Year Name for AMPU Poll

[vcczar]

For over a year I've been thinking about changes the names of the years. For instance, George Washington's first term begins in the half-term year called 1788. I named it that mainly because it's that's the election that Washington won to begin his first term. At times, I call this the 1788-1790 cycle to denote the half term. However, he doesn't begin office until 1789. I'm wondering if I should change all years from, say, "1788" for Washington's first term or "2020" for Biden's first term to 1789-1791 and 2021-2023. 

 

[ShortKing]

I would appreciate the change mostly because to me, if I start on the turn start date labelled 2020, I would expect to get to influence the 2020 election.

[10centjimmy]

I'm a little confused about the "Cop" trait.  If it's supposed to be the antithesis of "Illicit" then maybe a better term could be law-abiding, upright,  virtuous, or moral?

[vcczar]

Just now, 10centjimmy said:

I'm a little confused about the "Cop" trait.  If it's supposed to be the antithesis of "Illicit" then maybe a better term could be law-abiding, upright,  virtuous, or moral?

Yeah, the cop trait was kind of a filler word...I had RFK in mind for it. He went after the mafia and other things he saw as corrupting and illegal. I got the term from Gore Vidal, who hated RFK. He called him a "cop."

More on Vidal and RFK. Vidal would talk often about JFK and other politicians making jokes and telling stories, and RFK was all business all the time and never seemed to let grudges go. He portrayed RFK as a kind of killjoy and micromanager from hell. Vidal was friends with JFK, even though he thought JFK was a terrible president because he believed JFK was the only president to believe in the missile gap hoax that resulted in nuclear proliferation. He thought RFK had no concept of civil liberties. 

Vidal is prone to exaggerate, and I like RFK (and Vidal). But the "cop" mentality and the micromanging has also been noticed by others. RFK had a campaign persona (very likable, laid back, almost sweet) and a behind the scenes personal that has been called "ruthless." I think RFK saw himself as a protector of the people who were innocent and had to defend them against other politicians, power players and such who were often evil and perverse to him. I think a lot of this probably stems from what he knew about his own father and people his father worked with. 

[Willthescout7]

I said yes on the last question not because of a certain term, but more a general thing. Essentially, every time a word is used (such as cancel, gain, roll, etc) it should mean the same thing, a doctrinal term essentially. This will assist with both coding and understanding the game. 

For example, a board game called Oath has very specific wording for everything, because every word means something different. If you see move, you know what that means. It doesn't stand for multiple things, it's one specific action. Battle and Campaign mean different things, burn and remove mean different things, despite being only slightly different. 

There are parts of the rules (the block vs cancel debate comes to mind) where the same word is used to mean different things. Essentially, Ted, myself, or someone else needs to go through and verify that doctrinal terms are being used at every point they should, and words aren't meaning different things.

[vcczar]

59 minutes ago, Willthescout7 said:

I said yes on the last question not because of a certain term, but more a general thing. Essentially, every time a word is used (such as cancel, gain, roll, etc) it should mean the same thing, a doctrinal term essentially. This will assist with both coding and understanding the game. 

For example, a board game called Oath has very specific wording for everything, because every word means something different. If you see move, you know what that means. It doesn't stand for multiple things, it's one specific action. Battle and Campaign mean different things, burn and remove mean different things, despite being only slightly different. 

There are parts of the rules (the block vs cancel debate comes to mind) where the same word is used to mean different things. Essentially, Ted, myself, or someone else needs to go through and verify that doctrinal terms are being used at every point they should, and words aren't meaning different things.

Feel free to go through. The game has gone through so many layers of creative development that the rules have a lot of outdated terms and such as do things like legis props, and pres actions, and etc. 

[WVProgressive]

4 hours ago, vcczar said:

Yeah, the cop trait was kind of a filler word...I had RFK in mind for it. He went after the mafia and other things he saw as corrupting and illegal. I got the term from Gore Vidal, who hated RFK. He called him a "cop."

More on Vidal and RFK. Vidal would talk often about JFK and other politicians making jokes and telling stories, and RFK was all business all the time and never seemed to let grudges go. He portrayed RFK as a kind of killjoy and micromanager from hell. Vidal was friends with JFK, even though he thought JFK was a terrible president because he believed JFK was the only president to believe in the missile gap hoax that resulted in nuclear proliferation. He thought RFK had no concept of civil liberties. 

