Re: DIS: subgame proto attempt

[Tanner Swett]

On Dec 18, 2013, at 12:32 AM, Ørjan Johansen wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Dec 2013, Tanner Swett wrote:
>> Med. Af.  Syria, Carthage, Spain
> 
> Not sure how much historical accuracy you're going for here, but I think 
> historically Roman Africa contained and started with (defeated) Carthage.

Yeah, historical accuracy would be ideal. I didn't do much research here; I 
just did a Google Images search for maps of the Roman Republic.

—Arufonsu

Re: DIS: subgame proto attempt

[Sean Hunt]

On Wed, Dec 18, 2013 at 11:36 AM, Kerim Aydin wrote:

> I think for score, the safest thing to do is self-ratify, and if no-one
> brings up the falsehood in a week, well, someone got away with something
> and that's that.


>_>

Re: DIS: subgame proto attempt

[Kerim Aydin]

On Wed, 18 Dec 2013, Jonatan Kilhamn wrote:
> On 18 December 2013 06:36, Ørjan Johansen  wrote:
> > On Tue, 17 Dec 2013, Jonatan Kilhamn wrote:
> >
> >>If the Ant Farm Manifesto states that a player's (Agoran) score
> >>would change, the Ant Farmer SHALL announce that change as soon
> >>as possible, and that announcement, if true, changes the player's
> >>score as announced.
> >
> >
> > I get a bit nervous when the requirements for changing a part of the game
> > state (Score) contains non-obvious Platonic complements ("if true").
> >
> > Greetings,
> > Ørjan.
> 
> I guess if that part's dropped, we're covered by the fact that
> officers CAN do stuff that they SHALL – so that if it is later found
> out that the Manifesto actually didn't say it should change (by
> inquiry case for example) then in fact there was no SHALL and thus the
> annoncement was ineffective. Provided the change hasn't ratified, of
> course.

I think for score, the safest thing to do is self-ratify, and if no-one
brings up the falsehood in a week, well, someone got away with something
and that's that.

The alternative is having the announcement change the score regardless,
and then have some kind of chargeback if it's wrong, with increasing
complication.  The platonic version's generally worked fine for other 
scoring we've used.

-G.

Re: DIS: subgame proto attempt

[Ørjan Johansen]

On Wed, 18 Dec 2013, Jonatan Kilhamn wrote:


On 18 December 2013 06:36, Ørjan Johansen  wrote:

On Tue, 17 Dec 2013, Jonatan Kilhamn wrote:


   If the Ant Farm Manifesto states that a player's (Agoran) score
   would change, the Ant Farmer SHALL announce that change as soon
   as possible, and that announcement, if true, changes the player's
   score as announced.



I get a bit nervous when the requirements for changing a part of the game
state (Score) contains non-obvious Platonic complements ("if true").

Greetings,
Ørjan.


I guess if that part's dropped, we're covered by the fact that
officers CAN do stuff that they SHALL – so that if it is later found
out that the Manifesto actually didn't say it should change (by
inquiry case for example) then in fact there was no SHALL and thus the
annoncement was ineffective. Provided the change hasn't ratified, of
course.


Um my point is that it _shouldn't_ depend on things the Scorekeepor cannot 
trivially check whether a score change is effective.


Greetings,
Ørjan.

Re: DIS: subgame proto attempt

[Jonatan Kilhamn]

On 18 December 2013 06:36, Ørjan Johansen  wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Dec 2013, Jonatan Kilhamn wrote:
>
>>If the Ant Farm Manifesto states that a player's (Agoran) score
>>would change, the Ant Farmer SHALL announce that change as soon
>>as possible, and that announcement, if true, changes the player's
>>score as announced.
>
>
> I get a bit nervous when the requirements for changing a part of the game
> state (Score) contains non-obvious Platonic complements ("if true").
>
> Greetings,
> Ørjan.

