Discussion: Way to better turnchats

[invy]

I made this thread to discuss especially last turnchat, but also all
others turnchats. Last turnchat had way too many problems and fast
'non-democratic' decisions. I hope we'll have positive criticism here.
Lets try to keep posts in 'simple' format ans post a suggestions what
would you like to change. I would also like to become tradition to have
this kind of thread after each turnchat.


Starting from beginning:

1. Starting time:
Chats are always late 10+ minutes. Citizens often don't have enough
time and this causes losing of valuable opinions during turnchats.

Proposal: President (his duty?) must make sure to start correctly at
given time.

2. Spamming chatroom. For example Cyc complained last night.

Proposal: When chat starts spamming must stop. There are options first
to warn spammer, than kick, and finally ban.

3. Minister's attendance
Minister's are most important part of turnchat because they are
authorized to make decisions at the battlefield. But most ministers
aren't in turnchat room when turnchat starts.

Proposal: President should make a list of ministers who attended
turnchats (*cons. will be lesser number of votes to lazy ministers in
next elections). If minister can't come than he can send deputy. If
both cant attend TC than they should post detailed instructions.
Also having some prefix in front of minister's names during TC could
make clear who is authorized for specific decisions.

5. Building qeues:

No building qeues for new cities?? At the moment we lack workers but we
are building a temple (that we dont need) in Shorin-Ryu and Spearman in
Odawara (which is already large and growing rapidly = unhapiness). We simply didn't know what to build there.

Proposal: Building qeues must be decided before turnchats. We could
sometimes have discussions what to build next in some specific city.

4. Culture instructions:
We don't have any track of wonder building besides F7. I bet we already
can't build Pyramids and Oracle because we're too late. Than AI will
switch to other wonders when these are completed :/.
Culture minister have not decided where and when to build temples (they
are built by will of other officials) and still no any wonder
proposals. We just have obsolete polls.

Proposal: An official (we can decide who) could read through chatlogs
and note time when each civilization started building wonder.
Currently we have no any informations. Is it time to start wonder
already? We need plan where to build it and when becuase qeues are
full.

5. Trade instructions:
Last TC we sold Mysticism for 35 gold. There was no poll for that
trade. Noone remembered to post about trading contacts. Noone didn't
consider we could trade Polytheism this turnchat if we had a chance
(and we had it).
Proposal: Nothing much, minister could have done his job better.

6: Science instructions: The same problem about trading Polytheism. Tho
Science Minister posted already that he leaves to newly elected
minister to make a poll about next few wanted technologies.

The list is already long so i will stop. No ofense to any ministers especially because it was election period. Please don't take this as attack on goverment or something similar.
Please post your opinions to make this game better and enjoyable for all citizens.

 

[Cyc]

Cyc complaining last night? I hardly said anything during the chat. I was the one who said we should play on and stop all the complaining. Everyone agreed with me. Jeez. Saying that I was spamming with complaints is a lie.

EDIT: Lightened it up a bit. Don't want to get banned again.

 

[Zarn]

Minister attendance isn't a problem. If one can attend, then do it. Instructions should be informative anyway.

As for wonders, one simply cannot be put into queue. Temples could be used for cultural value to solidify our claims. Combined with Libaries, our borders extend alot further.

 

[invy]

Cyc complaining last night? I hardly said anything during the chat. I was the one who said we should play on and stop all the complaining. Everyone agreed with me. Jeez. Saying that I was spamming with complaints is a lie.

EDIT: Lightened it up a bit. Don't want to get banned again.

I didn't said you were spamming, you didn't understand welll what i meant.
If you and MSTK didn't said to stop spam (not complain if you don't like that word) the turnchat would last half an hour longer because Chieftess couldn't see anything. Chat window was constantly 'spammed' with unneeded informations).

 

[TimBentley]

I haven't been at a turnchat for a long time, but I thought I would comment anyways.

1. Starting time:
Chats are always late 10+ minutes. Citizens often don't have enough
time and this causes losing of valuable opinions during turnchats.

Proposal: President (his duty?) must make sure to start correctly at
given time.

I think it should be the DP's duty in case the president is not the DP, and the gender should not be restricted to males. If the president doesn't show up, that is an understandable reason, but I think you're right.

