UnOfficial poll: Second Executive Crew

[Ninot]

We've been discussing when the best time for a turnchat would be. and one really good idea has been mentioned by quite a few people

this idea is: having multiple turnchat crews

basically, whoever is elected president would play turnchats as it suits him and his ministers. So, if a New York President is elected, and he wants to play at 8pm EST, he can do that.

But, then to accomodate to the Europeans and Oceanics, a second executive group (has been suggest to be named things like Secretary of State) from the other side of the world would be appointed by the president, and aproved by the public.

This second executive group would play turnchats that are specifically tailored to anyone not in the time-zones close to that of the President.


WHY would we need this sort of thing? As it is, 4pm EST (21:00 GMT) is a hard time for anyone to show up at. Many of us either work that hour, go to school, or are soon to go to bed, or something like that.

And, I think it was Trip who said 2/3 of our people are North Americans. when 2/3's of our people will absolutly not be able to come to turnchats because they are either learning or working, we have a problem. But we can't alienate the other 1/3 either, so we must meet a more plausible comprimise than 4pm EST (21:00 GMT)

So, this is both an unofficial poll to see you opinions on the idea, and a way for everyone to hammer out a solid ammendment that would pass (if we agree we need something).

options
1: Yes (i support the construction of a Second Executive Crew)
2: No (i think sticking with one crew is better, or this is not the way to solve our problem)

im not setting a poll-end, cuz it aint official! muwahahaha

[MrWhereItsAt]

This is what Democracy is all about. Although the voices of the many win all battles, every effort is made to ensure the minorities are accommodated for.

Yes yes yes.

[jdd2007]

i dont know. as long as your proposal doesnt have to do with elections, i guess im for it.

[Ninot]

this isnt a complete proposal. 50% of the reason i made the thread was so that we could hammer out a propper plan/ammendment

the way im thinking of it, it would be identical to how Judicial nominees are handled

President nominates, public accepts.

[UnOrthOdOx]

If you can come up with an entire second crew, go for it.

[Donal Graeme]

Perhaps what we can do is remove the election for the Vice-President, and make the Vice-President part of the "ticket," along with the President. The Vice-President must be from a different time-zone, and thus when the President is busy the vice-president can step in and assume his powers. That, and creating official positions under the main Ministeries, like Foreign and War. Deputy Ministers, chosen by the Minister, and confirmed just like Judges, who act in the ministers place when they are busy.

[Ninot]

Originally posted by Donal Graeme
Perhaps what we can do is remove the election for the Vice-President, and make the Vice-President part of the "ticket," along with the President. The Vice-President must be from a different time-zone, and thus when the President is busy the vice-president can step in and assume his powers. That, and creating official positions under the main Ministeries, like Foreign and War. Deputy Ministers, chosen by the Minister, and confirmed just like Judges, who act in the ministers place when they are busy.

yeah, but the problem with having a VP and Prez always in different timezones would be that if the Prez were to not be able to do stuff, for say a week, thats a whole week that a good percentage of the world wont be attending turnchats. we need atleast 2 for the normal crew, and atleast 1 executive for this new crew, me thinks.

good post tho Gareme.

[Donal Graeme]

I don't know... perhaps a new position? Prime Minister Perhaps? Chief of Staff? I am sure we could think of something.

[notyoueither]

Actually, I think we are rapidly approaching a point where turn chats will not be viable at all.

I would favour the President going off to play a turn or two or five at a time and coming back as needed to seek orders from the ministers and the advise of the people.

Such a system could see the President play 10 or 20 turns per week. That allows for progress. Especially if you leave a few 'down days' in between for everyone to catch up and to propose ideas for action.

Maybe it's just me, but who among us want to try to run a turn chat with 50 units in the field against 100 enemy units? We will be there soon.

What about when the wars are done and the building commences? Then 20 or 30 turns could be done in one 'chat'. Is that too many? What is the limit?

Better to set some kind of schedule for progress, have the ministers give the President instructions and let that person get the game done.

[Darkness' Edge]

i think this would just overcomplicate things...

[MrWhereItsAt]

Originally posted by Darkness' Edge
i think this would just overcomplicate things...

I hear you, but things have been complex since the start. At least this complexity adds to the potential for participation.

Wouldst thou deny thee thy right to blather along with everyone else in the turnchats?

