Reporting Level

[fe3333au]

I think at this stage it may be usefull to discuss in a new thread what level of reporting we want from the various Chairmanships.

IMO the more information that is easily accessible (via links) will enable everyone to be kept upto date and will engender informed discussion. BUT at what level and how anal do we go.

Maps
I would like a regular update on our view of the world, as it will assist in settlement and defense.

Cities
I would like something like this (taken from a current pbem) from Domestic each turn.

Spoiler :

Roanoke [, - 1pop+4 (0xHappy, 1xContent, 0xUnhappy)
Culture 0/10+0, +0gp (0xTaxer), +1r&d (0xSage),
Corruption+2, Shields = 1/1 ... Courthouse in 14 ... Temple, Barracks
... road, irrigate grasslands after mine complete
>
London [P,B,G,T,M,L,Ct,W,A,K,U,H,Nav,Bk,Co, - 12pop+0 (2xHappy, 8xContent, 1xUnhappy)
Culture 739/1000+15, +30gp (1xTaxer), +30r&d (0xSage),
Corruption+0, Shields = 8/0 ... Sea Dog in 1 ... Sea Dog, Frigate

We can evaluate future builds from this with ease and MM better ... however a screenie or maybe the CivAssist could show this more clearly.

Overview of Domestic
Again a screenie would be good ... or written per turn.

Spoiler :

Economy - 268 gold +17 per turn
Research - Mercantilism in 4 turns @ 40%
Entertainment - 0%
Government - Catholic Monachy

Trades
Keep a record of what and who we are trading and how long until the deal is finished.

Military and Civil Units
keep a record of what we got and their health, maybe what they are doing and where they are.
*Naming units will assist in giving orders to the TurnTaker with this.

Foreign
Keep a record per turn of what we can glean from the Military Strength and what we can trade resourse and tech to them
... perhaps CivAssist can give more accurate information.
Past and Active 'Official' Agreements.
Also population of their cities and new settlement, I found that to get pop intel sometimes you must zoom in and out due to the fog of war or the length of city names obscuring each other.
Also keep a record of ALL correspondence PM, e-mail and chat.



I'm thinking Chairman threads can deal with the detailed information, but at what level the after save TurnTaker reports will be is the big question.
We must remember that not all of us can or want to open the save each turn ... and those that do MUST remember NOT to move units (or at least must wait for TurnTaker and then move EXACTLY the same)

Aside ... in the previous game I opened saves and reported on information as it was prior to the turn being taken, it gave a snap shot of our civilization before any action was taken.

 

[peter grimes]

I don't see how all that city stuff is useful. There's quite a bit of info in there, and I'd think a screenshot would display it more simply. After all, most of that info is irrelevent to primary discussions.

Unless the turntaker is inexperienced with MM, I just don't see the need for all that detail.

Once the game is underway we'll find out pretty quickly how much reporting is ideal. No need to establish something a priori that will almost certainly change as the game progresses!

 

[AutomatedTeller]

it is a lot of detail. not sure why we need it, though a lot of it is fairly straightforward.

One thing we should mention is what citizens got moved from tile to tile or to specialists. that's a total pain, but if the turn is to be replayed, it must be done.

 

[peter grimes]

Absolutely correct, AT. The Turnplayer is obliged to log and report every single action taken to execute the turn. The other stuff - if a city is having a food deficit, how many content people there are, &c. is completely unnecessary in turn reporting.

This discussion thread is aimed at establishing a protocol for the turnlog. Personally, I dont' see the need for establishing a protocol at this point. It will become clear when the game starts what is required.

 

[fe3333au]

Actually it was ment to begin discussion on the level of ALL the reporting, not just Turntaker Log.

 

[zyxy]

Do we really need to be this formal? I am getting the impression, from the way things are going, that even most of the chairmen positions are not really needed, because we tend to discuss things anyway.

I think the chairmen's job should focus mostly on initiating/stimulating discussion, and not so much on reporting low-level data, except where relevant. An exception should be those data that cannot easily be learned from the save. I think Fe's list for FA is very good, but for military I would focus on directions of exploration, desired and actual military/exploration strength (globally, not unit-by-unit), battle plans, logistics, etc. For domestic, I think it would be good to have a full MM schedule for the capital for the first 20-40 turns (worker actions, citizen allocation, build queue, research), but this will be replaced by more general notions later on. Furthermore, domestic would focus production & commerce, deal with research paths & sliders, discuss dotmaps, etc.

IMO, even the turn logging should only be done within reason. Early on it is easy to log everything, but nobody can seriously expect that we will log 100 unit moves per turn.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I agree we don't need the chairman positions now. I suspect that in the next year, there will be times where we do need to drive discussion and having people to do that will help.

 

[peter grimes]

IMO, even the turn logging should only be done within reason. Early on it is easy to log everything, but nobody can seriously expect that we will log 100 unit moves per turn.

Precise turn logging has to be done in case the save needs to be replayed. Every single keystroke the turnplayer executes must be logged.

If every keystroke is not reported to the team after each turn is played, that's fine. But the turnplayer must keep a record (that can be furnished to the game admins upon request) sufficiently detailed that any Councillor who opens the save is able to repeat the turn as played originally. This actually was requires a couple of times during the last game, as the save became corrupted. Trades that were supposed to expire didn't, and other trades that were supposed to initiate didn't. The save had to be replayed and resent.

Otherwise, I completely agree with Zyxy and AT. Most Chairs won't have much to do for now, and need to waste lots of precious precious electrons here

 

[General_W]

I think your memory may be failing you a bit Peter (maybe because you're 10 years older than me? ) - about the time MIA passed the 50 worker mark, we stopped recording each move of all the workers. It just became way too time consuming, and wasn’t really material to replaying the save if necessary. Broad records like: “continued to lay rails and clear jungle in the North” were reported – but nothing else.
Military units, city builds, and diplomatic actions are all very important to have precise records for – but workers… I think it’s just cumbersome and un-necessary after a certain point.
I would say MIA’s experience bears out that a turn could be replayed identically in every material and relevant way even without precise orders for the workers recorded.

Just my 2 cents!

 

[peter grimes]

You are, of course, correct there. I had forgotten about the worker actions and turn-to completion sections.

It's true that at a later stage of the game the details of certain sections are allowed to be less specific, but in the beginning, those details are important.