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(imported from old Aimoo forum)
Chaunk
Let me explain. This idea came about as a result of reading Impalers post in Googlies Suggested Share stucture topic
Impaler said this.
Chaunk: I dont see Morgan Industries as a pure Democracy, were a capitalistic faction, thouse who contribute and make all the gears turn should be the ones who hold the most athority. I have personaly been very anoyed at how Cycon has been run as of late. At first things were quite nice, we disucssed stuff and debated and then voted, only a hand full of people were voting but they were all comenting and giving their input in the debate before hand. Then as the final war started with the Hive and it became aparent to most of us that the game was lost most of our core players stoped contributing. Their were also a number of people who had never contributed anything but a bit of RolePlaying and spaming to the faction and though I dont mind these things I find it very unfair that such people could basicaly swing the results of very important polls when they know very that someone else is going to do the work. Likewise most of our senior leadership (Drouge and Maniac) had just desided to goof around at this point and continualy pushed for agressive actions against the Pirates even though it did nothing but satisfy their personal bloodlust. I dont want to see the same thing happening here, it should be a meritocracy, the people doing the work get a proportionaly greater say in whats going to be done then the people who are simply watching.
That got me thinking. I think it's vital that any faction in a democracy game doesn't turn into a solo effort. Nor should it be decided by a "shadow commitee". I truly beleive that everyone's opinions should be heard, taken on board and used in decision making.
However, Impaler is absolutly right in some things. If someone is in a faction to RP and spam, then any input they make on game decisions is limited at best. It won't be as good an input as the CEO of 35 turns by a long shot., and yet in a simple poll it would be. If there were a large number of RP/spamers then the entire factions attitude could be swung one way or another simply by their vote. That shouldn't happen if more "switched on" players think a different course of action should be taken.
Therefore I propose a policy of "no polls".
Rather than just a simple poll being taken on a matter, a post would be made instead. This post would have various options and a recommendation as to which one to take (Made by the CEO COO or relative chief or second). Any "votes" then, would have to be made as replies to that post, and contain a reason for the vote, even if it's just a "I agree with the CEO". Then we wouldn't have annonymous voters swinging polls, and peoples opinions can be taken on board since they're easy to see. It also helps to see who's opinion is more important, more credited by past performance if you prefer. The more important opinions can then be taken as more useful to the turn player or cheif in the area or whoever.
Example. In the post "POLL: What should we do with the Hive?" The first post is this, by the CDO (Chief diplomatic officer):
As you all know, the hive have double crossed us again, and not given us MMI. We have three or four options.
1. We could send them a stern rebuke, saying don't do it again and warning them of dire consequences if they do
2. We could end our pact with them, promising to make it again if they do give us MMI and other suitable reparations
3. We can end our pact and go and take it all by force and probes.
4. Another action?
I propose we choose option 3. They haven't had MMI long enough to make many troops, and we already have probe foils in the area. Lets take MMI and a few other techs then propose peace again when we have what we want (What they promised remember!).
The replies - instead of a standard poll - are in order by the CEO, SpamMan, CMO, SpamMan2, SpamMan3 and RPFanaticWhoDoesn'tOwnSMAC.
Yep, great idea, lets go and get them asap. We have cash for our probes and they haven't got any choppers yet.
CEO
Nah, lets just tell them off a bit.
SpamMan
I like the idea of attacking them, but perhaps we should wait. The drones have MMI, and chop and drop looks like it'll be very effective against the hive atm. Lets wait five turns
CMO
Nah, lets just tell them off a lot.
SpamMan2
Nah, lets just tell them off.
SpamMan3
Our economy will be hit by a war, so lets just them them off.
RPFanaticWhoDoesn'tOwnSMAC
Obviously from a standard poll, the result would be 1. However, seeing as the CEO and CMO agree with the CDO, 3 looks like a good course of action, although there may be a waiting time to see if MMI can be aquired from elsewhere. SpamMan, SpamMan2, SpamMan3 and RPFanaticWhoDoesn'tOwnSMAC will finally see a post like this:
We decided to attack. Although concerns were made about our economy being hit, we think that effect will be nothing really. We also wanted other factions to know that Morgan can't be betrayed. Remember that the Hive had already betrayed us before, and we told them off for it last time. This time they needed more than words, and after getting MMI for 125ec from the AI, we're gonna rock and roll over some Hive bases.
