Are cantrian populations too naive?

[Arlequin]

As a former pirate, I got used to watch sea shore cities on my area with a critic eye. I usually realized that the only real defense most towns were relying on was the lack of organized enemies. I never heard comments like "It would be safer to live inland", or "We cannot afford to defend the town if we build a dock for big ships", or "Lets live indoors unless we need to collect something from outside", or "Lets gather in a bigger town to be safer".

Then, from time to time you hear about a town easily wiped by pirates. Thankfully, most social interaction in Cantr isn't about violence, but that doesn't mean that one can be cautionless and safe at the same time.

Basically you see three kinds of security-(un)aware populations:

A - The undefended. Either the population is too weak to afford a defense or they don't notice they are in danger. They usually worry only about fencing off the animals.

B - The self defense populations. The common people equip themselves with steel weapons, iron shields and crowbars, and hope they'll be able to fence off any enemy.

C - The organized defense populations. There's some characters specifically designated to defend the town and they are able to respond after an attack.

D - The planified defense populations. There's also buildings, resources and plans specifically to keep the town safe even before they can respond the attack.

Most locations I know are A or B. I think I could describe three or four as C, and only one as D. Obviously the large amount of A and B, even at seashores, are sustainable because they are rarely in danger (as in the modern world). But the Cantr world is hardly at a "modern world" stage.

Do you think that it will change with the pressure of successful "bandits", if any, or that most Cantr characters will keep being naive about their security?

[Doug R.]

A character's self-awareness of their coastal danger depends on the player. If you've had a charrie kidnapped, or a boat stolen, it's only natural to be more cautious in the future (unless you're one of those rare pure role-players that can entirely unbias yourself, which I don't think is possible). If these characters grow into leaders, you'll see more C and D towns.

[Chris]

Basically you see three kinds of security-(un)aware populations:

A - The undefended. Either the population is too weak to afford a defense or they don't notice they are in danger. They usually worry only about fencing off the animals.

B - The self defense populations. The common people equip themselves with steel weapons, iron shields and crowbars, and hope they'll be able to fence off any enemy.

C - The organized defense populations. There's some characters specifically designated to defend the town and they are able to respond after an attack.

D - The planified defense populations. There's also buildings, resources and plans specifically to keep the town safe even before they can respond the attack.

I count 4. Also, they are not mutually exclusive descriptions.

Description A is unknown to me. Every town has characters with weapons and shields of some kind. Description B partially fits the frontier town of my characters. We also have locked buildings that we can use (and have used) for shelter, though those buildings have other uses as well. Description C is by far the most common. Almost every town on a developed island has some security organization — knights, guards, sheriffs, protectors, etc. Description D is pretty rare, depending on how complex or simple a plan has to be to qualify.

People will do things based on their experiences. If they experience violence, they will adjust accordingly. Most places are peaceful most of the time, with only an occasional thief and a very rare violent criminal. The most important factor I can see is town size. Large towns are more likely to have enough people to maintain a security organization. Of course, I have never met anyone who spent anywhere close to 100% of his/her time on security. More like 5% or 10% on security and the rest on projects, talking, moving stuff, etc.

[wichita]

Cantrians can't be any less naïve than the average player, which, if we extrapolate from the society at large from which the player base is derived...I wouldn't hold my breath.


Remember kids -- make sure you vote to increase all restrictions on security efforts, and then bitch at the authorities when they "fail" to protect the country with that right arm of the law tied behind their backs. You gotta love social modernization...

[/rant]


Election decades in the U.S. always make me grumpy.

[Idriveayugo]

Remember kids -- make sure you vote to increase all restrictions on security efforts, and then bitch at the authorities when they "fail" to protect the country with that right arm of the law tied behind their backs. You gotta love social modernization...

Was that sarcasm? Or are you a true conservative?

