Team Organization

[DNK]

OP edited:

- vetoes removed
- department heads can call votes for "their issues"
- minimal restrictions on voting time limits (only 48hrs-2 weeks as a "rule of thumb")
- petition requirements lessened to 60% from 67% of all members (this is NOT for the final vote, which is still a simple majority, just for ASKING for the vote to be had)
- some clarifications of the "long version"

I'm going to clean up the text of the long version later on, but this seems to meet the concerns of most commenters in this thread, and adds a few good ideas also.

I haven't added the "elect a king" thing yet. I'll see how the discussion pans out on that one, plus I'm not quite understanding it.

[DNK]

And if you are confused:

When do we need a supermajority without weighted votes?
- Assigning or reassigning department heads or turnplayers/captains
- creating a petition vote

When do we need a weighted simple majority?
- every non-petition vote other than that

When do we need a non-weighted simple majority?
- for petition votes

[Ben Kenobi]

If you want to add something else to it, go for it, but I feel like saying "we should vote on SOMETHING every 15 turns" is pointless formality

We don't know what will come up. Having set votes after a period of X, gets people into the habit of voting and establishes a rhythm to the game.

[Hercules]

I agree with Ben on this. It might simply end up as everyone agreeing but the habit of voting is important and sometimes a minority voice over a period gains support.

An example where a 'minister' has been increasingly absent from his post without explanation might get a sort of warning shot.

But this is also a fun game. I remember reading the Hive team forum in the Smac demogame, which while very focussed on strategy also spent a vast amount of time on Haiko poetry. So you could have had 'serious' polls on relatively less crucial issues.

[DNK]

Well, I'm not swayed on the usefulness of it. By midgame, we're likely to have fairly regular votes on a similar timeframe just due to constant treaties, unit trades, civic switches, and major disagreements. Yeah, in the early game things might be slower, but that's just Civ.

[Dinner]

And if you are confused:

When do we need a supermajority without weighted votes?
- Assigning or reassigning department heads or turnplayers/captains
- creating a petition vote

When do we need a weighted simple majority?
- every non-petition vote other than that

When do we need a non-weighted simple majority?
- for petition votes

We have only about 10 players right now and a year from now it might sink to 7-8 active players. Are you really saying we would need 5 out of 7 players to unseat someone? That doesn't seem right. If Parlament can survive for hundreds of years with votes of no confidence requiring just a simple majority then why should it be different for us? You're creating complex rules which both don't work and which are utterly and completely unnecissary given how small our group is.

All votes are simple majority (including votes to decide if we're going to hold an official vote), no one ever gets any weighting to their vote (other wise in my previous example one weighted vote from a person in office would mean functionally we'd never get to unseat them), and I honestly can't think of one good reason to do it any other way. Not a single good reason.

We can have a manditory progress check vote on what we want to do every 30 turns at the beginning and have them become more frequent as the game progresses towards the modern age. Further more at the beginning we should discuss exactly what we want to build when as the first few moves are rather key. That will also allow people to play test a few different options on a test maps as well.

[DNK]

Yes, 5 out of 7 to unseat someone. I don't understand what the issue is - are we unseating turnplayers or captains on a whim? If you can't get less than 2/3rds of the team to agree to it, we shouldn't do such a drastic thing.

Yet, the US managed to survive quite better than your silly parliament for hundreds of years requiring a 2/3rds majority in the Senate for impeachment. Eh, look at that. Who runs the world now - Parliament or the Senate?

The "good reason" was already stated multiple times: votes are weighted by commitment and effort and responsibility within the team. It is a way to reward those who are putting in WAY more time and effort than the average member for that time and effort. Turnplayers and department heads are taking on hours of work each week for their positions.

They will also be privy to information that most are not simply because not all information can ever be shared or ingested as readily as if one is creating and manipulating it. Robert is likely to paraphrase and summarize diplomatic conversations (if through PM or whatever), and though he might release the documentation in full, he's more likely to actually know the issues in and out than anyone else even if he does. Likewise, I'm more likely to know the full details of opponents' production, infrastructure, espionage, and such than anyone else simply because I'm going to be spending hours a week on it and pouring over and creating charts. Likewise, the turnplayers are likely to know all the more because they're spending hours in-game each week. And the Captain, too, though his votes come more from the importance and responsibility of his position.

