where are our citizens?

[Duke of Marlbrough]

I think part of what Mr Spice is trying to say is that if someone cannot attend the chats, they are left out of the game for the most part.

If you don't attend the chats, then you don't have an idea of what's going on, if you don't have an idea of what's going on, it is hard to try and vote on polls, if you don't vote in the polls, then there's not really anything else for regular citizens to do.

I would hope that chat logs would help with that, but trying to read through them on your own is kinda tedious and doesn't have the same 'feel' as actually being there when it first happened. Maybe the idea of a general turn summary being done can help with that.....?

 

[crabapple]

The problem is that citizens feel outside the game if they cant be at the turn chat I know becouse I have never been to a turn chat ever. Now the game is only fun for people that haves a position in the game or can be at the turn chats regulary. thats why the turn chat shall be taken away, to attract more people. Even I feel that you miss something when you cant attend turn chats.

It would be better if the president get his instructions and follow them and if something major happen he stops the game, and then we can discuss what to do about it, the game would be more slowly, but more intresting when you can find all discussions in the forums. And it would be more equal and time zones would not matter anymore, and all would know the same things, execpt the president who would know more but that cannot be changed. But The president would need to do an extremly detailed summery for this to work.

This is just my opinion

 

[donsig]

I think there are many good posts here and I do not think we are faced with a choice of keeping turn chats or abandoning them all together. If we can come up with a 'turn 0' turn chat that will allow those who want a turn chat to have one. I really think that the 'turn 0' turn chat would be useful since a coulpe people surfing through the instruction and other threads could be helpful. I would also like to return to a question Shaitan raised earlier about the DP (designated player). I haven't put much thought into this but it would really be nice if each minister could download the game and do his or her own things in pre-turn (subject of course to what has been decided in the forums). For example Shaitan could grab the game and do the FA stuff then repost. Chieftess could grab the game and do the appropriate trade deals, etc. Things to be worked out would be a system so that 2 don't have the game at the same time. I don't know how this would affect the play summary that we want though - I said I haven't thought it through, it's just an idea. The domestic advisor could collect all the governors build queues and do those to reduce the numbers of people handling the game.

Doing away with the turn chats as the main way to play the game is still a good idea though since it would eliminate many problems we have experienced. It need not invalidate the CoC since I still think we need a somewhat regular schedule to keep the game moving. If we go back to the original constitution it stated the rate of play as 10 turns every two days. While we may decide that is too fast and certainly want some flexibility as Mr. Spice has sugested we also want to give our duly elected president a chance to do his job! One last item for timing. With the 20 turn deal time in Civ 3 we can't lock things down as easily as in Civ 2. Right now we are one turn away from some trade deals expiring. Playing 10 turns right now could put our trade leader out of the loop at the wrong time. Once again I haven't thought much of this through so I don't have many suggestions.

Well, I just got back from seeing Episode II so I'm not thinking straight anyway.

 

[disorganizer]

im also pro the chats because they give us non-chatters the feeling of taking part in the game (if we read the log). i think if organized well enough they will be good for the game.

 

[eyrei]

Originally posted by donsig
I haven't put much thought into this but it would really be nice if each minister could download the game and do his or her own things in pre-turn (subject of course to what has been decided in the forums). For example Shaitan could grab the game and do the FA stuff then repost. Chieftess could grab the game and do the appropriate trade deals, etc. Things to be worked out would be a system so that 2 don't have the game at the same time. I don't know how this would affect the play summary that we want though - I said I haven't thought it through, it's just an idea. The domestic advisor could collect all the governors build queues and do those to reduce the numbers of people handling the game.

I have considered this before, and almost asked for permission to download the game and tweak some things (particularly happiness related issues) and then repost it for the president to play. It might work, if we figured out a good way to do it.

 

[disorganizer]

this was done before in term1 i think. someone was ordered to do some trade-checking and i think there were even some actions taken.

 

[chiefpaco]

Originally posted by crabapple
The problem is that citizens feel outside the game if they cant be at the turn chat I know becouse I have never been to a turn chat ever. Now the game is only fun for people that haves a position in the game or can be at the turn chats regulary. thats why the turn chat shall be taken away, to attract more people. Even I feel that you miss something when you cant attend turn chats.

Sorry if I am misinterpreting your opinion here, but I am getting pretty passionate about this issue, as you see.

Are you saying that the chat should be taken away because you can not attend? So, the solution for "only some can attend" is for "no one be allowed to attend"? I'm sorry I see it different. We currently do not consider peoples' opinion if they don't post in the forum. I do not see how the chat room violates this protocol.

