New ingame message ...

[kinvoya]

You're rightinsaying that social nnovation might be stimulated by the need to adapt to new conditions,but , hey! We all now by now that 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 disentive to try it. now.

I agree, our chars do not get the time they need to adapt to changes in the game mechanics. Chars who are actually in-character (as oppossed to doing things because the player knows what is most beneficial) often don't even notice the changes for a long time. In many places I see individuals and town officials just starting to be aware of the food gathering limitations. A few are starting to discuss what they might do about it. Very few have actually come up with a plan and put it into action. If another major change came along soon they probably couldn't cope with it at all.

The only safe bet socially,really is the path of increasing legislation,and increasinglypowerful centralised Governments. Why? Because thats the direction that Jos wats Cantrian Society to take, and he has the power to adjust game conditions until there isn't any other realistc option, and those who want some other option just give up in despair

I agree with this, also. Our chars are being funneled down paths they don't want to take. There is less and less oportunity for individuality as more and more chars must become "cogs" in order to survive. The lucky ones can escape into the wilderness. The unlucky ones get tired of their pointless lives and die.

I know it's Jos' game and all and he can do whatever he wants with it and apparently what he wants is for most chars to become empire builders. And I know it's free and we should just shut up and appreciate that it is provided to us but...yeah, well, I'm still putting in my two cent opinion which is that every major change I can think of in the last year has diminished the possibility of "You can be whatever you can imagine." Maybe this should be added "...as long as what you imagine is slaving away for an empire until you die.

[Jos Elkink]

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

[Agar]

newspawns only clog up gathering if you let them...

Read my post above. My char don't kill people because they're hungry.

So the way you play your characters is no longer convienient, but you think your character would, what?, whine to the gods than test his moral limits between taking action to get himself food and starving to death himself?

[EchoMan]

newspawns only clog up gathering if you let them...

Read my post above. My char don't kill people because they're hungry.

So the way you play your characters is no longer convienient, but you think your character would, what?, whine to the gods than test his moral limits between taking action to get himself food and starving to death himself?

As I have already written my character was prepared to leave the village and become someones slave for food. But he was whining to the gods, I give you creds for that insight in my characters persona.

My point is general and this character was only an example. I am still convinced that some areas are less prepared for throngs of newspawns than others. For some smaller villages ten newspawns over a few days could be devastating for plans of evolution in the area, since people go from building/constructing and setting up laws etc, to argue about food again, something we solved a year ago already. One spawn - per lets say ten days - can be handled in a primitive community, but not ten in a couple of days, unless you wish to slaughter every newspawn in your way.

[The Industriallist]

newspawns only clog up gathering if you let them...

Read my post above. My char don't kill people because they're hungry.

That's a little hard to justify, seeing as 'because I'm hungry' is pretty much the original reason for killing IRL...

Too many modern mindsets for the primitive world...

[Jos Elkink]

I am still convinced that some areas are less prepared for throngs of newspawns than others. For some smaller villages ten newspawns over a few days could be devastating for plans of evolution in the area, since people go from building/constructing and setting up laws etc, to argue about food again, something we solved a year ago already.

Well, I run a company in a small area and it would be devastating to have only 1 in a few days ... I mean, it really differs per location, so this is impossible to change the game design for. I think your place just has to find a solution to deal with the large number of newspawns ...

[Surly]

I do have to say that I feel the cap might be a little low in some areas...

It's not really encouraging growth in Cantr, is it? Unless there is a way to raise the cap, I feel it should be a bit higher in some places...

[julie2]

newspawns only clog up gathering if you let them...

Read my post above. My char don't kill people because they're hungry.

That's a little hard to justify, seeing as 'because I'm hungry' is pretty much the original reason for killing IRL...

Too many modern mindsets for the primitive world...

I'm not too well upon this sort of thing, But I'm pretty sure that hunters and gatherers did fairlywell for themselves and didn't face stiff competition for food (not from humans anyway) It's when agruculture comes in, increased population, and the danger of crop failure along with it that you start finding serious evidence of malnutrition and war.
It's hard to say where Cantrians are in this spectrum. Those who still don't have tools have got to be classed as hunter-gatherers, I think, and those with Harvesting Machines and suchlike are well into the modern era,when food is cheap and plentiful ( if unevenlydistributed) and the major wars have nothing whatsoever to do with hunger.

It's those little "towns " full of hunter-gathereres where people really get the short end of the stick here. They got the same ratio of slots to inhabitants the big towns got , leaving no room for expansion. Also, at that stage there's sod-all to do but gather, unless they've got, say, wood to work with and the means to make a few simple tools. so they really need a much higher ratio of gathering slots. It's been said they can trade their way out of that fix, but they've nothing to trade until after they've gatherered quite a bit. Of course they might have got lucky,and got a reallyhigh random number, but I'd hate to be the Town Leader in one of those places, knowing that unless they're lucky (and without the newspawns buggering thingsup,how would they know how manyslots they have?A townought to be able to see it's limits) , the place isn't ever going to get the chance to grow to a decent size. Discouraging, I'd say.

