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Questions vs. Proposals.

• If you would like to propose a new option, simply write it in under the appropriate heading. If no appropriate heading exists, create a new one.
• If you would like to start a discussion about a proposed option, start a thread at the end of this document.

As of November 9th, all proposed options should be listed on this page. We will then discuss them in the forum below and work toward a final decision on how the simulation will be played.


LOCATION:
* Weber Arena

Communication:
The wireless connection in Weber is too weak to use laptops for communication. Our only option is cellphones. Any ideas?
Buzzable.com maybe? http://www.buzzable.com/worldsim (basically like an SMS-based chatroom)

We will also just have a basic PA system to deliver messages throughout the room.


Basic Dynamics of the Simulation: Rounds or No Rounds?

Advantages of Rounds:

• Provides a clear moment for people to "feed themselves."
  
• Mark symbolic time (e.g. Round 1=1450-1650, Round 2=1650-1750, etc.)
  
• Provides opportunities to provide envelopes with additional hard power, technologies, etc that represent changes over time.
  

Disadvantages of Rounds:

• May be difficult to mark rounds if people are scattered all over campus. (one solution may be to send text messages alerting that a round has ended.)
  
• In some ways the rounds have always felt like artificial stopping points throughout the simulation.

Professor Wesch's inclination: We should try to create a simulation without rounds, but it may be too difficult.

Option 1: Well, I was thinking and what if we had rounds, but the time-table for them was different for each culture. In real life not all cultures/areas of the world advance at the same time soo I was thinking it would be logical for the cultures that have the most advantages for technological leaps, ability to have faster population growth, etc to have more "rounds" than those cultures that obviously aren't capable of having such advances. I'm not sure exactly how this could work, but I figure it would allow us to have more of a "real" feeling of the helter-skelter type of world we live in while still keeping cultures moving in a general direction. This could work through the use of text messages to specific cultures at specific times ... little messages that would slightly change the rules of the game and mark the passage of time for those cultures.

Option 2: Using rounds to keep track of time and events would be the best way to conduct the simulation, in my opinion. The biggest advantage to using rounds is that it gives a break every so often. The break could be as long as 5 minutes or even as short as one minute so that the simulation didn’t stop for too long of a period and lose its momentum. During this break, groups could take time to discuss what has been going on amongst their group and other groups. It would give members a chance to voice their opinions and suggestions on what the culture should do next. This way, the entire group could benefits from everybody’s ideas. Also, as mentioned in the wiki it would give staff members to pass out items like hard power and let the T.A.’s check up on their individual cultures. Even though using rounds may seem somewhat fake and make the simulation feel more like a board game, it seems like it would be too difficult to try to run the simulation without giving short stopping break every so often.

Option 3: I agree that it would be best to do the Sim without rounds, but that just might be too difficult in all honesty. So I am proposing a hybrid idea. Have the Sim be broken up into five 20 minute rounds that everyone stops at, but give the colonizers and the cultures that advance quicker in their new technologies updates every 10 min (halfway through each round), which would make the game quite dramatic and it would force cultures to adapt very quickly to a constantly changing world (basically just like today's world). This would force people to make decisions and create events that would affect the world, because the smaller cultures would know that the colonizers are getting these updates and would have to counter in some way. (possible alliance creations, protests, etc...)

Option 4: I think it would be difficult to get rid of rounds altogether. However, since every culture will be different and moving at a different pace,
each culture should have rounds at different times. Since we can receive information via text message, cultures can receive information at different times instead of everyone getting new information at once. Quicker advancing cultures should have more rounds to receive new
information since they will be moving faster in the ways of technology, etc. Therefore, they need to be able to adapt to changes quicker than
cultures who are less advanced.


Subsistence: This should be the "engine" of the game. We need something that people must do in order to survive and prosper.

Must haves ...

• a way to symbolize famine
• a way for colonizers to take over the land and disrupt the subsistence pattern (one idea, if using items found on campus, perhaps a flag represents land possesion and if you lose your flag in a war or to colonizers you have to go to whoever owns your flag for harvesting permission and pay taxes?)
  

