Leadership Positions

[Archaic]

First order of business, we need to decide what everyone's going to be responsible for, for how long, and how we'll manage the process of elections, etc. With a small team, the old SMAC DG constitution isn't really too workable it would seem.

[GeneralTacticus]

I'd like to apply for command of either foreign affairs or the military, and also (officially or unofficially) to be our record-keeper for things like statistics and actions.

[Mr. President]

I would like to do something but I'm not sure what I should do.

[Silly Attack]

Private forum! Wooo!



[/Silly Attack]

Edit: Actually, I can't use IRC chat (limitations of computers and what have you) so I don't know how well I'd work as a government dude. Maybe I should run the University equivalent of the Recreation Commons.

[moomin]

I'd like to do something, but I'm not too sure about what. Seeing as how Arch and GT are both living in the Antipodes we do have a time lag issue here.

Anyway, why don't we keep things pretty informal? We discuss and vote as necessary - one of the things that put me (and I'm sure a lot of other ppl) off the previous game was the constant constitutional hagling. With 8 or so participants, it ought to be easy enough to just talk things through.

[moomin]

And like Prez, I can't access IRC or MSN. I can access ICQ through a web interface, though.

[GeneralTacticus]

Well, it isn't really necessary that you be able to show up in chats - just to be able to give orders for your particular area.

[moomin]

But do we need that? That order stuff seems so tedious - how about we appoint a gubmint, discuss broad issues and have the executives wield executive power according to broad outlines instead of "move former 3 here"?

Then, when sombody inevitably screws up, we impeach him and have the opposition grab the formers, as it were?

[GeneralTacticus]

By the late-game, we'd have to, but in the early game (i.e. now) we have to be much more specific, given how much more important each move is.

[moomin]

But you and Archaic already have an established track record of qualified game play - I'd be inclined to trust you with not doing totally stupid moves, even if we don't vote each and every former movement.

We can still poll stuff like exploration direction and tech choices. Or base build spots.

[History Guy]

We need a Minister of Unethical Experimentation around here (aka, a Science Advisor). He'd probably be one of the more important heads of government, actually.

We also need a commander for our military, and a governor for our capital.

[Archaic]

Don't give military command to me whatever you do. I'm an excellent pure builder, but force me into wars and I find it hard to hold my own unless both sides are facing a distance barrier. Opponents "in my backyard" as it were screw me up.

As for base build spots that someone mentioned earlier......I was going to poll that later, but I may as well present it here and now. I was hoping we might be able to discipline ourselves and go with a modification of the sikander grid I developed for my SP transcend attempts, which I've tried to reproduce below (it's a bit wordy sorry). Of course, the grid is a long term plan, so we'd be ignoring everything except for the Bases in it right now. We'd of course have a lot more forests in the meanwhile for mins.

B - Base
F - Farm/Condensor/Soil Enricher
H - Borehole

N.B. Where a rocky square exists, if in 
an F, this spot changes to a Mine/Road.
If B, it will be leveled. If H, it will be left
alone.
Where bonus tiles exist, for Nutrients,
these become F tiles if anything other
than a base. For Minerals, these
become Mine/Road if an F and rocky,
a Forest if F and not rocky, and remain
as their current one (B or H) otherwise.
For Energy, if they are F tiles, these 
become Solar if above 1500m, Forest
otherwise (if rocky, choice will be made
between Mine/Road and Solar or Forest
on a case by case basis).

Type 1:
BFFFB
HFHFH
FFBFF
HFHFH
BFFFB

or

BHFHB
FFFFF
FHBHF
FFFFF
BHFHB

Type 2:
BFFFB
FHFHF
FFBFF
FHFHF
BFFFB

[moomin]

Do you run that way from scratch? I usually build up to the first efficiency limit considering geography, resources and strategic position only and start following a more rigid development plan only when I hit that limit.

[AdamTG02]

I think that directed research decisions are important enough that we should decide each of them by vote or consensus. We wouldn't have joined the University if we didn't have a vested interest in research, after all. Likewise for Social Engineering decisions.

As for who should post the polls, maybe a few broad areas of expertise, such as Military & Foreign Affairs, Science and Social Engineering, and Terraforming and Colonization. That's assuming Archaic doesn't want to post all polls himself, but I'm guessing that wouldn't be his preference.

What do you all think?

[moomin]

I agree. We're all here for the tech, after all. But we are rapidly coming up against our 24h limit for this turn. Once we pass it, we'll have several days to deliberate our goals.

[Nubclear]

I would like to be the Minister of Information (aka Propaganda)