10 turn t/c's-15 turn t/c's do you care?

[Cyc]

We have recently and quietly slipped past the once agreed upon limit of 10 turn Turn Chats. Do we care? Is there a need for the 10 turn limit? Did we find our cowboy President? YEEEHAAH!! Six-guns blazin' as he rides off into the sunset.

Maybe not, but the question is...do we need to set a limit on the amount of turns taken by the DP? I'd like to see us return to the 10 turn limit. We are very close to 1AD.

What's your opinion?

 

[Lecky]

I would like 10 turns to be the limit.

I would also like 10 turns to actually be played - ie. unless there are exceptional circumstances the t/c should be played out the full 10 turns in order to keep the game going.

I'm not pointing the finger at anyone, I just think we should always have 10 turns not more not less.

 

[disorganizer]

i think we shouldnt hang on those numbers.

we should define events which should definitely STOP the chat.

i dont mind 50 turns to be played if nothing happens which is important. so only the term "important" needs to be defined.

imho, best would suit us a list of "definite-stop events" in the COS. there would be no way around them.
an example for such a "stop-event" could be: "declaration of war (any direction)"

 

[Shaitan]

I don't think there needs to be a fixed stop time. As long as new situations do not arise during game play there is no real reason to stop playing. For example, the last chat went 15 turns (though none of us there realized we had gone that long until Chieftess pointed it out the next day). The plans discussed and posted on the Forums were carried out and nothing unexpected came up until the very end when we captured the Great Library and we stopped.

I would be against a minimum chat length. RL time is my only real concern. There is really nothing that can come up in the game that can't be planned for. An AI civ declaring war or pushing into our territory should be expected and contingency plans made.

 

[disorganizer]

Now how about having a real-time max-length to be set by the dp for each chat?

The DP could announce a chat for 8:00-12:00 AM GMT, and this would mean he HAS to start earliest at 8 and HAS to end latest at 12. No matter what happens in the game or how many turns had been played.
Of course the DP could decide to stop the chat at any time in between.

 

[Shaitan]

I'll be doing that this term. The chat duration when I DP will be 2 hours due to RL considerations. The first one went long only because I took the day off of work to nurse a sick wife and protect her from our evil children.

 

[Cyc]

A 2 hour time max may be a good thing overall, but I'd still like to see a 10 turn limit. I would hate to see you forget that you were playing the Demogame and pull a Dis with 50 turns. It's been agreed that 10 turns would be the customary limit, let's stick to it so everyone can play the game.

 

[disorganizer]

We wont be able to finish 50 turns in 2 hours though.
2 hours should be hardly enough for 10 turns anyways.

the last chat made 15 turns in i think 5 hours?
and the last 10 turns just flew by.
so i believe 2 hours will be enough for 5-7 turns, and maybe 3 hours should limit us to around 10 turns then.

 

[donsig]

Our previous presidents took great pains to stop the chats early when we made contact and even cancelled a chat due to lack of forum decision on city placement. Not once did they pass the ten turn limit on the chat. Not only that, they always knew how many turns they had played. I am strongly in favor of a ten turn limit per chat especially since the chat times do not allow for a large representation of citizens to attend. While I am not an advocate of making decisions in the chats that is better than no citizen decision at all. I am confident that Chieftess or Eklektikos would have stopped the chat once we got a great leader. We had no formal discussion about what to do with a great leader and I am sure there would have been a spirited debate about whether to build an army or the Great Library. Had this been polled I am not sure which would have won. While our president has the right to make choices when we do not, i amnot comfortable with the citizens being left out of the process because our leaders are not doing their jobs.

I ask our president to limit the chats to ten turns. If he does then there is no need to change the rules.

 

[Shaitan]

There was formal discussion on what to do with the first Great Leader. Overall response was to create an army so a poll was not deemed necessary.

Regarding the limit to 10 turns, I have no specific intent on going over 10 turns in a chat. As it's an arbitrary limit, however, I reserve my right and duty to compensate as circumstances warrant.

 

[donsig]

Originally posted by Shaitan
There was formal discussion on what to do with the first Great Leader. Overall response was to create an army so a poll was not deemed necessary.

Yes, I see there was a formal discussion on what to do with a Great Leader. There were 12 posts by 9 citizens. 5 were for an army, 3 were for the Great Library and one was undecided. That small sample seems close enough to me to have warranted a poll. I didn't see the discussion when it was relevant. this is most likely due to the *server busy* messages. Given these forum brownouts and the fact that our president did not deem it necessary to poll on what to do with a leader I'm still strongly in favor of the ten turn limit per chat.

