The First Dynasty of Jumble

7 August 2021 - 21 August 2021

Ascension Address: spinning gears

clink
the machines whirr
doing their job
processing boxes
for a mysterious goal

thwack
another one made
something different
but for the same cause

what are the machines doing?
why are you here?

Change the synonym for Emperor to Factory. Change the synonym for Player to Worker. Set Dynastic Distance to Inactive. Set The Traitor to Inactive. Set the Dynastic Tracking page to “Factory Layout”.

Players

The following players were active at the start of the Dynasty:

ais523, Chiiika, Cuddlebeam*, Clucky*, Darknight*, Jason, Josh*, Jumble*, Kevan*, lemonfanta, pokes*, Raven1207, Trapdoorspyder

And at the end:

ais523, Bucky*, Chiiika, Clucky*, Darknight*, Jason, Josh*, Jumble*, Kevan*, lemonfanta, Raven1207, Trapdoorspyder, Vovix

Final Ruleset

• Ruleset 190

Gamestate

Factory Layout

Posts of Interest

(Note by ais523, who wrote this "posts of interest" section: As usual, I'm sorting these posts by the main threads they followed rather than strictly chronologically, so some posts are listed out of order.)

The False Start

Much of the false start to this dynasty had no lasting effect on the rules, as the dynastic rules were cleared at the end of it. Some of the more relevant posts:

• A new leader, a new crisis – The false start's ascension address. This subsequently turned out to be illegal.
• A clash between... – The false start's direction-setting proposal for the coregency mechanics – Jumble and lemonfanta would share ownership of the dynasty.
• This Means War – The false start's direction-setting proposal for the victory mechanics. This failed, leaving the dynasty somewhat rudderless, and may have contributed to the theme being changed at the restart.
• break() – A break from play for around four days due to a souring of the mood, used to discuss what had caused the situation and how to solve it.

The False Restart

After the break from play, there was an attempt to restart the dynasty with a new theme, but it didn't go as smoothly as planned:

• Take two! – A CFJ by the Emperor to reset the dynastic ruleset and gamestate, removing lemonfanta's special status. (This was posted as a CFJ because it happened during the break from play, in which Proposals were illegal.)
• Working Nine to Five – A proposal to change the theme. Immediately self-killed due to realising that the original Ascension Address was illegal (it changed a keyword to a rule that was already in the ruleset, which is not allowed because it causes problems for the next theme change ).
• It Was All A Dream – Declared that the previous dynasty had never ended (although it attempted to uphold the proposals that had passed in the meantime), allowing a new start with a new Ascension Address.
• spinning gears – The new Ascension Address, setting the new dynasty's theme.
• Unpaid Overtime – It's noticed that the new Ascension Address was also illegal, this time because not all the steps in its Atomic Action were completed. The CFJ voters decide to move forwards rather than rolling back.
• By Any Means – The Appendix accidentally prevented CFJs from making illegal official posts legal, so that needed to be fixed too for all the "uphold the posting of these proposals" CFJs to work.

