Next Turn - AD 420

[Dell19]

I feel the summaries of the advisors should be given more important than polls. Its easy for people to quickly vote on a poll without really considering all the options whilst posts take longer. Then the advisors should try and combine the posts and the poll by giving abit more weight to the posts.

If new information is found then old posts and votes can quickly become outdated so sometimes a completely different decision has to be made by the advisor or the president.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

The main idea is.....

The people give their views, the Advisor is to consider all the views, and give their recommendation to the President. The President then considers the views of the Advisors and plays how they feel.

In a Democracy, we elect representatives. If the people feel that the repesentatives don't reflect their views, then they are generally not re-elected. If the elected representatives don't take the people's views into account, and do their own personal ajenda, they can be impeached.

An example, the citizens vote in a poll. A choice wins the poll with overwhelming favor. The representative goes against the poll and recommends the opposite, that could be grounds for impeachment. If the measure passed with a slight margin, and had discussion both, for and against it, and the representative went against the poll, it is generally not grounds for impeachment.

That is part of the reason elections are so important.

 

[MonkE]

I appreciate the views expressed.

But I am still a little dissatisfied with our current manner of determining exactly what the will of the people is. This last round of discussion and polling leads me to consider how the polling is conducted.

It would be really good if alternative courses of action were put forth and discussed for a day or two before the polls are posted and votes tallied. Democracy works best with an informed citizenry.

Even though I made the last several moves myself, my eyes still glaze over a bit when I first see a poll. If I vote immediately, it is too often from some vague sense of 'that looks good' or perhaps pure whim.

It is only through the subsequent discussion that many of the important issues come to light. After that, I feel more confident that my vote is based on considered reasons. I still may not make the "best" choices, but it's still better than whim.

Perhaps the suggestion above doesn't seem practical within our chosen schedule of play. If that's the case, I believe it would be worthwhile to slow the pace. I would rather go more slowly than carry out plans that are half considered.

 

[Zwelgje]

Originally posted by GaryNemo
Nemo's List of Proposed Cities:

Fruit City - Forest N NE of Bananas, has Whale
Routskilde - Pure Green with 4 Specials
V2 - Pure Green, Whale, Peat, S SE SE of Uppsala
V3 - Plains W W of Uppsala, 4 from Udal
OP - Octavia's Point: at the same River Mouth, 2NE of Lake
M4 - Grassland Shield, From Marl Downs NE NE NE
WN - Wheat North Point
WE - Wheat East Point
WS - Wheat South Point

WH - Whale City: Plains SE of Indian Whale, Not Mountain
HM - Hill Mine: N NE of Fish (82,36)
PF - Plains Filler: W of Dellham Hill Mine
F4 - On Forest 3NW of REGIA CIVITAS
RB - River Bridge, E E of Reneaux

Civ1, could you show them on your next beautiful map?

I had some time to kill and well, here it is...


I added 2 cities of my own (indicated with a ?) you might or might not have forgotten. Anyway, maybe we should start building some extra settlers.


On MonkE's remarks about the current gameplay. I think that at the moment we don't have enough time for discussion and people are just voting for things while not aware what they are voting for. The discussions are the things that make a demo game interesting.

But as said we are moving too fast for decent discussions so maybe we should play more the way we played in the first demo game.
"Back then" we played about 10 turns once a week (instead of 5 turns twice a week as we seem to be doing now). Something else we did then was planning ahead what to produce in which city so that it would be clear for the president what to do. Now the president has to stop the play once something unexpected happens. When we plan that a city has to produce a settler, a defensive unit and a settler then that city is busy for quite some time!
We need to have a good discussion about this and when we decide playing like this we need to have good build queues for each city and plans of how we want to play. Including in this model is that the president is being allowed to take more decisions on his own on how to deal with certain situations.

We should be thinking about this as it seems that at the moment many players are a bit confused on what's happening (including me ).

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

It's been my experience that even a longer time between turns will not change the 'value' of the discussions. If there is something vital that has not been fully discussed, then a delay is fine, but, generally, that is what the advisors are for. If they make suggestions (as they do in polls) and there is no idea contrary to that, it is considered acceptable by the populace.

 

[funxus]

I too think we're doing all right at the moment By playing twice a week the citizens are more involved in the game compared to if we play once a week. The power balance in the game would move towards the president and away from the citizens, giving the president more responsibility

 

[GaryNemo]

Well, clearly participation has been up this afternoon! I am back from the funeral of a friend's wife. I appreciate everyone's comments, and our President's concerns. I also am unclear about the pace of the game. Fast seems difficult, and reckless, but also more fun, more variety and new situations.

I stand in support of the work and conclusions of the Governors, who are invaluable in keeping the game going. I stand in support of our President, who is handling this increasingly complex game. I stand in support of our Moderator, the Duke, always a cool head in a variety of situations.

I believe a useful role of the Cabinet, all of us who have posted polls in the past few weeks, is to lead discussion, then summarize a plan which can help our President. If anyone doesn't like what I'm doing, I do not take it personally -- I hope we are each enjoying the controversy. Anyone I have slighted: I apologize, I didn't mean it, I appreciate your viewpoint, and will gladly read a PM which might get thru my thick skull.

Finally, I stand by the planning for Mike's, Invention and Republic, all of my interpretations of poll results, the Rose Colored Glasses, the Diplomat Poll, the hasty micromanagement, and the final three matters. MonkE, Duke, do whatever you'd like.

 

[MonkE]

Well I too prefer the twice a week pace, mainly for the increased participation.

Civ1-addict's remarks are noteworthy. I would like to see more discussion about objectives that are further out than the next builds, as we already do with the tech research priorities.

Just speaking as a citizen, I'm greatly concerned with larger scale issues. For example: preparing the nation for Republic, deciding how to conduct a campaign against the Vikings, or deciding the general direction and manner of civ growth/expansion. All of these relate to each other by putting demands on production capacity and the treasury.

Some discussion on these things has already been posted, but the more, the better IMHO.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

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