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The MVL Rulebook

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The MVL Rulebook

from GalCiv2 Forums

This is where we will keep all the rules used for the Metaverse League (MVL). The point is to have a single place where all rules are defined and so there's a single place where people can refer to resolve all question.

I will continually update this OP to reflect the current state of rules that we have all agreed to. The point is to make this as simple and concise as possible. As we have seen argument and upset occurs when different people have different interpretations of what has been agreed. Keeping these rules as simple and short as possible will help reduce potential conflict.


Rule 1) Rule changes are not allowed in the middle of a round. If an unanticipated situation develops in the middle of a round all effort should be made to deal with it as consistently as possible based on current rules and precedent. In the hopefully rare cases this is not possible the Commissioner will make an arbitrary ruling on how the matter will be resolved for the current round. Once the round is over then the issue can be revisited and a more permanent solution can be decided by the members of the League. Note that this arbitrary ruling can only be made by the Commissioner. Also the Commissioner is the only person that can grant an exception to any rule, but this power should be used judiciously.

Rule 2) Team Size. People may join the League and start playing at pretty much anytime. In the middle of a round a new player should be randomly assigned a new team by either the Commissioner or Vice Commissioner. The only limitation is that at any point in time no team should have more than one more player than any other team.

Also people may have to announce that they can't submit during a round. This can be treated using the scoring rules related to non-submission or if it's early in the round the teams could be re-balanced by the Commissioner. The decision to re-balance or not, and if so who to move, is soley the decision of the Commissioner.

The ideal team size is 5 since it provides some protection against an unforeseen non-submittal without being too unweildly. Team size at the beginning of a round should never be less than 4 or more than 6.

Rule 3) Honor System. Each round of play consists of a game (or games) of randomly selected settings and victory conditions. Very few of the required settings can be verified, namely galaxy size and victory condition. The fact that all other settings cannot be verified requires the league to operate on the honor system.

From time to time various versions of the game may exhibit a bug that temporarily allows some particular exploit. When and if this happens people should make sure the league is aware of the situation but no rule will be made to prohibit the particular exploit other than the same honor system that ensures everyone is playing the same game.

A final point about the honor system is that abuse of the honor system doesn't debase a single game played by a single player but debases every game played by every player. When seen in this light I'm sure that no one would be tempted to risk shaking the foundation of the league just to gain a miniscule benefit by intentionally bending a setting or rule. Also everyone should realize that honest mistakes do happen and if occasionally someone makes a mistake in a required game setting that it's no real big deal.

A corollary to the fact that only galaxy size and victory condition can be verified, along with the practice of taking a game submitted to the metaverse but not submitted to the league as a persons "intended" league submission, results in the rule that people should not have games submitted to the metaverse under their league character that might be confused with a legitimate league game. Note that clearly once a player has made a submission for the current round there can be no such confusion.

Honor System Addendum

The deliberate and determined use by a Player, with full knowledge and intent, of repeatedly and excessively, exploiting bugs, quirks, or other miscellanea in a game to achieve an outcome not normally possible is hereby prohibited in the MVL.

Rule 4) Reported Difficulty Levels and Race Customization in MVL Games

Every MVL player is honor bound to ensure that the effective difficulty of any game they submit is accurately represented by the games posted difficulty. To support this requirement the following guidance is provided.

External modification of any game related files are prohibited in MVL games.

In-game modification of opponent characteristics is prohibited in MVL games. The only choices allowed are the selection of opponents from among the default standard races and default custom race and the selection of their difficulty levels.

All opponent starting relations must be set to "Unknown".

DA games must be set to Allow Surrenders.

Rule 5) MVL Member Behavior

In the case where a MVL member has been found to be cheating, being overly disruptive, or detrimental to the League in some form, the commissioner is free to levy the following punishments as he deems necessary and appropriate. Such punishments may include; the loss of a team Captaincy or other MVL Administrative Position, the loss of the Player's points earned in a particular Round, forcing the Player to sit out a Round, or any other temporary punishment deemed appropriate.

