Public Reporting Discussion Thread

[oledavy]

Here's the post that spawned all the comments:

Good evening everyone, and welcome to the public reporting thread for Realms Beyond's epic quest to win the third Multi-Team Democracy Game!

We're going to get straight down to brass tacks and discuss today's breaking news:

[SIZE="7"]Spanish Team Loses MTDG III[/SIZE]

In a move that has baffled pundits the world over, the Spanish Apolyton Team has chosen Boudica as their leader with the fourth choice of the snake pick. While there have been some weedy decisions so far, our analysts are confident none will measure up to the sheer awfulness of this pick. Where to begin? Well, our senior field correspondant managed to track down reclusive RB personality Locke, and interview him for his take on the Spanish Team's choice.

OK hi. Davey ask me to talk about Spanish leader pick, so I do that now. Well Spanish team decide to pick Boudica. This is terrible pick! Worst pick so far. I explain why now. We are playing with no tech trading, so economy is best choice in traits, and rushing is bad idea. Also, we will play Emperor and Toroidal, so that mean high costs. So Spanish team pick leader with no economy traits in game where economy most important! It's OK, stupid pick make better choices for us.

Think of all choices Spanish team could have pick. Pacal and Huayna were there, and they are much better than Spanish pick. FIN, EXP, SPI, IND, and even CRE all much better traits than AGG and CHM. Also, nobody else going to pick Boudica, so why not pick civ now and get Boudica later? They could of pick India instead! India is very good, fast worker very powerful and last forever. Hopefully Spanish team does not start next to us and they rush somebody else, that way stupid pick hurt two teams and not just one . With picks like this, no wonder we play on dumb mod.

I wonder if Spanish version of Civ4 make Boudica different. That the only good reason I can think for picking Boudica. They in for bad surprise when game start and they see they have AGG and CHM! Or maybe they role-play Boudica and send flirty message to everyone while trying to kill them. That maybe fun. OK that is all.

[SIZE="1"]All credit to Scooter for the brilliant piece of writing above.[/SIZE]

The choice of a leader with no economic traits in a fundamentally economic game is truly a baffling move on the part of Spanish Apolyton. Some of our senior analysts have suggested they may want to be the attack dog for a larger nation that supports their economy. However, doing the dirty work for another power is hardly a winning move, and will likely just end up with them being the weaker partner in a one-sided alliance that benefits Spanish Apolyton little. Other's have suggested they intend to take Rome when they come up to pick again. If they do intend to Praet rush, with the insane maintenance costs any captured cities will incur, they'll just put themselves farther behind.

Most bafflingly however, why pick a leader with the fourth choice of the snake pick when Boudica was sure to be available when their turn came up again? If they do want to be the military attack dog, why not pick Montezuma for anarchy free bursts of NH to draft AGG muskets and rifles? And if they do want to rush, why not pick Byzantium or Rome? It's far more likely that one of them will be selected between now and their next pick than Boudica.

Needless to say, in a single, stunning move, the Spanish Team has a reduced their chances of winning MTDG III to a snowflake's chance in hell; leaving just seven remaining teams between RB and the victory.

Ending turn for today, this has been Realms Beyond Network News.

[SIZE="1"]If anyone has a better thread title in mind, feel free to post it [/SIZE]

Opinions on it welcome.


What form should the public reporting thread take? Go.

[Selrahc]

Pertinent topics decided on by/nominated in the thread, people volunteer to do write ups. Once a month we do an update post in the public thread with all the "articles" from the month included. Kind of like a newsletter.

Tone wise, I think we should be going in general for amusing but not cruel. We should throw in occasionally straight up informative pieces based on our discussions.

[pindicator]

First off, thank you oledavy for taking initiative on putting together a public reporting thread. I know the responses you've gotten are not what you had in mind but kudos for getting the ball rolling. Now we can hopefully the input you get can smooth the road a bit

Do you have any questions about why it got the reaction it did? I had written a paragraph of criticism about it but it's down and done, so i'll only post it if you have questions.

I like Selrahc's idea of a newsletter, although Biweekly may be better than monthly. It will depend on turn pace and interest in writing. I would also strongly suggest that anything we want to post gets posted and peer-editted like we've been doing for the posts in the CFC planning thread.

