Cantr II Discussion Forum

Any extra work for no gain is a negative change, Nakranoth.

And this will not add economies to any areas. It is just another machine you have to build in order to have a "successful" location. None of the changes that RD have brought in recently have created these supposed new economies have they? Just more work.

Cantr is very labour intensive, which is part of why I don't think it appeals to very many.

Surly, can you develop yout thoughts here?

I think that cantarians need much to do. Or let me put it another way. I think the more options for characters to put there labor on is good, as not all can do everything. The problem as I see it is not that the characters need things to survive, to make there motorised vehicle to move etc. The problem is that as it is now. Most character can achive most things by themselves. Or atleast most towns. So, every single town put up their own smelting furnace. In costal towns, most every character has a boat.

So what way should cantr go? Towards less work or more? I think towards more. I think that we should force character to cooperate by doing life so hard alone that almost noone even tries. This is not popular at all to do. Every implementation towards this will be inpopular. Also, old characters that has much already will be richer as what they have gets harder to get.

But there are problems with cooperation. Sleeping sickness is the badest. And the game tend to be even more slow. Many players seem to like the slow concept but whant their town/buisness to develop fast.

Hmmm, its too late and im too tired to realy spell english at all and whrite something logic so I stop here.

If the changes are being made for cooperation, it will not work.
This will only push players to become pirates. To steal what they do not want to work for. Some of my characters are seeing more of this lately. Why work when you can steal and this hurts the new and or older characters trying to start communities in isolated areas.

The Surly Cantrian wrote:Any extra work for no gain is a negative change, Nakranoth.

No gain for whom? If I become a fuel salesman, do I not reap benefits? If you mean to say it will discourage vehical productions, that's simply because you aren't concidering the fact that vehicles can now actually become cheaper to make, thus stimulating vehicle productions.

The Surly Cantrian wrote:And this will not add economies to any areas. It is just another machine you have to build in order to have a "successful" location. None of the changes that RD have brought in recently have created these supposed new economies have they? Just more work.

You're obviosly thinking on a inter-regional basis, and it's unfair to think any change will ever spark that sort of trade. however, on the intra-regional basis, I've already seen characters starting up their own fuel shops, where they'll sell fuel... which is a new economy.

The Surly Cantrian wrote:Cantr is very labour intensive, which is part of why I don't think it appeals to very many.

I'm willing to say I think it's less because of the specifics of Cantr so much as its unique genre. Mainstream gamers will never want to play a game in which the objectives aren't handed to them, and they actually have to become someone other than themselves. However we few roleplayers see Cantr, and will play it, because it's a true role-play game, and if we didn't need to work to get a crossbow, iron shield, crowbar, bus, and galleon with halls in five seperate cities, then what fun would this game really be? We don't have T-rexs running around eating us, for us to respawn with less XP, and we don't have levels to go grind for, so new branches of labor are what we get to drive us forwards.

Most character can achive most things by themselves. Or atleast most towns.

Sure they can. And they'll look like Doryiskom or Drojf.


I am entirely irked at the responses being given IE "For the hoarders." "To encourage trade." What gives RD/PGD the right to decide a town is less than advanced compared to another and that they themselves, (the RD/PGD) are responsible for forcing that to change?


So many towns have worked to have what they have. What do you think it all came free? Look, quite possibly one of the richest towns in Cantr, didn't get where they are without trading which they do DAILY. Every day there's a trade going on. People coming in with wood and we don't need their wood, we have 100,000 grams of wood in our storage, but we still give em their iron or work some sort of deal. We don't sit on our resources in that town. They're always moving. People are paid in iron for odd jobs. People are paid in iron for working in the smithy. And people go into the smithy to earn their iron, almost daily. We've always got someone going somewhere for some resource. But it's like I said. We need those people doing that. Not doing something else, like going to get oil so we can fuel the car. We already send people to get oil (but it takes forever to send someone because we don't have the man-power,) so that we can use the oil on our roads, neighboring roads and use the oil for trade with a town way up the coast that we promised we would try and bring oil to some years ago.

