Economy

[SekoETC]

Sad but true. And no one WANTS to start off as a nobody and spend TIME on developing their skills because they want to have everything NOW. Granted that with the current system it wouldn't work out that everyone started off as awkward since the development speed is so dreadfully slow, but if the speed of development was faster and if it had reverse correlation to age then it could work. Likewise if weapons and shields had their value depending on the efficiency of the builder, suddenly it would start to matter.

[Cantryjczyk]

J. Scott words are completly correct. There are praiseworthy exceptions, but they are just exceptions. At least we are free to play in other, also not bad way.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-- Robert A. Heinlein

Btw, Robert A.Heinlein was a great novelist, I love his books. Samples:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein

[Chris]

J. Scott has a good point about skills and product quality. I know that ProgD has too little free time to make major changes, but for Cantr III I think that quality differences would be better than more and more weapons, clothes, vehicles, etc.

Let's say that there are three quality levels: superior, average, and inferior. A superior weapon would do +15% damage, and an inferior weapon would do -15% damage. Superior vehicles would travel faster, superior tools would speed up project completion, and so on. An awkward weapon maker would have a 20% chance of making an inferior weapon and a 0% chance of making a superior weapon. The numbers would be reversed for an expert.

I do think that initial skill levels should vary to reflect talent, but no one should start out an expert. Perhaps the newspawn range should be from awkward to efficient.

There should also be a distinction between easy-to-learn and difficult-to-learn skills. In RL, migrant farm workers and janitors are paid little because the skills can be picked up quickly. Doctors and lawyers are paid more because the skills take several years to develop. The distinction is often labeled skilled vs. unskilled labor, though I imagine that few tasks truly require zero skill.

[Joshuamonkey]

The fact that items don't disappear after a few decades is a good thing, and certainly should not be changed. Right now, repairing is okay at its rate. any faster, and it slows the progress of the game.

[Gran]

prices based on need, not cost, can only evolve when some resources are (semi-)monopolized. None of the main resources (like wood, stone, iron ores, coal, rubber) are. Imagine you control the only source of wood on your island...

Ohhh, you don't know shit until you have a char there...

I have a idea:We already have Time, how about Space?!Yeah, make dimensions so lands can really exist in cantr, then end with slots:make possibilities of what making in that land, then divide it unnequally and voilá!Division of society between rich and poor!Then make some good ol'fashion capitalism...

(I am not communist.)

Seriously, I think this would be a good solution...any agrees?(without considering about implementing it...)

[SekoETC]

Aging and repair state should be separate. Some items should deteriorate if left lying around and that could not be reversed. If something rusts or rots then it's spoiled and cannot be fixed. But stuff can be sharpened and polished and parts can be tightened.

And space... well, they tried to implement that with resource slots. The only problem is that it's done all silly, if two or more people are working on the same project then they should only take one resource slot because they are working on the same "field". And also if you have a place that has stone and potatoes, I bet the potatoes don't grow on the rock so there should be farming and mining/digging areas separately... and then you could spread soil on a mine to turn it into farmland, kinda like terraforming in Freeciv. But that would be a totally different game. Also in buildings machinery should take slots because stuff weights so little that it's completely out of line.

[Money]

I think that you should just have limits to things on ground and a limit on how many buildings could be in a location. That would make land a valuble resource and thus create a whole new market.

[Tiamo]

A limit to the number of buildings PLUS the number of harvest locations (something like: every 5 buildings on a location means one less harvest slot) would be good for the game. This is only possible when buildings would be demolishable, and would need a noticeable amount of upkeep (more advanced buildings would need considerably more upkeep!). This way not only building an advanced community would take an effort, but keeping it up would too. And building a city of some size would mean supplies will have to be harvested elsewhere. Quite realistic, in fact, and an extra reason for some kind of economics.

Land would become (somewhat) scarce, thus valuable, but it would NOT create a market, as land is not transferable, it cannot be owned, bought or moved.

[SekoETC]

Actually advanced buildings should require less upkeep, while things like grass huts would need to be repaired like every five years to keep them from crumbling.

[BarbaricAvatar]

Mmm, yes that's a good idea. Give us more repairs to do so that we can make even less forward progress with our lives. That'll make the game more fun. Not.

[buddyhall]

Yeah I think the economy is good since I died and left alot of stuff
But I'd really like to see coins sucessfully implemented somewhere
and thus have a real economy raising an army is indeed a hard job.

[Tiamo]

The next level in a game, any game, should be harder, harder to proceed to, harder to stay in. This is basic game psychology.

In Cantr levels are represented by bigger, more advanced buildings, vehicles, machines, tools, etc.
So creating more advanced buildings should be harder than creating simple buildings. This is true in the game. But maintenance of those buildings should be harder too. This is NOT the case in Cantr. In my experience buildings do not even decay at all, all buildings i have seen in the game are 'brand new'...
Since the cost of building more advanced buildings is higher than the cost of building simple buildings a uniform decay rate would be enough to create higher maintenance costs for more advanced buildings.

If the introduction of building decay would make it too hard for communities to progress to the top levels of the game, ALL progress should be made easier proportionally, not just top level progress.

[Chris]

Building decay makes sense, but I don't want to see it handled in the exact same way as items. If a town is deserted, it makes sense that its buildings would fall into disrepair and eventually become ruins. However, in game terms, working just to keep what you already have is not fun. The game function of maintenance should be to give advantage to active players, not to burden them so they spend half of every day maintaining things.

In this light, I'd say, let maintaining a building be an automatic project. The building has to be empty of people when the maintenance project starts. No one can enter it until the maintenance project is done. Repair should be speedy, e.g., 500 structural points per Cantr hour. Decay should be slow, e.g., 20 structural points per day. Thus, a building would fall apart after 25 Cantr years of neglect.

[SekoETC]

In real life people make more advanced buildings because they don't rot or crumble. But if you make some hut in a forest then it will be destroyed in a year (well, usually it's little boys that break it but they don't usually last the winter). And when a building falls apart, some of the resources used to make it should fall on the ground.

I'm not saying that cottages and stuff should fall apart in five but deterioration should certainly start showing by then. If people wanted to keep their dwelling brand new, they would have to give it an hour or few every five years or so. Stone and brick buildings would last at least a hundred years, cottages 75 or so. Mud huts up to 30. But grass huts, seriously, they are made of grass. I read about these lake Indians that make rafts out of bundles of grass and they need to add a new layer like every day because it's rotting from the bottom. Granted that that thing is exposed to water but grass huts are also exposed to some moisture.

[Sekar]

Chris, if the project is made too easy to complete, then won't that erase the whole purpose of implementing building rot? For those who actually want to get rid of some buildings, that isn't cool. Maybe if they made it so that only someone with the key to the building could repair it, it would work. But otherwise it wouldn't.