a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
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I don't think we really need any game mechanics to influence this. While there is a lot of people who are okay with just letting all the babies die, I find most people are inclined to keep children. It is just a natural things psychologically to try to support as many children as you can because you don't want them dying. So most people will try to keep the children unless they are in some pretty dire situations. It also hurts morale of the city when babies are running around dying all over and bones piles up.
Because of all that, it already feels more stressful being female in game. Even if you don't need to help any of the children, that pressure is still there. When you male a play character that isn't there and you are a lot more free to do what you want. When I play a female character I definitely feel like raising children is a big part of my job, while playing male I feel a lot more liberated to do more complex tasks or explore further away from the city.
That isn't enforced mechanically by the game but it is definitely that feeling there.
It is actually easier to survive as a group, since other players will make stuff for you throughout their entire life, while if you kill them you only have whatever they had at the moment. Of course people with that attitude are not really team players, so it is no wonder they fail to see the benefits of working as a group.
I have had twins before. I think they were like 15 seconds apart at most. I was under the impression the cool down timer was longer than that but who know. Having one every minute is also fairly common so four before they reach four isn't hard to believe.
Does seem to be more towns, or at least early settlements going on.
So with the game tech works, if family line survival is your primary goal the ideal strategy is to never do any tech whatsoever, simply live from bush to bush and keep moving constantly. People don't really do that intentionally, but the low average player skill (which will always be a thing because experienced players keep burning out) combined with the diminishing productivity puts a hard cap on town duration. As you work through the tech tree you simply have to push ever harder and work ever more efficiently just to stay in the same place population wise. So towns naturally quickly fail and Eves are the norm, which boils down to players spending most of their time playing the ideal strategy of living off wild berries. Now how's that for repetitiveness?
That is the sort of thing that made me realize how productive cactus farming is. Get a nice spot with like 20 cactus, five per person and you can have a family of four live there indefinitely without doing anything. Though might still be a good idea to make a knife to kill all the snakes.
I agree, you should be able to get meat from all the animals that are killable. Not sure why we can't eat bear, wolf or seal. It would make playing a hunter fun too. Also, since bears are so dangerous we should be able to use the fur for other stuff. For example, cutting up the bear pelt to get hide, so we can make clothing.
LOL all someone has to do is make a key and they can open the door. NOT that hard. Please keep stuff in a locked door.... I'll make sure to get it.
While that is true, that is far more difficult to get into than having it in a cart sitting entirely out in the open for someone to walk by and grab. And that is the real point, that you make it difficult enough that they stop and trade rather than just taking it. After all, people can also just make weapons and kill everyone then easily steal everything. So you can't stop 100% of people no matter what you do.
Fire is definitely #1. Depending on your rabbit and food situation, making a backpack before a farm is viable. A backpack helps a lot, so if you have the rabbits for it, I would go for it right away. Also depending on how much wild milkweed there is, planting some early might be worth it as well. I would say carrot farm, then milkweed. Also planting the berries early on might be useful too. Even though it isn't going to help you in your life time, by the time they do start having berries your children and their children will be up to the tech where they need them. If you wait til step 4, they will be waiting forever for the berries to actually be useful. Though at the same time, i wouldn't rush it either. Take care of what you need and if you have some free time and soil plant some bushes.
Also early clothes is useful if you have a lot of thread. It is especially worth it to club some seals, since they are an easy source of coats.
The best way currently might be to build tons of wooden boxes to store stuff. They don't currently decay, though I am sure that will change. A wooden box used for storage should have a pretty long decay rate though. Personally that is my biggest concern, is just storage space.
If you are carrying things around then clearly backpack and wagons are the way to go.
Oh they do despawn now. That is kind of brutal.
The location you cut shouldn't disappear, though the cut reeds do despawn fairly quickly I think.
You can trade in the game now, if you store all your stuff in a locked building. Then the other group has to ask for stuff and you have to agree before you open the door and let them get the stuff out. Otherwise people can just run around and grab anything you have if you don't lock it up.