 

[donsig]

Originally posted by Shaitan
Regarding the limit to 10 turns, I have no specific intent on going over 10 turns in a chat. As it's an arbitrary limit, however, I reserve my right and duty to compensate as circumstances warrant.

I can understand the president's reservations but there is a corresponding responsibility to let the citizen's run their country. When important choices are needed the citizens should be given a legitimate chance to have a say. The president should be willing to end the chat and bring these choices to the forums for the people to decide. If the people choose not to choose then the president can step in and make the choices.

 

[disorganizer]

So what about a poll?
"Should we limit the chat-length...."
* by restricting the maximum real-time
* by restricting the maximum number of turns played
* by restricting to stop at specific events
* not at all (stay as it is now)
* abstain

or something along that line?
then a second poll could define the details for the options we decided upon.

 

[Falcon02]

I'm against a limit of 10 turns or a time limit of 2 hours.

From Demogame 1 experience sometimes Preturns can take several hours later in the game, then we'd only have preturn t/c sometimes, like our Former pres. had due to contacts and indecisiveness (EDIT: On the Forums I mean)

I do think that sometimes going above the assumed 10 turn limit is okay, when nothing's happening and the turns are going by pretty fast due to that fact, maybe a 20 turn MAX, however a target of 10, so it gives the president some freedom to continue on when there's nothing occuring.

 

[Shaitan]

Originally posted by donsig
I can understand the president's reservations but there is a corresponding responsibility to let the citizen's run their country. When important choices are needed the citizens should be given a legitimate chance to have a say. The president should be willing to end the chat and bring these choices to the forums for the people to decide. If the people choose not to choose then the president can step in and make the choices.

I agree with this 100%. What I mean with flexible chat duration is I want to aim for a reasonable breaking point so there are things for the citizens to discuss. When possible, that is. There will not always be an option to continue to a discernable break point or finish instructions that have already been posted.

In the last chat we were on a steamroller and following the posted plans. We were rolling Azteca up into a nice tight package. If we had stopped right at turn 10 the basic instructions would have been "Keep doing what we told you last time". By continuing to a decent break point there are now many issues and plans that can be discussed.

 

[donsig]

Originally posted by Shaitan

If we had stopped right at turn 10 the basic instructions would have been "Keep doing what we told you last time". By continuing to a decent break point there are now many issues and plans that can be discussed.

Yes, some breaking points are better for discussion than others, this is true. But it is better to break early and have little to discuss than to skip needed discussion because we happen to be on a roll. If the chat had been stopped when we got the leader there would have been much to discuss and the history of Fanatika may have been quite different indeed had we chosen to rush the Great Library.

 

[Eklektikos]

Originally posted by Falcon02
From Demogame 1 experience sometimes Preturns can take several hours later in the game, then we'd only have preturn t/c sometimes, like our Former pres. had due to contacts and indecisiveness

Indecisive, eh? Kiss the military budget goodbye...

On a more serious note... Perhaps we could set a maximum of 15 or 20 turns, but say that after the 10 turn mark has been passed the chat must stop if instructions from any one of the departments/provinces run out. I think this might be a reasonable and workable compromise between DP's discretionary powers and the rights of the citizenry to decide their own fate.

 

[Shaitan]

If it had been stopped when we got the Great Leader it would have been a one turn chat. Again. That has to be avoided at all costs. We have lost too many citizens because of the snail's pace progression of the early game.

Regardless, I will always try to do what is right and best for the citizens of Fanatika. I must balance different factors when deciding what to do and how to do it. Ending the chat is just one case where this happens. I have no doubt that there will always be individuals who disagree with the decisions I make or the reasons that I make them. That's the nature of free speech. However, I assure you that those decisions will always be made with the best interests of all the players of the demogame in mind.

 

[Shaitan]

@EK - I would oppose allowing a lack of Leader preparation be the deciding point of when a chat must end. Leaders must make contingency plans for likely occurences. They should make standard operating procedures for common occurences. They should make varied plans when obviously different circumstances can be expected. If the Leaders do not do this it is the responsibility of every citizen to make them do it.

 

[Falcon02]

Originally posted by Eklektikos

Indecisive, eh? Kiss the military budget goodbye...

Like I added several minutes before you posted, I was ACTUALLY refering to that in the Forums, ala city placement.