What's done is done. Our focus should now turn to how to play the upcoming session. Please stick to the future -- there are other ways to handle the past, if anything needs to be done.
There should be two prerequisites for playing:
- There is adequate information for the people to decide what to do.
- There is adequate opportunity for the people to decide what to do.
If the information and opportunity are there and the people don't decide, then moving forward is justified. I'd have no problem with delaying if either one is not satisfied.
We generally (over the course of 8 former Civ3 and Civ4 demogames) have considered 3 days to be the gold standard for opportunity. I know there are dissenters on this, who think 4 or 5 days are required, but considering that every citizen doesn't need to be here for every discussion, 3 days is normally sufficient.
There have been 3 days of discussion on the capitol location. That's 3 days that any citizen who thinks the settlement location is worth a poll could have opened one. There are still several hours remaining before the scheduled play session, and a poll could still be opened. I'd expect a reschedule if a poll does appear.
The science discussion has no conclusive answer at present. Again, there have been lots of opportunities to poll. Same goes for 1st production.
Lack of information is why we wanted the special session. Some would argue that we still need another one to get more information.
At the same time we are being careful to not leave some citizens behind by proceeding too fast, we also need to keep activity high. This is especially important now, when boredom could easly drive people away even faster than a perception of not enough democracy. We should try to be in a position that there is a DP ready to play soon after the people have decided. Waiting a week or more between sessions is one of the things which killed DG1. This is why I argued so strongly in favor of play order flexibility. I don't fault anyone who has external influences on play schedule. I'm completely unavailable the evening of 3/7 and most of the day on 3/11.
So the net is, if you think something should be polled then poll it. If you think some aspect of the game is not being discussed, start one.
Also the Elder posts instructions about the city, if not the DP decides. However, the DP usually takes the citizen input from the forum. In past games there have been very few instances of DP's who intentionally went against the people's wishes.