Wouldn't it be awesome if ...

Brainstorm: What items are available on campus that we might use to represent food and natural resources? (especially near Umberger and Weber) Are there any pinecones? nuts? acorns?

• we did not need to use any external props (use objects occurring naturally on campus instead of Fruit Loops)
• cultures could develop new technologies to increase production (and that these changes would be reflected in their culture)
• we could use rocks, sticks, or acorns to represent food and natural resources
  

Option One: Keep it as it was in Spring 2008. All foragers, horticulturalists, and pastoralists get a box of Fruit Loops to start the game. At the end of each round they must "harvest" or "gather" a piece of food from the box of Fruit Loops. If somebody is not able to eat, this represents a "famine." Colonizers can take over the "land" (Fruit Loops) through taxation or occupation. They can also convert the land to other forms of production (mass production of Fruit Loops, Cocoa Puffs, Cotton, or naturalresources such as oil). If colonizers take the land, locals are then dependent on them for money and/or food. They have to work for the colonizer in order to earn their living.

Option Two: Card Game. Same as above, but the number of Fruit Loops you can harvest is limited by the cards you hold. Each group (other than colonizers) starts with a selection of cards totalling about 28 (more than enough to harvest the Fruit Loops needed to survive for the round). However, all of the cards are of the same suit, and each card you use to harvest must be of a different suit. You must trade with other groups to acquire the cards you need. For Round Two, the rules change. At the end of Round Two, you can only harvest with cards of the same suit. Round Three, back to needing cards of different suits. Round Four, you need the same suit again (but it must be a different suit than you used in Round Two.

Option Three: Use natural resources: I am pretty sure that there are pinecones behind the Weber building so we could use them for natural resources. The number of pinecones a culture starts with depends on the location. Places with plentiful soil start with more pinecones. Rocks could be another idea for natural resouces. There might be some type of berries across the road from weber that we could use for food. That way we are using things found outside instead of fruit loops.

Option Four: Use fruit loops as in Spring 2008. However the harvest of food can be symbolized by a game. For instance, pinecones can be gathered before the simulated and divided among groups. There will a basket for each group, and the object of the game is to shoot the pinecones into the
basket from a certain distance away from the basket. If all or most of the pinecones make it into the basket, that symbolizes a plentiful harvest and the group would receive a larger amount of fruit loops (food). If few pinecones make it into the basket, that would symbolize a bad harvest year and maybe even famine if they do not make a certain number of pinecones into the basket. The number of pinecones a group receives will vary depending on the type of soil and climate the group has; this means that for some groups, it would be vital to make the pinecones in the basket and have a good harvest. But if a group has a favorable climate and soil type for harvesting, they may have more pinecones and more chances to have a plentiful harvest. If famine occurs (because the number of pinecones made fell below a certain quota), the members of the group will be forced to leave their home and travel to another culture where they will have to work or be slaves in exchange for food.

Option Five: Technology will be developed throughout the game. In order to show this, we could to text message updates. Each colony must solve a puzzle/ or mind twister. Reply back to the puzzle and if correct that colony will then receive an amount of technology. With that technology that will allow them to increase production. For example: After round 1, Wilownya correctly solved the riddle and was then award 2% technology increase. This means that for every amount of food or labor produced we can multiply it by 2% and add that to our total number of output. It is important to have increasing technology because this will greatly affect the level of output a colony is able to produce. If the puzzle/ or mind twister is not answered correctly then no points are deducted, but they simply must wait for the next round to try the next riddle. Each round, each colony will have a chance for 2% levels of technology increase. By the end of the rounds this could be significant in who will be able to produce.

Option Six: Symbolizing Famine: Different colored buttons will be provided to each culture to symbolize levels of hunger. *Red= Extreme Famine (Complete Breakdown) *Orange=Severe Famine *Yellow=Famine *Green= Food Crisis *Blue= Food Insecure *Purple=Food Secure

Global Economy:

Must haves ...

• items found in different regions of the world must be combinable into items of greater worth
• some items should only be found in certain regions of the world, simulating the relative scarcity and abundance of items around the world

Wouldn't it be awesome if ...