I always ask my children if they know what they are doing and stuff, and most of the time they say yes, and then end up dying fairly young. Usually when they get old enough to run off, I follow them around a little to make sure they are actually okay. Personally I would keep them near me until they were 8 if I could but most people don't want to sit still that long.
I normally consider it a big success if there is grand children running around when I die(or the equivalent relatives if your male). That way you know a few generation have made it, even if everything falls apart an hour later.
As for the berry meta, I am pretty sure that isn't a real thing. I know I seen a few people mention the idea, but it really doesn't seem all that realistic and I never see anyone doing it in game.
I know people been waiting for signs for a while. Personally I am not sure how well they will work, since it depends on people paying attention to them but anything to try and improve communication is a good thing.
That was the idea I suggested in his other thread. The problem was the way he was doing to it wasn't very effective code wise and would be a pain to fix. Doing it completely random was really easy and efficient but there was a chance a chance of a tool breaking on the first use which would really suck. So the hybrid method negates the worst case scenario and gives the tool a minimum number of uses, while remaining easy and efficient to code into the game.
This is the internet, people will complain no matter. Also, complaining about stuff is probably human nature. Some people take it to a bit of an extreme, but some complaining is probably helpful as it reveals problems and issues that come up. Honestly, I wouldn't worry too much about it.
The problems with the division of labor like that, is that currently a single farmer can't support 8 other people. If a farmer can't support 8 other people, then there is no way you will ever have those 8 other jobs. Probably the biggest reason is because there is no where to put anything. Even if you produce massive amounts of food in the most effective means possible, there is no where to put it all, especially when baskets decay in an hour. Before we had some towns that could make carts full of baskets and carrots but now that is impossible. As long as there isn't any real way to store all this food, we can't move on to doing many different jobs.
I am inclined to give Jason a chance, since he does usually fix the stuff he breaks. He put in the apocalypse and it was too crazy but then he did take it out. The decay was crazy for some items, like baskets falling apart within 30 minutes, and he changed it to an hour instead.
I think the problem is that we are basically alpha testers and testing out the stuff he puts into game live, so there are many issues. A lot of people didn't buy the game thinking they were alpha testers.
the temperature debuff was very bad, eating simulator, every 10 seconds you eat and you cannot perform a task well, you try to show things for others, they die. i dont think is hard, its just requires practice. but then is too repetititive. what makes it hard, is the new players dragging you down. like i could do something useful, but i need to save them from doing stupid things over and over. most youtubers are the same, they got some clue but they cant calculate or strategize, yes i do think game should be easier on low level, like getting food and surviving 60 years. What makes it hard, no one cooperates with you to do the next step. Pen, saddle, horse cart, fences, extend, etc.
You know when I think about it, making it so you get hungry more slowly fixes a lot of issues. If you got hungry slower, you wouldn't need 30 rows of carrots for the city, which means you don't need to make a new hoe every 2 minutes, and don't need to make 30 baskets, which would mean you can finally free up time to do other stuff.
I definitely see valid arguments that it is more 'tedious' than hard. Assuming that Tools do get an increase in Durability, do you believe there are any other factors contributing to the current state of the game? I have heard 'item clutter' be thrown around as a serious issue, and am curious if you have anything to say on that?
Item clutter is a massive problem. It was a problem before when baskets and backpack lasted forever, now it is ten times worse. You need two baskets just to hold a single row of carrots or a single bush worth of berries. That is silly. An entire bush of berries can fit into one clay bowl but can't fit in a basket? How are you supposed to farm when you need two baskets per plot of carrots and baskets decay each hour?
The only options is to just litter the ground with crap all over the place.
The difference between it being difficult and tedious is repeating tasks. Having to make a new hoe every fives minutes isn't difficult, it is tedious. If the early tools broke after like 20 times then the steel version lasted like 200 then the difficulty of making the harder tool would be reward, and you don't have to constantly repeat the same steps over and over forever. It would be much more fun.
