Areas in Cantr 2.0

[Solfius]

In the new version of Cantr, Jos has mentioned altering the way locations are currently working. What exactly does he have in mind?

I'm not sure if he is going to:

a) take existing locations and divide them into a bunch of smaller cells that can be moved about in like a room within an area,

or

b) remove the current system of roads and locations and replace it with a grid of locations, each grid square being a location, so that you can move about cantr how ever you want going north, north-east, east, south-east, south, south-west, west, and north-west.

I would prefer the second one, as currently cantr covers a large amount of area, but doesn't seem large due to the limited areas where intereation can take place (in locations) and all travelling is done via roads.

So which is it?

(The poll is there to see what people think is the most important idea to implement, not nessecarily the best, as they do slightly different things/have slighty different effects on Cantr)

[Meh]

Abstain.

A comprimise that sort of combines both, sort of doesn't...

In realty. As city grows the city center becomes too crowded to build on and you get a minor amount of spawl even for small towns.

So maybe once a city has X amount of building on it the city center is closed for building. The next building(s) will be built farther towards one path. This will remove that path from the town center and replace it with a "street" to the new location. A "street" takes zero time to travel on. If your on one "street" you cannot here or see another "street" unless you move there {just like locations & paths}.

The new buildings will have a choice which path they are built towards. If you on the central location and go to build you have to choose which path to build towards. You can only build toward paths not "streets". To build on an existing street you just start your building project there.

When the new "streets" are full the sprawl continues down the paths. Maybe removing some of the distance beween cities that would only be noticable if many of them are built.

So how many building should be on a street and what to do about existing towns that are larger than that size.

I'm thinking 20 buildings on a street, and assumming that large building expand into the depth off the paths and do not expand on the width of the path that would cause less building to be built.

And for the ones that are already to big? Random? Staff? Govermental leader type? Whole populace? Leave it alone?

There wouldn't be any hurry if the trigger for new streets was just 20 or more buildings. This would also make previous unfunshed projects more valuable.

[Rob Maule]

I believe that the building limit is already something Jos is planning on implementing in Cantr 2.0.

I'm not so sure about option B. We haven't even filled up the locations we already have. Why make more. Option A seems the way to go. Travelling on already made roads is one of the things that makes Cantr what it is. Giving players free reign to go wherever they want changes it into every other game.

As to how many buildings can lie on one 'street,' I think five or six is a good number. The most right now in one town is what, twenty? That divides it into four streets. You could have a government road, a shop road, church road, home road, etc.

How to implement the change would be tricky. you could always let the staff decide, btu they may not know the town's best interests. I have a somewhat radical idea. Why not have a poll for characters to vote on? This may sound odd for everyone to agree on something like moving buildings, but it might work. For towns with more than five buildings, a option appears. You can either vote for an existing layout or create one of your own. Besides, towns with large amounts of buildings usually have strong governments. The leaders of the towns can create a layout and tell their people to vote on theirs for the good of the town. The towns with fewer than five buildings could have a similar option. To create new roads and move the existing building(s). And when new buildings are built, there would be an option to make it on a new road. Maybe only if the existing roads are full??

[thingnumber2]

I like b except that, it means that people with cable modems or a faster connection than others would be able to move faster.I might be misinterpreting it, but thats how it sounds.

[Missy]

I picked A...I'm hoping if that happens, that people who are in one area won't hear what people are saying in another.....but people will still be able to farm in all of the places with in the one area as a WHOLE.

[Pirog]

Before I vote I need to have some info...

I hope there will be a small time limit between the locations in the system B? Otherwise people can move about all over the world in a single day...

Option B would be perfect IF the time limit to walk to other locations will be about the same as it takes to travel by roads as it is now.
(The difference to roads will be that the time limit between each location will be the same)

If it will be like that the game will be much more realistic, especially the cities. There will be a city core, surrounded by farms, industrial areas and so on.

But if the plan is that everyone can walk to a new location in no time at all I think the game loses it's very entity...

[Rob Maule]

I think that instant travel between locations would only be possible in cities. And roaming around outside would work somewhat if it was treated like sailing. Set a direction, speed, and duration. Also, roads could be made, along with the option to follow them (until a fork in the road maybe?). Maybe roads are made when enough travel has been done on those spots. This system would allow you to get off a boat anywhere where you reach land, and then hike to the nearest sign of civilization. A drawback would be that people would be more inclined to settle in locations by themselves, making societies hard to establish. There are already locations that people have never been to... it would also be easy to get lost. What would show up on the location map? Buildings, vehicles, people, items and resources already gathered?

On quick thought. You know how travelling takes several turns and each location is farther or closer than another? That means you only travel a set distance per day. So maybe you could be allowed a certain number of instantaneous moves based on how much you are carrying and your health.

[Pirog]

But that would still mean that criminals can easily steal stuff and run away as far as they can, while there is virtually no chance of pursuing them...

Travel must be turn based or everything will be chaotic.

A grid of locations whit one day of travel betweed the locations would be great.

As far as settling down and starting big communities I think there will only be more motivation if the reources of the surrounding areas could be implemented in the city.
I really like the idea of a sprawling city complex with farms and industrial areas outlining the centre...

[Rob Maule]

But that would still mean that criminals can easily steal stuff and run away as far as they can, while there is virtually no chance of pursuing them...

How would they do this? Others that follow them would get the same number of moves, maybe even more since they didn't steal anything and might weigh less. It would just depend on seeing people on the location map. Or footprints, perhaps?

[Thomas Pickert]

Bleh, sorry, there had been two interesting posts about footprints here, which I had split from this topic and moved them to the suggestions forum. During that process, the two posts got lost...

I hope, the two authors can reproduce their ideas.

[Pirog]

Rob Maule>

But if you have a set number of "instant moves" a thief can just change directions after a couple of grids...thus making it virtually impossible to follow.
I think that there must be a little "time penalty" while moving between locations...

I see that someone suggested that people would leave foot prints behind...but that would make a h*ll of a lot of foot prints outside the cities...

[Rob Maule]

Yeah, I suggested footprints. It's sort of in it's own topic now. Just read that and you'll see that it wouldn't be much easier to get away using the current location system.

[Pirog]

I have read it, but I still don't like the idea of instant travel from one location to another...perhaps within a city or if there is an advanced road between the locations but not otherwise...

[Duckers]

Indeed.

[wichita]

I have imagined that free roaming would best look like option B. You can interact with everyone within a box the size of the current map image in the locations tab, but could wander wherever you like as terrain permits.

The big trouble is how to define where buildings get put, resource patches are located, etc. In short, Land Usage. I don't think the existing world can be shifted to this new format. That would involve starting a new universe.