But you know what? This town would not be as rich as it is if PEOPLE weren't helping to make it so. It can't be made rich by one person. Everyone has a role and every role is what holds this massively, seemingly indestructible structure together....

I'm sorry towns in the near-by aren't rich like it, but you know what? Once upon a time, Cantr was brand new. People were settling in those towns and people came up with systems to put together. SOME systems in this game work better than others. Doryiskom could have as many bikes and cars and busses if not more than Heaven's Tavern of Akypor/Siom but you know what? As long as they live so democraticly it'll never happen. Same with Drojf. Once upon a time there was a near restriction of limestone in Jakara and Siom said, "Damned if that'll happen under our watch." Had Drojf took a stand and said that toward the MacGregors or Krif or at the threat of someone even getting close to restricting a resource as important as that instead of saying "let me pucker my lips and write up a peace agreement that we'll live by for light-years," they would have what Siom and Akypor have. So I'm asking you.

Because some under-developed areas have become the way they are because of the way their personal history has led them, YOU have a right to step in and try to change that? Basically that's what you're saying to me.

Nah, the Zwellingharts have a gnome working for them, they'll never go fuelless.

Quite frankly, I love the gnome and they won't go fuel-less, but do you have ANY idea how hard it is to keep everything running the way it already is? I finally get somewhere. IE You see what's there in that city. You see how many amazing things they've done. IF not here's a long example:


We've added sand to the roads in our surrounding. A guy named Sthan who was doing the resource runs for a while for Michael added the sand to the roads in the Reniov Mountains as well as other forests in the Siom and Reniov areas to which he travelled to as Michael asked him. That sand was dug by some person in Siom who wanted some tool and in exchange for digging the sand, Michael gave them the tool. The tool was made by the blacksmith who works thanklessly in the Blacksmiths with resources collected by people in towns across the region. From resources like Coal dug by the Wanderer who digs the coal with a drill that Siom built. And that guy is brought potatoes by the Siom Resource person, which were farmed by someone in Siom on a harvester. Resources like limestone which was either traded for by someone sent to Jakara or mined by someone in Jakara that Siom has stationed there to do exactly that...----> Dig limestone. Whom is also entitled to anything he needs, and all he needs do is ask. That limestone is also brought in by people from out of town. It's imported to Siom and they're looking for something and Siom trades for it. Whether they need it or not and usually we do. Resources like hematite. RM used to be under Siom's control. Cecile Keebler used to be in charge of Siom's outpost in RM. Siom built the drill that's in RM. Not Cecile Keebler. Siom. (Although if it weren't for Cecile Keebler, Siom wouldn't have had the hematite that made the steel that was sent to help build this or that.) Then one day Cecile decided she wanted the Mt's for herself and that she'd keep Siom in hematite as long as Siom kept her in potatoes. Siom did that. Siom also sent coal and limestone to her because Siom had the capability to send her coal and limestone easier than she did. Siom had cars when RM only had a bike or two. Siom took limestone and coal to her along with potatoes in exchange for hematite and stone. RM's people, the forests people and people from all around come to Siom looking for tools or iron or steel or food or clothing. They bring things like wood which there's already a ton of, and Siom still manages to trade somehow. So why is it I'm hearing there isn't economy? There is. There's a huge economy there in Siom.

We've built things like a soldering iron. Well do you know what soldering iron's made from? Cobalt. Do you know how far away cobalt is from Siom? When my character was 25-27 years old he sent someone on a DEPUTY BIKE the whole way to *R***I for fucking Cobalt which is the entire way across the island. (This is when there were dedicated and reliable players/characters who didn't drop dead in the middle of a trip because the game was too fucking complicated, not that I don't understand people's doing that at this day and age.) Do you know what he did that in exchange for? Some clothes and a bicycle. He was given his own bicycle and some clothing upon his return. And when that soldering iron was built, I found people to dig soda/sand and paid them with clothing or small portions of iron/jewlrey or a tool they wanted. And when that was dug I had people take the resources into the SRM and make the beads I wanted and they did it in exchange for something that they themselves wanted. Be it a tool or a shield or a pair of sandals....They did it.

