Why Cantr is broken as a society simulator

[Snickie]

I haven't played Cantr for a while, but I don't think it has changed much since I last played. Here are some of my suggestions.

1. Health/strength/skill bonus with clothes and shelter. In my opinion, the fundamental reason for the lack of more war, industry and politics is because there is so little one has to do to survive in Cantr. Chars either die in small forest or mountain towns with no means of food or are freely given food in any decent sized town. Benefits with clothes and shelter will make chars aspire for something.

2. This is counter-intuitive. Short life spans - death due to natural causes. I suggest an average life span of around 20 Cantr years. Currently, chars do not die of natural causes (hunger not included). From my experience, one of the reasons why there is less war in Cantr is because most players hate losing their chars that they have played for so long. But knowing that their chars are going to die anyway by around age 40, they'll be more willing to engage in conflicts and more willing to experiment.

Shorter life spans will also help in players planning their chars' lives better. With shorter life spans, the bigger towns will see more power struggles, succession struggles etc. Also, because of the greater turnaround, new chars will have something to aspire to. Currently, in the larger towns the real power mostly remains with the oldest of players and the newer ones more or less accept the existing power structure.

3. Limit the supply rate of food. Animal population is already limited. I suggest plant population also to be limited. Currently, in a town of 30 people, all 30 can farm potatoes to get 800g potatoes a day. Limiting the supply rate of potatoes and other plants will force populations to be more evenly spread. This would also lead to greater inter-town trade and conflicts.

4. Increase the rate of rotting of all materials by a significant amount. Also, make food rot faster in plains.

5. Special storage facilities can be built that prolong shelf life of materials. These storages however require energy - burn oil or coal.

6. Always spawn the first 4-5 chars of a new player in larger and active towns. This is will greatly help in new players learning the game.

1. Sure, whatever.
2. Eeewwww no dislike dislike! Experimenting is what random newspawns are for.
3. Resource slots do this. In Town X, 12 people can gather resources at the same time (without the use of machinery like harvesters, drills, etc) while in town Y only 4 people can gather resources simultaneously. Now, if your town is crazy filthy rich and has thirty people, seven resource slots, and twenty-three harvesters...good for you. You worked hard for it, and you earned it. Yay.
4. I know this has been under discussion for quite awhile. I find it kind of funny, actually. People claim that towns have too much stuff and want it to rot away or something, and they complain about some silly thing that makes them not want it to rot away. I doubt this issue will get resolved anytime soon at all. Lol
5. In other words, screwing the porter towns that don't have oil and aren't rich enough to trade for it. And all the enriching stuff rots away in the meantime, meaning they have an even less chance of surviving. A this is one of the more frequently used arguments. See the last sentence of 4.
6. They already do that with the first two characters of an account. Why does it have to be upped to five or six? What if I preferred small town Cantr life to the craziness of Klojt or Zuzi?

[Rumaan]

2. Why do you dislike 2? What are experienced players for then?
3. Resource slots is different from resource supply rate. Harvesters do not even take up a resource slot and yet harvest lot of potatoes. I am saying a location should have a cap on the supply rate, lets say 10Kg of potatoes per day. It doesn't matter whether the whole town works or just a fraction, with or without harvesters, no more than 10Kg of potatoes should be harvestable.
5. You can't have conflict if every town is the same.
6. I am not sure about that. My initial characters spawned in desolate towns. May be they have changed it now. 5,6 was just some arbit number.

[RedQueen.exe]

2. This is counter-intuitive. Short life spans - death due to natural causes. I suggest an average life span of around 20 Cantr years. Currently, chars do not die of natural causes (hunger not included). From my experience, one of the reasons why there is less war in Cantr is because most players hate losing their chars that they have played for so long. But knowing that their chars are going to die anyway by around age 40, they'll be more willing to engage in conflicts and more willing to experiment.

Shorter life spans will also help in players planning their chars' lives better. With shorter life spans, the bigger towns will see more power struggles, succession struggles etc. Also, because of the greater turnaround, new chars will have something to aspire to. Currently, in the larger towns the real power mostly remains with the oldest of players and the newer ones more or less accept the existing power structure.

You've given the best argument in favor of adding natural death that I've seen so far.

[Bowser]

I have had many characters I loved playing that have killed themselves because the time had come. The story was written and it had come to an end. I decided to end it. Perhaps a life span is a good idea. For me, I made it end and then I started new characters. Crag Rock, one of the initial Stonecutters (Stone Knights) felt his time was over asked his clan to kill him and they did. He did not want to die a sleeper, he wanted to go out with honor.

[Ronja Rotschopf]

In my opinion we should distinguish between two groups of players/characters in Cantr II: 1. The large groups that lost many players/characters and now suffer from having too much space and two much stuff that they don't need
2. the small groups that have to struggle so much with surviving and at least keeping their (not very high) level of technology

It's natural that the players/characters of small language groups are underrepresented in the staff as well as in forum discussions.