The decay rate is just too high I think. A tool you make should probably last most of your life time. That way you are rewarded for accomplishing the task.
I would split the difference. Make say 3 versions of a shovel, and give each a 5% chance to move to next step. So shovel 1 has 5% chance to become shovel 2, shovel 2 has 5% chance to become shovel 3, and shovel 3 has 5% chance to become a broken shovel. You can set the percentage to whatever you want but your guaranteed to have at least 3 uses before it breaks. Getting a few extra uses isn't a big deal but having a tool break on the first use would be extremely frustrating. So we rule that out. It adds a bit more to the database, but 3 shovels is way better than 40.
You can always lie. Assuming you are paying with your own money, no one is going to really care. Don't lie about your email address though since that is how they send the information for the game.
I always ask my children if they know how to farm, and most of the time they say yes, then everyone starves to death ten minutes later. Some times it isn't their fault, some times it is, but I think we all experienced farm collapses, as they are happening all the time now. They key to avoiding disaster is planning ahead and recognizing the signs of coming doom. So here are some signs and what you can do.
1. There isn't enough plots of soil. If the population is growing you need to expand the size of the farm. The first thing you should do if you are put in charge of a farm is expand it. Every generation it needs to expand. You want at least 3 plots of carrots for each person, if carrots are your main source of food. Later you can transition to other food sources, and you don't need as many but early on this is important. It may even be worth going to 5 or 6 plots per person. This is a fairly easy thing to fix though. So if you see there isn't enough soil, just bring more in.
2. There isn't enough seeds. This is the big one, and what kills a lot of people. If you look at the rows of carrots and there is two or more plots without seeds in them and there is no seeds around, then you are already at the first stage of collapse*unless you are in the process of expanding the farm and that is why they are not seeded yet). Even if every other row is planted, and the carrots are growing, it is critical to remember that you are still in the process of a collapse. Most do not recognize it, as it seems like they are doing fine. However, what happens is that when those carrots grow and get picked even if you leave one for seeds, it will take 5 additional minutes for the seeds to form, then two more minutes for the replanted carrots to grow. So while you might get a big harvest of carrots and all will seem fine, the next batch of carrots will be 7 minutes out instead of the normal 2 and that is deadly.
So first thing you should do to correct the situation, is check for carrots that are already grown and immediately make them seed carrots. If they been there for a few minutes already, then you might get lucky and can get seeds quickly. If so you can avoid the collapse with only minor issues. If they just come up then you will need to make sure you have extra food for the upcoming delay. Make sure to water all the rows that are not watered, try to make pies, or roast rabbits if there is a lot of them around. If you produce a large number of carrots, you might still be able to survive this without a full blown collapse. This is also the time to check nearby area for bushes or cactus. If you is a decent amount to supplement the carrots during the delay you have a good chance.
3. There are no seeds. So you look at the farm and half or more of the plots are bare and there is no seeds in sight. Worse, there is only one or two plots with carrots growing and people are telling everyone not to pick because they are for seeds. At this point you are in dire straits. Remember it takes 2 minutes to grow carrots and 7 minutes to get more seeds. So even if you replant the entire field, you will run out of seeds when they get picked and the next seeds will take even longer to get.
If there is carrots growing and enough food to survive several minutes without any carrots being picked, then you can still salvage things. The key getting as much seeds as possible. Not just enough to replant the field, but to replant the field a second time after that. If you can do that you might be fine. Still there will be delays so you should seek other food methods, with pies, or from bushes and what have you.
If there is so few carrots growing that you can't even replant the entire field when the seeds do grow, then you are totally screwed. If you are having these issues and there is a large population, there is also a high chance you are totally screwed. In this case you have to find wild seeds, and you will have to find food else where. Even if there is a lot of picked carrots laying around, those will disappear in the blink of an eye. You are in a full blown collapse. No matter what you do, a bunch of people are likely to starve at this point. You can try to save as many as you can by finding wild bushes and bringing food back to town, and cooking up everything, roast any food you find, cook any pies or whatever.
