ATTENTION: Aspirant Businessmen and Town Leaders

[returner]

Dear Players who play Aspirant Businessmen and Town Leaders, or players who aspire to be either of these.

I have developed an idea for which your character may like to play out. (of course if your character's personality doesn't flow with this idea, it's not for you sadly. but if you've set up your character in a direction which would ensure you're not being OOC when you do this, then great! Read on!)

The time for Cantr to move forward is imminent, especially for the main islands and the smaller developed islands.

I have thought up a very simple way for money to actually work (it doesn't work ANYWHERE now.. at least, not to the best of it's ability).

Here it is, it is so nice, so easy and seems like a fix-all. I'm really excited to pass this on to you.

Firstly, Aspirant Businessmen need to form an organisation which provides a standard coin to a region of the island. They need to do this by speaking to town leaders and getting them to accept it in their town. Once this is done, we turn to the town leaders.

ALL resource gathering is banned. You are no longer allowed to dig resources without paying the State or town with coins.

But what about food?

Work for it! Most people in modern society don't go out into the fields to gather food.. no, we pay for it.. we pay others to do it.

So towns now have people who actually need to work to get coins, then they can begin purchasing things. They could do odd jobs, like make tools, or weapons, or actually harvest food.
The resources and tools they make can be used to pay others.. of course each town would be making a profit.

If a business wants to set up, they need to register with the bank in order to receive coins to pay their staff, and need to speak to the town about getting formal permission to begin their company.


Simple as that..







On a darker note, this is so very unlikely to ever happen.. which sucks!!

Any questions? Comments? Constructive critisicm? Thoughts? Likes/dislikes?

[AlchemicRaker]

I don't know that this would work... and I haven't been playing cantr for too long to give any sort of experienced opinion, but... When I make a newspawn, its pretty standard to at least start gathering resources in small amounts (given permission from town governments, etc, as needed). This would work if there was high activity, but would have problems otherwise, I think.

- Natso

[Doug R.]

They need to do this by speaking to town leaders and getting them to accept it in their town. Once this is done, we turn to the town leaders.

You will NEVER get past this hurdle.

[returner]

Oh, also, the Bank head quarters would take in raw resources for travellers outside of the designated region.

Rather than wait for Cantr staff to implement limited resources, why don't characters start realising that the limitation of resources is the best way to progress Cantr in a sociological sense? (ie, it's one of the best way to build a society?)

Final note, before you claim it's too OOC for your character to take up.. it's not. There's no difference between thinking up a new idea and having your character do it, than myself posting this on a forum. Your character isn't autonomous, it's fully influenced by your bias. If your character is a dictator in a town, you may OOCly get influences from real-life dictators.

The crux of this, really, relies on ONE man starting the Bank and expanding it through consultation with Town Leaders/Elders. I'd do it, but my characters are too young and not respected or wealthy.

Come on guys, there's gotta be one out there!!!!

[returner]

I don't know that this would work... and I haven't been playing cantr for too long to give any sort of experienced opinion, but... When I make a newspawn, its pretty standard to at least start gathering resources in small amounts (given permission from town governments, etc, as needed). This would work if there was high activity, but would have problems otherwise, I think.

- Natso

Absolutely. It's up to the towns to inform the newspawn, and drag them off the project. Because towns would become more wealthy, they can integrate their citizens and give them a 'starter pack' of supplies, thus eliminating the need to gather.

They need to do this by speaking to town leaders and getting them to accept it in their town. Once this is done, we turn to the town leaders.

You will NEVER get past this hurdle.

Heh, probably true, but you never know. Depending on -what- character does it, and how they justify it, you never know. Many towns may actually like the idea of restricting their resources to payed usage (of course at a cheaper rate than just buying the resources from the town). It's win-win for the town. They either get money by trading for their basic stuffs like sand, food, hematite, wood, cod, anything that is otherwise (usually) valueless....(ie cod, or sand)... or they get money for someone starting a project.





Sorry if my society-building ideas of recent are annoying, I'm studying a sociology-type course at University..

[Doug R.]

The crux of this, really, relies on ONE man starting the Bank and expanding it through consultation with Town Leaders/Elders.

This has already been tried and failed on K-isle. The town leaders will not accept the bank because they know inevitably that ONE man will die or will fall asleep, rendering the coin useless or commerce with the bank impossible. Barter is simply too easy (and other characters too unreliable) to ever cause a town leader, much less all the town leaders, to put risk in a currency. Unless barter is made difficult, you will never, ever, see a working system of coinage in Cantr. That simple.

[AlchemicRaker]

If anything, I think the best a bank could be implemented is simply to set a certain amount that will be produced on a regular interval (after producing some amount to get everything started) and to go around to participating towns and have them all establish rates (even if they change their rates, the important point is that they have them). Town vaults would just exchange resources for the money, and vice versa. It could provide wages for people, in that sense, even if they weren't assigned "jobs". I don't see it getting much more... used than this, but I don't think I've been in any of the busier areas, either.

All in all, its just a lot of extra work, unless the participant towns are active and actively communicating with each other.

- Natso

[mikki]

Well I know that my town leaders would look at said person as though they were stupid. They wouldn't except anything like that so.... yeah..

[returner]

The crux of this, really, relies on ONE man starting the Bank and expanding it through consultation with Town Leaders/Elders.

