er... *shrugs* hows the harvesters?

[Mykey]

The problem is that there were too many bread baskets and too little starving mountain towns. With the new setup, you can still produce large amounts of food if you have access to gas or oil (and still moderately large amounts with biodiesel). This simply means that fewer towns will be able to export food, which makes food more valuable as a trade good. It also improves the bargaining position of towns that can produce cheap fuels. If anything this change is pro-trade.

Yeah it definitely is. There is way too much food in most places, out of the 13 I`ve made, not a single one has had to farm yet.

[Arenti]

For most towns this might be good but I know for one where one of my chars lead this is bad. As there's only one town nearby they can get food from, and they would already have to spend much fuel to get to a place where they can get resources from to make fuel. Now they will have to spend even more time doing things like making alcohol and or taking a longer time to get food. They already have to spend a lot of time getting water. This makes it even harder for this town.

[Doug R.]

Perhaps this will force characters to cluster more. This is also good.

[Arenti]

Perhaps this will force characters to cluster more. This is also good.

And make more areas unsafe. And there are already so many,

[RedQueen.exe]

Perhaps this will force characters to cluster more. This is also good.

I actually disagree. If we want people to cluster more, either the world needs to be smaller or the resources need to be clustered to match. With clustering, you have tons of people in town A that produces W and X, and almost nobody in town B, which produces Y and Z, meaning town A has a hard time meeting it's demand of Y and Z because town B has too few people to keep up with the demands of both towns. Meanwhile there is an obscene surplus of W and X, because there are a ton of people in A churning it out well beyond any demand B could hope to reach.

Edit: Though to some extent, that's kind of how it works because some places have such a greater abundance of resources and people naturally cluster there. I guess if we want more clustering we'd do that to an even greater degree than is done already? Then you have the problem of town B not having anyone at all and no supply of Y and Z.

I don't know, I think I need more coffee.

[gejyspa]

Well, it's too early for me to say yet, but being a member of town X which had neither harvester nor dung forks for half of my existence there, subsistence framing was hard work. Since my day of work would feed only me and seven sleepers, I basically couldn't do anything BUT farm. Then the savior came and built a harvester. Industrial revolution! I was finally able to do things besides farm! Hooray! Progress was made.. things happened! And now.. sinking back into the mire? I don't relish it...

[viktor]

i can understand some reduction in the no fuel production rate but.. down to tooled rate?
maybe half the old machine rate? which is 2.5 bare hands or.... 1.25 what the new rates are? i seriously have a char that NEEDs any metal back that may have been placed on a harvester/drill in his name as, there is not a large enough population to make resource slots an issue and... foraging halfway across the island or overseas for gas/oil/other componants for drills is not at all worth it, nearest possible fuel is timber, or the very expensive alcahol. the dung forks and extra pickaxes would serve this particular civ way better now, than the drill/harvester would with the current change

that aside and on a different island
importing oil to noniwrok for roads is one thing, but depending on the rates the traders give, it may or may not have a market in fuelling harvesters/drills if the cost of buying the petrol outweighs it's worth in collection of the resources on the machines. unless someone owns an oil derrick and passes the savings on to their customers, nobody will buy petrol for thier machines.

[Addicted]

I hate change! Especially unexpected change!

This change will be devastating for four of the towns I'm in. The bigger (people numbers as well as more developed) will be business as usual. The hand farming towns will be unaffected, obviously. But as Arenti said those non farming food based places relying on food donation or trade will be stuffed. (three towns for me - all that hard work building them up, I want to cry and yes some of these cook to make the most already)

The last town has so few people that double the hand rate will give us little time to carry out all those lovely, lovely plans!

[mojomuppet]

Unless someone owns an oil derrick and passes the savings on to their customers, nobody will buy petrol for their machines.[/quote]

The problem now is going to be that the oil towns aren't going to be able to keep up. And the ones that do manage, you best be able to supply them with something other than raw hand rate food for it. These towns will be able to drive into any other town and throw petrol into your harvesters for a few days and mosey on back home dropping you a tax on the way out. Oil towns have very little else to offer anyone but oil and petrol! Everything else they must trade for. I think it was foolish to not allow the oil derrick the possibility to have fuel added to it. This is going to make it so much worse than it already was. It has probably wrecked 20 cantr years of working and making HUGE plans to solve one islands oil problem. But at least if the town isnt crushed by its over demand for its product I will be busy for a long time.


If you have two derricks and 4 Dist stacks it takes 12 people to run it properly. Then you have to have people doing various other things like cooking, dealing with healing food you don't have on the ground, someone hauling water to grow herbs, chars want clothes, homes, vehicles to drive, and some dang time off. Then you need reliable traders because you will be run ragged selling it. This is so hard to do!

Then what happens is the other town sells it for triple and sometimes even more than what you sold it to them for staggering again the ability for people to travel to TRADE! Stop being stupid. I have dumped 100's of kilos of petrol and oil onto one island alone and haven't even hit most of it yet. Still when I drive down the road I rarely see anyone else...Why is this? Massive greed. I know several towns with stupid amounts of vehicles and they covet them like it matters if someone takes it. You cant sell it for what its worth because most people just don't live long enough to earn one. What the hell people make the life mobile. Its left for only a few to trade, towns want trade to come to them but they dont go out trading. Then your newspawns die from lack of anything to do, and the older ones you wont run up the ladder and give responsibility to for fear you might miss some rp. Get those older chars out and moving around and let the young ones step up and do the other work. Most of the towns I trade with have never been to my town, and wouldnt dream of coming there because they assume I really need whatever the heck it is Im trading them for. I tell you I bought binoculars and my char lives in the freaking desert all I can see is more sand. But the man came to town and offered his wares. I could afford it so I got the man what he wanted. I bought gas for gods sake what the heck would I even need that for? Potatoes when I have food up the ying yang and will probably never run out. The things I really need I cant get unless I go to one certain group and you know what that means? They have most of the fuel. And I be dam if Im selling my oil at derrick rates for someone to pay me 3Og of iron for it. I can make that too, if I stop making petrol.....I cant stop, never stopped for 20 freaking years!

