Citizen Pulse : Are you satisfied with the democracy?

[donsig]

Sorry in advance to choose your post to make this point...

OK, I've been reading about this mythical decision in the chat which conflicts with the forum long enough.

Prove it please. Show me a decision made in the chat which disagreed with the forum. Since y'all think they are so commonplace, show me 10. Show me one where it wasn't already the right of the DP to make a decision, chat attendees or not. Show me one where it actually caused harm to someone. What ever happened to the general principle "no harm, no foul"?

That principle died in term three of DG3.

Go back to DGIV for a minute. Watch Rik Meleet change the sliders despite legally posted instructions not to. Watch Chieftess change legally posted build queues (like she did in earlier DGs). Those at the chat no only did not stand up and try to prevent these gross miscarriages they supported them. Look at two of the greatest periods of dissention in DG history (DG1T3 and DG3T3). Both were the result of those at the chat not getting their way despite what was posted in the forums.

On top of that Mr. Shack, the problem is really that since the game revolves around the chat information is not presented in the forums, polls are sloppy, etc. Go back to the DG1 archives and read the thread where people explained why they lost interest in the game. They said it better than I can.

I'll try to get a link to that thread.

 

[Strider]

Sorry in advance to choose your post to make this point...

OK, I've been reading about this mythical decision in the chat which conflicts with the forum long enough.

Prove it please. Show me a decision made in the chat which disagreed with the forum. Since y'all think they are so commonplace, show me 10. Show me one where it wasn't already the right of the DP to make a decision, chat attendees or not. Show me one where it actually caused harm to someone. What ever happened to the general principle "no harm, no foul"?

Now that you point it out, I'm surprised I never really thought of it. Has there ever been any decisions made in the turnchat that were contradicting to a leaders instructions? No, never in demogame history.

Hell, now that I think of it, the majority of people who support getting of the turnchats are relatively new players, who have very little idea how they were run. Excluding the few who has wanted to get rid of the turnchats sense day one, the majority of people who are against them are just because of this claim of them being "undemocratic" or being unfair or prejudice towards the forum users. Are they? No not really, unless you really want to discuss where every worker should go.

 

[DaveShack]

General Proposal for a completely different way to organize the DemoGame.

Instead of organizing the branches of government as a model of existing governments (executive, legislative, judiciary), use an organization which is based on the types of decisions performed by each "branch". The basic kinds of roles one finds when categorizing by decision type are:

• Strategic, long-term planning
• Tactical, short term, transitory, and detail oriented
• Administrative, management, interpersonal relationship, informational.

Let's look at each of these in turn. Strategic decisions are the important ones. It is critical to get them right to get the effect we want, and at higher difficulty levels a wrong strategic decision can even lead to a loss. The people should get the most enjoyment from discussing these. My proposal is to have the "leadership" roles be primarily strategic planners. The plans they would make would cover long spans of time and cover big issues, like which branch of the tech tree to aim for, which wonders to build, how big the military should be, what settlement pattern to use, and whether to accumulate cash or spend it.

Tactical decisions are the short-term, short lived details such as the exact settlement locations, order of settlements, units to use in battles, specific trade terms, worker actions, and build queues. As long as the tactical play fits in with the strategic directions, the specific way these items are accomplished is not as important as the strategy. The strategic leaders could also be responsible for the tactics for their area, or we could allow or even require separate tactical positions to allow more people to participate directly. Tactics would not require discussion and polling, or at least not as much as we currently see. The vast majority of instructions to the DPs could be tactical in nature. Governors and/or mayors would be tactical leaders which would match up with the way things are now, with very little citizen input. The strategic instructions would be able to set quotas without imposing an "override" on the governors perogative.

The play itself is largely administrative in nature, though it could be viewed as tactical as well. There should be some number of designated players, who could be anyone as long as there is citizen approval. The president would still be the primary designated player, but could delegate that responsibility to allow someone who can be active in the forum but does not have the capability to play to be the President. Two major cases where this would help is with people who don't have the version of the game we're playing (probably Conquests) or who don't have time to devote to the actual play sessions.

Other administrative functions are the Judiciary, elections office, naming office, cartography, newspapers, and other information offices.

More to come, duty calls. (family gathering to play dominoes and cards)

 

[DaveShack]

Go back to DGIV for a minute. Watch Rik Meleet change the sliders despite legally posted instructions not to. Watch Chieftess change legally posted build queues (like she did in earlier DGs). Those at the chat no only did not stand up and try to prevent these gross miscarriages they supported them.