2. Spamming chatroom. For example Cyc complained last night.

Proposal: When chat starts spamming must stop. There are options first
to warn spammer, than kick, and finally ban.

I agree, spam is bad. I'll let other people discuss the possible punishments.

3. Minister's attendance
Minister's are most important part of turnchat because they are
authorized to make decisions at the battlefield. But most ministers
aren't in turnchat room when turnchat starts.

Proposal: President should make a list of ministers who attended
turnchats (*cons. will be lesser number of votes to lazy ministers in
next elections). If minister can't come than he can send deputy. If
both cant attend TC than they should post detailed instructions.
Also having some prefix in front of minister's names during TC could
make clear who is authorized for specific decisions.

I don't agree with you here. Ministers have a life, and they can't come to every turnchat. I don't think not coming to turnchats indicates that a minister is lazy; they may have to work, or sleep, or go to school, or a variety of other reasons. I agree that detailed instructions are important, and that their presence at the turnchat can help.

5. Building qeues:

No building qeues for new cities?? At the moment we lack workers but we
are building a temple (that we dont need) in Shorin-Ryu and Spearman in
Odawara (which is already large and growing rapidly = unhapiness). We simply didn't know what to build there.

Proposal: Building qeues must be decided before turnchats. We could
sometimes have discussions what to build next in some specific city.

I agree, other than the numbering.

4. Culture instructions:
We don't have any track of wonder building besides F7. I bet we already
can't build Pyramids and Oracle because we're too late. Than AI will
switch to other wonders when these are completed :/.
Culture minister have not decided where and when to build temples (they
are built by will of other officials) and still no any wonder
proposals. We just have obsolete polls.

Proposal: An official (we can decide who) could read through chatlogs
and note time when each civilization started building wonder.
Currently we have no any informations. Is it time to start wonder
already? We need plan where to build it and when becuase qeues are
full.

You make a good point, though I don't think it's as bad as you may think.

5. Trade instructions:
Last TC we sold Mysticism for 35 gold. There was no poll for that
trade. Noone remembered to post about trading contacts. Noone didn't
consider we could trade Polytheism this turnchat if we had a chance
(and we had it).
Proposal: Nothing much, minister could have done his job better.

6: Science instructions: The same problem about trading Polytheism. Tho [sic]
Science Minister posted already that he leaves to newly elected
minister to make a poll about next few wanted technologies.

Nothing to add to these points.

 

[Civman2004]

Ministers shouldn't be forced to attend turnchats. If their instructions are comprehensive and detailed enough then that should be enough to go on. Ideally it would be good to have someone from the ministry there, but in reality, some of us are in the office, or in bed, or at university/college, etc, when the turnchats are played. Judging ministerial performance based on number of turnchats attended will limit drastcially the number of people who can be ministers, which will concentrate power in the hands of a few and cause people to lose interest in the game.

I think the minister should be eveluated on attendance at turnchats or amount of detail in instructions, or if not detail, then at least a strategic framework within which to make decisions.

Just my 2c worth

 

[invy]

Somehow we always lack instructions and when we need to decide what to do minister is not present. I understant ministers can't be always there but than they could post more details in instructions and it is usually not the case.Ofcourse we can't make them to do this if they don't want but it would be the act of responsible and wise minister.

 

[DaveShack]

Give someone other than the President chat op authority and have that person (people) responsible for enforcing chat rules. A lot of the spamming goes on while the DP is in the game, which makes it harder for others to see the DP's game updates. I got blamed for there being few updates during chats, when in fact I was reporting lots of events, the people just couldn't see them. If someone else (the CJ maybe) could police the chat then the President / DP's updates would show up better.

Looks like it needs to be repeated since many people don't understand the laws on instructions, it is not possible to change instructions during the chat. If we have an instruction the DP can do, or do not (stopping the chat) -- there is no change.

On things for which there is no instruction, the DP has the right to decide and move on, or stop and go back to the forum for instructions. Same thing goes for ending at turn 10. A couple of chats dragged at the end because I was hearing a fairly even split of advice between stopping and going on, and took some time to decide instead of making a fast decision which might be wrong.

We had a lot of times where events were not planned for properly. Having three settlers get produced during a chat and only having one city location decided is a huge problem. Trade instructions didn't allow us to give obsolete tech for workers+gold and we missed that deal, and we tried to hold non-monopoly techs when we could have been cleaning out our neighbors coffers.