[novice]

How about just having a "good-natured constructive mocking of the competition thread" here, and grant forum access to whoever asks. That way, we encourage people to register on RB, and we get fresh blood in our team, where many are losing interest already.

To repeat and clarify this: I don't think we need a communication plan per se - just give all lurkers access to this entire forum (and behave decently in here). The requirement from lurkers is that they read the public signup thread, acknowledge the confidentiality clauses there, and make the effort of registering a user on RB.

We can still have a dedicated thread in here for "reporting", for the casual lurkers.

[sunrise089]

@davy - That's actually very clever, but I just don't think it's strategic. I feel the risk/reward value of that post doesn't measure up before the game starts. I echo Selrahc and think people should be free to draft whatever they want in here, but it should only go public with some sort of plan behind it and after being vetted.

To repeat and clarify this: I don't think we need a communication plan per se - just give all lurkers access to this entire forum (and behave decently in here). The requirement from lurkers is that they read the public signup thread, acknowledge the confidentiality clauses there, and make the effort of registering a user on RB.

We can still have a dedicated thread in here for "reporting", for the casual lurkers.

I understand this better now. You're just asking that we change the policy on lurker access, right? But what has changed? Is the consensus now that we were wrong to restrict lurker access? I'm not to be difficult, I'm just confused because we only voted on this a few weeks ago.

[Sullla]

I honestly have no idea what these posts are supposed to achieve. Do what you will, but please don't be using my alt account. It looks like I had a hand in drafting that post, when I had nothing to do with it.

[novice]

I understand this better now. You're just asking that we change the policy on lurker access, right? But what has changed? Is the consensus now that we were wrong to restrict lurker access? I'm not to be difficult, I'm just confused because we only voted on this a few weeks ago.

I'm just stating my opinion since it seems relevant here. I didn't speak up on this earlier since it didn't seem like the sort of thing to force upon the group when there was a sizeable group of players vocally against it. So basically I'm just going on record with my opinion. If the consensus has changed, great.

[oledavy]

Do you have any questions about why it got the reaction it did? I had written a paragraph of criticism about it but it's down and done, so i'll only post it if you have questions.

I understand where the concerns were coming from. Though, I wouldn't mind if you want to post your thoughts on it for the sake of discussion.

Fwiw, I appreciate the people who have spoken on my behalf. I certainly did not mean the post to sound offensive. My intent was rather to good-naturedly rib one of the opposing teams.

For the record though, I'm not exactly sure what you guys expected from a reporting thread. The purpose in my mind at least, was to have a place to inform people uninvolved with the game of what was going on, while at the same time making tongue in cheek jabs at the other teams - posting propaganda. If I can't post things like what I wrote....I'm honestly at a bit of a loss of what's expected. Since I can't post about what's actually going on in game, that basically leaves me posting about the other teams. Evidently, the internet is far too polite of a place for me to post stuff like what I wrote. And while we're on that:

Pertinent topics decided on by/nominated in the thread, people volunteer to do write ups. Once a month we do an update post in the public thread with all the "articles" from the month included. Kind of like a newsletter.

I mean no offense to Selrahc, but I have absolutely no interest in something like this. I write when the creative spark hits me, and having peer edited articles published on a monthly basis in a newsletter would kill any fun in it for me. I don't have a thick enough skin to deal with this sort of drama on a regular basis, so with those both in mind, I respectfully withdraw my offer to report on the game. Further, I recommend the idea of a public reporting thread be scrapped. The litigation that would ensue in order to post anything defeats the whole point of having such a thread.

Someone with mod powers, please delete the "All The News That's Fit To Print" thread before it erupts into a flame war.

[Gaspar]

My idea for this was a little different, but basically for it to be like one of our reporting threads - just a little more after the fact, but posted in Civ general for everyone to see. In that sort of a situation, the post Dave put through would be okay, though probably I'd have waited a bit longer.

I don't think we'll ever come to a consensus on this, so I agree with Dave that we should just scrap the public reporting.

[Bobchillingworth]

Your post was funny and witty, but it was also aggressive. Were RB at war with Spanish Team Spanish Apolyton it would be cool, because then who cares what they think? But it doesn't make any sense to alienate them now.