I agree with the problem but find the solution to be too cautious.

I’ll likely go FOR on this but feel like the fix will need some tweaking.

Still v hard for me to escape the conclusion that Imperial Defs, and maybe the idea of Defs as a whole, is flawed and should be reconsidered.

The intention behind Imperial Deferentials is to be a faster abstention, when the Emperor wants to remain neutral on some gameplay-level vote, but doesn’t want to slow the game down by doing so (particularly in the early days of a dynasty). Switching off domino DEFs somewhat defeats the point of that, if your example above would then have to wait 48 hours and time out with 3 unresolved player DEFs.

It’s certainly bending the “it doesn’t matter how other players vote” to achieve that, but I don’t think it’s breaking it, when you’ve got 2 FOR votes and 3 players explicitly voting “I will copy the Emperor’s vote, aware that the Emperor’s vote may copy the majority at any given moment”.

As with the perennial fast fail idea, I think that when the ruleset tries to be quick rather than accurate it causes problems in the game.

In an environment where a DEF doesn’t necessarily mean “I have gamed out the implications of this vote and considered what it might mean for the game” the argument that the concequences are clear in the ruleset so it’s all okay doesn’t quite hold enough water for me.

discussing on the slack, but wondering if an “abstain” vote would help. You could still daisy chain DEF votes into abstains if the emperor votes to abstain.

I’m very annoyed at Imperial Deferentials right now because it keeps kicking to break 2-2 ties into Quorum AGAINST.

It is definitely a wider problem that a DEF vote from a player during an Imperial Deferential dynasty can mean any of:

* The Emperor has already voted DEF (or seems likely to) and I am happy for my vote to be that of the majority of Players
* This is a core change and the Emperor has more experience of the game than me, so I trust their vote
* This is a gameplay proposal that’s a bit complicated, and the Emperor has more experience of the game than me, so I trust their vote (forgetting that they will probably vote DEF on it)
* This mechanic will require additional work for the Emperor, so it’s up to them
* This is the Emperor’s proposal and I’m okay with it but want to signal without words that I am not excited by it
* This is someone else’s proposal and it looks like a DEF resolves to FOR right now, and I want to signal that I’m okay with it but am not excited by it
* I don’t care whether this proposal passes
* I don’t understand this proposal
* I can’t decide how to vote

And probably more.

Happy to test drive this to see what happens, but I expect we’d hit a wall of timed-out proposals where people are either invalidly voting DEF or feeling too nervous to vote at all, rather than entering some new age of voter decisiveness. (If I arrive at a gameplay proposal under this rule that already has 3 DEF votes, I would still vote DEF on it.)