• the items were not worth specific dollar amounts or points, but instead their worth could be decided by the world market (through the negotiation of buying, selling, and trading the items)

Option One: Keep it as it was in Spring 2008: There were 4 primary objects of value: cotton (yarn), jewels (Fruit Loops), coffee and chocolate (Cocoa Puffs), and natural resources (yellow notecards). Natural resources could be exchanged directly for hard power when they were found and assembled. Fruit Loop necklaces were worth 100 points and a bag of 20 cocoa puffs wrapped in foil was worth 20 points. The great thing about this system is that colonizers had to colonize at least 3 cultures in order to manufacture the valuable necklaces (1. an island where Fruit Loops could be "mined" 2. an area where cotton (yarn) could be grown and harvested (cut). and 3. a place where the Fruit Loops and yarn were shipped to be assembled into necklaces). This created a great simulation of the global economy. We will want to be able to do this regardless of the final option we choose.

Option Two: Have "levels" of objects of value:
We could have 4 different resources all located in different cultures, and have two of them able to make an object, three able to make an improved object, and the fourth, when added to make the most superior version of this object. An example of this system could be building a house out of cardstock (or notecards), tape, sticks/matches/toothpicks/straws (to add stability to the corners), and scissors? (to make doors and windows with?). The more functional and stable a house is, the more points a culture receives.

Option three: This goes along with option 2. We could use legos to build a culture. Use the legos to make a fort or base. The more legos your culture collects the bigger, and stronger, your fort becomes. If we did it this way then the cultures with the most resources(power) have the best forts(better protection for you culture).

Option Four: Keep the same system as Spring 2008. This system has already proved to be great and successful. The four objects of value (cotton, jewels, coffee and chocolate, and natural resources) can by symbolized by yarn, cheerios, cocoa puffs, and yellow notecards. The yellow notecards
(natural resources) can be hidden throughout the every groups’ land and would need to be searched for by them as the simulation started. Each
group would also have an object of value specific to them, which could also be hidden throughout their land. Because each culture only has one item of value, it would a great incentive for people to colonize other lands or at least travel to them for their items, increasing trade. Also, there would be an incentive to travel to at least three different lands to make cherrios necklaces which would be worth a great deal of value. They would first need to acquire the cherrios, then travel somewhere to get yarn, then travel to a third destination where the necklaces can be assembled. The more necklaces made would symbolize greater wealth and prosperity to those who did not have as many or any necklaces by the end of the simulation.

Option Five: This is not exactly an option, but I thought it might be able to fit in somewhere. Paper clips could represent machines. Each colony would start out with a certain number of paper clips, with more going to the more industrialized colonies. Every time a colony takes over another group, they can collect more paper clips. When enough are collected, different shapes can be made. Different shapes would be worth points (i.e. triangle-20 points, square-50 points, pentagon-100 points, etc.) The more points you receive, the greater the advancement of machinery.

Foreign Affairs: We have to create a "game within the game" of foreign affairs (wars, diplomacy, etc.)

Must haves ...

• a way for cultures to "go to war" with one another and establish dominance
  
• war should involve some risk for the attacker

Wouldn't it be awesome if ...

• a culture's "hard power" could naturally increase or decrease as their technology and population change

Option One: Keep it as it was in Spring 2008. Hard Power cards are distributed before the beginning of the simulation based on various cultural characteristics (population, technology, social organization, political organization, values, etc.) Cultures can attack one another using these cards. The winner of a war takes over the "power X" of that culture and can now dictate what is done with the land.

Option Two: Create a "mini-game" to play out wars.

1. Dodgeball. Cultures that have a higher population could have more players, and therefore more of a chance to stay in the game. (Say a 100,000 person culture gets 1 player while a million person culture gets 10) Higher technology could be represented by being allowed to have more balls or some sort of defense mechanism, like shields. This way, each side has risk, but they each have a chance to win as well. Other games that could work?
   
