How many teams?

[Sommerswerd]

I think you're getting the cart before the horse

I agree... which is why I said I was "reluctant to raise another issue..." ... But since we need to discuss it anyway:

I think most of this can be addressed by each team. That seemed to work okay for most of the last game.

I respectfully disagree. One of the reasons the last game ended was because once the turnplayer on one team quit, the team collapsed. Another team only had one turnplayer and there was a communication barrier that killed participation. If the team could have had multiple turnplayers, the communication would have been smoother and participation may not have died. Also, there were repeated long pauses because there were no turnplayers available on particular teams...

To re-cap... We now have 1 team, 2 additional turnplayers, and a few back-up turnplayers.
1. Indiansmoke (closed team w/5 players)
2. Sommerswerd
3. Lord Parkin

Extra / Back-up Turnplayers
DMOC
BLubmuz
remake20 (would rather be an admin)

So assuming that remake20 gets to be an admin, DMOC is a second turnplayer with Lord Parkin and BLubmuz is a second turnplayer with Sommerswerd, we still only have 3 teams so far...

 

[Hercules90]

I would volunteer for reserve/backup turnplayer but not main turn player. I also intend to be fairly active.

Last game I joined to learn strategy, planning and tactics. And I think I have.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Teams
1. Indiansmoke (closed team w/5 players)
2. Sommerswerd
3. Lord Parkin

Extra / Back-up Turnplayers
1. DMOC
2. BLubmuz
3. remake20 (would rather be an admin)
4. Hercules90

We still only have 3 teams so far...

 

[CommandoBob]

I think most of this can be addressed by each team...That seemed to work okay for most of the last game.

I respectfully disagree. One of the reasons the last game ended was because once the turnplayer on one team quit, the team collapsed. Another team only had one turnplayer and there was a communication barrier that killed participation. If the team could have had multiple turnplayers, the communication would have been smoother and participation may not have died. Also, there were repeated long pauses because there were no turnplayers available on particular teams...

Please note that I said most of the game.

And I understand about the one team going to pieces when the turnplayer quit. And I am too familiar with long pauses due to turnplayer issues. Just ask anyone in the Civ3 MTDG 2; most of the long pauses are mine. ( and @ self )

We both agree on this: We've seen what can happen when a turnplayer quits and it is not pretty. We don't want a team to die because the turnplayer leaves.

What we disagree on is how to fix that.

My thoughts go like this: those who have discussed the last game are very aware of the situation. No matter what team they are on, they don't want a repeat of that. So they will do things to get more people able to be turnplayers. What things? I don't know. That would depend on the individuals on the team. Two teams had their own pitboss games during the last game, if I recall correctly. That is one way to get people familar with what a turnplayer does.

Maybe part of the answer is to require two designated turnplayers per team. I just don't think that is the complete solution, however.

 

[donsig]

What's up with a closed team of only five players? As far as I know all teams in all the various team demogames have been open. I'm not sure I like the idea of a closed team. I also think it's going to be quite difficult to get up a list of who is going to be highly active. For many people that may depend on the kind of game we chose to play.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Very quickly, my 2 cents:

Having closed teams kind of seems against the spirit of a demogame. If you want to have a bunch of friends on your team that's fine, but it should still be possible for others to join your team and lurk/comment if they wish. There are plenty of opportunities to arrange games where you have closed teams, but the MTDG doesn't seem like the place for it.

 

[Sommerswerd]

The closed team was Indiansmoke's idea but I support it for a couple of reasons...

1. We need teams to have a game. Right now we only have 3 Teams. Having one closed team gets one team out of the way so that we can move on to forming the others. We can always add more teams for as many who want to be turnplayers. People were talking about 6, 8 and even 10 teams a while back.

2. I want to be on an open team, but I am OK with people deciding what kind of team they want to be on. A while back I remember someone suggesting that team captains could decide how they wanted to structure their team so that those joining could decide whether they wanted to be on that team. The closed team idea suits that purpose (albeit to the extreme).

3. It strikes me that someone might want their team to run a certain way, and they are worried that it will be to difficult to accomplish that on an open-to-the-public team. Team Kaz was a good example of how contentious it can get on a team of strangers. I enjoyed it, but I'm sure some people did not.

4. It also occured to me that some people might not want to be on a team with certain other people... maybe because their philosophies clash or some other reason... who knows? But the point is... rather than say "I don't want to play with so-and-so", they are polite and say "I want the following people on my team."