Vidal is prone to exaggerate, and I like RFK (and Vidal). But the "cop" mentality and the micromanging has also been noticed by others. RFK had a campaign persona (very likable, laid back, almost sweet) and a behind the scenes personal that has been called "ruthless." I think RFK saw himself as a protector of the people who were innocent and had to defend them against other politicians, power players and such who were often evil and perverse to him. I think a lot of this probably stems from what he knew about his own father and people his father worked with. 

It seems that I’ve seriously underestimated RFK. He sounds like the type of person we need more of in the world. I’ll have to look more into him.

4 hours ago, vcczar said:

I think a lot of this probably stems from what he knew about his own father and people his father worked with. 

I can certainly relate to this, a desire to make the world a better place being the result of knowing that your father was/is a bad person.
 

Regardless, back on topic, I second the proposal to rename Cop, and I would recommend Righteous, or Virtuous as I believe they would make excellent replacements.

[MrPotatoTed]

I call it 1788-1790, 1790-1792, 1792-1794.  Maybe just because I like even numbers?  And also because there's a gap between when elections are held and when the calendar year ends.  

So the 2022-2024 era ends with the 2024 election.  Then the 2024-2026 era ends with the 2026 midterms.  Etc.

Yes, if you overthink it, the 2024 winner doesn't start in office until 2025 (assuming it's not the incumbent).  But I just don't overthink it.  ;c)

Plus there's the age thing -- why is somebody still their 2022 age in 2023 and at least part of 2024?

Ideally, we'd change rounds to be yearly instead of bi-annual.  But then we'd have to change everything in the entire game.  Ha.  

As for other terminology, I think we need to choose one term for a few things that currently have multiple, conflicting names.

For example, we sometimes call Command/Judicial/Legislative/Governing/Admin "skill."  Sometimes we call it "expertise" or "experience"

But we also call Agriculture/Business/Economics/Education, etc "expertise" sometimes.  Other times, it's "experience."

I also think we have too many traits that overlap.  Why do we need illicit AND controversial?  Why do we need cop AND egghead or cop AND efficient or cop AND integrity, depending on how you interpret Cop?  Why do we need Decisive General when we already have General ranks and military expertise (if you need a given general to really stand out, make efficient matter on the battlefeed?)  

And the word "lowbrow" is too negative for what it's actually meant to be in game.  Maybe "commoner."  For that matter, egghead should probably be Wonk.

I also think some of our lobbies could be renamed.  "Human Rights" and "Civil Rights" are too similar.  Maybe make human rights "criminal reform" since it's judicial-based?  

And instead of "Big Agriculture" I'd change it to Farmers.   

 

Edited September 7, 2022 by MrPotatoTed

[ebrk85]

23 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

I call it 1788-1790, 1790-1792, 1792-1794.  Maybe just because I like even numbers?  And also because there's a gap between when elections are held and when the calendar year ends.  

So the 2022-2024 era ends with the 2024 election.  Then the 2024-2026 era ends with the 2026 midterms.  Etc.

Yes, if you overthink it, the 2024 winner doesn't start in office until 2025 (assuming it's not the incumbent).  But I just don't overthink it.  ;c)

Plus there's the age thing -- why is somebody still their 2022 age in 2023 and at least part of 2024?

Ideally, we'd change rounds to be yearly instead of bi-annual.  But then we'd have to change everything in the entire game.  Ha.  

As for other terminology, I think we need to choose one term for a few things that currently have multiple, conflicting names.

For example, we sometimes call Command/Judicial/Legislative/Governing/Admin "skill."  Sometimes we call it "expertise" or "experience"

But we also call Agriculture/Business/Economics/Education, etc "expertise" sometimes.  Other times, it's "experience."

I also think we have too many traits that overlap.  Why do we need illicit AND controversial?  Why do we need cop AND egghead or cop AND efficient or cop AND integrity, depending on how you interpret Cop?  Why do we need Decisive General when we already have General ranks and military expertise (if you need a given general to really stand out, make efficient matter on the battlefeed?)  