Dynastic gameplay

• Floor Plans – The direction-setting proposal. Cycles happen once every 36 hours, giving players 2 Energy per Cycle. Players can have a line of up to six Machines, each usable once per Cycle. Energy can be converted into boxes with random values (that disappear at the end of the Cycle), and everyone starts with a machine that converts a box into Cogs.
  • Worker Compensation and Cog in the Manger – immediately after enacting Floor Plans, Josh generated a box and converted it into Cogs, then started the first Cycle, gaining an admin advantage as a consequence. These proposals were attempts to reduce or remove the advantage, inspiring much discussion about a) whether this sort of advantage was appropriate and b) whether this sort of proposal to remove the advantage was appropriate. In the end, both of them failed.
  • Work to Rule – Slowed the pace of cycles from 36 hours to 60 hours, or once 85% of players have acted, because some players were having trouble keeping up.
    • Cold Dust – Removed the 85% rule, replacing it with a mechanism to skip players who hadn't acted in the previous cycle.
• Clay Ants – One of the dynasty's major mechanics, although it had only a minor impact in practice. There are three Clients, who have Wants chosen randomly from a list. Complying with the Want gives you bonus Cogs.
  • Another Day, Another Dollar – Refined the Clients mechanic to be used at the end of a Cycle, and look at events during that Cycle, rather than tracking a mix of events at different times.
  • I don't want the same stuff any more – Allowed the Wants that Clients wanted to be rerolled (the original proposal gave no mechanism for them to change).
  • Wish List – An overhaul of the Wants mechanic; Wants were easier to satisfy, but Clients could have more than one, with bigger rewards if the clients Wanted more at once.
    • I Don't Want It That Way and Wanting Nothing – Wish List accidentally broke the Cycle action in two different ways, so CFJs were used to fix the issue without needing to delay the Cycle until the queue could clear.
    • For Want Of A Nail – The emergency fixes to the Cycle action fixed the action itself, but left Wants broken, so a proposal was used to restore them.
  • Nine to Five – Unified the Wants system and the tracking system for players who weren't taking actions, fixing a scam in which you could check Wants in the middle of a cycle (rather than the end) as long as all your Machines were hot at the time.
• Shoe Gar – Introduced farming mechanics, another of the dynasty's major mechanics; you could use Greenhouses to heat them, Harvesters to produce Sugar based on the number of heated Greenhouses you had, and Sugarcubers to change Sugar into Sugarcubes. Sugarcubes could be cashed in for boxes.
  • Why did we build this factory on a swamp – It was quickly noticed that Sugar farming was much more powerful than anything else you could be doing in the dynasty at the time. This was an early, and somewhat controversial, attempt to weaken it by making Sugar decay over time. Although passing for much of its time in the queue, it eventually timed out 6-7, after some players changed their votes in favour of fixes that were easier to track.
    • Warehouse Limits – An alternative (and successful) proposal for weakening Sugar, via placing a limit on the number of Things a player could hold.
  • Reap What You Sow – Expands farming to other types of crop: this keeps the Sugar→Sugarcube→Box chain, but adds Wheat→Flour→Bread→Energy and Corn→2 Cogs. Greenhouses now required Seeds to heat, which could be converted from Crops or generated by a Seeder (but only needed to be heated once, not once per cycle).
    • Three Tablespoons – It's pointed out that Reap What You Sow is unfair, because it gives existing Farmers a head start. This proposal attempted to even things up, but also returned farming to its previous yields (Reap What You Sow reduced them somewhat), and ended up failing.
    • Fairer farming – A dramatic and dynasty-reshaping change to farming yields, intended as a replacement for Reap What You Sow (the proposer having generated five mostly useless 7-boxes in order to demonstrate how excessive the current farming yields were). If this had passed by itself, it would have introduced the Sugar/Wheat/Corn system in a fair way. However, both proposals passed, making it possible for the existing Sugar farmers to get a head start on the new farming mechanics by exploiting the interaction of the two proposals.
    • Takesies-backsies – Vovix gets confused about the rules for proposal adoption, and accidentally takes actions assuming that Reap What You Sow had failed, preventing him continuing the use of his Sugar farm without spending valuable line space on Seeders. This CFJ was a request for a change to his actions. The other players were sympathetic, but the CFJ never quite got enough votes to be quorumed, and further rule changes made the refund useless before the CFJ could enact via timeout.
• Moving Parts – Changed two core mechanics. One change was that the Energy→Box conversion was now done via a Machine, rather than being a basic action anyone could use; you could choose between machines that generated random Boxes, or machines that generated smaller Boxes deterministically. The other change was to allow Machines to be purchased using the same resources they cost to activate.
• More Machines – Added the Axe, Crusher, and Glue Gun machines. Axe and Glue Gun survived the dynasty unchanged. Crusher was, at the time, the only way to clear Machines from your line.
  • Machine? What Machine? – Allowed players to remove Machines if they haven't been used that Cycle, effectively superseding the Crusher mechanic.
  • Workshop Maintenance – Reworked the Crusher into something with more of an obvious purpose (refunding Machine costs when they were demolished, at the cost of Energy), now that its previous use was obsolete.
• Beep Boop and Bot to the Future – a failed and a successful proposal to add Bots, non-player Workers who acted according to various rules. These never ended up doing anything relevant (and indeed there were no rules that let them affect any of the human Workers until it was too late to matter).
  • The Trainee – Added the fourth bot, Monkeybot.
• Saving it for later – Added a Machine that allowed Boxes to be stored from one cycle to the next. Two players used these to try to build up large boxes over the course of multiple Cycles.
• We Make New Things – Introduced Prototypes, which were initially easy to make, but became harder to make the more you had. These were intended to form the basis of a victory mechanic, comparable to Blood Mana Crystals in the previous dynasty.
  • The Great Work – A first stab at a victory mechanic; players could build a Magnum Opus machine and use it to spend Prototypes, and if you spend more than anyone else in a given Cycle, you win. This is voted down because spending even a single Prototype would be highly likely to end the dynasty immediately.
  • Going The Distance / Going For Speed – An alternative attempt to introduce a victory mechanic, by baking a cake – this contains a tiebreak rule (causing multiple wins in the same cycle to be tiebroken based on Cog holdings rather than time), but no actual way to bake a cake. This gets voted down too.
  • Collector's Victory – The adopted victory mechanic; you needed to gather 11 Prototypes and to use a Chime machine (which cost 10 unique Things to buy and to use, with Wastebin-generated Things not counting).
• Stuff – Another batch of machines, the Compactor, Printer and Wastebin.
• Pushback – After several failed alternatives were posed, Jumble steps back from playing the dynasty, choosing to focus on Emperor duties only.
• Widgets, take 2 – The dynasty's last major core mechanic – Widgets can be attached to machines to improve what they do (a Cooling Widget allows a machine to be used twice, and a Boxing Widget makes it produce larger boxes).
• Unlockables – Introduced a "High-Tech" classification for Machines and Widgets – Workers would have to buy the Tech for these before they could build them, and had to build Prototypes in order to buy Techs.