[wichita]

They're so often the same thing, I'm afraid. Actually, I'm a liberal bastard when talking to a conservative and a conservative bigot when talking to a liberal. I walk the balance beam between oil salesman and tree hugger, supporting cleaning up pollution while doubting that pollution is actually responsible for global warming. I'm a socialist that just wants the government to focus its attention where it really belongs.


I'm a moderate, because I don't have my head up my ass. Time will tell with that is because it is where it is supposed to be, or if I have always had it so far up there that I am now looking at the world through my own mouth.


There, now I've gone and said too much.

[/thread hijack]

[DylPickle]

Though I agree with Wichita's moderate position on these thrilling and intriguing political policy deals.... I'll try to get the tread back on it's flight path

There are many, MANY towns, especially port towns, that fall under the "undefended" category of A. There are tons of poorer regions where the people will be armed with nothing better than bone clubs, spears, and bagh-nacks, while maybe the one leader will have a steel weapon like a sabre. However, they do have one little mechanism of defense: poverty. No sophisticated pirate is going to waste his or her time trying to raid a celler for potatoes. They'll use those poorer port towns to recruit new crew, more than anything.

The vast majority of places fall under category B, for sure, with armed citizens millitia at every stop. I'd blame this on the rarity of full scale conflict in the game. Conflict has a huge demand, but a very little supply it seems, so people will always walk around armed just in case they happen to chance upon an opportunity to fight someone or something.

Category C, with the professional armies and guard forces is sort of a more official version of B. The only difference is that some guards may be given keys to jail facilities, etc. When there are no thieves or bandits to be found, guards and soldiers are just ordinary citizens, working on farming, building, refining, etc. And even when there's trouble, it's a combination of citizens and guards doing the work anyways. Not JUST the guards.

I've only seen one and a half places like D. You need a lot of levelheaded, competent characters to really pull that off.

It's probably mainly due to small weaknesses in roleplay. Most people take roleplay to be simply a personality or form of communication, but we forget to play out actual ROLES in society.

[SekoETC]

But with racist massacres people kill other people no matter how poor they look, just because they are foreigners. Even if there was a place with just wooden carts and longboats, people will break into them just in case there was something worth stealing on board.

It's true that more people should think ok living on the coast is dangerous so if I don't have a boat, I might as well move inland. I have one character who was interested in boats as a newspawn but when she saw many crooked sailors, she decided it was better to avoid coasts altogether.

I have one town that has had a policy of keeping the harbour locked and there used to be a defense plan, the whole town was built to be defended easily. But then she tried to move over responsibilities to a new generation, well, the primary new leader apparently died and the secondary new leader took off with most of their keys, telling her to take care of things while he's gone to fix some things. Excuse me, how am I going to take care of things without the keys? At least I have a key to the storage and later on the jail since this one guy they had hired as a guard had a heart attack, but life sure is complicated. I wish Cantrians would die of old age then I wouldn't have to decide when it's time to die off and leave the town to be ruined by incompetent management.

[frenchfisher]

In terms of things like safety, I agree there's a good deal of naiveté. But in terms of, say, religion, or morals... often the average Cantrian is not naive enough.

[Joshuamonkey]

I have one town that has had a policy of keeping the harbour locked and there used to be a defense plan, the whole town was built to be defended easily. But then she tried to move over responsibilities to a new generation, well, the primary new leader apparently died and the secondary new leader took off with most of their keys, telling her to take care of things while he's gone to fix some things. Excuse me, how am I going to take care of things without the keys? At least I have a key to the storage and later on the jail since this one guy they had hired as a guard had a heart attack, but life sure is complicated. I wish Cantrians would die of old age then I wouldn't have to decide when it's time to die off and leave the town to be ruined by incompetent management.

To that, I say:You shouldn't have killed AJ, lol.

[Sekar]

One major problem with defense is that usually, not always, but usually a town has a single person that controls things. If that person is not cautious, inactive, or simply focused on other things besides defence, the towns chances of surviving a well planned pirate attack diminish to nothing. Although I have virtually no experience with pirate attack massacres, this is just me thinking logically, as I do at least know the game mechanics.