My thoughts

 

[Indiansmoke]

First I did not say I want to play on a closed team myself. I am thinking about it and asked whether we can allow this.

Most of the reasons for doing so are mentioned by Sommer. Another important one is that we can get teams from other communities into the game this way, Realms, Civplayers, Civduelzone, apolyton, CFR come to mind.

If we aproach these communities and get lets say 4 closed teams, we can then have another 4 open teams from here and have a much nicer game.

 

[Lord Parkin]

So assuming that remake20 gets to be an admin, DMOC is a second turnplayer with Lord Parkin and BLubmuz is a second turnplayer with Sommerswerd, we still only have 3 teams so far...

Let me point out that it's still pretty early on here. Also, in general, a bunch of people on a team will naturally find a turnplayer or arrange a turnplaying roster amongst themselves. What I'm saying is that, although it might be nice to try to find a solid turnplayer in advance for every team, the way we're going about it might be a bit counter-productive. My preference is leaning towards just getting the rough game options decided, then opening the gates for people to sign up to the various teams. If past games are anything to go by, once people see that there's a sign up thread, that things are moving, and that private forums are in place and buzzing with discussion, they'll start flooding in to the various teams. We might be going about this a bit backwards, trying to figure team leaders out while we don't have any core game settings decided and only have a few people flicking over the threads for news of a game start ahead.

First I did not say I want to play on a closed team myself. I am thinking about it and asked whether we can allow this.

Most of the reasons for doing so are mentioned by Sommer. Another important one is that we can get teams from other communities into the game this way, Realms, Civplayers, Civduelzone, apolyton, CFR come to mind.

If we aproach these communities and get lets say 4 closed teams, we can then have another 4 open teams from here and have a much nicer game.

Some fair points, although I disagree with your usage of the word "nicer". That's completely and utterly a matter of opinion.

My main concern is that the "closed" teams are much more likely to consist of a bunch of veteran friends who know the game inside and out. As such, the "general populace" who are only able to join a few open teams don't really stand a chance... since some of the teams will consist solely of hardcore players, while others try to be more democratic or do more role playing and are consequently less efficient. When you deliberately set the game up so that there's not a roughly level playing field between the teams from the start, it's just asking for trouble - i.e. some teams will hardly have a chance from the outset due to *actually* being democratic and allowing newbies a say, falling easy prey to a closed team of a few hardcore experienced buddies micromanaging everything as optimally as possible.

 

[remake20]

I personally don't like the idea of closed teams. It takes the feeling out of Demogame. The team can take part and should. If you have closed teams it's like having the president control everything in D.C. though it is still part of the United States. So your closing people out of places they may want to be or take part it. If you really want closed teams I suggest you find like 20-30 and have your own private MTDG. My 2 cents.

 

[Indiansmoke]

I personally don't like the idea of closed teams. It takes the feeling out of Demogame. The team can take part and should. If you have closed teams it's like having the president control everything in D.C. though it is still part of the United States. So your closing people out of places they may want to be or take part it. If you really want closed teams I suggest you find like 20-30 and have your own private MTDG. My 2 cents.

You are one of my biggest fears...

So far you started a poll on game settings, put your name on top of list for admin, are posting opinions on everything...and I bet your civ skills are dubious.

Imagine having 3 people like you in the same team...after 7 days it will be you 3 left polling and posting each other to death....while I will be for my mama....

 

[Sommerswerd]

This last set of exchanges is exactly what I was talking about... I disagree with forcing teams to accept team mates they don't want. Again, I am playing regardless so neither approach is a make or break issue for me but I want everyone to be happy on their teams... not quitting mid-game because they can't get along with their team-mates. I would love to have remake20 on my team... so why have a system where people end up on teams where they are not welcome?

For example... Indiansmoke and I have very, very different philosophies about what makes a fun team/good demogame... but we are aware of our differences... and if I wanted to join Indiansmoke's team, I think ISmoke would know that I would not be asking to join the team if I was not prepared to go along with the game philosophy, (ie. high value on experience/expertise). Conversley, if Indiansmoke wanted to be on my team, he would know that there are gonna be polls, polls, polls and more polls, majority rules...period and he would not join unless he was OK with that.

Some players are very competitive... highly skilled, ranked-ladder-players etc., and they want to be on a team that works like a well-oiled machine... because to them the game is most fun if they are winning or have a good chance of winning... The will of the majority is less important to them if the majority does not really know what they are doing...