2. Dice: We need something that would play out quickly. What about a simple role of the dice? Higher population and higher tech = more die to roll (or a die with more numbers on it; say a 20-sided vs. a 9 sided die).
3. Coin flips: One team would obviously have heads and one would have tails for the duration of the “battle.” Each culture would have a set amount of times they could participate in a coin toss depending on their technology level, population level, or some other limiting factor. For example, a very large culture that chose “heads” might get to go through 5 tosses and the smaller culture that chose “tails” might only have 3. There is still a chance that the smaller culture might win by getting all three of their tosses as tails (giving them a score of 3) and the larger culture only getting 2/5 of their tosses being “heads” (giving them a score of 2), but the larger or more technologically advanced culture has the definite advantage due to more chances to flip their coin. Whether we use this system or something like the wiki’s suggestion of dodge ball, I think the simulation should definitely have something that is interactive to simulate battles and wars.
4. High Card Wins: In line with Option Two of the Subsistence Card Game above, you simply play High Card Wins. The attacker steps into your "power X" to challenge. You can defend by playing a card which they will try to top. If they top the card, they GET your card and they take over the Power X. Once they control the Power X, they can dictate what you do with your Fruit Loops and you can no longer travel without their permission.
5. Puzzle: The cultures would have to do a quick, very short crossword puzzle. It could be the same one for both of them, and whoever finishes first wins. The more people, the wider knowledge base, the better the advantage. Also the more likely the larger culture will be able to send in "spies" for espianoge on the other culture's progress.
6. Washers: The cultures would have to go to one of two or three washer game boards set up in different areas of the arena. The "warriors" of the culture or if there are none then those who are in charge of the culture are the throwers in the game. Who ever started the attack would have first throw. The more population and technology a culture has the more throwers they can have.Of the 2 cultures at war who ever has the bigger population gets one more thrower, and which ever culture has more technology gets one more thrower. Although each team only gets three throws each round the throwers can change according to the cultures resources. The first culture to 20 points would when the war. Points are set up like so; on the board but not around the hole is 1 point, a "leaner" or one that is half over the hole is 2 points, and one that is in the hole is 3 points. If a culture goes over 20 points on their last throw the opposite culture gets one more throw to try to when the game. The culture that wins the war will get extra resources for their culture and other advantages in the world simulation game.

Option Three: Include Alliances. Cultures could make alliances with other cultures. When a war begins, each culture could recruit their allies and pool hard power to try to win. This would help symbolize the effects of world war, and also the soft power that cultures can gain through trade, marital alliances, etc.

Option Four: Countries with a high amounts of Hard Power can challenge anyone. When they challenge you draw a card from a deck of cards, high card wins, ties go to the defender. If the attacker wins they have an option to plunder, natural resources, food, or take 5 percent of your population for their own.

Option Five: Education: When colonizers go and colonize another culture, it would be an interesting aspect if they had the option to educate their new subjects. They could simply give them a book (which would represent education) and the newly colonized society to choose to do with it what they wish. They could use it to comply with their new colonizers (and possibly add like 10 hard power or so to their colonizers power) or use to go fight their colonizers and form an alliance elsewhere.( and possibly take 15 or 20 hard power to their new alliance) So basically it would be up to the colonizers if they wanted to educate their new people, while risking a revolt, but would give them more hard power and possibly make the colonizers and the colonized get a long better, or they can not educate them and treat them like dirt while still risking a revolt.

Option Six: When colonizers arrive at their destination, the defendants can either 1) try to compromise by offering trade goods or even their own weapons
(which may lead to an alliance), or 2)fight. If they decide to fight, the battle will decided by the amount of weapons each side has. At the beginning of each round, every culture must divide their weapons (symbolized by cards) into two; the first part of weaponry is dedicated for travel and colonizing and the rest is what is used at home for defending against colonizers. The different numbers on the cards represent stronger types of weapons, and the numbers on the cards can be added together to get a total of how strong a culture’s weapon power is as a whole. If colonizers arrive and a compromise cannot be made, the two cultures compare weapon power. The colonizers show what weapons they have brought and the other culture reveals what they have as weapons for “at home.” If the colonizers fall short, they can either return home with what weapons they brought, or they can “chance.” If they choose to “chance,” a three-round game of rock, paper, scissors is played. If the colonizers win 2 out of 3 or better, they can opt to bring over enough weapons to beat the culture and colonize them. If the colonizers lose the game of rock, paper, scissors, they must leave 50% of their weapons and people there and return home. If the colonizers win, however, the culture’s inhabitants, weapons, and all possessions are under the control of the colonizers.