IIRC both of the incidents you quote happened because the relevant instructions were stupid. The game was improved as a result, and the reason that a very large majority of the people ignored it was that they thought there was no tangible harm done. For some of us, if we had thought that legal action against the people posting the instructions would do any good we would have charged them with incompetence. Oh that's right, as long as it's a legal instruction it doesn't matter if it's a quality instruction. Perhaps we need to change that for next game, and hold people responsible when they cost us big sums of gold or build the wrong units/improvements for the situation.

Also your argument doesn't even come close to the mark anyway. I asked for places where actions of the people at the chat caused a problem, both of these incidents were things which would have happened in offline play as well. They were actions taken by the DP as an individual, using their knowledge of the game which was superior to the instruction posters. In fact, there are almost certainly countless incidents of chat participants talking DP's out of other illegal actions.

You bring up DG3T3 -- I will repeat what I said before, you played it correctly according to WOTP. You just didn't stop when given a legitimate reason to stop by the people who were present. I was on vacation at the time, or I would have been there telling you to stop too. Also you could give it a rest, many of the disgruntled citizens are gone now anyway.

 

[Strider]

You bring up DG3T3 -- I will repeat what I said before, you played it correctly according to WOTP. You just didn't stop when given a legitimate reason to stop by the people who were present. I was on vacation at the time, or I would have been there telling you to stop too. Also you could give it a rest, many of the disgruntled citizens are gone now anyway.

Not all of us.

The orginal purpose of the turnchat was to prevent, exactly what your saying we would prevent if we got rid of them. As Daveshack said above, all of the cases you mentioned were times when the Designated Player dis-obeyed a leaders instructions, banning public turnchats will only make that easier for the DP to get away with.

 

[Black_Hole]

however its the presidents choice when to stop the TC, not the people at the chat... Now Im gonna go back and see exactly what happened... But its probably because the minister didnt forsee it and didnt make any instructions for it... To The Acrhives!

 

[Strider]

however its the presidents choice when to stop the TC, not the people at the chat... Now Im gonna go back and see exactly what happened... But its probably because the minister didnt forsee it and didnt make any instructions for it... To The Acrhives!

It is the presidents choice right now in our current ruleset when to stop the TC. In past DG's the people at the chat had the option of forcing the DP to take a decision to the forum, and stopping the chat.

So, theortically, the only real power those in the chat had was to let those in the forum make a decision.

 

[donsig]

IIRC both of the incidents you quote happened because the relevant instructions were stupid.

Stupid, maybe, but LEGAL nonetheless. What is the point of going through the motions of electing leaders if their work can be disregarded because the DP and those at the chat think their orders were stupid? If I had known it was ok to disregard stupid orders I would never have changed from Copernicus to a cathedral in DG3T3. Now that was a stupid order if I ever saw one.

The game was improved as a result, and the reason that a very large majority of the people ignored it was that they thought there was no tangible harm done. For some of us, if we had thought that legal action against the people posting the instructions would do any good we would have charged them with incompetence. Oh that's right, as long as it's a legal instruction it doesn't matter if it's a quality instruction. Perhaps we need to change that for next game, and hold people responsible when they cost us big sums of gold or build the wrong units/improvements for the situation.

Well, Mr. Shack, the harm that was done was that you all showed everyone, DPs and leaders alike, that they wouldn't be held responsible for things like shoddy polls and bonehead game play instructions.

Also your argument doesn't even come close to the mark anyway. I asked for places where actions of the people at the chat caused a problem, both of these incidents were things which would have happened in offline play as well. They were actions taken by the DP as an individual, using their knowledge of the game which was superior to the instruction posters. In fact, there are almost certainly countless incidents of chat participants talking DP's out of other illegal actions.

You asked where harm was done to someone not to the game. Go read your post. Are you now referring to the demogame or the Civ III game? The instances I pointed out harmed the demogame in ways I've pointed out many, many times. I don't give a rat's behind about the Civ III game nor the DPs supposed superior game play abilities. We don't elect ministers to show us how to play Civ III, we elect them to play this particular Civ III game as we see fit - whether our collective play is good or not! Laws (our rules) are the means by which we (or any democracy) carry out the wishes of the citizens - again, irregardless of whether these wishes are stupid or not.

You bring up DG3T3 -- I will repeat what I said before, you played it correctly according to WOTP. You just didn't stop when given a legitimate reason to stop by the people who were present. I was on vacation at the time, or I would have been there telling you to stop too. Also you could give it a rest, many of the disgruntled citizens are gone now anyway.

And I would have refused your advice as well under those circumstances. In my opinion, stopping at that time was a stupid idea.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

Remember this is about our current and future demogame(s), not past ones...I don't care what happened in DG3.

Chats aren't a problem as long as they are used informally (which they are now).