Some players are very civil... longtime forum members with lots of friends and contacts in the Civ forums for example... and they feel the game is most fun if their team is very polite friendly, focused and organized... they like to build consensus and take their time with decisions through long deliberative processes... Making friends is more important than winning or majority rule

Some players are very social... talkative/ argumentative types, and they feel the game is most fun when there is robust debate, chatting, arguments. They want to give their opinion and be listened to, and get their way sometimes... They want action and discussion and polls etc... this is more important to them than winning.

Everyone is different... Can we consider accomodating that by having different teams with different structures?

 

[remake20]

You are one of my biggest fears...

So far you started a poll on game settings, put your name on top of list for admin, are posting opinions on everything...and I bet your civ skills are dubious.

Imagine having 3 people like you in the same team...after 7 days it will be you 3 left polling and posting each other to death....while I will be for my mama....

What in the world are you talking about? Everyone has there opinion and just because I've posted a poll or two doesn't mean I'm gonna poll everyone to death. And the only reason I put my name on the top of the admin list is because, I was the only one who volunteered so I had to.

 

[damnrunner]

I like 5 teams.

4 or 6 could also work but will quickly line up into stable alliances that never change. An odd number of teams incentives alliance defections and allows for easier balancing by weaker teams vs stronger ones.

 

[Lord Parkin]

You are one of my biggest fears...

So far you started a poll on game settings, put your name on top of list for admin, are posting opinions on everything...and I bet your civ skills are dubious.

Imagine having 3 people like you in the same team...after 7 days it will be you 3 left polling and posting each other to death....while I will be for my mama....

That's a bit harsh, Indiansmoke. Just because someone is interested, excited and keen to help out, there's no reason to berate them for it. It's not as if remake20 will be the only admin/map maker, if he is even one at all. I'm sure there will be others from past games with plenty of experience to help out.

And I fail to see any issue whatsoever with posting polls and opinions. Since when did discussion from unfamiliar faces become a crime? If we discourage anyone who isn't a "seasoned member" from posting more than a small amount, it's not exactly helpful and will likely just alienate people who haven't played in many games before. Keep heading in that direction and the "democracy game" will end up becoming an ever-dwindling exclusive clique where no newcomers are allowed.

Saying "I bet your civ skills are dubious" is just cruel and inflammatory. You have absolutely no evidence to back this up, except that you haven't encountered this guy much before in your particular circles. This just makes you sound hostile and conceited. Come on, you can be better than that.

Remember that both you and I were new to these democracy games at one stage too. How would you feel if someone sneered and judged you for being interested and excited about this new form of gaming you've discovered? Pretty put off from wanting to be involved, I'd imagine.

The thing is, if we don't encourage interested newcomers to participate and get involved, the number of people involved in these games will rapidly dwindle to the point where it's pretty much just a bunch of veteran guys playing solo games against each other. And that's completely the opposite of what these democracy games are about: letting everyone who's interested participate if they want to (hence "democracy").

Let's try to be nicer in future, eh? Disagree and debate by all means, but don't throw personal insults around just for the hell of it.

I like 5 teams.

4 or 6 could also work but will quickly line up into stable alliances that never change. An odd number of teams incentives alliance defections and allows for easier balancing by weaker teams vs stronger ones.

Because in the last game of 5 teams, the alliances weren't at all stable or unchanging, right?

No, in the last game almost everyone was scrambling to set up a 3-civ alliance as soon as possible, and the teams that managed to do it first pretty much had control of the game from then. From very early on there was a locked alliance of 2 which grew to a locked alliance of 3, forcing the remaining 2 teams into an alliance, and then it remained a 3 vs 2 for the rest of the game. Not exactly rife with "alliance defections".

But this is just a fact of these sort of demogames. Teams will naturally forge alliances to better their position, and once an alliance is forged another tends to forge against it, and then you don't really get people switching sides after that because they can't afford to (they would effectively lose all trust from everyone for their betrayal, and isolate themselves).

So from this perspective it makes much more sense to have 4 or 6 teams rather than 5. Teams will always forge long-lasting alliances - you can't stop them doing so, nor would you want to - but at least with an even number of teams the alliances are likely to be balanced. To me, playing in a game where you know it's going to be a tough 2 vs 2 (or 3 vs 3 / 2 vs 2 vs 2) gridlock is much more interesting than playing in a game where the first to find 2 allies early on has pretty much doomed the remaining 2 teams from the outset.

 

[donsig]

The closed team was Indiansmoke's idea but I support it for a couple of reasons...