Core/Special Case/Appendix changes

• Idle admins should not be omnipotent and God Does Not Play BlogNomic, Probably – Bucky and Jason find a core rules scam that allows an idle admin, plus one confederate, to completely take over the game. They immediately use the scam to block anyone else from trying it, and then properly fix the scam via CFJ.
• Bullet Catch – Allows anyone to change lists in the Ruleset to use actual list formatting.
• A Jumble of Numbers – A simplification of the Favours rule, removing some parts of the rule that there were no way to ever activate.
  • Datfavour – At the end of the dynasty, the Favours mechanic was removed altogether.
• Smoke Bomb – Disabled "The Traitor" special case rule by default.
  • Wolfsbane – Repealed "The Traitor" altogether, on the basis that it didn't wasn't doing its job properly if it was being turned off most of the time.
• Full Power and Your Number 1 Priority – Attempts to make CFJs all-powerful, so that the Appendix couldn't block them doing things like making proposals legal. Both attempts fail due to concerns about the details.
• A minimal consensus shouldn't have lasting effects – Prevents core/special case/appendixx rules changes by timeout (an actual quorum is needed to change them). Perhaps ironically, this passes by timeout, 3-1 when quorum is 7.
• Edge Cases – Defined some previously undefined cases of interactions between contradictory rules.
• Liberté, égalité, communité – An attempt to introduce new guidelines for the social side of play. Fails, with many of the AGAINST votes concerned about an ambiguous instruction to the enacting admin that could have caused a lot of damage under some interpretations.
• Feedback Loop – A failing attempt to make protosals into an actual game mechanic supported by the Core ruleset.

Ascension

ais523 exploited a long-standing infinite loop bug, performing 6,596 actions in a single cycle (a list of the first 6595 actions that set up for the victory action is available). In doing so, he gained ten different things, a Chime machine, and eleven prototypes, which was enough to activate Chime and achieve Victory. However, the original DoV was accidentally enacted too early and had to be redone.

Commentary

• Post-game commentary: The Factory Sleeps

Note that this dynasty had a lengthy false start. After a few days of proposals, in which a theme of fantasy war was set and a co-regency was established with lemonfanta as co-Emperor, the game went into a several-day hiatus to consider questions of game culture that had arisen at the end of the previous dynasty. After this hiatus, it emerged that the original Ascension Address was illegal, due to setting the term for players to be a word that was already in the appendix. With lemonfanta effectively having resigned from the co-regency during the hiatus and Jumble having lost faith in the original theme, it was agreed (with the agreement upheld by a CfJ) that the pre-hiatus dynastic play had been invalid and that Jumble could make a new AA with a new theme. Josh (talk) 21:27, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Dynastic Histories [Edit]

