slower game next time?

[disorganizer]

this game took about 4,5 months to finish... IMHO, this was much too fast, as i expected about 1 year for it.

so would it be a good idea to slow down the game next time by
a) having only 1 chat per week
or better
b) only having 5 turns per chat?

the later will have the advantage that more decissions could be done via forum polls.

 

[disorganizer]

btw:
even if we take a slow start, we could always decide to go faster if we would like.

 

[Chieftess]

Too fast? I think it's going at a nice pace. Altough, it would allow for more role-play.

 

[Cyc]

I thought 4 months was perfect! But I was wrong...
4.5 months is perfect.

 

[disorganizer]

okok! i corrected my post from 6 months to 4,5 months...

 

[Shaitan]

I think the pace went very well. Fast enough to keep everything lively but not so hectic that it was unmanageable.

 

[disorganizer]

i maybe would have just liked some more decissions being brought to the forum instead of being decided at the chat (especially in the beginning with the 15-20 turn chats it seemed to be a problem to me). Maybe we could try not to enforce the 10 turns every time ... this would be a compromise (if nothing happens, we could play 100 turns though... but the slightest hint a major decission is about to take place should stop the chat).

also,
maybe at some times,
it would have been necessary to skip a chat instead of enforcing it. an example could be major decissions not passing the quorum... it should be preferred to skip a chatdate instead of deciding undecided things.
another example would be a major discussion coming up 1 day before the chat. this could never be decided in time with our rules, so if it really is important the chat should be skipped/delayed then.

 

[Cyc]

We seem to have taken the turn chat turn limit and limit over-ride out of the Constitution, COL, and COS. At least I didn't see it just now. Does this mean, Shaitan, that it's also up to the DP's descretion as to how long each chat lasts? I think we should re-instate the limit blurb and take away the option of going beyond 10 turns. I believe one of the reasons there were so many problems in the begining of the lst game was because we were going so fast. Of course if we stick to two chats a week, things will be different. Every other day was kinda hectic. We could knock out 80 turns a week that way. Now I'm babbling. Sorry.

 

[donsig]

Seeing as I think we should make turn chats optional in the next game it is difficult to know how to respond here.

In general I do think we should slow down and this will be important in the early stages of the game. I remember back in term one the push was to do 20 turns or so every turn chat even though there was the ten turn limit in the constitution then. While early turns are quickly played there are many decisions that the citizens should be involved in. We should take care to proceed slowly and invovle the people lest we risk losing citizen's interest as happened in Phoenatica.

 

[Shaitan]

The 10 turns article in the Constitution was removed because it wasn't used or enforced. The article itself basically said that there would be 10 turns played per turn, or however many the President wanted to play. Bad stuff.

I've got no problem at all with putting a hard limit of 10 turns if that is desired. However, in the beginning of the game 10 turns is probably way too short. There just isn't enough going on for the limit to be needed then. I'd suggest a mixture of the limit rule and disorganizer's suggestion. Start out at 20 turns per chat for the first 3 chats. Then go to 15 for the next 3 chats. Then settle in at 10. The caveat is that the turn must be stopped when big ticket items come up.

 

[Cyc]

Thank you for replying, Shaitan. I agree, pretty much with your proposed limits, although I'm not really sure. To make sure we're all on the same page, I've attached this screenshot taken 9 days into this game. We had blazed through close to 3000 years and put up 7 cities. I'm not saying this is bad or good, I'm just trying to show some kind of comparison. This seems about the same speed as the 20/20/20/15 etc. limits. So it might be right on track with the way this game went. Thoughts?

 

[Stuck_as_a_Mac]

If we want the RPG to go well, 5 turns would be ideal.
(Especialy for me, since im incharge of the bank.)

 

[donsig]

Originally posted by Cyc
To make sure we're all on the same page, I've attached this screenshot taken 9 days into this game. We had blazed through close to 3000 years and put up 7 cities. I'm not saying this is bad or good, I'm just trying to show some kind of comparison. This seems about the same speed as the 20/20/20/15 etc. limits. So it might be right on track with the way this game went.

These cities ended up in three different provinces and at the time we had no idea that would happen. Also, IIRC, there was at least one city that was not placed properly according to the prior discussions. By zipping along so fast we gave up many opportunities for citizen input and I think many citizens lost interest back then, too. I think we should take it slower in the beginning and try to encoourage more RPG and movement by citizens into the frontier cities.

Having said that I must add that I'm not a big fan of the once a week playing of the game. I think that after a couple days of discussion nothing new is added. I think we should still play the game every 3 to 4 days.

 

[Cyc]

Yeah, you're speaking of the Pherris incident. I remember it well.

So, Donsig, you're saying you'd like to see something more along the lines of 15/15/15/10 etc. for the begining of the game? Or go straight for the 10/10/10 till the end route? And keep the same schedule of every Wednesday and Saturday?

 

[Falcon02]

Originally posted by donsig


These cities ended up in three different provinces and at the time we had no idea that would happen. Also, IIRC, there was at least one city that was not placed properly according to the prior discussions. By zipping along so fast we gave up many opportunities for citizen input and I think many citizens lost interest back then, too. I think we should take it slower in the beginning and try to encoourage more RPG and movement by citizens into the frontier cities.

Having said that I must add that I'm not a big fan of the once a week playing of the game. I think that after a couple days of discussion nothing new is added. I think we should still play the game every 3 to 4 days.

At least one city was Pherris, Charis was rather unpleased his proposed site was "ignored." IIRC the fact was actually that communication wasn't too good and we kept on giving GF the wrong direction "one square in such-and-such direction" not realizing that the referance square he and the rest of us were both looking at were different. I think more maps would have solved this better than slowing the pace, cause we spent several minutes on placing Pherris IIRC.