1. We need teams to have a game. Right now we only have 3 Teams. Having one closed team gets one team out of the way so that we can move on to forming the others. We can always add more teams for as many who want to be turnplayers. People were talking about 6, 8 and even 10 teams a while back.

Having a closed team only speeds up the process by giving those not on the closed team less options for a team to join. Until we decide how many teams there are going to be I see no rush to finalize the forming of teams.

2. I want to be on an open team, but I am OK with people deciding what kind of team they want to be on. A while back I remember someone suggesting that team captains could decide how they wanted to structure their team so that those joining could decide whether they wanted to be on that team. The closed team idea suits that purpose (albeit to the extreme).

Open teams and team captains are not mutually exclusive ideas. A team captain can publicize a team philosophy and still allow open membership. If we give players a sense of what the teams will be like they will likely end up joining a team structured to their liking. We could have a thread for each potential team where anyone could join in the discussion about how the team might be organized. This would allow players to shop around for a philosophy they like and also engage in some conversation with potential team mates allowing for everyone to gauge how much they'd get along with those on a given team before committing.

3. It strikes me that someone might want their team to run a certain way, and they are worried that it will be to difficult to accomplish that on an open-to-the-public team. Team Kaz was a good example of how contentious it can get on a team of strangers. I enjoyed it, but I'm sure some people did not.

As a veteran of the Team Kaz wars I must say I did not particularly enjoy that team experience. I would not say this was a direct result of joining a team of strangers. I purposely avoided joining a team with people I knew in hopes of making new friends. I currently on a team in the MTDG whose members were all strangers to me before the game. That team experience has been very enjoyable which proves to me that it is possible to forge a good team from strangers.

4. It also occured to me that some people might not want to be on a team with certain other people... maybe because their philosophies clash or some other reason... who knows? But the point is... rather than say "I don't want to play with so-and-so", they are polite and say "I want the following people on my team."

My thoughts

Umm, since the team rosters are public it is quite easy to avoid a team a certain someone has joined. Closed teams are not necessary for this.

Closed teams are exclusive. Those on a closed team are saying to everyone else, we don't want you on our team. Not a very friendly thing to say. Imagine the reactions of the other teams to a sole closed team. It doesn't seem too far fetched for the non-exclusive teams to decide amongst themselves that the closed team ought to be the first team eliminated.

 

[Provolution]

I am happy that some argue for closed teams, which is fine by me. If I and some others were not wanted in a future closed team, we would most likely get the same treatment as we did receive in Team Kaz, so there is no need to create drama of not being allowed into a hostile and derogative team where you had no say, no right to play and no attention to advise given and no way to handle disagreements fairly in polls. I rather stay in a fun, losing team than being subject to such behavior.

I also see that a potentially closed team would be a team people would like to kill off first, out of bad blood from previous team experiences. Micromanagement would then be balanced out with a diplomatic handicap, which sounds fair.

I also support polling rules and a sort of big election per historical era, in order to give variety of turnplayers (not having 2-3 guys running the entire show) as well as allowing these to shape and influence their mandate effectively. This is the only way to mitigate the choice of different playing styles, gaming philosophies and not to mention culture of expression.

 

[DaveShack]

I'm interested in playing turns, but I'm also more interested in getting on a team where there are some good players. No disrespect for any individuals I've been on a team with in the past, but being in 4th or 5th place every game is getting kinda old...

Closed teams sound like a bad idea because I'm afraid we'd get 1-2 teams full of ringers that would just walk over everyone else. An ideal situation for me would be to balance the teams so that each one as at least one good turnplayer, diplomat, micromanager, and military.

 

[DaveShack]

You are one of my biggest fears...

So far you started a poll on game settings, put your name on top of list for admin, are posting opinions on everything...and I bet your civ skills are dubious.

Imagine having 3 people like you in the same team...after 7 days it will be you 3 left polling and posting each other to death....while I will be for my mama....

Moderator Action: Just a friendly reminder, the site rules apply to demogame forums. Please don't flame or troll.

 

[Krill]

I'm interested in playing turns, but I'm also more interested in getting on a team where there are some good players. No disrespect for any individuals I've been on a team with in the past, but being in 4th or 5th place every game is getting kinda old...

Closed teams sound like a bad idea because I'm afraid we'd get 1-2 teams full of ringers that would just walk over everyone else. An ideal situation for me would be to balance the teams so that each one as at least one good turnplayer, diplomat, micromanager, and military.

You can forget about asking other forums if they want to play, if some sort of draft is instituted. Drafting players into the teams is identical to having closed teams in that respect.