People trusting each other with keys or other things that the person could harm them with, can be the biggest pain, but also the greatest miracle in Cantr.

[Missy]

I have one town that has had a policy of keeping the harbour locked and there used to be a defense plan, the whole town was built to be defended easily. But then she tried to move over responsibilities to a new generation, well, the primary new leader apparently died and the secondary new leader took off with most of their keys, telling her to take care of things while he's gone to fix some things. Excuse me, how am I going to take care of things without the keys? At least I have a key to the storage and later on the jail since this one guy they had hired as a guard had a heart attack, but life sure is complicated. I wish Cantrians would die of old age then I wouldn't have to decide when it's time to die off and leave the town to be ruined by incompetent management.

*Cheering* That's the way I feel in several areas.

[Missy]

One major problem with defense is that usually, not always, but usually a town has a single person that controls things. If that person is not cautious, inactive, or simply focused on other things besides defence, the towns chances of surviving a well planned pirate attack diminish to nothing. Although I have virtually no experience with pirate attack massacres, this is just me thinking logically, as I do at least know the game mechanics.

People trusting each other with keys or other things that the person could harm them with, can be the biggest pain, but also the greatest miracle in Cantr.

To say what Seko said doesn't mean people don't trust others with keys. What's awful is trusting them with them, for them to sit on them and do didley *bad word* squat after you take the time to give them the keys. It's like the new generation of Catnr has no idea how to take initiative. You don't take a job and then it just somehow "all" gets done for you. You actually have to do the work for it to remain functioning. I don't know if maybe it's a flaw to have worked so long at something that you know why it works the way it does/what parts make it work etc, because it seems like no matter of explaining it to someone else, they could never see it through your eyes. So then when they stand there nodding their head and explaining, "Oh yes, I understand. I won't let you down" yet the results you see from them are still disappointing. You're like, "Okay, I thought you said you understood what you were supposed to do.......so why isn't it getting done?"


Sometimes the single person controlling things isn't because the single person wants to control things, but it looks that way.

Edit: But then sometimes it is true for a reason too. Sometimes you go through the aforementioned proccess of giving keys out and you've been disappointed so many times, you feel like "What's the point in giving keys out? Might as well just do it all myself, never works out anyway." That is, when you've reached 100 years old and have been trying to find a replacement for fifty years now.

[Bowser]

It doesn' take a huge amount of trust to give many people the key to a jail. You can still be a miser with all the power in the world locked behind the right doors and still have people under you with the ability to lock up intruders.

Pirate attacks are a threat that is real and unavoidable on coastal towns. The fact that a person can undock, check all unlocked buildings, swipe what they may, reboard their boat, and undock in the matter of minutes is the problem. They can not steal much if they are in a small boat, but they can not be touched if they are ona ship that can not be docked to.

There is no defense except constant activity, which is impossible. I have caught, captured, and killed many a slow pirate. I have also seen just as many take whatever was not behind locked doors and sail away. Such is life. It is not life threatening. A large group attacking by ship is no more dangerous of a massacre than a group arriving by van.

[SekoETC]

Maybe distributing responsibilities slowly is the key. Don't just toss keys at people and expect them to cope (although that has great dramatic value) expand their responsibilities one by one and see how they deal with them. Giving keys to the jail is a good step. Food storage is another. Actually I know one town where it doesn't take long to gain trust and get keys. Although at first I was wondering if trust like that would turn out to be foolish but picture this, if everyone has good equipment then if one person steps out of line, the others would be likely to take him down. And if several people have the keys, it's not the end of the world if one gets the sleeping sickness. Although then there is an increased chance of one of them dropping dead, but maybe you could assign them bedrooms and tell them to go lie down if they're feeling bad. Also inactive people could be dragged.