Population should be valuable

pein · 2020-03-29 23:20:55

This been like forever, it's backwards, having more people get you closer to your demise way faster.
Every nerf makes it worse since if we got fixed resources, more people use them faster.

In a game or real life, you would expect that more people could do more work and get more profit
You should be happy about having new babies
since we got no choice about preventing or boosting population or really cruel ones after birth, either we should be able to limit that or use it somehow.

The population is a resource! It should be.

I actually like the update on slots (still hate them and I don't see the point) but it's slightly better than I can use a tool once if I want something once. Also, it's a tiny exploit that you can use to make things, without learning the tool. A saw with 2 people using a file on the blade, a cart with 2 people using a drill. You can make a mallet without learning the adze, sure if you want to make fences all your life, then it's okay to use twice, but if you just want a mallet, then you don't have to commit. It's not too powerful, but can be used for the initial tools, since a lot of people can't comprehend what is already made, also having one cart or one knife won't be enough long term.

This could be used for upgrades as well. Each unique person would be able to add one part to an item, to upgrade it. This would be good, cause it would prevent people from dumping all resources to something, also it would use the population, the workforce. Also would allow upgrades that cost a lot of resources, but you couldn't rush it alone. Yes, for example, iron sink. If upgrading something would cost 10 iron, you could just make it once you got the mine. But if it would cost 10 times 1 iron by 10 different people, you would have a limitation that requires time and cooperation.

Similar to the bell tower, but not time-based, it would be kind of population-based, sure you would have to tell people to do it, so people should care and should think a bit, so you might have 10 people but maybe just 5 of them are reliable.

This could be combined with pickup age, to have similar things but harder, 10 adults to contribute to an upgrade.
Or 10 elders.

Also, it could be time-based, like simultaneous, so that would mean that 5 adults should contribute within 5 minutes or it would reset.

People are not good at high-level optimization, hard to tell them to do or not do something and if you try to think logically and intervene, you might get cursed or killed. It's obvious that if you got no food you shouldn't keep a lot of female babies, yet people are still crying about that and do it reversely: kill the male babies, and 14 minutes later you got the same problem. Males won't reproduce but will have a chance to feed themselves and help out. I don't want to go into the fight about genders, 2/3 of males won't stay or won't be kept before age 10 but if they decide to stay they likely will reach old age.

The problems:
It should be possible to control the population indirectly a tiny bit.
If we got too many families, no one will have enough. If we got a few only, everyone has too many babies.
But we can't have too many families, cause then eventually will stabilize and still be ruined.
This was always a problem, new families tend to have more girls and then kill off the old ones.
You should be able to keep a long lineage. Also, we need at least one of each skin colour (white not so much)
So how to solve the conflict?

The families who care and work together should get a choice. The ones who got the skill and the motivation should get a tiny bit of an advantage.

One example, I don't know the ideal proportions:
Each family could start off with a max population of 5 (not counting old people above 37 so they wouldn't suicide, not counting males above 50%).
This limit could be raised by doing an upgrade.

Let's call it "totem of fertility". When the 5 people get through the early game rush and are able to settle, they would need to consciously build and upgrade this totem if they want more people to come. It wouldn't need to be a resource cost or maybe unimportant ones. For example, you would need to add random items from the world, from different biomes. One egg, one limestone, one leaf, etc. It shouldn't be hard, the point is that people signal their intention and the ability that they can do basic exploration.

This would allow multiple Eves join but it would be a conflict. The families would have a competition between them, the better ones would get one more baby, that could skyrocket slowly. This would balance things out, new players already struggle with surviving, one veteran can keep alive 4 others and wouldn't be overwhelming, also they tend to not focus on others, they don't really care if there are 10 people around or 5, big cities can't focus on new players, and new players have trouble when others take away the basket or bowls from their hand.

This would mean that people who just try to survive would not take away too much population, they would have a chance to survive, if all females get very old and no one stays, they would die out, that's the side effect of not having higher population limit.

The other totem could be the "totem of yum", to upgrade it, you would need to put different food in its vicinity. That would prove that you got a steady income of different food types. Not 1 of each, at least 5, it wouldn't consume it, it would just check. This would rank families by their potential to sustain new babies. In case of an equal population limit, the first baby would go to the first family, in case of a lot of incoming players it wouldn't matter, also if you would want to stop the growth you wouldn't put the food near it.
It should be a lock on the food, for example, put 1 berry bowl, you couldn't take it right away, you would need to wait. so you would need to be sure you can afford it. Every 10 minutes or so, the family rankings would re-check, 3 min after that you could take the food away.

The ideal would be that it would allow around 8-10 Eves but eventually, some of them would die out. so people could try their skill on Eve runs but a long-standing family would need a few skilled players.
There could be a time limit which increases over time, the minimum population would be 5, maximum anything, but after each hour it would be a negative level so if no one upgrades either of totems then it goes down to 5 again.

