A poor political system

[fed1943]

First, I want to make clear that I do not believe to be the owner of the truth,
nor I intent to attack anyone.

Reading the posts from our two Elders and our Chieftain seems clear:
Capital Elder plained grow and second farm, but second farm wasn't build;
Haven's Elder plained chariot, but horses resource not available;
Chieftain plained expansion, but cities build no other settler.
That is, each Officer had good plans and performed well, but...
The team has no plan. There is a total lack of co-ordination between Chieftain
and Elders, also between each Elder with another.
And who is responsible by said lack? IMHO, the answer is easy: no one;
because no one is supposed to fit the gap between each Elder and the remaining of Officers; reading the rules, it looks each Elder is wanted to play alone, outside of other Elders and Chieftain (and his Ministers).
(The Chieftain, alone or with Ministers'help, cares about plans, but can never be sure what cities output; each Elder rules his/her city, but can never rule a
single worker to improve its radius).
The saving grace was instructions lacked and DP has to do some fiting.
Last posts from Officers show this problem: "if other city builds that,then...".
And citizens, by polls? Not much can be done, because problem is about
co-ordination, so when we vote in one place we cannot know the result of
votes in other poll, as they are simultaneous.
If you like a comparison with RL: is a federation and division of powers, but
without the checks and balances.
Am I right? Am I wrong? Please,show me. And my thanks in advance, if you
show I'm wrong.
(Maybe Veterans of this system want to point previous experiences of said
system that made great plays).

My best regards,

 

[Hyronymus]

I agree with what you write but I disagree that noone is responsible. My view on the hierarchal structure of this demogame is that the elders fall under the direct command of the chieftain. Following that train of thought I come to the conclusion that the chieftain ultimately is responsible for the elder's input. However, I cannot get passed the feeling that the elders have a responsibilty to their job too.

 

[Skipper1989]

Hyronymus and Fed1943 are both correct in their assessments. The power base is being spread too wide with all the delegation of duties that is handed out. There is also no official opposition to the government which seems bizzare.

Our nation cannot hope to survive unless Methos asserts his authority as Chieftain. History will judge him favourably or harshly depending on the next few weeks.

 

[730195]

Our nation cannot hope to survive unless Methos asserts his authority as Chieftain. History will judge him favourably or harshly depending on the next few weeks.

While the chieftain could corral the elders into a coherent plan, there may be another way: the citizens could force a plan on all of them. It seems to me that we have had a lot of very narrow-purpose polls so far. Suppose several citizens worked together to make a plan that covered science, production, improvements, etc for farther into the future than our previous polls and put it up in the form of an initiative. Even if not perfect, it might prove better than the many small polls we have now and a subsequent poll could always amend/cancel the plan if the wheels fall off.

 

[Skipper1989]

What I would also like to see (if it is possible) is the results of a poll not being visible until it is closed. This way people would not be swayed by how the result is already progressing and may vote more intelligently.

Just a thought

 

[DaveShack]

This has been a feature of the demogames pretty much since their inception. As far back as when I joined, 6 games ago, we've struggled to balance. In this case, the balance is between having a coherent strategy which plays the game well, and leaving individuals free to act independently.

The inconsistency in worker actions can be solved quickly by changing the responsibility for workers from the Chieftain to the Elders. In past games, the rule we ended up with was to have someone responsible for decisions on how many workers go to each city, with the governor of the city giving instructions on the worker actions.

If the people want to make strategic decisions, a poll is clearly the best way. Anyone who is dissatisfied with the lack of overall strategy could push the discussion, and open a poll when a fairly complete set of options is known.

 

[DaveShack]

What I would also like to see (if it is possible) is the results of a poll not being visible until it is closed. This way people would not be swayed by how the result is already progressing and may vote more intelligently.

Just a thought

This might be a good idea, but I suspect it's probably not possible without changing all polls to work that way. Site feedback would be the place to ask.

 

[dutchfire]

I don't think it would be very hard to make a system in mysql/php on the demogame.civfanatics.net domain that would support private voting with the results becoming public after the poll has closed.

 

[Skipper1989]

Well it was just an idea I thought i'd throw out there to see what everyone else thought. It's just I sometimes wonder if when there's a poll and people come on and see:

Option A-10 votes
Option B-3 votes
Option C-2 votes

They perhaps think that if there is no point in voting for Options B or C as they won't win so they either mdon't vote or vote for A. In the above example if 10 people were left to vote but each individual thought it wasn't worth his or her while, the actual result would be drastically changed.