For anything deemed worthy of a permanent ban from the league then besides the recommendation of the commissioner it should also require the consensus of the captains and other MVL administrators to make the ban permanent. Once banned then continued disruption of MVL threads and activities will be appropriately reported to forum authorities.


Scoring

A team's score consists of the sum of "base" scores plus individual and team bonus points.

Base Score

A player's base score is simply 2 points for a win of the designated type, 1 point for a win of the wrong type and 0 points otherwise. A team’s base score is the sum of the four top player base scores submitted. This is done so that a team having more players has no advantage over a team with fewer players.

There are two types of rounds that are treated slightly differently. One is a “Single Victory” type round where all players play for the same victory condition. The other is an “All Victories” type round where each team must submit at least one game of each of the 4 different victory types.

Non-Submission

In the Single Victory round if a player neglects to submit a game then there is no issue as long as the team still has at least four other players that submitted a game. However, if the team only had four players to begin with then they would be missing one potential contribution to the team’s base score. If this non-submission is pre-announced (this is highly encouraged), then either the Commissioner or Vice Commissioner may randomly select another member of the team to submit another game to count towards the teams base score.

In the case where no notice is given, if the player has a single game that fits the rounds criteria as to date, galaxy size and victory condition posted to the Metaverse but not yet submitted to the league then that game will be presumed to be submitted "automatically" to the league during the last minute of the round. If there are more than one qualifying game posted to the metaverse under the players MVL character than the game with the highest score/year ratio will be the game submitted to the league. If two or more games have identical score/year ratios then the submitted game shall be randomly selected from these games by the commissioner or vice commissioner whichever is not a memeber of the team in question. Note that players should make sure that any games that "appear" to match the current rounds criteria posted to the MV do indeed satisfy all the current rounds criteria. This can always be accomplished by simply waiting until your official has been made before posting a game to the MV that might otherwise be confused with the current MVL game.

In the case where no notice is given, and if other members of the team have other games that satisfy the round’s criteria that have already been submitted to the metaverse then either the Commissioner or Vice Commissioner may randomly select one of these games to count towards the teams base score. In this case the team should identify *all* such games that satisfy the round’s criteria for possible selection not simply the *best* such game.

If the non-submission is not pre-announced and the team has no “extra” qualifying games then the team gets credit only for the number of base scores properly submitted.

Note that a team of 5 players with two players that failed to submit a game would be in a similar situation as described above and the same rules apply. The same is true with 6 players and 3 non-submissions, etc. It is also possible for a team to be more than one submission short of the required total of 4 in which case the same rules can be applied to possibly allow the team to make up for more than one non-submission.

Finally these same rules apply in the case of an All Victories round but with an extra qualification. This extra requirement is that in an All Victories round each team is required to submit at least one game of each victory type. In this case the team may be required to use an “extra” game as described by the rules above that duplicates the victory type of an already submitted game. In this case for base scoring purposes that game would have to be considered a 1 point victory of the wrong type. Note that such a game could still receive individual and team bonus points based on the correct victory category.

Individual Bonus Points

In the case of a Single Victory round a single bonus point is granted for the 4 top scoring games and the 4 fastest games.

In the case of an All Victory round a single bonus point is given to the top score and the fastest game in each of the 4 different victory conditions.

The fastest games are determined by the number of years reported by the metaverse. Game speed ties are broken by score and score ties are broken by speed. Any games tied in both speed and score will be left unbroken and both players will receive the identical bonus.

Team Bonus Points

All team bonus points are based on the average of the team’s submitted games. Just as in the individual bonus point case only wins of the correct type are counted. The 1st place team receives 2 points and the 2nd place team receives 1 point in the following categories.

Team Score

Team Speed (speed of game reported by metaverse)

Team Submission (number of days into the round before game is submitted to the league)

Any teams tied in any team bonus category receive the same bonus. However, any fractional result is not subject to rounding and any tie must be exact.