[Harovan]

A juicy NO from me. 2 reasons:

1) We already have problems to gather together one active crew. Where do we get the other one from?

2) I second NYE. Turnchats will be impossible soon anyway, due to the increased # of cities, units etc. Go towards turnthreads, and give the president the power to play a certain amount of turns in a time that suits him. He has to stop, when he needs instructions, when something unforeseen happened (war etc.) or when his "turn allowance" is used up. Then he has to post a detailed report along with the savegame and the ministers discuss the situation, make their polls and post their instructions. Then the whole process starts again.

[DAVOUT]

Regarding the participation of the people, the first step would be to post updated maps anytime a save is made available. As you have certainly observed, the number of downloads is small compared to the population of Apolytonia ; that means that most of the citizens cannot refer to recent maps, despite the efforts of good men.

[adaMada]

Yea, sure! I'd be happy to miss turnchats if it meant we could get more turns done faster, and if it helps other people make turnchats, then that sounds like a plan.

-- adaMada

[MrWhereItsAt]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
A juicy NO from me. 2 reasons:

1) We already have problems to gather together one active crew. Where do we get the other one from?

At least part of the reason for the small crew at the moment is due to the fact that the times just do not suit at least 5-6 active posters, who have admitted it. There are likely others. With these ppl contributing and say another 3-4 from the current group (at least until the North hemisphere's summer ends), plus maybe one or two random ppl, isn't that near enough for a chat?

2) I second NYE. Turnchats will be impossible soon anyway, due to the increased # of cities, units etc. Go towards turnthreads, and give the president the power to play a certain amount of turns in a time that suits him. He has to stop, when he needs instructions, when something unforeseen happened (war etc.) or when his "turn allowance" is used up. Then he has to post a detailed report along with the savegame and the ministers discuss the situation, make their polls and post their instructions. Then the whole process starts again.

That's as maybe, but whilst they are still useful (say until the end of the French campaign/whatever war we get involved in next), we can get a few more in - we are quite a number of turns off from this, and we are small enough now that turnchats shouldn't be a problem. Once we have been successful, THEN we may well be too big for turnchats. Until then, try not to kill the chance for some of us to have a go while the opportunity is still there.

[Apocalypse]

This is needed. Yes turnchats will probably no longer be an option in the future, but they are right now. Give more people a chance to experience them while there is still time.

[Kuciwalker]

NO

This second crew would have to be elected, and if you think 9 elections at a once are hectic, think what 18 would be like *gulp*.

[kring]

Yes.

The second group of elections could be mid term; in other words; if group one was elected now; then group two would be elected halfway between now and group one's next election cycle.

I am one of those who would love to be in turn chats, but work interferes with that.

[Jon Shafer]

Mwia, you realize that a non-NA turnchat would be about 2 or 3 hours earlier, right? Do you know what that means? Do you really want to get up at 5am?

I say no for the reasons Ralph stated.

[kring]

As it stands now, up to 2/3 of the citizens are unable to attend turnchats without either skipping school or work. That is too large a majority to not consider doing something different. At the same time, 1/3 is also too large a minority to not allow participation at reasonable hours.

The alternative I mentioned elsewhere, is to have several turnchats, but have them available at differents times on different days. The major problem there would be having govt. representation during the times that were out of sync with the different officials.

[GePap]

If we allow the president to play a few turns on his/her own, whats the point of Ministers? First, I would ask how the fine phoeneticans have done it, since they have gotten well inot the region of massive cities and empires, so for us to ignore the experience of others would simply be a case to stupid stubborness. Second, once we seent ehir experience, see if we think their system is viable for us or if we want to either igonore it completely or just make a few modifications. I like turnchats but I would not be opposed to a different systm, as long as that system allowed as much imput (or more) than the old, not less.

[kring]

I agree on having a system with more input. I also wouldn't want the President to play without the Ministers present; at the same time, to limit the number of citizens by having a turn chat when almost 2/3 can't make it for school or work is unfair to us.

I would like to find out how CFC does this also; it shows today at:

All times are 23:59 GMT (6:59pm EDT).

Maybe, Chieftess can give us feedback on how they do it? Another thing to find out would be the time zones that CFC DG citizens occupy %age wise.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by GePap
If we allow the president to play a few turns on his/her own, whats the point of Ministers?

