Our actions when meeting new neighbours

[Paalikles]

Our actions when meeting new neighbours

What is your opinion:
When meeting a new neighbour, should the FA department halt the play?

This policy would only have effect till all civs are met

Our opinion:
Assuming the Deputy Moron understands the Head Moron, we wish to halt the play whenever we meet new people. The benefit of this is that we (all branches) can analyze and evaluate trade deals, possible foreign policy, future settlement plans, military actions etc.

But also, this would delay the progress of the game.

 

[zorven]

I think a halt would be good. It allows us to discuss the opprotunities for trading maps and technologies and our course of action given any trades and our knowledge of this new civ. Alot can change with this new knowledge.

 

[Cyc]

Yes, I believe a halt is the traditional response to meeting new nation. Stopping a chat to discuss options could save the lives of many Fanaticns.

 

[donsig]

I do not think we need a blanket policy to stop everytime we meet someone.

Perhaps the Head Moron and the Deputy Moron could devise FA instructions such as this:

If we meet a new civilization please check for possible trades. If there are good deals available please stop game play so the trades could be evaluated.

Of course the T&T Minister may want to post such an instruction.

The FA Morons should also remember that settlement is under the interior department and military is under the military department.

We can give the DP some discretion here.

 

[Paalikles]

Originally posted by donsig
I do not think we need a blanket policy to stop everytime we meet someone.

Perhaps the Head Moron and the Deputy Moron could devise FA instructions such as this:

If we meet a new civilization please check for possible trades. If there are good deals available please stop game play so the trades could be evaluated.

Of course the T&T Minister may want to post such an instruction.

The FA Morons should also remember that settlement is under the interior department and military is under the military department.

We can give the DP some discretion here.

Good point re instructions - but then my first reaction would be - why isnt trade under the FA department

No FA moron has expressed in any way that they control settlement, etc...
I just gave possible reasons for halting the chat....hopefully in understandable English, but apparently not too understandable

 

[Rik Meleet]

Meeting a new civ is an important part of the game, which opens up (or closes) many possibilities. The DP has to search for the brake-pedal when that happens. But not neccesarily immediately !!!. If such an event occurs it's up to the DP to decide, after checking the situation (trade possibilities, location, techs etc). whether to continue the game for a limited amount of turns or to "take it to the forum".

An example is the meeting of the Babylonians. They had no good deals; their location was unknown and we'd get a new tech in 2 turns. It was folly to stop immediatley. No harm was done in waiting for Maths to come around.

I don't mind stopping a play, but I do mind stopping a play by definition. In this case we would have stopped when 2 turns later maths was discovered. So instead of a 7 turn play we'd have a 5 turn and a 2 turn, in which nothing would fundamentaly change.

 

[Cyc]

Good point, Mr. President.

 

[Paalikles]

Originally posted by Rik Meleet
Meeting a new civ is an important part of the game, which opens up (or closes) many possibilities. The DP has to search for the brake-pedal when that happens. But not neccesarily immediately !!!. If such an event occurs it's up to the DP to decide, after checking the situation (trade possibilities, location, techs etc). whether to continue the game for a limited amount of turns or to "take it to the forum".

An example is the meeting of the Babylonians. They had no good deals; their location was unknown and we'd get a new tech in 2 turns. It was folly to stop immediatley. No harm was done in waiting for Maths to come around.

I don't mind stopping a play, but I do mind stopping a play by definition. In this case we would have stopped when 2 turns later maths was discovered. So instead of a 7 turn play we'd have a 5 turn and a 2 turn, in which nothing would fundamentaly change.

Well - that's true, and there has been no complaints to that, other than that the instructions said something else.
I very much agree that it would probably be wiser to give the DP the possibility to act to the best of the nation, which would need for the departments to give presise instructions

 

[Furiey]

I agree with both donsig and Rik Meleet here - it is important to be able to stop and discuss available trades in the forum, but a blanket stop immediately no matter what is not the right way to go about it - the recent Babylonian situation showed that. The DP needs to have sufficient flexibility to make the decision based on the current circumstances.

 

[DaveShack]

There is nothing inherently wrong with playing 5 turns and then 2 turns. The only reasons it's a problem is that we end up taking longer for the overall game, and we would have a play session for which nothing substantial would happen.

I don't think we've ever really settled whether an instruction to stop play can be considered legal. On the one hand, the people are denied their right to discuss and issue and make the real decisions if the opportunity is passed by without stopping. On the other hand, we could be bogged down by micro-management of every decision, and we need to have some trust in our elected officials.

What we really need is to recognize the true motivation for stopping. It would best be stated as "stop if conditions change such that instructions would likely change if the situation were discussed."

FA ends up getting the shortest straw in our current goverment structure and timeframe within the game. That will change soon, we need conditional instructions on what to do if our neighbors come asking for gifts, for example.

 

[donsig]

Originally posted by DaveShack
There is nothing inherently wrong with playing 5 turns and then 2 turns. The only reasons it's a problem is that we end up taking longer for the overall game, and we would have a play session for which nothing substantial would happen.

I disagree. With three complete demogames under our collective belts there is much we (should have) learned by now. One thing is that stopping play does not stimulate our discussion, planning or decision making. Halting play halts these activities and brings on a malaise that is only reversed when something new in the game happens. Stopping unnecessarily is bad for the demogame. There are times when we may want to stop early - times when we see something will happen in less than ten turns and we can make the decision to stop in the forums even before the game play session starts. For truly unexpected things that happen during play we should leave the decision to stop up to the DP for he will have the most information about the current situation.