New ingame message ...

[Jos Elkink]

I like empires

[Floyd]

I like you, joss (More minutes please? )

[EchoMan]

I like empires

Yes, I understand you do that. But if the only way to make a new empire evolve on a new continent is to kill off the competition for food at an early stage instead of being able to co-work on the effort there will be _many_ years until a new empire may form in any of the new continents (at least the ones I have seen in the Swedish part of the game).

The lack of resourses on some islands and the overcrowding+resource cap makes it really hard. And if you have to kill the hungry that you really would like to have working for/with you, you have to do it all by yourself. Like Ceasar ever carried a single stone to build something in Rome...

The Swedish realm really doesn't need three newspawns per day in every location at the moment, believe me.

Edit : Must learn to preview posts and fix typos before posting.

[EchoMan]

I feel I have to write something now as I have calmed down a little bit...

I think it's great thet the game attracts more players. What I might oppose to is that they also do spawn in areas that's really not prepared for so many newspawns.

Anyone noticed I like using Cantr City as an example? I have never even been there with a character, only read about it in the webzine. Alenz Hills on the other hand, have been visited by one of my chars. They don't even notice three newspawns one morning.

A small community (they're all small in the Swedish part of the universe in my knowledge) _could_ double its population that morning, and all plans _could_ be completely overthrown.

I'm not sure if the "I like Empires" statement above is the official rule on the subject, but maybe the game should try and distribute the newspawns a little bit more evenly over "new" or "non-advanced" areas? I'm not sure that would help either, but as a fact I myself spawned three chars in the same location in less than a week, and I just today spoke OOC to a fellow player who also spawned three chars in that village in one week. Together with this mornings three spawns it seems not so random, unless there have been thousands of new chars in the Swedish universe the last few weeks?

Well, it's time for me to sleep now, and what do I know really, I'm still kind of new to this.


Edit : I just wanted to let you know I remembered to use the preview so I wouldn't have to edit the post! G'nite!

[julie2]

Yeah ... 10 newspawns clogging up all food production (which is capped) with 15000g food projects and the regular population starving to death... I'm not sure that's merrier for the community I am referring to here. We had something going for this place (a rather new thing) now everyone will be leaving due to overpopulation and food shortage.

Yeah, hence my suggestion to allow for people to be dragged away from projects. A suggestion nobody really seemed to have noticed.

If you have your community starve thanks to newspawns starting projects, perhaps you should, you know, do something about it? Or start setting up resource runs to neighbouring smaller towns where there is more food?

C'mon, Jos

it takes two or three characters simulatneously awake and co-operating to drag a newspawn off a project. It takesa while to organise co-operaton, even at that simple level. It takes a couple of seconds for thenext nuicance to jump in. This the game wherea conversation might well take a week ,remember? When lots of dragging is needed it eats upyour-playing time like nothing else does, even in fairly sizeable communities becase Cantrians aren't really equipped for that sort of thing. There must be many,many more constructive uses for a Cantrian' limited abilty to co-operate thanjusast day-to-day (wellhor-to -hour, in fact) stuff like clearing space for gathering
[quote="BunnyMan"]
As for resource runs, we had just decided that's what we should do (but not for food, since we DO have a big rice field!?). We were just about to gather 1500 grams of rice for the first guy going away, when we noticed that three new guys had spawned while we were talking about it and all of them now occupied our rice field. We now have got enough wood to grill 50g of meat and one or two man-days worth of rice left... Then I guess we're all back to travelling vagabonds or slaves for food in someone elses community. {/quote]
Admit it, Jos , this idea just isn't working. It's not forcing people to trade and co-operate,it's just adding one more immense complication to those efforts at trading and co-operating which were already going on.

Primitive communities grow around food supplies. Trade isn't drivn by the need to survive, , but by the desire to develop beyond the mere basics for survival. Culture and technology grow when a community can support itself comfortably, not when it's struggling for survival. You want development, let it go back to being easy to gather basic resources.