I'm not sure if this is clear enough but I think you get the jist of it.

Cheers

Skipper

 

[Skipper1989]

This might be a good idea, but I suspect it's probably not possible without changing all polls to work that way. Site feedback would be the place to ask.

I posted on there and from what i've been told it doesn't seem to be posisble. If there was enough interest in it I suppose we cpould pursue your line of thought Dutch...shall I set up a poll?

 

[donsig]

fed1943's assessment is on target. Hyronymus is correct (to a point) about the chieftan being responsible. It goes further than that though. It is us citizens who are even more responsible. DaveShack has pointed out that we've had trouble in the democracy games finding our comfort level regarding the latitiude our officials have when making their own decisions. I personally tried pushing a clear cut system that would delineate the bounds of official decison making while still retaining ultimate authority with the citizens. This plan has not been accepted by the democracy game community.

Another problem is no one can come into the democracy game and get a quick and clear idea of where we are and what we're doing. I refuse to attend chats or download the save. Since I can't get an easy picture of what's going on my only contribution (outside dg rulemaking) is to vote in polls. I've been involved in these democracy games as long as anyone else but I come here only as a last resort when there is no other interesting civ stuff going on for me at the moment.

If there were decent summaries conveniently available I would participate more in the forum discussions for the game play.

 

[Hyronymus]

I think we're overlooking one thing, gentleman. Surely too much independence of representatives can and will hurt the demogame. Therefor it's not wanted, trying to find a balance is difficult. But I believe the mechanisms are already there to limit this. It's just that citizens don't use the power of the initiative yet to give clear orders to the representatives. Maybe that's because too much of the discussion takes place at multiple places.

I hope some of you wonder why I pointed out the repsonsibility of the chieftain and/or elders then. After all, I'm now saying that us citizens should be more active. What I really wanted to express was that the representatives are ultimately responsible for the correctness of the orders they issue or accept.

 

[Methos]

I'm hoping to get my term to be more of a team organized game and will hopefully post my term goals in my office thread. Unfortunately RL is keeping me real busy so it might not be until Sunday afternoon before I can post it.

 

[Hyronymus]

I'm hoping to get my term to be more of a team organized game and will hopefully post my term goals in my office thread. Unfortunately RL is keeping me real busy so it might not be until Sunday afternoon before I can post it.

Are you serious or is that an April's Fool remark ?

 

[Falcon02]

When it comes to workers... I feel this is one thing a Domestic Department would organize.

Elders would "request" said improvements, Domestic leader would plan the improvements out, and let them know the ETA of said improvements if known.

However, Elders, and other officials need to have a level of autonomy. While anyone that is "above them" works to help organize them, they do not have the authority to really overrule something.

Donsig is right, it's the Citizens who really have the authority to overrule the decisions of elders, and to push for greater structure to help with organization if necessary and if the chieftain does not go forward with such structure. While I feel officials are tasked with posting relevant polls on important items, it's also the citizens' responsibility to post such polls when the officials fail to. However, there must be some restraint on that, ALL officials still need a level of autonomy, and polls should really only be posted for High level important decisions (ie. city placement).

Also, if an official doesn't appear to be doing their job to their full potential, it's EVERYONES responsibility to point that out to the official so they can improve their performance. One of the most important skills of an official is the ability to listen to constructive criticism, so they can do their job the best possible way. However, officials can not act on any criticism if no one speaks up and gives them suggestions. If an official gets no feedback on an item, they are liable to assume everything is fine. However, it's then the Officials obligation to listen to that feedback.

This is one reason I pushed for a more traditional government to start out with, so we'd have people with more specialized jobs, so that one person wasn't responsible for organizing everything below them, and thus unable to do it all effectively.

 

[Methos]

Are you serious or is that an April's Fool remark ?

Not an April Fool's joke. I keep forgetting about April Fool's Day. I'm one of those easy people to fool, as I don't pay attention to the date.

 

[fed1943]

IMO, Falcon02 pointed the right way:

Each Elder should request improvements and Domestic Dep. would share the
workers to that.

Warlord should request military units and Domestic Dep. and Elders would
share among cities to build them, paying attention to the role of each city.

BTW, it looks clear our Chieftain began a worth way to guide our Nation to
the place it deserves.
Congratulations!

Best regards,