Team Organization and Ethos

Amidst all of the chaos reasonable and intelligent debate regarding which forums to invite, which settings to play by, how many teams each forum got, finding an administrator and mapmaker, et ecetera, we have not yet actually discussed how we will organize the team beyond "Sommers and metra have the keys". Let's sit down and do so.

Before we get down to the nitty-gritty constitutional junk that gets ignored when the hype calms down (usually around turn 50), we should begin by discussing the general ethos of the team. I think most players agree that we should be a democratic and open team, where everyone's opinions are heard, considered, discussed, and constructively criticized. I certainly don't want to see a small group of players running the team, nor am I interested in Merlot-style forum games. We're here to win a game of Civilization, not to constantly plot against each other.

The thing that the team depends on is a reliable and dedicated turnplayer who takes detailed and in-depth turn logs and screenshots, preferably in a stickied "State of the Empire" thread dedicated solely to these. To use the cliché, the turnplayer should be first among equals, not a dictator. He (or she ) should be actively promoting debate and discussion amongst the teams, and be willing to play the turns according to the opinion of the team rather than himself. Having a separate player taking screenshots would be a decent idea as well.

Of paramount importance, however, is our foreign policy. No matter how efficiently we can run our specialist economies, it will all be thrown out the window if we get dogpiled. The Amazon victory can be clearly attributed to a very successful diplomatic game, and I look forward to playing on the same team as the guys who engineered such a triumph. I propose that we run a very centralized foreign policy. We should have clear and precise diplomatic goals ensuring that we are negotiating the right treaties with the right people. Correspondence with individual teams should be handled by one "ambassador", following the will of the team, to ensure that we speak with one voice. Any important correspondence should take place in formal diplomatic cables from a team email account, and anybody instant messaging with somebody from another team should a) document it adequately, and b) avoid actually discussing issues, and focus more on rubbing whoever is on the receiving end the right way.

I personally think something along the lines of the Quatronian organization from MTDG II (with much more participation) is the way to go for our team. We need not conduct an official poll over every little in-game issue, but operate on a consensus basis, opening polls if we fail to reach said consensus. Stickying important threads is also a damn good idea (I'm looking at you, Amazons! ).

Another important point is Pitboss and email login information: should this be free to the team, or restricted to certain trusted individuals?

 

The above statement sounds like a good start towards making a team Constitution. I also think we need to get the "edit" button turned on for our posts (I already asked about it.) I think we also need to get a frontpage announcement drafted and passed to DaveShack or somebody who can get it posted. We also need to tell the rest of the teams what our target start date is and get the official settings decided on.

But as far as team ethos goes I would say I pretty much agree with what you said

 

What happened to editing?

 

I agree with everything as well

 

So what is everybody's opinion on access to the Pitboss and email passwords? Universal, or only to trusted members?

 

I care less about who has access to the passwords and more about who is going to be committed "task-do-ers" on our team. Access to passwords can't even be discussed until we establish who is responsible for what.

For all the talk about settings and private forums and starting deadlines, I havent heard anyone volunteer to get an email acoount set up for the team. I havent heard anyone volunteer to get a photobucket account set up for the team. (I guess we could use the old AMAZON ones, but nabaxo has the passwords to those, so they would need to be changed, so somebody would have to volunteer to take care of that.) I havent heard anyone volunteer to be the turnplayer. I havent heard anyone volunteer to take screenshots every turn. I havent heard anyone volunteer to do the turnlog every turn.

That's the stuff I want to talk about

 

I apply for being a turnplayer I am bad at keeping records of played turns, you know.

 

Challenge accepted.

Email: civfantics.diplo@gmail.com (Yes, I made a typo there. )
Password: hangingGardens

This login also works for Flickr, where I have set up an account.

I would be more than willing to record turns, if that is necessary.

 

I am happy to be a back-up turn player for sure and could even be the primary turn player if we have a guaranteed back-up available to spot me on short notice.

I think it would be cool to rotate turn players periodically so no one gets too burned out.

 

As for general organization and rules I am a strong believer of the maxim "less is more". That is actually the main reason why I joined team Merlot in last game. Now, I'm not advocating monarchy here since I understand that in general, people would like to play in democracy. What I would like though, is to see a lean and easy to understand rule set. IMO, that'd let us concentrate on the main thing, playing the game.

On personal commitment side, I believe I can work as a backup turnplayer as well. I'm not quite as experienced as many other players in the team, but if the situation does not require heavy micromanagement, I'll manage. I can also volunteer as a turnlogger (if we want to keep that role separate from turnplayers) so long as this also would be a rotational responsibility. I believe that good turn logging may at times take even more time than turn playing takes.

 

This is absolutely correct if done well.

 

I can help out with turnlogging (I suggest making this a rotational role, say 10 turns at a time per person, as putting turnlogging to just one person may make said person very frustrated in the long run), and I can also do backup turnplaying when needed.

Outside of that I am very interested in the diplomatic aspect, preferably together with Sommerswerd if he intends to represent the team as the Head Diplomat.

 

For turnlogging we should probably also gather numerical data from demographics and civstats (if we're using that) to a readable table format (excel, googledocs, csv files etc.). Screen caps are nice, but having the numbers in a table enables a lot of data mining opportunities on demand.

On that note, I'm also very interested in doing any complicated calculations when needed.

 

I also vote for a team that doesn't have a poll for every small decision...

In the end, the turnplayer takes the turn, but he (or she...) shouldn't do something that is against the consensus of the team.

I guess, I'll be mostly lurking but throwing a comment in from time to time, I just thought it'd be nice if we have members of all teams of MTDG2 in this team here.

Turnlogging would be great for people like me that want to keep up to date!

 

Hey lets have a debate about polls!

 

This information should be put into a new thread to avoid people making duplicate accounts.

Also, Is there any way to correct the spelling? Maybe just make a new account and delete the old one. I would hate for us to be not getting our mail, (especially in the critical early stages of meeting when alliances are being formed in high-pressure tight-dealine scenarios) because people are sending mail to "civfanatics" instead of "civfantics" I mean WE know there is a typo, but the other teams will obviously just assume its civfanatics without looking.

Just so you know I am not just being OCD about this, go look back at the AMAZON threads Merlot embassy right around the time we met Merlot. A BIG part of the reason Merlot got left out of the alliance is because we had their email address wrong. A simple typo or miscommunication in the email address can potentially be a game ending disaster (it certainly was for Merlot).

 

I'd like to propose a new principle to team ethos: Keep things neat.

I believe that in the long run participation depends also on how well organized our forums are and how simple it is to find relevant information. Especially turn logs, diplomatic communications and other "reports" should IMO be kept as clean as possible and stickyed if possible.

In spirit of getting things organized I took the liberty of starting a thread to collect useful reference materials.

EDIT: As an afterthought, I'd like to add that I don't have anything against informal discussions and playing around. On the contrary, I believe that is also important part of getting people engaged. What I'm driving for is to keep "formal" stuff neat and separate from discussions to avoid cluttering.

 

You're right. Created a new account, fixing the typo. Also started an information thread.

 

Would there be interest in gathering intel on other teams rosters, to try to predict how they might approach the game? I'm not the person to do that necessarily, so not volunteering.

 

we could , but just for fun.i know few about Rb and league players.