C3C DemoGame Revival - Game 1 (DGRG1)

Here it is, people. The opening thread for the C3C Democracy Game. It's been a long hard battle to get this far, but we made it. The Revival of the C3C Democracy Game is in session. What say we get the ball rollin'?

There are plenty of veterans reading this and a lot of new faces also. We will rent this thread space here in the DG4 forum until the game is ready to begin. When we're ready for Creation Day, we may be moved over to the Civ3 Forum. I'm sure we'll be able to handle that when the time comes.

So post below with all your ideas and questions. We welcome all comments. As we have been repeatedly asked to remove our discussions from the Civ4 threads, maybe we should state that this thread is only for Civilization III Democracy Game discussions. And that we are aware this thread is in the Civ4 Democracy Game Forum. If you would like to play in a Civ3 Democracy Game, please only post here (for now) and don't bother those players in the Civ4 thread.

If you are new with questions, go ahead and ask. We have lots of veterans to give you answers and tons of reference material. If you're an old DG player like me, who likes to reminisce about the old days.... what was I saying?

Welcome everyone. Let's put this thing together.

I won't party (yet) because we've got to get a bit organized ...

So - any initial thoughts to the game type? Regular game, 5CC, etc? Special game rules? I'm not talking about map size, etc, but what type of game do we want to play?

Also, what kind of government do we want to have? Think broad concepts, not as much the nitty-gritty details here.

--Ravensfire

Personally, I'd like to see a traditional game to bring us back.

Only one tribe. Within that tribe, would be one central government that would not change it's primary structure from begining to end. Based on CivIII, there would be a Cabinet of real players who feflected the Advisors in the game - Domestic, Foreign Affairs, Trade, etc. There would also be a President - the primary player in the game. And then all the other citizens who in this Democracy would represent the Will of the People (WOTP). Everyone votes on issues and concerns of any type, if they would like.

There would be a governing ruleset that is normally called the Constitution. The Constitution would be the check on power abuse or wrong doings of any type. The Constitution could be ammended, through proper channels and with the WOTP.

Was that what you were looking for?

For now, we can discuss both pending games in the same place. There should be no need to worry about cross-contamination between the Civ3 and Civ4 startups, and people interested in both games can have one stop shopping. There isn't really a good alternative place yet to do the Civ3 planning, and we shouldn't ask for forums until the game is almost ready to start.

What type of game:
I did enjoy the 5CC game concept - it was smaller in scope for us to manage, without going nuts. Having a large game gets difficult to manage, and tiresome for the DP. It might be interesting to do something small where we're not going to pull off a military victory, don't have secure borders and have to worry about the AI. We'd need to fix some of the holes that we had in the rules though ...

Really though, I would prefer a game that's smaller in scope, whether through map size or meta-rules. I'm not sure about any mods, although I'd be up for considering some!

What type of government:
While it's going to be somewhat based on the type of game, I think we should use a more traditional based format versus the faction format. I've just got a bad taste left in my mouth from the previous DG. Keep it flexible and appropriate to the number of player we've got.

-- Ravensfire

I'd like it to be an ordinary game, with everything on the table. DG7's implementation of 5BC putting it in the constitution really irked me. There is no reason we can't exercise restraint within a framework that lets it grow to the player base.

I'd suggest looking at DG4 and DG5 for a starting point for the rules. Both of those fixed DG3's problem with too little definition while keeping a fairly ordinary setup. DG6 was clearly too complicated to use again. DG7 might also work if we stripped out the gameplay restrictions and kept the rules to strictly metagame.

Hmmm. I'm going to have to go back to the Civilization III Archives. Let me run through these rulesets you're speaking of.

Game Type
I'm game for anything. I like 5CC's personally, but I know many didn't like it when we tried. I think we should avoid huge or large maps to remove stress on the DP in the later game.

Government Type
I am personally still a fan of the traditional government idea. Basically we have a President and a cabinet full of advisers. We should also have a 3 person judiciary and perhaps a senate full of governors?

One trick is to balance the power between the people and elected officials, which we can never seem to get right. If the people have too much power, nobody wants to be elected because they just become pollers. If the officials have too much power then the game loses its 'Democracy' feel and people become uninterested if they don't hold office. An idea I have for this is to make the entire population the legislative branch (congress, parliament, or whatever you want to call it) and allow them to create laws (i.e. a specific poll) which the executive branch has to follow, otherwise the executive branch does what it wants. These laws are pretty much what was used previous just with a name, for example: the legislature (people) create a law directing the domestic adviser (or whoever has similar responsibilities) to build City A at location X. If there are no laws relating to the subject then whoever holds the corresponding position in the executive branch has power to do whatever. Like if there are no 'laws' concerning trade, the trade minister (or whoever has that sort of power) posts his/her plans for what should be traded as binding instructions. I think this could also provide for some nice roleplay, but I'm starting to get long winded on this point so onto my next idea.

The one idea I like from recent demogames that wasn't used in older games was the idea of a Designated Player pool. Instead of having the President play all saves we get a list of people with majority approval that take turns playing. The one negative, however, with this plan is the lack of accountability. I mean sure you can CC/PI or remove the DP from the pool but that just means they won't play another save, which depending on the size of the pool they may not have again anyway. If you have the President (or cabinet member) play the save they can lose their executive position if they screw up.

Well, I went through the Archives. Got side-tracked a few times, but mainly read Constitutions.

I did enjoy the Civ3 DG VII Constitution. Very well written and pretty much covered everything. Glad that thing got finalized.

