a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
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The general discussion about decay, villages "decaying from under you", etc, reminds me about a piece where an author (who is kind of a dandy) recounts the one day he spent on a working ranch as a younger man,
"We went to the tractor because we had to do something in the fields but it turned out that something was wrong with it. It needed some wheel adjustment, a carburetor cleaning, a blade sharpening, and several other things. That took more than an hour, and I don’t recall what we did with the tractor other than ride around in it, but then we had to stop because another task called on our labors.
A fence needed repairing, so we did that. Then a water well was clogged so we unclogged it. Then the chicken coop had some issue that needed fixing.
After a while I realized that nearly everything was broken. This is pretty much what we did with our mornings, just going from place to place tightening, hammering, wiring, pounding, unclogging, and so on. Fixing things is what you do. Initially I was alarmed: when do we actually do things, as versus fix things, so that we can start doing what we are supposed to do. I gradually learned that fixing is a massive part of what constitutes your actual work."
the rest is here: https://fee.org/articles/my-short-life-on-a-real-ranch/
Anyway, the point is, everything decaying around you all the time is realistic. It's amazing anything works as well as it does. Life is fixing things. There is an often unnoticed army of workers (primarily men) that fix things all the time. in real life, your house does actually decay from under you if you don't maintain it.
That said, at what point the game becomes too tedious is a different question entirely.
I should add, I visited a nearby ghost town (Elberton, WA) to see the daffodils yesterday. It was been abandoned for roughly an "epoch" and much of the land was given to the county and it's a park now. Many of the buildings have fallen over or are otherwise beyond repair, an area that was cleared of timber is reforesting, and the only clear evidence of some homestead sites is the daffodils. However, there are vast wild orchards, and someone resettling the area would have a massive advantage in terms of food availability compared to the original settlers.
here's something to think about that was a problem in the first place:
This game goes straight from stone to steal.
I once watched a documentary about the Bronze Age. In it, the person made a bronze ax and started chopping something. The bronze ax head only lasted about 10 hits.
However, they're very easy to remelt. At the time, ax heads were widely used as currency, because it was a store of a precious metal, was useful, and people had the need to own multiple ax heads.
By switching from steel to bronze tools it can be made so that they break quickly but you only need to touch the axhead to a firing forge to fix them. It could be easy to reattach but the shaft has a separate decay.
In general, the decay item is super necessary, and i think i'm far more into struggling to survive compared to building a huge civilization, so Jason's vision is working for me better than some of the other people here lol.
when did you try it? There have occasionally been serious server problems.
Also I think someone fed you mushrooms.
I'm not joking.
happened more than 5 times so far that they know what it means
happened like twice my baby said it
one was joriom, its perfectly good strategy, if half of people knows and half of the other half is curious, much easier to have a decent camp with no noobs
If you want Joriom in your camp lol, I'd feed him to the bears.
as I suspected, the compost system changed substantially between writing this and actually getting it published lol, still, the principle remains.
I really think worms could instead make the wheat soil viable again.
re: nomads,
As I said in my post about soil depletion etc,
If you make it so you can cut burdock in 3rds, replant with sharp stone, and it is ready in one epoch you can create a situation where a nomadic lifestyle is much more viable.
I keep a blog about gardening, agriculture, homesteading sort of things. Naturally, I have found some aspects about this game quite interesting in terms of the development of agriculture and the discussion around soil depletion
I ended up making a blog post about soil depletion after the debate surrounding the changes for version 76. (Which is what this refers to, I actually haven't had a chance to play since the new version)
Anyway, I have some recipe ideas to make permanent soil fertility possible.
I will copy and paste relevant parts here, but also give a link to the whole article at the end.
I want to note: i realize this is a game, isn't specifically an agricultural simulation, and in general it is not meant to be completely unrealistic. However, balancing soil depletion and long term-survival is one of the most fundamental balance issues. Thus, I think ideas from the history of agriculture are quite relevant (and that this game is a good tool for discussing the development of civilization.
I'll put the link at the beginning, but just posting the main ideas here. The broader thing is definitely only interesting if you're interested in agriculture and history
https://groundandfury.com/one-hour-one- … riculture/
Anyway three major ideas
1) Increased options for hunter gatherers:
"In many ways, having a farming civilization brings with it many problems, and has the constant risk of catastrophic crop failure (due to user error/neglect, not any element of randomness in plant growth within the game.)
By making hunting and gathering more long term viable splitting burdock root could be added to the game, with the formula [burdock root + flint chip = 3 cut burdock] [cut burdock + sharp stone = planted young burdock]. If burdock took an epoch to occur and about half as many of them spawned I don’t think the difficulty would greatly effect the civs. This would allow nomadic tribes to set up over a broad region and multiply the burdock so there could be long term food supply for future generations. However, it would take long enough that it would be a challenge to set up the area for future large populations.