I already mentioned the drill we built in SFS and the drill in RM. I mentioned we built our own harvester. Did I mention we built a quarry in Jakara and give Jakara right to use it any time they want? Did I mention that beside that sand we've built roads up in our region. Siom used to have a road crew. That road crew didn't come free. Taargn nanogg worked the roads to where they were a few years ago in exchange for a vehicle which was agreed to be given to her before even my chars' time, by Stabber Stan who helped develop such a magnificently grand system that the people in Siom live in today. Did I mention that people volunteered to go and get oil for the roads. I once paid a guy to go get oil, lent him a cart and gave him half his pay with promise of more if he returned and he never returned. Thankfully those that volunteered to go, returned with it because it was used to update a road in Siom one more level. Thankfully they came home with it because Siom extends trade as far as lake village though it's nowhere NEAR as often as I'd like for it to be. Nowhere near as often as it could be if people were as dedicated as they used to be/able to be that dedicated without having to worry about fucking stupid repiars or farming so goddamn much because of how much they now eat in a day. But hey, I remember John Reynolds inquery about what Siom could do to get them some oil. Oh I remember it clear as day.


And atop of that all, Siom chases down thieves, fends off pirates, offers welcoming home to many people, trying to accomodate and make it's own citizens/residents happy. Atop of it all it has seen some of the wost pirates ever and lived through them. It's lost much. Including an entire naval fleet of ships. Including once it lost it's ENTIRE stock of goods. IE iron and steel and limestone and all that good junk? Completely gone. It's storages empty due to some lucky bastard that picked up a key and managed to get away. And it recovered from it. It's had difficult times,, hard times trying to keep it's outposts up and running when Cantr itself has been depressed of new chars/new players. Atop of having probably one of the most successful bussinesses threatening to be just as strong as Siom was herself, living right in Siom and competing with it. Taking workers for itself when Siom could have used them for something for sure.


A town can NOT be run by ONE person. Siom is NOT a greedy place sitting on all kinds of resources, the resources are ALWAYS moving. Always! Just in the past two weeks I think I've spoken with 6 different people that had wood. I didn't need the wood. We don't need the wood at all and haven't for years IC. (I feel like posting notices in neighboring towns to tell them to hold off on the wood because we're in plenty good shape, but it's not in Siom's nature to do that.) No instead we still traded them for their wood or tried to work something out. And we've given wood away in trades, handing out extra. We've added it to peoples boats. We've added it to abandoned boats. Promised it to people for doing this or that job.



Don't fucking tell me that there's no economy!Don't fucking tell me that you can do it all by yourselve because you can't. If it weren't for the blacksmith there'd be no goddamn iron or tools to give people. Don't tell me a person can do it all by theirself, because if there weren't noone trading there'd be no materials for the blacksmith to use. And if there weren't anybody running the harvester, there wouldn't be a surplus of potatoes to trade for the materials we need to make iron/steel. And if we don't have iron and steel, when a group of traders comes in? We don't get cotton. But guess what? Siom's seen cotton. Siom's seen REED!

