The role of males in the game

jasonrohrer · 2018-04-30 22:16:29

Lots of people have made suggestions about this.

Someone recently asked me to explain my thinking behind the way gender currently works in the game.

First of all, it was very important to me that male and female characters in the game be different beyond just their visuals. I think that gender had a huge role to play in the history of the world, and I think it would have a role to play if we had to rebuild the world from scratch.

Second, I wanted this to be a 10,000-foot view of humanity. Lives pass quickly, and many things are abstracted away. So I didn't necessarily want to represent all differences between males and females. Perhaps one difference would be enough. From 10,000 feet away, what is the biggest and most important difference between males and females?

Females gestate and give birth to babies, and males do not.

In terms of the impact on human history and the development (or re-development) of civilization, I think that this one difference explains almost everything.

Some people say men are stronger that women. But while this might be true in terms of averages, it is not true for each pair of individuals. There are plenty of women who are way stronger than me, for example, and loads of women that are faster than me.

But there's one thing that we can say with 100% certainty: no male can gestate a baby.

So while we might be tempted to explain historical and present social differences between males and females based on male strength (men are sent to war because they are stronger), I think that is minor compared to the impact of reproductive differences (women stay safe at home during war because they are the reproductive bottleneck). A society that sends their weakest males to war will lose the war, yes. But a society that sends their women to war loses every chance at a future.

Is this one difference enough to foster behavioral differences around males and females in the game? It certainly is.

In fact, many people are claiming that the effect is too strong. Male babies are being left to die. In fact, male characters seem worthless in the game. That can't be right.

But that's kind of the point. Relatively speaking, males are, and have always been, kinda worthless. Cannon fodder. Miners. Death row inmates.

For those asking whether I'm going to add some additional value to males so that mothers will be more likely to keep them around as babies, I'm curious to see whether any emergent value develops.

First of all, males in the game can contribute to various village projects without also acting like a fertility multiplier.

It seems like most villages are already limiting fertility intentionally by selectively keeping the right amount of babies and letting the rest die. Obviously, keeping too many babies is a recipe for future starvation.

However, I will point out that a female baby, allowed to mature, represents a risk of unchecked fertility in the future, while a male baby does not. You can tell a female to stop keeping so many babies, but she may not listen. A male can be left to their own devices with no fertility risk.

Previously, giving birth involved a big hunger hit. I turned that off a while ago to soften the game, but you can see how the presence of that hit gave an advantage to male characters (no chance of being "stricken" with birth while out on an errand).

Right now, there is no cost to NOT keeping a baby (letting it die). Thus, there is no cost to controlling fertility manually by letting babies die. Thus, no reason to keep males around to naturally limit fertility.

So how can we increase the cost of birth?

Maybe birth itself should have no cost, but the death of a baby should have a cost? So grief-stricken that you can't eat for a while, or something like that....

Speaking of grief, that would open up a whole new channel, with suicidal babies being really hard to cope with...

Uncle Gus · 2018-04-30 22:23:57

Scope creep!

karltown · 2018-04-30 22:28:18

I don't think the death of a baby should have a cost. Many times villages die of overpopulation. This will make it even harder to for women to bear to give children up.
Maybe there could be a pregnancy point for a woman that occurs for a minute where she can't feed herself and only males can feed her. It could have problems with no one feeding or cooperating, but that's what happened with early hominids. The males brought food to the women who were raising the kids. In a way, it's "providing" for a short period of time.

kubassa · 2018-04-30 22:32:01

jasonrohrer wrote:

Maybe birth itself should have no cost, but the death of a baby should have a cost? So grief-stricken that you can't eat for a while, or something like that....
Speaking of grief, that would open up a whole new channel, with suicidal babies being really hard to cope with...

I like that. 2-3 babies you let die you're grieving so hard you can't eat. LOL

Run away babies would be a HUGE issue. Would need to be able to use rope so you can have a baby tether.

Last edited by kubassa (2018-04-30 22:37:43)

Lily · 2018-04-30 22:36:38

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.

ryanb · 2018-04-30 22:56:36

Perhaps bring back the hunger penalty when having a baby, but make Eve the exception. This way keeping a female will become a bigger strain on food which will make males more valuable.

Update: if there is a penalty related to having a baby (or losing one), I think a 45 sec pregnancy period makes sense. It prepares the mother and gives the baby a chance to quit without the mother being punished. It could also not clear the pregnancy timer if they quit.

