slower game next time?

[Cyc]

Donsig - If you use CT's registry, the 210ad date that you said ended Term 1 happened on 4/22. She claims Term 2 started on 5/2 with a date of 310ad. That means in 11 days we only played 10 turns. I seriously doubt that really happened. I still have all the original save zips (with the exception of one) and they all have the game date and zip date on them. What were the break dates from 50 to 25 to 10 years per turn?

 

[eyrei]

Ican'treplybecausemyspacebarbroke.Iwouldliketo,however,itwouldjustbereallyirritatingforthosetryingtoreadit.

 

[Falcon02]

Originally posted by eyrei
Ican'treplybecausemyspacebarbroke.Iwouldliketo,however,itwouldjustbereallyirritatingforthosetryingtoreadit.

Using Underscore or some kind of filler might help while you're waiting for a new keyboard.

 

[Chieftess]

Originally posted by donsig
I used Chieftess's turn chat registry to take a look at the number of turns for each term.

It's still incomplete. I haven't found the dates and/or the turn chat info for the later half of April. It'll take a while.

 

[Chieftess]

Originally posted by eyrei
Ican'treplybecausemyspacebarbroke.Iwouldliketo,however,itwouldjustbereallyirritatingforthosetryingtoreadit.

Use an ALT-Key sequence.
Can't find it right now though...

 

[Cyc]

CT - I have 3 or 4 of the chat logs for the end of April. If you can get me the break dates (as far as when the years per turns change) I'll post them for you.

 

[disorganizer]

The only problem i see with turn-related elections is that our citizens cant rely on the election date. They will have to check after every chat to dont miss the election.
The positive aspect is that we could take as long as we wish for nomination and election, so if there are problems during the election phase this does not harm the game.
Another disadvantage is that the DP could make his term as long as he wishes by just playing out only few turns.

Maybe a mix would be best:
donsig proposal + adding that the date for the election has to be announced a minimum of 20 turns before nominations start (alternative would be to make a 10-14 day nomination/election cycle after the turns are done) + having a maximum of 1 month on each term, meaning that the elections must start at latest at the 28th.

 

[eyrei]

Personally, I would like the next game to go slower and I agree that turn chats should be made optional. This will result in more discussion on the forums, and greater involvement in the game for those who cannot attend the turn chats.

I also forsee a problem with the governorship of the first province. Since we now have that governed by someone else other than the domestic leader, there may be a great deal of disagreement about build queues, especially as settlers are involved. This problem will be exasperated by the brisk pace of the game. It worked fine last time to go fast, because most decisions regarding the cities were handled by the domestic department. There are many ways to go about expanding an empire in the early stages, but most require a commitment to a particular strategy. Lack of commitment in this situation can bring disaster. I suggest that we set a date, or tech level where a governor is elected for the first province, and give the domestic leader that control until that time.

 

[Shaitan]

There won't be a governor until the province has 3 cities. As there is no starting province until the capital is founded, there is no election for governor of Prov1. The Pres will appoint the first governor when we have 3 cities.

 

[Cyc]

Optional Turn chats might mean a more equal field for the people who can't attend the regular turnchats, but it will mean less involvement for the citizens of the game as a whole. When you take the game behind closed doors to play YOUR game and then clue us in later, your just turning the Democracy game into one of your Succession Games. Open, logged turn chats give the citizens that constant reference point where they can go and verify the moves of the Leaders. They also get to see the Leaders in action. A perk for voting. Taking the game away from the citizens with a name like "Optional Turn Chats" is not going to give them more involvement, it will give them less.

As far as the placement of the first 5 cities go, the Domestic Department shouldn't have any problem as far as authority in placement. That's the responsibility of the Domestic Department. True there will be a lot of discussion and the DL should place according to the will of the people, but they still make the call. A Governor of the Capital Province should be elected before the new game starts and take control of that Province immediately. The Domestic Leader will have enough to do and taking control of the Capital Province would be a violation of the Constitution.

But I agree, we should slow the game down. These two ideas seem to be addressing different areas.

 

[donsig]

how to govern the capitol province in the new game will a tough call no matter how we proceed. Installing a governor before we have a province is not a bad idea but will it affect how we define the borders of our provinces?

I'm not so sure not having turn chats will lead to less citizen involvement. It should lead to more as more people are in the forums than are in the turn chats. As I said earlier make it a campaign issue. People can base their votes on whether a candidate will have public turn chats or not. It would be interesting to have a game where we have turn chats one term and none in others. Not having turn chats does not preclude the possibility of citizens or government officials holding getting to together in the caht room to discuss stragegies to take to the forum.

I understand eyrei's concerns about a unified expansion policy early on but that may not be possible or desirable in a democracy game. I think the game was much more fun when we were flirting with disaster than when cruising to a sure victory.

 

[disorganizer]

Donsig is partially right here. A demogame is not played like a normal civ3-game, as for the "perfection" of the play.
I oppose deleting the chats, as this would lead to decissions being taken by 1 person instead of the 10 at the chat.
Having 10 citizens at the chat decide is always better than having 1 sole one decide of issues (and more democratic).
Having one person play does not mean more discussion is brought to the forum. It just means the discussion at the chat is cut down and maybe some issues will not be discussed at all (the DP may see a situation as a clear one with no need for discussion, and he will only notice that it was a situation to discuss about when he returns to the forum and when its too late).

