The Essential Civ 3

Last year Apolyton members produced The List, a 500 page document sent to Firaxis that included innumerable suggestions for Civ 3. By following a credo of "If Only One Idea..." that list was successful in getting at least some of its ideas into the game prototype at Firaxis, and perhaps more.

The problem, if there was one, is that 500 pages of ideas can't possibly be included in the game. Also, it doesn't give anybody a clear idea of what MOST fans think Civ 3 should look like. The Essential Civ 3 list will. The EC3 will reveal to Firaxis and fans alike what the majority of players believe are the ten most essential changes for Civ 3.

The EC3 is not intended to be just a list of ideas. It is a list intended to give a unified vision. Where The List told everything players want, the EC3 will clarify what players value. Something the designers can refer to as a guide when weighing the thousands of suggestions. And something to give the fans the confidence of knowing that, if nothing else, at least we showed 'em what we wanted.

The EC3 demands that each fan who participates ask themself the hard question, "What is the ONE THING I want to see in Civ 3?" By doing that, where the List was 500 pages, the EC3 will be ONE PAGE (well, about). So welcome, and whether this is your first time here or whether you're a seasoned veteran, we want your ideas!

1. Nominating and Discussing

Until the end of the day, March 1, you will find two submission threads in this forum:

Essential Civ 3 Fixes
Essential Civ 3 New Ideas

As long as they're open, you may nominate ONE IDEA in each thread. Each idea nominated in these two threads will be given an ID number and cut and pasted by Korn469 or Raingoon into its own thread for discussion. THIS IS THE TIME TO DISCUSS EVERYONE'S IDEAS! This phase will last until 11:59 EST, Wednesday March 1, 2000.

2. Seconding the Nominations

After the March 1st deadline to submit Fixes or New Ideas all authors have until 11:59 EST, Friday March 3rd to discuss, revise, and reconsider the final draft of their idea. This is the draft you want submitted for nomination to the final list. And, if ultimately included on the final list, this is the draft that will be sent to Firaxis.

Starting on Saturday March 4th we will post the final nominating threads, using the final draft of each idea. You may second up to four other nominations (you are assumed to have seconded your own). The authors should be sure their ideas have been edited to their liking. Once this phase begins, you will not be able to change the language of your idea again.

To second a nomination, simply post to that particular thread "I second this." After one week the top 5 nominated ideas in each category will be compiled together in a list of 10 ideas.

3. The Final Vote

After the initial nominating and discussion and after the final nominating and "seconding" process, Mark or Dan will put up the list of 10 ideas on a poll in the Civ 3 main page for another week, and everyone will vote for or against the entire Essential Civ 3 List. If the list does not get a 60% majority it will not be considered "essential" and will NOT get sent to Firaxis. If it does receive a 60% endorsement, then off it goes!

It is important to remember that there will be a lot of great ideas that don't make the Essential Civ 3 list -- possibly even your own. And that's ok because the design team at Firaxis has probably already seen all our ideas many times before. We aren't really trying to send them one more list. They've already got some pretty good ones. Hopefully, we are sending them a picture of what we, the fans, want to see changed the MOST -- what will make it a true Civ 3 and not a "Civ 2.5." So, in the final vote, even if your idea is not in the top 5 of either category, ask yourself if the spirit of your idea is.

Right now we're in the heat of the discussion phase. No matter what your idea, we want to hear it! And we want to hear what you think of the ideas already posted. To post and read what's currently being discussed, here again are the two main threads:

Essential Civ 3 Fixes
Essential Civ 3 New Ideas

Remember, the Essential Civ3 List will stop taking submissions at 11:59 EST Wednesday March 1st 2000. Happy posting!

i'll look into it and figure out what to do about all the problems you have addressed sometime tommorrow

There is a motion to combine the graphics idea, but only one of the authors has so far consented. ICS and borders also have redundant suggestions and could be combined. I suggest we wait to make those calls when we're about to begin officially "seconding" the nominations. Then we can combine all likeminded suggestions and give the authors a last chance to say why they shouldn't be combined, if they're so inclined, which I'm sure won't be the case.

good idea! since raingoon started both threads i guess he will have to edit his threads, but that is a good idea...

raingoon

a conference committee is having the idea posters if at all possible tying the similar ideas together in one thread

New Business

here are two new ideas i just had...

