Brainstorming : Fundamental Rules (out of game conduct)

[DaveShack]

We've had a good couple of days discussion in the Starting Fresh and one of the popular ideas seems to be having two layers of rules. One is a fundamental layer which could apply to this and future games, and focuses on how we behave outside the game. The other would be organization of the government responsible for in-game decisions.

This thread is for brainstorming the Fundamental Rules of behavior outside the game, that is to say how we conduct business in the forums. If you're not familiar with brainstorming, this is the time to gather all the different ideas for rules which would fall into this category.

The general subjects in this thread might be:

1. Citizenship and Rights
2. How Elections are conducted (but not the names and duties of the offices)
3. The Judiciary and judicial procedures
4. Amending the rules
5. Permitted and prohibited actions with the save
6. Organization of the designated player(s)
7. Forum organization
8. Decision making processes, in general terms. For example, when is a discussion on a topic enough, when is a poll needed, how can decisions be overturned, etc.

For some of this, we could probably just use the relevant article(s) from the most recent Civ3 DG constitution as an example. Before we dredge all that up, let's see what the newcomers (and veterans) come up with.

Someone may want to copy information from the starting fresh thread to here. I might be that somebody but not right now, gotta help clean house.

Your ideas can also add new categories to the list or even remove categories.

 

[Eklektikos]

The first thing that springs to my mind is to propose starting the election process on the first of each month rather than having to adjust the date according to the length of each month as in past demogames. This would reduce the possibility for confusion by ensuring that all phases will always commence/end on fixed days of the month.

 

[admiral-bell]

Why not name the officials beforehand, it would reduce the time spent streamlining rules

 

[I am the Future]

Some basic citizen rules would need to be
-Citizens MUST follow the rules of the forum and the rules of the DemoGame or they will be dealt with as seen fit by *****INSERT IDEA HERE*****
-NO political parties
-----This limits each thread to haveing 1* goal
-All citizens have right to propose amendments to propper elected official
-Any citizen no matter what, has the right to run for elected position
-All citizens has the right to vote in any poll

These are just a few that came to mind right now.

I also think that their should be some way set up to deal witht hose that dont obey the the decided rules. I dont know how this was done in previous Demo Games so I have no real ideas.

 

[Meleager]

You could possibly reject the citizenship of any player who breaks the rules enough times.

 

[I am the Future]

You could possibly reject the citizenship of any player who breaks the rules enough times.

I was thinking that too, but the problem I see is who decides if it has been to many times? DO we hold a poll? Elect someone with that Job? Or something else? Or is that something that the mods should do, or decide? I wanted to mention that but I decided that It might be giving out to much power

 

[Meleager]

I dont know but I imagine that the Mods would just focus on maintaining the forum rules. Appart from that they would be like anyone else. That way they can play too.

I'm thinking we can elect some people to perhaps manage the punishment side of it. Maybe 3 people, who would decide if an infrigement has happened and any punishment for it (based of the law ofcourse).

EDIT - I also think that the 3 judges could be in charge of managing / editing / ceating new laws.

 

[Chieftess]

The advisors should also be made up of in game advisors from Civ4 (Culture will have much more of a role than Civ3. MUCH more, including "religous espionage"!).

 

[Nobody]

I agree with chieftess make the officals the same as the ingame advisors, lets rename this a constitution

 

[DaveShack]

I really don't want to use this thread for the officials, but...

From what I can see so far, the governor per city approach might be a good idea, and the role of the advisors can be reduced. This is only based on 1/2 game at Noble difficulty, so I really need more data before it will be reasonable to decide offices.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

1. Citizenship and Rights
I think the rights we have had in previous games are fine; free spech, organization, equal rights, right to assemble. Anyone who is a member of CFC in the Citizen Registry thread is a citizen - no one is anything more without the consent of the people.

2. How Elections are conducted (but not the names and duties of the offices)
Hmm...I think 1 month terms have worked out fine. I would appoint (or elect -- that could work too) someone to run an election office in the beginning of the game. Maybe, regardless of # of days in a month, we could follow this pattern:

• Nominations: the 23rd @ 0000 GMT to 25th @ 2359 GMT (3 days)
• Elections: 26th @ 0000 GMT to the 28th @ 2359 GMT (3 days)

We could make a seperate date schedule for February. This eliminates tons of the confusion over the dates we have previously had.

3. The Judiciary and judicial procedures
I don't know much about the Judiciary -- others can help out here, but I think what we have had going for us is good. Maybe amend the CC idea...

4. Amending the rules
This is too broad of a category; it could be its own thread. I think first we have to decide how we write the rules. A group of citizens? All the citizens? Taking partial use of a previous ruleset? Then we can decide if we want to use all/some/none of the rules for the Civ3 DGs.

5. Permitted and prohibited actions with the save
Pretty self-explainitory (sp) I guess. We can use the method for password protecting Chieftess gave, as well as the same clause we always use. Except this time we can't add the railroads since they are limited. Probably just build queues, citizen allocations, possible trades, sliders, etc.

