a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
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If you're going to ask "Do you know how to play?", you need to let them know that you intend to TEACH them rather than KILL them if they say no.
Otherwise you might as well ask "Do you want to be abandoned to die?". And given that this game is Infanticide Simulator 2018...
Carrot-farming also has the virtue of simplicity. The more crops there are, the more rules and recipes there are, the easier it is for mistakes to creep in that start to break the cycle.
"Carrots for Food, Berries for Compost" is simple and effective and more stable in the long run than pies. The fewer rules, the better.
In a game like this, Role-Playing, rather than being a waste of time, is actually central to survival.
As far as I can think the best advantage would be that it's made from all renewable resources.
Kids these days, eh? Just don't got no respect for their elders.
So what you're saying is that players need wifi?
Maybe given the constant death and reincarnation in the game, we should think about applying a more literal interpretation of Karma: Kill a man, come back as a rabbit.
With all the trouble that pies are to make, combined with their disappointing yield, I was actually thinking about wheat more as just a straw supply.
1 Compost -> 1 Straw
1 Straw -> 3 Compost
2 Compost surplus feeds the seed-plots, and then pies are just an afterthought to use up the grain that accumulates.
(Pies are cheaper if the grain is a free byproduct rather than the intended crop. This of course assumes that reeds are not readily available, which they probably are.)
Keeping ponds from going dry is enough of a challenge on its own in a farm, and you can SEE the water level. How many ponds next to a farm do you think have NEVER been drained of their last drop? How long can a goose realistically survive by a farm even if it's never hunted? Eventually, some fool is going to see the blue water and mistake it for spare water.
So now come wells, and not only do they have NO indication of their current water level, but when drained dry are permanently ruined.
You really can't avoid this, not as far as I can see, even with the "top off from cistern" method, because farms are eternally thirsty of water, and if there's some spare water sitting uselessly in a cistern, why can't I use it? Some fool is bound to think that cisterns are actually magical water fountains, drain the measuring-water, and end the scheme.
Ignorance!
That you need food to live is obvious.
That carrots are food, is learned pretty quick.
That carrots come from the soil is fairly straightforward.
That you can put seeds in the soil to get more carrots can be learned without too much difficulty.
What is less obvious is how to make clothes.
Where do you get your thread? From TWO milkweeds?
Where do you get your needle?
From a rabbit bone,
From a cooked rabbit,
From a rabbit caught by a snare (which is made how? 4 milkweed for a rope? Are you serious?)
And cooked over a fire (wait, how do I you make fire?!)
And fire has its own convoluted process of creation even IF you're lucky enough to find a bow-drill already made for you.
When you're naked and starving, the only system you have enough time to grasp is "Plant carrot, get carrot."
How would this work out if you wanted to grow wheat for pies and domestic straw?
Are reeds plentiful enough that you would never need straw?
If you're in an area with ponds, does that guarantee nearby reeds?
Is wheat too dangerous a temptation to grow in large numbers and ruin your soil?
I'm trying to imagine if it's possible to create an enclosed farm that could sustain itself without external inputs. Water from wells?
With ponds, you can see how much water they have in them and avoid draining the last drop (or at least refill them if you empty them by accident).
But wells don't seem to give any indication as to when they might run dry, and when I've encountered a dry well, there doesn't seem to be any way to fix it.
Do wells regenerate water over time automatically?
Are wells permanently destroyed if you drain their last drop?
Can you revive a dry well like you can a pond?
Will civilization be able to survive as the average skill level gets diluted by newcomers?
Or will this become exactly the sort of training ground that everybody needs?
I spent some time on the server yesterday as a confused wandering parasite trying to figure out basic crafting. This game's complicated.
This works really well. It's amazing just how many distinct objects there are in the game.
It is a bit odd sometimes to see recipes that use two of the same item (like Baskets or Thread) show up twice. Whether you're holding item A or item B doesn't actually matter when A == B.
The trouble with any of these systems is the lack of continuity. Even if you're the best leader possible, giving efficient directions at all times, will your daughter know all that you know? Will your granddaughter have been instructed properly?
Once the chain is broken, then the village returns to its natural state of baby-makers starving in the barren fields.
I was about so suggest something like this myself.
I think signs or writing of any sort is essential if this civilization is going to advance beyond carrots and infanticide.
Signs for organizing supplies (put water here)
Signs for production procedures (make many pies before lighting the oven)
Signs for managing the fields (this plot is for seeds, harvest all the others)
Signs for laying out the laws of the tribe.
Signs will become the living tradition of a location, since there's just no time to pass that on to the new generation. You're just too busy trying to get stuff done, and the people tending/feeding the babies don't have enough experience in the village.
There's no effective way to make local knowledge persist without written lore.
What we need is the ability to place written signs in the world to specify how a village should be run and maintained.