Production is unbalanced, we have too many settlers and not enough escorts.

 

[Cyc]

Give someone other than the President chat op authority and have that person (people) responsible for enforcing chat rules. A lot of the spamming goes on while the DP is in the game, which makes it harder for others to see the DP's game updates. I got blamed for there being few updates during chats, when in fact I was reporting lots of events, the people just couldn't see them. If someone else (the CJ maybe) could police the chat then the President / DP's updates would show up better.

Looks like it needs to be repeated since many people don't understand the laws on instructions, it is not possible to change instructions during the chat. If we have an instruction the DP can do, or do not (stopping the chat) -- there is no change.

On things for which there is no instruction, the DP has the right to decide and move on, or stop and go back to the forum for instructions. Same thing goes for ending at turn 10. A couple of chats dragged at the end because I was hearing a fairly even split of advice between stopping and going on, and took some time to decide instead of making a fast decision which might be wrong.

We had a lot of times where events were not planned for properly. Having three settlers get produced during a chat and only having one city location decided is a huge problem.

I agree with the President on all of the above. (I'm just not into trading like most. I would rather see them work for their techs. I also think we should have built more Settlers quicker. )

I wouldn't mind being the extra Op. Usually the small chat screen I have (I use the java chat at the bottom of each page) goes by so quicky, I have to read like a madman just to keep up. Anything I type is outdated. So I believe that sending inapropriate conversations out to another chatroom would be a good thing by a secondary Op with kick powers. The DP may also want to use a colored font that would not be confused with any of the scripts. This would allow their statements to "stand out from the rest".

 

[MSTK]

Maybe we can have all elected judicial officials be the extra op.

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

I completely disagree with the idea that a minister should be judged on turn chat attendance. There is no requirement for a minister to participate in chat. This is a forum based game.

 

[eyrei]

Last game we did have elected chat ops for the turnchats, though I wasn't around enough to know if they had any beneficial effect. If they did, why don't we institute that office again...

 

[Chieftess]

1. Starting time:

We already have a rule (atleast unnoficially) that if the DP doesn't show up after 10 minutes, the next in CoC takes over. Also, not everyone's clocks are synchronized...


2. Spamming chatroom. For example Cyc complained last night.

I always try to calm the chat down if there's too much talking. Some DP's might not know all of the chat op functions to calm down a chatroom.


3. Minister's attendance

We used to do this in a way, but people have a life, and not everyone can come at whatever time the chat is. Do you want people to stay up until 1:00-3:00am? Go to the chat during work/school? That's why we have deputies and chat-reps (in a few DGs).

5. Building qeues:

Welcome to the CFC-style demogame. It's really the style of the domestic advisor. Sometimes they'll post queues for a new city. Plus, the president has traditionally taken over cities without build queues.

4. Culture instructions:

Again, welcome to the demogame. Domestic traditionally ordered the building of wonders here, but there were wonder discussions earlier. Just becaues an AI starts a wonder on monarch doesn't mean we can't beat it. If we are, then we can just take it. (300 shields for a wonder = 10 swordsmen to take it!)

Proposal: An official (we can decide who) could read through chatlogs
and note time when each civilization started building wonder.

I guess you haven't read my chatlogs, since I give that information.


5. Trade instructions:

I think we might've had a poll, but I agree, that was a bad trade deal.

6: Science instructions:

Nope, the people already wanted poly. Science queues can travel from term to term.

 

[invy]

Once again i don't think that ministers should be forced to attend turnchats. If they can't than deputy can. If deputy can't than they can post detailed instructions and thats it. Posting instructions in 2 short lines and not coming to chat is irresponsible from a minister.
I would like to point to excellent example by Sir Donald, take a look at his instructions for next turnchat. Great job, we need ministers like him. Even if he don't attend to turnchat President will have all explained.

---
Proposal: An official (we can decide who) could read through chatlogs
and note time when each civilization started building wonder.

I guess you haven't read my chatlogs, since I give that information.
---
Culture minister could post exact times of wonder builds in Culture office (it would be hard to search chatlogs every time we want to know when each wonder is started). With that informations we might predict when will other civs finish wonders.
It would be nice to have so we can better plan our wonders. We still can do this if we want.