Dang, you are right. What's the point of all this demogame thing, if everyone could easily play his own game.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


Dang, you are right. What's the point of all this demogame thing, if everyone could easily play his own game.

I can't articuarly judge if this is sarcasm or not, but I do have a question. In your post you stated that the president would play unitl he needed instructions, or if something unexpected happened. Currently the Prez can't do many things without instructions. If the president were to play various turns on his own, we are assuming that a. Either the ministers have left general and or specific instructions on everything the president should do or b. the president gets to move any way he sees fit until something big happens.

Now, b. give the president too much power and would hardly be a real dem game.
Option a. is rife with possible complications, plus I doubt that ministers would be able to really give instrcutions for what to do in lets say, 6 turns away, especially not knowing the orders of other ministers (the city planner and SMC would have to agree on city production and so forth).

NOw, I didn't vote on the poll, but I don't think it is a very good idea, and I agree that turnchats wil become a real hastle- the porblem is that our gov. is not structured with this reality in mind at all- any mjor change in how we play the turns may very well call for a fundamental change in how the governmewnt is structured. I do think we should look at the phoenetican system, since they have already moved beyond this point and I assume have dealt with the problem, and with less people than us at that.

[MrWhereItsAt]

C'mon people, give this a chance. Maybe it won't work because we can't find times that suit everyone, maybe there won't be enough ppl to justify another turnchat, but how do you know these things? If you vote against this, assuming that it just can't be done, then OF COURSE it won't be done.

At least give it a chance - if it fails for one of the reaons that are posted above, start spamming my posts with "I told you so" or something. I don't care. Just give it a chance and it may work. If it does work, then there are a few more happy citizens, and a few more included in this rather crucial part of the game. If it fails at least we tried, and we can't complain any more - if something doesn't work we should all understand that, but if it is prevented from even being attempted, what does that say? It starts to look as if the status quo is fine with those who vote "NO", and those who can't participate the way they want to are being denied a chance.

Now what kind of co-operative game is that?

[Harovan]

MWIA: It won't work. Not at all. It will be sheer chaos and confusion.

GePaP: Yes, it was sarcasm. And if you reread my post carefully, you find the answers to most of your questions yourself. Once more:

The president will play the game in a time that suits him, until one of the following happens:

1. He needs new instructions from the ministers.
2. He used up his turn allowance (to be discussed, I'd suggest 5 or 6).
3. Something unforeseen happens (declaration of war, discovery of a new continent, or similar).

Instructions are made by the ministers, after they met their decisions and made their polls. The current system, and the system proposed by MWIA is against the constitution, because the turnchats will be made every 3rd day, and official polls have a minimum to be 3 days open. So how should this work? This is probably why we have seen not so many minister polls in the close past.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Well, we needn't carry out all the orders deriving from polls in a single chat. We have some pretty long term plans being developed anyway, ones that will take as much as 20 or so turns. An acceptance of such a plan effectively decides what will happen in these turns, barring unforeseen circumstances, few of which we have seen in the game to date.

Sir Ralph as ever has an argument, and he tends to know exactly what he is doing, so maybe this will cause more problems than it solves, but we don't know until we try. I ask everyone to think about both sides and decide which is better - to believe from the sometimes chaotic workings of the game to date that further turnchats will just cause us more problems and avoid such an outcome, or to give it a try( or at least serious thought), in the hope that we can actually do this. Personally I hope it will be decided that we at least try, for the sake of allowing more ppl to contribute.

[Harovan]

Well, not the argument is my purpose, but to find something applicable on the long run. You system may work, but I have my doubts. And even if it works, it won't be applicable for more than 1 term. May be even not that long. And don't think things will be so easy. It's already hard to manage one crew.

Another point is, even your system is not very just. We'd make 1 crew for Americans, 1 for Euros and where are you and Sn00py represented? Both seem not very good to fit. The system proposed by NYE and me makes absolutely no difference of where the president or ministers live.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt


for the sake of allowing more ppl to contribute.

Just to remind that the vast majority of the people can neither attend the turnchats, nor download the game. And they would be really happy to have assess permanently to an updated set of maps.

[Kuciwalker]

The vast majority of people don't even have Civ3, or an internet connection, maybe even a computer! For heaven's sake, people, this will be chaos. FYI, chaos is bad.