1. or the final list, everyone needs to redraft their final idea, and make it as complete as possible. but the entire length of the idea should be 100 words or less...so basically

when the time comes we want people to write the final idea that people get to nominate for the candidate list. these ideas should be clear consise, lacking spelling or major gramatical errors, and should be 100 words or less.

2. after the march 1st deadline to submit Fixes or New Ideas we should give the people to Friday March 3rd to discuss, revise, and reconsider their final idea draft. Then starting on Saturday March 4th we should post the nominating threads using the final draft of each idea...which all participants must do in order to have their idea posted, after March 1st and before March 3rd the person who submitted the idea must post a final draft to have it posted for the nominating threads...then we move onto the nominating process

so basically we give the people a few days to get a final draft done and for allow time for any last minute improvement of the ideas

how does that sound?

We will have to make an effort to keep this forum from becoming unmanageable -- and to that end I'll try to get those links up, just as soon as Mark or someone explains how to do that (I never had to do that before)!

to make a link you will have to use html and type in {a href="insert link here"}name of link{/a}
and use < instead of {

ex.

The Essential Civ 3 - Guidelines

don't worry about the new ideas, i will start a new thread and have yin26 to close your original thread so i can edit it and cut down on your management time

yes people who have already started to second ideas will have to resecond them for a few reasons

1. at the time they made their second, they didn't have full knowledge of all the choices available

2. the final draft of the idea they seconded might have changed so they might want to second another idea

3. the idea they seconded might be dropped

4. this is the discusion phase, and not the nominating phase...the main point of this phase is to collect ideas and discuss them and then write a clear and meaningful idea to send to firaxis

Clarification

do we need a non-biased person to act as a vot counter to make sure that people do not go over their five nominations per list vote limit? or do you think people are ok with us doing it? i want this to be as legit as possible that's why i am asking

could you do one more favor? i did some cleaning up and found that four current threads don't belong in the New Ideas list. could you lock these four threads which are more of fixes than New Ideas?

EC3 New Idea #2 - IMPROVED GRAPHICS
EC3 New Idea #7 - FAST GRAPHICS
EC3 New Idea #22 - Animated Water
EC3 New Idea #31 - A killer soundtrack

thanks in advance!

once a person decides on their final draft here is the form it should have

You must submit a final draft for your idea to get a nominating thread

the words final draft at the top of the post

this means that by this post will go to the nominating thread exactly as it is in the final draft with no changes

the title of the idea

the idea. it should be clear, consise, contain no spelling errors, contain few if any other types of errors. the idea should tell exactly what it does and should explain the idea. it should be a self contained idea. that means no references to outside materials for example it should not say "use the list". the wording should be such that there is little room for confusion on the idea. since it is a self contained idea, the idea itself must be 300 words or less. this will make it possible to expalin some of the more complicated ideas. this is the final form of how the idea will get sent to firaxis. (if it does get sent)

below the idea in the final draft one can put up to a 300 word argument for including their idea. this will not be sent to firaxis and can be in any form and can say anything so long as its 300 words or less. this will go in the nominating thread with their idea. it should be clearly seperated from the idea by some easily recongnizable means. for example...

the idea

***

the argument

nominating and voting: each idea will get its own nominating thread, everybody can nominate up to five ideas per list. if u have an idea in a particular list it counts as a nomination. the nomination threads should remain clear of posts and when a persons enters a vote they should say either, i second this or i vote for this all nominations so far are just informal and you have to nominate an idea in its nominating thread for it to count towards the official total. all nominations are final. so carefully read over each and every idea before you make your nomination. once a vote is cast, it cannot be recended.

besides the nominating threads we will open a vote tracking thread...as soon as you make your first vote, post in the thread and tell what you voted for in each list and what your total number of votes are. go back and edit your post with each vote so it is current. this will allow easy monitoring and keep voter fraud to a minimum.