Originally posted by crabapple It would be better if the president get his instructions and follow them and if something major happen he stops the game, and then we can discuss what to do about it, the game would be more slowly, but more intresting when you can find all discussions in the forums. And it would be more equal and time zones would not matter anymore, and all would know the same things, execpt the president who would know more but that cannot be changed. But The president would need to do an extremly detailed summery for this to work.

This is just my opinion [/B]

How would this differ if just the President played the game without a chat group? Aren't we doing what you say already, just with a few spectators? All I see the chat group doing is answering the President's questions. I think it does nothing but enriches the game experience to those who can attend.

Honestly, I do not see the connection between using the chatrooms for the player to share the game and the problems we have with citizens trying to follow the game. I also hope Duke's point is not thrown into the anti-chat sentiment. If citizens can't follow the game by reading the summary or chat log, how will getting rid of the chat & therefore chat log help?

Furthermore, I don't think we should be electing a President based on his/her writing skills. As you probably can imagine, coming up with a detailed summary of the game can be a lot of work, but I am not sure the President should be forced into it. Alternatively, if someone at the chat was able to record & summarize the events into a little blurb, we may all be better off. I started it last time, but got pulled into playing the game. I did my best to do a turn summary in the savegame post.

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

Originally posted by Shaitan
The reason I'm clarifying this is because I was really hoping that the way the Foreign Affairs office and thread is being run would be called out as an example of organization and citizen inclusion. [/B]

I agree with Shaitan, and if my post did not come across as one of noting your good efforts in this area, that would be wrong of me.

I am extremely impressed with the dedication you have shown to this game, and I apologize for the misconception.

My point was intended to be that this was a good example of some progress being made, and that early in term 1 we would have been unlikely to discuss that contingency outside of turn chat.

Bill

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Originally posted by chiefpaco
I also hope Duke's point is not thrown into the anti-chat sentiment.

Nope. I'm in no way saying that the chat should stay or leave. I'm just trying to add some understanding to what I read into some posts and what others seem to have alluded to.

It does seem that participation has dropped off severly and something needs to be done to help that; what it is, I don't know. The main reason I am hearing from people as to why they stopped playing was that they lost track of the game and never got back into it.

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

When i set to create this civIII demo game ,i wanted to change the concept of the democracy because the previous system (the civII system) was to erroneus due to the rather enormous power that was given to the coman people.

The civII game was a lot of fun for the people in the beginning ,but graduatly the leader's lost interest because they laked power and had a lot of work.If this hadn't been changed it would have proven devastating for the game.So i set to change it so that the leader's would have more power ,so that they stay interrested.Rather than vote's for every topic in the civII game ,i wanted a game where the leader's would have gotten most of the power (like in real life) ,and that their action's in their time at a position would be reviewed by the people trough vote's. (like in real life)
And i wanted the game to be able to develop on itself.With leader's that would have made new rule's and changing other's ,organize new democratic system's and applying them ,voicing youre oppinion's about forum change's to us mod's ,basicly organizing thing's youreself ,and making the game also fun for the citizin's.I can try to organize all thing's ,but as my previous work hasn't always been perfect neither i couldn't do a perfect job.
The Democracy game isn't a perfect game yet.Althoug we have (a still going ,check it out!) had a test version of the Demo game ,there is always some need to reform's to make all thing's organized.

I to was in the beginning not in favour of those vhat turn decission making ,but i gave it a try ,as (like i said) i wanted leader's to create theire own addapted system's of organization.
Now that is see the chat instruction thread's ,i can see it evolving to a good system where leader's can organize their decission's were the president can find them ,as thus making the need for in chat decission making less likely.

Now we should work on making the forum more transparent for leader's and citizin's ,as well as creating solitr system's in where a citizin can push trough a decission if he aquire's enough support for it.

There is a lot of work at the forum organization.Clearly the sub forum's have made a lot of thing's confusing ,but the one forum solution isn't perfect neither.
We need to simplefy thing's.

 

[Shaitan]

Originally posted by Bill_in_PDX


I agree with Shaitan, and if my post did not come across as one of noting your good efforts in this area, that would be wrong of me.

I am extremely impressed with the dedication you have shown to this game, and I apologize for the misconception.

My point was intended to be that this was a good example of some progress being made, and that early in term 1 we would have been unlikely to discuss that contingency outside of turn chat.

Bill

Thanks, Bill. I apreciate that.