For a while now, going back a couple of games, we've been hearing some suggestions to try a more continuous play style instead of the traditional style of discussing and polling for 3 or more days and then playing 10 (or so) turns. Donsig is the most recent proponent. (gotta give credit 
)
Most of the time this is mentioned as a possible change, there are immediate cries of outrage, "but that goes against the whole tradition of the DG.
" To be honest, part of me wants to have the same reaction to it, but I think it should get its own discussion so that we can engage our brains on the idea instead of dismissing it with our guts.
One of the reasons people don't stay around is that the DG moves so slowly. We have been averaging 10 turns a week for quite a long while, but even when things are working well we only average 10 turns every 4 days. Let's take a look at a typical 4-7 day cycle from the point of view of an ordinary citizen called Joe, who is active daily.
Day 1, the save has just been played. If Joe is very lucky, the DP has posted a good summary including screenies, and officials are in the process of updating their information. Joe might look in the save and start a discussion or suggest something to an official, but might not take that kind of initiative. He might participate in a discussion, if one gets started this fast or if one can be continued with the new information.
Day 2 dawns with some discussion having taken place in some areas, but other areas have seen little activity. If Joe is the proactive type, he'll start bugging people or get active himself in starting discussions that weren't started yesterday. However, if we're on a 4 day cycle, officials are already getting antsy about starting polls so they will finish before the next play session.
Day 3 sees the opening of some 2-day polls. Odds are high that Joe will see the poll and vote in it within 8 hours of it opening, though it sometimes goes up to 24 hours for certain combinations of citizen timezone vs poll creator timezone. By the 24 hour point, anywhere from 75% to 90% of the population has usually voted. The discussion continues in the poll thread.
Day 4 of a 4 day cycle, the discussion might continue right up to play time, though most decisions are locked in by this time. Officials post their instructions according to the expected results of polls, and everyone hopes we don't run into something which stops play after 2 turns.
Wow, that 4 day cycle is an awfully tight schedule. How can speeding things up help? It won't, if speeding up is all we do -- but there is more to it than that. Today, we discuss and poll the smallest of details. We expect every citizen to participate in setting the exact terms for trades, tasking military units down to the specific routes they will take, setting an exact tech path, setting the science rate, and other low-level details. Don't misunderstand me here, I do not have a problem with allowing every citizen to be as involved as they want in any of these areas. But we should feel free to lower the expectation that they must participate in all the details.
Playing 2-3 turns a day or alternating days can work, if we shift the people's focus from deciding every detal to setting a long-range policy. This can be done by doing 3 things in parallel. Each day we could be finalizing the details for that day's session, anticipating the results from the session and starting planning for the next one, and continuously updating the strategy for the future play sessions. There would be all these activites for citizens to participate in, according to their preferences. We would be giving everyone a reason to stay.
That 3rd piece is actually the most important one, and not doing it is what killed us this game. As soon as we saw the terrain and knew we were short of luxuries, we should have decided on a strategy for getting happy. The whole game was a series of blunders, where we found out way too late that we were missing a game element, and then by the time we figured out we should pursue that element the opportunity was gone. Same thing with the Mongolian war, we kept cities which probably should have been razed, because we did not do the necessary long-term economic planning.
So, is this crazy talk? Is it time to consider changing our ways?
)Most of the time this is mentioned as a possible change, there are immediate cries of outrage, "but that goes against the whole tradition of the DG.
" To be honest, part of me wants to have the same reaction to it, but I think it should get its own discussion so that we can engage our brains on the idea instead of dismissing it with our guts. One of the reasons people don't stay around is that the DG moves so slowly. We have been averaging 10 turns a week for quite a long while, but even when things are working well we only average 10 turns every 4 days. Let's take a look at a typical 4-7 day cycle from the point of view of an ordinary citizen called Joe, who is active daily.
Day 1, the save has just been played. If Joe is very lucky, the DP has posted a good summary including screenies, and officials are in the process of updating their information. Joe might look in the save and start a discussion or suggest something to an official, but might not take that kind of initiative. He might participate in a discussion, if one gets started this fast or if one can be continued with the new information.
Day 2 dawns with some discussion having taken place in some areas, but other areas have seen little activity. If Joe is the proactive type, he'll start bugging people or get active himself in starting discussions that weren't started yesterday. However, if we're on a 4 day cycle, officials are already getting antsy about starting polls so they will finish before the next play session.
Day 3 sees the opening of some 2-day polls. Odds are high that Joe will see the poll and vote in it within 8 hours of it opening, though it sometimes goes up to 24 hours for certain combinations of citizen timezone vs poll creator timezone. By the 24 hour point, anywhere from 75% to 90% of the population has usually voted. The discussion continues in the poll thread.
Day 4 of a 4 day cycle, the discussion might continue right up to play time, though most decisions are locked in by this time. Officials post their instructions according to the expected results of polls, and everyone hopes we don't run into something which stops play after 2 turns.
Wow, that 4 day cycle is an awfully tight schedule. How can speeding things up help? It won't, if speeding up is all we do -- but there is more to it than that. Today, we discuss and poll the smallest of details. We expect every citizen to participate in setting the exact terms for trades, tasking military units down to the specific routes they will take, setting an exact tech path, setting the science rate, and other low-level details. Don't misunderstand me here, I do not have a problem with allowing every citizen to be as involved as they want in any of these areas. But we should feel free to lower the expectation that they must participate in all the details.
Playing 2-3 turns a day or alternating days can work, if we shift the people's focus from deciding every detal to setting a long-range policy. This can be done by doing 3 things in parallel. Each day we could be finalizing the details for that day's session, anticipating the results from the session and starting planning for the next one, and continuously updating the strategy for the future play sessions. There would be all these activites for citizens to participate in, according to their preferences. We would be giving everyone a reason to stay.
That 3rd piece is actually the most important one, and not doing it is what killed us this game. As soon as we saw the terrain and knew we were short of luxuries, we should have decided on a strategy for getting happy. The whole game was a series of blunders, where we found out way too late that we were missing a game element, and then by the time we figured out we should pursue that element the opportunity was gone. Same thing with the Mongolian war, we kept cities which probably should have been razed, because we did not do the necessary long-term economic planning.
So, is this crazy talk? Is it time to consider changing our ways?
All I am saying is that if we decide to implomont this plan, then we need to be ready to hold every persion accountable for maintaining the timeline. Getting people to plan several turn in advance hasnt really been such a huge successful history for us in the past. Even teh greenest padawan knows that.