me and raingoon will monitor the votes to make sure people don't exceed their limit. and resolve any differences as they come up. if anyone thinks that either raingoon or I will not be impartial if we have an idea submitted to the list, then i will not submit an idea and i will be the one to monitor the votes. i encourage everyone to take personal responsibility and follow the rules. so far we have 41 ideas, only ten will make it to the list so 31 people with good ideas are going to get disappointed. that is a sad fact of life with this list, but do not let personal disappointment turn you off to the list. when the list is finished see if it's a good guide for firaxis. if it is then vote yes for it when the time comes. with this list firaxis will know where the fans stand...the Essential Civ3 List rejects Civ2.5 and hopefully will help firaxis to make the game we all want

reminders: the submission phase ends at 11:59PM EST March 1, 2000.
the final draft phase is extended to 8:00AM EST March 6, 2000
me and raingoon will put up the nominating threads on March 6, 2000 and voting will begin then.

quote: Originally posted by SnowFire on 02-28-2000 08:18 PM For the record I'm opposed to the idea. Either Firaxis is interested in our input or not, and if they are, then we should just re-send the List or something. We cheapen all the other ideas sent by making only a few seem important.

snowfire,

i'm just curious but so do you think that every single idea included in the list version 2.0 is of equal importance? if you do then i must disagree

to defend this idea, i want to say this...

this is not a replacement for the list, it is only a compliment.

this doesn't tell firaxis everything we want, the list has already been sent, it has already got its shot...

this is a completely democratic process and if the people don't agree with the content of the list they can vote it down...

everyone can take part and everyone has equal say in deciding what goes into the list

and finally

Why is it wrong to pick the ten things you want most? What is wrong with priorities? I think that priorities are good...and the original philosohpy of the list was

quote: if only one idea gets included then the list is a success"

so just because some good ideas won't get included in The Essential Civ3 List even though ten good ideas will be included then this is a travisty of justice? i hardly think so...

also the list forum had really died down...lately things have been more active and the EC3 list does not proclude making a list version 3.0, and actually the EC3 list is a good precurser to making a list version 3.0

however because of your critisism i suggest we include a disclaimer that says something to the effect that this is just ten ideas most people agree were essential to making civ3, and that there are various other great ideas in the list that they shouldn't ignore

quote: Originally posted by raingoon on 02-29-2000 04:31 AM I'd say the EC3 is working out to be quite timely.

...and may i say congrats to raingoon, and korn469 for looking after the list and keeping it under control.

quote: ***The Essential Civ3 Mail Update!*** Current Status of the EC3 list The submission stage of the EC3 list is over. The EC3 list currently has 21 active topics under Fixes and 34 active topics under New Ideas. We are now about to proceed to the next stage, which will be the official Nominating Process. However, before we can do that, each topic must have a final draft. The only person that can submit a final draft is the one who had the original idea. For example, DaveV is the only person who can submit the final draft for New Ideas #1 Open Source AI, since he started it. All submissions MUST HAVE A FINAL DRAFT to be included in the official nominating process. To submit your final draft, open up your thread and label your final with the words Final Draft in bold, and then place you idea under that. That is so it will be easy to identify your final draft and place it in the nominating thread. If you do not submit a final draft for your idea then unfortunately it will not be included in the EC3 nominating process. Once the Final Draft is put on the nominating thread there is no changing it, so make sure it says what you want it to say. A final draft should follow these guidelines: -It should contain an idea, not just a complaint. It should not say just Fix Settlers. It should offer some solution on how to implement the idea. It doesn't have to be completely detailed, it just has to offer some constructive criticism. -It should be as clear and concise as possible, a good final draft should be easy to understand and the gist of the idea should be readily apparent. Since this is going to Firaxis, the Final Draft should have as few spelling errors as possible. We don't want to look like idiots. -The Final Draft of your idea should be as brief as possible. A SUGGESTED length is between 300-600 words. However, if it takes longer than that to explain the idea that is fine. Please do not argue for your idea in the Final Draft, just give the idea. Please do not submit a 30,000 word Final Draft either. -Please look over suggestions and critiques of your idea that have came up in the discussion of your idea. Try to either incorporate what was said or offer some solutions to the problems brought up in the discussion in your Final Draft. -Because of some technical difficulties it has taken me an extra day to send out this notice. Because of the short notice, the Final Drafts are due by 11:59 Wednesday March 8, 2000. -Take what little time you have and discuss your idea and work out the kinks. These ideas are going to Firaxis (if they pass) and they need to be ready for prime time. It is a definite possibility that Sid Meier and other great gaming minds will read these ideas and consider them for Civ3, so they had better be ready to stand up under some harsh criticism. The EC3 List will contain 5 Fixes and 5 New Ideas. Since presumably all of the ideas contained in this list are Essential to making it Civ3 and not Civ2.5 all of the ideas should be unique. Right now there are a number of trade threads. To be exact there is one Trade thread under fixes and two under New Ideas. DaveV, Imran Siddiqui, and Pythagoras come together and try your best to create one compromise trade idea. The same is true of regional boundaries. Waynehead you and EnochF try to make a compromise thread. If i left out any trade or regional boundaries threads, please get together with the others. Try to come to a consensus that is agreeable to all, because only one version of an idea is eligable to make the final list. Once we have all of the final drafts we will move to the Nominating Phase. Any nominations in the discussion threads do not count. Only Nominations in the Official Nominating Threads will count. If you have not already signed up in the EC3 Email List Thread, please do to show your support for the EC3 List. MarkG since you are on the email list could you please put up a reminder that final drafts for the EC3 list are due by wednesday? One last thing is i would like to thank everyone for their participation! I would like to extend special thanks to my co-conspirator in EC3 List Raingoon, and I would like to thank DanQ and MarkG for giving the EC3 so much support! If you have any questions please email me at korn469@mindless.com korn469

