Maximum number of resource gatherers

[Ovault]

wichita, you got my thinking right ... Cities should start depending on farming areas, trading centres should become more important, etc.

Yes, you could say only big cities are affected, but some rough calculations by me suggest that an estimated 300 people are currently working on projects they couldn't work on right now if this had been implemented earlier. So a lot of gathering is actually going on that can't with the new system, or has to move, or be replaced by trading. The tweaking part - how high to set the number of gatherers in a place - is difficult to do, of course, and might need adjustment.

Land scarcity is definitely the way to think about it.

About what it affects:
- only resource gathering, not machine / building / repairing / etc.
- only participation in projects, not creating projects
- the number of people working on digging projects is counted, not the number of active projects
- people that are currently working on a project won't be stopped - but if they stop now, they will in many cases (about 300) not be able to immediately restart again
- the number of slots stays constant per city ... I was thinking about making small, rare random variations, but probably not ... there is one number for all resources together ... the number is randomly set, within a range depending on the type of location

Hope that answers everything.

I know your just trying to make it more realistic but personally I think your changing to many things... With the shield changes n all and ontop of this . This implement isnt to bad but I really hope you change the shield defence back to normal instead of making it so low

[Snake_byte]

The game will always change. It's always changing. In in "testing"

[KVZ]

Well, we are guinea pigs of Jos

[Missy]

I can see great things coming from this. (Towns monopolizing because there's another town with potatoes aside of their own town. So that they then control the only two food sources in the region. And are able to gather that much more toward their own wealth.) But on the other hand, I can't see that this will stimulate trade for already poor communities. I think it will only make the richer richer, like many on here complain about. Rich could charge outrageously for what they already control. (Mostly food would be the winner in the outrageous prices, considering, well if you don't have food, you starve. So anyone with a food source is going to outweigh a town without one.) But maybe that's the point?

[Ahoyhoy]

The thing I like about this game is that it tries to simulate the real world as much as possible for a text based game. And also I don't know of any game like it. It's such a simple concept yet noone has ever made it. Limited resources are definatly a good addition to the game because it adds realness.

[julie2]

The thing I like about this game is that it tries to simulate the real world as much as possible for a text based game. And also I don't know of any game like it. It's such a simple concept yet noone has ever made it. Limited resources are definatly a good addition to the game because it adds realness.

That's fine in theory, but in practice that logic is too simplistic. Cantr has it's own unique features which don't exist in the real te real world. Changes such as this have to take account of that, or else the overall effect can be far from realistic.

I actually agree with limiting resources in principle but I don't think the game mechanics are sophisticated enough to cope with that change at this stage. One big problem, to my mind, is that each town functions as one sigle giant plot of land which has to be managed as a whole. That isn't realistic, and makes it far too easy fior town leaders to diirectly control every resource in the area . These limits now make it necessary for a single leader, or a single group to control all the resources. I think the lackl of limits on resource gatheringwas the only thing that protected us from the worst affects of that other shortfall in realism, which isn't so easily addressed.

[Jos Elkink]

I actually agree with limiting resources in principle but I don't think the game mechanics are sophisticated enough to cope with that change at this stage. One big problem, to my mind, is that each town functions as one sigle giant plot of land which has to be managed as a whole. That isn't realistic, and makes it far too easy fior town leaders to diirectly control every resource in the area . These limits now make it necessary for a single leader, or a single group to control all the resources. I think the lackl of limits on resource gatheringwas the only thing that protected us from the worst affects of that other shortfall in realism, which isn't so easily addressed.

I think I partly agree with you, actually. Not in the sense that I think this change was a bad idea or will ruin the game or trade. But I agree that some implemention of fields would have been more interesting. In fact, that was the original idea. When I explained it to Jur, he told me this was a much simpler and equally effective way. Considering that it took me about 20 minutes to implement, I agree with him that this was simpler ... Fields are cooler and will perhaps someday be implemented, but I think this slots idea is a good proxy for what we want to reach (land scarcity).

The fact that you can only have one leader on one location should be less problematic once we start thinking of groups of locations are countries / states rather than single locations, and I think this change will stimulate that.

[Jos Elkink]

That's what I was talking about when I brought up the limiting of population...

Me neither, and I hope that effect will not be *too* strong... We'll see.

[Snake_byte]

Well, we are guinea pigs of Jos

That's fine with me as long as it doesn't involve any probing...

But seriously, most of us saw this change coming. Jos had been talking about it on the forum saying that he was eventualy going to find a way to impliment land scarcity. I think this new change (when discovered properly and maybe ballanced if needed) will change the face of Cantr for better in some places and for worse in others but that's fine also. If everyone (charries not players) was happy, wouldn't make it a very good SIMULATOR. Sure this will mess up some charries and some might die (including mine) but it is after all a GAME.
As I've already said, it isn't like each area only has about 10 gatherers... Some might but the places I've tested have many more. Once the towns and cities are organized for the game everything will be kosher.

[Jos Elkink]

As I've already said, it isn't like each area only has about 10 gatherers... Some might but the places I've tested have many more. Once the towns and cities are organized for the game everything will be kosher.

The exact number of gatherers is a bit hard to set - it's fairly arbitrary. I don't remember the exact numbers I set, but grass locations are between 6 and 16, I think. Plains and tundras as well, I think, and forests and hills a little bit less. Swamps and jungle would be a lot less, as well as mountains.

But it's all rather arbitrary. They might have to be adjusted a bit at some point.

[melbi]

Where this change really hurts is in areas like the Klojt/Akypor mountains, where there are very few animals to hunt. This means that the only food available has to come from the handful of cities nearby where food grows. As a resource runner who supplies a mountain community, I have already found myself (in the Seatown area) unable to gather food at all.

[The Industriallist]

...So you carry down some kind of material in payment, and get tons of food for it since it still isn't that valuable. Right? Unless your town has no resources of value, in which case it's hard to figure out why it exists at all.

[west]

Many towns exist because they used to be spawn places, not because they have anything worth trading.

[The Industriallist]

Mountain towns, though? I thought all the old spawn-places had food? Except maybe Cantr City...

[wietse]

I just wanted to let Jos know, I think the introduction of a maximum number of players working on gathering projects is a great improvement.
It's really interesting to see how this works out for social structures and goverments in the game.

So.. I am not always complaining about changes...., not if they are good.