CEO.
Comments Suggestions?
Conclusion for people who are too lazy to read the whole post! I propose a policy of "no polls", with posts taking their place.
jtsisyoda
I disagree with this no-poll idea. What happened to presenting your argument and trading rebuttals? Flex those muscles of persuasion. Give people the relevant information, explain it to them, see what they think, and if their decision seems based on incomplete information, misconceptions, naivete, unrealistic expectations, etc., it's up to the experienced and skilled players to see that and do something about it.
If enough people make a choice you wouldn't, you won't get your way. But this team does not exist to please a select few. It's for everyone to participate, learn, have fun, and hopefully do well or win. Just as with growing up and maturing into an adult, that will include making some mistakes and facing the consequences.
I think we have plenty of skill to run this faction. People reading our forum will see this, and if the skilled players gain respect, the newer people and mostly-RPer's will give serious consideration to their recommendations. Inexperienced players often ask questions which clarify the decision-making process, which will actually help the skilled officers. But once in a while, the noobs and RPer's have an idea that breaks through the walls the experienced players have built, that surpasses the conventional wisdom, and takes the faction to the next level. If we alienate non-officers, we lose that critical resource, and miss out not only on new ideas, but many in-game opportunities, and most of all a chance to share the joy of playing this great game.
Arnelos
After playing the PTWDG, an internal Apolyton inter-team DG in the Civ3 community, we got together last year to set up our team for the Civ3 inter-site competition. On Apolyton, we had created the PTWDG between ourselves for exact purpose of trying to learn as much as we could about playing in teams against others teams with TBS games like this before we embarked on doing so against the teams that would be fielded by other civilization websites.
We found out a lot of things, almost all of them the hard way, which was the entire point of the PTWDG. We've seen other teams in the inter-site games make many of the mistakes we made ourselves in our internal game and thus tried to avoid in the more important inter-site competition.
One of the largest problems we noted was that most democracy game teams are formed primarily of people with most of their experience grounded in playing single-player democracy games. In all of our previous experience with these single-player democracy games, the entire pace of the game was determined only by OUR team and there were no penalties for slow play other than that the game moved slower. Furthermore, it didn't really matter as much if we allowed RP or spam or any weird thing to influence our in-game policies because AI isn't a very good opponent and we could afford to play around a bit. The guiding principle of such single-player democracy games is DEMOCRACY... regardless of whatever happens in the game, the team as a whole decides things together - everyone gets their say and, ultimately, everyone's say is equal.
What we found was that most of the teams in the inter-team game and later in the inter-site game carried this same democratic logic to the fierce inter-team competitive environment, where it was not only misplaced, but could be downright detrimental. Teams that insisted on allowing turn-by-turn decisions to be dictated by democratic mass whim were prone to making mistakes, having inconsistent and plain idiotic military strategies, and would frequently slow down the entire game for the sake of a critical poll every now and then. Thankfully, some teams did try to experiment with different systems as we went along. The natural progression seemed to be that one key leader would eventually end up doing most of everything for the team and the rest of the team would fade into the background, though some posters would continue to comment advice. Some teams found more demoratic solutions that kept the game moving and their policies sound.
When we put ourselves back together to set up the Apolyton Team for the inter-site competition, we used that experience when setting up our team's decision-making system. We would elect three turn-players. These three people would have, whenever they desired, complete control over every aspect of playing the game. They would be responsible for reporting everything they did to the team and for soliciting the team for advice and comment, but they had the authority to simply play the game so that it would both keep moving and that so our strategies from turn-to-turn would remain coherant and directed by people with intimate knowledge of in-game situations turn by turn. Meanwhile, all of the larger strategic issues and sometimes the little micromanagement issues (especially tactical issues) would be open to advice and comment from the team.