And the word "lowbrow" is too negative for what it's actually meant to be in game.  Maybe "commoner."  For that matter, egghead should probably be Wonk.

I also think some of our lobbies could be renamed.  "Human Rights" and "Civil Rights" are too similar.  Maybe make human rights "criminal reform" since it's judicial-based?  

And instead of "Big Agriculture" I'd change it to Farmers.   

 

A lot of this makes sense but just remember (and you would know better then anyone except @vcczar) that we would need to go through many thousands of events, actions, proposals and rules and rename everything we are changing.  Which to be fair we probably need to do some of to try and make sure terms mean the same each time. 

[ConservativeElector2]

16 hours ago, ShortKing said:

I would appreciate the change mostly because to me, if I start on the turn start date labelled 2020, I would expect to get to influence the 2020 election.

I agree with that assessment. 

[vcczar]

10 hours ago, MrPotatoTed said:

I call it 1788-1790, 1790-1792, 1792-1794.  Maybe just because I like even numbers?  And also because there's a gap between when elections are held and when the calendar year ends.  

So the 2022-2024 era ends with the 2024 election.  Then the 2024-2026 era ends with the 2026 midterms.  Etc.

Yes, if you overthink it, the 2024 winner doesn't start in office until 2025 (assuming it's not the incumbent).  But I just don't overthink it.  ;c)

Plus there's the age thing -- why is somebody still their 2022 age in 2023 and at least part of 2024?

Ideally, we'd change rounds to be yearly instead of bi-annual.  But then we'd have to change everything in the entire game.  Ha.  

As for other terminology, I think we need to choose one term for a few things that currently have multiple, conflicting names.

For example, we sometimes call Command/Judicial/Legislative/Governing/Admin "skill."  Sometimes we call it "expertise" or "experience"

But we also call Agriculture/Business/Economics/Education, etc "expertise" sometimes.  Other times, it's "experience."

I also think we have too many traits that overlap.  Why do we need illicit AND controversial?  Why do we need cop AND egghead or cop AND efficient or cop AND integrity, depending on how you interpret Cop?  Why do we need Decisive General when we already have General ranks and military expertise (if you need a given general to really stand out, make efficient matter on the battlefeed?)  

And the word "lowbrow" is too negative for what it's actually meant to be in game.  Maybe "commoner."  For that matter, egghead should probably be Wonk.

I also think some of our lobbies could be renamed.  "Human Rights" and "Civil Rights" are too similar.  Maybe make human rights "criminal reform" since it's judicial-based?  

And instead of "Big Agriculture" I'd change it to Farmers.   

 

1. I like the even years also. I'll do another poll with just two options and see what we get. 

2. Maybe annual for AMPU 2. My main reason for doing every two years is to speed the game up. You, me, and maybe 1,000 people in the world want to get bogged down in a game that lasts 500 hours. Most players, even if they love the idea of this game, won't want that, I don't think. If midterms didn't exist, I'd probably have a turn for every 4 years. There's a lot of things I want to do for AMPU 2, but much of it requires seeing if the game as is can funtion well on the computer. In some ways AMPU 1 is like a solid draft for AMPU 2 in my mind. 

3. Command, Legis, Military, Admin, etc. should be called "Skill." Economics, Welfare, Trade should be called "Expertise." Civil RIghts, RW Activists, etc. Should be called "Interests." Charisma, Egghead, Magician, should be called "Traits." Native American, Woman, LGBT should be called "Demographics." Feel free to streamline these in the rules or you could tag someone willing to go through and do this and I can give them access. I understand this is probably important. The flaw is my own, I'm the type of person that uses interchangeable terms all the time when speaking about things. I'm not really a terminology person. In fact, I sometimes get confused by other people's terminology. I'm open to changing terminology. 

4. Yeah, I'm keeping all the traits, "illicit" and "controversial" etc. Read my definitions in 3.0. There's slight differences that I think add flavor to the game. Illicit, for example, would be someone that's just atrocious as Attorney General. They might otherwise be capable and rule-abiding. It's basically a specific weak spot. You might have a 5 admin, and need to fill Attorney General, and say, "Oh here's a guy. Oh, shit! He's a disaster at the one office I need him to fill. Oh, well. Let's take the risk." Similarly, "Cop" is someone who just seems uniquely natural at being an Attorney General, whereas Efficient is someone that's just routinely efficient at everything. A Cop might be an otherwise mediocre administrator, but he or she is strangely good at Attorney general. I'd actually have more traits if I could think of more and had time to add more. I like that the politicians can have a large variety of characteristics, both those they are born with and those they earn. So I'm not changing this at all. Only the names of the terms. 

