On 17 December 2013 17:21, Kerim Aydin <ke...@u.washington.edu> 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?
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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 Manifesto both to the following text:
1. Beans, Grains, and Drops are crop types. Each crop type is a currency.
When harvested, a Bean becomes two new Beans; a Grain becomes three
Grains; and a Drop becomes one Bean or Grain, randomly chosen by the
Ant Farmer.
2. Workers are a type of ants. All ants are assets.
3. A player can cause eir own Workers to sow or harvest any crop. Each
Worker can perform at most one task per day.
4. When a player first becomes a member, e is awarded 5 Beans,
5 Grains, and 1 Worker.
5. 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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Tiger
