Is this a democracy game?

[DAVOUT]

We need to know, before starting the game, if we want this game to be really democratic, or if we just want the game going on without being delayed by democratic issues.

This poll last four days.

[Aro]

Hi, DAVOUT... The well balanced 3rd option is sooo atractive...
Seriously, I want both well balanced... The question is, how? The actual CoL needs some work, I think. It's a bit restrictive, in general...

[Shiber]

I'd prefer if the next demogame would be more inclined towards playing the game, but without neglecting the democratic procedures. Like Aro said, the con is too restrictive... and at some point during the last game, I got the feeling that "the lawyers were taking over the game"; no offense meant to anyone, seriously.
Mimicking real-life governments is fun, but we gotta know where to stop; in-game, if the president makes a hasty decision or screws up by not following the orders correctly, it's no reason for impeachment or for any serious court procedures that could drag on for days and weeks, IMHO. It's just a game, and it's more fun when we play it, rather than nit-picking and arguing about ambiguous comments and orders and holding grudge against each other for petty reasons.

Again, I hope I don't offend anyone. I think the NewCon was a great feat, but somewhere along the road we strayed from the path.

[DAVOUT]

We should prohibit the expression *it is just a game*. The fun in a demogame comes from the fact that we act as if it was real; recalling frequently that it is a game ridicules the whole thing, including the game itself.

The most important difficulties we had, resulted from the fact that the chats must be interrupted when some event occurred which makes necessary that the Senate makes a decision because no officer has the power to make it.

This can only be avoided by giving more powers to the officers (rather than inventing contorted ways to build a Senate in the chat). Hopefully, some decisions should remain the privilege of the Senate, and that must be accepted from the beginning, even if it slows the game from time to time. If this is unacceptable, then we can still have a game with just elections of officers, but it will not be a democracy game.

Regarding the impeachment, it is mechanically impossible, in the course of a one month term, to impeach an officer, and after the end of the mandate, it is too late.

[Beta]

I second Shiber's position. In real-life, nations' leaders make decisions, sometimes the right ones, sometimes the wrong ones, sometimes it is not clear. Part of the enjoyment of the demo game should be the continual debate of the various options, and whether the leaders made the right move. Not whether it was legal for them to make that move.

As in real-life, we have elections, and a process for replacing the leadership if we the people are not happy with them.

So - I vote for balance. Maybe we should revisit what the newcon allows the leadership to do and not do. I would suggest more leeway is required. The leadership knows the wishes of the people through the polls (again, as per real life), but they should not in all cases be restricted by them. They could go against a poll and face the wrath of the votres.

Maybe we need the constitution to delineate between what items are governed by a referendum, which will be binding, and which are governed by polls, which are not (other than election polls of course.)

[MrWhereItsAt]

Since this thread has popped up and there is talk of political parties, perhaps it's high time I reformed the 3A2C3....

It seems that it has sunk in to many just how many problems the Constitution caused for us at times. It is important to have Standards of Practice governing elections and official polls so that we keep the game as open to people as possible and as fair to all as possible. The President must carry out his Ministers' orders, who in turn must poll and listen to the public. If there is a mistake made, then there must be vigilance against such a thing from recurring. I think where we went wrong n game 1 is that we legislated after such mistakes. We don't need to. We know we can work together and we don't need the threat of impeachment or trial if you make a mistake.

Hypothetical Situation: orders are not submitted when they are needed and the game must go ahead. The turnchat is going and there is still no word from the Minister. In order to keep the game going and to keep people involved, the President or whoever is playing the game should have every right to make a decision with the help of those in attendance. In the NewCon this would lead to, at least, a Court investigation and lengthy delay. Why? If the wishes of the people present were carried out, taking into account any prior discussions, then what is the problem? This is not a full-time occupation, where you should be penalised as such. Sometimes you just can't do everything you need to here. It's a little thing called RL. The President and those present in the chat should be able to use judgement - if this is an important enough decision to be made, then it might be best to stop the game there until that issue is resolved. But there is no need to go over the top on something like a non-renegotiated trade. We will win anyway - what difference does it make if there are one or two mistakes? This situation can be carried over into anything in our game - why restrcit ourselves when the only reason we're here is to have fun? Is forcing ourselves to conform to a set of strict laws fun? Not for me it ain't.