I guess if that part's dropped, we're covered by the fact that
officers CAN do stuff that they SHALL – so that if it is later found
out that the Manifesto actually didn't say it should change (by
inquiry case for example) then in fact there was no SHALL and thus the
annoncement was ineffective. Provided the change hasn't ratified, of
course.

>>If the Ant Farm Manifesto states that a player's (Agoran) score
>>would change, the Ant Farmer SHALL effect that change
>>by announcement.

Or does it require "CAN and SHALL" nowadays?

- Tiger

Re: DIS: subgame proto attempt

[Ørjan Johansen]

On Tue, 17 Dec 2013, Jonatan Kilhamn wrote:


   If the Ant Farm Manifesto states that a player's (Agoran) score
   would change, the Ant Farmer SHALL announce that change as soon
   as possible, and that announcement, if true, changes the player's
   score as announced.


I get a bit nervous when the requirements for changing a part of the game 
state (Score) contains non-obvious Platonic complements ("if true").


Greetings,
Ørjan.

Re: DIS: subgame proto attempt

[Ørjan Johansen]

On Tue, 17 Dec 2013, Tanner Swett wrote:


Med. Af.  Syria, Carthage, Spain


Not sure how much historical accuracy you're going for here, but I think 
historically Roman Africa contained and started with (defeated) Carthage.


I guess that was all the Republic had down there; Egypt didn't get 
included until the Roman Republic had essentially 
fallen. If I'm interpreting the Italian legend correctly, the yellow areas 
on 
 
were provinces before Augustus's conquests.


Greetings,
Ørjan.

Re: DIS: subgame proto attempt

[Kerim Aydin]

On Tue, 17 Dec 2013, Tanner Swett wrote:
> Going with the idea that a subgame should ideally be fun and interesting 
> right off the bat, rather than merely providing a mechanism for being made 
> interesting, I'm currently working on a draft set of rules for Fall of the 
> Republic. (Naturally, I'm trying to make them fun and interesting right off 
> the bat.)

By all means.  Would it be useful to write a generic subgame rule to attach to 
meanwhile,
or wait until it's more written?

Re: DIS: subgame proto attempt

[Tanner Swett]

Going with the idea that a subgame should ideally be fun and interesting right 
off the bat, rather than merely providing a mechanism for being made 
interesting, I'm currently working on a draft set of rules for Fall of the 
Republic. (Naturally, I'm trying to make them fun and interesting right off the 
bat.)

The ideal I'm aiming for is pretty much "nomic chess": simple pieces that 
interact in complicated ways, with lots of opportunity for legal wrangling.

For what it's worth, here's the map I've come up with (A. Minor and Med. Af. 
being Asia Minor and Mediterranean Africa):

RegionConnections
---
GreeceItaly, A. Minor
A. Minor  Greece, Syria
Syria A. Minor, Med. Af.
Med. Af.  Syria, Carthage, Spain
Spain Med. Af., Sardinia, Corsica, Gaul
Gaul  Spain, Italy
Italy Gaul, Corsica, Sicily, Greece
SicilyItaly, Carthage
Carthage  Sicily, Med. Af., Sardinia
Sardinia  Carthage, Spain, Corsica
Corsica   Sardinia, Spain, Italy

A half-decent visual map is currently at 
http://naga.s.zbasu.net/~tswett/FotR.png. I don't intend to keep this map up 
for an extended period of time.

—Aru

Re: DIS: subgame proto attempt

[Jonatan Kilhamn]

On 17 December 2013 17:21, Kerim Aydin  wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tue, 17 Dec 2013, Jonatan Kilhamn wrote:
>> Two things:
>> - I'd like it to reset every now and then, so that it's clear that the
>> point is to really go to town. Either a fixed time interval, or when
>> anyone wins, the entire Ant Farm Manifesto reverts to, say, that
>> state.
>
> Good idea; do you think this should be hard-coded in the Rule or soft-
> coded in the Manifesto?  What kind of interval do you suppose makes a
> good game?  (week/month/quarter/year).
>
Month, I think. I was going to say "maybe quarter if things are slow"
but if things are that slow it'll probably just stumble around for a
quarter with nothing interesting happening and then resetting,
achieving nothing. Resetting each month would (hopefully) in the same
situation lead to one month of no ant farming at all, and then when
someone tries something people know that they have to react within the
month or e'll get away with an easy win (or whatever e achieved).

