How about a $MiniGame Democracy Game.

[mrmitchell]

sounds great

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

We have at least six people interested, and I am sure a lot more will become involved as they start realizing how much fun we are having.

What do we want the game perimeters to be? I would like to start this up within a week if possible.

[Epistax]

Ghengis- Originally you spoke of 9 shares in a Settler. That would be a tile for the square the city is on, do we want that one owned? (I think we've been avoiding that). Also, a settler may settle in a spot where an adjacent square is already assigned, and could also settle in a spot so that far more than 9 squares are added to the empire's boundry (when sufficiently close to existing boundary lines).

How is it decided when money is used for rushing? Perhaps we keep track of the amount of money each city owns as part of the coffers? When it's forced labor for rushing, this conflict doesn't really exist.
Who owns the units produced? If they take over a city / goodie hut, who gets the goods?
Proposal: An imperial power separate from the economic people

As for game rules:
I believe an easier difficulty as we certainly won't have one desire.
I personally like a lot of land instead of a lot of water, however if we don't want land to be a dime a square, it may be wise to play with less of it.
Barbarians may prove to be more harmful than usual "I'm not gonna rescue him. He made me pay $250 for a goat. a GOAT!". So perhaps we should keep it low.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

I forgot about taking the city into consideration. How about these rules:

Settlers - have 8 shares each and will be bid upon prior to completion. Higher successful bids get first choice on resulting tiles from new city.

Citysite must be located sufficiently away from other settlements to produce at least 8 new tiles. If it is located to produce more than 8 new tiles then the share holders may pick their tile from new tiles that were opened and the left over tiles will be auctioned off.

Proceeds from Sale of Units - Units will be sold off to the players and the owning player controls actions for that unit. Settlers will be sold in 8 shares per settler, but all other units will be auctioned off as one complete property.

Each city is controlled and managed by the Mayor of that city, the Mayor determines the production queus and whether or not to auction off units.

It could be in the city's best interest for example to hold on to some military units for its defense and a worker or two to improve its own tiles. Of course that would be entirely at the discretion of the Mayor.

Owners of Military Units
As the owner of a military unit, you can issue orders for it to do whatever you want. You can attack another civ's units with it (if we are at war, only the Foreign Minister has the authority to declare war-make peace), you can pillage someone else tile with it, or you make it dance the hokey pokey.

[Epistax]

Pillage other people's tiles... Ok no way will we play on a high difficulty if we got that going on. Hehe raze one of our cities....

Great Leaders and Armies are another concern. They could be combined voting, etc. That's an idea for what I suggested as imperial-- a vote of all available people as to what to do. Or an Army could be a vote by the units owns who go into it. Or perhaps (w00t) people can sell their units to imperial for cash.

[Donegeal]

Originally posted by Epistax
Or perhaps (w00t) people can sell their units to imperial for cash.

I plant all my units in Epitax's areas and tell him to give me all his money or I pilliage like mad!

[Donegeal]

I can see a problem forming...

Why would a mayor want to have his city build anything axcept things that are going to increase his holdings? I forsee workers all over the place and woefully inadequate defense/infrastructure.

Perhaps there is a way to make it so an improvement in a city effects all the tiles it controls?

Another point, if your tile falles into the city radius of more that one city, do you get a vote for each city? I think this would be a good idea cause if one of your tiles belongs to two cities, and you have no chance of winning a mayoral election, you could get bribed. Hmmmm..... this is VERY appealing!

Pilliaging our own improvements, coersion and coruption abound! Build queues that are ment to gain money for the mayor as aposed to helping the overall empire! It would be FAR more realistic!

[Epistax]

If you don't build any defensive units.. well you lose your whole damn city! I'm sure defense will be a high priority. Offense will be too, as long as it has rewards. Place a bounty on enemy soldiers' heads for one

I've been wondering if we want to do anything special about the tiles the city is actually using. Perhaps you can do nothing with them, but imperial pays the owner?

