Reduction of food yields

[The Industriallist]

Societies in cantr have a very basic problem: no one actually needs them. Many cantr characters, including most of my own, have no interest in settling in to towns or organizations because they can live just as well by wandering around pulling up carrots at need.

Real hunter-gatherers have to spend much of their time just searching for food. Cantr hunter-gatherers produce a sevenfold surplus anywhere potatos can be found.

This also means that armies can live off the land easily, and probably any number of other problems.

I would propose halving the 'no tools' yield of staples- carrots, potatos, rice, wheat, etc. This would motivate people who are not really farmers to do something other than just dig carrots, and give all those aspiring grocery stores a chance.

And before you say anything, David, my oldest character is 27.

[David]

um... I agree with reduction of food yields, they have always been way to high.


(...and I don't own any grocery stores , but its nice that you mentioned your true motivation for the suggestion lol) Age isn't always the thing, position and playstyle... etc...

[The Industriallist]

My characters own nothing they can't carry... I really don't have any townies yet. But my ability to live that way bothers me. Especially when newspawns are so desperate to tie themselves to an employer to no reason whatsoever except that a job is 'something people do.'

[David]

Ya that is funny... only time it is neccesary is when it is cumpulsory... but the thing is, people want to belong to a place anyway... travelling characters only get snapshots, and even ones that hang around regions seem to be purposeless... People naturally want to fit in somewhere, at least most people, so they have some contextual relationship with the rest of the world.

[The Industriallist]

I call them 'sheep', and have to decide whether to try to exploit them or just despise them with each of my characters. I don't think I could play one.

(My characters can't actually call them sheep, though. There is nothing sheeplike about cantr sheep anyway. Need descriptive words...)

[David]

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You know the only existential people left with any real clout are dictators, right?

ROFL

[kroner]

with lower food yields there should be more ways to increase food production like the harvesting machines. more levels of tools and machines should be present so that towns can develop slowly by creating better farming technology. either that or have a more realistic planting, farming and harvesting system (a lot harder to implement). the harder it is to survive without specialized tools, the more people will be forced to turn to specialization of labor and trade (real trade, not like now where you can ask twice the cost of what something's worth and get it because no one cares much). cantr needs more social darwinism. but the most importnat thing for making this work is item deterioration, otherwise any people with a lot of tools (old characters) are back to their cushy lifestyle permanently.

[JJ]

bah!! to much change to cantr. lol its bad enough the iron and making steel is gone right now basicly. but now food? do you all really wanna scare off people from playing cantr? lol. i like cantr how it was a while back before all of the changes like right before clothing and animals were introduced. as for the new spawns, i have no idea, ive only seen them ever join an employer and then turning around and hurting or killing off the people who helped them. another thing i dont see much in cantr now adays is how before everyone helped the new spawns and the new spawns would help others. lol example: quillanoi. before: free food and help to get started up. now: pay for food or farm it yourself.

i seriously miss the good ol days of cantr lol! but i seriously dont think the food should be taken down. hey in real life how would we have any of the food we do now? i dont think people said ok im going to think of a root called a carrot and it magicaly appeared. in cantr the soil can be really ritch that many vegies can grow like crazy. =P unlike modern day where the smog makes the ground bad and kills off alot of plants.

[Sho]

I think the way to make this work would be to make the bare handed harvest rate high enough that people could survive (of course) but not high enough that people could gather food for a day and have enough to go to the next town or make an advanced tool.
But I have another idea. How about making the minimum length of a farming project longer? In real life, people don't farm for a day and walk away with two pounds of potatoes. Making a farming project at least 5 days would make people have to stay in places longer. It might encourage travellers to get their food from stores instead of farming it themselves. It would probably not have the disadvantage of confusing newspawns. In fact, it would make them stay around and learn about the places they spawn in.

[west]

5 days is 10% strength, though, without food, and you can't always count on friendly locals.

[Meh]

75% reduction in food that are directly editiable would be realistic?

For everyday you farm you get about two days of food from the worst crop with no tools?

No reduction inedible or healing foods?

This would increase the demand for tools?

The bonus for tools and harvestors should be increased since the base is reduced?

Some warning time?

5% reduction per 20 days until 75% reduction is reached after 300 days?

[Surly]

I don't like this idea at all. All these unneccesary changes are making Cantr less fun for me, I don't want to have to spend the first five Cantr years (2 months) trying to establish a new character. If Cantr had been like that originally I would never have stayed playing, and I'm sure many new-spawns will look at it that way. Of course I'm hooked on Cantr now, but...

Just leave Cantr the way it is! It is about social interaction and good game-playing not about how realistic the food yield is. And whilst hematite was a fairly good idea, iron ore? What's the point. I really don't want to have to spend all my hard earned coal and limestone (smuggled it from Kwor) on making iron.

Anyway enough of my rant... Stop these pointless changes!

[Meh]

With free food running around the places with iron capability will only become stronger. Rather than moving people off of the mines more will move to it. And there is nothing else in the game to trade for. It is either work for those who control these thing or have nothing.

If food was limited there would at least be something to barter for.

It seems at the present time the system is set up to get as much food as you can carry and then go join the iron people even now more that before.

Just my opnion. I have no more influcence than you in how things turn out.

[watermelonnose]

Yes I agree we need to change the food production rates. I have made some suggestions in the past about this.

I would also like to see the animals not stay in populated areas they would constantly be on the move within their natural range: deer would stay in the forest, cows in grassland, alligators in the swamp etc. To hunt you would have to follow them down the paths.

[Meh]

Today spawning is related to the amount of people in a location. People-centric spawning.

What if there was food-centric spawning...

Spawing locations would be weighted by the amount of edible food held by characters, on the ground, in buildings, and silos.

That could be combined with food becoming steadily less avialable as it was gathered.

Each food type at a location could support feeding 100 people a day without dimishing the supply. Meaning that it would take 4 to 12 people without tools working on the same type of food to start to dimish it. If it falls below 100% available it regrows at it's rate of availablity.
x = (x + ((1 - x) * x))
If it is at 99% it will regrow to 99.99%
If it is at 90% it will regrow to 99%
If it is at 50% it will regrow to 75%
If it is at 10% it will regrow to 19%.

Harvestors would be immune to the effect? There should be lesser versions of harvestors considered to be "farms" that would require a plow.

What if animal spawning was the opposite. Locations with the least amount of food in those places spawn docile animals. If the number of docile animals reaches a certain point agressive animals start to spawn in their place.

So all and all...

Characters start where the food is. Whether they are allowed access to it is another matter.

Food is limited without changing yields.

Bountiful food for the loners.

More real life model without too much suffering for characters.

Just some thoughts.