Turn Chat Criticism 250BC - 50BC

[tao]

I post this as very concerned citizen of Fanatica. I want to give my impressions on the "progress" we made in the last turnchat. I do not want to put any blame on individuals (e.g. the DP, the President, the ministers, or governors) but I feel the urge to communicate my impressions.

Basis is the 50BC save (I also looked at the 150BC save).

Cities
Deux Rivieres is down to pop 1 and working a 1/2/2 tile. Very very bad, since it has two 2/2/2 bonus graslands. Don't we want to grow?

Vandelay has a taxman corrupting timely growth and settler production. I asked in many places for a 2nd mp, but stupidly and incompetently this request was ignored. Or we could have used 10%luxury and for a meager 1gpt we would have gotten our settler faster.

Vo Mimbre was our prime unit producer. But stupidly we built a settler and now the population is down. Deux Rivieres now also builds barracks to strengthen our military. It would be much better to continue building settlers in Deux Rivieres (no barracks needed, but a granary) and to build veteran units in Vo Mimbre.

Groton goes for culture which is good. I would build a library however.

Montpellier is building a granary. (Why here and not in Deux Rivieres with all the food?) But what it needs is a culture building to get access to all the bonus grasslands.

Huntington is building barracks and that is o.k.

Sanction is building a settler which I wouldn't do, but it is acceptable.

St. Octaviansburg is building a temple it doesn't need. It should build a harbor to open trade routes to the Greek incense.

Mure is building another warrior and I would be very concerned that it flips to Babylon taking all the garrison with it. It desperately needs culture.

Santa Lucia is building a sword when I would build barracks first.

Cijam builds granary which is fine.

Raven's Flight builds a spear but should build culture to expand vs. the Greeks and to get access to the fish.

New Falcon's haven builds a spear when it should build either a granary or culture or galleys.

Culture
Our culture is very weak and we will have the risk of flips. Thus we need temples or libraries. I always advocate libraries since their science boost easily allows to have happiness by 10% more luxury slider while still researching faster.

I would build libraries asap in Montpellier, Raven's Flight, Groton, and Mure (here maybe a temple, because it is done faster and the science would mainly go to corruption).

Military
Our military ist average/strong and that is fine. I am concerned about us building swords. Soon we will enter the Middle Ages and vs. pikes and knights the swords are a dead end. I can't understand why we didn't upgrade more of our warriors to swords and build horsemen now.
I already talked about the stupidity of building a settler in Vo Mimbre and barracks in Deux Rivieres.
And about the super stupidity of not sending the conscript warior as military police to Vandelay. This is sabotaging the Aggressive Expansion Strategy.
I also would build units or barracks in Sanction instead of a settler.

Workers
Here we have another area which definitely needs improving. Let us hope that Chieftess as newly appointed Director of Infrastructure will achieve this.

Between Deux Riviers and Huntigton we clear a patch of jungle which is inaccessible to Huntington and will not be used by Deux Riviers. We should clear the tile one to the west, because that is usable by Huntington and has tremendeous strategic value by shortening the way between Huntington and St. Octaviansburg from 9 to 5 steps.
Near St. Octaviansburg we roaded a hill and moved to the hill next door which we now mine. I have never seen anything more stupid. Why didn't we build the mine on the road?
Near Groton we mine the iron hill when it would have been faster to mine the grasland first.
There was no reason to road towards Raven's Flight. The workers should have started by clearing the jungle before building the road and mine.

Settling
Since a long time I warn against the threat of Egyptian (or Greek) settlers getting "our" wines in Audiac. This is now about to happen. We should not have built New Falcon's Haven, but should have gone for the wines first. With proper management, Vandelay would have already produced another settler to claim this spot.

The Babylonians built Nippur southeast of Huntington.This could have easily been avoided if out 2 warrior would have blocked the settler.

Research and Trading
Our research for republic is progessing nicely. However polytheism is loosing value and we should trade it now. We also need a harbor to access the Greek incense before somebody else gets them.

Please see my comments as input for the discussion to prepare for the next turnchat. The citizens will decide. The government will execute the will of the citizens. I will only comment.

Of course I am open to criticism on my criticism.

 

[Peri]

The main problem appears to be the lack of direction from the governors.

I do hope this situation will be resolved for this term.

 

[Sarevok]

Indeed, I agree with Peri

 

[ravensfire]

tao,

I agree with most of your points. I will critic your style however. You come across very negative and harsh.

For better or worse, this is a democracy. Many decisions are goverened by the will of the people as expressed in discussions and polls. Some of these decisions are sub-optimal, and don't reflect how some would have played.

To be blunt about that- too bad. That's the style of the game. As a leader, or as an active citizen, the responsibility falls to you to persuade the other citizens that your ideas have merit, and are better than what they want. For example, what would you do if there is a poll that states a certain city should build something that don't want to build?

Many of your critisicms are on point. I would suggest that you post in each department a summary relevant to it if you don't see those needs addressed. For example, in the MIA, Krabius and I are already evaluating the current situation and determining what needs to be addressed - hence the discussions on wonders, government types and immediate settler plans for the near future. As we continue our work, we will be working with the governors on build queues, with emphasis on culture.

Keep up the good work, but remember to temper your messages. Words are powerful weapons, and must be wielded with skill. The bluntness of your first post does indeed work, for a time. After a while, the message is ignored because the tone of the words drives the audience off.

