Cantr II Discussion Forum

The iron is only sparse because of the technology shift necessary to start producing it again. Once facilities are built iron will be produced again. The only change will be that only those who invest in facilities will be able to make the iron. Thus yoiu will finally see some spcialization of labour...people whose JOB it is to produce iron and make a profit selling it. However I still think food is unrealistically easy to get, and as such, the balance is offset. Why would iron mining companies sell their iron when they can feed themselves just fine by taking a day off to farm? And that means that until something becomes valuable enough to trade for, there will be no reason for these people to part with their iron, and you will only have the iron companies with iron, with the exception of truly altruistic miners who sell iron to help people. If one resource is going to be difficult, others should so that there's a reason for the goods to circulate. Resources should be difficult enough to gather that people would have to make it their job to collect those resources or halt progress. Without specialization, nothing is efficient enough to be accomplished in a reasonable amount of time, and in some cases things cannot be accomplished at all.

For this to be an accurate society simulation, the economy would eventually end up as such:

Food producers (sell to public)
Material producers (sell to manufacturers)
Manufacturers (sell to shops OR direct to public)

Of course some entities may have multiple divisions which take care of one or more of these tasks; many of the 'companies' in Cantr already operate as tiny, self-contained societies.

Because it's just plain inefficient to go make your own tools out of iron you dug from the ground, or even just buying raw iron to make into tools, when you can get better-made tools for far less effort from a company devoted to making them? With initial investment difficulties, production will be able to be represented by a realistic curve, which will encourage the growth of economies of scale for ambitious regions, or primitive stagnation for those areas where nobody works together, as would be expected.

I thikn a line has to be drawn before making the game to complicated. The game is more about interaction than resources, or at least it is to me, and I don't want the fact that salt may have to be imported from as many as 5 or more areas away. The areas with coal and limestone in close proximity are now even more powerful than before, shifting the power away from iron regions (good) but just making them vunerable to those places with the resources to produce, well, anything now (bad). I think, simply, hematite (good), iron ore (bad). It over complicates things. But enough with the changes! Give people enough time to start clothes before you take away their resources. Clothes are pointless unless you want them, and if you want them then you can roleplay that as much as having a job.

I like Cantr the way it is, there is no point to all these changes.

Yes, it's about interaction, not about being able to make everything yourself. It's just unrealistic to have somebody mine, farm, manufacture and travel all within the space of a year, and get the level of accomplishment you can in Cantr. As it is, in many cases chars are better off alone than abiding by the rules of society. After all, why trade for something when you can get it yourself? It used to be much easier too. Steel used to be available as a resource in some areas, making it entirely too easy for someone to get everything they needed to have the best equipment and tools and machinery in the game without help from anyone else. It's a society simulator, not one of those mmorpg's where you walk around and interaction is optional. You want that? Go play everquest.

I don't think forced people to interact is necessarily the best approach. Good players will be hooked by Cantr, not by the tedious and pointless system that will see my charcter work for 5 (Cantr) years before I am in a poistion to trade for something. The new system favours established characters, and it is hard to explain to 'newbies'. More to the point, if you reduce food yields, what will newer characters have to trade? I don't want all my characters to have 'realistic' jobs that reduce my chance to interact, the whole point of Cantr.

Yes forced interactions are completely necessary. A society simulator where society is optional? Why do you think people form societies in real life? It's not because they have some strange urge to get a job and some urge to buy things from other people, it's because they need to in order to have a decent life. That aspect of cantr is mostly missing at this point. If the game could similarly require interaction for people to become successful it would add a lot of depth and strategy to the game.
I hear what you're saying about the powerful becoming more powerful because they just build all the machines to do everything, but that's why I keep yelling item deterioration because then you wouldn't be able to maintain 7 types of machinery at once and so people would need to specialize unless they had a lot of employees (but the employees wouldn't work for free anymore, they would demand a decent pay and food which they could not get enough of just farming on the off days).

I understand the reasons for society in real life, but Cantr is a society simulator, where society is the point of the game. Just let the players interact and role-play without all these infernal changes. Especially the bellows for steel...