Last edited by ryanb (2018-04-30 23:06:39)

FeignedSanity · 2018-04-30 23:52:12

I have personally thought a lot about this and think that things are fine as they are now. Granted, some people have the ridiculous notion that you should only have females in your city because males are useless. But unless you're 111 gen style coordinating, there's no guarantee every mother will listen. Besides, leaving the natural inclination to provide for every kid aside, a lot of times it can be hard to gauge. It may seem like you have enough food for one or two more kids, and it doesn't seem like it'd hurt; then next thing you know all the carrots are gone. I think this mentality of males having no place is just ignorance.

Honestly there's no need for more than two females, and have the rest be males. Two women to stay home and tend the farm/tend to and educate the future generation (population control); and males to take care of everything else. Honestly it's really frustrating to be in a city with 4 or more women and be up to your eyeballs in screaming kids, which then turn to dead bodies you have to move, which turns into a depressing mass graveyard. Like I said, I think the problem is more of based in shortsightedness than anything else. You only need 2 (MAAAAYBE 3) females, anything more than that is overkill.

TrustyWay · 2018-05-01 00:49:04

How make the difference between mom that lets her baby die of starvation and a baby that suicide of starvation ? Both can do it, suicide and baby kill at the same time.

It is hard to find a solution

Anshin · 2018-05-01 01:06:13

"The role of males in the game" or "So how can we increase the cost of birth?"

Which is this thread about?

powa · 2018-05-01 01:37:47

The primary reason males are important in this game is for growing the population without setting up a famine in the coming generations.

Famines are one of the biggest issues that all towns face. When a population gets too many people, food will dry up and only the most experienced will survive. Often no fertile female will remain, leading to the most obvious problem with famines: extinction.

The fact is, there are still overwhelming numbers of relatively new players that don't know quite how many babies to keep. It was already mentioned that there is a natural impetus to try to raise as many babies as one can. But even once one realizes that it is possible to have too many babies, it still takes experience to estimate just how many people can fit into your village's future.

But by birthing males you can ensure that your baby won't grow into an oversexed, famine inducing machine. Note that it is not relevant that an optimal player can choose to ignore their femininity. Actual players, the ones you will be giving birth to, are not generally wise enough to live without trying to raise excess children.

It is very often that you have a few baby girls running around, but the village could really use half a dozen or more workers next generation. One should be birthing boys in this situation! You really only need one or two girls to survive to adulthood for such a village to keep birthing at an appropriate rate in the future. But by raising half a dozen girls, some probably inexperienced and ignorant to wiser peers, the village is at serious risk of famine in the next generation.

Depending on the capacity of your village, the total number of villagers you want may be different but the same idea holds.

Birthing males allows one to enact control on your grandchildren's generation without sacrificing the productivity of your children's.

---
Edit: "half a dozen girls"

Last edited by powa (2018-05-01 01:39:53)

stickyflypaper · 2018-05-01 01:41:55

ryanb wrote:

Perhaps bring back the hunger penalty when having a baby, but make Eve the exception. This way keeping a female will become a bigger strain on food which will make males more valuable.
Update: if there is a penalty related to having a baby (or losing one), I think a 45 sec pregnancy period makes sense. It prepares the mother and gives the baby a chance to quit without the mother being punished. It could also not clear the pregnancy timer if they quit.

This sounds like a good idea. Though in practice it could make things much more difficult. A good balance would have to be found (like with decay).

Adding some kind of penalty to giving birth makes sense from a realism perspective. Childbirth has always been very dangerous for women and their infant. I agree this would add extra advantage to being male. Though it would also make being female even more stressful and difficult. Hmm... It's a tricky issue, isn't it?

On a related note: there would be much less risk of overpopulation and unwanted babies if there was a form of birth control in the game, like an herb or something like that. I know this has been suggested elsewhere.

Interesting (to me) personal observation: As the game is now I feel conflicted about what gender I play as. As a female, I sometimes feel burdened with responsibility. But as a male, I feel like I'm not really part of the family, I don't even care if I don't have a name while male, but at least I don't have to worry about having kids.

kubassa · 2018-05-01 01:41:58

powa wrote:

Famines are one of the biggest issues that all towns face. When a population gets too many people, food will dry up and only the most experienced will survive. Often no fertile female will remain, leading to the most obvious problem with famines: extinction.

Famine does NOT lead to extinction. Africa would have 0 population if that was true. People die and it equalizes.

powa · 2018-05-01 01:44:43

kubassa wrote:

powa wrote:
Famines are one of the biggest issues that all towns face. When a population gets too many people, food will dry up and only the most experienced will survive. Often no fertile female will remain, leading to the most obvious problem with famines: extinction.