MVL Voting Rules

1. Any MVL member can call for a vote among any number of competing proposals which must be seconded by two other MVL members to be considered official.

2. All votes will occur in the Galciv II Metaverse Leagues forum at the Core and notice must also be given in the current MVL Round thread.

3. All votes should run for a period of time specified in the OP of the voting thread. This period should be no shorter than 1 week or longer than 3 weeks. It's encouraged but not required that votes should be completed before the start of the next round of play if at all possible.

4. A valid vote requires participation by at least 50% of active MVL members. An abstention counts as participation. A proposal requires 60% or more of the cast ballots to be accepted. If less than 60% is achieved by any one proposal there will be a runoff between the two most popular options. The winner of the runoff will be the proposal that achieves a simple majority of votes cast with no quorum requirement.

5. Editing of your vote is allowed although any changes should be made in such a way as to make it obvious that a change has occured.

6. Once the time specified for the vote expires the thread will be locked to maintain an accurate record of the vote. The results of any vote are final and can only be changed by a subsequent official MVL vote.

Rules accepted by Consensus

From time to time minor issues may crop up that may not warrent the full attention of the League. In such cases a limited number of members may discuss the issue and come to some agreement. As long as no member of the league voices any objection to such an agreement and as long as such an agreement has been posted in a prominent thread (the current round thread or the MVL Rule thread) for a period of one week then that rule will be considered to be "official" by the league.

Besides any MVL member voicing an objection to the proposed rule, thereby invalidating the proposal, any member could also move to have a vote taken on the proposal which, as specified in our voting rules, requires a vote be taken as long as the motion is seconded by two other MVL members.


Last update Mar 28, 2008. Added Race Configuration Rule and Honor System Addendum

 

metaverse
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Reply #201 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What I would like to see as a predefined criteria is the following.

First throw out all the obviously "bad" games. Clearly any game with a lower score and the same or slower speed as another game is a bad game. By this criteria three of PlayJeff's four games would have been thrown out leaving the game that any reasonable person would select as the only choice. This may not eliminate all games but it does eliminate all but one game at any one game speed. It also insures that if a slower game remains it does so because it has a higher score than all faster games.

So what is left? All that are left are the legitimate choices between speed and score. For example there could be a 1 year 4K game and a 2 year 8K game and a 4 year 16K game. But there can only be one 1 year game, and there can be no 2 year game with the same or lower score as a 1 year game, etc.

Dependent on the exact scoring in the round any one of these might be the best possible game to use. For example if the team has no chance at a score bonus then the fastest game is the best to use. Obviously if the team has no chance at a speed bonus then the highest score is best to use. There is also the possibility that choosing a medium scoring game that is also medium fast could give a team a little of both speed and score bonus.

So once all the "bad" games are removed then all that are left are games that could be the best game dependent on the precise scoring of that round. From there the answer is simple. Just select one of these games at random. The choice is eliminated and there is no more argument.
Reply #202 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Games selected by random, sounds fine to me. Of course for transparency any situation that may arise no MVL admin could make a random selection should they be a member of that team.

That is perhaps a given but it's good to have it on paper.
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Reply #203 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Games selected by random, sounds fine to me. Of course for transparency any situation that may arise no MVL admin could make a random selection should they be a member of that team.

That is perhaps a given but it's good to have it on paper.

Selected by random yes, but from only the set of "good" games. I wouldn't be overly concerned about the transparency thing but since the commissioner and vice commissioner are on different teams it makes sense to add this. Probably should be added to the random assignment of a backup game if that ever happens as well. I wonder if we should then specify that commissioner and vice commissioner always be on different teams.

Haven't heard a response to this from any of the major proponents of captains choice though.
Reply #204 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Selected by random yes, but from only the set of "good" games.


I can certainly agree with this.

And, just wanted to get it straight, we're using the Score by speed and vice versa tie-break method, right? 17 out of 22 active members' votes is voice enough to represent the majority of the league.
Reply #205 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
And, just wanted to get it straight, we're using the Score by speed and vice versa tie-break method, right? 17 out of 22 active members' votes is voice enough to represent the majority of the league.

