Intersite Game - Turn Discussion Thread

[mostly_harmless]

So the idea of using polls to make team decisions more clearly visible to the turn player and avoiding suggestions to get overlooked has pretty much only generated negative feedback. Which I don't mind much. Would have liked for the feedback to be delivered in a more polite and constructive way here and there.

The vast majority here seems to be completely fine on how this team is organized and run. Onwards with the show then.

mh

[kjn]

m_h, don't take it that badly. At least you got feedback

That said, I do believe we need to find better ways to handle things. I tried to put down some ground rules for dotmapping (basically: one colours - one spot), lets hope that it helps a bit. I started to write down a longish post in a new thread on how we should be organised, too:

There's a growing discussion in the turn tracking thread about our decision-making process being hard to manage, especially for Sullla as the turn-player. Simply put, we have far too much conflicting advice, spread over several threads, that it's easy to miss good proposals and it's hard to find any consensus.

So, how to fix this?

Some ideas:

Sullla mentioned the dotmapping thread as hard to follow. One partial fix there is that once a dot has been placed, it stays that colour! We can re-use colours only after the city (or a city invalidating the dot) has been settled, and no changing colours of an existing dot. The person who has gone to the effort to make the dotmap gets to decide the colour.

The micro planning is also a mess right now - we currently doesn't have a real documented micro plan, only various changes and amendments to Novice's plan a while back. Here I think Sullla as the turnplayer should get unilateral power on how things should be done.

• Google Docs and spread sheets?
  
• Novice-style illustrated maps?
  
• Only micro specific projects, ie abandon full micromanagement when the current plan runs out?

(That currently seems like the choice we're edging towards - the game is sufficiently complex now that trying out and documenting ten turns of play is a major undertaking.)

One problem is that among our current main threads, diplo and C&D are relatively easily divided from the turn-playing, while dot-mapping and micro planning is constantly influenced by the same, and so those topics tends to come up all the time in the turn discussion thread. One way to handle this could be to abandon the turn discussion thread as it goes on right now. Reports go in the turn tracking thread - any issues, news, and other stuff would have to be brought up in the micro thread, the dot mapping thread, a scouting/exploration thread, et c. Not sure how that would work, really.

I believe the last point there is key, and why it's hard to keep things tidy and organised.

One thing I hope some of the less active participants here can step up and do is to quality-check our micro plans - play through the plans given, and say if they work, point out errors in them, and so on. Another is to collate a specific topic (eg how to move the scouting units) and make a post with the worthwhile suggestions and possible consensus.

There is also a fine line between team morale building and spam, and the limits are different for different people.

[waterbat]

well i think the real problem lies in that people only really pipe up if they disagree. so if someone makes a good suggestion like (i think it was novice) to move the scout E,NE,NW to get to Indira instead of just N,NE more people would just nod their heads and agree. and that little post ends up hiding among the other debate going on. so... i think as a team - we can just be more vocal on the positive/agreement side it might help Sulla to note those items as well.

i did like the poll for contact - and m_h had a good point - it garnered 30 responses! As for feedback on it, m_h, the negative is going to be presented more vocally

Is there a way to build a quick poll into a post? that way we could throw one right into the discussion thread? people who come across it can quick vote without needing additional threads / etc.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

m_h, don't take it that badly. At least you got feedback

That said, I do believe we need to find better ways to handle things. I tried to put down some ground rules for dotmapping (basically: one colours - one spot), lets hope that it helps a bit. I started to write down a longish post in a new thread on how we should be organised, too:

There's a growing discussion in the turn tracking thread about our decision-making process being hard to manage, especially for Sullla as the turn-player. Simply put, we have far too much conflicting advice, spread over several threads, that it's easy to miss good proposals and it's hard to find any consensus.

So, how to fix this?

Some ideas:

Sullla mentioned the dotmapping thread as hard to follow. One partial fix there is that once a dot has been placed, it stays that colour! We can re-use colours only after the city (or a city invalidating the dot) has been settled, and no changing colours of an existing dot. The person who has gone to the effort to make the dotmap gets to decide the colour.