This has already been tried and failed on K-isle. The town leaders will not accept the bank because they know inevitably that ONE man will die or will fall asleep, rendering the coin useless or commerce with the bank impossible. Barter is simply too easy (and other characters too unreliable) to ever cause a town leader, much less all the town leaders, to put risk in a currency. Unless barter is made difficult, you will never, ever, see a working system of coinage in Cantr. That simple.

Recently I've come to accept that Cantr just cannot develop any further beyond it's own technologies. There are very, very simple groups here and there, ie small businesses, town governments, small armies, small groups, but ALL of them eventually die out and RARELY are their ideologies continued. The Blackrocks are an exception, and their pest-like nature is just beautiful. Music to the ears of a sociologist. They have survived through Naedell Rau (I believe) who took on the beliefs of Nick (though I'm guessing this). Despite their failure on Kwor, Burgeo and I believe elsewhere, the disease managed to catch on to Cantr Island and did exceptionally well.

Despite my comments, and returning to my original point, I'm accepting and also fearful that Cantr is unable to develop into a deeper society.. without NPC's. I'm certainly not in support of NPC's, but I've told myself that I want to make Cantr a long-term game of mine, one I will play for many many years. However, I can foresee that things aren't going to improve sociologically, which is the main reason I'm here .. (Cantr does claim to be a society simulator, but overall fails).

I think Cantr should take a new approach to it's players, and strongly suggest and imply (moreso than now) that Cantr is a long-term game, one you need to play for years to fully appreciate it, and continue playing after that. One of those games you stick with for a long time. Sadly in todays day and age, people are too lazy to bother but.. I guess that's their problem. They'll miss out.


Wow, talk about a rant.

[returner]

Also, it might work in Sring Si or what ever that tiny island is.. Perhaps if it was started there, a missionary could spread it elsewhere, saying 'trials in Sring island worked'..

[mikki]

Also, it might work in Sring Si or what ever that tiny island is.. Perhaps if it was started there, a missionary could spread it elsewhere, saying 'trials in Sring island worked'..

That would be Shai island, and I know of one town that won't except it. sorry.

[returner]

Also, it might work in Sring Si or what ever that tiny island is.. Perhaps if it was started there, a missionary could spread it elsewhere, saying 'trials in Sring island worked'..

That would be Shai island, and I know of one town that won't except it. sorry.

Why's that?

If it was put to the leader in a formal way, fully explained how it benefits people, benefits the town and prevents sleeping illness by keeping young newspawns interested and active, while ALSO making the island and thus their town a huge tourist destination and ALSO creating the potential for a variety of new avenues, would the leader accept it?

Don't forget, if all surrounding towns were to accept it in a region (not necessarily saying Shai here) then there would be heaps of pressure to accept it. But if it was put forward in a pretty simple, straight-forward and logical way, which only showed benefits (there aren't many negatives), it would be pretty silly to not accept it.

[Doug R.]

The societies that persist are autocratic (Blackrocks, Alexians, MacGregors, etc.)

Cantr is certainly limited by its own technology, as you say, but it's also severely crippled sociologically by the player's democratic values seeping into their characters. There is a reason that humans developed autocratic political systems early on - because they're the best way to get stuff done. The only problem with autocracies in Cantr is that they fail if the leader goes to sleep. Society grinds to a halt because the enlightened, westernized players imbue their characters with traits such as loyalty that are typically absent in autocracies, which rule through fear and greed. If your autocrat goes to sleep, the town isn't going to drag him off and murder him. They'd rather hold a vigil for years until they drop dead suddenly and a newspawn takes the keys.

A coinage system will take hold in Cantr if an autocrat gains control of a wide enough area and imposes it upon pain of death or imprisonment.

Democracies in Cantr are rarely noticeable because by rule they are bland and unwieldy - rule by all means that nothing stands out, it has to be that way to get the votes. You may argue that most towns are autocracies, but the truth is, they are democratic autocracies governed by Western values, and hence are as bland as any traditional democracy.

[SekoETC]

Usually it takes such a long time to get a job that if food gathering was banned and there was no free food, people would risk making 1 hour projects close to the tick to get even a little bit of food, then move elsewhere. As long as there were places with more relaxed regulations, people would migrate to those places or at least continue wandering in hopes of finding one because they would know OOC that the whole world is not similar to the town they spawned in.

Anyone can start gathering resources in an instant without requiring any tools (unless it's timber in question), but in order to get a job, you often need someone else to start a project for you and give you the necessary tools, and they might feel ambivalent about giving you the tools until they get to know you better, because otherwise you might walk away with them while he's asleep, or hold onto them for so long that he forgets whom he gave them to. But a town with enough resources could start projects that require no tools, for example cooking, refining, tanning, weaving, etc. and people could just walk in and start working on them. Then when the supervisor wakes up, he would record who's working on what, and would pay people once they're finished. But it gets problematic if more than one person works on a project, and especially if they join at different times. Also people might start working on a project, then quit and leave it up to someone else to finish it.

Towns could also claim that raw food is poisonous, and maybe people would play along. It might work out better in towns that have no directly edible food resources, just something like fish or grains. Then food would have to be prepared, and preparation takes machinery, and if machinery was always in use, that would prevent newspawns from starting their own projects.

[EchoMan]

I think all of this suggestion is just OOC information. What do you want? 25% of the players of prominent characters to vote yes? Fine, implement your ideas in your town or w/e, but don't lobby on the forums for everyone to adopt a commercial civic. Let places evolve as they do. If your ideas are successful when you implement them they will spread. Maybe.