I think it might be hard to come up with an accurate prediction because it depends a lot on what the other Agents are doing (e.g. qenya is apparently waiting on lendunistus at the moment).

I guess the “not including time taken for private negotiations” is probably intended to allow for that, but I still have no idea what number I’d place – e.g. this round I submitted while the negotiations were still ongoing (on the basis that I could always withdraw and resubmit if the negotiations lead to an unexpected result), so do I write a negative number?

In general, I’d expect most players to be submitting as soon as they think the negotiations are over – so what’s more important is response time to the negotiations themselves.

  While this feels like it’s not really a gamestate value, it’s probably useful to have as just a signpost of whether you’re planning to play slow or fast, irrespective of how long you actually end up taking.

(e.g. qenya is apparently waiting on lendunistus at the moment).

Incidentally, I submitted my route this morning shortly after lendun did, but I think Kevan must have gone offline at just the wrong moment as he hasn’t processed it yet.

Oop, speak of the devil!

For what it’s worth, I don’t altogether see the point of this (though I won’t vote as I intend to idle after this breakin is processed and don’t think it would be fair to exercise a say in what the rules will be). It seems to me based on “not including time taken for private negotiations” that this is intended to capture people’s general attitudes to game pace, rather than any particular round’s speed; so what’s the benefit to having a rules-defined mechanism rather than just making a blog post canvassing for opinion?

Do we need a rule for this? can’t we just ask people?

Maybe, to just asking people in blog comments. Tracking it would be more quietly dynamic, though - players could adjust their setting based on what others are saying, or how their own attitude or spare time changes over the course of the dynasty, rather than it being a one-off prediction made one day.

It’d also make it clear to lurkers and late arrivals that it’s a thing we’re thinking about.

I do think just asking is the better option, especially since we already have plenty of publicly tracked variables.

Apparently I am not idling after all, since I unexpectedly dodged all the guards this time and earned a Preparation Action, which it would really screw over the Burglars to lose.

So:

Withdrawn on feedback, I’ll “just ask people”.