5. I don't want Efficient to be the trait for battlefield use because being efficient on the battlefield is very different from being efficient in politics. Similarly Cordell Hull, if he gains military, isn't necessarily going to be an efficient general. Decisive general is for battlefield use only. Efficient is for politics only. 

6. Yeah, I don't like low brow or egghead either. I came up with the latter only because Adlai Stevenson II was frequently called that during his failed presidential runs in the 1950s. Kind of just filler terms, and I'm happy to change them. I'll poll for changes to this. 

7. Human Rights and Civil Rights are defined differently if you read my definitions for them. Civil Rights is exclusively in regards to blacks. LGBT and women's rights are part of LW Activsits. The reaosn for this is historically there's not always a lot of overlap between the two, at least not until recently. A segment of abolitionists opposed voting rights for women, labor reform, etc. Even the Cold War Civil Rights era had a lot of non-liberal supporters of Civil Rights. LGBT rights came so late and weren't supported by people supporting rights for blacks. Human Rights is focused more to the rights of those who are not citizens. Sort of like International Human Rights, more accurately. They are driven to protect or call out perverse actions against Native American tribes, harsh anti-immigrant actions, and favor things like sanctuary cities, funding to curb AIDS in Africa, etc. 

8. Big Agriculture could use a name change, but it can't just be Farmers. Big Agriculture is a lobby for the mega farmers -- Plantation owners in the old days and those large-scale farms today. Small Farmers or single-family farmers aren't going to be part of Big Agriculture, necessarily, although they'll benefit from much of it. Big Agriculture is kind of like the rural version of Big Corporations. 

I'll wait until you respond to this before i make the terminology name change polls. 

 

[MrPotatoTed]

10 hours ago, ebrk85 said:

A lot of this makes sense but just remember (and you would know better then anyone except @vcczar) that we would need to go through many thousands of events, actions, proposals and rules and rename everything we are changing.  Which to be fair we probably need to do some of to try and make sure terms mean the same each time. 

This can actually be automatically done, it's just a "Find and replace" order.

[MrPotatoTed]

29 minutes ago, vcczar said:

1. I like the even years also. I'll do another poll with just two options and see what we get. 

2. Maybe annual for AMPU 2. My main reason for doing every two years is to speed the game up. You, me, and maybe 1,000 people in the world want to get bogged down in a game that lasts 500 hours. Most players, even if they love the idea of this game, won't want that, I don't think. If midterms didn't exist, I'd probably have a turn for every 4 years. There's a lot of things I want to do for AMPU 2, but much of it requires seeing if the game as is can funtion well on the computer. In some ways AMPU 1 is like a solid draft for AMPU 2 in my mind. 

3. Command, Legis, Military, Admin, etc. should be called "Skill." Economics, Welfare, Trade should be called "Expertise." Civil RIghts, RW Activists, etc. Should be called "Interests." Charisma, Egghead, Magician, should be called "Traits." Native American, Woman, LGBT should be called "Demographics." Feel free to streamline these in the rules or you could tag someone willing to go through and do this and I can give them access. I understand this is probably important. The flaw is my own, I'm the type of person that uses interchangeable terms all the time when speaking about things. I'm not really a terminology person. In fact, I sometimes get confused by other people's terminology. I'm open to changing terminology. 

4. Yeah, I'm keeping all the traits, "illicit" and "controversial" etc. Read my definitions in 3.0. There's slight differences that I think add flavor to the game. Illicit, for example, would be someone that's just atrocious as Attorney General. They might otherwise be capable and rule-abiding. It's basically a specific weak spot. You might have a 5 admin, and need to fill Attorney General, and say, "Oh here's a guy. Oh, shit! He's a disaster at the one office I need him to fill. Oh, well. Let's take the risk." Similarly, "Cop" is someone who just seems uniquely natural at being an Attorney General, whereas Efficient is someone that's just routinely efficient at everything. A Cop might be an otherwise mediocre administrator, but he or she is strangely good at Attorney general. I'd actually have more traits if I could think of more and had time to add more. I like that the politicians can have a large variety of characteristics, both those they are born with and those they earn. So I'm not changing this at all. Only the names of the terms. 