The next problem is smart butts that are rude to travelers. If I state my name, where Im from, who I want to talk to...whats your problem? Why should I have to tell you what I want and then say it again later? Say hi to me and be nice and I might tell you because I want to. And even worse...if Ive been there before and can point the older people out to you Im likely welcomed there you punk. I cant travel with a group bigger than two or three or every place I go assumes Im out to get them and treat my chars with as much rudeness as they possibly can and then act shocked when its returned. Grow the F up. The people that are the nicest to travelers are the ones that can actually kick your ass, the rest is just bull shit.

[Doug R.]

Tell us how you really feel...

[cooldevo]

Well, it's too early for me to say yet, but being a member of town X which had neither harvester nor dung forks for half of my existence there, subsistence framing was hard work. Since my day of work would feed only me and seven sleepers, I basically couldn't do anything BUT farm. Then the savior came and built a harvester. Industrial revolution! I was finally able to do things besides farm! Hooray! Progress was made.. things happened! And now.. sinking back into the mire? I don't relish it...

Why not just stop feeding the sleepers? If they have gotten sleeping sickness they likely aren't too productive, or contributing to the towns betterment and are just taking up precious food. Keep it for yourself and anyone that's actually awake and you shouldn't have a food shortage problem. If you are only feeding a couple of active people, you'll get more than enough from manual use of a harvester.

[RedQueen.exe]

Mojo makes a number of good points, and items I agree with that I can't go into depth on right now. Particularly the point about the fact that it is difficult to get enough traders moving around. Having played several traders, one of my biggest issues is towns that lock their harbors, take 5 days to start a trade, won't let you gather anything there in the meantime, then want to try and screw them over or trade at 1-1 even rates. Traders need to make a living people! They are doing YOU a favor by bringing stuff to your towns so you don't have to run around for it.

To address the other point that keeps coming up though, harvesters are meant to be for technologically advanced towns, not for every backwater carrot patch to be able to feed 20 sleepers with one active character. The harvesters/drills are really only supposed to shine for towns that are capable enough to fuel it. Maybe there are other issues that make fuel particularly problematic for every town to come across, but those are the issues that need to be addressed.

[cooldevo]

Particularly the point about the fact that it is difficult to get enough traders moving around. Having played several traders, one of my biggest issues is towns that lock their harbors, take 5 days to start a trade, won't let you gather anything there in the meantime, then want to try and screw them over or trade at 1-1 even rates. Traders need to make a living people! They are doing YOU a favor by bringing stuff to your towns so you don't have to run around for it.

I would agree with this overall. But I can't see how an element of players could be fixed with in-game mechanics (particularly harvesters). No matter what is done to the resources, it won't necessarily change what players feel their stuff is worth. Even if that resource was made so common that it was essentially worthless there would still be people trying to overcharge for it. I've seen towns overcharge (quite heavily IMO) for stone when there are 3 or 4 other towns immediately around them that also have stone readily available in large quantities.

[gejyspa]

Well, it's too early for me to say yet, but being a member of town X which had neither harvester nor dung forks for half of my existence there, subsistence framing was hard work. Since my day of work would feed only me and seven sleepers, I basically couldn't do anything BUT farm. Then the savior came and built a harvester. Industrial revolution! I was finally able to do things besides farm! Hooray! Progress was made.. things happened! And now.. sinking back into the mire? I don't relish it...

Why not just stop feeding the sleepers? If they have gotten sleeping sickness they likely aren't too productive, or contributing to the towns betterment and are just taking up precious food. Keep it for yourself and anyone that's actually awake and you shouldn't have a food shortage problem. If you are only feeding a couple of active people, you'll get more than enough from manual use of a harvester.

Ummm.. Because I'm not a cold-hearted b****d like apparently you are? My character, like my player, happens to believe there is value in human/Cantrian life. One sleeping character that was fed for something like10 years finally did wake up, and was as good a RPer as I've ever seen. And many sleepers were certainly contributing members to society before falling victim to the sleeping sickness, and I expect they will be again. But This is all besides the point. Even if they are not, I should passively kill them? I don't USE people, I take them as they are. They are not tools, they are not pack animals, and they are not blips in a computer screen. They are intelligences. And this is a RP game. I hope for your sake you never break your legs and starve to death because you can't make it to the refrigerator/oven, since obviously that's the way you expect to be treated. (And this is why I rail against games like FPS and GTA, etc. Because it teaches people to treat other people as obstacles to their own self-gratification) The fact that you even ASKED the question makes me weep.
</rant>

[Piscator]

Well, I was actually about to ask the same question. If you expect a char to wake up again, okay, I would certainly feed them, too. However, if I'd get the impression the char had lost his will to live, I would just let nature take it's course. I mean, you can usually get an idea of whether a player lost interest in a char or just can't play for whatever reasons. Quite a large part of sleepers probably doesn't even want to be fed.