a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
You are not logged in.
Agree strongly on the need to dump useless bowl contents. Not being able to do so makes no sense. Currently its mostly done by useless newbies who dont realise we have zero use in practice for bowls of oil palm kernels, but once greifers realise how easy it is to destroy the entire bowl supply of a city...
Jungles aren't all THAT easy. Yes, -I- can survive forever in the jungle, and have done so for several lifetimes, I have no problems raising a full batch of kids there, the problem is that most of the kids die. I have raised 4 entire broods now (keeping them all) in jungles rich in bananas. I have never had more than three reach adulthood, normally less than that. And this is with me explaining fever, and cures and feeding the stupid fever victims repeatedly.
Various versions certainly existed historically, and for a good reason (as we now know all too well).
Good idea, saves tedious juggling.
I routinely survive bites with clothing, just don't overdo it. A hat or loincloth is a smart investment if you are able to get it. A sealskin coat is not recommended for trips to the jungle. A hat and loincloth together and you can survive in ice. With one you can easily survive in normal cool biomes.
...Grass skirts are all the rage for semi nomadic banana munchers too, for a good reason.
I feel SO much better about letting my stupid newbies starve if they run off now, thanks.
I've started to experiment with deliberate nomadism as a seeding strategy for both new and failing communities.
Having spent enough (mostly male) lives living in the wilderness, often due to lineage death, sometimes I just got lost as a teenage forager, I spawned again as an eve.
The area was crappy for a startup, I could have had a half arsed shot at a village that would die by gen 3, maybe 4. I could have abandoned my offspring and wandered for ages. I decided to use the jungle biome to start a line that would be intentionally nomadic, until finding a very solid spot. You can live indefinately in the jungle, if you are prepared to move every generation or so, and send out foragers and make baskets.
I trained a generation of kids to live in the jungle (mostly newbies) with a high yellow fever casualty rate (dammit kids, when I say 'go cold', i mean NOW, now when you're dead). The more experienced or smarter ones were taught to do this, and it went on, with one daughter trying a settlement in my very last days, as we trecked across the map (losing a few boys to wandering off on the way).
The line hit gen 4 before dying out.
Then I was a daughter of an eve, and our spot was crap, I tried it again. Eve died with me on the road, with me as the only surviving kid, but we had 4 gens, without even an attempt to settle. (Vast jungles, but no good water sources near to green biomes).
The nomadic way of life works in the banana era, but you lose vast numbers to yellow fever, but over half those loses are avoidable (STAY ON THE COLD, dammit kids). The worst problem was losing prime adult males due to simply losing each other in the endless moves. Experiments with moving spawn stones helped somewhat, but the big issues was keeping the nomad band together, whilst still having members wander to explore for good sites and forage.
Nomadic experiments I would like to try include:
Making fire on the roll. So far haven't done this, but seems easy enough if we have rope (and I've had rope for potential camps carried for two generations in baskets).
Building nomad tech. If we can get a (knowingly unsustainable) site up, long enough to make carts, that would make nomad life richer and more complex, quick setup kilns would then be easy, possibly allowing kiln setups (firebows and even bellows in carts can make for fast setups, I speak having built out of ruins/civil strife a couple of times)
'Budding' nomadism, from a functional society.
I have several times fled a disfunctional/famine ridden/griefer filled society, to give a better life for my kids, essentially becoming a somewhat equipped 'eve', or with intentions of returning after it all blows over if I'm male. I've got a sort of sub-village up in once case, but that involved taking a bowl with me, so I didnt need a kiln before farming. I have also wandered off and set up an 'eve' camp, as a male, and told select females where it is (dont think it turned out to be needed, but was interesting as a 'lifeboat' experiment for that line when a murder epidemic followed a berry gobbling famine).
I would love to experiment with a horse and cart 'gypsy' style high tech nomadism. The catch is that the current tech tree is backed by player experience in established settlements only. Long term nomadism may be one of the ways around the resource crisis, and one I'd love to experiment with. Horse drawn wagons + backpacks would give nomads some serious capital, with what they can haul from a fast setup, with bellows, firebow and axe/hatchet. I may post more of my other idea/experiment for long term societies later.
What I'm looking for here is stories or tips of those who have tried this, and what made it succeed or fail.
My own tips.
Good things for nomad life - baskets, bananas, sharp stone in basket, treating 'home' stones as temporary navigation markers, and letting them be shared.
Long bonding sessions in the banana jungle with the kids. When you're spawning like mad, sit and eat bananas, and train the newbies (and the veterans unused to the concept of multi generation nomadism) about your quest for a new camp, how to avoid yellow fever, and most particularly for vets, the means of meeting up again. Nomad societies need closer bonds in this game, given the lack of infrastructure to tie the group together. If you lose half your A grade adult males due to missing each other on the map, that really hurts.
I have been trying to work on a simple coded message, that would leave the direction of a new temp home/banana patch to the foragers returning. Line of 3 objects with an agreed on 'pointer' meaning 'camp' to show direction. If you ever spawn in one of my groups, 2 same objects and 1 different in a line, the camp is the 'different' one. The line is usually placed so the base touches a 'homestick' if we have one.