Ilithar Trueblade wrote:Why would I trade my iron which I have spent so much time and resources on for for anything not valuable. Only the rich could trade. These changes are beginning to suck.

Socities exist anyway, most of my characters are in places with at least 20 people, and good social interaction.

by your rekoning the only thing in the game with value is iron. io that's the case the only people who will be rich so wish to trade will be the one's with iron and they'll only trade for iron cause it's the only thing of value ?
bull all the iron that people have on them will either disappear because it'll be used on machines or weapons or the such or it'll get horded by them until a time when it won't be worth anywhere near as much as they think it is ( like now) sure a lot of thing's need iron and you can't just pick iron upo off the ground but how many people have complained in the past that it's so easy for some noob to get an iron sheild and a war bow and go around killing people ? this change is meant to stop that and try to make char's work together. at present some people are organised and to have all your char's in area's with more then 20 people you area really lucky i think out of 15 char's i have 6 that belong in area's like that. the rest are either in smaller area's or traveller's. but then again it doesn't really mater what changes they made a bunch of people would kick up a stick and whinge about it while the rest of us just accept it as the way the game has gone and get on with playing the game

Ilithar Trueblade wrote:I don't think forced people to interact is necessarily the best approach. Good players will be hooked by Cantr, not by the tedious and pointless system that will see my charcter work for 5 (Cantr) years before I am in a poistion to trade for something. The new system favours established characters, and it is hard to explain to 'newbies'. More to the point, if you reduce food yields, what will newer characters have to trade? I don't want all my characters to have 'realistic' jobs that reduce my chance to interact, the whole point of Cantr.

But this is false! Your char will not have to work for five years just to get something. If other resources are made more valuable, then all your char would have to do is get a job, and if it's a good one he can get most things within a year. Also, he likely would have no need for raw iron or steel because there would be people making things with iron and steel. If you want to make many tools or weapons, you already require an anvil. Why make your own when someone else already has one that they use? However, you can't trade anything for the fruits of their labor because the only resource with any value is iron/steel currently.

Iron and steel aren't the only things valued, they just tend to be the most valued. Walk into a town with a little gold, diamonds, silver, rubber, soda, limestone, coal, wood, nickel, healing foods, oil, etc., and somebody's going to buy it. Towns with an iron/steel supply will buy it in larger quantities.
I think the "wanderer" chars don't take enough advantage of their travels. In the K/D/S/ region, rubber was hard to come by. Someone would pass through with a quantity that was too small to really affect anything. Finally, a wanderer realized the value of a regular trade route to the rubber, and that person is in a position to get whatever he/she wants for supplying the rubber. Also, that whole region now has access to rubber through the town that buys from the wanderer. This has led to 10 vehicles being built that I know of in a fairly short time, and more will come.
With oil...chars come to oil locations all the time and get only 3 or so days worth, before travelling on. Then some of them come back saying, "Hey, such and such town wants to buy lots of oil." No kidding.
If a char goes into the wilderness and finds something even remotely rare or valuable, it makes sense to stock up.

I think I failed to make my point here. I didn't mean to make out that iron was the only precious resource. What I was trying to establish was that there would be nothing for new characters to offer but labour. New people will have to work, generally inside, and that is not fun for new players to play. *smiles* I have a tendency to get carried away in my arguments and irritate people. Sorry about that.

Oh and Spectrus_wolfus, I reserve the right to whinge. I thought that is what forums were for? or is that just reminiscing? *laughs* See, there I go being offensive again...



P.S. I exaggerated slightly on having all my characters in populated places. Cantr City no longer has 20 people (There appear to have left while I was inside) and 2 others are no longer in large areas. My point was that I prefer to seek out society, as it is more fun (in my opinion) to play.

@ Ithil: I wasn't offended or anything, if you meant me.
I see your point about newspawns. Cantr doesn't have to immitate the real world, or course, but younger chars are naturally going to be more likely to hold less desirable positions than older chars who've already made their way through/around the system of a society. It gives young chars genuine reasons to work hard/go illegal, etc., rather than just getting a job to have something to do.

Ilithar Trueblade wrote:I have a tendency to get carried away in my arguments and irritate people. Sorry about that.

No worries, mate. I love arguing this stuff