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Kloreep
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of the pillow
Jun 2002
time: 00:29
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I agree with GodKing.
During this term, the game has been manageable for my comp. It takes 5 minutes to load it, and about 5 minutes to process a turn, but it's not too bad.
But look at the map. The two major continents are settled, but the minor continent to the south will bring more cities in to the game. REX has been accomplished by all civs, so cities will now be growing, working more tiles and building more improvements, making their calculations more complex. And the number of units will probably skyrocket soon when the deity-powered AI runs out of improvements to bulid and starts fighting wars.
I would run for something in Term IV if I could. Perhaps I will for Term V if the game is still around. But for Term VI? VII? I predict that eventually, my response will be "no way." Especially not as a minister who will have to load the new official save up to once every turn. Loading times, turn times, and the game in general will slow, eventually to a crawl. What people are willing to run for government may start being defined not just by time and ability, but by comp specs. In short, I just don't see this demogame going anywhere a month or two from now; certainly not all the way to victory. 
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MrWhereItsAt
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New Year's Resolution: 2005 is the year of Where It's At - come get some.
Nov 2001
time: 17:29
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quote:
Originally posted by Rhothaerill
Further than that though, I want to question the way this democracy game as a whole is going. First off I want to make sure everyone knows that I'm not trying to bash anyone so please don't take it that way.  Obviously we are doing well in the game, but right now only a select few actually have any say-so in what is going on. The problem is partly that a lot of people can't (or don't) make the chat times. And pretty much everything is now decided in the chat. I'm one of those that hasn't had a chance to make the chats yet, and I don't have the time to become a minister. So all I've been able to do is follow the game after the turns have been played. I believe that is part of why the game doesn't attract as many people as the first one did. I wasn't around for the first one, but I've heard about the political wrangling etc. that went on in that game and made it fun. I believe the ministers have so far done a great job in this game, but they're the only ones actually playing it and that has led to loss of interest.
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Well I think the primary loss of interest came from the ISDG, that drew regular participants away in droves, but I certainly agree with you that we (the Exec) have being managing things in a less than stellar way. But speaking from our perspective, it seems as if no-one IS participating beyond those in the chats! Beyond these people, UnOrtho, Kloreep, Godking, MZ, donegeal and myself, I have only occasionally seen others post here: Ghengis, Beta, panag, CiverDan, theViking, NuclearMaster and yourself.
For the threads that are made there are so very few replies and even less discussion, which is a Democracy Game's strength. New and better ideas than what the Minsiters have are absolutely vital to the game. Even asking what may seem as silly questions helps explain to everyone what is going on. We need this and with 2-3 people in the chat, no-one is feeling that there is anyone to interest to begin with.
This is addressed to all the lurkers or occasional posters who actually want to have a say in things every now and again - please tell us what you want to make things more accessible to you! Decisions are ALWAYS made in chat as things crop up that can't be foreseen. I have a couple of options I will start a poll on in the next couple of days, but not everything can be handled like that - only large things like wars.
And what about chats? Why are the times so bad for people? I can understand if I was running the chats, as my NZ timescale means they would be hell on Nth Americans and Europeans. However we have Americans setting the chat times, and despite the fact that these are often horrible times for me personally, I rested easier thinking that these were times when more people could turn up!
Please, let us know what you think, as Rhothaerill has done - a Democracy is useless if there are no stated opinions. Rhothaerill - thanks for pushing this issue, and can you elaborate on your thoughts? What can we do better exactly?
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dejon
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As I said during the Term III nominations, running for a position in July just didn't make sense for me. Unfortunately August isn't looking much better right now, but I really won't know until into the first week of August.
Due to my schedule, I've limited my DG participation to making orders and chats for RP Team in PtWDG, and kept my ISDG, PtWDGII, & SPDGII activity to merely lurking.
Personally, once my availability returns to normal, I'd like to finish this game out - I don't like leaving things undone. That said, I've never played a SP game with these settings before, so I have no idea what it will run like on my game machine (Athlon 1800).
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Rhothaerill
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Vincent Returns!!!
Feb 2003
time: 21:29
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quote:
Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Please, let us know what you think, as Rhothaerill has done - a Democracy is useless if there are no stated opinions. Rhothaerill - thanks for pushing this issue, and can you elaborate on your thoughts? What can we do better exactly? |
Unfortunately I don't have a "be-all, end-all" solution for improvement. But I do have some suggestions.
First let's take a look at what's not working. We're not getting the level of participation of say the PTWDG or the ISDG. Why is that? In a word...excitement. People are interested in playing when exciting things are happening. Just take a look at the jump the PTWDG has taken lately. Interesting things are happening on the Bobian continent and people are posting about it like crazy. Many people are getting involved and that's a good thing...UnO's S.P.I.N. is getting daily submissions, people are talking about war, etc. Contrast this with the PTWDGII. It's time will come, but right now there aren't too many exciting things going on since it only recently started. There is no team contact yet, no wars or anything, so hence no interaction like the PTWDG. So many people haven't posted there recently.