4. There is no food. So this goes along with the other two seed problems. Ideally, you are dealing with the seed issues while there is still some food around, perhaps some carrots just came up so there is some to at least try to survive the long delay ahead. However, if that is not the case, then you have a very serious problem. 9 out of 10 times a starving person will pick seed carrots in a desperate attempt to survive, even when knowing they are seed carrots.
While I don't condone murder, I do consider you justified in killing a person who picks the seed carrots at this point. At this point if you don't have a backpack full of food you will likely have to flee the village and look for food in the wilds. If you do have a backpack with food you can try to wait things out. The best bet is probably run into the wilds and come back a few minutes later. Everyone will likely to be dead at this point, except the others who did the same as you and fled the city.
5. There is no water. This usually isn't an issue. However very bad farm placement, or griefers stealing baskets full of water pouches and stuff can cause an issue. If water pouches go missing, make new ones as quickly as possible or use bowls. If you want to expand the farm but water is a little lacking, consider moving the farm or building wells and cisterns.
6. There is no people. Or rather, a lack of people working the farm. This usually isn't an issue though can happen when there is a murderer or an old person is farming and dies. If carrots are left they will all seed and that will cause issues. Luckily this is an easy problem to solve as long as you run by the farm every once in a while. If carrots are not being picked, then pick them. At that point you determine whether you want to focus on farming or do something else. Often times if you have a lot of carrots, it is okay to leave the farm with no one working it, especially with very small populations. However, you should pick the carrots and seed the farm to prep it for later before going on to do whatever you plan to do.
7. All the soil is harden. I have yet to see a farm die due to this, however it is a possibility with the limited use of tools. My suggestion is to make sure to plant some milkweed for extra string and rope. That way you can make a primitive hoe in the worst case scenario. Also worms can til soil for you but it takes a long time. I have considered using them to leave some soil resting for a while to save on tool usage but that is a long term thing for very big farms, most people don't need to worry about. I have found that you can still use a hoe to til a wormy field, so if you try it and suddenly decide you can't wait, that is always an option.
8. Shrinking field. Composting is very important, but it is now more difficult than before. So you may have to relay in finding soil out in the wilds, luckily there is often a lot of it. It is usually fairly obvious when a field is starting to shrink in size due to soil loss, and it is just really a matter of finding more, either in the wilds or with composting. It is a long term issue, so when you notice it, you should start considering plans right away. However, it usually isn't a critical issue and wont cause the farm to collapse and everyone to die. Not unless you also have a large overpopulation issue.
9. Way too many people. I think everyone been in cities where there is a ton of people all over the place. They eat all the food and things can collapse quickly. Luckily if you follow the rest of the guide overpopulation can be avoided, as you should be expanding the farm as people are born. Of course, there are practical limits to how fast you can expand it, and you might not even be the person running the farm. Heck you could be a baby born into this situation and so have no control over what happens.
Overpopulation usually corrects it self as several people will end up starving off. Remember what I said in #4 though. Starving people will pick seed carrots. So it is very possible to go from an overpopulation problem to a no seed problem. If you have an overpopulation and seed problem, the only real answer is to flee the city. Even if you make a bunch of pies people will eat them all up and still starve. Often times this is when people randomly start to kill each other as well, trying to solve the population issue. However they are often not very picky about targets, and might kill you even if your the only person actually doing any work.
If possible, you want to try to prep the field a bit prior to fleeing and even water some new carrots, so that when you return there is something to come back to.
Anyway those are my tips for recognizing farming problems and solving them before everyone starves to death. Ideally you do want to advance to where people can make pies, and even get meat from sheep and stuff. Though short term a lot of people relies on those carrots.
Make sure you put in the email and registration code. It is normally hidden, so you can't tell if it is typed in or not so when you reinstalled it might not have saved those like normal. So check to make sure those are in. If so make sure your using the right email. If that fails make sure you delete all the files first before reinstalling, as some times just reinstalling a game doesn't solve issues if you don't get rid of everything first.