Well played.

Great play, Great ending theme, Great win!

One small concern: rule 2.5 says that the bonus for a correct guess goes to “the player who influenced the Public” which, this cycle, is the Galatea.

haha purplebeard is right. I think josh wins on a technicallity. 

In context, “If each claim made by the player who influenced the Public last Cycle in their Control message was accurate, then the player who influenced the Public gains an amount of Power equal to Y/X”. The intention is obvious, but that’s a very specific and maybe even (given that it could just say “that player”) intentional wording.

CoV for now, given how low quorum is.

I’m with Yonah here - the rule does not say that it is the last player to do so, and it is clearly not its intention in the context of the game.

I absence of a specified cycle, “the player who influenced the public” could be interpreted as anyone who ever influenced it in the history of the game. It doesn’t say “the player who influenced the public this cycle” Given that the phrase immediately before does specify what cycle we are talking about, there seems to be only one reasonable way to resolve the ambiguity.

If you insist on rejecting the context the only argument I can offer is that “the player who influenced the public” can only refer to me or Galatea since no other player has influenced it in the entire game, that clearly at least one of us MUST receive it (there’s no if condition involved other than the correct guess), that there is no basis for choosing Galatea over me by the ruleset.

From the bank:

“The Bank (): When a Player Influences The Bank, they gain C/2 + X Credits (rounded up), where X is the number of other Players who Directed at least one Credit to the Bank that Cycle and C is the number of Credits **the Player who Influenced The Bank** Directed at The Bank that Cycle.”

Every time the bank has been influenced “The player who influenced the bank” has been the player who influenced the bank the most recent cycle. Thus there is a basis for choosing Galatea over you by the rulset.

“that Cycle” is used in the description of the Bank. The context seems meaningful to me.

That doesn’t really matter.

You could argue that the player(s) who influenced the public should get it, in which case Galatea, SPC and Kevan should all get (30+5+28+21+0)/8 = 10.5, but I really don’t think can argue just Yonah gets the bonus.

A plain-English reading of the rule actually does support giving the award to Galatea. The contrast between “the player who influenced the Public last Cycle” and “the player who influenced the Public” is almost constructed to throw up a contradiction.

The moral argument is fine, but hardly in the spirit of nomic - we’ve all lost out due to wording technicalities in the past, including my fourth Dynasty which ended after a day due to a sloppily-worded rule. The letter of the ruleset is paramount; intention as a nebulous concept has always, rightly, been a secondary concern.

I think I’m too partial to vote on this at this stage, so I’ll hold off for the minute and see how the discussion goes. Do we have a vote retraction mechanism?

I think a def vote would retract

No, DEF still counts on DoVs, ever since DoVs were rolled into Votable Matters.

I don’t see it as a moral argument: If, in the wording used for the Bank, we cannot interpret “the player who influenced the bank” to refer to some other cycle than the “that cycle” referred to immediately after, then I would argue that you cannot interpret “the player who influenced the public” to refer to some other cycle than the “last cycle” referred to immediately before.

“Galatea, SPC and Kevan”

Am I missing something here? neither SPC nor Kevan ever influenced the public or even attempted to do so. Interpreting it as player(s) would result in both me and Galatea receiving 12 power, in which case I would still win, but that interpretation is clearly at odds with how the Bank has been handled.

The bank is a bad example as you’re quoting it selectively - the full quote is “the number of Credits the Player who Influenced The Bank Directed at The Bank that Cycle”, with the final “that Cycle” clause clearly contributing to the common-sense reading, in the same way that the tension of the differently-worded clauses causes the opposite meaning in this case.

Well, I defer to the Nomic’s decision (with this statement not to be construed as affecting my vote on this DoV, :P). I feel that it was a satisfying win regardless of the final outcome, and I’ve made my case as best I am able.

Kevan influenced the public cycle 15

Ah, ok. Still not sure where SPC came from, considering that not only did he not influence the public, he is not even a player.

I confused you with SPC =P

If the Galatea Influences the Public and sends the message, then the award should go to the Galatea. I do not see how there could be any ambiguity with this rule. I don’t understand what you mean by “it is clearly not its intention in the context of the game.”: The Galatea is a Player for the purpose of all Dynastic rules, and the Public is no exception.

As for the “this cycle”... The only way “the player who Influenced the Public” makes any sense is if there can be only one and exactly one Player to have Influenced the Public, which means we’re talking about the Player who Influenced the Public and sent the message with the correct guess - the Galatea.

Koen, I think you misunderstand. I influenced the Public and sent the message last cycle according to the rules. My prediction included the prediction that the Galatea would influence the public this cycle. This cycle, Galatea did so, thus my prediction was true, and by your reasoning I, the player who sent the message with the accurate prediction, should receive the bonus, not Galatea, which merely influenced it in the last resolution and never sent a message at all.

I think it is quite clear that the antecedent of “the player who influenced the Public” is “the player who influenced the public last cycle” at the start of the sentence. Reading in “this cycle” seems absolutely silly.

Right, sorry :)

[scshunt] It’s clear from a common sense perspective, but semantically it seems at least as close to the other reading. “The player who influenced the Public” doesn’t need an antecedent, it’s not as unanchored as a “he or she”. In the context of Rule 2.5 and its precedence (paragraph 2 never says “this cycle” when talking of influencing Institutions, but that’s how we’ve been playing it), we have a player who influenced the Public, and in the final round that player was Galatea.

If someone had wanted to write in a loophole that sneakily gave the Public bonus to someone else, they’d have written it like this.

As Kevan said earlier, there are far more natural, clearer and more straightforward ways of writing the rule to give the intended meaning. This way is either deliberate or sloppy.

I would feel bad about this, but I have been the victim - as have we all - of ambiguously worded rules in the past. CoV

For the record, it’s the sloppy one. I actually worded it that way because I was afraid of this very thing happening if I said “they” because at one point there were other players mentioned there who I was afraid might be loopholed in this very fashion. I don’t seem to have done a good job of it though.

where did scshunt unidle? I don’t see it anywhere. Just because you’re an admin doesn’t mean you can unidle without announcements.

Another point in Josh’s favor

“The Net should announce which Players Influenced which Institutions,...”

This doesn’t say “The net should announce which Players Influenced Which Instiutions that Cycle”

Same with “if no Player Influenced the Watchtower”

There is not context of “that cycle” within that paragraph. It just simply implied throughout the whole ‘Cycle Resolution’ that “influenced x” means “Influenced x that cycle” unless otherwise specified. (the only times it is specified is to specify otherwise)

To be consisent with the result of the rulset, because “the player who influenced the Public” doesn’t specify otherwise, the ‘that cycle’ is implied just like it is implied with “If no player Influenced the Watchtower” and “The Net should announce which Players Influenced”

Though I’m a little uncomfortable with rules using “the” as if there was one and only one possibility, when in fact it is very likely that there be none (for instance I wouldn’t say “please close the window” unless there is exactly one window open).

Yonah: I don’t see where would the problem be in
“If each claim made by the player who influenced the Public last Cycle in their Control message was accurate, then that Player gains an amount of Power equal to Y/X, where Y is equal to the total amount of Power owned by all other players combined, and X is equal to the number of active players, and this Cycle is the final Cycle of the Dynasty.”

IIRC it was an artifact from a previous wording which mentioned the council resolution in the same paragraph and where “they” could possibly be interpreted as referring to that.