Tasks are already bugged to give the Faculty Head too much power in telling people to perform non-dynastic actions. This just compounds the problem. You could give people directives like “Vote on this proposal making Lemon supreme emperor for life”

that seems sort of absurd, but i guess you’re right? i genuinely am only interested in this as a game mechanic tho– how about i fix it to dynastic non-voting actions to clarify that?

and tasks prolly ought to be restricted to dynastic actions (ive got a tasks touch-up proposal next in my queue), but they definitely don’t have that same issue because they don’t have qualifiers; “vote FOR” is an action defined in the ruleset, but “vote FOR on [x] proposal” is not

voting actions are already non-dynastic, so updating it to ensure its only dynastic actions is probably good enough though I’m still not big on a dynasty where an emperor has such arbitrary kingmakery powers. but as long as the amount of rope we leave remains in the scope of “power to break the dynasty” and not “power to break the game” I won’t object too much

tasks we should also change to be dynastic actions only, but its less urgent because tasks are optional all not doing a task can do is hurt your standing in the dynasty

I generally trust lemon to use her powers for fun rather than exploitation, but if that trust turns out to be misplaced then we can always withdraw it.

“must follow that Directive’s instructions to the letter” is murky for what actually happens if they don’t do this, or if they choose to do something else beforehand; it’d be easier to resolve as “should follow it, can be punished if they don’t”.

[Josh] We would not be able to withdraw misplaced trust (or react to a well-meaning but unfortunate Directive that happened to unpack to something nobody expected) if we all had to obey a Directive that amounted to “AIs may not create or enact proposals or CfJs”.

I’m leaning to a cautious CoV on that basis, actually.

cov, and also screwing up a directive can be just as bad as actually having malicious intent

per Kevan

Ah, the overcautiosness again.

The rule limits the effects of Directives to dynastic actions, and CfJs can’t be overriden by dynastic rules. It’s inconceivable to me that this absurd hypothetical could take place, but that’s about par for the course.

Your eighth dynasty’s Christmas Coup hinged on a “must first spend” dynastic action being able to block core actions when it couldn’t be performed. A similar “must first” Directive would be equally innocuous and valid here.

I’m not sure how a “must first” would work here. It clearly only applies to dynamics actions. So while you could require a certain dynastic action to be performed, I don’t see how you rule out anyone performing non-dynastic actions.

Overall, I’m still on the fence. I’d like more rigidity in how directives/tasks can be formed to ensure fairness between what each player gets. But this doesn’t seem any worse than tasks and maybe this’ll help ensure tasks get fixed too so I’ll give a tentative

cov, also will probably attempt to patch this soon

OH GOSH WHAT IF LEMONFANTA ASSIGNED HERSELF TRAITOR

“...the Facility Head may secretly randomly select an AI (other than the Facility Head) and privately inform them that they are the Traitor for the current Dynasty.”

not how it works!! and really, i do like betrayal but only when its for the fun of everyone involved! i’m wearing my game designer & GM hats right now, not my mischeivous player hat :0

haha, it was mostly in jest :P

oh, i misinterpreted :‘u

[Clucky] The only restrictions being made here are “the compulsory action must be dynastic”, “can’t mention an action about voting” and “can’t contradict another directive”: there is no “can’t affect core actions”. My reading would be that a restriction like “must spend 1 World Data before voting on a proposal” or “must constantly perform Unlocking actions” would mean that a player taking a particular core action would be breaking the game’s rules.

are either of those “a single sentence outlining one or more dynastic actions the associated AI cannot take or must take under certain circumstances”? To me, the extra conditions mean they are not.

Sentences of “This AI must spend 1 World Data before each vote they cast.” and “This AI must perform Unlocking actions whenever possible.” would be valid Restrictions, wouldn’t they?

Neither of which seem likely to be written deliberately, I’m just cautious of encouraging the Emperor to make up fun, natural language Restrictions (which is fine) under the heavy deadlock power of “players must” (which has the potential to break the game). A superficially entertaining Restriction could end up inadvertently locking the Nomic - probably not to the point where we couldn’t get an old admin to unidle themselves and fix things, I think, but it’s enough for me to not want to start down that path.

hrm. I’m still not sure they ever *can’t* create a CfJ. Just maybe have some requirements that they have to do after the CfJ which could render them unable to play the dynasty. But then they also could just get requirements that make them unable to play the dynasty.

I suppose is the safer move. But we should revisit the idea and clean it up a bit more to put clear limits on what a directive can look like.

Actually I’m reassured to see that the Appendix’s “may not take more than one dynastic game action at the same time” specifies dynastic, now that I look it up. (That was what I was assuming would block CfJs; if I have to constantly take one action, I can’t take any others.) But there’s still head-of-a-pin stuff that if I’m required to be constantly performing a game action, how can I be physically typing a CfJ, etc.

those are understandable points, kevan. idk that i can promise i wouldnt make a mistake like that either, so i think for that reason & for the sake of moving the queue along, ill