Anyways, Newspawns are not exactly intruders.They're Cantr's equivalent of babies. They're the next generation of natives. I guess IRL we'd have a bit of problem if our kids suddenly appeared fully grown, and we had no means whatsoever of birth control, not even shoving people into monastaries does the trick. Since Cantr gives us this unique problem, is it asking too much that it provides an option for a non-violent solution. Yeah, I know that people IRLwill sometimes kill their babies if they're too big a drain on their resources, but at least they do have other choices.

[julie2]

...and I'd like to say again that IRL we can negotiate things in five minutes which might take a week to negotiate inCant, so that seriously limits our optiions for co-operation on a day-to-day basis. Cantrians only act efficiently when they act as individuals, especially if (as is now the case) They have a limited winow of opportunity in which grab themselves a gathering-slot.

The upshot of this is that the only effective solution to this s to lay down the Law and enforce it harshly. There isn't an option of reasoning with people instead. It takes too long. ..and even then, when you enforce the law, that demands a degree of co-operation and eats up playing time, because you can't drag a guy offa project by yourself , not normally, and you certainy can't kill him swiftly by yourself. Bring back the newspawn thieves ! Remember all the time it took our Law Enforcement people to deal with them? Well, that's not half so bad as the illlegal newspawn gatherer descending in droves.

In Blojt, they're keeping3 of their 8 slots permanentlyfree for the town' use.That might seem crazy, but because Canrian's can't sort things out instantly, that's the only way to go,if you want to guanntee that one slot will be free when you need it. There's no wayyou'll ever get all of aTown's gathering slots used efficiently,anyway,whatever you do. Have youever tried to get two people working on a Harvester? That'sa similar thing (absolute limit of two ) and much time gets lost, inevitably ( lose a day every time the wrong person gets on, more than a day when the right person is aleep, but it takes a while to be sure...etc). Don't think that if a town has 8 slots, then 8 authorised people can gather at a time. Cantrian life just doesn't work like that.

[Jos Elkink]

Unless there is a way to raise the cap

Yeah, we're working on / thinking about ideas in that direction. During earlier conversations after introducing the cap, there were some suggestions, like the ability to put a fence around a digging slot and reserve it for yourself, or the ability to create new digging slots, etc. These ideas are not at all forgotten and we're thinking them through at the moment. Expect some features in these areas in the future ...

Btw, the digging slots were not allocated using a ratio ... only when they were already assigned, we upgraded those for bigger locations, which only affected a few places, I think.

[nitefyre]

You're rightinsaying that social nnovation might be stimulated by the need to adapt to new conditions,but , hey! We all now by now that 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 disentive to try it. now.

I agree, our chars do not get the time they need to adapt to changes in the game mechanics. Chars who are actually in-character (as oppossed to doing things because the player knows what is most beneficial) often don't even notice the changes for a long time. In many places I see individuals and town officials just starting to be aware of the food gathering limitations. A few are starting to discuss what they might do about it. Very few have actually come up with a plan and put it into action. If another major change came along soon they probably couldn't cope with it at all.

I found this to be an interesting point. The only town I take a part in operating faced and dealt with these issues before, during and after implementation. First, the issue of overcrowding and waste was dealt with prior to any in game encouragement. The motivations were already there, for the character(s living there). My character asked herself is she wanted the only resource she had on location, (not even food) to be collected by so many people it became abundant and worthless, like bones? Of course not. So, overtime measures were taken to restrict (not forbid!) the outflow of this single good. This was done by direct and indirect legislature. For example, there are measures taken so that if you do not have business or anything beneficial to the society, that you keep moving. Limiting the people there will help keep the spawnrate down, keeping things manageable. Direct legislature was introduced to make doable, but not as easily as a simple mouse click, to start a legal wood project. Yet, an alternative was still offered, to trade rather than to allow collection; which is quicker, prefered and more efficient, since the locals can mass produce the local resource, whilst the foreigners mass produce (expertise in terms of skill, tools, etc) in theirs. This develops a true economy with supply/demand, and choices, rather than some anarchial primatal way of caring for your land; encouraging development in society, culture and proving the necessity of government.

This is a society simulator, afterall.

[The Industriallist]

It's not really encouraging growth in Cantr, is it? Unless there is a way to raise the cap, I feel it should be a bit higher in some places...

Notionally, a big city would probably want to import food from surrounding areas, even if food could be grown locally... Or are you more talking about back-end-of-nowhere hill towns that, not being plains, don't get very many slots, and often don't get too much of anything else either?

[julie2]

[Notionally, a big city would probably want to import food from surrounding areas, even if food could be grown locally...