 

[DaveShack]

If I had known it was ok to disregard stupid orders I would never have changed from Copernicus to a cathedral in DG3T3. Now that was a stupid order if I ever saw one.

I would probably stop at that point. In fact if I saw that in the instructions, I would probably cancel the play session and lead a discussion on the correct course of action myself.

Take a look at my alternative DG design where high level, far reaching decisions (strategic) are subject to discussions and polls, while low level tactical decisions are the perogative of the responsible leader unless a citizen takes the initiative to raise disagreement.

 

[Provolution]

I think the Veterans talk over our heads, maybe to monopolize the rules debate.
Past examples is more or less irrelevant to read up. Besides, we need to discuss C3C as the new game version, and plan from there.

 

[Black_Hole]

I think the Veterans talk over our heads, maybe to monopolize the rules debate.
Past examples is more or less irrelevant to read up. Besides, we need to discuss C3C as the new game version, and plan from there.

but we can learn from out past, we cant learn how to set up government from the conuests

 

[Ginger_Ale]

No C3C for me, please. Is it that much trouble to use another disk (gasp!), just so that we can include everyone, rather than make them pay $10+ ? Plus, even C3C has it's bugs. SGLs are way too random, AI does not make armies, Age of Science does not work, and the sub bug is a bit annoying. Vanilla 1.29f is by far the most stable version of civ out there.

 

[Black_Hole]

No C3C for me, please. Is it that much trouble to use another disk (gasp!), just so that we can include everyone, rather than make them pay $10+ ? Plus, even C3C has it's bugs. SGLs are way too random, AI does not make armies, Age of Science does not work, and the sub bug is a bit annoying. Vanilla 1.29f is by far the most stable version of civ out there.

a few bugs at the price of great new civs to choose from, new features, new terrain, new units, new stuff, new things, and new doo-hickees

 

[Ginger_Ale]

...and at the price of excluding many new comers...

 

[Black_Hole]

...and at the price of excluding many new comers...

if the government is set up right, people could still be deputies, very active citizens, members of judiciary, members of election office, etc.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

How active and helpful can you be if you can't even open the save? Even right now, there aren't many screenshots, so trying to be a deputy with little screenshots is a bit hard. We should do an informal poll now...

 

[Chieftess]

That principle died in term three of DG3.

Go back to DGIV for a minute. Watch Rik Meleet change the sliders despite legally posted instructions not to. Watch Chieftess change legally posted build queues (like she did in earlier DGs). Those at the chat no only did not stand up and try to prevent these gross miscarriages they supported them. Look at two of the greatest periods of dissention in DG history (DG1T3 and DG3T3). Both were the result of those at the chat not getting their way despite what was posted in the forums.

I'll try to get a link to that thread.

It's not like I changed those queues on purpose. Prove to me that it's a conspiracy where I said, "Let's change this queue to make this governor's life miserable". With so many cities (especially in late DG2 and later in DG4 when we had tons of cities), there's bound to be mistakes, and misclicks (having the mouse a few pixels below where you intended it to be). Build queues are one of the more tedious things in the game, and it's the tedious things where mistakes are bound to be made. Besides, if it really *WAS* a conspiracy, I would have changed every single queue.

I also spot the irony that build queues are rarely even discussed in the forums. Thus, the improvements and units of an ENTIRE nation could be determined by 1 person. That's the one thing that governors rarely do - creating discussions. Prove to me that having a governor determine the build queue of an entire nation is the will of the people! Maybe we should make this a requirement for the domestic advisor. Setting up a discussion thread for the provincial build queues, and the governors follow them.

DG1T3 was not about the chat not getting their way. It was about you not following an instruction to trade medicine. IIRC, it was something that came up out of the clear blue in-game. (Even still, you wound up trading it the next turnchat).

 

[Black_Hole]

How active and helpful can you be if you can't even open the save? Even right now, there aren't many screenshots, so trying to be a deputy with little screenshots is a bit hard. We should do an informal poll now...

well then we are gonna lose lots of people(including me) if we play next DG on vanilla monarch.....

P.S. maybe a discussion first....

 

[DaveShack]

I also spot the irony that build queues are rarely even discussed in the forums. Thus, the improvements and units of an ENTIRE nation could be determined by 1 person. That's the one thing that governors rarely do - creating discussions. Prove to me that having a governor determine the build queue of an entire nation is the will of the people! Maybe we should make this a requirement for the domestic advisor. Setting up a discussion thread for the provincial build queues, and the governors follow them.

That's exactly one of the points of my alternative government structure proposal. The Strategic Council would set production quotas, probably by region. The build queues would have to satisfy those quotas, in the manner which the Governor or Mayor (a tactical office) decides is the most efficient manner.