These are just examples, it could be a different item or tech, different numbers, the point is that people would need to consciously work for higher population.

As for the rewards for having more people or more adults, more active adults, more elders, I'm not quite sure.
It could be rewarded like a bucket of water, or airdrops (random resources in a crate).
This won't sound as a reward, more like another limitation. But if we would have regenerating resources, this would be a good way to upgrade the hourly income (or rather 2x or 4x an hour). You would get some initial iron, then hourly 2 at first, then if 5 people add to the upgrade one item, you get 3 per hour, then 4 then 5, and so on. Meanwhile, it would act as a sink, cause you could and should use your iron to upgrade your other tech choices.
When you would upgrade, it could be a timer to process the resources, so people should consider if they got enough iron for tools or they dump it all to reach the next upgrade, if you don't have enough it wouldn't do anything, or wait for the next session.
For example, you get some initial iron then every 20 minutes you can mine out 1 more or level 1. It takes you roughly 2 minutes to mine out, this would reset the timer to closest 20-minute mark (you finish mining at 9:08 then you get the next at 9:20), if you miss out, it's basically one iron lost. You can upgrade before the timer hits the last 5 minutes.
Let's say you need 10 water to get to level 2 iron, and 10 iron to get to level 2 water (just an example). So if you can afford it, then you upgrade.
Later you need 50 iron to level 5 for example, then you need to wait to have enough, you can constantly put some or strategically wait out when you got excess and enough for next upgrade.

This is just an example, it would need complete rework on some resources to have hourly income.
This could act as a sink to resources. Sure you would have each 20 min 1 iron, that could cover tool needs, eventually, you might have 20 stacked up, you would rather use it to upgrade other resources. It could be clay mine or flat rock mine or anything.
So there would be always a way to spend your iron. Sure it just adds a chance to gather 1 more clay, it doesn't seem big difference, but that clay could be used to upgrade the flat rock mine and the flat rock to upgrade the round stone mine or whatever, it would go all around.

At some point you could have too much, but it would still need work to get those resources or you basically lose them.
Let's say everyone is working every 20 minutes and you get out the maximum value, you could have like 10 iron per 20 min, 30 per hour.
The upgrades would be exponentially higher, you could either make a second engine or use all the iron to upgrade the water for example.
It is too much iron, but you could always spend it elsewhere, and you could have different problems. You got too much iron, but you want a long road? Then you want to mine out flat rocks. So you would dump all your iron into upgrades and get a tiny bit more flat rocks. In the meantime, the water output would be too low? Stop that job and switch focus.

The population could act as a buffer since more workers could mine out more but also upgrades couldn't be done by one person, every person would have to put 1 iron to help upgrades so more population would mean faster advancement if they care.

The upgrade costs would be circular at first, A upgrades B and B upgrades C and C goes to D and D goes to A. So if you want to get B then you go around each to have more A to have more B.
The second upgrades could be reversed that now you need C to upgrade B.
The third could be A+B to upgrade C, B+C to upgrade D.
And the fourth would be everything except the one you upgrade so A+B+C to upgrade D.

Each tier could be multiple times, and eventually, you would get crazy high costs of 1000 iron to upgrade. It's hard to make but it's still a goal.
It could open up another resource for your family, give the requirement for the tech. For example one silver, the silver could be used to make a machine(or one out of multiple choices), the machine would allow your family to make a new item. You would get the next silver for another milestone so you would be able to do all specialities but harder). You would need a leader with 5+ followers to use it, he/she would decide which path the town takes.

The races could fit in with some other specific resources, each would have a speciality and that would be required by the other families speciality. The main upgrades should be the same for each family until a very high level, where you would need special items to upgrade.

It does not have to be a mine or upgrade, it could be that you need to collect 20 pies to get 1 new recipe. 20 iron to make a new machine. 20 wood to build a big wooden board. 20 big wooden boards to make a huge wooden board. 4 of that could make a boat or something.
It would be always something to convert into. Something more valuable.

Everything runs out is not fun, there should be always progressing.
Too much of something is not boring, it should be more requirement of resources by other techs. That would allow specializing into something.
I genuinely never seen a town which has too much adobe or too many wooden boards so I could just make a room, generally, I got to grind collecting it, and someone might use it up while I'm not there.

It might never happen but at least there I wrote it down, there are different ways to make the game fun, teamwork to matter, resources to be limited (it is never enough). It would be a grind but at least here would be a goal.

Morti · 2020-03-30 00:02:24

pein wrote:

The population is a resource!

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2020-03-29 23:20:55

Population should be valuable

#2 2020-03-30 00:02:24

Re: Population should be valuable

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