Industrial Revolution?

[Dee]

I just realized (yes, I am slow) that Cantr is living a life exactly like people used to in the era before the industrial revolution...

People work in guilds, and manufacturing is done by hand... Well, we are still not using animal power to help us with the manufacture of goods, but we do use simple machines...

Is there going to be a time when we will build factories and make bigger machines? I guess for that to happen, we need to first figure out how to use money, right?

[Solfius]

I just realized (yes, I am slow) that Cantr is living a life exactly like people used to in the era before the industrial revolution...

People work in guilds, and manufacturing is done by hand... Well, we are still not using animal power to help us with the manufacture of goods, but we do use simple machines...

Is there going to be a time when we will build factories and make bigger machines? I guess for that to happen, we need to first figure out how to use money, right?

I wouldn't say that we need money for an industrial revolution. It was the discovery of new forms of power and new working practices that kick started the industrial revolution.

I don't think larger factory style machines and processes would be good though, as I still feel there's work to be done on the current tech tree.

[tiddy ogg]

There has been talk in the forum before about production lines... and about invention, which is the real key, but is impractical in Cantr. Invention, patents, and intellectual property... but all that is in the keep of prog D.

[TatteredShoeLace]

The thing keeping the Industrial Age is that food is too abundant. If any Joe can gather enough food to feed himself, he wont commit to working for the man. Industrial Empires were fueled on the cheap labour of thousands. Until you can get 50-100 cantrian employees running 25 smelters, you'll never be a powerhouse. And to do that, the bread needs to come from the industry barons, not carrots in the fields.

[Hellzon]

The thing keeping the Industrial Age is that food is too abundant. If any Joe can gather enough food to feed himself, he wont commit to working for the man. Industrial Empires were fueled on the cheap labour of thousands. Until you can get 50-100 cantrian employees running 25 smelters, you'll never be a powerhouse. And to do that, the bread needs to come from the industry barons, not carrots in the fields.

And we need 50-100 cantrians in one place. Alright, so you were speaking figuratively.

But I've never got this reasoning. If food gathering is made more difficult, how would the industry barons be more capable of feeding their employees than the employees themselves are? Unless you suggest that you should need machines to gather any kind of food. In which case the underdeveloped areas keel over and die because they don't have such machines.

I could see manual gathering rates lowering (to a rate where you can still feed yourself and have food to spare, mind you, possible half of the current rice/potato/carrot rates) and gathering rates with tools increasing comparatively. I don't like it, but I can see it.

Or, you know, bigger machines could get invented. But that would move the Cantr timeline forward. What's the official line on this? Will the tech level actually increase?

/Hellzon - Rage against the machine

[Phalynx]

Well of course the answer is to move to a more feudal system... where the lord of the land has more control - of course this is more often the case in forest towns where food requires some form of cooking... I half wonder if that isn't part of the reason for recent vegetable changes... The harder food is to come by the more chance of control by another there is...

[Surly]

Moving to a feudal system? I doubt that. Since Cantr has had many changes implemented to avoid the kind of "one man with a sabre and 10kg of iron runs everything" situation necessary for a feudal society, it would struggle to hold.

And item deterioration was a reactionary change to prevent any kind of lord with all the resources... kinda ignoring the RL examples to the contrary...

Anyways... we need farming machines/non-machine subsistance farming first, before we can get the agricultural revilution necessary to create the workforce in urban areas that is necessary, in turn, for any kind of industrial powerhouse.

[The Sociologist]

We hope soon to leave the Neandertal Age. I'll have another of my big essays on this next week.

[nitefyre]

We hope soon to leave the Neandertal Age. I'll have another of my big essays on this next week.

The webzine@cantr.net would be interested if you'd like to be formal about it.

[Dee]

I'm writing an essay about Industrial Revolution, that's what made me start this topic actually... I was doing some research and everything I was reading about life before the Industrial Revolution is just so Cantr like!!

And yeah, you'r right, we need to have an Agricultural Revolution first so we can get to the Industrial Revolution.

[Razorlance]

The thing keeping the Industrial Age is that food is too abundant. If any Joe can gather enough food to feed himself, he wont commit to working for the man. Industrial Empires were fueled on the cheap labour of thousands. Until you can get 50-100 cantrian employees running 25 smelters, you'll never be a powerhouse. And to do that, the bread needs to come from the industry barons, not carrots in the fields.

But if you had that many cantrians in one place then feeding them would be a problem without organisation. Then a company owner can say work for me or starve, providing he/she has several harvesters on the go as well as the smelters of course... or is that what you meant?

[Nalaris]

Just food for thought, the RL timeline in terms of technology was basically:

Hunter Gathereres-Farmers-City Builders-Conquerors&Inventors-Knights&Fools-City Builders-Conquerors&Inventors-Stagnant Cantr Addicts

[Mafia Salad]

I think we would have an industrial revolution in Cantr if we made resource conversion projects (smelting, cooking, etc.) a set time no matter the material load... or maybe a half & half system to account for prep time… just throwing out ideas.

But I don't know if that would be a good idea for social simulation. I think we need to let some more defined upper and lower classes to develop or the overall effect will just be more people with better weapons faster and no significant change in the Cantr monoculture because everyone will still be fairly equal and independent..

[viktor]

cantr is still a young world, a lot of it unexplored, population needs to increase so more food is needed, more land is needed and more industry is needed to support the populous, therefore the best way to solve the problem is a larger player base