Vehicle Change: Road Accesibility

[wichita]

No; don't remove oil. I've invested all my resources in an oil derrick...

*points and laughs*

Sorry. I am impressed that you bothered, and I would be excited to see one in action. That machine has been irritating to me for a long time, as it is symbolic in a lot of ways of the amazing potential for growth that could be had in the game, but will never be seen because only a handful of players are willing to stick together and cooperate to build something that is seemingly impossible to achieve.

The Pyramids, the Colossus, the Lighthouse of Ephesus, the Hagia Sophia, the Taj Mahal.... all took huge investments and sacrfice. That is why they are wonders of the world.

Five average Cantrians can't even be bothered to work together to trade for cooked meat.

[Chris Johnson]

So why is the first bus reaching completion in cantr going to be crippled , - a large scale multi-char enterprise if ever there has been one



(n.b. whilsts one of my chars knows in game of the bus they are not involved ... though that char would love to see it fail)

[Phalynx]

So why is the first bus reaching completion in cantr going to be crippled , - a large scale multi-char enterprise if ever there has been one



(n.b. whilsts one of my chars knows in game of the bus they are not involved ... though that char would love to see it fail)

Aha.. the real reason for the changes emerges!

[Chris Johnson]

I doubt RD are doing it to cheer up one of my chars

But as a player as I've stated before I don't like this proposed change and see it just as an attempt to balance the manufacturing tables as opposed to balancing the game

[Marian]

If we could get the change that Talapus said, with the paved road not requiring oil, I would be 100% for it. Towns would still have to use a little initiative to get their roads upgraded, but it's not an almost impossible goal anymore.

[Phalynx]

I doubt RD are doing it to cheer up one of my chars

I think I need to use this:



a little more!

[Surly]

To be honest, the reason I wanted this change was to encourage people to actually use road improvements beyond the sand road.

I wouldn't mind adding a cobbled road, but I don't want to sacrifice the expressway to do it.

But I do have to say... the Romans made pretty good roads without oil

[Phalynx]

But I do have to say... the Romans made pretty good roads without oil

And they didn't spend half their lives repairing them either..

[saztronic]

Resources Department is considering some changes to the roads that vehicles will have access to in the future. This change is being considered in the interest of realism and game balance to the travel and transport system.

Can we have a bit of reasoning behind how this improves realism and balance? I'd like to know what the RD wants to accomplish with this change.

The idea came from analyzing all of the vehicles, based on production cost, cargo capacity, passengers, speed, and road access and deciding what happens to the spectrum over the course of the game.

From a certain perspective, why would anyone ever build a bicycle? Just build a tandem and you get so much more improvement in cargo, speed, and passenger capability. Bike = worthless (from a certain perspective)

Who in their right mind would build a road motorcycle? It is the only vehicle in game that can not travel on a sand road, in a certain aspect it is easier to just build some of the cars. The road motorcycle is pointless (from a certain perspective).

So, granted, a lot of this came from overanalyzing the numbers and geeking out about metagaming. That is the world the Wiki has brought us into so we have to live with it. There were a lot of assenine decisions made in the past (like setting some sort of game advantage to certain vehicles becasue they can go more places than others) that we would like to see fixed in order to make a more mechanically colorful simulation. We want to decide which of these are going to be best for the game.

So after we f***ed up the food system, and added dung so poor people can eat, for better or worse, I guess we will decide to f*** this up too. We're just trying to help pull the game out of the doldroms as best we can. Everyone has the same weapons, everyone drives the same boats, everyone builds the same buildings, everyone makes the same bikes....it is monotonous, with a world of color in the build menu that isn't being explored.

But now I am rambling...

Bottom line is we felt this would add something to the game, but we recognized that this would be another huge change and I felt that it would be best to hear from you, the players, before we went through and had a poke at it. If I can organize any more thoughts more coherently, I will post them.