Famine does NOT lead to extinction. Africa would have 0 population if that was true. People die and it equalizes.

I'm talking about the game

kubassa · 2018-05-01 01:47:55

powa wrote:

kubassa wrote:
powa wrote:
Famines are one of the biggest issues that all towns face. When a population gets too many people, food will dry up and only the most experienced will survive. Often no fertile female will remain, leading to the most obvious problem with famines: extinction.

Famine does NOT lead to extinction. Africa would have 0 population if that was true. People die and it equalizes.
I'm talking about the game

I just run away. I do not die. Maybe I'm not an idiot like those that stand at the carrot field no one was tending expecting to find food.

danger1penguin · 2018-05-01 01:49:58

Anshin, i think Jason has his mind set on how he wants to change the value of men. As their value changes, their role kind of changes. He is only going to change the women. Thus, I have a proposal:

If there is going to be a grievence toll, the determination of grievence needs to be made. Babies that dont starve dont cause grievence. This will eliminate grievence by client closing. Also, babies that move more than X tiles wont cause grievence. This prevents run away baby grievence. Lastly, death above infant age doesnt cause grievence, this prevents trolls from killing family lines by intentionally dying after infant care.

Overall Jason, I must say adding a grievence rule is just going to make things more complicated and you need to keep your player base alive. Look for some QoL updates for a few weeks. Add a few more tech trees, give players more to do. Dont make the beginning more complicated, give everyone a wider range of things to do (more social roles). A shamen would be a good start, maybe add some herbs and magic and a success rate that goes with your amount of practice in that life. Just do something to solidify the game for once. I know it is early stage, but there were only 50ish people on at a time today.

Verinon1 · 2018-05-01 01:51:10

I actually prefer having mostly male babies in the game because I can’t trust female players to limit the amount of children they have, which almost always leads to a population explosion, and then famine, and then death.

Uncle Gus · 2018-05-01 01:53:28

stickyflypaper wrote:

Adding some kind of penalty to giving birth makes sense from a realism perspective. Childbirth has always been very dangerous for women and their infant. I agree this would add extra advantage to being male. Though it would also make being female even more stressful and difficult. Hmm... It's a tricky issue, isn't it?

It makes sense from a realism perspective, but from a realism perspective, there is also some element of choice involved. Babies don't just appear out of nowhere (quiet, Christians) but they do in this game. I guess the fact that you are losing food every time you have a baby would balance the gender issue more in favour of raising boys, which is a good thing.

Yes, it is indeed tricky.

powa · 2018-05-01 01:53:38

kubassa wrote:

I just run away. I do not die. Maybe I'm not an idiot like those that stand at the carrot field no one was tending expecting to find food.

Well that's a good point, that we shouldn't be spending too much time at the farm. I for one usually use a town more as a hub then a place to live, preferring cacti and far away bushes.

But this is totally a major point of my post: we can't ignore the average player. In the case you're bringing up, the typical new player isn't experienced enough to roam around and survive. Well, regardless of why, new players survive with carrot farms (and other town-made resources).

If we want our towns to grow, let alone the game, we have to support the new player.

---
Edit: regarding new players

Last edited by powa (2018-05-01 01:55:05)

kubassa · 2018-05-01 01:54:43

Uncle Gus wrote:

stickyflypaper wrote:
Adding some kind of penalty to giving birth makes sense from a realism perspective. Childbirth has always been very dangerous for women and their infant. I agree this would add extra advantage to being male. Though it would also make being female even more stressful and difficult. Hmm... It's a tricky issue, isn't it?
It makes sense from a realism perspective, but from a realism perspective, there is also some element of choice involved. Babies don't just appear out of nowhere (quiet, Christians) but they do in this game. I guess the fact that you are losing food every time you have a baby would balance the gender issue more in favour of raising boys, which is a good thing.
Yes, it is indeed tricky.

It's NOT a real life sim dood. SMH.

Lily · 2018-05-01 02:03:53

Seeing as how it is pretty normal to have around 8 children on average, you can't really punish people if some die. If the average female had a sane amount of children, then that would be one thing, but how do you keep 8, 10, or even some times 12 children alive?

Also since Eve have a child 90% of the time within the first 5 seconds of game play, if something happens to that one and we punish them by not allowing them to eat or something, then you can literally start the game as an Eve unable to eat.

