Cantr II Discussion Forum

Given four towns in an area like this.

In t1, t3, and t4, people stay indoors exclusively, and only come out when it's necessary and the player is active.

In t2, people are out in the open laboring.

When an outsider comes, he has to pass by one of town 1, 3, 4, before he reaches town 2. When the people in these three towns spot suspicious travelers, they call town 2 on radio. People in town 2 then go indoors. Thus surprise attack is impossible. Town 4 regularly sends supplies to the three outer towns.

I'd like to hear comment on this idea, or if it has already been done before (which is probably true as I think there's little thing yet to be done in Cantr).

edit: I hope that this is not CRB? I don't intend to do this in game so far. One reason is that I haven't found such terrain, another is that there doesn't seem to be many large scaled attack now, which makes such complicate plan pointless. This is just what came across my mind when I read about those pirate/bandit attacks that happened RL years ago.

Been thinking on exactly this for quite some time now, but you need a whole organization of people. If you get 10 people to get interested in the same kind of IG organization, that would totally work.

If the people in T1, T3, T4 always stay inside a vehicle could arrive and immediately move on without being noticed. The situation is not failsafe.

Personally I doubt that it's been done before. It would require a long-term motive for this kind of setup for some towns to remain inside, and if it was for an immediate threat, it wouldn't make sense for anyone to be outside at all. I mean, people use the radio to warn nearby towns, but this seems to be referring to something a multi-town organization would do.

It's an interesting idea though.
I'd really like to see the implementation of a combat system that isn't so immediate, and it's already been planned out to a large extent, just requires a lot of programming. Once the combat system is improved, I think an idea like this would be more successful, whereas now travel is so fast compared to how often people wake up that they would stand little chance of getting inside on time.

Tiamo wrote:If the people in T1, T3, T4 always stay inside a vehicle could arrive and immediately move on without being noticed. The situation is not failsafe.

Indeed, the fact that one cannot see a vehicle or a person coming from the road is a problem. Can one see the road from the inside of a locked car? Can one be attacked when he is inside a car and the attacker is outside? If the answeres are "yes" and "no" respectively, then a sentry can be posted in a parked car.

Joshuamonkey wrote:I'd really like to see the implementation of a combat system that isn't so immediate, and it's already been planned out to a large extent, just requires a lot of programming. Once the combat system is improved, I think an idea like this would be more successful, whereas now travel is so fast compared to how often people wake up that they would stand little chance of getting inside on time.

It is great to hear that new features are still being implemented twenty years after the game was launched. I have inevitably been thinking about improvement to the combat system (which probably happens to almost every players who play for more then a week). Now I can stop thinking about it and comfortably wait for the new one getting implemented, as I believe what I have thought about Cantr combat has likely been discussed thoroughly.

I don't think combat was foremost in mind at the time of design.

"Society simulator" was my first introduction 10yrs ago... but since war does fascinate; it has changed based on the tastes of the demographic.
Dragging may have changed the whole thing and its tiredness effects affects how certain changes were made. One person could frighten a whole community. The one person would have to operate on a hit and run guerrilla basis. It happened somewhat recently with a "pirate" how raided coastal communities. I witnessed fear and paranoia in some very large communities.

Now we are doing less to simulate society and more to tear it down.
People adjust.

With a new and motivated leader like we have now, we may see certain changes. I just hope some of us stick with it and bring friends to introduce them to the wonderfully versatile system here.

Alladinsane wrote:"Society simulator" was my first introduction 10yrs ago... but since war does fascinate; it has changed based on the tastes of the demographic.

Some players focus on the social simulation part of the game, while some play the war part. The "social players" often neglect defense and most of time can get by it as war doesn't happen everyday. Then when those "war characters" kill their "social characters", it is quite a shock for the "social players". The combat system does give some advantage to those who get online at the same time and attack sleepers, but I think the situation is also partly caused by the peaceful chars who don't build defense when they don't see a war, and are caught unprepared.

New changes will bring new strategies. I'm looking forward to those. Cantr is a very unique game. I wish I had discovered it ten years earlier.

gudgeon wrote:Can one see the road from the inside of a locked car? Can one be attacked when he is inside a car and the attacker is outside?

