Total number of teams & minimum members limit

[Paddy]

Originally posted by conmcb25


Paddy read around these forums, its easy enough to figure out

And THEY KNOW who they are

I am not going to have any sympathy 4 months from now when some team stops playing turns.\

Some peoples collective memories around here are shorter than the appendages between there legs..................................

sorry mate, I been reading most of it, but had a long day at work and all that

yeah, I agree, any team who after all this chat fails within the 1st four months needs to be drawn and quartered




so what is the solution?

my two working demo teams are the Horde and eirich tuireann

the Horde, approx 10 active people, and 7 lurckers, and we are playing in the C4DG based here, and also in the ISDG, based out of CGN

and eirich tuireann, 5 of us playing in the warlords pitboss, and upto 10 of us in this game

and yet we get together for reg chats, and have a constant email stream etc - and we play our turns


of these two team groups we have very different goals etc, and game styles.... yet we move along...

rambling on a bit, but the point I trying to make is that variious formats can still work very successfully

struth look at the Southern Cross team in the warlords demo game, they are a force to be reckoned with, small and active



there must surely be a solution to all this?????

[Paddy]

Originally posted by Locutus


Almost every team in that game has had problems at some point. In fact, right now there are only 3 teams left of which I have any kind of evidence that they are more than a one-man team and only one of those I'd describe as a successful team -- so of course that's gonna lead to periods of unresponsiveness, having to play the turns by yourself just about every single day is a big load to carry for anyone who has a job and a family.

In our case snoopy decided long, long ago that he wants to play that game on his own, I and the rest of the staff have had nothing to do with that team anymore for many months, and not by our own decision (although I certainly don't want to place the blame on snoopy either, too many things went wrong in that game, I don't think you can blame anyone in particular).

well yes, I must agree with con, (sorry Beta ) this is ridiculous


and Locutus, are you not also posting in these forums here how important it is that this is a democracy game etc?

[conmcb25]

There is no "solution" really, just some insurance.

Get a couple of folks that are willing to play the turn. You and your "crew" we usually dont have any issues with.

But there are others here who have already said basically they don't need more than one turn player, or they will be "fine", and some of these very people are on the teams that we are having issues with in the warlords game.

They dont have any business IMHO in joining and say they will be turn players for this game.

*con now waits for accusations of elitism again*

[Paddy]

stuff em

if they already fail in a current pitboss game with this "one turn player" style, then what right do they have to come here and start with that?

struth, to many come here to play the Great Game and have fun
not be forever sitting around waiting for the next turn...


we all know there are times of diplomacy and war in the game, times that thus take time, but these are not every turn....!

nor with several turn players should a team be late every turn!

so yes, stuff em, they had their chance, openly and publicly....

game on

bring in the new blood and lets get this baby built and started

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Paddy
and as to one man teams, not sure about what evidence you have there, but some of us are in teams, and moving along

There are many ways to track activity, including activity on this site (by far the biggest one: if you're not discussing the game you're not a successful DG team), Civstats, diplomatic responsiveness, etc.

Originally posted by conmcb25
What da heck?

Isn't it SUPPOSED to be a democracy game?

This is ridiculous IMHO.

This happened to all but 3 or 4 of the teams so what's so shocking about it?

Is it a good thing? No, of course not, but what happened happened. A combination of bad settings, bad hosts, bad timing and a bunch of other things.

Reality is that that game is for all but 3 or 4 teams a regular one-person-per-team Pitboss game at this point, no point denying that.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Paddy
and Locutus, are you not also posting in these forums here how important it is that this is a democracy game etc?

Yes, and the C4WDG is hardly a DG at this point, which is EXACTLY what we're trying to avoid here.

[Paddy]

Originally posted by Locutus

Originally posted by Paddy
and as to one man teams, not sure about what evidence you have there, but some of us are in teams, and moving along

There are many ways to track activity, including activity on this site (by far the biggest one: if you're not discussing the game you're not a successful DG team), Civstats, diplomatic responsiveness, etc.

what about using emails? msn messenger, mIRC, and various other ways, not all people are interested in posting on a bb.

Originally posted by Locutus
This happened to all but 3 or 4 of the teams so what's so shocking about it?

Is it a good thing? No, of course not, but what happened happened. A combination of bad settings, bad hosts, bad timing and a bunch of other things.

Reality is that that game is for all but 3 or 4 teams a regular one-person-per-team Pitboss game at this point, no point denying that.

a shame

[Paddy]

Originally posted by Locutus


Yes, and the C4WDG is hardly a DG at this point, which is EXACTLY what we're trying to avoid here.

ok then

but on your team in that game, why not get involved, show the flag, and show your style as you are here?

you have much to offer, and surely snoop could use someone to do some diplomacy for him? even bring him a new excel spreadsheet occasionally?

[Locutus]

Originally posted by conmcb25
There is no "solution" really, just some insurance.

I agree there.

