The Dance of Civilizations [Pitboss Diplomacy Game] [Setup Thread]

[bamf226]

Robert, how do you plan to enforce #8.

This whole double move talk is extremely frustrating. I propose that once war is declared, the aggressor contacts the other nation(s) and establishes a set turn order including possible times of day when a move can be made. Let the parties at war manage who moves when. This avoids a lot of problems as all parties are working together to ensure there are no double moves and the rest of us can go about our turns without any problems.

[Jeroen Schweitzer]

Robert, how do you plan to enforce #8.

I agree. I also don't know if I like this rule at all. When I am doing a newspaper, like with Spain, there are a lot of characters there, that you don't need to read, they are filler to make the posts more fun. Should I count them towards my total, or should I only use the header? If we are going to limit, I suggest a one serious post per turn limit (a quick one liner should not count). I have no interest in counting the characters I have used in a month, that would completely ruin my fun.

This whole double move talk is extremely frustrating. I propose that once war is declared, the aggressor contacts the other nation(s) and establishes a set turn order including possible times of day when a move can be made. Let the parties at war manage who moves when. This avoids a lot of problems as all parties are working together to ensure there are no double moves and the rest of us can go about our turns without any problems.

I like this setup. There is always recourse through the new judging system if the parties involved can't work things out amongst themselves.

[OzzyKP]

Robert, how do you plan to enforce #8.

This whole double move talk is extremely frustrating. I propose that once war is declared, the aggressor contacts the other nation(s) and establishes a set turn order including possible times of day when a move can be made. Let the parties at war manage who moves when. This avoids a lot of problems as all parties are working together to ensure there are no double moves and the rest of us can go about our turns without any problems.

Agreed. This is basically what my rule called for in the last game.

[The Priest]

No guys, the 'opponents contact each other' rule is exactly what we tried last time and it collapsed horribly because the opponents (originally Greece and Maya) didn't contact each other and then there were rows about whether a turn order was enforceable given no contact had been made. We have to assume that sometimes someone who is invaded feels very agrieved about it for a day or two (at least) and assuming that at the same time they are going to be making nice agreements won't happen. Lets go with it as written - there is a fixed order. Of course nobody is going to complain if the two parties involved agree to change the order, times they will play etc. (though often in war there are many more than two parties which makes agreements much more complicated), but as a bedrock I believe we do need a system which doesn't rely on enemies agreeing how to manage their own war.

I see the point that the possibility of certain turns delaying past 24 hours is annoying, but look at BtP. We lost days and days of play in pauses becase of arguments over double moves. Delaying a turn occasionally will still mean the game moves much more quickly than the pauses caused by those awful arguments.

[St Jon]

I think Pinchak is entirely right on Tech Trades as otherwise you can make research a joke. Also, what he proposes offers a fair way of avoiding total marginalisation and a Tank v Chariot kind of situation which is not fun for anyone.

I also agree that the old 50% Rule is fairest and easiest to enforce. The alternative will be indefinite pauses when 90% of the time either a post or a text message could allow for a reasonable pause with known continued participation. What if somebody dies - do we wait for resurrection?

Measured War is impossible to set as a hard and fast rule on. I think we, the participants, should have the ability to vote for the end of a ludicrously 1 sided war. Make non-compliance carry a really tough penalty - Big Boy won't stop then block them for 10-20 turns or if Little Boy won't then allow them to be obliterated.

I don't like naming of civ's as it will make anon too easy to break. I could be King Jon of the Brightonians with his capital as Jonstown!

[Rasputin]

damn Rule number 8...

if you dont like reading my **** then skip it,, but it why i play, I play to post...

[Black Knight 427]

I'm not one who writes much especially if there is nothing happening but I am also not a fan of rule 8. I like to read the stories that others write especiall the ones for those of you who know how to keep things interesting. Maybe what we should do is have two threads for posting. 1 for the stories and 1 for diplomacy.

[OzzyKP]

I dunno about rule 8 either. First off 2000 characters per month is a very small amount, that would basically limit people to one post a month which would really cripple the game I think. CS' rules themselves were nearly 8,000 characters (not counting spaces).

For the most part I think there isn't much of a problem with story posting. Things were a bit out of hand last game simply because there were so many players (which is why I suggested a smaller game... but 15 is still pretty big). Also with players seperated into two continents it was tedious to scroll through the other continent's posts when they weren't really relevant to you, plus with so much space between people there wasn't much conflict early on. The third issue... sorry to single you out, is Raz, who posted dozens of mundane "my warrior ascended the hill and looked around at the country side. Forest in every direction." posts each week, which got rather tedious.

I think if those issues are addressed directly (this new map at least has everyone closer together) there shouldn't be much of a need for a strict monthly post limit.

[Rasputin]

well it better than you ****en **** posts Ozzy of some stupidf heavy metal band, my psots were at least centred on the game and what was happening, everyone else jsut posted crap.

i wihs i had a dolalr for every negative thing ozzy says about me ...

[Pinchak]

I'll say the following for the sake of the game, and because I know it to be true.

The rules are too complicated as written. With 15 players they will fall apart.