But guess what else? I'm not bored in Siom. There's Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much that it has yet to accomplish. What I am talking about is there's a truck sitting in Siom. It's unfinnished. Do you know what the date it was started, was? 262-1! TWo fucking six two, dash one! YEAH. That's nearly five or more RL years ago. And do you know who started that truck? Well I'll tell you her name.................Milandra vaughn. I played her on my very first ever, Cantr account. Michael's 79 years old. He's been in Siom since he was 24 and working since he first arrived. He has wanted to finnish that truck since he was probably about 29. When he first started to really get into getting things "done." I remember him telling Zady he was thinking about finnishing that truck because it already had SOME materials on it. I only just recently, just very recently felt like I was going to get to find a way to insure that we had a steady supply of bauxite, but now with needing to make fuels? When the fuck am I going to get time to do that? *Sighs.*



I've been listening to this song lately. It's called "Long long Time" and it's by Guy Forsyth. I don't think he's very popular. It's one of the songs that came for free on my Window's Media Player. I can hardly even find a site listing the lyrics. I did manage to find one listing them however. And while the lyrics by themselves could never portray exactly how the song sounds to the ear: I think I should add that this song reminds me of the development of Cantr anymore. Not ICLY. The development in the game in general. Don't you people know that less is more?


http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 248AAIj2V1

Its been a long, long , long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long time
Its been a long, long , long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long time
When I was a kid I used to draw airplanes with stars and bars shooting down airplanes adorned with hammers and sickles. I bought a hundred water guns so I could save the world, saving my lunch money, steeling my father’s quarters, dimes and nickels. I discovered religion watching Luke Skywalker rescue Princess Lea and destroying the death star by letting go and closing his eyes. And I devoured comic books, three color mythologies taught me right from wrong and if you believed..... you could fly.
Its been a long, long , long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long time
Its been a long, long , long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long time
I remember hearing songs about trains and feeling the rush of wonder at the possibility that the world was both infinite and accessible all at the same time. Then it was songs about highways and born to be wild and little red corvette and the road went on forever in my mind. But not its clogged with stinking SUVs and two story pickup trucks that can drive over anything but the two story pickup truck right in front of it. Now even the Highways look the same, Starbucks and 7-11s and Wal-Mart’s line the feeder roads. We don’t live around this mess, we live under it.
Its been a long, long , long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long time
Its been a long, long , long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long time
Since I felt fine
Now all the songs are about gangsters and guns and the TV speeds by at a hundred deaths an hour and everyone wants to pull off the crime of the century. Steal 200 gazillion dollars, enough to buy myself island and build a real honest to God train on it for no one but me. And get away with it, get away with it. We Americans are Freedom loving people and nothing says freedom like getting away with it. We went from Billy The Kid to Richard Nixon, Enron, Exxon, OJ Simpson. We used to dream about heroes but now its just how to beat the system. So where do we go to dream now? Up on the rooftop of the projects, straining through the city lights to see if they’ve built golden arches on the moon yet? Self medicated, half sedated, trying our best to stay distracted, living life according to the TV set. Corporations owning nations, telling us don’t change the station, it’s the only safe way to win the human race.
I wonder how the world sees us, rich beyond compare, power full without equal? A spoiled 15 year old waving a gun in their face?
Its been a long, long , long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long time
Its been a long, long , long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long time
Its been a long, long , long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long time
Its been a long, long , long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long time
Its been a long, long , long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long time
Since I felt fine

This song to me symbolizes how we've evolved and fed ourselves fat with making everything "better." and what you get at the end is shit. Shit= that spoiled 15 year old waving their gun in a face....Or where we kill Cantr by making it sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo hard.




My main problem with all this is that, while you people might be making additions to trades, you're not doing anything to compensate us for the people and characters and manpower we're losing. The manpower we need to do the tasks that you keep implementing that are neccessary, to keep our towns running.

Totally excellent rant, Missy.

So why is it I'm hearing there isn't economy? There is.

My main problem with all this is that, while you people might be making additions to trades, you're not doing anything to compensate us for the people and characters and manpower we're losing. The manpower we need to do the tasks that you keep implementing that are neccessary, to keep our towns running.