We should seek to minimise errors, but with fewer restrictions we free ourselves to be more of a Virtual Democracy. This will be more fun and all-inclusive than a strongly legislated hell, binding officials and citizens to doing only this or that, and there is no leeway. Let's keep the next COnstitution to an absolute minimum, reminiscent of the Civ2 Demo game "rules". There are no problems with impeachments there. We don't even have a Court! Because we know the reason we are there is to have fun and keep the game moving. If you trust those you are dealing with (and I certainly trust every name I recognise on the members list), then we don't need it. Disputes? Figure them out as we get to them.

[DAVOUT]

MWIA,

What you describe could be named a Chat Republic; except elections all powers are in the chat room.

This is perfectly acceptable, but it clearly leaves all the people not participating in the chat (who are the wast majority) with a very limited part. The demogame would no longer be the attractive show-room of Apolyton.

[UnOrthOdOx]

DAVOUT,

Not exactly. As MrWIA stated, the minister was unable to attend, AND he never submitted orders. Either he does not have the ability to log on, he forgot, or he just plain don't care, it doesn't matter. Should we hold up the game to impeach this minister, or wait until he is available to either appoint an assistant or post orders, or should we take actions to move the game along?

I vote to move the game along for anything that is not a vital decision. Chat polling is a great way to do this if a minister has neglected to post orders. If there are orders, they should be followed of course. I agree that having a minister to post is more desireable, but not always possible.

There are certain things that should be subject to more in depth discussion, such as leaders (especially early ones), wars, and general plans for such wars.

BTW, MrWIA, you reform it and Ill join.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
DAVOUT,

Not exactly. As MrWIA stated, the minister was unable to attend, AND he never submitted orders. Either he does not have the ability to log on, he forgot, or he just plain don't care, it doesn't matter. Should we hold up the game to impeach this minister, or wait until he is available to either appoint an assistant or post orders, or should we take actions to move the game along?

I vote to move the game along for anything that is not a vital decision.

The chain of command answers quite satisfactorily to the absence of a minister. And I reiterate that the impeachment does not work and should be discarded; this is an imitation of RL which is not appropriate in a game with one month terms.

The only problem is to determine the vital decision justifying to hold up the game. I believe that we should agree FROM THE BEGINNING on those decisions in order to avoid all the ranting made by both sides.

[BigFree]

Sorry, didn't want to craete a new thread.

Where's the poll for difficulty level?

[UnOrthOdOx]

There's not one yet.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Originally posted by DAVOUT

The only problem is to determine the vital decision justifying to hold up the game. I believe that we should agree FROM THE BEGINNING on those decisions in order to avoid all the ranting made by both sides.

A good point, DAVOUT. As we had in the first game, these include declarations of war and peace and what to do with a GL (any others?). However we also need to make a general rule (eg that those in the chat can be polled) for times we don't have the luxury of stopping, for example we are asked to join an alliance against a civ we were thinking of attacking anyway. In that case it's sign and get the bribe that is offered or miss out. IMO we need to be free to make that decision instead of stopping and missing the decision entirely.

[BigFree]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
There's not one yet.

At what level did the last one play out at?

[MrWhereItsAt]

Emperor.

[Aidun]

Originally posted by DAVOUT
The chain of command answers quite satisfactorily to the absence of a minister. And I reiterate that the impeachment does not work and should be discarded; this is an imitation of RL which is not appropriate in a game with one month terms.

I agree, What about the system of No-Confidence vote that is in use in the ISDG?

