The Recreation Commons - Sixth Floor : Temple of Planet

[Nubclear]

Hey, I never said PRIME function...

[Vev]

Good stuff there Tass. A little bit of text formatting and spacing to make it a little bit more pleasing to the eye.

[Nubclear]

Well, if you would be so kind as to do it since in its present state, it looks pleasent to my eye...

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
Hey, I never said PRIME function...

True true. But it still ought to be changed to avoid confusing newbies. Drogue is the forum moderator who has to authorize new members.

[Nubclear]

Newbies probably won't even notice whos authorizing them though. I know I didn't in either case

[GeneralTacticus]

You might want to note in that description that factions don't necessarily vote on everything - governing styles differ, based on factional preference.

[Hercules]

Yes good summary and intro. Some minor points
Just maybe change the SMAC bit to SMAC/X where approriate.

Maybe style those who authorise members as faction co-ordinators/manager rather than leaders as they don't change whereas Governors, Chairpersons, Chancellors/Deans, Fleet Admirals, Prime functions, Head Bee, do.

Each faction can submit, what, up to 10 lines description /promoting themselves.

[Kody]

I figure first a roleplay description of the faction, history goals and stuff would make it sound interesting. Then a few lines that explains what the people should expect when they join your faction (like what is actually happening behind all the roleplay).

I'll write one for my faction when I get around to it.

The idea is we're probably getting lots of lurkers which decide they're not interested because we don't have a nice public face that explains things clearly.

Then we also have people joining certain factions then deciding they don't like that faction's style, so they're quitting and are unable to join a different faction. That's why I suggested actually explaining the activities behind the roleplaying.

Perhaps as one of Tassadar's duties as deputy he could organise the compilation into two posts that will go into a topped signup thread.

I say give factions 2 weeks to come up with their descriptions. We want really good quality with the writing as new members are very important to us.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Your Right on the mark Kody, I my self have been such a Lurker for a long time and would have joined much sooner if the process had been more clearly layed out. The whole Democracy game interests me purly as a Phenomenon in untoo itself (and I like SMAC too). But when I did finaly deside to join up I tried joing the Peace faction thinking they were the PeaceKeepers!!

Tacticus has straitended me out on this though, and after some additional digging I came across the post on this thread that your all refering too and boy I wish it had seen it first. I think I will wait untill these descriptions are written up to deside on my faction.

I have a few more newbie questions that yall might want to answer and include on your upcomming documents.

First off I understand that most of the citizens of a faction dont need to know whats happening in the game inorder to partispate in the role playing or to vote in desision making threads (you can polute the system with totaly uninformed votes just like in a real democracy!!). But if a citizen with no real position in the faction wants to can he get access to any of the saved game files and actualy SEE how his faction is performing?

Asuming the answer is yes to that would you have to have the expantion to be able to open the file without everything crashing? Would downloading the Demo of crossfire alow you to just take a peek at a saved Smacx game file?

Another question how do the leaders of a Faction team actualy physicaly split up their various task? I am under the impression (from stuff I read about the first Democracy game) the that "top dog" of each faction is the one who is actualy entering in all the various comands and build quees and movment comands. And that all the other members of the team are funneling instructions to that leader. Ofcorse their would need to be some way of distributing the save game file to thouse minister so they can make their desisions, how is this done?

How is cheating prevented? what prevents you from turning on the Map editor and at the least taking an unfair look at everyone else? I have never played any multi-player SMAC so I am wondering about how this aplies to ANY PBEM game of Smac.

How fast are the turns progressing now? If 5 different teams of human players must pass the save game file along once each year then if each faction takes 1 day to exicute its turn then the game would pass at the rate of 1 game year every 5 days, thats rather slow aint it, how long do you expect the whole game to take, it should logicaly take longer then the first democracy game so are we comited to spending a minimum of 3 years on this game? This would actualy be kind of interesting, you should be upfront about the expected length of the game so as not to let people get bored.

What kind of Activity level is expected? I am assuming citizens without govement posistion can be as active or inactive as they like. Only once you have a position is anything expected of you.

[Kody]

Your Right on the mark Kody, I my self have been such a Lurker for a long time and would have joined much sooner if the process had been more clearly layed out. The whole Democracy game interests me purly as a Phenomenon in untoo itself (and I like SMAC too). But when I did finaly deside to join up I tried joing the Peace faction thinking they were the PeaceKeepers!!

The issue first was brought up in our faction, as I was asking one of our returning older members what we could do is get new members. They complained they needed a summary of what was going on as it was taking a week to catch up on all the game relevant posts I had made.

Tacticus has straitended me out on this though, and after some additional digging I came across the post on this thread that your all refering too and boy I wish it had seen it first. I think I will wait untill these descriptions are written up to deside on my faction.

Yah, maybe you'll choose the Hive.

I have a few more newbie questions that yall might want to answer and include on your upcomming documents.

First off I understand that most of the citizens of a faction dont need to know whats happening in the game inorder to partispate in the role playing or to vote in desision making threads (you can polute the system with totaly uninformed votes just like in a real democracy!!). But if a citizen with no real position in the faction wants to can he get access to any of the saved game files and actualy SEE how his faction is performing?