Option Seven: If a colony wants to take over another colony they would have battle in a game with a combination of RISK and War. Each colony would start out with a deck of cards, a certain number of technology points, and points (10 being the highest amount). The greater the population, the more points and technology points they start out with. Lets say a colony with 8 points wants to take over a colony with 3 points. They would both flip over one card, and the high card would win. BUT the colony with 3 points would only get to play 3 rounds. Each time one colony looses a round, they lose a point. If a colony feels they are about to lose the war they can use a technology point. A technology point allows you to flip over two cards instead of one, so you have a greater chance in winning that round. The colony who wins will obtain all of the loser’s resources.




Natural Resources: We need to have limited natural resources available to represent the limited resources on planet earth. The race for natural resources should become a "game within the game" played *only* by those who need them (industrialized states).

Must haves ...

• must be limited
• should be difficult to find or "refine"

Wouldn't it be awesome if ...

• finding natural resources could automatically increase the culture's hard power or overall wealth (in the past they have had to trade them in to a TA or Professor Wesch ... this may be difficult if we are playing around campus).
  

Option One: Keep it as it was in Spring 2008. Natural resources were represented by yellow notecards that were separated into small pieces and hidden throughout the room. Industrializing states had to find them and then hire "miners" to put them together for them. One complete card could be traded in for additional hard power and new technologies to improve natural resource extraction (these were given in the form of hints about where to find more). There were only enough Yellow Cards to last until the simulated year of 2070 (so we ran out before the end, reaching an energy crisis).

Option Two: Diamond Cards as Resources. Slight revision to keep with the theme of a Card Game: Ace of Diamonds (or even any Diamond?) represents natural resources. Not sure how to "score" this yet, or how it could be traded for new technologies or hard power though.

Option Three: Face Cards as Resources. Face cards could be hidden around the room like natural resources. The backs of the cards could contain hints about where more can be found (simulating the growth in knowledge and technology). To represent resource expenditure, we could make a special rule about face cards ... that they are lost as they are played? something else?

Option Four: Puzzle Pieces. Large-sized children's puzzles, with maybe 10-15 pieces (or less) could be broken apart, and the pieces hid around the room. The culture that harvests each piece, puts it together, and turns it in gets a natural resource. Each piece could have a hint about where the next piece is. The culture who puts it together would need to be mobile (which would represent higher technology), and need people to put it together for them (perhaps a culture they've colonized).

Option Five: Letters of the Alphabet as Resources. Instead of hiding pieces of yellow cards around the room, we could hide letters of the alphabet. Each group would have to find three letters in sequencial order. Those three letters could be traded in for additional hard power and new technology. Groups could also trade letters in order to get three in a row if they wanted.

Option Six: Give everyone natural resources, because well technically all cultures have things in nature that are valuable. But the colonizers, who progress quickly, should also run out quite quickly, while say a tropical culture would barely have to use theirs. This would almost force colonizers to go and colonize and also make the smaller societies decided what to do with theirs, which would likely lead to either cooperation, revolts, or alliances. Which would make things quite interesting. But also it should require a certain level of technology in order to use these natural resources, too their full capabilities atleast.


Option seven: Natural resources can be simulated by breaking pieces off of pinecones or maybe leaves. Place these pieces around the room. Then once a culture gets a certain number of pinecone pieces then they recieve an amount of hard power. If we used leaves we could break the leaves off and place them around the room, and that way you have to find the exact pieces of the same leaf to obtain hard power. This could also be done by substituting paper instead of leaves but wouldn't be as fun.