I keep saying we need more fun changes and fewer not fun changes. Players don't stay because they aren't having any fun. I'm a big nerd who likes to build things so I'm happy but not really having fun. RP is ultimately what creates the fun and it has declined because...why? I'm not sure except that a lot of the good roleplayers left when Cantr bacame too much work for them (I think). One thing that would really encourage rp, IMO, is drunkeness. I'm not all up on what is happening with alcohol but I don't think our chars can drink it yet. I think this should have been implemented before the need for gas in the engines.

Please add some social stuff rather than all the mechanical stuff. Oh, and also, screw the economy. It will do what it does and that's how the game is supposed to be.

What other things can people think of that would encourage roleplaying?

Alright Missy, I for one never said there wasn't economy. I said this would add more. And if you'd like to take Siom for an exampe of what fuel will do to its economy let me make an explained prediction:
Siom already has a potato harvester. It also already has established trade routes for coal. Thus, the moment the first still spits out its first batch, Siom will then have an extra commodity to add to its already impressive list, and at what price of manpower? Practically none. Why's that? Stills are fully automated machienery. How about we go to biodiesal as the next logical step from alcohol? It's already got the soda on site, alcohol'll be pouring out of its still, meat's not a difficult thing to aquire by any means, and again, coal is already being aquired, water is also just a matter of finishing a well, so it'll be easy to get too. Price of manpower? It could be handled entirely by a single person, which I may remind you is already there. If we want to go for petrol? Once the machine is built, the only extra import will be extra oil, but then, once we've got running biodiesal, and the cars are all still running fine, I'm not entirely sure we'd even bother with the petrols...

Ohh... and would you all please calm down that this has no advantages, that part's coming soon enough. Adding maintainence costs to cars makes reducing intial costs possible. We do in fact enjoy balancing things in RD, but you hear a lot of bitching about the bad an barely praise for the good. (Labor costs have been on a bit of a downward trend sense i've started playing, with the repair updates, but people are yelling about increased labor, and it's honestly getting to me.)

Nakranoth wrote:Alright Missy, I for one never said there wasn't economy. I said this would add more. And if you'd like to take Siom for an exampe of what fuel will do to its economy let me make an explained prediction:
Siom already has a potato harvester. It also already has established trade routes for coal. Thus, the moment the first still spits out its first batch, Siom will then have an extra commodity to add to its already impressive list, and at what price of manpower? Practically none. Why's that? Stills are fully automated machienery. How about we go to biodiesal as the next logical step from alcohol? It's already got the soda on site, alcohol'll be pouring out of its still, meat's not a difficult thing to aquire by any means, and again, coal is already being aquired, water is also just a matter of finishing a well, so it'll be easy to get too. Price of manpower? It could be handled entirely by a single person, which I may remind you is already there. If we want to go for petrol? Once the machine is built, the only extra import will be extra oil, but then, once we've got running biodiesal, and the cars are all still running fine, I'm not entirely sure we'd even bother with the petrols...

Ohh... and would you all please calm down that this has no advantages, that part's coming soon enough. Adding maintainence costs to cars makes reducing intial costs possible. We do in fact enjoy balancing things in RD, but you hear a lot of bitching about the bad an barely praise for the good. (Labor costs have been on a bit of a downward trend sense i've started playing, with the repair updates, but people are yelling about increased labor, and it's honestly getting to me.)

You just don't see it. Wait til six people fall asleep and the last two running the town need coal, but one of the six is supposed to be going to get the coal. The two left to run the town can't get to the coal right now because everything else on their plate is already full. IE an entire aresenal of tools and weapons that need repaired and the harvester hasn't been run in three years. There's a person standing there nagging in their ear that they want to trade 50,000 grams of hematite for as many potatoes as they can get, but your coffers are completely empty. :O Oh my what do we do now? Well especailly because the last time you were in SFS for a load of coal you noted that they would need more potatoes very shortly. You want someone to run that harvester, but because you've been using all your coal to make your car run, the blacksmiths is low on coal and so you don't have any iron to pay the guy to run the harvester. It makes my brain hurt.