---
(300 shields for a wonder = 10 swordsmen to take it!)
---
I like this idea . But we need to start a war first and we might not be able to capture wonder which we wanted to build

---
6: Science instructions:

Nope, the people already wanted poly. Science queues can travel from term to term
---
I thought that when trading. Scince didn't say what techs they want or do they want to trade polytheism for other techs.
Example:
How would president know what to do: to trade Polytheism for Math, Literature and Philosophy, or for Math, Literature and Code of Laws. Or would it trade at all? We could maybe keep monopoly and save tech for ourselves. Thing that can happen is that Trade minister make decision without Science minister because he is not in TC.

I just wanted to point we needed those instructions because Zulu had Mathematics and could get something else. We still need instructions of this kind for next turnchat.

 

[Rik Meleet]

Give someone other than the President chat op authority and have that person (people) responsible for enforcing chat rules. A lot of the spamming goes on while the DP is in the game, which makes it harder for others to see the DP's game updates. I got blamed for there being few updates during chats, when in fact I was reporting lots of events, the people just couldn't see them. If someone else (the CJ maybe) could police the chat then the President / DP's updates would show up better.

When I am present and "awake enough" I try to keep the spamming down. I was elected Chat-room Operator for this, months ago. But I don't want to be a spam-police; every citizen has, by constitution, a voice and therefore I tend to stick to polite warnings and gentle kicks.

I am however hindered by the President's timetable. 02:00 at night and 07:00 in the morning during weekdays aren't times I am very awake. And I am more into sleeping than to protect the President from being talked to. I ask forgiveness for neglecting my duties.

If you consider this spamming a bigger problem than the warning, kicking or silencing of chat go-ers, please tell me and I'll become less polite. If so, I don't think it is fair for me to continue with Music Updates as it hasn't got anything to do with the game, really.

I think we all benefit most if the President uses a special color for his game-talk and the citizens reduce their spamming and the Chat-Room-Ops become a little more strict in killing spam. We give a little, we take a little and in the end we all have more fun.

I just don't want to give up the music updates ...

 

[Rik Meleet]

---
6: Science instructions:

Nope, the people already wanted poly. Science queues can travel from term to term
---
I thought that when trading. Scince didn't say what techs they want or do they want to trade polytheism for other techs.
Example:
How would president know what to do: to trade Polytheism for Math, Literature and Philosophy, or for Math, Literature and Code of Laws. Or would it trade at all?

This has got nothing to do with the Scienc-Department (at least not in the way I see it). Science is the art of getting techs out of research (slider settings). Obtaining techs through popping-huts is a military activity and obtaining techs through trades is the business of the trade-department. I see nothing wrong if an unexpected unforeseable trave-opportunity appears which has only a tiny window in which it is beneficial to us, to stop the chat and have the people discuss it in the fora. If the window of opportunity isn't closing quickly, the chat can continue and the trade department posts discussions and polls on this after the TurnChat and before the new TurnChat.

 

[DaveShack]

I am however hindered by the President's timetable. 02:00 at night and 07:00 in the morning during weekdays aren't times I am very awake. And I am more into sleeping than to protect the President from being talked to.

If you consider this spamming a bigger problem than the warning, kicking or silencing of chat go-ers, please tell me and I'll become less polite. If so, I don't think it is fair for me to continue with Music Updates as it hasn't got anything to do with the game, really.

I think we all benefit most if the President uses a special color for his game-talk and the citizens reduce their spamming and the Chat-Room-Ops become a little more strict in killing spam. We give a little, we take a little and in the end we all have more fun.

I just don't want to give up the music updates ...

One of the reasons I'm kinda relieved I didn't win this term is that the chat times were almost as rough on me.

The music updates are ok, they only come up every few minutes and are one liners. The unfortunate part is that people like to discuss the songs etc which fills up more of the log. It helps culture, which is a good thing.

It would be a little bit of work, but if we had someone to edit the log to take out extraneous matter and post the raw and pretty versions, then we wouldn't need to stifle anyone, and it would be easy to see what happened.

Posting in a different color -- that's an idea which might help the people with small windows, especially the java users. I think I'll add that to the script I use, in case CT doesn't make it to a chat that I'm able to -- not likely with the timezones but we'll see.

Really, do please keep the music updates. They increase the cultural value of the chat and are a positive influence on happieness -- and we can always use them as a predicting tool to tell us when it is prudent to stop.