Besides,you keep forgetting something,this has hit the small towns -where you exect people to go -worse than the big towns, because they haven't ben given room for expansion, just a fixed limit., and small places expand faster. You CAN force people to emigrate(if that's what this is about) but
there's nowhere to go , not without encountering the same damned problem soon after arriving.

[joshua johnson]

I think the new resource limits are great.

I have yet to be in a town where it is a serious problem. I have been in some towns where it has been a challenge, and in others where it has been annoying to my character and that makes things interesting.

I have characters in locations where we have dragged people into buildings to get them off projects, and it takes a little while. The towns that happens in have all posted rules about land/resource allocation.

These rules have evolved into systems that are not tremendously different than several forests that I know of, where collecting had been regulated by the local authorities to various degrees of severity (verbal reprimands of "don't do it again" to jail and murder all for collecting a few grams of the local sticks and rocks...."weapon fodder" anyone? ) These forests all had regulations long ago, and I am quite sure it is unlikely any of them have land/resource problems, as they are highly organized.

I think the new limits do promote trade. I have dispatched trade/gathering missions, knowing that they will probably do more trading. As outsiders they are probably less likely to get access to the land than the people that reside in their destinations, so they bring valuable goods from their home location to trade. They gather if they can.

Also, I would say that this has not hit small towns worse (on average). Big towns are likely near their limit already. Small ones...well a few of them are near their limit, but many may be at 15% of their limit. Remember that the limits were set randomly, with the minimum adjusted to be 1/3 of the amount of people outside. So...a small town may get a limit that is low (I have a character in one where the limit is five). But their limit might be 25, lots of room to grow. I would argue that it has probably hit big towns worse, if defined as how often they hit their limits on average. But large towns ussually have more developed government systems to deal with things like this, so they should be able to figure out how to deal with it if they have not already. I have seen one town utterly fail in this, which is irritating to my character, but that is because the governing body there has not handled things well.

Anyway I like the changes. Thanks Jos.

[EchoMan]

Also, I would say that this has not hit small towns worse (on average).

If you only play in the english realm, I guess you don't even know what kind of places I talk about. Jail!? We have a cottage at best.

You also speak of high organization, you don't do that with a bone knife as your best equipment. The places you describe is what I refer to as Empires. The villages I refer to are the places your people go to collect raw materials and weapon practise upon a few neanderthals.

[joshua johnson]

Yeah, it would be a little tougher in truly primitive areas. But organization can still get it done, I am sure.

I don't really know anything about the spawning mechanisms....except that I think that spawning was done proportional to the number of people already in the town, making more people spawn in already populated areas...somebody else could confirm it for me though, it is only a vague memory for me.

[Sho]

Yes, that's what dynamic spawning is.

[El_Skwidd]

Trade isn't drivn by the need to survive, , but by the desire to develop beyond the mere basics for survival. Culture and technology grow when a community can support itself comfortably, not when it's struggling for survival.

Unfortunately in Cantr, all anybody ever, ever wants is iron. Steel. The means to make it.

I have a character that writes stories. Who wants to read them? Five people that I've met in that char's life even give a crap.

I have a character that runs a religious sect. Who follows him? Nobody. He had one follower who fell asleep and died.

Both of these characters were well-established before the gathering limits. If taking away the limits will improve culture and technology... then where's all the culture and technology from the 1000+ days before the limits?

The truth is, if we take the limits away, we're going back to the same game where all anybody wants to do is grab iron or build themselves a house or a boat. Now there's another realistic obstacle that could pave the way for any kind of new innovation. Think a little! Come on, it can't be that hard!

[Schme]

Jos, no one has noticed your suggestion of dragging people away from projects because it sucks.

The only time I've ever been dragged from a project is by the police.

[Sho]

Yes, and the suggestion is mostly targeted for use by town governments. I know multiple occasions on which I would have used it if it had been available. It's a bit harsh to say any suggestion flat-out sucks.