Option Eight: Natural resources can be represented by blocks, such as legos or any type of children’s building blocks, which could be pieced together.
Industrializing states would look for these blocks and then hire workers to piece them together. When four blocks are found and put together, they can be traded in for hard power, new technology, and a clue about where more blocks can be found.

Option Nine: Letters of the alphabet would be hidden throughout the arena. As colonies find letters, they can create words. Each word they make would have to rhyme with one particular word, such as dime or cake. For every word that is created, the colony would get an increase on their natural resources. An example is if a colony has to find words that rhyme with cake and they find the word lake. They would get one times the amount of resources (i.e. the same amount of resources they started with). But if they find another word, such as bake, then they would get two times the amount of resources.

Option Ten: Puzzle pieces could be spread around cultures and our farmers or miners would be responsible for finding these pieces. They would then need to fit them together to get something productive out of the natural resources.

Mobility Restrictions: We need a way to simulate the limits of where people could travel at different stages in the simulation. Colonizers should be able to travel virtually anywhere from the start of the game. Others will need to be much more limited, based on their technology.

Must haves ...

• limits to mobility that are realistic based on a culture's technology, etc.

Wouldn't it be awesome if ...

• mobility could expand as the game progresses and a culture gets more technology or sets up trade routes, etc.
• we could use actual items to simulate different mobility restrictions (for example, more technologically advanced cultures could use scooters or bikes to move around)
  

Option One: Keep it as it was in Spring 2008. Each culture creates a "mobility map" before the start of the simulation that realistically shows where they would be able to travel during the simulation. If they want to travel to a culture that is not on their mobility map, they must travel with somebody who can take them further (like hitching a ride).

Option Two: This could be combined with option one. Certain cultures can only travel in certain ways, to symbolize their technological level and ability to travel faster or slower than other cultures. For example, perhaps a culture with limited technology, but with camels could only travel via piggyback. Cultures with higher technology could wear rollerblades, use skooters, or pull one another on sleds.

Option Three: A culture’s way of traveling will depend on their advances in technology. For example, walking could represent the lowest form of
travel, followed by rollerblades, then scooters with higher technology. A culture can only travel if they meet certain requirements, such as a certain population and a good enough harvest to ensure health for the entire culture. Also, each culture will be provided by a map at the beginning of the simulation. The maps will be different and will not include every state that exists. If a state is able to colonize another state on their map, they are welcome to use their map plus the
map of the state they colonized so they would then know more. So eventually, colonizing states will have multiple maps to use for travel.

Option Four: I like idea of a having a “mobility map” that was proposed on the Wiki but instead of limiting certain nations form ever reaching other parts of the world, I think that in order to travel to a certain part of the world there should be a number value for doing so. Each country should then be given die and then in order to move to another part of the world the country should have to be able to roll that value or higher. As some countries become more dominant and higher in the world powers they should be given more die and thus makes its ability to more around the world easier. This could also be based off of the locations of the countries.






Other interesting factors that take care of themselves: The following are aspects of the simulation that do not require symbolic forms. They can be performed directly by players in the simulation.

Religion & Missionization: players can proslytize as they wish
Propaganda: players can try to create a good impression
Soft Power: players can try to influence each other through diplomacy, aid, propaganda etc.
Gestures: gestures help simulate ideas that are hard to quantify, such as nationalism and culture loss.

• To simulate culture diffusion, cultures could teach each other their gestures as a sign of friendship and peace.
  
• To simulate culture loss, colonized cultures could have to learn and use the gestures of their colonizers.
• If every culture had a "sacred" gesture, these rules/suggestions could be particularly powerful.
• List more ideas about gestuers here. What else could gestures help us simulate? Are there other actions/behaviors that we could assign meaning to, such as peace/war rituals?
• We could have each culture, before the simulation begins, decide one "offensive" and one "friendly" gesture. These would remain unkown to the other cultures, but if a visiting culture uses one of them, it could automatically affect relations. For example, the offensive gesture would mean automatic attack on the visitor and the friendly gesture would mean automatic trust. It could symbloize cross cultural miscommunications that happen in the real world.