And hard-coded into the rule.

>> - It doesn't have the "make rules around physical law" thing I really
>> liked with Fall of the Republic, and maybe without it (or something
>> else) it might be too much just another nomic. On the other hand, such
>> "hard" rules could be added later, by adding them to the Ant Farm rule
>> in the ruleset, requiring the Manifesto to conform to them eventually.
>> At its simplest we could have stuff like restricting how many beans or
>> whatever someone can hold in storage; for more complex stuff we could
>> define at a physical law level that beans grow when put in the ground.
>> Then the Manifesto has to relate to that – maybe it will be illegal to
>> grow beans in some situations, but always possible.
>
> The manifesto I wrote was definitely a stub and I'm not too attached to
> it (or the Ant metaphor, was just what popped into my mind in 5 min).
> I went for "very simple way to earn points" to start, assuming it would
> expand.  We could easily go for "very simple nomic" (e.g. a couple rules
> on precedence and rules change to start) or "very simple physics" (if we
> keep the Ant Farm metaphor, maybe start by describing the Sun as producing
> a max number of crops/week).  So if you have an idea you want to start
> with...
>
> Key word being "simple"! (which I might define as <10 1-2 sentence rules).
>
> -G.
>

Well, the Fall of the Republic theme is my favourite so far but it
does have one feature/bug yours doesn't which I'm unsure about: the
need of a referee. If people start doing crazy stuff, and if the rules
give the referee enough leeway, I can see the thing turning into an
rpg/nomic hybrid: "I tell my men to start doing X" and the referee has
to start thinking about who would notice them doing X, if X is legal
for them to do, if the people who notice have any incentive to tell
anyone, how much anyone would be able to stop the men from keeping
doing X until the next senate session, etc. And, well, I thin it
sounds fun but also probably comes with a lot of trouble, both when
writing the rules, trusting the referee, and actually playing the
thing.

I'd prefer "very simple physics" to "very simple nomic" though. I
mean, I've played "very simple nomic" a few times on other fora and...
I don't think it would add that much here.

How about this?

---

Create the following rule, The Ant Farm:

There exists an Ant Farm, which is an asset belonging to itself.
There exists a document called the Ant Farm Manifesto, which is
maintained by the Ant Farmer, which is an office.

The Ant Farm is also a Nomic whose rules are the Ant Farm Manifesto.
All Agoran players are players in the Ant Farm.  All Agoran rules
have precedence over the Ant Farm Manifesto. The Ant Farm Manifesto
can be changed (a) by Agoran Consent or (b) by mechanisms specified
therein. Other changes to it are secured.

If the Ant Farm Manifesto states that a player's (Agoran) score
would change, the Ant Farmer SHALL announce that change as soon
as possible, and that announcement, if true, changes the player's
score as announced.

There exists a document called the Default AFM, also tracked by the
Ant Farmer. At the start of each month, the Ant Farm Manifesto is set
to the text of the Default AFM, and any other gamestate information of
the Ant Farm is reset to blank slate. Changes to the Default AFM are
secured.

Create the following rule, Physics of the Ant Farm:

The following objects, if detailed in the Ant Farm Manifesto, are
subject to certain restrictions: crops and ants. The
Manifesto is free to define new types of these objects.

Any crop can be sown. If it is then harvested after at least two
days, it may transform as detailed in the Manifesto.

Ants can perform tasks, for example sowing or harvesting crops.