The C3DG has one knock against it that follows with the no interaction subject...playing against a computer is inherently less interesting than playing against other humans. I know that in the first C3DG there was a lot of human interaction that took place to make up for it, but like MrWIA said the ISDG has taken a lot of that. People who are a part of all three MP democracy games just don't have as much time or interest to devote to a game against a computer AI. I'm a good example of that myself. While the current C3DG was the first democracy game I joined, it's now the last of the four that I check. But I want it to be as interesting for me as the other three that I'm part of.
Like Panzer32 said this DG has become a chat game and only a few people can actually make the chats. I wish I could make even one of them, but for me they always seem to be held either when I'm at work (no availability for mIRC), when I'm spending time with my wife (much more important than Civ3  ), or when I'm asleep (today being unusual since I'm awake at what is 4 in the morning for me). For chat 19 there is only one time I might be able to make it which is the Saturday chat...right when I'm eating dinner and spending time with my wife.
That's where a succession game comes back into the mix. I think it might revitalize the C3DG because it would allow more people to get involved with how the game is played. What I'm envisioning is this...a democracy succession game. We keep the ministerial staff, but they have less power than now (sorry guys ). In the spirit of a succession games, everyone who wants to would play for a set amount of turns in a set amount of time. It would probably be 20 to start with for exploration etc., but would eventually scale back to five in say a span of five days. That's not a huge investment of time so people would be able to do that. Then of course we'd post screenshots, savegames, etc. and poll on who has the best savegame so far and use that one for the next 20 turns (or 5, etc.). But here is the trick to it...the ministers and the democracy as a whole will have a say in HOW everyone will go about playing the next few turns.
For example, say MrWIA plays a savegame and notices toward the end of his turn that the Babylonians were suddenly weakened and ripe for plucking, while in my savegame that didn't happen. We all poll and decide to play MrWIA's save. The minister of war posts another poll and discussion about going to war with the Babylonians and it passes. So when everyone starts the next few turns of play, the overriding factor for everyone will be to declare war on the Babylonians. One or two people could play without doing that of course to see how it goes as a counterpoint, but as the action put on the table by the ministers and approved by the public, then most everyone would declare war during their turnplay.
The same example would be used for the DM and the FAM information. Both ministers would still post the info they are supposed to, and the public would use their recommendations, etc. as part of the game. I really liked Donegeal's city by city info and MrWIA's recent FAM report, but I have to be honest. It didn't mean as much to me because I wasn't actually PLAYING the game. With a succession game, everyone would be using that information as part of "their own" game.
The way I see this proceeding is such...a few days for people to do their turnplay. Then a few days for discussion of the past turnplay, polls to decide which turnplay savegame to play next, and for discussion and DM/FAM/SMC info with recommendations on how to go about the next few turns. I say recommendations because they should be a guideline to follow not a prohibitive list. And also because all that info should be commented on by the playing public before the new turnplay starts.
As to the offices of President and VP, they would become more of a leader in name only instead of the turnplayer for the month. The President or VP would set up the polls for the next turnplay savegame, etc. and give their own opinions (and keep the ministers in line  ), but that duty would be somewhat reduced since they don't have to set chat times or hold the chats and play the turns at the same time. Anyone could be the president instead of it being someone who has good chat time availability or a fast computer. And you could still run for any office even if you know you know you are going to be out for a week (vacation or such) during your term of office. The loss of the President or one of the ministers for a week wouldn't be as much of a problem because they aren't the ones making all of the decisions during turnplay.
Well, I've rambled for quite a bit longer than I thought I would. Thoughts/criticisms? I think a democracy succession game could have a good chance of involving many more people than we currently have for the simple reason that people would feel more involved and excited about what is going on if they are involved.
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Epistax
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of Bananas
May 2001
time: 00:29
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I don't want to really support anything, but I do think a game where world domination is possible may be funner than a game which would be long and drawn out.
However, the point of this is that it's a demo game, and a single war leader positition taking turns slaughtering civ after civ doesn't exactly get everyone involved-- so I have a suggestion for the next game played. Instead of focusing entirely on the government hierarchy, how about a military one? We start with a supreme leader, and once there is X number of units, or a different region, someone else joins in under that person. As they win battles, ranks increase and control grows. New people are added in accordingly. Addititonally this would add to some healthy competition (not healthy for the empire, healthy for the fun)-- two commanders both streak through an enemy empire trying to get promoted first by a kill, they lose tons of units, talk of scandal spreads, death boom BOOM.
Well I think you get the idea. This same could likely be done as far as city planning goes, and we could still have a central government body.
Oh yes but #1 concern overall is getting more people interested and wanting to actually play.
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25-07-2003 22:20
restart , never 
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