The micro planning is also a mess right now - we currently doesn't have a real documented micro plan, only various changes and amendments to Novice's plan a while back. Here I think Sullla as the turnplayer should get unilateral power on how things should be done.

• Google Docs and spread sheets?
  
• Novice-style illustrated maps?
  
• Only micro specific projects, ie abandon full micromanagement when the current plan runs out?

(That currently seems like the choice we're edging towards - the game is sufficiently complex now that trying out and documenting ten turns of play is a major undertaking.)

One problem is that among our current main threads, diplo and C&D are relatively easily divided from the turn-playing, while dot-mapping and micro planning is constantly influenced by the same, and so those topics tends to come up all the time in the turn discussion thread. One way to handle this could be to abandon the turn discussion thread as it goes on right now. Reports go in the turn tracking thread - any issues, news, and other stuff would have to be brought up in the micro thread, the dot mapping thread, a scouting/exploration thread, et c. Not sure how that would work, really.

I believe the last point there is key, and why it's hard to keep things tidy and organised.

One thing I hope some of the less active participants here can step up and do is to quality-check our micro plans - play through the plans given, and say if they work, point out errors in them, and so on. Another is to collate a specific topic (eg how to move the scouting units) and make a post with the worthwhile suggestions and possible consensus.

There is also a fine line between team morale building and spam, and the limits are different for different people.

I like the turn reports and discussion in this thread as it is now. Separating things into different threads will make it needlessly complicated. I don't want to have to see what time a post came in to see if it is the most recent iteration of plan X or whatever and check in two or three threads. If you leave the game for two or three days, coming back and trying to sort through all the plans in different places is difficult to do chronologically. I can live with a little untidiness in this single large thread.

@Waterbat: That would be a nice solution. I don't recall seeing the option to put a poll into a post in a thread though, or have any idea if this is something that could be added as an additional feature. Admin help would be needed.

[Sullla]

I'm sensing a narrow but clear consensus not to make contact with CivPlayers next turn, and to make contact with them only after founding the stone city. Unless something changes, that will be the plan for our axeman move on the upcoming turn. Thanks to all for your input and thoughts on this decision.

[SevenSpirits]

well i think the real problem lies in that people only really pipe up if they disagree. so if someone makes a good suggestion like (i think it was novice) to move the scout E,NE,NW to get to Indira instead of just N,NE more people would just nod their heads and agree.

Yeah. It's hard to justify spamming our one thread with "Yeah, *I* think we should do the obvious good thing too!" I mean the scout movement certainly didn't need voting between E-NE-NW or N-NE, one of them was just strictly better than the other one. I'm not convinced that throwing a random smattering of "I agree"s in, so Sullla is more likely to see the thing, is the solution. That seems like trying to make money by buying raffle tickets.

[waterbat]

That seems like trying to make money by buying raffle tickets.

are you implying that this doesnt work ???

[Old Harry]

well i think the real problem lies in that people only really pipe up if they disagree. so if someone makes a good suggestion like (i think it was novice) to move the scout E,NE,NW to get to Indira instead of just N,NE more people would just nod their heads and agree.

Yeah. It's hard to justify spamming our one thread with "Yeah, *I* think we should do the obvious good thing too!" I mean the scout movement certainly didn't need voting between E-NE-NW or N-NE, one of them was just strictly better than the other one. I'm not convinced that throwing a random smattering of "I agree"s in, so Sullla is more likely to see the thing, is the solution. That seems like trying to make money by buying raffle tickets.

How about enabling thumbs up / thumbs down for just this thread, so you can see how popular an idea is straight away? Don't know if that's possible with this forum software.

[Qgqqqqq]

Can mods edit/remove polls?
You could add one to this thread for thye biggest issue of the turn, and then wipe it when the turn is done.

[kjn]

Turn rolled in the middle of my night, and no-one logged in until now?

Anyway, here's the only significant in-game thing I saw that regards our unit actions this turn:




97.34 odds even without promo-healing.