Thursday, November 17, 2022

Proposal: Dormantle [Special Case]

Timed out 3 votes to 3. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 19 Nov 2022 14:44:23 UTC

Set “Dormancy” to active.

Set “Mantle Limitations” to active.

These two special case rules being switched off makes for an ominous combo, and it’s maybe the reason why every proposal made since day two of this dynasty (excluding those withdrawn or vetoed) has timed out.

With Dormancy off, a strong and valid strategy is to encourage inactivity by keeping the ruleset opaque, and staying only active enough to collect a reasonable amount of game resources - when enough people have dropped out, you can propose that the dynasty has sadly failed and should be ended with a merit random die roll (perhaps equally among all players, if you only have a few resources but enough to show that you were present). And with Mantle passing an option, it’s easier buy the votes of any idle/semi-idle players who aren’t already nodding that proposal through.

I already thought twice over proposing Elbow Room, because making the queues easier to understand increases the chance of more people playing the game, which lowers my odds of victory under Undormancy+Mantle.

I’d rather build and play a game.

posted by Kevan at 17 Nov 2022 13:19:00 UTC Comments (9)

Comments

Josh: Observer he/they

17-11-2022 13:31:29 UTC

Yeah, I mean, I have definitely been allowing myself to stay on the cusp because it was clear to me that staying minimally active / within-touch of the frontrunners was a valid strategy in a dormancy-off environment.

Will probably greentick.

Bucky:

17-11-2022 17:43:30 UTC

Dormancy was off because in my opinion it needed some fix proposals. One of those passed and the other failed. It can come back on.

Mantle Limitations was off partly because I intended at Ascension to use a merit random victory condition as a clock on the dynasty (https://blognomic.com/archive/win_by_stamp_collecting), and partly because I’d wanted to pass the mantle instead of running this dynasty but was unable to. Kevan’s argument that it should be turned back on is in part an argument that we should already have locked in at least one victory condition by now.

Only one of the two should be toggled to prevent Kevan’s concern, and it should clearly be Dormancy until such a time as another victory condition is on the table.

Kevan: he/him

17-11-2022 17:50:20 UTC

Somebody who wins a dynasty but doesn’t want to run the next one can always make a straight proposal to pass the Emperorship on, so long as they’re not passing it to an accomplice in a way that would breach “deals based on being made Emperor of the next dynasty”.

Josh: Observer he/they

17-11-2022 20:50:59 UTC

for

Bucky:

17-11-2022 22:03:17 UTC

against

Trapdoorspyder: he/him

18-11-2022 01:50:11 UTC

imperial

JonathanDark: he/him

18-11-2022 02:58:55 UTC

imperial

Kevan: he/him

18-11-2022 09:50:34 UTC

So are you still intending to push for a merit-random victory condition, Bucky?

If mantle passing is only in place to support that - I assume to cover a case where victory randomly goes to a player who wasn’t playing and doesn’t want to run a dynasty, allowing them to pass it to someone who does? - the victory condition could be written to include some form of dynastic pseudo-mantle-pass.

Raven1207: he/they

18-11-2022 16:26:46 UTC

for