I agree 3-4 days is good, 1 week allows for stuff to die down and then decreased overall participation.

 

[donsig]

Originally posted by Cyc
Yeah, you're speaking of the Pherris incident. I remember it well.

So, Donsig, you're saying you'd like to see something more along the lines of 15/15/15/10 etc. for the begining of the game? Or go straight for the 10/10/10 till the end route? And keep the same schedule of every Wednesday and Saturday?

I'm not convinced we should place a number on the turns to be played. Maybe a cap would be good - for example no more than ten turns at a time. There may be times when we want less than that though. It all depends on what is going on in the game. If we foresee something big in four turns we should plan to stop in four turns and talk about things. It also depends on how good we can get at pre-planning. (Something Phoenatica is not famous for.)

Alot of this (like scheduling) should be up to the president who will hopefully work within the general framework of the citizens desires. This subject is difficult for me to discuss as I'm still thinking that the turn chats should be optional. Scheduling and the pace of playing depends to a certain extent on whether we will have turn chats or not.

In any event I think it would be good to take it slowly at first and see what happens. If most people don't like a slow pace we can always speed things up a little. (Assuming we don't write too many inflexible rules that will lock us into one pace.)

 

[disorganizer]

No number would be fine. Maybe we should put down some events FORCING the DP to stop. (war for example).
If a limit must be enforced, we should make it a max, not a min-limit.
I totally second donsig on the "slow start" thing here. As we already said, we could decide to speed up at ANY time in the game, as its up to the DP to decide. If he notices nothing happens, he/she/it could just continue until something is there. If nothing is up for the first 80 turns, ok, so do 80 turns. If we have a major thing up after turn3, stop at turn3.

 

[Cyc]

Yeah, I'm definitely talking caps too. I don't think we can force anyone to play a certain amount of turns. In the begining there are usually things happening that are important enough to stop for.

I calculated, to the best of my ability, the amount of turns at each turn chat for the first 7 times, which took us to the 14th of April. It went like this - 10, 14, 20, 20, 11, 12, 1. And yes, I remember taking 3 hours for one turn.

Sometimes we would extend gameplay until the next settler was placed. A lot of decisions were made on the fly. After the first 7 chats it went 14, 23, 8, so there was no real regulation. This was kind of a dark time for Phoenatica, as there was some citizen unrest. We started changing things left and right, and making promises on top of that. Anyway, around the end of the month we were at about 300ad. So I'm guessing 4300 years in 14 turnchats. We finished up the month with 20, 20, 10, 8.

If we use the "twice a week" schedule, then we would have to play an additional 3 weeks to clear the same 4300 year mark. That was a total of 191 turns in 14 chats for an average of 13.6 turns a chat. Keep in mind that figure includes the one chat that only had 1 turn in it.

Just throwing these figures out there, hope they help. I'm all for slowing the game down. The more discussion the better.

 

[donsig]

I used Chieftess's turn chat registry to take a look at the number of turns for each term.
Sir Pleb's turn/date calculator helped.

Term 1: 4000 BC - 210 AD 138 turns
Term 2: 210 AD - 1130 AD 90 turns
Term 3: 1130 AD - 1525 AD 67 turns
Term 4: 1525 AD - 1780 AD 60 turns
Term 5: 1780 AD - 1830 AD 25 turns (estimated)

I was acutely aware of this during my tenure as president in term three and it contributed significantly to the problems in the infamous turn chat that led to PI#6. I really think that giving a president a fixed number of turns would make it easier for him or her to stop and take things back to the forums.
There is a trend towards fewer turns played per term/month and the obvious arguement is that as the game progresses the turns take longer to play. While this is true I would offer the counter arguement that the earlier turns require much more decision making. Lots of new cities to place and such. In any event, the more turns played between forum discussions the less of a democracy game we have.

I would suggest we make a term 60 turns. If the game went to 2050 AD (540 turns) that would be an even 9 terms. We could start the election process after 50 turns while ten turns are played during the election process. Here's what the schedule would look like:

Term         start      elections       end
   1         4000 BC     1750 BC    1500 BC
   2         1500 BC      350 BC     150 BC
   3          150 BC      550 AD     650 AD
   4          650 AD     1150 AD    1250 AD
   5         1250 AD     1500 AD    1550 AD
   6         1550 AD     1770 AD    1790 AD
   7         1790 AD     1890 AD    1910 AD
   8         1910 AD     1980 AD    1990 AD
   9         1990 AD     2040 AD    2050 AD

For example, when we hit an election year the dp must stop and bring the game back to the forums for nominations. After nominations are complete elections can begin and the game can continue but the DP must stop if the end of term year is reached. There are other ways of breaking things up. I've suggested a schedule where-in I've tried to time things so that the election will end about the same time as the term. We may want to make it so that the election is well over before the term so the out going president can tidy things up while the incoming president organizes his or her government. the main reaosn for suggesting a schedule is to show that it is possible to lay it out well ahead of time.

 

[Falcon02]

Yeah a slow down would be good, I like Donsig's proposal, of starting with the 10 turn max, and seeing how things go with that, and we should keep 2 games a week, otherwise we'd only get about 50 turns done a term, so it would take us 4 months just to get to the same point we got in the first term here. That seems a bit extreme to me, also anymore per week and we'd be rushed (like the every other day schedule).

So 2 turns a week with a 10 turn Max is my opinion.

EDIT: I have my reservations with the turn based Terms, but I'm willing to try it, my fear is just that we'll be changing governments too often.