I appreciate the discussion and the suggestions of how to solve the problems of the large but shrunken groups (mainly English), because solving their problems means solving possible future problems of small language groups that will hopefully grow and develop in the future. But they won't expand when the solutions for the problems of the large groups cause more problems for the small groups. I ask for considering that especially to those who make the decisions (especially when you are not going to discuss it on the forum before implementing it)

Suggested solutions:
- Remove the 'repair object' ability, ...s

Already being worked on behind the scenes.

Do you have more information on that? Or will you give information on that before it gets implemented? Because this is one of the critical changes that could destroy possible development in small communities.

- Max population size of a town (NOT STATIC - GROWS SLOWLY WITH TIME SO TRADERS CAN STILL VISIT, BUT RESOURCE GATHERING PARTIES HAVE DIFFICULTY DOING SO)

This was the goal of resource slots, but was nerfed when he players complained that they couldn't gather anymore (which was the point). In my opinion, resource slots should be lowered (and made adjustable, as you suggest).

Can you please give a link? Possibly it's time to reactivate the discussion. I think it is a good suggestion and it wouldn't give disadvantages to small communities.

Edited: threads regarding resource slots: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=21124 viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13056 viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12278
and a few other interesting ones (where the main subject was a different one)
the implementation of resource slots seems to have been before september 2005 but I haven't found any discussion on it

- Less distance between towns

I agree. Everyone agrees. Let's just get this one done.

Yes, absolutely.

- Iron rot much higher

Rot rates were lowered after player revolt.

I think the rot rate should depend on the size of the piles. Large piles rot faster than small piles. No disadvantage for small poor communities but a solution for the massive abundance in some regions/towns.

Oh, and I love the idea of natural death, but I think 40 is too young. Maybe at the age of 100?

[Henkie]

Henkie, you can grab a short interview in PM with me if you are that interested in my humble person. Go for it.

Nah, I'm done with it, made my conclusions.

[Doug R.]

@ Ronja - sent in PM

[haggismcbean]

Just thought of a way better title:

"Why Cantr is broken as a society simulator"

[Ronja Rotschopf]

Just thought of a way better title:

"Why Cantr is broken as a society simulator"

Here I disagree. Regarding the overproduction and not knowing what to do with all the wealth and all the time in some regions it is almost a perfect (just a bit simplified) mirror of modern society
In RL you play some more or less silly computer games to kill your time, in Cantr this option would be stupid. This means for Cantr we need to find a better solution. Not an easy task...

[Jaxon]

The whole premise of this post is a little nugatory. I mean, Cantr was never intended to be a true society simulator. People can't have kids in this game so population is largely based upon the random spawning tool, people more often than not don't care if they die so they are willing to take more risks, and you don't have many of the problems real towns face such as rodent infestation, plagues, famine, and natural disasters.

So really the whole discussion should be what Cantr can do to become more challenging if a person so chooses, without making things harder for novices. I recommend simply upping the tech system. Cantrians are tired of getting attacked so easily? Provide more defensive capabilities if they are willing to buy. Cantrians want to shrink town distances? Provide better options for public transportation and cheaper options for private. People want to become conquerors? Provide more offensive capabilities.

It's really a quite simple formula: Taking away something a change in rules discourages player development. Adding new features however, encourages it.

[Vega]

Agreed with natural death, but, as it's been said, 40 is too soon (some of my char in their 40 are just starting to live) But I think 80 or 100 could be ok.

[Chroma Key]

I'd rather my chars' stories ended when I want them to end. This obviously does not mean that I will keep playing them till the day I die, as someone seemed to be suggesting earlier.
I have a few in their 80's, and almost all of those have had to restart from somewhere, and only now are able to make a life for themselves. I would hate for them to just drop dead, and imagine knowing the day you will die - how depressing is that? God forbids if you ever come across obstacles in life (as all my elders did), all you will have is a loooong struggle and wasted efforts not to mention a lot of frustration. I have plenty of that IRL, thanks very much!

[Greek]

No to natural death. It's my decision to kill or not to kill my characters.

In Cantr now you don't have to hurry when playing and your chars can go to sleep for months if you are just in safe area and you lose nothing. Any threshold would change this.

[Hedgedhogst]

Greek has a good point. If we were to die of old age or natural causes, There'd be a lot of pressure to try to combine good Role Play with work and earning.
If I knew I had a limited amount of time to get what I could out of my character, I'd be tempted to never bother speaking to anyone except for essential trade. As things are, sometimes I spend days saying goodbye when I'm leaving town, or I'd spend days in a room with nothing to do, just to chat and allow a story to emerge.
If I know my character is going to die after a certain number of years, I'd say "Stuff RP, I want my ship. Hurry up and give me that wood before I lose another tick! Hi newspawn, I would stay and help, but I gotta go find some rubber now, before I waste another day."

Right now, players are happy to RP and just relax, and have fun, because they know their character will still be there in the morning. Do we want to start the trend of "Every tick counts"?

[kaloryfer]

I didn't read thread starter's post because it was too long, but because he had to put so much effort to write it, I support him.