No one's stopping you from discussing, Dinner. Propose discussions, these are all well agreed on already. As are test maps and test games and testing in general and regular discussion. This really isn't connected to formal voting rules or team organization...

[Dinner]

I don't think anyone would attempt to unseat someone on a whim but it should be possible without everyone other than the guy in question voting to do it. Given how small our group is I just don't see the need for anything other than simple majorities for anything. Requiring 5 out of 7 people to vote for a petition vote, to assign a new position, or anything else is simply absurd to the extreme. The same goes for having weighted votes as that would mean one person's vote might be equal to 40% of the other people on our group. Frankly, that's just garbage and I have to wonder why you feel you need so much personal power over the rest of the group.

[Dinner]

So an ways four out of seven seems like a pretty high bar to me so I have yet to hear a decent reason why 0% should be used for anything much less weighted voting.

[OzzyKP]

I don't think anyone would attempt to unseat someone on a whim but it should be possible without everyone other than the guy in question voting to do it. Given how small our group is I just don't see the need for anything other than simple majorities for anything. Requiring 5 out of 7 people to vote for a petition vote, to assign a new position, or anything else is simply absurd to the extreme. The same goes for having weighted votes as that would mean one person's vote might be equal to 40% of the other people on our group. Frankly, that's just garbage and I have to wonder why you feel you need so much personal power over the rest of the group.

Hey, knock it off with the personal accusations. DNK isn't a turn player anyhow, so it is both untrue and unfair to suggest he just wants more decision making ability for himself.

[DNK]

Yes, the huge "personal power" of a double vote, even though I would have less than other members as well, and if it does turn into a 6-player team midway, I'm actually well below average in terms of "powah".

The fact is that I've given way more powah to the turn players and Ozzy, and that's without any of them asking for it here or privately. With the vetoes removed, they have less of a vote than I would personally think appropriate given their positions, but I've been doing my best to compromise and not make the non-positioned members feel like they are being shuffled to the side. Really, I don't expect this formal framework to be used that often, though others seem to want it to be used more often. Odd, if I wanted so much powah, why argue against regularly taking votes? Seems like I'd want to further institutionalize my position then...

We'll just leave this weighting up to a vote before we start, I guess. You seem to be the only one really getting upset over it, and I'm clearly never going to convince you otherwise (or the other way around), so let's just let it rest then?



I'm going to say there are a few issues to take up if the rest of the framework is acceptable to everyone:

1. weighted votes
2. regular (time interval) votes (for "general direction")
3. electing a "king" every so often

[Dinner]

Can someone post a good reason why calling for a vote should take 60% instead of 50% +1? While they're at it can they explain why weighted votes are needed in such a small group? With 10 players the proposed weights of +1, +2, +3 would mean 16 votes total with one guy getting 1/4th of all votes.

[DNK]

3/16 isn't 25%... It's less than 20% (1/5th, you're even a full denominator off, plus some). That's what I call "mathematical hyperbole".

Why 60%? To avoid formality. I set up this framework to actually have as little voting as possible, and now people are asking for more and more ability to vote, and such... I wanted to create something that saw voting as a "last measure" to resolve conflict (major ones, not minor ones) and as a pressure valve for mass issues, not as a daily thing or even something regular. I wanted us to focus more on productive discussions and informal, casual debates, rather than setting things up in a strict system of resolution. Yes, a lot of the OP is about voting, but that's because there's so little else in it. Trust me, it could be much longer if I wanted to really structure the whole format of our team and discussions...

Really, we can just strike that whole section and it makes little difference. If any issue has even 50% of the people clamoring for a vote, the Captain ought to be on top of it by calling a vote himself.

[Ben Kenobi]

Strike the supermajority please. Also, someone wanting to drop Calanthian or mxprox is going to have to overcome my vote as well. A supermajority isn't needed.

[Dinner]

3/16 isn't 25%... It's less than 20% (1/5th, you're even a full denominator off, plus some). That's what I call "mathematical hyperbole".

1+3 = 4. 4/16th = 1/4th.

In any event there simply is no need what so ever to have anyone with a weight or to have anything other than a simple majority. I don't know why you're so dead set on such inequality in the game but it is absolutely completely unneeded in such a small group. You're literally the only one pushing for it so the question is why?