Cantr life is not too easy

[Black Canyon]

I started to comment to this in Jos' thread and then realized I was breaking one of the rules

Thats right. Living in Cantr is a bit to easy. In the few places I was, food was abundant. And there are no other needs that have to be satisfied. In fact, live in Cantr is quite paradise-like. That may be quite idyllic, but it also prevents an interesting history. Happy people don´t battle each other.

In my opinion, it is this type of thinking that has lead to bad things for cantr Let me explain.

According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs the most base need for all of us is physiological. In cantr that means food. It is only after that need is met that we can begin to pursue higher level needs such as safety, followed by love and belonging, followed by status. After all that comes self-actualization, but we won't go there

Where do battles, conflict, drama.... and interesting history emerge from? Is it in the desperate pursuit of food to avoid starvation? No. It is in the pursuit of safety, love and belonging, and status. It is battling for survival against the marauding Barons, or struggling with your partners as part of something bigger...to build something greater, or.....achieving infamy through notoriously evil deeds. Now that is interesting history

[Elros]

I agree with you. When he made the statement that Cantr is to easy and food should be harder to get I laughed in disgust. Cantr is "NOT" an "easy" game. It is fun, but not easy. Food should be easy to get on the other hand because you do not want to concentrate all of your time on just gathering the food nessecary to survive. There are already enough time consuming problems like repairs ect..., if food was harder to get then it would be a pointless lifestyle. Always spending time repairing what little stuff you have and gathering the food nessecary to survive.

About the war thing, I completely agree with you there too Black Canyon.

[Nalaris]

Still, though, the lack of war is annoying...but I blame the fact that the combat system is ruled by locks and cloak-and-dagger style murder: not very dramatic.

[Pie]

What you need is specialasation in weapons, wich needs a lifelong devotion. And then you can kill in one hit. But nooooo. Pfft.

It still does work like that (kinda) in real life. It worked like that such as in world war one (the trenches) and of course when it turns urbain and you have to go door to door. It's the same thing. The defenders have all the power, and only those with the weapons to break down those defences can get through.

and of course, if you can orgonise an army that runs with five man teams, than you got it made. It's not to much of a problem.

[N-Aldwitch]

Still, though, the lack of war is annoying...but I blame the fact that the combat system is ruled by locks and cloak-and-dagger style murder: not very dramatic.

Precisely. That is so true, probably the best thing I've heard on the forums in regards to War or Battles in Cantr, I'm going to Sig that..

[Pie]

The problem with no war in cantr, is not a programming issue.

[Mykey]

Very useful piece

[Schme]

I agree with you BlackCanyon. Famine won't help anything in this game.

[Nalaris]

Yay, I'm in someone's sig!

The war system, though, just needs to be dependant on the things real war is dependant on: equipment, tactics, training and numbers. Equipment is covered pretty well, training would be if improving your abilities was remotely possible, which it's not. Numbers are meaningless because no one fights back if they're attacked unless they happen to be online (auto-counter attacks, which could be turned on or off at will, would probably solve this). Tactics work on a grand scale, but that's not tactics, that's strategy. Because of the size of the world, it's difficult to use tactics unless you already have numbers on your side, but it's still actually doable. It would be considerably easier if you could park on roads.

[viktor]

yes combat skills don't seem to improve from what i have been abel to see/get told so that seems kinda almsot pointless to train and take that skill and put it to use.

as for parking on roads, we have always been able to. just set your speed to 0

[Liljum]

I've actually seen the skills get better by time. I have a character that got better in hunting during one hunting round. So there is increase in the skills. And i've seen that other of my characters have gotten better in what they do the most of.

[Chris Johnson]

As witnessed by Liljum ,Combat skills do increase with use as do all skills, just because you haven't seen it happen doesn't mean it doesn't .

[Nalaris]

What would be useful would be an auto-attack whenever you see a certain person. Then generals could order their men to automatically attack enemies as they pass through, thus allowing ambushes.

It's true that skills advance, but only at brutally slow rates. They should go up faster. I had a character who hunted every day for several Cantr years: no improvement. This is not even close to reality, wherein after a few years you will definately notice some improvement.

However, I think it was the Sociologist who proposed the career based skill sets, with each skill set having several skills contained within it, so that a guard would have combat based skills, and a smith would have skills based on finding ores, smelting them into various items, and perhaps using the items after they're finished. A mechanic would be good at making and operating machines, etc. etc.

This, combined with faster advancement and auto counter-attacks would do wonders for the combat system. If the combat system is made so that numbers rules over locks...well, we could get a war on our hands. The odd thing is...I want one.

[SekoETC]

Yes, skills are so slow to improve, especially fighting, since you cannot use it on hourly projects. You're lucky if you get one person you can hit every day, sometimes there's more, but after that you're so exhausted you can't do your normal work. And it's hard to bother after a few days.

My poorest fighter has recently learned to strike 1 damage through shields, has done so at least three times in a row. But he's still awkward, blocking 10 damage.

I've noticed one character advancing though, so that proves skill improvement not just hearsay. This was on tailoring though, and she's been doing it for years.

[SekoETC]

If auto attack was made possible then people should also be given a chance to be extra careful when they know they're on a dangerous region, since for example if you got a non-cooperative prisoner locked up, you can be damn sure they're gonna charge at you the moment you step through the door. In real life you might be able to push someone in front of you, thus making them take the first blow, and if this happened to be the friend of the prisoner, the following shock would be enough in order to disarm the prisoner, or at least to grab the notes and go out unharmed. Yay for human shields!

Also, what if someone was coming in to surrender?

An awareness trait would be a must, since computer programs are unforgiving in their cold logic. A player may be idle or sleeping, but a computer program given instructions to kill on sight is gonna do that exactly on the millisecond they spot the target. A factor of human errors needs to be included.