Is this demo game dead?

[dutchfire]

Regentman and GingerAle administrate the MTDG, and they're not mods.

btw Does anyone know when Chieftess will be back?

 

[GenMarshall]

btw Does anyone know when Chieftess will be back?

Who knows, she is still busy playing some RPG game or something or beta testing some other Game and does not want to bother us mortals .

 

[Chieftess]

I do glance over the threads from time to time, but yes, I am doing some beta testing.

Anyway, why not just have the elected officials make more discussion threads? Atleast that would make it look like there's some activity for anyone looking to see the progress.

 

[dutchfire]

Well, point is that there isn't that much to discuss, as we don't have regular TC's, and when we have one, all we need to do is decide on tech, and some foreign relations. Techs take loads of turns, so just playing is all there is to a TC.

 

[GeorgeOP]

Writing a functional CoL isn't that much work

On this note, I ask for any and everyone to write a new CoL and/or Constitution. Then we can start deciding what wordings to include and exclude instead of just general ideas. Hopefully we can have a new government by the end of the year, if not sooner.

 

[dutchfire]

I'll try, some time soon.

 

[ice2k4]

I honestly like the one we currently have. (Including all ammendments) I dont see that there should be much change. I think (as Ive stated earlier) that there wasnt much problems with the CoL, but the actual in-game just wasnt good and that the forum part of the game had a few problems which we've learned from.

Edit: Although maybe the Secetary of War should play the save when we are at war. And governors should be deputies of the Minister of the Interior, not elected officials.

 

[donsig]

On this note, I ask for any and everyone to write a new CoL and/or Constitution. Then we can start deciding what wordings to include and exclude instead of just general ideas. Hopefully we can have a new government by the end of the year, if not sooner.

Back in Civ III DG III we started with just a constitution. I think looking at that as a starting point would be very good. We could write a CoL as the game evolves. Having one person do the writing or most of it is not a good thing. Look at the controversies we had in this game. The Civ III DG II had a constitution and CoL largely written by one person and it did not work out (since we abandonded the CoL for the next DG). That is not to say that Shatain's work in the oder Dg or DaveShack's work on the current constitution were bad. The DG laws and constitution should be formed by the players as a group. It's too bad we don't have a wiki where we could all go in and work on a draft of a DG constitution.

 

[Octavian X]

Back in Civ III DG III we started with just a constitution. I think looking at that as a starting point would be very good. We could write a CoL as the game evolves. Having one person do the writing or most of it is not a good thing. Look at the controversies we had in this game. The Civ III DG II had a constitution and CoL largely written by one person and it did not work out (since we abandonded the CoL for the next DG). That is not to say that Shatain's work in the oder Dg or DaveShack's work on the current constitution were bad. The DG laws and constitution should be formed by the players as a group. It's too bad we don't have a wiki where we could all go in and work on a draft of a DG constitution.

There is this interesting online program called Google Docs & Spreadsheets that allows one person to start a document and authorize people to edit it as they see fit later on. It might be interesting if we could work the drafting process with that program.

 

[Octavian X]

And, just to add my two cents about the earlier discussion on our future system. I really do like dutchfire's system, and it has some great potential. It still has local voting procedure issues, as well as the question of who controls what units, as worker control may be a contentious issue.

I've always had an idea at the back of my mind that I've wanted to try out, though - why not make the democracy game itself a competition? A player's goal is to accumulate the most influence by the end of the game. For the people who love the government simulation aspect of the demogame, you gain influence through winning (and staying in) a political office, winning cases at court, changing the constitution, etc. People who prefer the actual Civilization game gain influence through starting good discussion and polling that leads to in-game benefit - like a good increase in productivity, or a well-fought battle. Influence could be used to gather troops around your cause, and battles or coups d'etat would oust leaders not prudent enough to build up their own list of allies. Depending on how far we want to integrate the RPG element, the whole game could be set against a certain backdrop, like a feudal medieval society, or even a Soviet-type government.

Maybe I'm hoping for too much, but a guy can dream...

 

[dutchfire]

Interesting idea.
How would you determine the winner though?
Let everyone give points to the best players at the end of the term?

(I doubt the idea could actually be worked out totally as a demogame, but some elements could be integrated)

 

[ice2k4]

And, just to add my two cents about the earlier discussion on our future system. I really do like dutchfire's system, and it has some great potential. It still has local voting procedure issues, as well as the question of who controls what units, as worker control may be a contentious issue.