But there are others here who have already said basically they don't need more than one turn player, or they will be "fine", and some of these very people are on the teams that we are having issues with in the warlords game.

They dont have any business IMHO in joining and say they will be turn players for this game.

There are a lot of things wrong with the Warlords DG that would cause people not to want to play it anymore, that shouldn't necessarily be held against them, and they certainly shouldn't be denied the right to sign up as turn player here.

For one thing, anyone who doesn't play their turn within 12-24 hours every time can expect a lot of sh*t from a couple of elitists out there that feel that even if the turn timer is 48 hours and a team is down to a single turn player then that one turn player should still put his life on hold every day to play the game in under 24 hours. Sorry, but even if I had a working copy of Warlords I wouldn't be very motivated to play with that attitude -- those whingers are ruining the game just as much as the people who aren't playing their turns. You signed up for a game with a 48-hour turn timer, shouldn't have done that if you're not prepared to wait that long.

[Paddy]

you call people names etc, yet you abandoned the game

off to the pub, the girls far better to look at than this

be well

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Paddy
what about using emails? msn messenger, mIRC, and various other ways, not all people are interested in posting on a bb.

That's where Civstats comes in, and diplomacy behaviour and other clues for that matter, you can learn a lot from that as well. E.g. Southern Cross and Spamyard frequently have multiple log-ins per turn or play their turns very quickly, which are strong indicators there's discussion going on between logins. Some teams frequently change their names or log in at widely varying hours, which indicates changes in turn player. Other teams (like the staff team/snoopy) however always consistently log in at predictable times, take a similar amount of time to play the turn and then finish their turn and log out only to come back next turn. Not conclusive evidence that there's only one person playing but combined with other evidence you build a decent profile.

It takes very little for people to start accusing each other of cheating anyway, and we have had incidents in the past, the Apolyton staff get approached on things like this several times for each game (we've already had multiple people express fear of this for this game and we haven't even started yet) so we do keep an eye on these things...

Also, this is still an Apolyton Democracy Game, if you're not using the forums what's the point? Why do we have civgroups, private forums and sign-up threads if you're only talking within your own little private email group? Is there really a difference with regular Pitboss games then? It only raises suspicions, and I also find it hard to imagine that every team member would be equally involved there, it's awfully easy to shut people out of the loop that way.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Paddy
but on your team in that game, why not get involved, show the flag, and show your style as you are here?

As I said, snoopy decided to finish that game on his own. And on top of that, as I said, I don't particularly enjoy being accused of not playing fast enough by people like you: I play DGs to have fun, not to have a third unpaid job.

If you have a real problem with that then take it up with snoopy, but then also be consistent and take it up with the 8 or 9 other teams that are down to a single player, and have your own team show some more signs that it consists of more than you as well. You're lashing out awfully harshly at others for abandoning the game for someone who supposedly has 20 people behind him even though he only has his own word to back that up. Doth protest an awful lot...

[conmcb25]

Locutus

You will not see me whining about playing turns sooner than a timer. A team abandoning a game yes. But playing within a timer no.

I can even understand missing a turn or two due to real life issues.

But abandonment is unsat.

In either case asking for fewer, more robust teams, with several possible turn players isn't that much to ask.

But my guess is the people who are whining the most about it are the folks that will once again screw it up for all of us

[Locutus]

Originally posted by conmcb25
A team abandoning a game yes. But playing within a timer no.

Even that *might* happen, you can't blame people that they value their real life more than a silly game. I for one would not hold it against someone in the slightest if they give their health, family or career precedence over this DG -- it'd be insane to do otherwise. If everyone on the same team encounters such issues that'd be extremely unfortunate for the game, but to think any less of the people in question is not fair.

We're all on the same page in that we all want to avoid that from happening, we merely disagree on the details on how best to do so. The trick is to take pre-emptive measures to ensure all teams are strong enough to weather such adversity, and to all be open and fair in our communications about this: if we know certain teams are in trouble we can try and fix that, but what has plagued the C4WDG a lot IMO has been poor communication (and I'll be the first to admit I could've done a better job there myself).

But at the same time we should also have some faith in each other that we won't take on more responsibilities than we can handle and that we'll all do what we reasonably can to keep the game going -- without faith in each other's intentions this game will fall apart really fast...

In either case asking for fewer, more robust teams, with several possible turn players isn't that much to ask.

I agree, we've both been pleading for that this entire thread.

But my guess is the people who are whining the most about it are the folks that will once again screw it up for all of us

Again, let's have faith in each other's good intentions and not assume in advance that some of us can't be trusted. To the best of my knowledge the C4WDG is the only DG that's really been botched up because of a massive exodus, and there were all sorts of extenuating circumstances for that. For now I regard that an incident, not a structural problem. We need to do what we can to avoid repetition, but let's not assume the game lost before it's even started.

[Zoid]

Originally posted by Paddy

struth look at the Southern Cross team in the warlords demo game, they are a force to be reckoned with, small and active