Aidun

[DAVOUT]

Reading all opinions expressed about how the new game should be organized, it appears that a demogame can be two different things :

- a game played by a team of people interested only in winning; the only organization needed is the minimum enabling the game to developp smoothly. The game is the finality.

- the building of a universe in which the justification of the game is only to generate the events around which infinite possibilities of organization will be offered to empire-builders. The game is a pretext.

These two points of view are too different to be reconciled, and attempting to find a reasonable balance (as did the con-con) only increases the frustrations.

I believe that we should think about two facts :
- the first game attracted a lot of new people who were fascinated by the building-universe side, and then fallen in love for CIV3.
- playing against the AI, after all progress made by everybody, is not as challenging as it was; the challenge is now in the MP game; it can be predicted that a demogame oriented toward having the game going on would produce not much excitement : victory is sure, and it will be reached more and more quickly.

Therefore, I think that one way to shorten the discussion about the constitution is to recognize which demogame we want.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Can't we just do what we were doing before?

[Kloreep]

I agree some of the challenge has gone out of this one, considering all we did with a bad start in the last one. So, IMO, neither "democratic issues" nor the game itself is what should be important; what I'm looking for in the next one is the community and the fun - the gazettes, the RP arguments, and maybe RP itself.

[Aidun]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Can't we just do what we were doing before?

Originally posted by Kloreep
I agree some of the challenge has gone out of this one, considering all we did with a bad start in the last one. So, IMO, neither "democratic issues" nor the game itself is what should be important; what I'm looking for in the next one is the community and the fun - the gazettes, the RP arguments, and maybe RP itself.

You mean No-Nonsense, just Play.

Aidun

[MrWhereItsAt]

Yeah, kinda. I just like getting on with the game, and when there is an issue, we either look back at what we did in the last game that worked or we work it out between ourselves. Kind of a system of dealing with difficulties via precedents. The whole point of the Prez/Ministers is that they are reasonable and they are there to facilitate agreement. Usually perfect agreement is not possible, which is where the poll voting Democracy thing comes in. The aim should be to hear all views, to make them known publically, and to reach a decision based on a vote.

That's all I want, anyway.

[theViking]

Originally posted by Aidun




You mean No-Nonsense, just Play.

Aidun

I think that is the best way.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Kloreep
what I'm looking for in the next one is the community and the fun - the gazettes, the RP arguments, and maybe RP itself.

This is the most important argument. The fun came mostly from the community, the interaction between the game and the people, between the people themselves, between the people and their creations (academies, maps, gazette ...), and between the people and the laws they have voted. All that made the community and produced the fun. Whatever you withdraw from the receipe will change the taste.

Anyway, considering the results of the poll (8 Democracy, 7 Game, 11 Well balanced), it could be worth, assuming Kloreeps opinion is widely shared, to make the changes contemplated to the constitution. That would suppose that both parties reduce slightly their demands.

If an agreement cannot be found, the pure gamers could adopt the same organization than the intersite team.

[UnOrthOdOx]

DAVOUT, others,


I agree that it was largely the different little projects that were the most fun part of the game.

However,

Certainly you all remember the long periods between chats, times when there was little to DRIVE those discussions/projects.

Perhaps I misunderstood the point of this to begin with. Do I think we should halt gameplay so that two members can decide in court if some poll was legal or not? Not as long as the poll in question was not a vital decision, ie leaders. When you are asking of the DEMOCRACY of things, I think more of legality and such than roleplaying of the groups.

I think we played through just fine through the last game, I think it was pretty balanced MOST of the time between gameplay and 'democracy', at times I feel we went a little overboard on the 'democracy' side of things and caused a slowing of the game which made those not involved in the democracy side leave. Roleplaying we could sure used more of, however.

[Panag]

hi ,

"democrazy" , pfff , who needs it , .....

we better make a poll , "do you want a dictator ship that does everything in the intrest of the people or not" , .....

have a nice day