I would vote for that now, as opposed to DG2. I'm not really opposed to a 5bcc game (whatever you want to call it). I was opposed to the way the rules were interpreted in the begining of the last one. I hope that Ravensfire remembers that the last 5bcc lasted 9 months.

I like the epic games, but i'm open to anything. Something short to get back into the swing of things is fine.

I think I'd prefer a traditional game, but without going for an enormous map, keep it to a reasonable size so we don't get too bogged down in city management - I still have memories of silly length turnchats. I did enjoy the 5CC, but feel no need to repeat it. It wouldn't stop me playing if that's what people wanted though.

I'd prefer a more traditional style govenment for this game.

Black Hole raised the issue of DP pools. Having the president always play the save meant the president could be held accountable not just for the actions taken while playing but also for keeping the game moving. The DP pool seemed to leave the game to ramble on, getting played when people remembered or when someone stepped in to play having got fed up of waiting. Perhaps we could have the President responsible for playing the save and scheduling the sessions but able to delegate to another player if they can't play. In such cases the president would be responsible for ensuring the schedule was maintained and be held accountable for what was done.

Constitution: Lets not get too complicated, I can't remember what they were like and don't have the time to read up now, but a lot of effort went into the DGVII one, learning from others that had been too restrictive or at the opposite end of the scale had been too undefined.

I lean more towards regular game style and Traditional (ie. DG 1 w/ improvements) government style.

edit: I believe most of the Civ III demogames were basically this style.

Problem with the regular game style is people may be split between the Civ 3 and Civ 4 Demogames... and the Civ 3 DG may not have the Governor/Mayoral pool to help make management of such a large empire very effective. But we could play as normal and then agree to limit our size later if it starts to get out of hand. And if we do find ourselves with a large amount of participation we may want to just go ahead with the larger empire.

More Cities -> More provinces -> More Governors/Mayors -> more opportunity to participate in official capacity.

I tend to lean away from the DP Pool idea and back to the President w/ CoC (Chain of Command) style DP Pool where President always plays the save and officials only play in case of absence.

I agree with the accountability aspect.

President plays or delegates, with the Chain of Command used in case of unexplained absence. But the President is always held accountable for the actions taken in a Turn Session, among other things (such as the consistant progress of the game).

The original intent of the DP pool was to have the President schedule all turnchats, with the power to designate anyone from the DP pool as the DP for each session. Later games saw IMO an excessive reliance on turn taking in the DP pool and the President's job got watered down. There were many terms where we had people who wanted to be President but not DP, and many elected officials who didn't even have the game. An alternative to the CoC was sorely needed.

Just to throw something out w/ regards to the (in)famous Will of the People clause...

Basically, tell official they should to "seek the will of the people through discussions and/or polls". Add something that major decisions should be verified through a poll. If a decision isn't backed by a poll, anyone can post a 2 day poll to override it.

For provinces, allow the President to set the boundaries and change as needed. A majority of governors can veto this decision though, as can a citizens poll.

I know one of the complaints is that officials poll every small decision, and that they need more power. But, we've all seen that go a bit too far in some people's hands, so this is an attempt to draw a line in the middle.

Still pondering older rulesets. I know I don't want the DG2 monstrosity, but also don't want some of the hyper-legal stuff we've had in the past.

The DP pool was created for two types of players that I think still exist - want to be President/ other elected official, but can't play the save, and wants to play the save, but doesn't want to be an elected official. In the attempt to be fair and not play favorites, the rotation was established. I don't think we can try a split - Pres plays, but can pass off to Pool as needed. If we've got a Pres that does play all the time, the Pool that term wouldn't be used and might not appreciate it. Maybe set a tiered CoC? Pres schedules and plays, but can also delegate to any willing citizen as needed. If scheduled player doesn't show, allow any elected official to take it. If no elected official, allow any citizen to take it.

Random thoughts - sorry. Vicodin good ....

-- Ravensfire

-- Ravensfire

I caution though, with a President assigned DP... If the President assigns DP's at will that could also lead to favoritism...

Traditional style definately. Also, I like the idea of DP pools, and the idea that the officials and the WOTP have equal power. Anything is fine with me, though. What's 5CC or 5BC or 5BCC (And is there any such thing a 5 BB?

5CC - Five City Challenge (Restricting yourself to only 5 Cities and refusing to expand beyond that)

Honesty not sure about 5BCC or what not... but I imagine it's some varient on that same idea...

Falcon02 said:

5CC - Five City Challenge (Restricting yourself to only 5 Cities and refusing to expand beyond that)

Honesty not sure about 5BCC or what not... but I imagine it's some varient on that same idea...

Click to expand...

That was the compromise in DG VII - 5 Built cities, plus 1 captured city from each civ.

-- Ravensfire

Falcon02 said:

I caution though, with a President assigned DP... If the President assigns DP's at will that could also lead to favoritism...

Click to expand...

We've actually had worse problems with willing DPs being blackballed by vendetta than we've had with Presidential favoritism.

DaveShack said:

We've actually had worse problems with willing DPs being blackballed by vendetta than we've had with Presidential favoritism.

Click to expand...

Yup - lost our best DP in years that way.
We've had people that have proved to be less than satisfactory as a DP, and refuse to change. If that person is the President, it could get interesting.

So how about this - the President schedules the game session. If they can, they play they save. If they can't, they can delegate someone to play the save. If the scheduled player doesn't start reasonably on time (15 minutes?), any elected official can take over as the DP. If no elected official takes over (15 more minutes?), and citizen may take over.

Starting the session (including taking over) would be defined as a "got it!" post in the instruction thread, allowing for both on-line and off-line sessions.

-- Ravensfire