ADR-0014 -- Conferences, presence, and minimal location

Status: ACCEPTED (v1 shape; yields/numbers owed to the sweep) · Decided: 2026-07-12
These are the actual decision records the game is built from, published unedited except for internal process notes. They describe why the game works the way it does. They are not a strategy guide, and some of them argue with each other.

Context

ADR-0010 made socialization the mandatory middle of the research->adoption value chain with no ruling on what attending is. Pip's rulings, this beat, with one ambition flagged: "Part of me wants to make a conference attendance subgame, that's how critical I think these kinds of things are going to be for the game." (Subgame parked; v1 is attendance + yields.)

Decision

  1. Conferences are scheduled world events on the seed timeline (ADR-0005 schedule entries -- the geopolitics-as-content pattern, reused). Annual majors announce ~9 months ahead: plannable at plan speed, and opening theory can grow around known calendars. Smaller/exclusive gatherings unlock behind contacts or safety reputation -- invitation-gated event stream.
  2. Founder attendance >> delegate attendance. Founder pays founder-hours + travel cash and gets the full yield: meaningful options opened, first-degree connections, SA boosts. Delegates (a staff-month + travel cash) yield less but give coverage -- the 2037 "5 delegates to 10 meetings" scarcity, seeded from turn one. Travel cash deliberately bites early (spiky cash flow, ADR-0012).
  3. Conferences are accelerants and discovery venues, not the adoption roll itself. Adoption happens out in the world (ADR-0010); attendance speeds adoption of your published work, builds reputation mechanically faster (especially introductions), and mints contacts-as-receivables -- the Ledger's friendly column gets its content source (DQ-9's customer).
  4. Discovery-by-presence. You discover actors, alliances, and intentions by being where they are (the units-moving-on-the-map analog); news/newsletters are the cheaper, lower-fidelity discovery channel. Presence is effectively an SA channel flavor alongside espionage/alliance/media/research.
  5. Location exists minimally in v1: HQ defaults American (park foreign legal-regime modeling); the player can substantially base teams overseas -- cheaper hires, with different downstream influence/politics effects (mid/late-game payoff). Event schema carries where from day one.
  6. Ad-hoc meetings/opportunities stay instant-speed windows (ADR-0009/0012), some gated by contacts/rep. (Pip's "book a longer trip for planned meetings" instinct is week-grain thinking -- at month grain the trip is a plan allocation.)

Beacons served / violated

Interaction contract

Reads/writes: seed schedule (ADR-0005 entries + 9-month announcements), founder hours (ADR-0011), cash (travel), reputation (typed, per-person -- delegate yield should scale with the delegate's own reputation), SA (presence channel), Ledger receivables (contacts; DQ-9), adoption pipeline (ADR-0010 accelerant).

Rejected alternatives

Consequences / open questions

Amendment 2026-07-27

Three rulings from the WS-3a day (day-log: WS3A_DAYLOG_2026-07-27.md), dated additions only -- the Decision section above is unchanged.

(a) Rhythm-break placeholder shape RULED. Pip's ruling on ADR-0014's parked "conference subgame" ambition: fade-out -> mini-scene -> return with a single stacked-backlog panel, middle auto-resolved or near-zero interaction -- "much like combat in Heroes of Might and Magic compared to the normal turn structure" [PIP]. Full design seed: SEED_CONFERENCE_RHYTHM_BREAK.md. Shell built PR #979 (commit -> sim resolves synchronously -> text vignette via SceneTransition -> "while you were away" single panel, modal-disciplined; anti-free-button guards: travel cash + all attention drained, re-drained per month away, unignorable windows cut the trip short). Real yields (adoption-accelerant multiplier, contacts-as-receivables into the Ledger) stay sequenced AFTER ADR-0010 v1 exists, per the existing shell-vs- yields seam in the seed doc -- nothing here reopens that sequencing.

(b) Travel ruling. R4 ballot 3: attending a conference spends ALL attention for the trip, a travel day is charged on each side (departure + return), and the founder/delegate is EXPOSED while travelling -- world developments fire during travel exactly as they would if present (no travel-immunity window). This is the concrete mechanism behind rider 2's "travel cash bites early" and closes the free-button risk the seed doc's section 5 flags.

(c) #980 refinement, ACCEPTED PENDING IMPLEMENTATION. Pip's noticing on the #979 shell (captured as issue #980): being away is loss of OPERATOR PRESENCE, not loss of PLANNER MIND. Next-month planning stays allowed while away; in-flight reallocation and break-in operating while away are forbidden. This distinction is routed to the Tuesday founder-hour-typing lane (ADR-0011, the "doors" hour type) as the owning seam -- that lane implements the planner-mind-travels / operator-presence-does-not split, not this ADR. Not yet built; tracked at #980.