No, they cannot see people passing through, and yes, they can be attacked.

The suggested combat changes can be found publicly here: https://trello.com/c/P1df26dU/4-combat-roadmap

It still needs more review, and at the bottom there are a list of details that still need deciding, so feel free to provide feedback or more suggestions.

the_antisocial_hermit wrote:

gudgeon wrote:Can one see the road from the inside of a locked car? Can one be attacked when he is inside a car and the attacker is outside?

No, they cannot see people passing through, and yes, they can be attacked.

Then it is impossible to have a sentry and not expose him to any danger. It is still possible to limit the danger and damage: let the sentry be the one with a good shield, above-average strength, and good fighting skill, and let him not bring keys with him. When he is attacked, he is more likely not to die, and if he does die, the attackers can't get hold of any keys.

Joshuamonkey wrote:The suggested combat changes can be found publicly here: https://trello.com/c/P1df26dU/4-combat-roadmap

It still needs more review, and at the bottom there are a list of details that still need deciding, so feel free to provide feedback or more suggestions.

It looks like a well thought-out plan overall. Some details actually coincide with what I've been thinking.

The town that has one road going in -- it's a mountain or desert where no one wants to live. It isn't going to support three other towns. Chances are that no one lives there permanently.

A surprise attack isn't so devastating any more. You may have read about an incident where a small band could keep attacking by drinking tea. Not possible these days.

Communication and cooperation are important for defense. It's not about getting a warning to go indoors. You get a group twice the size of the bandits, hunt them down, and kill them. But no one plays seriously any more, so it's not an issue. We're just waiting for the world to end.

Chris wrote: We're just waiting for the world to end.

This is beautiful.

gudgeon wrote:

Alladinsane wrote:"Society simulator" was my first introduction 10yrs ago... but since war does fascinate; it has changed based on the tastes of the demographic.

Some players focus on the social simulation part of the game, while some play the war part. The "social players" often neglect defense and most of time can get by it as war doesn't happen everyday. Then when those "war characters" kill their "social characters", it is quite a shock for the "social players". The combat system does give some advantage to those who get online at the same time and attack sleepers, but I think the situation is also partly caused by the peaceful chars who don't build defense when they don't see a war, and are caught unprepared.

New changes will bring new strategies. I'm looking forward to those. Cantr is a very unique game. I wish I had discovered it ten years earlier.

I think the social simulator goes hand by hand with the war game.

Honestly, playing the happy farm is lots of fun, but the true deepness comes when there's either something that antagonizes you or something you antagonize, and from that point, if enough RP happens, whole cultures can grow from that point.
From simple hostility or grudges to whole violent events and even war, having the possibility to play both the social and the warry parts of the game together is what gives, IMO, the true juice of RP and the very soul of Cantr.

----

Personally, I dislike the killing of active characters EXCEPT it's really necessary for the thread of events and the juicyness of the RP. Otherwise putting them away temporally is more the way to go for me. But I'm openly supportive about killing sleepers and sleeping newspawns, even knowing there are some people I really love out there and they don't have all the time to play this. -Sorry, it's part of the game.-

Anyway, I'm totally against any killing if there's no worth the RP resulting from that, or if no RP comes out from that.

Rocket Frog wrote:I think the social simulator goes hand by hand with the war game.

I completely agree with you about the dynamic between peace and war. But about killing off sleepers, I think that's actually not necessary. Sleepers have their use in the defense of a town.

Sleepers, when you give them shield and keep them fed, can act as scarecrows. The casual attackers can't tell if they will wake up at any moment. If the attackers do decide to assault the town, the multitude of sleepers are good distraction. The attackers may waste their strength on some sleepers and can't attack the offline active chars. Finally, if you have a comatose mayor, you can hit him to NDS, get his keys, heal him back, fit him with full regalia, and drag him to outside in the center of the town. When the pirates arrive, they will be excited to find the leader, and after strike him down, they will be disappointed and annoyed when they find no keys or any thing valuable.