We decided that two checks were necessary on the power of this triumverate. The first was that members of the team could conduct polls when they desired to tie the triumverate's hands to particular actions they found necessary of such a measure. We knew there was a risk in this (as Impaler has related here), but it's also part of what keeps the game a DEMOCRACY game, even for as much power as we gave our triumverate of turn players compared to any other previously existing democracy game team. Some amount of restriction ended up being necessary of polling... we ended up ammending our Constitution to REQUIRE a pre-poll discussion thread and a discussion to take place before any matter could be polled. First, this makes instantaneous polling impossible and turn-by-turn polling impracticle. Second, it ensures that at least an informed discussion of hte issues takes place and can be read before any issue is polled... increasing the chances that those voting will do so informed of the consequences of their votes.
The other check we placed on the power of the triumverate was the "Change of Command" (CoC) motion. At ANY time, any member of the team is empowered to start a CoC motion against any of the leaders of the team. When the CoC motion is issued in a thread, the first order of business is to find if anyone is willing to step up to be the replacement for the challenged leader (it need not be the person who made the motion). Once at least one potential replacement is found, a short period for campaigning is allowed, followed by a vote. The winner get's the seat on the triumverate. If suitable replacements can be found, even all three of the leaders can be replaced. That we entrust our leaders with a GREAT deal of power, but reserve the right to take that power away at ANY time we want keeps them (or I should say "us" ) accountable.
The reason for THREE turnplayers in a triumverate rather than a single leader was also one of experience. Single leaders given the enormous burden of carrying the entire team on their backs inevitably go on vacation, get busy, get BURNT OUT from so much work, and other problems. Furthermore, forcing three people to have to agree with one another (or at least two at any time) to get anything done means that one person hopefully isn't just playing on auto-pilot. Also, as with the solution devised by the founding fathers of the U.S., a principle way to prevent the ambition of a single forceful individual from poisoning the team and driving down activity levels among everyone else is to set ambition against ambition. Putting three highly ambitious and active people together of equal rank and ensuring that at least two have to agree to get very much done has been a very interesting form of government... it's also been rather effective at preventing single leaders from dominating the entire team to an extent that they drive everyone else into relative inactivity.
Probably the best thing the triumverate method has done, howver, is the following: When the triumverate all actually AGREE on an issue (which seems pretty rare...), it tends to happen. When they DISAGREE (which seems relatively often in our case :P ), the issue tends to get debated heavily in the forum and the entire team gets an earfull about the issue and has every chance to provide advice and comment - and ultimately decide it when the triumverate can or will not. The ideal of the system is that the easy issues and the turn-by-turn issues can and should be decided by the turnplayers. The larger strategic issues should be decided by the team, but only after the team has been fully informed of the issue and potential repercusions of the various options.
Based upon THAT experience and a few others since then, however, I'd have to say that I don't think that necessarily having three EQUAL turnplayers is necessary. As long as you have a turnplayer with some active back-up turnplayers knowledgable about in-game situations and able to play when the main one is burnt out or simply too busy, the system works. The important thing is for the leadership to be given the latitude to actually do what is best on behalf of the team without the rest of the team stringing them down with tons of polls and rules while not adequately understanding the in-game situations. The most powerful tool in that arsenal is the requirement of pre-poll discussion before a poll. When you REQUIRE a discussion before any poll, you both eliminate short-term polling pretty much entirely and you improve the chances that polling on strategic issues will be done with INFORMED voters.
Now... for Morgan Industries...
* I'd suggest that we keep the setup of the leadership suggested by Googlie. Having a main turnplayer and at least one backup turnplayer, along with the other members of our effective "cabinet" should be sufficient. We need not have a triumverate or anything like that.
* I will state in the strongest possible terms that requiring pre-poll discussions before polling is conducted on any subject will do WONDERS for preventing the issue Impaler brought up. As I have stated above, it "eliminates short-term polling pretty much entirely and improves the chances that polling on strategic issues will be done with INFORMED voters."
* The leadership should be given very broad latitutude for what they are able to do without any necessity for polling the team. At most, the leadership might be required to poll the team on issues of very major strategic impact, such as alliances and wars, etc.
* The leadership must, however, be kept accountable to the team, even for as much power as they are given so that they can do their jobs competently without too much interference. For this reason, the team must be able to replace members of the upper leadership at ANY time and for ANY reason, providing that they actually have a suitable replacement able to do the job (if you don't have a replacement, tough luck... you're stuck with the leader you have).
That should solve most of the issues Impaler brought up.