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

The improvements generated additional money, remember? We were all building stuff in cities where there were marketplaces and what not because they gave us a % bonus on our sales.

Factor that into the fact that those players would be hiring local populace and the mayor would probably be getting a cut of that.

Then if we add that the mayor gets his city's pop in bonus votes that he can "vote" in the big elections it should encourage him to grow the city. Say Snivellus is a size 4 city, the Mayor of Snivellus gets 4 add on votes to all our elections. Thus people would try to buy those 4 votes.

AND MEDALS. I figure we would eventually have a Peerage Thread where we list all ranks of nobility. When a player buys a Barony, he would post his Barony's name in the peerage thread and attach his coat of arms. Mayors and Chancellors could offer medals, like say the Order of Berlin to those players who sent a unit to assist in the conquest of the German city of Berlin, or the order of Snivellus 1000 BC to those players who helped defend Snivellus from a German attack in 1000 BC.

[Epistax]

Not bad. So add a military chest-full-of-medals ring to it
Wonders big and small, palaces, forbidden and.. uh.. invited? Two cities could easily fight over the palace forever, I assume this would be a voting thing. Perhaps whatever city owns the palace isn't controlled the same?

What else is there... Luxuries, resources.. pretty much taken care of, everyone will want everything roaded up I assume. Unless.... heheheh one rogue city cuts off several lux's and a strategic resource

Suggestion back to the military thing: Perhaps to achieve ranks/nobily/etc, certain military criteria must be reached? Maybe even restrict land ownership to some level?

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

This requires more discussion. Perhaps adding minimum number of units to the Rank criteria. Baron - 1, Earl - 2, Duke - 3, Prince - 4, King - 5.

And adding a maximum number of tiles that could be owned by specific rank.

UPDATED PEERAGE PROPOSAL:
Territory (Title) {Max # of tiles that can be owned/Min # of Units Posessed}
Lands (Lord) {5/0}

Barony (Baron) {10/1}- three or more connected tiles (diagonally doesn't count) and pay $500 to the crown.
Barons receive a 5% bonus to all transactions.

(Earl) {15/2}- Own two or more Baronies and pay $750 to the crown.
Earls receive a 10% bonus to all transactions.

County (Count) {20/3}- six or more connected tiles (diagonally doesn't count) and pay $1250 to the crown.
Counts receive a 15% bonus to all transactions.

Duchy (Duke) {25/4}- nine or more connected tiles (diagonally doesn't count) and pay $2000 to the crown. Must be owner/liege of at least three smaller territories.
Dukes receive a 20% bonus to all transactions.

Grand Duchy (Grand Duke) {30/5}- twelve or more connected tiles (diagonally doesn't count) and pay $2500 to the crown. Must be owner/liege of at least five smaller territories.
Grand Dukes receive a 25% bonus to all transactions.

Principality (Prince) {35/6]- fifteen or more connected tiles (diagonally doesn't count) and pay $3500 to the crown. Must be owner/liege of at least two Duchies/Grand Duchies. ANY LEADERS GENERATED BY A PRINCE'S UNITS ARE THE POSESSION OF THAT PRINCE.
Princes receive a 50% bonus to all transactions.

Kingdom (King) {-/7}- Must be owner/liege of at least two Principalities diagonally doesn't count) and pay $5000 to the crown. ANY LEADERS GENERATED BY A KING'S UNITS ARE THE POSESSION OF THAT KING.
Kings receive a 100% bonus to all transactions.

[Panzer32]

This is looking pretty fun

[Epistax]

A formal set of rules needs to be drawn up so I can point out more holes
Spying, espionage operations, etc.. ?
Votes determined by just land ownership? rank? military background? total of all goods in $$$ (probably kept on record).

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

I will start posting the compiled rules in the first post tonight.

[Inverse Icarus]

i've been trying to get one of these going form months. i'm rather busy right now (working 2 jobs), but i'll be more free somwhere around august 18th.

i have a webserver with php+mysql. www.r0x0rz.org. i can code. who wants some?