Why not 1 game turn per day?

[RoddyVR]

i've been wondering why the game is run at the speed it is.

as it is now it seems to be going at 10 turns per turnchat with about 1 chat every 3 days or so.
i'm not sure if the DP/president gets to set the speed or if its hardcoded in the 3 books somewhere, but i dont understand why its at the pace its at.

why not just make it 1 game turn per day, with a turn every day.
i assume there are 2 downsides to this:
1. people have to be present everyday. have to decide things everyday.
2. there will be a lot of turns where some people have nothing to do (while their city is building something, or in the beggining of the game).

but i see those 2 as each being the answer to the other.

the only people who would realy HAVE to do something every day would be the president (run the turn), and maybe the person that does the trading(check up on if there's any good trades available, like workers for sale).

but being as those positions are voluntary and elected, those people should know in advance what they're in for.

for everyone else i see this as a benefit. its MUCH easier to fine tune your city/province/military/science/spending. if you can post order for every turn, knowing exactly what the situation is right now.

yes it would make the game last upto 540 days, but so what.

anyway, i'd like to know the reasons used to set the pace at what it is now. if anyone can point me to the thread this was decided in (or just tell me) i'd appreciate it.

i'm not saying we should change the pace NOW, or even in this game, (even though i'd love it if it did), just would like to have a discussion about it.

 

[Bootstoots]

That's an interesting idea, but I see a few problems with it. Most discussions and polls last over 24 hours, in which time the opportunity may have passed. We would probably have to have days where no turn was played, and if we're having trouble with instruction posting now, I'd hate to see what would happen with a schedule where instructions must be posted every day. And also, it has been shown in past demogames that participation generally falls after about 5 terms; with a game that could take up to a year and a half, the game could be considered boring by many citizens and participation could drop to almost nothing.

 

[Will_518]

only about 30 people, most times probably less come to the turn chat, if there was a turn chat everyday how many people would go?

 

[RoddyVR]

yes, but think of it this way:

you dont need instructions from most people everyday.
most provinces wont have something to "alter" everyday. whatever the cities are building, they'll continue building, whatever the workers are doing they'll continue doing.

most things WONT NEED instructions every turn, so i dont think that'll be a problem. The DP will be required to change whatever the instructions say to change, and then press the turn button.

as for polls, opinions and so forth. the general pace of the game will actualy be slower then it is now, so the only difference is that most polls will have to be put up a few turncahts before their result is needed. which shouldnt be hard cause each turnchat is one turn anyway, so its easier to forsee things then it is now (where things can come from nowwhere on turn 5 and have to be dealt with right away).

the techtrades are the only thing that would be tough to manage. as if some trade comes up, it has to be decided right away if to do the trade or not, THAT TURN.
but again, most of it can be forseen (as in if we're going to get a tech soon, we can poll what we'd want to trade it for).
the cases where its stuff like a worker being up for sale by an AI (by being in their capitol) well, i think the FA minister should have the right to execute those trades without much support.
maybe have a poll every once in a while that finds out if the populace thinks buying workers is a good idea.

again, regular tech trading can be tough, as it has to be done the turn that the tech is researched (by us or by the AI) or poped from a hut.
and yes, those polls would have to be done in one day. but again, if the FA minster has a little leeway and has been preparing, then she/he COULD know in advance what the populace thinks is important to get and what is important NOT to give away.

even a couple simple mutli choise polls that includes all the upcomming techs, that make a "valuation" of every tech would acomplish that estimation. one poll would say how important it is to get a specific tech if we can (by people selecting which techs they think are important to get) and the other poll would say how important it is NOT to trade away one of our techs (again, by people selecting it as one of the techs they dont want traded away)

give that minister a little leeway with some cash, and he should be able to come up with good decisions in the one day.


as for days when a turn is NOT played, i think that should be outlawed, as it would do 3 very bad things:
1. make a long game even longer.
2. throw off the timing of important events for people (like being wrong about which day your city gets done with a project or grows).
3. people would want to "skip" days all the time because they were lazy to do what was required of them in advance.


doing the oposite for the first few turns is acceptable i think.
the first city, once settled, has nothing to do for like 5 turns, so the 2nd chat can definetly be a few turns long. same with a few after that. that'll cut a few weeks off the game length.
it wont be possible to do this once the nation is any size at all, since you cant ask EVERYONE if they are ok with "fastforwarding" a turn or two.

 

[RoddyVR]

Originally posted by Will_518
only about 30 people, most times probably less come to the turn chat, if there was a turn chat everyday how many people would go?

only those that have something important happening to thier city/office that turn.

if the city i'm "running" or just interested in is just waiting for a project to be done, then i have no reason to be in the turn chat.

and anyway, the turnchats wont be that important, cause there wont be almost any "one the spot" decisions.
the only one is AI demands between turns. and the DP/president is handeling those anyway.

its not like now, where you ahve to be at the turnchat to see what is happening during the 10 turns that its running.

 

[Chieftess]

This isn't the MSDG. That game is played 1 turn at a time, and just doesn't have the excitement to it. When the demogame was first conceived, the idea behind it was to play it like a succession game. People would decide what to for 10 turns, and give it to the advisors. If anything happened in those 10 turns that wasn't TOO drastic, the advisors could handle it, since that's what they were voted into office for. It would actually make the game HARDER to follow, since you'd be losing interest pretty quickly. There could be 100 days (turns) where everything goes smoothly. Then, it wouldn't be a Game of Democracy, it would be a Game of Bueracracy.