I for one agree with Bowser. I am tired of changing the rules in the middle of the game. But after looking at the database for a year, and trying to find someway to find some sort of simplicity out of the mess of a technology collection that I inherited...I am at a loss sometimes for how to tie up all the loose ends, put those planks to good use, and help get the game to a point where an advanced civilization can grow and thrive in this little game. It's hard work.

I am rambling again...need coffee....

I have to say... this is not the most inspiring line of reasoning I've ever come across. Let me paraphrase:

We want the game to be more diverse and colorful. We've been staring at the database for a year trying to figure out how to do that. We played with food and that didn't seem to have much effect, so now we're going to make some relatively arbitrary changes to vehicle utility and see if that, by some stroke of luck, might do what we want.

Now, I give props to all you Resource Dept. and ProgD and other staff. Design isn't easy and you all are pouring your hearts into it. But I think you need to take a look at your planning and design methodology. At the moment, it can be summed up in this sentence: "We don't know where we're going, so we're just going to run everywhere faster."

I design things for a living. Conceptual things. It's a maddening process. But there are tools that can help -- routines you can go through that help you see how to get where you want to go. Logic modelling is one such tool many people have heard of. You need to think of where you want to go -- your goal -- and then you work backwards, carefully and with tons of forethought, to what your first step is in getting there. Simplified, a logic model looks something like this:

Inputs > Activities > Outputs > Outcomes > Impact

Remember, it's Impact you're trying to achieve, so you work from right to left. These get broken down some more, but there's TONS of information on this stuff online. Here's an online example of a logic model where the desired impact is improved water quality:

http://www.uwex.edu/ces/pdande/evaluati ... uality.pdf

Anyway, my point, and it's been a long time coming, is this: I would be excited and enthusiastic and suportive of this change if I could see the chain of reasoning behind it and thought it made sense. But the impression you give is very much that you're just dying to do something to make the game better, but you really don't know what to do, so let's just try this, and we're not too thrilled with it either, and we don't know if it will get us where we want to go, but -- let's go!

No thanks, although I applaud your intiiative and effort, I really do.

To be honest, the reason I wanted this change was to encourage people to actually use road improvements beyond the sand road.

People have made a big deal in this thread about improving roads. I agree I'd like to see more of it. One of my chars has done a whole lot of it, another some. In each case it was done not to make travel more accessible to big vehicles, but rather, to increase ALL travel speeds between two locations, foot or vehicle, to increase trade or improve speedier access to a particular resource. So will making these vehicle changes really incentivize people to improve roads? It seems a better way to do that would be to make the necessary materials more accessible, or to make the benefits more tangible, or both.

Sorry for the long post.

[Phalynx]

saztronic, there is a roadmap, which involves some of what you say... I think people are better with ideas than implementation, and a lot of people have ideas too...!

[SekoETC]

Cobblestone, cobblestone! There is a gap in the way roads are improved. Getting enough stone to upgrade a road, especially when not many places have stone quarries yet, is hard enough, so having to use oil as well makes it even more impossible. I bet the Romans didn't use oil and they made good roads. It should be possible to ride an average car on any road (not a path), even a poor one, it will only be bumpy and slower.

[Solfius]

I have to say... this is not the most inspiring line of reasoning I've ever come across. Let me paraphrase:

We want the game to be more diverse and colorful. We've been staring at the database for a year trying to figure out how to do that. We played with food and that didn't seem to have much effect, so now we're going to make some relatively arbitrary changes to vehicle utility and see if that, by some stroke of luck, might do what we want.

Now, I give props to all you Resource Dept. and ProgD and other staff. Design isn't easy and you all are pouring your hearts into it. But I think you need to take a look at your planning and design methodology. At the moment, it can be summed up in this sentence: "We don't know where we're going, so we're just going to run everywhere faster."