By reducing the scramble to farm (for non-players: getting a water container to farm requires some doing as wild foods deplete) and the reliance on farming, more camps would be started by competent players who set out to start a camp at a young age and aren’t instantly absorbed by child care like an Eve. Further, this would create a situation where more people are nomadic, and could create interesting conflict between settled and nomadic people (most likely over raids for tools by nomads and burdock usage by settled tribes.)"
2) Slash and Burn
"Historically, problems with fertility led to “temporary” villages and farmlands in many areas, especially forested areas. This was often done in a fashion known as “slash-and-burn”, which is still practiced in many tropical areas. As the name implies, this is chopping down a forest and setting it on fire for increased fertility. In traditional English agriculture, villages and farms would often be moved every century or so after soil had lost fertility. The general practice was to slash-and-burn a new section, and follow it with three courses of buckwheat (which can be one season) to prepare the soil and keep it clear of weeds.
This could be implemented into the game relatively easily, if burning the remains of a chopped down tree (all three) leaves one fertile soil. Some process for regrowing limited trees could be added, potentially by filling an empty wormy soil pit with something besides soil. (or by getting two soil from the slashed tree and needing one and something else to regrow). Since the trees have other important usage, it would make resource allocation more complicated, and increase the risk of deforestation. There are a lot of trees, if it created an overabundance of soil it could require watering and waiting or [water + one item + time.]"
3) Traditional Asian farming was able to achieve permanent soil fertility with high populations through intensive practices
However, a slower more intensive method of soil creation could be added which rewards those those who think towards the future. There are three good ways this could be implemented which are relatively faithful to traditional Asian agricultural methods. These solutions would need to be balanced to the rest of the game, but some or all of them would work.
a) Full trash pits can become soil.
The formula I envision for this is something like [full trash pit + pine + leaf + water = prepared trash pit] [prepared trash pit + clay = covered composting trash pit] [covered composting trash pit + epoch = one fertile soil]
This only adds a small amount to the total soil, as trash pits don’t fill quickly. It would add an incentive to create, use, and fill trash pits so with extra work (running around finding things to fill it with) it could add to a greater soil increase. This has the added bonus of doing something with trash pits, which as far as I know are currently a permanent obstacle.
b) Intensive composting in empty soil pits.
The recipe for new soil in empty soil pits can closely follow the actual Chinese composting methods with existing in-game items.
Here is my recipe idea: [Empty fertile soil pit + 1 fertile soil + bowl of mashed carrot & berry + straw or reed + fresh grave + X leaves or pine + 1 clay + water= unmixed fresh compost pit] [unmixed fresh compost pit + shovel = mixed compost pit] [mixed compost pit + adobe = sealed aging mixed compost pit] [sealed aging mixed compost pit + epoch = 5 fertile soil]
fertile soil pit
A fertile soil pit in OHOL provides five empty soil and does not respawn. It cannot be removed from the map, however, it can be used to store other soil.
The advantage of this is that it IS difficult that most people will not remember the recipe or care enough to make the effort. It involves benefits that cannot be gained within a life time and the process should be started before soil is scarce. This makes it possible to continue a civilization without fertility loss, but at a price many are not willing to pay.
c) Cover Crops
This feature could easily be worked into the existing game, though once again, possible balance issues.
Green grains are a great cover crop in real life. We already have access in game, since domesticated wheat goes through a green phase. This could be implemented with the following formula:
[green domesticated wheat + sharp stone = cut green wheat] [cut green wheat + shovel + water =extra fertile soil]
“extra fertile soil” doesn’t expire the next time you harvest domesticated wheat or carrot seeds, giving you the option to use an extra two water instead of one soil.
This would greatly reduce the scarcity of wheat, however it also requires greater care and leads to soil waste if the wheat not cut at the right time.
the anti-boy thing drives me crazy, I've never actually gone back to fight them, but i do refuse to live under dictatorships.
I think the fact that the child to a wild mother is less likely to survive balances it decently though of course a bunch of players suicide when they are born to a wild mother.
I think i was born into that same place as a male like an hour ago, when someone said "we need to limit population" to her i ran off and suicided because i had no desire to try to survive as a male in a malthusian society.
Oh, i forgot my main point in my previous article:
I did spawn as Eve in a civ post apocalypse, right by a bunch of food etc. I was instantly bored and disapponted, however, i knew other people missed spawning in civs so I just took care of kids and quite at menopause.
And the cities don't really erase except in rare circumstances, I've definitely come upon cities in other instances. But it really should be rare.