so in summary, if you have a thread you need to post a final draft and you need to do it by wednesday...on thursday two nominating threads will be opened, one for each list, you will have have votes in each thread and you must vote for your own idea. also all of your nominations should be in a single submission for counting purposes...

so you will only post one time and you will post your five votes, please only post once...cluttering up the thread could harm this process so i ask you to please follow the guidelines...

this is a form of competitions and most of these great ideas won't get sent to firaxis, so in that spirit there will be a lobbying+*****ing thread, post in it all you want so the official nominating process will have five threads

a Thread with each of the Fixes Final Drafts in it numbered and titled

a thread with each of the New Idea Final Drafts in it numbered and titled

two official voting threads

a thread for everyone to promote their EC3 ideas in and to give commentary or whatever

*there will be no more delays in the cutoff date for final drafts...it's time to wrap the EC3 up

yes the voting system has changed slightly because originally each idea was going to get it own thread, since that would be over 50 threads, that is just not feasible. Because that is not feasible here is what we are going to do.

There will be four threads.

One will contain all of the final drafts from Fixes. One will contain all of the final drafts from New Ideas. These threads will be locked so nobody can post in them.

Two will be voting threads. One for fixes, one for new ideas. In which a person can vote for their five Fixes and the five New Ideas, meaning that each person has ten total votes for the 10 item EC3 list. Five votes in the Fixes List, five Votes in New Ideas List. If you submitted an idea vote for it.

At the top of the voting threads will be an explanation of the proceedure and there will be links to all of the voting threads. When you vote, you simply list your five ideas for that list (hopefully in numerical order) and you put them in a single post. Then go and do the same thing in the other list.

Also i was thinking of including a lobbying+commentary thread. What does everybody think of that? Is it needed? Would it be used? Unless a couple of people tell me that it is need then i guess it won't be needed.

But to summarize

you go to the voting threads (one for fixes one for new ideas) and you list your five choices for the 5 item fixes thread, and then you do the same for the 5 item New Ideas Thread. The complete EC3 List will contain 10 ideas, the top 5 fixes and the top 5 new ideas. If you have an idea you should vote for it. All votes count the same and everybody has five votes per list. There will be detailed instructions and links to all of the voting threads in the first post.

Does that answer all of your questions? Does that sound like the way to do it?

Just append "#nn" to the url. I just posted to New Idea #25 - Improved Trade. This link connects directly to my post:

../../Forum28/HTML/000312.html#20