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Geesh, I really do ramble on and on and on before I get to my point, don't I? :P
Chaunk
Let me explain. This idea came about as a result of reading Impalers post in Googlies Suggested Share stucture topic
Impaler said this.
Chaunk: I dont see Morgan Industries as a pure Democracy, were a capitalistic faction, thouse who contribute and make all the gears turn should be the ones who hold the most athority. I have personaly been very anoyed at how Cycon has been run as of late. At first things were quite nice, we disucssed stuff and debated and then voted, only a hand full of people were voting but they were all comenting and giving their input in the debate before hand. Then as the final war started with the Hive and it became aparent to most of us that the game was lost most of our core players stoped contributing. Their were also a number of people who had never contributed anything but a bit of RolePlaying and spaming to the faction and though I dont mind these things I find it very unfair that such people could basicaly swing the results of very important polls when they know very that someone else is going to do the work. Likewise most of our senior leadership (Drouge and Maniac) had just desided to goof around at this point and continualy pushed for agressive actions against the Pirates even though it did nothing but satisfy their personal bloodlust. I dont want to see the same thing happening here, it should be a meritocracy, the people doing the work get a proportionaly greater say in whats going to be done then the people who are simply watching.
That got me thinking. I think it's vital that any faction in a democracy game doesn't turn into a solo effort. Nor should it be decided by a "shadow commitee". I truly beleive that everyone's opinions should be heard, taken on board and used in decision making.
However, Impaler is absolutly right in some things. If someone is in a faction to RP and spam, then any input they make on game decisions is limited at best. It won't be as good an input as the CEO of 35 turns by a long shot., and yet in a simple poll it would be. If there were a large number of RP/spamers then the entire factions attitude could be swung one way or another simply by their vote. That shouldn't happen if more "switched on" players think a different course of action should be taken.
Therefore I propose a policy of "no polls".
Rather than just a simple poll being taken on a matter, a post would be made instead. This post would have various options and a recommendation as to which one to take (Made by the CEO COO or relative chief or second). Any "votes" then, would have to be made as replies to that post, and contain a reason for the vote, even if it's just a "I agree with the CEO". Then we wouldn't have annonymous voters swinging polls, and peoples opinions can be taken on board since they're easy to see. It also helps to see who's opinion is more important, more credited by past performance if you prefer. The more important opinions can then be taken as more useful to the turn player or cheif in the area or whoever.
Example. In the post "POLL: What should we do with the Hive?" The first post is this, by the CDO (Chief diplomatic officer):
As you all know, the hive have double crossed us again, and not given us MMI. We have three or four options.
1. We could send them a stern rebuke, saying don't do it again and warning them of dire consequences if they do
2. We could end our pact with them, promising to make it again if they do give us MMI and other suitable reparations
3. We can end our pact and go and take it all by force and probes.
4. Another action?
I propose we choose option 3. They haven't had MMI long enough to make many troops, and we already have probe foils in the area. Lets take MMI and a few other techs then propose peace again when we have what we want (What they promised remember!).
The replies - instead of a standard poll - are in order by the CEO, SpamMan, CMO, SpamMan2, SpamMan3 and RPFanaticWhoDoesn'tOwnSMAC.
Yep, great idea, lets go and get them asap. We have cash for our probes and they haven't got any choppers yet.
CEO
Nah, lets just tell them off a bit.
SpamMan
I like the idea of attacking them, but perhaps we should wait. The drones have MMI, and chop and drop looks like it'll be very effective against the hive atm. Lets wait five turns
CMO
Nah, lets just tell them off a lot.
SpamMan2
Nah, lets just tell them off.
SpamMan3
Our economy will be hit by a war, so lets just them them off.
RPFanaticWhoDoesn'tOwnSMAC
Obviously from a standard poll, the result would be 1. However, seeing as the CEO and CMO agree with the CDO, 3 looks like a good course of action, although there may be a waiting time to see if MMI can be aquired from elsewhere. SpamMan, SpamMan2, SpamMan3 and RPFanaticWhoDoesn'tOwnSMAC will finally see a post like this:
We decided to attack. Although concerns were made about our economy being hit, we think that effect will be nothing really. We also wanted other factions to know that Morgan can't be betrayed. Remember that the Hive had already betrayed us before, and we told them off for it last time. This time they needed more than words, and after getting MMI for 125ec from the AI, we're gonna rock and roll over some Hive bases.
