Test of the Retired Pirates

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Ceremonial Ship

• 100 boards
• 1 sail
• 7 Papyrus Paper

University Text

Build a Ceremonial Ship. A Captain is chosen, who distributes 777 Doubloons to the crew. The crew votes whether to accept the distribution, and if they reject it, a new captain is chosen.

Overview

The Test of the Retired Pirates is the fourth test in the discipline of Leadership.

A pirate captain and his crew decide to retire and distribute the treasure they "collected".

A player can start this test at level 16, perhaps earlier.

Rules, and Passing the Principles

• Sign up at the University of Leadership for the next round.
• Lots of groups of 7 randomly selected players are created. One group member is randomly assigned to be the captain.
• From the time the round begins, the captain or any of the crew members have 24 hours to construct a Ceremonial Ship. This is built from a Small Construction Site and requires 100 boards, 1 sail, and 7 Papyrus Paper. Because the captain uses the ship to distribute the coins, it is highly recommended to allow the captain to construct the ship.
• If a ship isn't built in 24 hours, the group is disbanded and everyone ends with 0 dubloons.
• If, during a voting phase, no majority is found and all pirates don't vote, the group is disbanded and everyone ends with 0 dubloons.
• The captain has a treasure of 777 gold coins to distribute among the 7, anyway they want to.
• Each crew member should be assigned between 0 and 777 gold coins. Afterwards, the captain uses the "finalize" option. At that moment, a colored message in the group chat appears that the distribution is final and every crew member can see the share offered to them in their own test menu.
• Once the distribution has been announced, the pirates (crew and captain!) decide if they can accept the distribution.
• If the captain can secure an absolute majority (51% or more) to accept their distribution suggestion, the round ends and the booty is divided according to the distribution. Voting for or against the share distribution is done in the player's test menu. The captain must vote (presumably in favor) if they want to count as part of the majority.
• If a majority votes against it, the captain walks the plank (with 0 coins) to the sharks, a new captain is randomly appointed and the procedure starts over. Voting is over as soon as an absolute majority is reached or the time limit runs out. The player can change their vote as often as they want while voting is open.
• If there is a tie, one randomly selected group member is walking the plank (that could also be the captain). Note that all pirates need to vote and there needs to be an equal number of Accept and Reject votes, thus this is only applicable with an even number of pirates.
• The round ends when only one pirate is left, a majority agrees to the distribution, or the voting time expires and all pirates didn't vote yet (effectively disbanding the group with no loot for anyone).
• Quit or expired players automatically walk the plank but only after the ship is built.
• The captain gets a maximum of 7 days to make a proposal to their crew. If they don't do it in this time, they walk the plank.
• When a player votes, the group chat displays "<Name> has placed his/her vote". There is no way to know the votes of other players.
• You cannot join a new group until your current one is finished.
• The ship will despawn when the event is concluded.
• Passed players can keep playing (like cartouche), and can even pass the test again.

Continue this until you accumulate 777 doubloons.

Strategies

• The captain has to convince (at least) three crew members to vote for his distribution, but 777 can't be divided by 4.
• Any group of 4 crew members can make the captain walk the plank and take over the treasure.
• If the booty is split evenly among the remaining pirates (crew members and the captain), it's in the interest of the crew to get rid of a couple captains since it will increase their shares. If the split is uneven it gets more complicated.
• If only 2 pirates are left, the crew member has no reason to agree since he will get it all after the captain walks.
• If only 3 pirates are left, the captain should offer more than half the loot to one of the crew members, because if he walks the plank, the two crew members will get all 777 dubloons (see "If only 2 pirates..." above), which means that on average, the crew members will get 777/2=388.5 dubloons each. Offering 389 to one and keeping 388 for himself is a fair deal, but hey, what's fair with being a pirate?
• A lot of players are inactive, they don't chat, they don't vote, they might not help building a ship or distributing the loot if they get captain. So even if there are seven pirates in a group, only 5-6 might actually be actively looking for loot. This means, that it should be possible for active players to get more than 777/7=111 dubloons from every round.
• If, at the start of a new group, the crew lets the captain walk the plank, they will be six left to split 777 gold, so on average each of the six crew members will get 129.5 dubloons. The captain can use this to his advantage, by offering more than 129.5 dubloons to three, or more, crew members and keeping the rest for himself. On the other hand, the crew members might not want to let the captain have a too large share, because this is a test where we compare the total booty per player, so if he gets too greedy they might let him walk the plank anyway. The same reasoning goes for lower numbers of pirates, the captain can divide 777 with the number of crew members to see how much he needs to offer them to make it interesting to get a distribution accepted.

Notes

• Arrr! me hearties!
• It's up to the captain how much he tells each crew member about shares of the other ones. Of course they can talk to each other too.

Passing the Test

Each week, the owner of the most gold coins passes the test.

Demonstration

• 2000 gold
• 2000 silver
• 1000 sail