Set the Default AFM and the Ant Farm Manifest

Re: DIS: subgame proto attempt

[Kerim Aydin]

On Tue, 17 Dec 2013, Jonatan Kilhamn wrote:
> Two things:
> - I'd like it to reset every now and then, so that it's clear that the
> point is to really go to town. Either a fixed time interval, or when
> anyone wins, the entire Ant Farm Manifesto reverts to, say, that
> state.

Good idea; do you think this should be hard-coded in the Rule or soft-
coded in the Manifesto?  What kind of interval do you suppose makes a
good game?  (week/month/quarter/year).

> - It doesn't have the "make rules around physical law" thing I really
> liked with Fall of the Republic, and maybe without it (or something
> else) it might be too much just another nomic. On the other hand, such
> "hard" rules could be added later, by adding them to the Ant Farm rule
> in the ruleset, requiring the Manifesto to conform to them eventually.
> At its simplest we could have stuff like restricting how many beans or
> whatever someone can hold in storage; for more complex stuff we could
> define at a physical law level that beans grow when put in the ground.
> Then the Manifesto has to relate to that – maybe it will be illegal to
> grow beans in some situations, but always possible.

The manifesto I wrote was definitely a stub and I'm not too attached to
it (or the Ant metaphor, was just what popped into my mind in 5 min).  
I went for "very simple way to earn points" to start, assuming it would 
expand.  We could easily go for "very simple nomic" (e.g. a couple rules 
on precedence and rules change to start) or "very simple physics" (if we
keep the Ant Farm metaphor, maybe start by describing the Sun as producing
a max number of crops/week).  So if you have an idea you want to start
with...

Key word being "simple"! (which I might define as <10 1-2 sentence rules).

-G.

Re: DIS: subgame proto attempt

[Jonatan Kilhamn]

On 16 December 2013 23:42, Kerim Aydin  wrote:
>
> [Players in recent conversation (and everyone!).  Pls comment if this is
> the sort of thing that you might have in mind].
>
>
> The ANT FARM MANIFESTO
>
>   1.  Beans, Grains, and Drops are each currencies (collectively
>   'crops'; each currency is a 'crop type').
>
>   2.  When a player first becomes a member, e is awarded 5 Beans,
>   5 Grains, and 5 Drops.
>
>   3.  In every nomic week, the Ant Farmer CAN and SHALL award each
>   player 3 crops, where the type of each awarded crop is
>   determined randomly.
>
>   4.  At the beginning of each week:
>   a.  the player(s) who have the greatest number of Beans have
>   their score changed by +1.
>   b.  the player(s) who have the greatest number of Grains have
>   their score changed by +i.
>   c.  the player(s) who have the greatest number of Drops have
>   their score changed by -1.5-1.5i.
>
> Supporting Rule:
> Ant Farm (power-2)
>
>   There exists an Ant Farm, which is an asset belonging to itself.
>   There exists a document called the Ant Farm Manifesto (the Manifesto),
>   which is maintained by the Ant Farmer, which is an office.
>
>   The Ant Farmer's report includes the Manifesto and the disposition
>   of any assets or other entities [hereafter 'Farm Properties'] that
>   are defined solely by the Manifesto.
>
>   The Ant Farm is also contest[*], and a Nomic whose rules are the
>   Ant Farm Manifesto.  All Agoran players are also members in the Ant
>   Farm.
>
>   The text of the Manifesto can either be changed (a) by Agoran Consent,
>   or (b) through mechanisms explicitly defined in the Manifesto.
>   Other changes to the Manifesto are secured.
>
>   Changes to Farm Properties CAN be made only as explicitly described
>   by the Manifesto; otherwise such changes are Secured.
>
>   The Ant Farmer has the general ability to adjudicate conflicts that
>   arise regarding the Ant Farm.  The Courts SHOULD generally defer to
>   the opinions of the Ant Farmer on such matters.
>
>   The Ant Farm, via mechanisms described in the Manifesto, CAN cause
>   a player's score to change.  The Ant Farmer's report SHALL include
>   any recent changes made to score due to the Ant Farm.
>
>

