Let's talk plans to economize Cantr!

[Robert Shmeashter]

Well, usually when newspawns spawn, they are given free food to start with. That gives them time to find their hidden skill, and start trading.

I agree with what you said about smaller communities not being able to survive. But if you can survive in the frontier on your own, wouldn't you be able to survive in the city, since in this game they aren't that different? The whole idea is to get people to rely on each other, like they do in RL. This is a society simulator. Not much society if all you have to do to live is farm stuff. Besides, there are more ways to get food than farming. You can also hunt animals, or fish for trout. Even in different language groups, chances aren't that small that you or your neighbor can either farm, fish, or hunt. If you do not excel at any of these things, maybe you can bring someone with you to the frontier that can?

[Talapus]

The biggest problem in my mind is that you are making an unrealistic change for OOC reasons. If you dropped me in the middle of the forest, I could survive for quite some time because I know how to fish, and set snares, I know many of the poisonous plants and mushrooms in the area where I live, ect. However I am a terrible farmer, but if you gave me suitable ground and carrot seeds, I could survive with my current but terrible skills (I am sometimes called a blackthumb), and with a few seasons of practice, I could be I think quite a proficient farmer. I think that skill variations maybe should be a little larger then they are currently, but to make them as large as you have been talking about is just silly. I have found that trade often occurs between individuals that are equipped for different trades, which makes since. If one person has the equipment to make clothing, and another person has a shovel for farming, then they will trade because each of them can offer something that the other can't, or can't do as well. This is reflected in todays society with larger and larger machines pushing those with less efficient machinery out of business. This evolution allows for greater output then if everyone was a jack of all trades, and I have seen this come about in several cities, and I think that it will happen in more soon and I think it is the way that trade should evolve, because although skills are imporant, they are overshadowed in real life my tools, and this is reflected well in cantr in my opinion

[Nick]

I am a terrible farmer, but if you gave me suitable ground and carrot seeds, I could survive with my current but terrible skills

You can survive without food from planting season until harvest? Impressive.

[Peanut]

You might know how to hunt/farm

But should your newspawn know?

[Talapus]

The newspawns start out at twenty years of age. Are we to assume then that they know nothing at that age, especially considering that for most of them, their "parents" (those that they draw stats from) are farming food for themselves? And seemingly with the way that the current skill system works, improvements are seen through the course of several generations, rather then the improvement we might see from a person gaining experience from no knowledge. What I think would more interesting to assume, is that newspawns start off with a farming (and other resource collecting) background and aptitude, but have little in the way of skills pertaining to the manufacture of items, which would rather be skills that would all start low (with perhaps a few bonuses from the afore mentioned "parents") and could be quickly improved upon. This would allow the skill and expertice of a subject aid a person who specializes in the trade, without limiting unfairly skills of people. Furthermore, I think that this change could be effected without outraging or causing too detremental of an effect to the current people of cantr, who would become poor at their trade, but if they persisted in it, they would quickly become adept in their field of work and their skills would become more marketable. I think this approach is more realistic, accounts for not all knowledge being passed through generation, and would mesh flawlessly into the currently existing cantr world without causing the major job changes that we saw when fighting moved to be heavily based on skills.

[Nixit]

Alright. This twenty years thing is rubbish. I don't think that this means that they've been "alive" persay for twenty years. It just means that they are as physically developed as a human who is twenty years old. That is what I get from it.

Because if you spawn, and you're one year old, you sound quite young and childish and people will get a mental picture of a one year old because of the real world. Twenty years old, they imagine a fully grown man or woman.

[The Sociologist]

[...] because although skills are imporant, they are overshadowed in real life by tools, and this is reflected well in cantr in my opinion

Correct, and that is how modern capitalism evolved and how it undercut the medieval guilds. Of course, also important in that evolution was the application of power, first in the use of water-wheels, then coke, coal, and finally electricity. Cantr does not model the evolution of powered machinery at all well.

By the way, this concept also applies to warfare. The early muskets were not necessarily more accurate than bows, but they allowed the use of less-skilled soldiery than the highly skilled woodsmen who manned the longbows. Of course these woodsmen had gained their skills through the hunting of animals, just as the Mongols gained their tactical skills through massive coordinated hunts on the steppes.

Cantr does not model any of this at all correctly. Personally, I consider the skills system a farce whose only side-effect for me is to make the game less interesting and less enjoyable to play. So I'd argue against placing any more weight on such a nonsensical system. I'd be happiest if it simply went away.

[Nick]

just as the Mongols gained their tactical skills through massive coordinated hunts on the steppes.