Round One - Myke I - Lyndse I - Myke II - Kevan I - Anthony I - Est I - Kevan II - Damanor I - Kevan III - Cayvie I - Josh I - Keitalia I - SatyrEyes I - Metadynasty I - Cayvie II - Brendan I - Kevan IV - Knightking I - Chronos Phaenon I - TrumanCapote I - Knightking II - Quazie I - Simon I - AngryGrasshopper I - Rodney I - Aaron I - Josh II - Metadynasty II - Chronos Phaenon II - Excalabur I - Excalabur II - 75th Trombone I - Elias IX I - Metadynasty III - Angry Grasshopper II - Hix I - Thelonious I - Elias IX II - Rodney II - Clucky I - Doremi I - Chronos Phaenon III - Amnistar I - Clucky II - Amnistar II - Bucky I - Clucky III - Josh III - Kevan V - Hix II - Spikebrennan I - Jack I - Purplebeard I - Rodlen I - Yoda I - Amnistar III - Darknight I - Bucky II - Yoda II - Metadynasty IV - Arthexis I - Amnistar IV - Devenger I - Ais523 I - Ienpw III I - Qwazukee I - Klisz I - Metadynasty V - Bucky III - Wakukee I - Kevan VI - Ais523 II - Josh IV - Purplebeard II - Ais523 III - Ienpw III II - Klisz II - Lilomar I - Coppro I - Ais523 IV - Kevan VII - Brendan II - Alecto I - Josh V - Clucky IV - Purplebeard III - Kevan VIII - Ais523 V - Purplebeard IV - Yoda III - Bucky IV - Kevan IX - Bateleur I - Metadynasty VI - Coppro II - Ais523 VI - Cpt Koen I - Southpointingchariot I - Josh VI - Scshunt III - Quirck I - Clucky V - Bucky V - Kevan X - Josh VII - Kevan XI - Scshunt IV - RaichuKFM I - Larrytheturtle I - Skju I - Metadynasty VII - Purplebeard V - Spitemaster I - Josh VIII - RaichuKFM II - The Alien I - Benzene I - RaichuKFM III - Purplebeard VI - Kevan XII - Ayesdeeef I - Bucky VI - Kevan XIII - Josh IX - Mideg I - Kevan XIV - Brendan III - Kevan XV - Tantusar I - Josh X - Kevan XVI - Thrawn I - Brendan IV - Kevan XVII - Moonroof I - RaichuKFM IV - Larrytheturtle II - Brendan V - Kevan XVIII - Brendan VI - RaichuKFM V - Kevan XIX - Brendan VII - Kevan XX - Viv I - Pokes I - Sphinx I - Madrid I - Pokes II - Madrid II - Metadynasty VIII - Axemabaro I - Diabecko I - Kevan XXI - Diabecko & Card I - Kevan XXII - Derrick I - Card I - Madrid III - Card II - Kevan XXIII - Pokes III - Kevan XXIV - Trigon I - Derrick II - Kevan XXV - Derrick III - Farsight I - TyGuy6 I - Pokes IV - Madrid IV - TyGuy6 II - Kevan XXVI - The Duke of Waltham I - Josh XI - Clucky VI - Naught I - Metadynasty IX - Kevan XXVII - Josh XII - Clucky VII - Josh XIII - Bucky VII - Josh XIV - Kevan XXVIII - Lemonfanta I - Clucky VIII - Josh XV - Misty I - ais523 VII - Josh XVI - Kevan XXIX - Trapdoorspyder I - Metadynasty X - Brendan VIII - Brendan IX - Zack I - Misty II - Josh XVII - MadisonSilver I - Josh XVIII - Kevan XXX - Lendunistus I - Josh XIX - SingularByte I - Trapdoorspyder II - Bucky XIII - JonathanDark I - Trapdoorspyder III - Habanero I - JonathanDark II - Misty III - Metadynasty XI - Josh XX - Lemon II - Kevan XXXI - Josh XXI - Clucky IX - Vovix I - JonathanDark III - Zack II - JonathanDark IV - Josh XXII - Kevan XXXII - JonathanDark V - Darknight II - Clucky X - Lukas I