Two things:
- I'd like it to reset every now and then, so that it's clear that the
point is to really go to town. Either a fixed time interval, or when
anyone wins, the entire Ant Farm Manifesto reverts to, say, that
state.
- It doesn't have the "make rules around physical law" thing I really
liked with Fall of the Republic, and maybe without it (or something
else) it might be too much just another nomic. On the other hand, such
"hard" rules could be added later, by adding them to the Ant Farm rule
in the ruleset, requiring the Manifesto to conform to them eventually.
At its simplest we could have stuff like restricting how many beans or
whatever someone can hold in storage; for more complex stuff we could
define at a physical law level that beans grow when put in the ground.
Then the Manifesto has to relate to that – maybe it will be illegal to
grow beans in some situations, but always possible.

I'm not saying any subgame needs that split, but I for one would enjoy it.

-Tiger

Re: DIS: subgame proto attempt

[Kerim Aydin]

   
[Players in recent conversation (and everyone!).  Pls comment if this is
the sort of thing that you might have in mind].


The ANT FARM MANIFESTO

  1.  Beans, Grains, and Drops are each currencies (collectively
  'crops'; each currency is a 'crop type').

  2.  When a player first becomes a member, e is awarded 5 Beans,
  5 Grains, and 5 Drops.

  3.  In every nomic week, the Ant Farmer CAN and SHALL award each 
  player 3 crops, where the type of each awarded crop is 
  determined randomly.

  4.  At the beginning of each week:
  a.  the player(s) who have the greatest number of Beans have 
  their score changed by +1.
  b.  the player(s) who have the greatest number of Grains have
  their score changed by +i.
  c.  the player(s) who have the greatest number of Drops have
  their score changed by -1.5-1.5i.

Supporting Rule: 
Ant Farm (power-2) 

  There exists an Ant Farm, which is an asset belonging to itself.
  There exists a document called the Ant Farm Manifesto (the Manifesto), 
  which is maintained by the Ant Farmer, which is an office.  

  The Ant Farmer's report includes the Manifesto and the disposition 
  of any assets or other entities [hereafter 'Farm Properties'] that 
  are defined solely by the Manifesto. 
 
  The Ant Farm is also contest[*], and a Nomic whose rules are the 
  Ant Farm Manifesto.  All Agoran players are also members in the Ant 
  Farm.  

  The text of the Manifesto can either be changed (a) by Agoran Consent, 
  or (b) through mechanisms explicitly defined in the Manifesto.  
  Other changes to the Manifesto are secured.  

  Changes to Farm Properties CAN be made only as explicitly described 
  by the Manifesto; otherwise such changes are Secured.

  The Ant Farmer has the general ability to adjudicate conflicts that
  arise regarding the Ant Farm.  The Courts SHOULD generally defer to 
  the opinions of the Ant Farmer on such matters.

  The Ant Farm, via mechanisms described in the Manifesto, CAN cause
  a player's score to change.  The Ant Farmer's report SHALL include
  any recent changes made to score due to the Ant Farm.

DIS: subgame proto attempt

[Kerim Aydin]

[How simple can we make this; one rule?]

Create the following rule, The Ant Farm:

 There exists an Ant Farm, which is an asset belonging to itself.
 There exists a document called the Ant Farm Manifesto, which is
 maintained by the Ant Farmer, which is an office.

 The Ant Farm is also a Nomic whose rules are the Ant Farm Manifesto.
 All Agoran players are players in the Ant Farm.  All Agoran rules
 have precedence over the Ant Farm Manifesto.

 If the Ant Farm Manifesto states that a player's (Agoran) score
 would change, the Ant Farmer SHALL announce that change as soon
 as possible, and that announcement, if true, changes the player's
 score as announced. 


The Ant Farm Manifesto is hereby set to:

 [followed by a very simple nomic to start, where the nomic
  defers to agoran rules for the legalese; e.g. the manifesto
  can just state that all proposals are passed with Agoran 
  Consent and save a lot of legalese in the Ant Farm itself].