I've always had an idea at the back of my mind that I've wanted to try out, though - why not make the democracy game itself a competition? A player's goal is to accumulate the most influence by the end of the game. For the people who love the government simulation aspect of the demogame, you gain influence through winning (and staying in) a political office, winning cases at court, changing the constitution, etc. People who prefer the actual Civilization game gain influence through starting good discussion and polling that leads to in-game benefit - like a good increase in productivity, or a well-fought battle. Influence could be used to gather troops around your cause, and battles or coups d'etat would oust leaders not prudent enough to build up their own list of allies. Depending on how far we want to integrate the RPG element, the whole game could be set against a certain backdrop, like a feudal medieval society, or even a Soviet-type government.

Maybe I'm hoping for too much, but a guy can dream...

I had a few of these ideas similar and such, but then it isnt a democracy game. I am all for creating other types of games that can be supported through these forums. If you want to seriously discuss matters like this, maybe you should post a thread here or in the rpg forum about a new type of game, and people (well atleast is will) will discuss and what not? Who knows, we may in the near future be asking TF for our own forum for a new game.

Either way, a wiki-type would be nice at this stage (or that google thing) because it will organize everyones beliefs.

@Octavian Btw, if I, and hopefully BCLG (maybe even a few others) dedicate ourselves to startin up an Organized RPG much like the one in CIII DGII (I believe) would you participate. Do you think some of the people who participated in that RPG would come back to the RPG? Allthough I wasnt around for it, I've been reading through the archived forum a lot. Me and BCLG tried starting up the RPG for this demogame, but it failed probablly because of my lack of knowledge of the rpg (when we started, now that I have continuously read through the archives I have a much better understanding.)

 

[GenMarshall]

Now how can we implement this without creating an air of elitism, which is against the Forum's character.

 

[Black_Hole]

Now how can we implement this without creating an air of elitism, which is against the Forum's character.

elitism cannot be fully removed in this type of games... It could be said that having elected leaders is elitism, I wouldn't worry about this too much, its part of the game

 

[Octavian X]

The way I saw it, players would accumulate influence through their various actions - starting good discussions, holding office, etc. The player with the most influence points accumulated at the end of the game would be declared the winner.

So that an elite doesn't get too entrenched, there could be a joining influence bonus for new players who entered the game and remained moderately active for one or two weeks (to prevent abuse), a bonus to at least set them equal to most average players. Players with more influence would also have to work harder to gain the same amount, also - a person at the lowest ranks could earn good points by contributing some good posts to forum discussion, while a major leader would probably have to lead a political party, hold high office, or somehow initiate or affect major in-game policy changes.

And, ice2k4, I'd definitely be interested in any revival of the RPG sometime in the future.

 

[DaveShack]

I think the influence game idea can work here, with agreement of site staff. It might even improve the overall quality of citizenship, especially if it is possible to have negative influence resulting from negative behavior.

To make it work, we'd need 1 (or more, any odd number) fairly influential player to volunteer to be ineligible for the contest, and "score" the forum content. The Judge (or Judges) does not need to refrain from participating in the game, and in fact active participation can be beneficial to the process in many ways. The Judge(s) might need to be approved by the staff, or the people, or both -- we'd want the staff to weigh in first on both the process and the selection to avoid bickering among the people.

We could have the Judge(s) post their criteria, or maybe they should score individual posts with positive and negative values and let the people learn from their successes and mistakes. We might have daily score updates, or weekly / monthly if it's too much work. Or we might keep the score secret until the very end.

To spice it up, we could find out if it's possible to have some kind of reward. Maybe a site-wide announcement, or a "get out of jail free" card, or temporary mod powers...

about the temporary mod powers thing.

 

[Strider]

I love the influence idea. It'll add a new dimension to the game, and also encourage people to actually make meaningful discussions/posts. Although, inorder to be fair, I think it might be a good idea to have multiple (possibly 3?) judges.

 

[dutchfire]

Chieftess if she has got time?
It sounds like a good idea to me actually.

 

[ice2k4]

In theory it would work, but maybe instead of one person winning the game, people can win awards and merits as they go.

 

[Falcon02]

One thing that might help with the feeling of elitism that some people have is a limit on consecutive terms. With the one exception of a lack of candidates it might be appropriate to have a two term limit on serving in any one position.

I'm not sure how often it has happened during my absence, but at least in the early days there were some people who held office for numerous terms in a row (myself included). As much as I enjoyed being Military Leader (now Secretary of War) from Term 2 to the end of DG1 I displaced others who didn't really get a chance to be Military Leader until DG2.

Skimming through the current Constitution I didn't see any limit on terms. The biggest problem with this though I see, is a potential lack of candidates, in which case an exception could be made.