CEO.
Comments Suggestions?
Conclusion for people who are too lazy to read the whole post! I propose a policy of "no polls", with posts taking their place.
jtsisyoda
I disagree with this no-poll idea. What happened to presenting your argument and trading rebuttals? Flex those muscles of persuasion. Give people the relevant information, explain it to them, see what they think, and if their decision seems based on incomplete information, misconceptions, naivete, unrealistic expectations, etc., it's up to the experienced and skilled players to see that and do something about it.
If enough people make a choice you wouldn't, you won't get your way. But this team does not exist to please a select few. It's for everyone to participate, learn, have fun, and hopefully do well or win. Just as with growing up and maturing into an adult, that will include making some mistakes and facing the consequences.
I think we have plenty of skill to run this faction. People reading our forum will see this, and if the skilled players gain respect, the newer people and mostly-RPer's will give serious consideration to their recommendations. Inexperienced players often ask questions which clarify the decision-making process, which will actually help the skilled officers. But once in a while, the noobs and RPer's have an idea that breaks through the walls the experienced players have built, that surpasses the conventional wisdom, and takes the faction to the next level. If we alienate non-officers, we lose that critical resource, and miss out not only on new ideas, but many in-game opportunities, and most of all a chance to share the joy of playing this great game.
Arnelos
After playing the PTWDG, an internal Apolyton inter-team DG in the Civ3 community, we got together last year to set up our team for the Civ3 inter-site competition. On Apolyton, we had created the PTWDG between ourselves for exact purpose of trying to learn as much as we could about playing in teams against others teams with TBS games like this before we embarked on doing so against the teams that would be fielded by other civilization websites.
We found out a lot of things, almost all of them the hard way, which was the entire point of the PTWDG. We've seen other teams in the inter-site games make many of the mistakes we made ourselves in our internal game and thus tried to avoid in the more important inter-site competition.
One of the largest problems we noted was that most democracy game teams are formed primarily of people with most of their experience grounded in playing single-player democracy games. In all of our previous experience with these single-player democracy games, the entire pace of the game was determined only by OUR team and there were no penalties for slow play other than that the game moved slower. Furthermore, it didn't really matter as much if we allowed RP or spam or any weird thing to influence our in-game policies because AI isn't a very good opponent and we could afford to play around a bit. The guiding principle of such single-player democracy games is DEMOCRACY... regardless of whatever happens in the game, the team as a whole decides things together - everyone gets their say and, ultimately, everyone's say is equal.
What we found was that most of the teams in the inter-team game and later in the inter-site game carried this same democratic logic to the fierce inter-team competitive environment, where it was not only misplaced, but could be downright detrimental. Teams that insisted on allowing turn-by-turn decisions to be dictated by democratic mass whim were prone to making mistakes, having inconsistent and plain idiotic military strategies, and would frequently slow down the entire game for the sake of a critical poll every now and then. Thankfully, some teams did try to experiment with different systems as we went along. The natural progression seemed to be that one key leader would eventually end up doing most of everything for the team and the rest of the team would fade into the background, though some posters would continue to comment advice. Some teams found more demoratic solutions that kept the game moving and their policies sound.
When we put ourselves back together to set up the Apolyton Team for the inter-site competition, we used that experience when setting up our team's decision-making system. We would elect three turn-players. These three people would have, whenever they desired, complete control over every aspect of playing the game. They would be responsible for reporting everything they did to the team and for soliciting the team for advice and comment, but they had the authority to simply play the game so that it would both keep moving and that so our strategies from turn-to-turn would remain coherant and directed by people with intimate knowledge of in-game situations turn by turn. Meanwhile, all of the larger strategic issues and sometimes the little micromanagement issues (especially tactical issues) would be open to advice and comment from the team.
