event (complete agriculter/worker) and then on things speed up but it is a good duration to give people a good "feel" for the game. I feel for this team to be successful many people need to be involved, and the best way is to let them experiance their proper dose of the game. And 15 turns is a good length for that. Later on this could be changed (as it appears everything can) but I could see us holding it til turn 150. Or at least the first 30 turns ... but who am I kidding. Tradition could get uprooted after each and every one.
 
Well unlike a--the word sticks in my mouth--a democracy where the turnplayer might feel the need to step aside out of fairness after his term our King can and should want to cling onto power indefinitely, so the number of turns should just be a minimum to keep the realm stable, with the full expectation of a successful King having multiple turns. That in mind 15 sounds like a good number.
 
15 sounds good to me. Should not lead to too much voting or too little.
 
What are the settings for the game? Is the game speed normal, or something else? I think that also has an impact to how long the term should be.

In my opinion 15 turns seems about right in average for a normal game. I agree that the scale of the things changes quite a lot during the game and there is relatively little to do in the very beginning. However the beginning is also very critical phase of the game and in the ludicrous case the King should be... ahem... found wanting, dare I say, it might be necessary to take measures in as little as 15 turns. All in all, I'd presume 15 turns would be good.

If the term in practice seems too long or too short, should there be any option for changing it? For example unanimous vote of all nobles involved.
 
Aivoturso said:
If the term in practice seems too long or too short, should there be any option for changing it? For example unanimous vote of all nobles involved.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure which question you are asking so I will answer both:

Is there another way to depose (force to leave) a Monarch aside from the 15 turn succession vote?

Yes, there are 2:
  1. If 85% of the registered members of the House of Merlot write the Administrator in a 24 Hour period stating that they wish to "OVERTHROW THE KING" then there is a bloody rebellion in the land and the King is overthrown. This is purposefully hard to do. I don't anticipate that it will ever happen, but it is meant to be an "out" if someone ever gets into power that is purposefully destructive to the House of Merlot. It would mean that many of the people that put him in power inevitably turned around and then actively changed the vote against him. The percentage is so high as to avoid "sore losers" from banding together to overthrow someone who rightfully won a plurality among many candidates.
  2. The Administrator retains the ability to call an early succession vote if he deems that the King is AWOL with no one acting on his behalf or informed to act on his behalf (as King, making certain that at least the Administrator is aware someone is acting on your behalf is a good thing). This is purely at his discretion but the guideline I am using is 2 missed turns. In some cases 2 missed turns may mean total annhilation for our game, and in those cases the Administrator has the flexibility to act more quickly in calling a succession vote.

can the nobility vote to change the 15 turns to some other duration?
This decision isn't ever going to be a poll or a democracy. This will always be strictly a decision made by the Administrator and completely his call. However that doesn't mean that it can't be changed. In the spirit of our team, if you have a good point support it thoughtfully. It doesn't matter how many people support a bad idea, it matters how logically a good idea is supported. The person you need to skillfully convince in terms of the duration of the succession vote is me, the Administrator. And I am willing to be convinced about it.

What are the current biases of the Administrator for the succession vote being changed sometime moving forward in the game?
So far people seem to like 15 turns for many of the same reasons I thought 15 turns was a good number. One idea I hadn't considered was changing the number at some point mid game. With an open mind my preliminary inclination is against this, and here is why:
  1. Simplicity: The simpler we make something the more successful it will be. There is elegance and depth in a simple solution.
  2. Understanding: If we change it at some point we have to make sure people understand it, it has the potential for misunderstanding. This creates the potential for all the bad that comes from people misunderstanding something.
  3. Beauracracy: The more complex something is the more that needs to be done to explain it, reexplain it, correct people about it, and so on. Saying, "Every 15 turns forever" is a lot easier for me to do and understand then trying to explain to people some other shifting pattern.
  4. Favortism: If it is something that is going to change it needs to be set in stone from the beginning so that there is no percieved favourtism down the road. People will be offended - or they will take things the wrong way - no matter how much you explain it to them.