Certainly seems like it. Technically I had stated that the voting would be open until the start of Round 6 but we are probably very close to that. The current results are 17 votes as you mentioned with 9 agreeing to break speed ties with score and score ties with speed, 5 supporting no tiebreaks, 2 supporting ties broken by submission time and 1 abstention.

Although it would be nice to get the remaining 5 votes in I think the outcome is pretty clearly in favor of the speed/score tiebreak method.
Reply #206 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i'm in agreement with Mumble's synopsis of randomly selected from 'good' games.

for the sake of record, do we have any other pressing matters that need to be addressed before Round 6? It seems that the vote, while not everyone, is at least a super majority of active players. We seem to have come to at least a basic agreement on submissions that we can clean up for use. I think those were the two active issues, with the AltMeta being the ongoing side one.

I did have another thing I had thought about. Now, don't read into this too much, but I was just wondering about if at the end of a season if we wanted to hold "elections" for the Commissioner and Vice-Commissioner offices.
Reply #207 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Random choice from among the "good" games (as described by Mumble), is an excellent compromise. I'd vote yes for that.

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Reply #208 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Actually I've thought of a couple of ways to perhaps better the automatic selection criteria. The current method just eliminates obviously bad games and then requires random selection among the remaining games. However the criteria of what is a "bad" game is rather simplistic and it allows a number of game to filter through that most reasonable people would agree are obviously "bad".

To give you an idea of what I mean let's say we have a 2 year 10000 game and a 3 year 10025 game. I think most people would agree that it's "obvious" that the extra 25 points was not worth the extra game year and would conclude that the 3 year 10025 game should be excluded. However since the 3 year game is technically a higher score than the 2 year game my previous criteria would not eliminate the 3 year game from selection.

The problem with this method is how to actually quantify this effect and then how to decide at what arbitrary level to make this decision. Clearly the score difference should be based on some percentage of the score. The level is somewhat more problematic. Clearly everyone would agree that my above example that a extra 25 points (or 0.25%) isn't worth the extra year. OK what about 100 points (1%) or if not that what about 1000 points (10%)? For lack of anything concrete 10% seems to be a reasonable place to start.

So OK by this criteria a 2 year 10000 point game would automatically eliminate a 3 year 11000 point game from consideration but would allow a 3 year 11025 point game to be considered. Fine so far but now the problem comes into how the heck is this going to be calculated? Basically this requires that every game be compared to every other game with the same 10% margin required to avoid elimination. I'm still not sure of an easy way to do this but if someone sees an easy method to do this then let me know.

I do want to get back to the above method but first I want to suggest a third game selection criteria. Clearly for score purposes higher is better and for speed purposes faster is better. One thing we could do that would result in a far simpler selection that would almost always avoid the need for random selection is to simply calculate the score/years ratio for each game and then pick the game with the highest score per year. In the off chance that two or more games tie in this criteria then you use random selection to decide between them. Note that this selection method would have come up with the same result in PlayJeff's case as the game that was selected, but has the further advantage of being able to directly compare speed games and score games and comes up with basically the best "general purpose" game possible. This method is easy to apply and simple to understand, it selects the best "bang for buck" game without the potential of being specifically optimized for the current rounds scoring. I think I like this method better because it will almost always just give a simple answer that won't require random selection. It won't necessarily result in the best game each and every time but I think it will never select a "bad" game. All in all I think this might be the best option.

However using the score/years metric suggests a way to more easily implement the first method that I tried to describe above. In this case we calculate the score/years for all of the players games. Then we take that game *plus* any other game that has a score/years ratio of at least lets say 80% of the highest game. The 80% number is a totally random number and may require some tweakage but the idea here is to select the top "bang for buck" games and then allow random choice between them. This is less intuitative than simply selecting the max score/years as the only game but is more likely to allow the possibility of random selection between the "best" speed type games and the "best" score type games.