-- Ravensfire

 

[Sarevok]

That is also a good point that I agree with.

 

[zorven]

I would just like to comment on my role in some of these. I do admit that I do make mistakes and am continually learning and improving. I also hope that Chieftess can help us in this area in her new role.

Originally posted by tao
Deux Rivieres is down to pop 1 and working a 1/2/2 tile. Very very bad, since it has two 2/2/2 bonus graslands. Don't we want to grow?

I was instructed to micro-manage for shield output and in my mind was thinking the hill was giving us 3 shields (I know why it isn't). Honest mistake.

Vandelay has a taxman corrupting timely growth and settler production. I asked in many places for a 2nd mp, but stupidly and incompetently this request was ignored. Or we could have used 10%luxury and for a meager 1gpt we would have gotten our settler faster.

I should have checked the impact on our taxes from using the luxery slider. I apologize for this mistake.

Groton goes for culture which is good. I would build a library however.

Sanction is building a settler which I wouldn't do, but it is acceptable.

St. Octaviansburg is building a temple it doesn't need. It should build a harbor to open trade routes to the Greek incense.

Mure is building another warrior and I would be very concerned that it flips to Babylon taking all the garrison with it. It desperately needs culture.

Raven's Flight builds a spear but should build culture to expand vs. the Greeks and to get access to the fish.

New Falcon's haven builds a spear when it should build either a granary or culture or galleys.

All of these cities had no instructions posted for build queues. What you see in the queue now is just a placeholder I put there after the last item was produced in the city. No thought was given to which item I put there as they wouldn't complete by the end of the chat anyway.

Between Deux Riviers and Huntigton we clear a patch of jungle which is inaccessible to Huntington and will not be used by Deux Riviers. We should clear the tile one to the west, because that is usable by Huntington and has tremendeous strategic value by shortening the way between Huntington and St. Octaviansburg from 9 to 5 steps.

That tile is accessable to Huntington. I admit it may have not been the best tile to clear.

Near St. Octaviansburg we roaded a hill and moved to the hill next door which we now mine. I have never seen anything more stupid. Why didn't we build the mine on the road?

Your own recommendations stated to build a mine and road NW of St. Oct and to road the hill west of St. Oct. That is what was done.

Near Groton we mine the iron hill when it would have been faster to mine the grasland first.

This was another error of mine.

There was no reason to road towards Raven's Flight. The workers should have started by clearing the jungle before building the road and mine.

Your recommendations indicated to clear, mine, and road towards Raven's Flight. I chose the road first since I prefer to get the cities roaded quickly.

 

[tao]

Thank you for your feedback. I will consider it when writing the next turnchat criticism.

I will not argue any individual issues, since I do nor want to use this as a bickering thread.

I have the faint hope, that some people participate in the demogame not only to have fun, but also to improve their gameplay without entering the competitive world of the GOTM. (BTW: I learned a lot in participating there.) These are a important target audience for my writing.

Let me conclude by repeating statements from the initial post:
I do not want to put any blame on individuals (e.g. the DP, the President, the ministers, or governors).
Please see my comments as input for the discussion to prepare for the next turnchat.
The citizens will decide.
The government will execute the will of the citizens.

 

[donsig]

OK, I've got no problems bickering. First of all I do not see anything harsh or negaitve in the first post of this thread. Here we have a citizen stepping up and saying, *hey, some things don't look right to me - here's what I'd do.* Commendable. Peri pointed out that much of the *problem* seems to be lack of input from the governors. Well, have we been giving the governors our input? I'm darn sick and tired of citizens of this so called democracy electing leaders and then leaving them to fend for themselves. We're supposed to be doing just what Tao did!

Tao, don't take Ravensfire's advice to *temper your messages*. Say what you feel you have to say and don't worry about hurting anyone's feelings. If these babies we've elected can't read that first post of yours without crying then they don't deserve to be in office. Maybe when they're done crying they'll look at zorven's posts in this thread. Zorven is a true leader in part because he's willing to stand up and say *I made a mistake*. And you know what, I bet no one even thought about CCing him for those mistakes, despite the paranoia that seems to have gripped the many of those in our government.

Now I have a silly question. Just what is a Director of Infrastructure?

 

[zorven]

Originally posted by donsig

Now I have a silly question. Just what is a Director of Infrastructure?

Thats just my pompous title for an assistant to the President that helps organize and plan our use of workers. I chose Chieftess to fill this position for Term 3. She has a thread in the Government forum at this time. I hope everyone will visit there and make some comments.

 

[TerminalMan90]

I too felt that Ravensfire was being too harsh with tao. This thread's initial post did seem critical but did seem to be directed at fixing problems rather than blaming anybody. If tao had focused more on what could be done in the future rather than pointing out what had been done wrong in the past, nobody would blame him.

On the other hand, couching your words in a positive supportive manner goes a long way. I would rather have more citizens submitting constructive, positive discussion than leveling harsh criticism at our leaders for messing up.

Donsig, as legal beagle, fills his role well by calling the leaders to task when they ignore or abuse the rules. But I take issue with his implying that other peoples feelings don't count. Granted, leaders do need to have thick skins in performing their roles. Good leaders also need to be able to deflect criticism and perform their duties in a fair and just manner. Although it is inevitable that citizens will complain and critisize, it is far more helpful if citizens are encouraged to discuss in a level headed manner their concerns.

Which, I think, was Ravensfire's intent with his post above.

Long live the Democracy!