Edit: Maybe no man-power for running the machine, but there's man-power for the extra potatoes you're going to need dug. (Consider we're feeding every town in that region as the only local food source and some places with a "no hunting at all" law. Consider that they're going to need fuel too. And so their demand for potatoes is going to rise as well.) You're going to need extra man power to keep up with the coal that needs dug. And you're going to need extra man power for the resources needed for iron and steel to keep the people who are doing the work for the coal/potaotes needed for the fuel, HAPPY.

Meh, you almost paint it like if Siom was a perfect example of the whole Cantr.

Our Spanish/Deutsch island has plenty of resources to make fuel, to the point I bet the fueling industry is oddly going to develop faster than roads and vehicle production, which are still in an early stage.

It's going to give a nice boost to locations that were only plain farmlands, and that is a very good new when our economy is quite biased towards our little forest area.

Can't we just feel lucky for all the time we got to have vehicles and no fuel? If they were introduced together none of you would be whining.
I like it that my chars have to travel and trade to get the things they need to make both cars and fuel. There ought to be another expendable resource in constant production, other than food. That is stimulating.

I'm wearing this line a bit thin now...

Cooperation and social interaction is a 'good thing' which Cantr could do with some more of.

But the attitude of the developers seems to be to 'enforce' not 'encourage'.

And, moreover, the nature of cooperation and trade in Cantr (it's bloody difficult) means that trying to enforce cooperation does not change the dynamics of Cantrian characters, it just makes the game harder.

Repairs haven't encouraged any more cooperation than is generally seen within Cantr (see the stats I did last time)

Bronze is just a farce.

The resource slots seemed to work to
1) Make food freely available to all to free slots
2) Create more authoritarian power structures. And these are largely dictatorial in many places. one active character runs the place, rather than cooperation.

Fuel will lead to a small number of active areas creating fuel for the use of their own small group.
There will be no trading of raw resources above what currently exists, which is usually an ad-hoc basis which cannot be formalised due to shortness of life and length of distances.
There will be no trading of fuel - as there will be no surplus.



And, yes, Cantr is a game. It's increasingly becoming harder, as a game.

I hate myself for feeling like this. But I'm nigh on the edge of ignoring my characters various drives for material wealth, for making new things, exlporing new areas, for making large organisations work, for creating impressive political organisations and so on.

And just settling down to the tea party.

Quite frankly, the only thing which continues to be fun in Cantr is the roleplay. Everything else is just becoming too damned hard, or just nigh impossible, to be fun.


I've played enough games to know the very first lesson of game design
- "Is this fun?"

I get the feeling this question does not crop-up in development discussion...

What one person sees as "encouragement", another man sees as "enforcement". From my perspective looking over as much of the discussion/"discussion"/ranting/suggestion that I have time/energy/patience to digest, I see very little actual consensus for what the player base wants. What I do see is about a hunnert people all saying various different things, and it is our job on staff to satisfy as many of those opinions as we can while still making a game that we think is fun too.


For a while, a big complaint was that the game moves too slowly, projects take too long to complete, and the mechanical side of the game drags on leaving "The dolls' tea party" to fill the tedium. Nobody wants to spend two real life days building a hammer. or Is it really fair that it takes 417.25 days of real life game time to manufacture a car? How do you expect people to spend that much time working toward one project? or Food preparation is a complete waste of time when raw vegetables can be gathered more efficiently and weight less than bread.....these are a few examples of general views that I have seen over the past couple of years.


So, lately, we have had shorter project times to speed up processes to cut down on "boredom". Nearly all of the new changes we have implemented take 1 day or 1/2 a day, but no more than 5 days on average, to complete. We have tended to keep them short because for years we were reading Everything takes too long., New players get too bored to keep playing., etc, etc, usw.

I guess that was a poor decision, because now we get to hear constantly from the other camp, We have to check our characters every day (hour) just to survive. or It is too difficult keeping our characters fed for long trips. or How are we supposed to focus on other large projects when we have to spend so much time gathering and preparing food?...