Well generally when there is a game decision, the person making the poll should make a summary of all the relevant information and detail the for and against arguments. At least that's what is happening in the Hive.

There was a hacker incident a while back and (at least for the hive) we're careful the password isn't posted in the forum anymore. However, I'm sure if you're interested in contributing to the game the players with the password will give it to you privately. If you are constantly giving useful suggestions you'll probably skyrocket up the ranks. Active participants are at a premium and nobody is going to hold you back if you want to get more involved.

Asuming the answer is yes to that would you have to have the expantion to be able to open the file without everything crashing? Would downloading the Demo of crossfire alow you to just take a peek at a saved Smacx game file?

I know of one other person that converted from smac to smacx with a few extra files. I hear the important file differences aren't really that much. Eg ignore movies, extra pictures, extra sounds.

Another question how do the leaders of a Faction team actualy physicaly split up their various task? I am under the impression (from stuff I read about the first Democracy game) the that "top dog" of each faction is the one who is actualy entering in all the various comands and build quees and movment comands. And that all the other members of the team are funneling instructions to that leader. Ofcorse their would need to be some way of distributing the save game file to thouse minister so they can make their desisions, how is this done?

Well what you've described is what would be ideal. The reality is there's far less participation to allow for that. I don't know how other factions do it. For the hive major decisions are polled. All the minor details are decided by the turn player. Medium important decisions are just decided from having the pre-turn turn chats on MSN and from responses to strategy threads in the private forum. Currently the hive has a separate person for information gathering, as usually the information gathered from other factions doesn't affect the moves in the short run.

How is cheating prevented? what prevents you from turning on the Map editor and at the least taking an unfair look at everyone else? I have never played any multi-player SMAC so I am wondering about how this aplies to ANY PBEM game of Smac.

Well the map editor is disabled for PBEM games. There are other things that can be done that constitute cheating. For the hive the turn player releases the moves made and posts screenshots to a turn update thread. If all factions are doing this, cheating should be picked up by the other members in the faction.

How fast are the turns progressing now? If 5 different teams of human players must pass the save game file along once each year then if each faction takes 1 day to exicute its turn then the game would pass at the rate of 1 game year every 5 days, thats rather slow aint it, how long do you expect the whole game to take, it should logicaly take longer then the first democracy game so are we comited to spending a minimum of 3 years on this game? This would actualy be kind of interesting, you should be upfront about the expected length of the game so as not to let people get bored.

On average I would say the Hive is averaging 16 hours to do each turn. University averages about 26 hours, CyCon averages about 26, pirates seem to average 48 hours, and drones average about 5 hours. So that's about a turn every 5 days. I assume that the players involved in this game are all extremely good, or have really good planning occurring in their forums, so the game should be over earlier than what a normal single player would take. I would guess it would only run 150 years at most, 5 days per turn so upper limit is 2 years.

I agree that over 2 years it could get quite boring if you're in a faction that isn't very active. However, your faction should be attempting to get extra activities going that are related to the game to keep the game interesting. The inter-faction debating is something the hive is trying to setup as we're thinking long term and don't want to lose members from lack of interest.

What kind of Activity level is expected? I am assuming citizens without govement posistion can be as active or inactive as they like. Only once you have a position is anything expected of you.

As much or as little as you like. Currently in the hive, there's more work than we have hands to do, and we're cutting corners already as it is. Like the chairman decided to veto of the recent decisions that needed to be made in the hive. We already had 2 previous polls that were inconclusive, and nobody felt like writing up another summary that would go with the poll.

For the Hive, it's the chairman and turn player with the only critical have to do jobs. The chairman still needs to make important decisions (as the turn player refuses to make them) and direct the hive. The turn player still has to get the turns out so the game keeps running.

[Maniac]

On average I would say the Hive is averaging 16 hours to do each turn. University averages about 26 hours, CyCon averages about 26, pirates seem to average 48 hours, and drones average about 5 hours.

26 hours for the CyCon?? It seems a less lot when I check the last fifteen years or so. Also you have to keep in mind that during my Prime Functionhood Poly was often down, so I sent the turn to the Pirates per mail hours before I posted it here.

[Kody]

You mean the pirates have been averaging more than 48 hours!!!!!!

[Snowflake]

Tass, good stuff! Just change the prime function introduction for CC to be something like "there are three emperor prime functions who are in a constant power struggle to put the other two in a prison or hospital" then we are ready to go.

Kody, if we can ever recruit a couple new members like you then I'm sure we'll rake this game in no time.

[Method]

Originally posted by Maniac


At least you recognize I am the true Prime Function.

but not the EMPEROR prime function

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
THE CYBERNETIC CONSCIOUSNESS - This faction plays the SMAC faction known as "The Cybernetic Consciousness" (again hence its name). The current leader of The Cybernetic Consciousness is "Function Maniac".

As Maniac said, I am both current Prime Function (although DBTS is acting until I get back from Florence next Tues) and moderator, so if they need authorising, it needs to come to me.

And Method: We are all Emperor's who are Prime Functions, and as Mod, I am also Emperor of the forums. Indeed, look at my location, and you will see it reads as "Emperor... of the Cybernetic Conciousness"