There's no way I know to "see" how this works so I'll use an example. In the following spreadsheet the years and scores are some quasi-random games that I made up. If the you use the method of using the biggest score/year ratio then the result is the 3 year 11000 game and there is no random selection required. However using the method of taking the top score/year game plus any other game at least 80% of that results in the random selection from the 4 games labelled TRUE. If we increasse the threshold to 90% then less games will be selected, in fact for the example I gave the only game that satisfies the 90% criteria is the 3 year 11000 game itself so we're back to only a single selection. Similarly, decreasing the threshold increases the number of games to select from. After playing around with this I think the 80% threshold is fairly reasonable.




Ok so I've now suggested three separate methods of selecting which of a players multiple MV games should be submitted to the League in this case of non-submission. I've summarized these three methods below. I would be happy with any of these but based on the combination of ease of implementation and of providing the best results, I think #2 is the best. Hopefully this provides a range of selection criteria that everyone can agree on.

1) Any game with a lower score and the same or lower speed as another game is eliminated from consideration and the game submitted to the league is randomly selected from the remaining games.


2) The score/year ratio is calculated for each of the players games and the game with the highest ratio is submitted to the league. If two or more games have an identical score/year ratio then the game submitted to the league is randomly selected from these games.


3) The score/year ratio is calculated for each of the players games and any game with a ratio less than 80% of the highest ratio is eliminated from consideration. The game submitted to the league is randomly selected from the remaining games.


Reply #209 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i wish i could think in these terms. I understand them easily enough, but its not a thinking pattern I would come to on my own....anyhow, I like #2, but I'm ok with #3
Reply #210 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Actually as a note to the above I think it's reasonable to use the criteria of option #1 as a pre-filter on submission method #3.

Clearly the method 1 criteria should eliminate the 3 year 9000 game and the 3 year 8800 game from consideration even before the games are compared. Note that this is not necessary in method #2 since those games will automatically be eliminated. This would leave the random selection based on a 80% threshold to the following three games.

1 year 3000
3 year 11000
4 year 12500
Reply #211 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
for everyone else that isn't following the wording and math quite as well... it is a simplistic process, just has a few steps to it.

Type One: Every game has a ratio that is generated when dividing score/years. One thought is to go with whichever has the best ratio, or more simplistically known as the "best bang for your buck"; its not necc. the best game, but it should be the best overall game. Takes out randomness, in most cases.

Type Two: We eliminate games that are obviously bad, and then proceed to use the ratio. From there, every game that is at least 80% as good as the best ratio is up for random selection. This has its own merits and drawbacks. There is a chance one could end up with a so-called "weaker" game, but to fit the 80% profile the game is going to have a good score or fast speed (comparatively) and so you still have a good chance of getting the results desired.
Reply #212 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Proposal 2 works best for me. Interesting approach Mumble.

And, just wanted to get it straight, we're using the Score by speed and vice versa tie-break method, right? 17 out of 22 active members' votes is voice enough to represent the majority of the league.


It would seem we are not going to get any further votes on the issue, but....and i don't want to prolong the process, but i recall we wanted a clear choice here and i'm not so sure 9 V 5 gives us that clear choice.

Perhaps another vote running throughout round 6 where only these 2 choices are up for selection. Granted it may gives us an equally decided result, but it is worth considering...no?

Probably should be added to the random assignment of a backup game if that ever happens as well.


This happened already too when the Villainy needed a back-up game played, i differed the selection to FB. Having these clearly outlined though would be best.
I wonder if we should then specify that commissioner and vice commissioner always be on different teams.


Agreed.

I did have another thing I had thought about. Now, don't read into this too much, but I was just wondering about if at the end of a season if we wanted to hold "elections" for the Commissioner and Vice-Commissioner offices.


I had thought this too. If we are to proclaim ourselves as this democratic entity then i think we should at least explore the idea of elections.

