Turn Chat was a Joke.

[GodKing]

No offence to anybody in particular, but that turn chat was a farce. Over 2 hours of playing, we got through mabee 1/2 of a turn. Not acceptable. There was miscommunication all over the place; people were not prepaired; and overall organization did not exist.

To all those present, I wish to appologize. To some extent, I was to blame. We all were.

How to fix it is what this thread is about.

Please. I would like this to be a constructive thread on how to make turn chats work. Chats can be fun. We generally enjoy them. Yet with only 1/2 of a turn played, and with some ministers orders not carried out the way they wanted them, obviously something needs to be changed.

Some recomendations:

Show up on time. MWIA showed up almost an hour late. Many people left before he did show up. MWIA did appologize, and we accept the appology. Lets not do it again. If so, there needs to be contingincy in place to move forward. Can a minister start, if either the prez or VP are not present? If so, in what order do the ministers take? How much athority do they have to continue and make decisions outside of their jurisdiction?

Ministers orders. They need to be simple and clear. No matter how many times it was stated, until the chat many people didn't realize that the settler going to uber isle no longer had any moves left. We almost double risked in deep water one of the gallies because of this.

By simple, there should be no attached maps, or complicated sets of moves all jumbled together. We should list them turn by turn. I have been guilty of this many times. It is real easy to look at a single city and give all the orders for the next 5 turns at once. Now I am thinking we all need to do more of a spread sheet.

......................turn 1..............turn 2............turn 3...
Apolyton......work whale.........................build spear...
Timeline.......Build temple....work forest.....

This is the only way to keep it organized that I can see. A lot more work for us ministers, particularly for city planning, war department, and for public works.


One last item that came up in the chat was an idea that all the ministers, the prez and the VP all get together for a chat BEFORE the actual game. This way we can all communicate what we need to do as a team prior to playing the game.

What do you all think?

[Epistax]

Spread sheet isn't a bad idea. Anything to keep the execs focused on the orders and not the chat would help.

[MrWhereItsAt]

A proposed idea of mine is that I do all the boring turns myself (turnthread wise), until there is something interesting like an attack to do, and then everyone else gets in on it in a turnchat for the vaguely interesting bits. And as GodKing has mentioned, there is the idea of the Ministers and whoever else wants to getting together into a chat to critique and refine orders. Then when the chat is done (or a thread), there should be no upsets, problems, clashes etc. in the orders like this time.

If you believe I will pay for this turnchat, you may well get your way.

Oh, and the lateness - purely my fault - I didn't quite wake up when I thought. With the ability to set the days of chats myself instead of living by days set whilst I am not arounf, this will NOT happen again.

As ever, impeachment, whatever - go for it. But good luck finding another sucka for this job at short notice.

[Aggie]

Lateness???, you said that the chat would start at 2300, it started right around then.
Aggie

[Shiber]

No it didn't. MWIA only arrived at roughly 00:00 GMT.
(not criticizing, just setting a fact straight)

[BigFurryMonster]

I thought the chat was due at 210 BC :-)

[Epistax]

210 BC? Ok then he was a little more than a little late.

[Shiber]

[Aggie]

Let makes sure we're all on the same page, right now it is 15:40 gmt. and 10:40 EST,11:40 EDT. Just wondering.
Aggie

[Kuciwalker]

REVOLUTION!

[Aggie]

Do all insisters and executives have excel. If so minsters could write out their orders then send it to another minister and then send it to the prez. One file would make life easier. Another idea is this, do this for 1 turn at a time. When all done send it to prez he plays turn. That could keep things going, without a formal time. I mean one turn a day is almost certain and more than one is likely.
Aggie

[Kuciwalker]

Aggie - if you mean play one turn EACH DAY, that just can't happen. As as poll has to be up for 72 hours, turnchats must be that far apart or we can't make decisions on time.

[Kuciwalker]

REVOLUTION

[adaMada]

Interesting chain of graphics, sky.

-- adaMada

[Kuciwalker]

http://www.mysmilies.com/

[Aggie]

Skywalker that would only be aproblem if a need for polls came up, anyway we'll see the need for most polls well in advance. The other idea which I recieved no comment on was that each minister play what he can(with building, workers,trades) and send it to Prez for the offical movement of troops.
Aggie

[adaMada]

I'm inclined to agree with Skywalker on the turns... quite often, the power of the Demogame is that we will notice things that we can take advantage of and put them into play since there's time to think between turns. I'd rather come up with a more efficent method for playing the game and do seven turns once a week... That'd probably be easier on the President as well. Right now, the way things are set up, the president can only ever play about four turns at a time, and yet there's a good reason not to increase the frequency of turnchats/threads. If we came up with an organized enough system, however, the president could play more turns at his convienence, and we could do one or two turnsessions a week -- in all likelyhood, getting a lot more done.

-- adaMada

[Trevman]

Two suggestions:
Use red text for moves and blue or something else for orders as was done before.
Do not start a political argument.

[Togas]

It might also be a good idea to follow the posted orders of the minister while in turnchat. The turnchat is not the time to argue about the orders or disregard them. It's the time to impliment the orders.

--Togas

[OPD]

Togas: Like I said in the other thread I too was pissed over this but the whoring went very well so it's not that big a deal.