6. Organization of the designated player(s)
I really like the DP Pool method we have going - it's great to get new people acquainted with the game. I know for one I would never be able to do a full month of DPing, but doing only 1 TC is easy and gives a good experience.

7. Forum organization
Probably the same as we always have had it: citizens, government, polls, (future MP DGs). I agree with what Strider has been saying about creating a thread indicating exactly where each type of thread will go. We can start a thread about that...

8. Decision making processes, in general terms. For example, when is a discussion on a topic enough, when is a poll needed, how can decisions be overturned, etc.
I don't think discussion is ever enough - at least you can't limit people's thoughts. I think regarding polling, we should keep it up to the official - if the official thinks that a poll's decision (ie; FP placement) is no longer the best decision because of new circumstances (ie; new lands we captured) he can discuss/poll it. I would let polls run for at least 24 hours, all be public, etc.

And as Chieftess/nobody said, keep the officials similar to the Civ4 advisors - this makes knowing what job is whose that much easier.

 

[RoboPig]

How elections are conducted

well i think that we should make all polls public (or atleast to the dg mods) that way we can make sure that no non citizens stuff the ballots.

 

[Strider]

Citizenship and Rights
Just handle it like we've done in the past, it's always worked before.

How Elections are conducted
Just keep Elections the same also, nominations start 8 days before the end of the month. Elections start 3 (or 4) days after nominations. Elections then run for 3 days.

 

[Octavian X]

I'd really like to see two things that fall into general catagories of this thread:

Citizen Rights - Let's get rid of this no-political party nonsense. We're all operating on a fear that's several years old, of conflict generated by parties way back with the Civ2 demogame was new. People will inevitably come into conflict, and as several successive games have shown, that will heat up no matter what happens. Political parties will only be a representation of conflict that exists already.

We all have opinions that line up pretty much along the same lines as they have before. Why not formalize those opinions in statements of party platforms? At least that way, elections will have some clearer conflicting issues, and new players can come in and see where some players stand based on party membership.

Because elections are always (and must remain, incidentally) private, block voting for candidates can't be enforced. People can and will feel free to differ from party's nominee. Does a party seem to dominate elections? It's not because of size, it's because those people are the best candidates, and because more people happen to agree with the stances that party takes. If you're in the minority, well, that's democracy for you. Besides, with parties or without, no matter how good a candidate he is, Joe Newbie who joined up a week ago will always lose to someone like Chieftess.

Allowing political parties will not cause the universe to end - indeed, given the ineffective nature of Citizen Groups, I actually doubt that a stable, active party organization can exist in these forums, and most will probably die out after a few terms. My point is that citizens should be given this freedom to organize poltically as they see fit, irregardless of old prejudices.

The Judiciary - Because conflict will always exist, its painfully clear that, despite our deepest desires, a Judiciary will always exist. I simply think that we should make serious effort to reduce the nature of the Judiciary in the game. Polling and discussion, along with a clear, unambiguous ruleset, are the best way to reduce the role of our judges, which makes the game a little bit more enjoyable for us all.

 

[RoboPig]

i agree with octavian. if a group of people wanna get together so be it. if they wanna listen to some guy and vote according to what he says, so be it. it would just add another element to the game. campaigning would just be stronger and everyone would be more informed since each side will try and sway the other side.

 

[DaveShack]

Part of the reason for having this thread is to let complete newcomers toss out any ideas they might have.

Organizing the set of officials based on the advisors is not a good idea. We need to look at game flow in terms of decisions that have to be made, categorize those decisions, and organize ourselves around the decision categories. I'm really looking for something new in this area.

 

[Octavian X]

I actually think something of a hybrid system is in order. Given rarity of use and changes, for example, we shouldn't have individual Civic and Religion Advisors. Religious activities fit easily into the category of culture, while each of the civics categories can be attributed to individual advisors.

 

[donsig]

Let's toss out the monthly terms and try turn based terms. This is not a new proposal, I've been suggesting it since DG III. Conquests has a victory screen that tells how many turns have been played and how many are left so I'm sure cIV has something similar. It's not that difficult to divy up terms into x number of turns and schedule elections accordingly.

Here's another idea I've proposed in the past and it could work hand in hand with turn based terms: Let's play a fixed number of turns per day no matter what. Nothing big, mind you, just one or two a day. Played like clockwork there would be a steady and predictable pace. Something would be happening all the time but not so much that big surprises would pop up and bite us.

This second idea works great with the recently used designated players pool idea. With different people playing a turn or two each day we could expect each one to give a summary of what they did and post a screenie or two. This would even allow those of us who haven't rushed out to get cIV (forgive me Sid) to still follow what's going on and paticipate without looking at the save.

I'm also in favor of allowing political parties. The only reason they were banned throughout the Civ III demogames is because of something that happened in a Civ II demogame that didn't even (as far as I know) involve anyone who's been active in the Civ III demogames. It's time we try 'em.

