Yes welcome back everyone and welcome to WastinTime! I'm looking forward to another great game. I might have a little less time in first 6 weeks of this game, but I should be able to carry on as team captain.
I appreciate everyone's reflection on the team process last time that we did via PM.
A few ideas came out of that.
- Implement a 3 phase planning process with a grand strategy plan first.
- Address ways to reduce few members dominating the discussion/game plan\
- Reduce poorly thought out posts
Implementing a 3 part planning process with a grand strategy plan first.
To facilitate the group consensus style of play we had in the last game and to make it easier for active player and the team to be involved I suggest a 3 part planning process for turns starting with the grand strategy.
The grand strategy is the strategy that we currently are pursuing to win the game. It was suggested that we keep the grand strategy on the first page. I'm happy to reserve a space and do that, however I think it is should also be copied and posted again before each turn set by the active player so that it is fresh in that player's mind and we don't miss some opportunity to change the plan for the better.
So I suggest the active player copy, review, and suggest changes to the grand strategy before they plan the goals and details of their turn set. The grand strategy would include the victory condition and the stages or phases of the game we need to achieve that victory condition.
For example the Ducks grand strategy in the last game was something like (*just for example purposes--not sure this is exactly right*)
-Goal Fastest Conquest
-expand and set up bulb of mathematics and chop out key city improvements
-build the Oracle and get Code of Laws
-settle and grow 6-8 cities
-generate enough great scientists to bulb to astronomy
-switch to war effort and kill everything including the wizard
An individual turn set would probably only happen in one of the phases that I laid out in the example above, but it is important for us to review the grand strategy before we make the specific plans for our turn sets.
Our grand strategy will obviously develop as we learn more about the game through exploration, testing and discussion and could completely change depending on how things develop.
Once the grand strategy is reviewed by the active player and the current turn is put into that context, the active player can develop a more specific plan for their turn set but still goal orientated rather than planned out with micro.
The player can post a goal oriented Pre-Play-Plan (PPP)
The goal oriented PPP would include:
- research (& research trades)
- city builds (not tile use)
- worker goals (not turn by turn movements)
- diplo actions (including resource trades, war declarations, begs, etc)
- civic changes planned
- espionage
- general war plans if applicable, i.e. take this city first or form stack here
- stopping points
- contingency plans
The purpose of posting a goal oriented PPP first is to save the active player some work. The other players would be asked to suggest changes to the goal oriented PPP before the micro details (turn by turn city builds, tile use, worker movements, whips, chops, war movements) are planned out.
Once the specific goals are agreed upon, then the active player can develop a micro plan which includes the micro details the team thinks this is necessary. (Or the active player can request help with an aspect of the micro from someone else on the team)
Once the micro PPP is produce (same as the goal oriented PPP just with micro details), another round of feedback can start if necessary.
Of course in the course of working out the specific goals, or the micro new opportunities might arise, so it might not be a linear process.
Address ways to reduce few members dominating the discussion/game plan
I hope the suggested new approach to our planning will make it easier for everyone to contribute to the discussion. Also it might avoid the problem of wasting time (
) developing micro plans that don't align with the grand strategy or team agreed upon goals.
Also, I believe I was guilty of providing poorly thought out micro feedback and giving too detailed suggestions for someone else before they got a chance to develop their own plan.
So I will and I hope others will wait to provide micro feedback on the another person's turn until after they have put up a plan and the team has agreed on the goal oriented PPP and grand strategy. (or unless they ask for it first)
Reduce poorly thought out posts
With a lot of active members on our team, the thread can get a bit overwhelming.
I think the new planning process might avoid some unnecessary posts just because it will hopefully be more efficient. In addition though I think we need to ask ourselves if our post is helping the team achieve its goals before we post.
We also want to avoid posting ideas without testing them out to make sure they are possible and useful before the team spends a significant amount of time debating them.
This requirement possibly does hurt us however, because sometimes good ideas come out of brainstorming. Maybe we just need to be clear if an idea is tested or not, so the team knows not to get sidetracked until the poster or someone else has time to flesh the idea out?
We also might want to revisit our team goals as well. But I'll leave that for another time.