Tactical Scholia

[Meshelic]

I know the Diplomats have been discussing how they are going to have things running, but we all know there is a large difference between Diplomacy and the Economic and Tactical side of the game.

As such I haven't seen too much discussion on how the Tactical Scholia plans to organize themselves. Additionally, no one has stepped up to the plate regarding Tactical Chief, and as it stands we are increasingly running out of time.

As a member of the Tactical Scholia, I want to try to get this going with a few questions...

1. What positions do we think pertain to the Tactical side of our team? Military Command? City Construction? Road & Irrigation Works?

2. Are we to have Ministerial positions from this Scholia
besides Chief Tactician?
2B. If YES to 2, what shall those positions be?
2C. If NO to 2, then how shall the Tacticians organize themselves and their decisions? Through constant polling or through a leader who guides the process?

3. How would we like to see this Scholia structured? (See 2)

These are just the beginning. We are pressed for time if we are to organize the Scholia's better.
Thoughts?

[Meshelic]

alexman
Arrian
Dominae
FrustratedPoet
Meshelic
Randolph
Sir Ralph
Theseus*
Velociryx

Now that you know you belong here....

Let's start building this Scholia.

[Harovan]

The Chief Tactician should be responsible for the Military Road Network, organizing city defenses and scouting, and the location of our army (or armies). He can appoint deputies and army leaders at will, if there's too much work to do.

My candidate is either Theseus or Arrian, whoever has more time.

[Arrian]

Hmm... I was just thinking that terrain development falls within the economist scholia's responsibilities, but I see the point about a military road network.

A lot of the tacticians are also economists, so I think we can work things out such that the roads get built with the proper consideration given to military issues (basically this comes down to connecting our cities quickly and in such a way as to allow units to get from one to another very quickly... 1 turn, even).

Clearly, the operations of the civ's military units are the Tactical Scholia's main job. It gets kinda muddled, however, when you get into how those units are produced. City construction that is non-military would be the economist's job, no? Therefore, I figure the economists and the tacticians (via their chiefs) should lobby the Poobah regarding their city build suggestions.

Tactical: Poobah, we must have a spearman to defend Memphis!
Econ: Poobah, Memphis has the potential to become a perfect "settler pump" if it had a granary.
Tactical: What, exactly, will we defend those settlers with?
Econ: the added growth from the granary will increase Memphis' production, thereby allowing us to build spearmen faster than we otherwise could, in order to protect our settlers.
Poobah: Enough! We build the granary.

Or something like that.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Sir Ralph, but I joined up for the Demogame w/o any intent at taking a leadership position, at least initially. That's both because I've never done anything like this before and also because I can't guarantee I'll be online often enough to do the job right.

-Arrian

[Meshelic]

Ah I like how I can take a break from setting up the Diplomats and then come here and talk tactical.

I really like the idea of the Military Road Network (MRN?).
90% of the roads in CIV3 are used by military forces for that express purpose, for transport to locations where units are needed.

[Theseus]

Why do I have a *? Have I been elected without running?

I have to express the same reservation as Arrian... I just started a new job, and travel a fair amount. Also, I have never really done this before either.

What kind of time commitment do I need to be ready for? It's not that I have the time OVERALL, my concern is that there are periods (like this past Friday through Wednesday) when I am just totally out of commission... although I guess with proper planning the duties can be handed off.

Re duties, I think the touchiest one is going to be city placement, followed by build queue. Also, if we're to be Egypt (right?), the use of WCs and the timing of the GA. Roads, absolutely.

Most importantly, when can we build mixed-unit Armies??!!

[Meshelic]

Originally posted by Theseus
Why do I have a *? Have I been elected without running?

No I just copied the member list from nye and you have a * because you have only picked one Scholia to be a member of, rather than the usual 2... Don't worry it's not a bad thing.

What kind of time commitment do I need to be ready for? It's not that I have the time OVERALL, my concern is that there are periods (like this past Friday through Wednesday) when I am just totally out of commission... although I guess with proper planning the duties can be handed off.

Time commitment: How many turns do we think this game will go a week? Maybe 1 or 2, or more? Regardless, I'd say there that Minister's will generally have quite a bit of time given to between turns, since waiting for the other teams will take awhile, giving probably everyone enough time preparing orders beforehand.
----
On a seperate idea, I'm sure many of you know you can rename units in PTW, and this idea has been circulated around but wouldn't it be interesting to assign units built in a certain city (or in a certain order) to a General? What if instead of one person commanding the army, we had many Generals who command different 'divisions' of military units, and can coordinate different attacks with the other Generals? This would be beneficial since much of the time pressure would be off one individual and scattered among those would feel they have the time for it?

Suppose that FrustratedPoet wanted to command a division. And so did Arrian. And so do I. Then we would have to arrange which units we get command of as they are built, and then submit orders for those units each turn? There could be some bickering as to who gets what units, but it would probably be light-hearted and fun nonetheless.

Thoughts?

[Theseus]

Meshelic, interesting idea, but asking for trouble.

What other Scholia do people want me to be on?

[notyoueither]

I agree with Theseus. Asking for trouble.

At a certain point, there may be more than one active front. The Master of the Spartan Academy may ask another to command a front, or not, at his discretion.

Theseus, you do not have to join more than you wish. Each branch is enjoying a good level of participation already, so do not feel compelled.

[Meshelic]

Assigning leaders to certain Fronts I can definetely agree to as a replacement for the "multiple Generals" strategy, as I'm sure sometime there will be more than ONE Front..

[Theseus]

Good solution.

I will stick with the Spartan Academy, only.

(But chime in elsewhere!)

[nbarclay]

I think having a top strategist/tactician leading Spartan Academy is more important than having someone who will be available every turn. Then the expert can be responsible for coordinating the "big picture" issues and a deputy can occasionally be delegated the turn-by-turn responsibilities for executing the grand strategy.

In regard to the relationship between Spartan Academy and the Adam Smith Foundation (assuming the names stick), the ideal would be if those two organizations and their leaders can come to a consensus regarding priorities. The Poobah would come into play mainly if there are disagreements that cannot be resolved amicably.

This also means that we probably want some cross-schola posting activity regarding areas where decisions that belong primarily in one group have an impact on another. Arrian's example of a discussion of how to prioritize between military and civilian construction projects is a classic example where a decision needs to be made jointly rather than strictly within the bounds of one schola. Indeed, it might be useful to plan build queues in a separate thread as a joint effort between the Spartans and Smithers, with diplomats welcome to chime in on how the diplomatic picture seems likely to affect our needs.

Nathan

[Meshelic]

I agree.

[Theseus]

Great idea... I do not have much experience with DemoGames, but a thread dedicated to BASIC cross-schola decisions would be useful. The three that come to mind are city placement, worker actions, and build queues.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Theseus
Great idea... I do not have much experience with DemoGames, but a thread dedicated to BASIC cross-schola decisions would be useful. The three that come to mind are city placement, worker actions, and build queues.

I'm just making it up as I go along, looking at what needs to happen for a "society" that tries to base itself on consensus to run smoothly. I haven't been involved in a democratic game before, but I've watched enough real-world politics to have some pretty good ideas about what not to do. And carving things up into little empires with turf battles between them belongs near the top of a "not to do" list.

Nathan