We decided that two checks were necessary on the power of this triumverate. The first was that members of the team could conduct polls when they desired to tie the triumverate's hands to particular actions they found necessary of such a measure. We knew there was a risk in this (as Impaler has related here), but it's also part of what keeps the game a DEMOCRACY game, even for as much power as we gave our triumverate of turn players compared to any other previously existing democracy game team. Some amount of restriction ended up being necessary of polling... we ended up ammending our Constitution to REQUIRE a pre-poll discussion thread and a discussion to take place before any matter could be polled. First, this makes instantaneous polling impossible and turn-by-turn polling impracticle. Second, it ensures that at least an informed discussion of hte issues takes place and can be read before any issue is polled... increasing the chances that those voting will do so informed of the consequences of their votes.
The other check we placed on the power of the triumverate was the "Change of Command" (CoC) motion. At ANY time, any member of the team is empowered to start a CoC motion against any of the leaders of the team. When the CoC motion is issued in a thread, the first order of business is to find if anyone is willing to step up to be the replacement for the challenged leader (it need not be the person who made the motion). Once at least one potential replacement is found, a short period for campaigning is allowed, followed by a vote. The winner get's the seat on the triumverate. If suitable replacements can be found, even all three of the leaders can be replaced. That we entrust our leaders with a GREAT deal of power, but reserve the right to take that power away at ANY time we want keeps them (or I should say "us" ) accountable.
The reason for THREE turnplayers in a triumverate rather than a single leader was also one of experience. Single leaders given the enormous burden of carrying the entire team on their backs inevitably go on vacation, get busy, get BURNT OUT from so much work, and other problems. Furthermore, forcing three people to have to agree with one another (or at least two at any time) to get anything done means that one person hopefully isn't just playing on auto-pilot. Also, as with the solution devised by the founding fathers of the U.S., a principle way to prevent the ambition of a single forceful individual from poisoning the team and driving down activity levels among everyone else is to set ambition against ambition. Putting three highly ambitious and active people together of equal rank and ensuring that at least two have to agree to get very much done has been a very interesting form of government... it's also been rather effective at preventing single leaders from dominating the entire team to an extent that they drive everyone else into relative inactivity.
Probably the best thing the triumverate method has done, howver, is the following: When the triumverate all actually AGREE on an issue (which seems pretty rare...), it tends to happen. When they DISAGREE (which seems relatively often in our case :P ), the issue tends to get debated heavily in the forum and the entire team gets an earfull about the issue and has every chance to provide advice and comment - and ultimately decide it when the triumverate can or will not. The ideal of the system is that the easy issues and the turn-by-turn issues can and should be decided by the turnplayers. The larger strategic issues should be decided by the team, but only after the team has been fully informed of the issue and potential repercusions of the various options.
Based upon THAT experience and a few others since then, however, I'd have to say that I don't think that necessarily having three EQUAL turnplayers is necessary. As long as you have a turnplayer with some active back-up turnplayers knowledgable about in-game situations and able to play when the main one is burnt out or simply too busy, the system works. The important thing is for the leadership to be given the latitude to actually do what is best on behalf of the team without the rest of the team stringing them down with tons of polls and rules while not adequately understanding the in-game situations. The most powerful tool in that arsenal is the requirement of pre-poll discussion before a poll. When you REQUIRE a discussion before any poll, you both eliminate short-term polling pretty much entirely and you improve the chances that polling on strategic issues will be done with INFORMED voters.
Now... for Morgan Industries...
* I'd suggest that we keep the setup of the leadership suggested by Googlie. Having a main turnplayer and at least one backup turnplayer, along with the other members of our effective "cabinet" should be sufficient. We need not have a triumverate or anything like that.
* I will state in the strongest possible terms that requiring pre-poll discussions before polling is conducted on any subject will do WONDERS for preventing the issue Impaler brought up. As I have stated above, it "eliminates short-term polling pretty much entirely and improves the chances that polling on strategic issues will be done with INFORMED voters."
* The leadership should be given very broad latitutude for what they are able to do without any necessity for polling the team. At most, the leadership might be required to poll the team on issues of very major strategic impact, such as alliances and wars, etc.
* The leadership must, however, be kept accountable to the team, even for as much power as they are given so that they can do their jobs competently without too much interference. For this reason, the team must be able to replace members of the upper leadership at ANY time and for ANY reason, providing that they actually have a suitable replacement able to do the job (if you don't have a replacement, tough luck... you're stuck with the leader you have).
That should solve most of the issues Impaler brought up.
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Geesh, I really do ramble on and on and on before I get to my point, don't I? :P
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