 

[Alphawolf]

Alphawolf's Collection of Random Thoughts (see below)

• Nominations: the 23rd @ 0000 GMT to 25th @ 2359 GMT (3 days)
• Elections: 26th @ 0000 GMT to the 28th @ 2359 GMT (3 days)

We could make a separate date schedule for February. This eliminates tons of the confusion over the dates we have previously had.

1) Elections
I agree that having set dates every month is much better than having to do math to figure out when an election is, but instead of having a separate February schedule just move all the dates up by one day. I assume that the elected will take office on the first of every month. This will create varying periods of Lameduckhood: in months with 31 days-4 days, 30 days-3 days, 28 days-1, and 29 days-2days. I, however, don't see a problem with this as they were elected to a month long term anyway.

2) Question
I am new to the Demo Game, what is the designated player (dp)?

3) Elected Officials
I don't know if you have had term limits before, this is my idea in that regard. I do not believe any elected should be able to hold any position for more than one term (month) in a row. Any one should be able to hold any position any number of times, just not for more than one month at a time.
Example: Person % holds position 'A' in January; % can't be 'A' again until March but can be 'B'-'Z' in February. Let's say that % is elected to 'B' in February, so % can run for 'A', 'C'-'Z' in March, etc.
This is not because I believe an entrenched government is inherently bad or anything like, but I believe everyone should have an equal chance at any position and the incumbent in any election has the advantage. It would also encourage Citizens to step up as you won't have the same person running a position for the whole game. Is also encourages Citizens to try new positions as there old comfy chair isn't always available.

4) Appointed Officials
This ties in to #3. I don't know if there will be any appointed officials in this game, but I there are I believe that they should have a same length term as an elected. I believe that there are two ways to do this and each have there advantages.
A) Their term begins and ends at the same time as the person that appoints them. This would insure that the elected and appointed official get along as the former appointed the latter. The elected would have time to consider who should be appointed during their predecessor’s Lameduckhood.
B) An appointed official’s term ends a set number of days (3-10) after the end of the elected that appointed them.
Example: Elected % had appointed *. % term ends at 0000 GMT January 1 so * term ends 0000 GMT January 4-11 depending on the length of the term.
This has the advantage of allowing the elected time on the job to better know who will be his best appointment in the position. It also insures continuity in the government.

5) Turns
I order to make the game move at fair pace but still allow time for discussions and polls as needed I believe that there should be at minimum one turn every 48 hours. An exception to this is if war was declared by someone against us unexpectedly, as I expect we'll need a rather lengthy discussion to sort this out.

6) Polls
All polls should pertaining to a particular item ingame should be open a minimum of 48 hours and a maximum of 72 or 96 hours. The maximum could be lengthen if it was something like the war in #5.

7) My idea of a possible Government
I'll post this when I get back from dinner, I'm really hungry.

* I used the word ‘elected’ as a noun to refer to ‘elected officials’ because I like the way it sounds. Sorry if that threw anyone.
* A couple of times I used the male gender pronouns when I couldn’t find a plural form that would work. Sorry if any one doesn’t like that.

-the Wolf

 

[ravensfire]

Love the idea of playing nearly every day. I think that having something where you can log in to CFC and have something new nearly every day would be a cool thing. More dynamic discussions - Governor A might be polling something, while Governor B is still planning. Maybe this week there isn't anything to trade, but Science is busy planning out a few techs. I would suggest 2-3 turns per day, however. We generally get about 15 - 16 turns a week in, with a two TC per week format that's normal.

Very interesting idea! I would like to see two caveats - First, a "rest" day. Every Sunday, no turns are played. It's a chance to recover, to recharge and to prepare. Second, the ability of someone to say "Stop!" if something big comes up.

Strengths - This will be popular with some people. It will allow for increased daily activity from everyone. More constant activity, no more peaks followed by inactivity. Constant activity would help to keep more people active and interested in game.

Drawback - This will be unpopular with some people. It will demand forethought from leaders to prepare for probably events (trades, great leaders, foreign requests, etc). Could be slower. Would only work with DP Pool concept. Would require different setup for instruction thread

On to other thoughts!

Organizing via advisors - BAD idea. Bad. Too many new concepts in Civ4, too many advisors in Civ4 just wouldn't have much to do. We need to get a list of the common (and not-so-common) actions that we'd have to take, and logically group and organize them. Make a few offices more involved that others, but keep them all fairly close to each other. Having one or two offices largely based on an advisor is fine, and we've done that every DG since we abandoned the Advisor concept. All of them, however? Please, no!

Political Parties - with a sunset clause requiring approval 3 terms into the game, fine with me. There is the past (ancient) history of problems, so use the sunset clause as a safety net.

Elections - Turn vs Calendar - no preference here. Either would work just fine. If we use a "play each day" concept, this becomes easier. 20 turns before the end, start the cycle! If the term would end before the election cycle finishes, halt the game.

Judiciary - Gotta have it. It is impossible not to have conflict and different interpretations. There must be a mechanism to resolve those problems, and that's probably the best way. Adopt it as-is, it works well.

-- Ravensfire