donsig said:
Baloney. A we got a pop up window a turn or two into term three. It was Monty telling us to get off hisland. This was not a surprise to me. We had been trying to block the Aztec settlers back in term two and it was quite apparent what was about to happen. I had already asked the FA Minister to find out what should be done if the Aztecs built a city on our land. I also asked the Military Leader to draw up plans in case of war. We were also coming off a period where play had been slowed. The previous president had cancelled a game play session due to lack of input from the citizens! There was no *crisis*. We had built a formidible army for the Egyptian war. The Aztecs were no match for us. Discussion had begun and there was support for the war. The DG3T3 crisis began when I refused to even ask those at the chat for advice.
In four demogames we have not had one instance where a DP did not stop play when it was truly necessary. I myself was villified back in DG1 for stopping play when I thought it was necessary even though those at the chat had wanted to proceed. The only reason people have for giving someone other than the DP power to stop play is DG3T3 and all I can say to that is:
BALONEY!
I checked the discussion thread for the Aztec war, and the response was more or less neutral. Some were for it, some were against, some wanted us to wait. If, as you said, the Aztecs placed a city next to our troops and demanded that we leave in the same turn, forcing you to make a decision, you were within your rights to declare war. However, a miscommunication happened in the chatroom that made us believe that you had marched troops there, incurred on their territory intentionally, and declared war when they predictably demanded that the troops leave. Even there, you would not necessarily have been in the wrong by declaring war, though it would have been best if more discussion and a poll had been conducted before attacking. Because of this, many of the people in the chatroom on that day (more than a year ago now, BTW) called for you to stop the chat. The crisis could have been averted entirely if you had stopped it on the turn following the declaration and allowed for detailed plans to be made. Instead, you signed MA's with two other civs (which hadn't been discussed at all) and played on, conducting the war as you pleased for seven turns. Was this as big of a transgression as we played it up to be? Of course it wasn't, but your actions nonetheless made it seem like you were running away with the game, which infuriated many of the people in the chatroom to the point where we (not knowing the full picture) could not be reasoned with. If the citizenry had been able to stop the chat, we would have done so immediately after the declaration, you would have been better able to explain to us what really happened once it was stopped (rather than trying to deal with a lynch mob as happened in reality), and the DG would have gone on without a major disturbance.
That is the reason that I've voted for DP, the Council, and the Citizenry. The Council can stop the chat through instructions (as worked out very nicely in DG4). The Citizenry could, if there was a wide enough consensus, stop the chat if enough citizens in the chatroom consented. I'm not sure on what mechanism we could use for that, but something can be figured out. There would probably have to be a quorum (to avoid situations where there are, for instance, two users in the room and the DP, where the two users could force the DP to stop the chat) as well as a rule that a majority of citizens in attendance would have to agree that the chat should be stopped. Additionally, the citizens in the forum should be able to disallow the chat from being stopped in a forum discussion and/or poll before hand, as a check to make sure that the citizens in the chatroom don't call an excessive number of chat stoppages. Allowing the chatroom citizens to stop the chat, as long as this isn't overused, would allow the forum users to have more of a say as well in what goes on by causing the chat to have to be stopped if the situation became critical. I do understand the argument that the citizens elected the President to be the DP and to make those decisions themself, but it should stand to reason that, if there is something that the chat should be stopped for, the citizens present at it should be able to tell the DP to do so in order for it to be further discussed in the forums.