 

[disorganizer]

a point to the fun-factor: i took the most fun factors in the game out of:
a) discussing and arguing with ppl
b) seeing decissions being take which you would never ever take in a normal civ3 game(!) because they were more "human" to make they way we choose them.
c) watch the different tendencies and trend in the public opinion

i would take no fun at all out of a normal civ3 game being played here ;-)

 

[Falcon02]

Also the Chat gives a scence of "real time" to those who can attend... they can see the gradual progression from one save to the next.

And what about the many on the spot rushes we've made in early chats, rushes which weren't realized before, and would have delayed such projects as the CAP even more, or should the DP end the game every turn a new rush seems advisable?? We might as well play 1-3 turns each time we play, esp. in later years.

 

[eyrei]

I understand the desire to keep the turn chats as a way to keep it from becoming a succession game, but the turn chats have a tendency to turn it into a cabinet game. Some leaders will prefer to simply issue their instructions during the turn chat, and so the citizens will not know what is being done until it is too late. However, they should not be removed, but each term should be used at the discretion of the president.

As far as the issue with the governor of the first province causing a lack of cohesiveness on expansion, I really only think this will be a problem if we keep a brisk pace. If there is plenty of time for forum discussion and polls, it will be handled very democratically. In fact, every build queue can be voted on until we have a large number of cities. What I am afraid we will end up with, however, are two different proposals regarding expansion/settler production that are voted on and supported by the populace, thus destroying any chance we have of doing well in the initial land grab. One person should be responsible for posting proposals for this effort, and that requires that the domestic leader be allowed to have control over posting build queues, because settlers are necessary for expansion. I also fear that the government will not be prepared for the speed at which the AI will produce settlers and build cities, but that is another story.

I agree the game was much more fun when we were fighting for our existence, but, emperor and deity levels leave very little room for error. Losing is not fun. Even the last game could have been a disaster if Grey Fox was not so skilled at military maneuvers.

 

[Danke]

I strongly agree with Donsig's proposal on the number of turns per term and the general consensus on slowing the game down. For those of us who want to participate but can't attend the tunr/chats because of schedule, the game seems *very* fast paced. If I miss a day or two it feels like whole eras can pass by.

To me the game is and will be the forums, discussions and the future expanse into RP. That's the fun, so let's maximize it. I would not be sad if we did 5 turns/chat twice a week even.

 

[Octavian X]

As to the capital province issue, we should follow the same guidlines we use for new provinces today, with a few changes. We should set a number of cities that would be defined as the first province. For example, we could say that after three cities, a new governor would be appointed. Then after, say 8, cities are built in the area around the capital, a new province would be defined, with those cities in it.

 

[Shaitan]

For provinces I'd say creating districts can be done on the fly (zoning off new territories) but redistricting (changing an existing province border) should be done only at the beginning of the month. That gives some stability during each term.

 

[Falcon02]

Question is... if we go ahead with PTW Multiplayer, CFC and Apolytonia would have to end around the same time to make it possible.

 

[disorganizer]

PTW demogame will suffer from spy activity. As long as we cant ensure double registration and spying, only a cooperative game could be possible. Also, the apo-chat tends to be at 20:00-22:00 gmt, where ours tends to be 23:59-01:00 gmt. this will never get together to become a online game, so only play by mail or something linke that will be possible, which will become a 1 turn per chat game (no comment on this one... ever played chess via mail?).
We could maybe start ptw-demogame in parallel and let it evolve and develop rules itself. If it becomes better than the normal one, we will see the normal demogame citizens move to the ptw one. If the citizen count goes too far down, we could abandon the normal demogame and continue with the ptw-game.

i think the best consensus to start with would be 5 turns/chat (not to put this in the law though. max a standard) as average. Maybe a rule for the beginning could be:
1st playout:
offline. only enter option and save immidiately after. no actions to be taken. forum review of the save and polling of city placement and exploring actions for max 1 week after this.
2nd playout:
explore according to directions and produce units as decided in forum until first settler is produced.
then, 1 week for review of the explored map and city-placement proposals as well as exploration and build queue proposals
3rd playout:
continue accourding to the proposals for a max of 10 turns or until the proposals are obsolete or used up (whichever comes first).
4th playout:
...

of course, as soon as anything else happens (for example we meet someone, discover something etc) the chat is stopped.

the game will go very slow at the beginning, but will get as fast as this one (maybe even up to 10 turns) when we get a full map or at least a map of our vincinity for city planning. at the moment we get a adequate map where we see natural borders for the first province, we could define it.

we could have a governor for the first province from the beginning. he would govern all cities until a province border is implemented via vote. as soon as the borders are defined, he is restricted to the capitol province and other governors take over the cities outside this province.

i would propose city-counts of 10-12 minimum(!) for provinces if we get mayors to more power (see toasties proposals in the kashmir thread). the natural borders should be much more used as province-borders. a good example is normandy/ameri, which should be one province imho and from the natural border design (in fact, the were once upon a time).