[Schme]

Oh, I didn't mean that in the context of Cantr. It was a joke.

But, yes, your right on that anyhow.

[julie2]

Trade isn't drivn by the need to survive, , but by the desire to develop beyond the mere basics for survival. Culture and technology grow when a community can support itself comfortably, not when it's struggling for survival.

Unfortunately in Cantr, all anybody ever, ever wants is iron. Steel. The means to make it.

That's because there's not muchyou can do without iron and steel, not even weaving cloth for clothing (because a loom requires iron)

I have a character that writes stories. Who wants to read them? Five people that I've met in that char's life even give a crap.

I have a character that runs a religious sect. Who follows him? Nobody. He had one follower who fell asleep and died.

Sounds like the fate of your average would-be author or religious fanatic IRL. I've heard of successful storytellers AND sucessful religious sects on Cantr, but you'd expect a lot of them to fall by the wayside wouln't you?
I have a character who's building a library myself, but if it's ever harder to get food and ever harder to get stone, that endeavour will only be slowed down all the more. Be glad that your characters' cultural endeavours don't require resources, nor take time away from gathering food, or else you'd find yet another obstacle in in your path now.

Both of these characters were well-established before the gathering limits. If taking away the limits will improve culture and technology... then where's all the culture and technology from the 1000+ days before the limits?

Developing slowly. Rather too slowly for most people's liking, admittedly, but there you are. The major reason why technology develops very slowly in Cantr, imo, is that it involves transporting huge quantities of certain materials over long distances, which can't be done efficiently without...erm, fairly advanced technology (Boats don't help much because, in all locations that I know of, only one -at most- of the three requisite resources for making iron can be realistically reached by boat)

The reason why culture develops slowly...well your guess is as good as mine, but I very much doubt it has anything to do with resources being too easy to collect, or insufficient burocracy.

The truth is, if we take the limits away, we're going back to the same game where all anybody wants to do is grab iron or build themselves a house or a boat

I see no reason to think we've departed from that, unless it's now so difficult to achievethoseaims that the more materialistic characters are giving up in droves and succumbing to the sleeping-sickness. OK, I suspect that many are doing just that (having noticed an awful lot old characters die just lately) but that was never the point of this change. The point of this change was to stimulate trade and legislation-- that is to force the materialistic-minded into co-operating more, not to get them so depressed that they step aside for the die-hard roleplayers. That might suit you, but if that's the major effect then it's failed in it's objectives

. Now there's another realistic obstacle that could pave the way for any kind of new innovation.

All innovation is new by definition.

Aside from that, technological innovation is programmed-in, sadly, so we just have to wait for the ProgD to come up with it. Social innovation is kinda slow to gather momentum, and few characters would become aware of it immediately if ever (throuh simply being in the wrong location) You're right in saying that social innovation might be stimulated by the need to adapt to new conditions but , hey! we all know by now that the next alteration in game conditions is all-too-likely- likely to squash it again before it bears much visible frut; so there's a strong disincentive to try it. now. The only safe bet socially, really, is the path of increasing legislation,and increasingly powerful centralised Governments. Why? Because that's the direction that Jos wats Cantrian Society to take, and he has the power to adjust game conditions until there isn't any other realistic option, and those who want some other option just give up in despair That idea isn' t very innovative, imo. It might seem innovative to those characters who've suceeded in doing things diffrently thus far, but we all know it's been done a thousand times before.

Think a little! Come on, it can't be that hard!

That is sooooo unbeliveably patronising (Not to menton pretty novel. People usually accuse me of thinking too much). I guess you must be one of those people who believe that any thinking person would naturally share your opinions, because there's only one rational opinion to have on any given issue? Thats a fallacy. Think about it.

[Edit: edited for spelling, punctuation and clarity]
[Edit2: corrected typo in edit note ]

[Crosshair]

*remembers to duck and cover before sparks start flying*

I do agree with the fact that the cap is kinda bad...