Most importantly, I don't see that there is any benefit that cannot be also accomplished in the current system. I understand the benefit is that during particularly slow times we can potentially give someone a longer period as King, however, the nobility already has the power to do that by simply supporting him for a second 15 turns.

In fact this makes for a very cool and involving Role Playing Opportunity. As an advocate of a King during a "slow time" you can gain support for him by approaching people and suggesting that everyone need more time to get to know the King. This gets people involved.

My final point is more of a gut feeling - I don't believe that the role of king will revolve every 15 turns in any case. I could be entirely wrong on this as I have no foundation to base this on, but I feel that most Kings will have terms that last at least a few succession votes.

Those are my overall thoughts on changing the succession vote somewhere midgame. To sum up: Is it possible? Yes. Does it have benefits? Absolutely. Do the benefits out weigh the negatives? I don't currently see it that way. Can the benefits be gained through a different channel? More or less, and with other benefits.

Cheers.
 
Thanks for the clarification. I meant the second interpretation of my question since the first one was already explained earlier. I completely agree on the point of streamlining everything possible and eliminating as much of voting as possible. This is a Monarchy after all.
 
I am content enough with 15 turn succession vote duration and indeed the possibillity, as has been suggested, if I read it correctly, of that being possible to vary, as all things, later.

On the '85% of registered members writing within a 24 hours period to the Administrator, to overthrow the King', proposal. I wonder should that be extended to a 36 or 48 hour period. Quite simply, the internet or the server could go down or indeed the Administrator could be absent at a crucial time for whatever reasons.

In short reloads happen all the time in PB games, for many legitimate reasons, such as the host having a power outage.
 
Hercules90 said:
On the '85% of registered members writing within a 24 hours period to the Administrator, to overthrow the King', proposal. I wonder should that be extended to a 36 or 48 hour period. Quite simply, the internet or the server could go down or indeed the Administrator could be absent at a crucial time for whatever reasons.

In short reloads happen all the time in PB games, for many legitimate reasons, such as the host having a power outage.
Click to expand...

That's a reasonable idea I will give some serious thought to. It doesn't matter so much if the Administrator is away - he can simply look at the time that the first email is recieved and cut it off 24 hours from then when he next checks his email. However, the idea of giving everyone a fair opportunity to get their email in makes sense, and 48 hours is not a long time. I see lots of positives to increasing that to 48 hours and not many negatives. Fact is if 85% of the registered members of the House of Merlot want to get a King out and are willing to put their name behind it within a 48 hour period that sends a strong message.

I'd be interested in hearing anyone elses thoughts on this one way or the other if anyone has an opinion. As I said before, I doubt it is going to ever happen, but hey - this is all new stuff, so who knows!

One thing I want to mention is that I have the inclination to run with most rules for the full game this time and then make any big changes in the next game. I would rather do that then make lots of changes after the game starts. Lots of reasons for this which I'm sure all of us can reason to equally. Yes, anything game breaking can be changed, but just keep in mind that my inclination is to run the game with a set of rules and then collect feedback after it is done about what to change to make the next one better rather then have this one all over the map with lots of different ideas and rules throughout.

Cheers.
 
ash88 said:
  1. If 85% of the registered members of the House of Merlot write the Administrator in a 24 Hour period stating that they wish to "OVERTHROW THE KING" then there is a bloody rebellion in the land and the King is overthrown. This is purposefully hard to do. I don't anticipate that it will ever happen, but it is meant to be an "out" if someone ever gets into power that is purposefully destructive to the House of Merlot. It would mean that many of the people that put him in power inevitably turned around and then actively changed the vote against him. The percentage is so high as to avoid "sore losers" from banding together to overthrow someone who rightfully won a plurality among many candidates.
Click to expand...


  1. I hope you mean active members and not just registered members. Also, 85% seems excessively high...when was the last time you saw even a plain ole democratic vote secure 85%+ on a nontrivial manner? While I would advocate for a simple supermajority (66%, but nonbinding in itself), considering this is the first game 75% is perfectly fine with me - it's difficult but still very possible to secure 75% of the nobles' votes, with 85% a King can just appease about 15% of the House of Merlot to hold on to power when in reality he has no actual support. :king::crazyeye:
 
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