I certainly do not wish to lose my position but it would be the fair way to go. The only thing is, i would always have to have some sort of contact with any new commissioner as i would have to alter some of the OP's. A small obstacle though.

Do we have anyone with aspirations to either office?

Reply #213 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think having the administration of the league be spread among the various teams is a good idea. But this brings up the potential problem that the teams get shuffled every three rounds, so neither commish or vice-commish would potentially be a "permanent" position, because the team membership is always shifting and they might end up on the same team. Maybe that means an election every three rounds? Might be too much of a hassle.

I like option number three for selecting which game to submit. It selects good games, but also still leaves some element of randomness in play.

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Reply #214 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I did have another thing I had thought about. Now, don't read into this too much, but I was just wondering about if at the end of a season if we wanted to hold "elections" for the Commissioner and Vice-Commissioner offices.


I think that would be a problem logistically. As long as it's not broken, I see no reason to fix it. If the commissioner or vice commissioner needs to be changed, we could always hold a vote for that.

As always, I'll bow to the majority's decision, but we already seem to have complicated this thing enough without elections.

As for the other proposals, I like option 2.
Reply #215 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Also, what about the other league positions? If there are elections, would those positions be included as well? Would anybody be insane enough not to vote for Mumble as Rule-keeper? ;)

Kzinti empire2.JPG Sentient species taste better...
Reply #216 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It would seem we are not going to get any further votes on the issue, but....and i don't want to prolong the process, but i recall we wanted a clear choice here and i'm not so sure 9 V 5 gives us that clear choice.

Perhaps another vote running throughout round 6 where only these 2 choices are up for selection. Granted it may gives us an equally decided result, but it is worth considering...no?

9 vs 5 is pretty clear but in a perfect world I would agree that given there were 4 options to chose from a runoff election is a reasonable thing to do. However on the flip side getting 17 of 22 or 23 is pretty good turnout compared to our first fiasco.

I'm not sure I want to tempt fate or try the patience of the league any further on this issue. I say we write it up and go from there. We can always reopen a rule for discussion as long as it's not within the middle of a round. Certainly a rule carries some natural resistance to change because of inertia but if the people can make a rule then they certainly can unmake it as well.

I had thought this too. If we are to proclaim ourselves as this democratic entity then i think we should at least explore the idea of elections.

I certainly do not wish to lose my position but it would be the fair way to go. The only thing is, i would always have to have some sort of contact with any new commissioner as i would have to alter some of the OP's. A small obstacle though.

Do we have anyone with aspirations to either office?

I think elections is a good way to go however I would not like these to change too frequently. If you think about it these "jobs" are rather thankless positions and I'd hate to use someone up before they're good and sick of the position.

I would like to go with the same person for a year tenure before changing out anyone unless it's they that decide they're sick of doing it. Perhaps we could go with a 6 month election cycle with a two term limit. Perhaps even a year tenure. We are already very close to the 6 month time right at the moment and I don't think it's wise to have an upheaveal right about the time we are trying to move over to the AltMeta. (Whatever happened with that anyway, Oh yeah, I owe the league an initial write-up, I'll get to it I promise).

We could also go with a more British method of keeping people in power until there's a vote of no confidence. However, calling a vote of no confidence is kind of an insult whereas a scheduled election doesn't mean that anyone is unhappy with the leadership.

Personally I'm quite fine with the leadership as it is for now, however if the people want an election then the people should have an election.

As far as rule keeper and the score keeper that's even more thankless and confers virtually no real power. However again if I felt that the league wanted someone else to do the job I certainly wouldn't stand in the way. I look at this job just as I look at playing GalCivII. It's bringing order out of complete and utter chaos. When you first look at it you think "Oh God, what a mess" but once the game is won it's something you can look at with pride.
Reply #217 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Personally I'm quite fine with the leadership as it is for now, however if the people want an election then the people should have an election.


I'm not for elections, but if we have to have them, I could easily go along with once every 6 months or a year. That's not too bad. I don't like the idea of term limits though. If a Commissioner or Vice Commissioner is willing to do the job, they should be considered whether they've been here for a year or 10.