 

[RoddyVR]

MSDG?

where? when? how? what?

oh, having though of it realized that its the Multi-Site Demo game.

will have ot look at that more closesly.
if it realy is the game i now think it is, it is DEFINETLY suited to me.

as for "Game of Bueracracy". i think that this game is so far into bueracracy, that nothing could be more beurocratic. when the letter of the law means more then the intention of that same law and the will of the people combined, that is some HEAVY beurocracy. and even though this game hasnt gotten to that point yet, it is deffinetly heading that way.

EDIT: reread the post and i noticed that it looks a lot like a flame. wasnt meant to be, and i dont mean to offend anyone or insult this game. just seems to come out that way when read. proly should add some smilies around the post, but not sure which. so just immagine as if they are there.

 

[Cyc]

Thank you, RoddyVR. Because of this thread, I've been able to easily put my finger on the real answer to Chieftess' current question. (and she just walked right by it.)

Her question is, repeatedly - "Why were Spot Votes concieved and what was their purpose?"

The answer, CT is that they were part of the evolutionary process of the Turn Chat.

In the begining, we used to run a Turn Chat unregulated every other day. The President would try to get the t/c time posted so everyone would attend and then the President and/or Domestic Leader would blaze the trail for however many turns they wanted. In DG1 we burned through 3000 years in the first two weeks.

Then the People (all of them) started to ask what was happening as the whole Phoenatican world was just moving to fast for them. When you're burning 40 turns (or whatever) a week. Ministers and Citizens alike have trouble keeping the Government under control. During this time Citizens were demanding Turn Chat times to be posted well before the t/c so they could plan to attend. We tried to force different scheduling laws on the President inorder to find the right one, but that didn't work out too well, as the beaurocracy of that drove President Grey Fox from the Oval Office. Domestic Leader eyrei stepped into replace him and the nation drew a heavy breathe as we knew we had a problem we needed to fix.

The scheduling problem was eventually fixed by having two t/cs a week, and playing 10 turns each. But now that the Citizens knew when the t/cs were abd could attend, by God they wanted a say in the goings on of the Gameplay. Thus Spot Votes surfaced from our rules as the answer. Originally, there was Council Votes, where the President asked the Council to bind the Nation to an idea (ie, War, a Wonder, etc) officially. This evolved into the Citizen Spot Vote that quelled the masses, as they were now able to project their feelings onto the game.

Unfortunately, this fix all (Citizen Spot Votes) drove the first spike into the division of Forum-only Citizens and Turn Chatters. Now even though the Forum people gave instruction to the Ministers, the Chatters would change things mid Chat. Thus the TCIT was born. This was another all-mighty cure-all that would fix our problems forever, just like Citizens Spot Votes did.

The TCIT was a place for the Ministers to log their Instructions (gathered from the Citizens) for the President to play out in the Turn Chat. (side-note * By changing the schedule of the t/cs from every other day to twice a week gave the Ministers just enough time to run thier polls and gather said instructional information.) So now the forum People and the Ministers had the TCIT in place to protect their Instructions to be played out in the Turn Chat, plus we had the Chatters changing what they wanted when the opportunity arose, simply by having a Spot Vote. Laws were made that changed the process or importance of a Spot Vote, such as who may call for one, when is one binding, how many Cabinet Members (Ministers) had to be present for a Council Spot Vote and what percentage of these people carried the Vote. It went on and on and on. The fact remained that the Nation now had a verifiable system to post Instructions for the President to follow, yet we had a verifiable system for the Chatters to nullify that process. After the smoke cleared (and there was a lot of it), we decided to end the Chatters ability to restrict the ability of the Minsters (AND the Governors - they were getting ripped off too!) in doing the jobs the were elected to do.

Now we see a re-emergence of the Chatters in an attempt to reclaim their past glories of controlling the Turn Chats. The hair is starting to fly again, as we are just starting to make the TCIT system work. Our current problem is finding Leaders that can/will post appropriate Instructions. It's not the system's problem, it's the Leaders. The Chatters are taking advantage of this troubled time to exploit the situation and claim that Spot Votes will once again save the day. Luckily there are some people that realize Spot Votes will just once again diminish the ability of the Ministers to do there jobs.

Anyway, I don't like the idea of 1 turn per day.

 

[RoddyVR]

well, if it wasnt for that one last sentence (which i have the feeling was edited in), i'd complain about off topic posting, but since that was a realy interesting read, i wont say anything at all......oh....ye....well... i COULD have said nothing.

 

[Cyc]

Thank you RoodyVR! The edit was for spelling and grammar (sometimes I type too fast for my own good), as I hate to read poorly written posts.

The last statement was posted with the rest

 

[donsig]

That was a great post back there Cyc! Your treatise on the evolution of the spot vote hits the nail right on the head so to speak.

I wouldn't give up on the idea of a turn or two a day on a regular basis. I like the idea of turns progressing at a regular pace no matter what - it keeps us on our toes. I don't think it'll ever fly in this DG but maybe it can be tried in the next. Hey, you never know. Maybe someday we'll even switch over to turn based terms.

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

Perfect summary of the evolution of the spot vote Cyc.

I don't want to discard Roddy's idea either. I think there are some good ideas in there. I feel though we should step back, and ask what would we be trying to fix by going that route?

If it is participation in chat, then we really don't have too much of a problem there, as chat were relatively well attended up to last week. If it is overall participation, then I am not sure what impact it would have.

 

[GenMarshall]

Originally posted by donsig
Maybe someday we'll even switch over to turn based terms.

I personaly hate Turn Based turns, Since that can only work on the MSDG. It will not work in a SPDG. If there was a turn based terms, the Majority of the people will leave due to the lengthy waits if they want office.

I also hate the 1 turn per day since it would be to boring and way to long.

 

[Chieftess]

Plus, 1 turn a day means that the game will last well over a year. Maybe even two if we don't have a turnchat some days because of discussions, or elections... (540 turns would be 540 days - 1 1/2 years).