5. I don't want Efficient to be the trait for battlefield use because being efficient on the battlefield is very different from being efficient in politics. Similarly Cordell Hull, if he gains military, isn't necessarily going to be an efficient general. Decisive general is for battlefield use only. Efficient is for politics only. 

6. Yeah, I don't like low brow or egghead either. I came up with the latter only because Adlai Stevenson II was frequently called that during his failed presidential runs in the 1950s. Kind of just filler terms, and I'm happy to change them. I'll poll for changes to this. 

7. Human Rights and Civil Rights are defined differently if you read my definitions for them. Civil Rights is exclusively in regards to blacks. LGBT and women's rights are part of LW Activsits. The reaosn for this is historically there's not always a lot of overlap between the two, at least not until recently. A segment of abolitionists opposed voting rights for women, labor reform, etc. Even the Cold War Civil Rights era had a lot of non-liberal supporters of Civil Rights. LGBT rights came so late and weren't supported by people supporting rights for blacks. Human Rights is focused more to the rights of those who are not citizens. Sort of like International Human Rights, more accurately. They are driven to protect or call out perverse actions against Native American tribes, harsh anti-immigrant actions, and favor things like sanctuary cities, funding to curb AIDS in Africa, etc. 

8. Big Agriculture could use a name change, but it can't just be Farmers. Big Agriculture is a lobby for the mega farmers -- Plantation owners in the old days and those large-scale farms today. Small Farmers or single-family farmers aren't going to be part of Big Agriculture, necessarily, although they'll benefit from much of it. Big Agriculture is kind of like the rural version of Big Corporations. 

I'll wait until you respond to this before i make the terminology name change polls. 

 

There isn't much to respond to, sounds like we're just agreeing to disagree. Haha.  That's fine, it's your game.  Just providing my thoughts on it.

[vcczar]

36 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

This can actually be automatically done, it's just a "Find and replace" order.

The issue with this is that there might be times when the word being replaced doesn't need to be replaced. 

[Willthescout7]

Im willing to go through and clean up language and such. 

I think our end goal should be to make a 10 year old able to read and understand the rules. Places that might seem simple to us might slow Anthony down since he might not understand the implied meaning or misunderstand something and code it wrong. Or he'll need someone standing over his shoulder at all times to explain things. 

[vcczar]

49 minutes ago, Willthescout7 said:

Im willing to go through and clean up language and such. 

I think our end goal should be to make a 10 year old able to read and understand the rules. Places that might seem simple to us might slow Anthony down since he might not understand the implied meaning or misunderstand something and code it wrong. Or he'll need someone standing over his shoulder at all times to explain things. 

The crazy thing is he doesn't read the rules, he has me just type long paragraphs of what each thing is supposed to do from more of a coding perspective, and then he asks several questions and we go back and forth throughout the day until it's clear to him what he needs to do. For some reason, he prefers that to looking at the rules. 

Anyway, i'll upgrade you to be able to edit the rules. Is there a way for you to request being able to comment on your end?

[Willthescout7]

3 minutes ago, vcczar said:

The crazy thing is he doesn't read the rules, he has me just type long paragraphs of what each thing is supposed to do from more of a coding perspective, and then he asks several questions and we go back and forth throughout the day until it's clear to him what he needs to do. For some reason, he prefers that to looking at the rules. 

Anyway, i'll upgrade you to be able to edit the rules. Is there a way for you to request being able to comment on your end?

Let me try

[Willthescout7]

Looks like I can already make suggestions for you to approve.

[vcczar]

25 minutes ago, Willthescout7 said:

Looks like I can already make suggestions for you to approve.

Excellent!

[Vols21]

Starts in January of the "odd" year (example 1801) - basically with the new historic President being inaugurated (except the first era).   That would avoid any confusion like we had in "1960" where we started by running the election (which is a fun way to go to, but not what you had in mind, and I'm ok with that).