Massive hunts in Mongolia? I thought their biggest problem was lack of food, and at times they even resorted to cannibalism.

[Robert Shmeashter]

The newspawns start out at twenty years of age. Are we to assume then that they know nothing at that age, especially considering that for most of them, their "parents" (those that they draw stats from) are farming food for themselves?

In my interpretation of the Capital Rule, characters can only put to use information they have learned after their spawning. Your character cannot learn how to farm food before spawning, because he does not exist then. As Nixit says, being 20 years old in Cantr only means that you have the physical capabilities of a 20-year-old. Spawn-day is the date in which the character comes into existence. People cannot learn stuff from their parents before they are born. So, yes, they do not know anything at twenty years of age.

If you are so much concerned about old characters being affected by this change, you can just make it so that only newspawns are affected by it.

What I think would more interesting to assume, is that newspawns start off with a farming (and other resource collecting) background and aptitude, but have little in the way of skills pertaining to the manufacture of items, which would rather be skills that would all start low (with perhaps a few bonuses from the afore mentioned "parents") and could be quickly improved upon.

I don't like that, because then people would be able to keep on farming to survive, and that is what I have been fighting all this thread!

Here's a new idea: how about we make it so that clothes and tools and stuff are all important for your survival as food is? Maybe make it so that you recieve slow damage from not having any clothes? When you think of it, you cannot survive really well without clothes, either. If I dropped you in the forest without clothes, you would suffer pretty badly (or even die) from cold and scratches and stuff. Also you would not farm very well if you did not have tools. (Although this is irrelevant, you cannot farm in the forest either.)

[The Sociologist]

just as the Mongols gained their tactical skills through massive coordinated hunts on the steppes.

Massive hunts in Mongolia? I thought their biggest problem was lack of food, and at times they even resorted to cannibalism.

No, not at all. Try entering "mongol hunting" in Google. They used to herd animals to hunt into a killing area, the entire operation lasting sometimes days. The tactics used in these hunts became their military tactics later. Same throughout history.

So why this effort in Cantr to distinguish between hunting skills and combat skills (even though it isn't absolute and there does seem to be some linkage)? And is it true that combat skills are declining with non-use? That's what Surly has been saying. Yet there is no way to practise, no olympic sports. For after all, olympic sports were once a form of training for war...think javelins, but that's only the most obvious one.

So what is Francesca supposed to do in AFN...organize "newspawn hunts" so as to keep local skills at an acceptable level? Drag the occasional passing trader off to jail to use as target practice? Even though any such actions are totally at variance with the local culture?

As far as I'm concerned, this whole "skills" system is just one vast, pathetic CR breach on the part of the GAC people who coded it. This game is becoming so crushingly conservative and stifled by these people as to be losing all further interest.

[Jur Schagen]

As far as I'm concerned, this whole "skills" system is just one vast, pathetic CR breach on the part of the GAC people who coded it. This game is becoming so crushingly conservative and stifled by these people as to be losing all further interest.

Can you elaborate on that? Even though you may not like the skill system (imho, on some valid, and some invalid grounds), and take any opportunity to tell us that, how is it a CR breach?

Just curious, you know...

Jur.

[Just A Bill]

Evertything I know about Mongol hunting techniques I learned from watching "Red Dawn".

Why wern't my HS classes more like that! (well except for killing the teacher and many of the students)

[The Sociologist]

As far as I'm concerned, this whole "skills" system is just one vast, pathetic CR breach on the part of the GAC people who coded it. This game is becoming so crushingly conservative and stifled by these people as to be losing all further interest.

Can you elaborate on that? Even though you may not like the skill system (imho, on some valid, and some invalid grounds), and take any opportunity to tell us that, how is it a CR breach?

If you deny knowledge of what amounts to the basic physiology of their characters to newcomers to the game--and I'm talking about the sort of very basic knowledge that has always been available to everyone throughout real-life history--but this knowledge is accessible to a minority in Cantr for ooc reasons (access to the database), then obviously the whole thing becomes in effect a massive CR breach.

After all, when IRL tribesman A lets loose his bow and tribesman B next to him lets loose his bow, they can see who did best, not so? Throughout human history, yes? But in Cantr there are members of staff who can and do simply look up A's skills via the database, as well as looking at what's in his inventory, etc, etc. And then use this information for in-game purposes, not so?

[Nick]

I think/hope/assume that only very high ranking staff members have access to such things.

[Robert Shmeashter]

I'm sorry, can you tell me what GAC stands for?