You're also right that the rulekeeper, scorekeeper, etc have no real power and all of these are thankless jobs. We should show our appreciation to those willing to step up to the plate and take these tasks on. I'm not sure that elections and term limits are a way to accomplish that.
Reply #218 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think a 6 month tenure is good, when taking into account the average longevity of the GalCiv player, or any game in general. I'm for holding elections, but this is not to be taken as a reflection of my opinion of the current leadership, which I think has been great. I do like the idea of a democratic process though.

I was actually joking about electing the Scorekeeper and Rulekeeper. ;)

Kzinti empire2.JPG Sentient species taste better...
Reply #219 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
well my thought had been the end of each "season"; season 1 i thought was kinda a fluke ending that early, season 2 is currently at 5 rounds, and by the time we actually count start date to end date it will be nigh close to six months, if not more. I also saw the end of a Season to be the only time we should have drafts unless absolutely needed.

When I was a founding member of my comm. college's choral board, we put into place the position of "Past President". This member, who would have served as president the previous term, gave us continuity that a group of new individuals wouldn't have. If we went a democratic route, i see no reason why we couldn't just give Neilo the title of Honorary Commissioner. He wouldn't be the one choosing the Round Setup but would be on all the discussions and could easily update threads as needed.

I see no reason for term limits, though I do kinda like the idea of other people getting a chance to take the reigns. Sometimes a fresh pair of eyes can do wonders...though, sometimes you get someone who (******political rambling*****)

I'm against the offices of Commissioner and Vice-Commissioner being held by a Team Captain. If a captain would like to run, and wins, he must forfeit his team captaincy (kinda like a US Senator running for President). The team would then select among themselves their new captain.

A Commissioner and Vice-Commissioner shouldn't be on the same team. If two members of the same team run, and win, then one individual would need to be shuffled into a new team. I suggest the Commissioner automatically due to the inherent nature of the post.

I see no reason that Score Keeper couldn't be held for elections also. Due to the way the Rulebook thread is organized by Mumblefratz it would be difficult to have someone else in the Rule Keeper position. I can think of some fairly easy remedies, but I'm unsure how palatable those would be. The easiest would be having a very visible link to the new thread that would continue the Rules.

Not that I'm all gung ho here or anything, I'm just trying to present a coherent system to everyone.

So here's how it would work.

Season ends. Draft and elections ensue. At end of this period, let's say Marshall is elected the new Commissioner. Neilo takes up Honorary Commissioner position. FireBender wins his position, Mumble wins his, and Dystopic wins mine.

Marshall would cede the BladeRunner captaincy, and would be the one making the Round setup and any rulings needed. Neilo would be there for input and altering OPs. FireBender and Mumble don't have to make any changes. And finally, Dystopic takes up the score keeping which is easy cuz its just tallying and its not like I make my own threads just to post the scores on.

Anyhow, that's just an idea how it could work.

Reply #220 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think throwing all this election talk on top of everything else that we're doing or trying to do isn't really needed. I mean if say, every six months you ask the members of the MVL if anyone wants to run against the current commish (or other positions). If no one steps up you move on, and I would think if no one did that is reassurance that everyone is happy with the way things are going. If someone does just have a (hopefully)quick election and move one.

This is already taking a life of it's own with everyone coming up with their vision of how the elections should/would go and sidetracking the current issues that are holding up the begining of the next round. If anyone is unhappy with anything or knows of something that can be better,they don't have to be the commish to suggest it and get it implemented if deemed worthy. In a way we're all commissioners. :D 

btw: I like number 2 :)
Reply #221 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Anyhow, that's just an idea how it could work.

These are all interesting ideas but could we first come to a conclusion about selecting games in the case a player has multiple games posted to the MV but none submitted to the League?