Hopefully we can get a more sustainable population with fewer eves.
when I'm near menopause I tell my baby to type O if the breastmilk stops working.
I always know I am doomed when my Mom sits with me by the fire not working while I grow up.
Usually spams pick ups too, and I can't type long enough to tell her not to.
I'm really bad about over coddling the babies, i've had so many die not holding them makes me nervous! Though, usually it's once they can feed themselves and run off to do their own thing.
Generally when I'm a mom I run around foraging and picking milkweed while the kids set up camp- at least if I have an older child that's competent.
you can type parts of long sentences & then scroll through those & hit enter
they will come out anew without the neccessity to type the same stuff again & again
- - -
I didn't realize that, I've been retyping many things my characters don't say
I wouldn't be surprised if the server stops spawning people when it has an update Qued.
That's clearly just what it does, I've watched the server numbers go down and reset, i waited for S2 to depop and repop before playing yesterday. because it was clear something was going on when I was born to three frantic eves in a row.
i wish it would just stop spawning feral eves but not stop babies from spawning to players, as these generations family lines are short enough it's not like a problem of never being able to reset.
I have to tell you, i was shocked by the apocalypse, but before that had consistently wanted to go form new colonies in the brush. The excess was really boring. The point really should be the new civs forming all the time.
I have a new idea for the next time i spawn as eve: I'm going to try and spread my kids around an area in stead of making camp in the hope of forming multiple tribes. Family lines have pretty consistently been one village or a village plus a small farm since the update
Strangely Hapsburg or Habsburg doesn't work, and a lot of people have that last name.
I'd have better advice if this was a RL problem.
I think it would be good for a custom server but shouldn't be a main part of the game.
lmao, someone dosed me without me knowing it, though I had already tried one. I didn't know the effects stacked.
Trying to find food was kind of concerning, as I was a child, but I happened to be standing by the carrots.
Yeah a cart with 4 baskets is 12 and a backpack is four. You could bring a pie, still 15.
Often I bring food somewhere and eat it before going back, or for example, leaving one carrot behind is not bad to get a carrot seed that will produce 7 carrots, and then it's there on the next expedition. By the time you've got somewhere you know the distance back and what is along the way, and an adult male can go quite a distance without eating.
But seriously, even so that's four soils or 15 of another item spaces as one rabbit carrot pie is plenty for the journey if you forage along the way. and if you have a rabbit carrot pie you could bring back 4 soil + 3 worms.
Also in a temporary food shortage often full berry bushes or cactus fruits are available just like 30 seconds away, and one person with a cart and backpack running back and forth can be survival.
Men should always be doing these tasks, as they don't get bogged down by children.
Though, I suppose motherhood is massively less of an encumbrance when you ignore babies if you are on a mission or kill boys.
i only sacrifice boys if it's a second baby and I don't have enough food, or if I get three in a row. Honestly the number that suicide does balance it out.
The idea that males aren't useful is preposterous. For example, a male at peak health with a cart full of baskets and a backpack out rabbit hunting is ridiculous useful. They have the ability to travel reasonably far without problem and can bring back 16 rabbits.
People are always worried about soil depletion, in reality, a male with a cart can most likely find plenty of soil within a minute of camp, bring back five each time, then start bringing back worms. A male can go to the next savannah biome and bring back 16 carrot seeds once the closer ones are depleted. Having kids make these tasks way more difficult.
It's amazing people are struggling to figure this out, being as it's, you know, basically how society has always functioned.
yeah I realize that. I honestly think i may have been on server 3 that was depopulating for some reason, because when I looked at the servers after the game it said 13 and I checked back like 10 minute later and it said 3. The female that was left was a noob, but had a lifetime food supply
Regardless, a good family line dying out is sad, esp when you spent two lives building a huge plantation to assure future food security.
I do it IRL, not in game
I was spawned into a successful village with not a lot to do. For some reason, I only had two kids. I went north near water and a lot of soil, and started a gooseberry plantation. Went back at end of life to find my first daughter was there with kids. Next game, I started about 15 minutes after dying at 60, I was my granddaughters child, and a boy. Relatively advanced civ, tons of stored food, some buildings, metal tools. In my second life the gooseberries started coming on. I made sure to go back multiple times to make sure the knowledge of my plantation as in the city.
Sadly, last woman just had no kids. I don't know if it as server reset or just being at night and fewer players. Sad though, because presumably that village is abandoned now, through no fault of its own- 8 carts of baskets of carrots and one of mutton, farming totally set up, plus the nearby 57 domestic gooseberries i got going (and at last 20 or so in town.)
It really sucks when kids just don't spawn. Seriously anyone could have repopulated the area just hanging around my gooseberries with the one bowl for watering them.