Remember in BtP how the voucher thread turned out? The only thing players had to do was post their tech trades. It didn't work (well, it half worked). And that was a pretty simple system.

I STRONGLY suggest the entire rule set is revisited, and simplified. Expecting 15 players to adhere to what we have now is insane.

Of course it is Roberts game, so I will accept whatever we end up with. Some of it though seems to definitely fall into the realm of "looks good on paper".

Having people contact the host when they can't play a turn? Most of the time the reason someone can't play a turn is that they are involved with something, hence, probably will not be able to contact the host either.

Having players set a turn order based on real life schedules? What happens when the game gets out of sync?

I would also advise against anything that requires voting. Mainly because only a handful end up voting, and the result only reflects what "should" happen about 50% of the time.

Sorry if this sounds critical, it seems Robert put alot of time into the new rules, to which I take my hat off to him. The rules should focus on being clear, and simple to understand and enforce. Right now they are clear, but seem extremely complex and presumptuous about the nature of diplogamers.

[OzzyKP]

well it better than you ****en **** posts Ozzy of some stupidf heavy metal band, my psots were at least centred on the game and what was happening, everyone else jsut posted crap.

i wihs i had a dolalr for every negative thing ozzy says about me ...

[The Priest]

I really can't believe that people are suggesting we have the same double-move rule that we did in BtP when arguments over that rule basically destroyed the game. Have we learnt nothing?

Pinchak - can you suggest an alternative set of rules?

[mzprox]

About double moves my vote and recommendation on this:

1, the warring sides contact and establish a set turn order

2, if no. 1 cant be done for some reason then double move allowed if:

-no pause has been requested - we might have a rule how many pause can be asked per month maybe, but we shouldnt let a nation be destroyed just because someone has rl issues. And even if the missing player hadnt contacted with the host we may grant an automaic pause once per month i think.. we cant be too generous or the game may freeze for a long time..

- 24h passed (assuming we will have the ~24h turn timers)

This means if someone plays around at the same time everyday he can play his turns w/o problem. If he plays his turn 24h after the last that means that the other player hadnt played for more than 24h. If the other player misses too many turns we should kick him and look for a sub

[Robert]

- This is the double move rule, people are free to agree on another order if they want, but there must be a basic rule. A rule that will be applied unless it's been agree upon to be alternated. But why would any 2 civs change the turn order? Why would I give my enemy an advantage by giving him suddenly a double move? (which always happens when the turn order changes).

I can update the rule with that addition, that players can agree upon another turn order if they want to.

- contacting the host when you can't complete your warn turn is indeed very complicated. (I'll provide everybody with my cellphone, a cell phone text message will be possible then, making things easier). But what's the alternative?
This is a last option solution. last option solutions are always tedious. (like the ooc measured war vote. We can simply leave the last option solutions out, but then we'll face all those troubles again. Now it's clear what happens in situations that are hard to manage.)

- In BtP only 4 or 5 civs posted a lot, the rest posted little to nothing, during the 'many posts to read' phase. So the 'too many players involved' argument imho does not apply. We can have a 6 player game where people post way too much and a 18 player game where people post way too little.
I'm fine with deleting rule 8 or increasing 2000 to 10000 or more. But the fun of roleplaying and story writing will be gone if it's too much and people will lose interest.

We can enforece such a rule by stating that people will lose the % of their story score by the % of characters they post too much. (we only count it if there's suspicion of course). It's just a tool to avoid story post extravaganze without many people reading them anymore.

- We can set the 50% rule for double moves instead of the 24h rule. The first means that during wars people will miss turns and the turn order will be interrupted. The latter means that some turns will take longer then 24h. I think the first will be a source for new problems.

- Pinchak, like I said by PM, I think it's good if the rules are rewritten. English is not my first language and I'm sure that the lines and words do not flow as fluently as they should, leaving much room for interpretation or understanding issues.
The rules are complex sometimes, but mostly to make sure to have a solid rule when difficult situations arise. Most difficult rules are there only for difficult situations. In normal situations we won't have to read them.

- So, what do we do with the vouchers rule?
8 vouchers and freely trade techs of age before the last age of the 4 tech leaders?
(ancient techs can be freely traded 1 against 1 when 4 civs reached the medieval era)
Together we'll just report when we have advanced to a next tech-era.

Reporting in the tech trade thread is indeed tedious, but I see no other solution. Unless of course I write a tool for it where we report. Then we can all report our trades in secret, have a good log, without knowing of each other how many trades we have left over.

[Robert]

1, the warring sides contact and establish a set turn order

I don't understand, what's the need to establish a turn order? The turn order is automaticly set when a war errupts.
If I attack you, then I either do it before you move, which makes me #1 in order, or I do it after you moved, which makes me #2 in order.*
If I'm #1 in order I won't want to change that, if you're #1 then you don't want to change that.

For the rest, mzprox, the concept rule right now more or less covers what you ask for.
You get 24h, so you can play your move every day at the same moment, if you want to. (during wartime)

*of course keeping the turn order of the last turn in mind when I attack.