It does seem that some of the proponents of captain selection can seem to tolerate one or the other of my ideas but I haven't heard enough responses to know whether or not there is a concensus of opinion about which one. Also I'm not even totaly sure if at least one of these ideas is acceptable to all the proponents of captain selection.

Also of more immediate concern than going off about elections is the concern about having to readjust the teams for round 6. Has this been settled yet?

Once we've resolved the above two items then I'm fine with going down the garden path of defining an elective process. However the shortest term period that I would be willing to consider is six months which by my basic reckoning wouldn't be until after round 6.

Also to be honest I have not been impressed so far by the willingness (or the lack thereof) of the league to participate in the simple act of voting. Clearly elections involve voting. If we are to go down this path then I would suggest we have a number of "trial runs" of the voting process. For one we should vote to find out if people favor elections. We should also probably have a number of votes to define the process.

If we can keep folks participating at about the 75% level that we received for the tiebreak vote then perhaps we can be successful with this. However if voting participation drops off much below this then in my opinion there is not much validity in the process.

We were basically successful with this in the Metaverse Council but we didn't really have all that much time to mess around. Even allowing only 5 days for a vote to occur really does stretch out a decision making process. People need to keep informed of the issues and make a concerted effort to get their vote in quickly.

If people really want to go down this path that's fine but I think we will need to see a significant increase in the overall willingness to participate within the League. From what I've seen I'm somewhat doubtful we can maintain the interest of most folks for long enough to accomplish this. However I'm certainly willing to give it a try.
Reply #222 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i really need to remember how easy it is for all of us to get off track.

anyhow...

Point One: game selection. My vote is behind the Best Overall Game, no randomness. Its quick, its easy, and it prevents any confusion or complaining.

Point Two: Round 6 teams. Myself, Mumblefratz, and Neilo seemed to be coming to a general consensus that no action needed be taken. We were the only ones that commented on the subject. We were waiting to hear from KzintiPatriarch, as his team was the most affected. He replied in #302 on the Round 5 thread saying that he was willing to roll with the punches. Since we usually gain at least one player each round, it is very likely that Team D will be just fine.
Reply #223 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Round 6 teams. Myself, Mumblefratz, and Neilo seemed to be coming to a general consensus that no action needed be taken. We were the only ones that commented on the subject. We were waiting to hear from KzintiPatriarch

I do think this is resolved because Kzinti mentioned that he was OK with going ahead "as is" in post 302 of the Round 5 thread, but I just wanted to verify that we're set to go.

Also I assume and hope that some folks have made a concerted effort to contact PlayJeff because as was pointed out his absence at the end was very uncharacteristic.

As I said I like option 2 because of the ease of implementation and the high probability that this method requires no random selection. But I think #3 winnows the field to the best few games and probably gives the team a reasonable coin flip chance of getting the best possible outcome. I actually am rooting for the team to get the best possible outcome in this case it's just I object to it being a certainty.

One further point here is that I would like to give preference to the opinion of those that adamantly supported the right of captains choice because I feel that it's their willingness to compromise that has allowed us to reach a mutually acceptable solution. So if they prefer #3 then I would tend to accede to their preference, seems the least we can do to meet them halfway. If I remember correctly FB, Kzinti and Dystopic were the most vocal in support of captains choice, however please correct me if I forgot someone.
Reply #224 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Also I assume and hope that some folks have made a concerted effort to contact PlayJeff because as was pointed out his absence at the end was very uncharacteristic.


I have attempted to quite a dew times, no avail of course.

Has anyone seen Nocticulus around, his profile shows him active on Jan 16 and he has a recent game submitted. If anyone sees him him drop him a line, he may be interested in playing again.
Reply #225 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
ive sent Nocti a PM

as far Jeff...its not that he's been on and not stopped by, we're looking at a complete absence altogether. This also includes for the few of us that have other methods to communicate such as messenger where the absence has been equally present.

I hope that everything is well in Jeff's world but maybe it is best to proceed as if he left the MVL. We can easily reinstate him if he appears again, but holding a spot may not be the best way to proceed.