Unless you buy Jur's suggestion that one Cantrian char represents a thousand people (which really doesn't hold water for a game like Cantr,where people possess individualuity), there are NO BIG CITIES IN CANTR. just places that that look big to a Cantrian's eyes. These places grew big by being rich in essential resources (most often food ),hence attracting many gatherers who set up home there. The "fertile hinterland"and the Town are therefore one and the same. I imaginethat those miles and miles of "blank space " between Towns must be where those farms and woods are really situated, but its all been rolled into a single"location",so there's no distiinction between Town and Country, no distinction between townfolk and coutryfolk, just big towns and little towns. So there's nowhere to go to get food,except to another town.The moment a few farmers setup shop in a location, it's a town. And the the moment those farmers do exactly what the new implementation is supposed to encourage, and set up a little bit of industry so they're not ALL farming all the time, you'e got a city Now some peopleare saying that the moment they develop to that point, you've got a concrete jungle covering the whole area for days in every direction, so they'll have to get their food from some other town. That's utterly unreasonable and unrealistic. Not even IRL do cities expand to the point where they wipe out all the surrounding counryside for several days walk inall directions and thus destroy their local food supply. They might outgrow that food supply, of course, but you can't say"Go else where to get your food " just on account of a well-developed farming community exists in that place, nor even on account of it doing so nicely for so long that it comes to support a thriving little city at the heart of it, as well as supporting other towns in the general vicinity (Siom beong the perfect example. That town is founded on potatoes. There's sod-all else worth bothering with. The basic roleof that So-called city is supply the surrounding region with food;almost all of their "collecting" activity consist of faming or harvesting potatoes,and all theirindustry is basically funded by food trade. I don't see anything wrong with that. Do you? If they go elsewhere totrade for food , then that elswhere will only develop along similar lines. Similarly I don't buythe idea that a well-developed mining community should have go elsewhere to trade for coal, 'cause it's concreted over all it's mines in the process of developing. At that rartre, there's nowhere left to go to get anything,excep to one-horse towns that don't even have any tools yet)

[The Industriallist]

Unless you buy Jur's suggestion that one Cantrian char represents a thousand people (which really doesn't hold water for a game like Cantr,where people possess individualuity), there are NO BIG CITIES IN CANTR.

There are things which in a cantr context really are analogous to cities. Sure, they have a population that wouldn't be excessive for a single RL hunter-gatherer tribe, but that's hardly the point... I would be inclined to call any place that's at risk of having trouble feeding it's population a big city.

just places that that look big to a Cantrian's eyes. These places grew big by being rich in essential resources (most often food ),hence attracting many gatherers who set up home there. The "fertile hinterland"and the Town are therefore one and the same.

Look at the KDS region. Drojf is, I would contest, a city. The Djorf Hills are lightly populated (I have historical documents listing them at populations less than 4) and entirely fertile. If Drojf were in need of food beyond it's ability to produce (not at all an impossibility), importing food from them would be a very good idea...

I imaginethat those miles and miles of "blank space " between Towns must be where those farms and woods are really situated, but its all been rolled into a single"location",so there's no distiinction between Town and Country, no distinction between townfolk and coutryfolk, just big towns and little towns. So there's nowhere to go to get food,except to another town.The moment a few farmers setup shop in a location, it's a town.

No, that's just not true. Not until the free-roaming thing is done, at least. All the farmland/woodland/mining is, to very small error, exactly on the dot that represents the town, because that's where you have to be to use it.

I wouldn't agree that a handful of farmers constitute a town. Maybe a village, but a town suggests some kind of economy becides basic food production.

And the the moment those farmers do exactly what the new implementation is supposed to encourage, and set up a little bit of industry so they're not ALL farming all the time, you'e got a city

I'm not sure why you think it's encouraged (small towns with no resources or capital ought to find it hard to convince spawns to work in their miniscule industry, rather than moving to the city), but under my definitions that would be a town...not that it really matters.

Now some peopleare saying that the moment they develop to that point, you've got a concrete jungle covering the whole area for days in every direction, so they'll have to get their food from some other town.

That's monumentally stupid if it's even true...we can't even make concrete, and if you look at what we've been told, more people doesn't mean less resource slots...Besides, Nothing gets built without a project. If you don't do a project "pave over all farmland", it just doesn't happen...

The rest of your post seems to be directed to this strange faction that thinks people living in a place ought to reduce its productivity.

[Lumin]

A little off topic, maybe, but I just finished reading through this thread and I started to wonder how feasible it would be for the tiny villages with nothing to do but gather to start hiring out (or outright selling) their unwanted newspawns to bigger towns that might have a use for them in factories.

Suddenly the little towns have something to trade and free up gathering slots at the same time, the newspawns have a steady source of income (or at least food), and the manufacturers that have so much trouble finding people for boring inside jobs suddenly have an influx of employees. Nice non-violent solution, and everybody's happy. (Unless you get a new newspawn who refuses to go along with it, thus robbing their community of valuable food and resources, in which case treat 'em like you would any other thief... )