Saturday, March 13, 2021

Proposal: Connect the Dots

Quorum of FOR votes reached. Enacted by Clucky

Adminned at 15 Mar 2021 15:14:28 UTC

In the rule entitled “Ethics of the Nobility” replace the sentence “A Patrician’s Political Heft is always considered to be zero” with the sentence

A Patrician is always considered to be Ostracized.

I think if Ostracism had been a thing when Patricians became a thing, it probably would have been written this way.

Comments

Clucky: he/him

13-03-2021 23:37:14 UTC

I think this would make it too easy for someone with a high Scandal to simply faction bomb another group (or even another person). And then it turns into “can we get enough votes on this DoV and josh to rubber stamp it before the other people change their faction”

Zack: he/him

14-03-2021 01:16:42 UTC

for As it stands right now it’s technically possible for the sum of political hefts of all electors to be less than 100%, which means the game could be in a potentially unwinnable state. This should fix that.

Clucky: he/him

14-03-2021 01:20:24 UTC

against now what we’re past the voting deadline

Raven1207: he/they

14-03-2021 01:21:51 UTC

for

Clucky: he/him

14-03-2021 01:56:31 UTC

The game will only be in an unwinnable state if the sum of the political heft is under 50%. And even then, someone just needs to switch factions to make it winnable again.

I don’t want this game to have to come down to “which can happen sooner, Person A gets on to switch their faction back after someone faction bombed them to force them to become Ostracized, or Josh gets on approves the DoV”. Because it rewards players who are on a lot (especially those in the same timezone as Josh) and also creates this weird sense of obligation for Josh where his activity level might determine who wins.

Bucky:

14-03-2021 04:31:15 UTC

against

Josh: Observer he/they

14-03-2021 07:39:24 UTC

We might want to turn DoV hiatus back on; the original intent was that this dynasty would feature a lot of transactional dovs but it’s obviously hasn’t gone that way so maybe suspending it wasn’t such a good idea.

imperial

Clucky: he/him

14-03-2021 08:20:26 UTC

Even hiatus wouldn’t really solve my problems because you can still have one teammate with a lot of scandal who simply takes another player out of the game and then you post DOV and cause you can’t block who joins your faction, there are zero counter play options

Josh: Observer he/they

14-03-2021 09:03:57 UTC

I guess I’m okay with that? If you control the player with the most Scandal then that’s a disadvantage offset by a tactical option which I’m broadly okay with. The alternative is that Ostracism is tacit elimination which is much more boring to me.

Winning this dynasty means controlling Heft worth more than 50%. Your Ostracism play doesn’t matter because if you hit the 50% heft threshhold to win then you hit the 50% heft threshhold to win; using your Scandal-heavy outrider to knock out a competitor is irrelevant, as your DOV will only pass if you can muster votes FOR your DOV worth 50% of heft, and which of the players voting AGAINST your DOV is Ostracised is irrelevant.

Ostracism is a relatively public-facing element; we all know who is Ostracised at any given time, so you either avoid it or figure out a way to make it work to your advantage.

Lulu: she/her

14-03-2021 13:13:25 UTC

for

Clucky: he/him

14-03-2021 16:29:59 UTC

The thing is, controlling 50% heft is a very fleeting thing under the current dynasty rules.

The rules are *not* “If you hit the 50% heft threshhold to win you win”. The rule as ““If you hit the 50% heft threshhold to win there is now a huge race between whether Josh gets on first and approves your victory, or someone else gets on first and changes their faction gain their heft back”

Remember, that being Ostracised doesn’t just set your heft to zero. It removes your political power from the conversation. So the claim that “using your Scandal-heavy outrider to knock out a competitor is irrelevant” is not true. Its incredibly relevant.

Lets say you have something like:

Elector 1: 20 power, 5 Scandal
Elector 2: 20 power, 5 Scandal
Elector 3: 15 power, 5 Scandal
Elector 4: 15 power, 5 Scandal
Elector 5: 10 power, 5 Scandal
Elector 6: 0 power, 20 Scandal

In the current state, total power is 80 so you need 40 power to win meaning you need a group of 3.

But if Elector 6 snipes Elector 2, it turns total power down to 60. Elector 1 posts their DoV, gets Elector 3 to vote for it. Has told Elector 6 they’ll win share part of the victory to them.

So now you have a 33% heft FOR vote and a 25% heft FOR vote, for 57% heft voting for the thing.

Do it when Josh is online and Elector 2 is not, Josh stamps the victory and its a win.

But if Elector 2 gets on before Josh, they switch the faction back to something else, and suddenly you don’t have 33%+25% heft FOR you have 25% + 18.75% FOR which is only 43.75% FOR not enough for a win.

and because its literally impossible to avoid being ostracised… yeah

Clucky: he/him

14-03-2021 16:36:54 UTC

something to keep in mind: Raven voted for this proposal and this one: https://blognomic.com/archive/ostracized_pun_on_ostrich…_tarred_and_feathered…something_with_ostrich#comments

despite the fact that, in theory, they’ll keep his political heft at 0 and he’ll have no way of winning except through a win share

this seems to mean one of two things:

1) he is simply acting as an agent of chaos

2) Raven and Brendan are working together. Meaning Raven has likely already transferred all of their power to Brendan before the rules on power transfers were enacted which definitely puts them on the cusp of victory as they’ll have both a bunch of power in Brendan’s hands and a way to completely eliminate another player’s power from the game provided they time it right

Knowing Raven, either is possible, but feels safer to assume the later is true

Lulu: she/her

14-03-2021 16:46:45 UTC

against

Brendan: he/him

14-03-2021 17:27:17 UTC

Clucky’s hypothesis is wrong—Raven has not transferred any power to me, and the next masquerade will prove it.

Zack: he/him

14-03-2021 17:54:29 UTC

@Clucky “Remember, that being Ostracised doesn’t just set your heft to zero.” As of right now, that’s exactly what it does. You are conflating Political Power and Political Heft.

Zack: he/him

14-03-2021 17:56:38 UTC

Nevermind, I see what you mean, but it’s important to make a clear distinction between Power and Heft.

Kevan: he/him

14-03-2021 18:11:24 UTC

for

Clucky: he/him

14-03-2021 19:44:56 UTC

Okay. Then kill this proposal and make it again after the masquerade happens Josh’s proposal to fix the “Ostracised elector’s power don’t count to heft of others” issue is fixed

pokes:

14-03-2021 20:02:15 UTC

against

Clucky: he/him

15-03-2021 15:12:44 UTC

for

pokes:

15-03-2021 15:13:10 UTC

for

Lulu: she/her

15-03-2021 15:13:38 UTC

for