The Dance of Civilizations [Diplo Game] [Organization Thread Pt1]

[Russia (DoC)]

Russia is neither dead nor gone!

Merely suffering from the fever known as internet withdrawal syndrome. Should be cured on the 19th.

Will vote TODAY!

[Russia (DoC)]

(voted)

[Robert]

@England; pick "help-about Mozilla Firefox" in the menu to see what version!

Thanks Russia and England for voting!
I'll try to update the charts tonight, if WarningU2 can send me the stats.

WarningU2 also created a new voting panel (some small changes for you guys) which we will have to test as well in the coming days. I'll get back on that.

[Mali (DoC)]

I find it very unsettling that so many people were given an average less than 4 for diplomacy. I personally have only met two other civs and have been very diplomatic. Are people voting like Raz and giving low rankings to civs you've never met?

[India (DoC)]

Good question.. seems the diplo category was won by Raz's neighbours

An other thing: If I understand the scoring mechanish well then I really don't like it. Take a look at the attitude ratings and points. Four civs get the same rating and just a little more than me yet they all got 14 points and I got 10. It's not about me, I just don't think this kind of scoring is fair. Little difference in the actuall score makes huge difference in the endgame score. Can't we make it somewhat more balanced?

[Robert]

[Robert]

@rating comments,

I agree that some ratings are a bit odd. Especially some of the low ratings are imho uncalled for. But things like that will fix themselves over time, I think.

The current system is indeed more of an "winner takes it" score system.
It doesn't matter if your rating difference with the next civ is 1 point or 0.1 point, it only matters if your rating is heigher or lower.

This is in fact what we voted for last week.
The alternative is that we do not do a monthly point assignement but just take the average rate of all ratings throughout the entire game.

[Inca (DoC)]

Diplomacy is hard and you have only met a fwe neighbors and game attitude is, i suppose what you give to the game. how can I give a player more or less than average on diplomacy when i have not met them.

[Mali (DoC)]

@rating comments,
This is in fact what we voted for last week.
The alternative is that we do not do a monthly point assignement but just take the average rate of all ratings throughout the entire game.

I have no problem with the system. I do have a problem with ratings. When it was explained before, a 4 was basically a neutral vote. It certainly doesn't look like that is the case with diplomacy.

Story, I can understand because everyone has their own stipulations on story. Personally I see no reason why Inca is so high (no offense). I know I'm not the only person that couldn't read the posts, regardless of the roleplay element.

Diplomacy is hard and you have only met a fwe neighbors and game attitude is, i suppose what you give to the game. how can I give a player more or less than average on diplomacy when i have not met them.

Inca, I wouldn't expect you or anyone else to give anything other than a 4 for diplomacy with any civ you haven't met. The stats do not display this same mentality by everyone.

[Orb (DoC)]

I'm lost. So where do I stand?

[Rasputin]

if the only diplomatic relations you having are all in PM then it your own fault for getting a low score.

I based all my votes on what i saw in the story thread.

All my In game communciaitosn were mentioned in my posts so i keep it out there.

If you choose to keep it all queit then your diplomatic style is worth less than a 4. posting about the diplomatic relations will make others appreciate you mroe .

We shouldnt be voting on how people use diplomacy with our own civ , but how they use it for all. Otherwise we will vote low for someone who takes advantage of us. but in relaity they are a great negotiator , my way stops it becoming personal.

[Robert]

Tip: You can always have dipomacy behind the scenes, and tell about it in story posts without revealing classified information!

[The Priest]

I based all my votes on what i saw in the story thread.

Tip: You can always have dipomacy behind the scenes, and tell about it in story posts without revealing classified information!

I disagree.

All those approaches will give us is a rerun of the mess we had with military votes.

The problem with military was we weren't voting on military, we were voting on storying about military (because few had independent information on how the wars actually went). So 'miliary' because just 'story' under another name, and so there were actually two story votes.

The approach above means we aren't voting on diplomacy, just storying about diplomacy. So again we are in danger of just having a double category of storying.

I can't see the results because I don't have firefox (doesn't bother me greatly) so I have no idea if the voting has worked well for me (Khmer) or not. But it seems to me that we may well have a problem, with different people using different systems for rating. Us all liking different things is one thing, but if one player gives out lots of 1s and 2s if it doesn't know you have been doing anything interesting, while others see 4 as default and give a bonus one or two to the odd nation, its going to be very distorted.

Maybe I am wrong. A quick way to see would be to see the means and spread of the votes from each nation.

(The issue is that this voting system does not give everyone the same number of votes to give out, while in BtP that was teh system - everyone had 3 votes per category - or if we ranked everyone would have the same number of 'votes' to give out, but here is sounds like some people could well be giving out large numbers of points, while others very few, which means it will matter a lot whether which nations you happen to be next to, and be interfacing with. And this won't solve itself quickly, since its really quite late in game when relationships at a great distance become as meaningful as those close at hand, so whether you have a high point giving out neighbours or low will still matter a lot mid-game.)

[Rasputin]

Wel lseems we have a deadlock then

i wont vote on DIplomacy on jsut how someone has dealt with me that makes it too personal and could lead to a distortion of votes for those that i like or dont like..

[Robert]

@The Priest: first of all: the Khmer did pretty good, so that should please you (I'll post the results today as tables, also including the stats on how civs rated others)

Yes, some civs will give out low avg rates while others may hand out heigh avg ratings. But that doesn't matter because all civs vote for all civs. It matters more if civA hands out ratings to all civs in the same philosophy, and not judges some civs on other grounds then others.

As long as everybody rates everybody, everything will average itself out.
If we give everyone, say 20 points to divide among the civs per month, then we will still have some civs who'll hand out 15 to 1 civ and 5x1 to 5 other civs, and civs that will hand out 1 to 10 civs and 2 to 5 civs.

Democracy isn't perfect, especially not if you look at the individual votes.
But you should look at the great picture.

But if many people feel bad about the current system we can of course discuss a new system.