So I guess there is no consensus. I'll get yelled at for shortening projects, I'll get yelled at for lengthening them. I have Polish players complaining left and right that the game is too simple, and I have English players complaining left and right that it is too complicated.


I will be honest, it is frustrating from a game development perspective, looking out into the chaos, seriously considering all of the voices and opinions while simultaneously trying to factor in some of your own ideas, desires, and creativity....only to hear how bloody incompitent everyone thinks you are for it.


I'm feeling a little...scratch that....I am feeling a lot damned if I do damned if I don't right now. This is getting to the point that the most tedious part of Cantr is actually working for Cantr. The game itself is still fun for me. Actually, the only thing I find tedious is trying to be involved in the instantaneous nature of game combat which is in stark contrast to the pace of the rest of the game that is quite confortable for me.


Oh well, I guess I am passive enough to realize that everybody is probably seeking something different from this game, and it really works best in the end if you just accept it, learn the strategy of the game, and find your niche to fill in it, rather than yelling at the development team until the game works to fit your own personal fancy.



But that's just my opinion. I'm probably wrong.

Oh, wichy, honey, don't be sad. You have to remember that you are basically an artist. You are creating new things and, like every artist, there will be people who don't like or understand your art. The critics seem to stand out more than the fans sometimes.

I, personally, have noticed that my chars don't have to spend all their time repairing things any more and I am thrilled about that!

You are right. You are damned if you do and damned if you don't because you'll never please everyone and it's the unhappy ones who will speak out.

Love you. Can you make drunk characters for me? *kissy face* I don't want to make my chars drunk but I want to see other chars act stupid. Hee!

We'll all get used to the changes, and most will accept them and even grow to love them. My chars are having fun working out how tthey can either exploit this or ignore it.
Remember far more people complain than praise.

Missy wrote:

Nakranoth wrote:You just don't see it. Wait til six people fall asleep and the last two running the town need coal, but one of the six is supposed to be going to get the coal. The two left to run the town can't get to the coal right now because everything else on their plate is already full. IE an entire aresenal of tools and weapons that need repaired and the harvester hasn't been run in three years. There's a person standing there nagging in their ear that they want to trade 50,000 grams of hematite for as many potatoes as they can get, but your coffers are completely empty. :O Oh my what do we do now? Well especailly because the last time you were in SFS for a load of coal you noted that they would need more potatoes very shortly. You want someone to run that harvester, but because you've been using all your coal to make your car run, the blacksmiths is low on coal and so you don't have any iron to pay the guy to run the harvester. It makes my brain hurt.

Edit: Maybe no man-power for running the machine, but there's man-power for the extra potatoes you're going to need dug. (Consider we're feeding every town in that region as the only local food source and some places with a "no hunting at all" law. Consider that they're going to need fuel too. And so their demand for potatoes is going to rise as well.) You're going to need extra man power to keep up with the coal that needs dug. And you're going to need extra man power for the resources needed for iron and steel to keep the people who are doing the work for the coal/potaotes needed for the fuel, HAPPY.

But then, if what you're saying is correct, Siom's a doomed city anyway, fuel or no. Why? Because fuel, like cars, isn't going to be used in excessive amounts. Yes, the ability to make or trade for fuel will become neccesitated in places with motor vehicles, but once the infrastructure is there, it won't take That much to keep your tanks full. I know, because I've seen the numbers behind it. In fact, I designed half those numbers myself, and you're right, it'll take about two to three extra man/days of labor for all the resources that go into it, but that will last you for long enough that it's not an excessive burden. And believe it or not RD watches to make sure of that. If the numbers as they are don't quite work in practice, then we change them so they do.
And if you want extra perspective on what you think Siom need, ask the townfolk, I'm sure at least some of them know what's going on and how to make things work out for the best.