I design things for a living. Conceptual things. It's a maddening process. But there are tools that can help -- routines you can go through that help you see how to get where you want to go. Logic modelling is one such tool many people have heard of. You need to think of where you want to go -- your goal -- and then you work backwards, carefully and with tons of forethought, to what your first step is in getting there. Simplified, a logic model looks something like this:

Inputs > Activities > Outputs > Outcomes > Impact

Remember, it's Impact you're trying to achieve, so you work from right to left. These get broken down some more, but there's TONS of information on this stuff online. Here's an online example of a logic model where the desired impact is improved water quality:

http://www.uwex.edu/ces/pdande/evaluati ... uality.pdf

Anyway, my point, and it's been a long time coming, is this: I would be excited and enthusiastic and suportive of this change if I could see the chain of reasoning behind it and thought it made sense. But the impression you give is very much that you're just dying to do something to make the game better, but you really don't know what to do, so let's just try this, and we're not too thrilled with it either, and we don't know if it will get us where we want to go, but -- let's go!

No thanks, although I applaud your intiiative and effort, I really do.

To be honest, the reason I wanted this change was to encourage people to actually use road improvements beyond the sand road.

People have made a big deal in this thread about improving roads. I agree I'd like to see more of it. One of my chars has done a whole lot of it, another some. In each case it was done not to make travel more accessible to big vehicles, but rather, to increase ALL travel speeds between two locations, foot or vehicle, to increase trade or improve speedier access to a particular resource. So will making these vehicle changes really incentivize people to improve roads? It seems a better way to do that would be to make the necessary materials more accessible, or to make the benefits more tangible, or both.

Sorry for the long post.

I like your thinking. The roadmap deals with very longterm aims, but there is nothing for the short term development of the game, no design plan that I'm aware of. A published design document that details the intended changes to cantr would give people warning of any major changes intended with plenty of time and will let everyone see where the game is headed.

[wichita]

But as a player as I've stated before I don't like this proposed change and see it just as an attempt to balance the manufacturing tables as opposed to balancing the game

Chris worded it better than I did. I am against the change, though I like the effect. It isn't game balance, it is a few of us geeking out, trying to respond to other players who are geeking out. Damn wiki.

We asked ourselves why players do not bother to pave roads. What could we do to provide a motivation to build roads.

Require the road to have the vehicles. Vehicles good...drags roads up to being good. It was an idea. Bad idea, but an idea.

So...there you go. It will probably stay the way it is now. No more roads getting paved.

By the way, I am pretty sure there is oil on damn near every island. You might have to walk more than six towns to get it but you CAN get it without a boat. Why does K have to become the point of reference all the time? K doesn't have it so it doesn't exist.

[Black Canyon]

K is the center of the universe.



p.s. You RD folks are awesome

[formerly known as hf]

We asked ourselves why players do not bother to pave roads. What could we do to provide a motivation to build roads.

Because oil is a difficult resource to get hold of, it may be on most islands, but it's still far to travel.

Most thriving towns have developed trade and travel routes for the materials for raw iron and steel, over Cantr centuries.

Hence, a dirt motorbike, even though it takes more travelling and resources than collecting oil, will be much more appealing, as the resources are something which a large town will be used to getting hold of, and it will ensure un-encumbered travel.


Implement cobbled roads, or other stone-based improvement (without loosing expressways) and you will make road improvement a ba-ga-zillion times easier - I promise you, you'll see road improvement and possibly road-vehicle building soar once an improvement does not need oil.


If you want to encourage a change in cantr (and I have banged on about this on other issues) Do not make things more difficult and enforce change and progression based upon an assumed desire for these things. This will not work - this will cause stagnation.
Instead, make things easier.
This will foster organisation in-game, as things will still need co-operation for large projects, but it will be organisation and co-operation on a level most groups in Cantr can maintain, not a select few.

There is widespread co-operation in Cantr, but it is limited to small groups usually - make it possible for these small groups to progress with relative ease, and you'll see co-operation become more widespread, encompass larger groups, and the huge, double-figure organisations of which cantr has but a spare few, will become more of the norm.

By the way, I am pretty sure there is oil on damn near every island. You might have to walk more than six towns to get it but you CAN get it without a boat. Why does K have to become the point of reference all the time? K doesn't have it so it doesn't exist.

Because K is the best place, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. (Even though I have no presence there anymore )
So... ner