[Aggie]

What happened Togas was a very rare situation. The foreign ministry wanted the war and the military basically did not. Yes Uber had instructed an attack on Rheims, however much had happened and been debated since that point. Since he had not posted anything since. it was my job as his stand( I am still unsure if this was a permanent deputyship or not) in to make a decision. For that reason I encouraged peace, feeling it was for the best. Yes the foreign minstry controls when to make peace, however if the army won't fight what is the use of keeping us in a war. I think the main reason the foreign ministry determines when to make peace is to prevent the dogs of war running rampant. For example if you had a great peace deal but uber wanted to finish off persia(we can always dream), you could make him stop. But the power to wage war is in the SMC's hands, so you can't order him to war. It follows then that the FM can't force a war to continue against the smc's wishes. If uber had said "i reject the techwhore deal, under no circumstances make peace for 2 turns", then I would have had no choice. But since he had been silent(I am sure he is busy, so no attack on him), I was forced to make a decision based on what I saw before me. MWIA, then made the decison for peace. Could we have done better if we had attack rheims, psssible but I doubt it would have been significantly and we might have 1 less sw and maybe a few less archers and maybe no port rouge. From a military standpoint it didn't seem worth it.
I hope you took no offense as non was intended, I too have had orders disreagrded, though misunderstanding.
Best wishes
Aggie

[UnOrthOdOx]

Um, did someone log the chat? Or is there somewhere I can see what exacty happened?

jeeze. Take a day off to spend with the Family after being away from them a week, and the whole Gov't falls apart...

[OPD]

So how long will it be before Aggie officially replaces Uber?

[adaMada]

I'll repost what I said in the top thread, which is my apology and a little bit of explanation for some of the things that went wrong.

Again, as I said like six times in the top thread , I think the most important thing is that we move on with the understanding that a lot of things went wrong, often beyond our control, and that we should just make sure this doesn't happen again.

Originally posted by adaMada
I also share responsibility for the Foreign Ministry Issue.

I had every intention of being at the Turnchat, and had I been there I would have recognized that those were not Togas' orders.

I owe an apology to the Demo Game community -- my access to the net went down, and I didn't make the chat as I'd intended to, which meant that (persumably) there was no one to take over for Togas when he had to leave.

There was also confusion due to the fact that in the discussion thread for the topic the Foreign Ministry did not post that this plan was not currently in the orders, and was not to be followed unless it was added.

I also will assume some of the responsibilty for this confusion. I PMmed back and forth with Togas once or twice on the issue, trying to see if there was any way we could incorperate this into our plans while still addressing any concerns. When it became time for the chat, however, I should have posted that it is currently not in the orders and (as such) should not be followed unless Togas adds it in.

One thing that I hope the Constitutional Convention will address is Tech Trade powers -- currently, the power is granted to the Foreign Minister but many citizens seem to feel that the Science Minister has power in this area too, which might have contributed to the confusion as Apoc came out in support of this plan. This clearly needs to be clarified. I will also push for a more formal system of submitting orderes -- right now, we have orders posted in several places, plus standing orders in some Office Threads (I know our office thread has generic standing orders). We clearly need a place where all finalized orders will be posted or sent, and any updates must be made there. That way, in a case like this, it would be easy to check if this plan had been added into the Orders.

My apologies to Togas, MWIA, and anyone else who was affected by these events for my part in them. Hopefully we can put this behind us, make a few reforms to prevent it from happening again, and continue on with the wonderful job that this administration has been doing as a whole.

-- adaMada

EDIT: Clarity

[adaMada]

Actually, if anyone has a log of the turnchat, I'd like one too.

I'm confused by what happened with the military. It was my impression that Togas queried Uber for his stance on ending the war, and it was "We'll end it when the people want it over." Furthermore, I thought one of the main reasons for keeping us at war was because the Military had plans to take another city. Perhaps my understanding of what happened is hazy; it was very clear the day before the chat, but everything seemed to become more and more complex as the chat approched.

If there is any desire to know what happened, then I'd propose that Uber and Togas explain events from their perspectives and that someone find a copy of the log if possible. However, I personally think it would be better to move on with the game, understanding that there was a lot of miscommunication on lots of different levels, and that perhaps the constitutional convention should make a point of clarifying who has the power to declare peace or to continue war.

-- adaMada

[WhiteBandit]

Here is for the regular channel

[WhiteBandit]

For ministers only channel.

[Aggie]

Opd it depends on how long uber wants the job. It's his as long as he wants it. I'm sure after school gets going he will have more time. But if term limits aren't changed this is his last term. I've heard talk of changing things so a person can run for a 4th term if unopposed. So if that does go through I won't run. Otherwise I think I'll run for SMC next term.
Aggie

[UnOrthOdOx]

OK, I requested this once for myself already. I will post it as a reply here and a possible solution.

ORDERS FROM THE MINISTERS SHOULD BE POSTED IN THE PROPER THREAD TO BE CREATED BY MRWIA OR MYSELF. NO LINKS TO OTHER THREADS.

ALL ORDERS ARE TO BE SUBMITTED IN THE FOLLOWING FORMAT:

TURN 1:

DO THIS
THIS
THIS
AND THIS

TURN 2:

DO THIS
THIS
...you get the idea.

ALL ORDERS ARE DUE 10 HOURS PRIOR TO CHAT/THREAD TIME. Any changes made after that time must be PM'd to whomevr is playing the turns.

VP or designated Minister will take the orders and compile them all into ONE post.

WRITTEN ORDERS WILL BE FOLLOWED FOR A CHAT. When verbal orders contradict written, a stop is in order. This is the same as if the President fealt a change was needed for a Turnthread. THOSE CONTRADICTING THE ORDERS SHOULD TAKE THAT INTO ACCOUNT BEFOREHAND. (Minor allowances may be set up such as changing a tile worked, or moving a worker to prevent capture).

Improvements? Problems?

[adaMada]

None. We need a system like that anyway. The most important thing is that the VP or minister compiles it into one post -- that way, people can check that nothing is missed.

Furthermore, there should be no discussion in the thread that Pres/VP posts. If a person disagrees with an order, they should PM the minister or start a new thread.

-- adaMada