Uncle Gus · 2018-05-01 02:08:31

kubassa wrote:

It's NOT a real life sim dood. SMH.

I didn't say it was. I was tempering stickyflipper's comment with another point to consider.

Maybe Jason should turn the birth cost back on at a low setting, and turn the bad mother back on as well, so that if people really don't want children, they can just let them die. Also, I think it should not be possible to have a baby within 30 seconds of breastfeeding a baby.

Auner · 2018-05-01 02:19:37

jasonrohrer wrote:

I think that gender had a huge role to play in the history of the world, and I think it would have a role to play if we had to rebuild the world from scratch. .

Oh my goodness, just to do you the favor of informing you- the answer is gender has played a huge role in the history of the world as we know it today. Historians and Anthropologists alike have noted several times that gender has not always been binary in humans. Probably the most cited and easiest to find information on such is the tribe with seven genders. Biology isn't always cut and dry, hermaphrodites along with a whole world of fairly common differences are as old as time and have been largely sighted near the equator. Just FYI.

jasonrohrer wrote:

what is the biggest and most important difference between males and females?

From a 10,000 eye perspective, or rather an anthropologist hat-- where in some cultures gender was determined based on what you are good at an not sex. Overwhelmingly to sum it up-- basically there was a point in time in history where we needed warriors- And thus the whole 'male role' and 'not the one who reproduces' really gets built. In some cultures who live fairly secluded from others, gender can get really bendy to us. But that's because we have had a world built where we understand gender roles based on genitals. We are in a scenario where the males=warriors, and thus the binary is not a bad pick for the game.

jasonrohrer wrote:

But a society that sends their women to war loses every chance at a future.

Jason. No. What? *sigh* OK!! This is part 2 for why i explained above- you don't want to mix genitalia with societal roles. In reality- if you're born a woman and you're pissed off-- Child birth will not stop you from revenge. *sigh* leaving all my upsets to this conclusion and it's impact in our real life society out of this-- this practically wont play out as such in game (if you're pissed off, being a woman wont stop you) and also the smarter imperialist will just hold a knife to all the invaded kids necks and say "come with me and/or slaughtered"- make up for the lost births on the way there- and tbh- that'd be an interesting way to start my life! Then you'd REALLY wanna set-up those home markers!

jasonrohrer wrote:

Maybe birth itself should have no cost, but the death of a baby should have a cost? So grief-stricken that you can't eat for a while, or something like that....
Speaking of grief, that would open up a whole new channel, with suicidal babies being really hard to cope with...

I *really* dislike this idea as it's a huge dis-advantage to women- and that would ultimately really hurt societies that could make it with a few more minutes. I think you're asking the wrong question- instead of asking "should infant death come with a cost?" I think it should be "what can be done to decrease the infant mortality rate." In reality, players are getting it- while in some situations you have to cap the baby population- there are new players and bad connections which could make the slightest mistake on this call end your civilization.

But also in considering this- I would like to remind you which you know- one getting a 'lucky birth' fluctuates with server flow. which is great! So really there is the tricky part where you only know if shit's gone wrong when it's obviously super annoying. So i would be careful- but also give the players a bit more credit, most of us want to see our civilization flourish and we know babies accomplishes this. So I would say-- give us baby food.

My argument for baby food is as follows: When you're in those white-knuckle moments where you're low on food and waiting for the carrots to come out- back up food is made. Rabbits get cooked, pies get made. And when children indulge in those foods- it's a waste because it heals for more hit points than it's worth. So by all nature of the game as it presently stands, if all you have is higher-healing back-up reserves-- even rearing them becomes a difficult decision. Thus-- give us toddler/kid food. Food that say you break up one carrot and get 3 peices- and it feeds 2-3 boxes. This will give toddlers and children an emergency food source they can turn to without guilt.

Another option would be a form of family planning- back in olden times you could actually abort a pregnancy by munching on some juniper tree bark! While many people have many feelings about abortion- - we dont have pregnancy in this game- one could add the bark to the game to give women a form of birth control, 3-5 minutes where they don't give birth. So if food runs out they can avoid the issue entirely.

Last edited by Auner (2018-05-01 02:32:25)

Uncle Gus · 2018-05-01 02:27:09

Can we just, for the sake of simplicity, assume that in this game and in this thread gender = sex = genitalia? I'm all for people deciding what gender they want to be today, but in this game, you either have a penis or a vagina and childbirth is intricately linked to that fact. I don't think it's productive to derail this conversation into whether or not Jason means "people with vaginas" or "people who identify as traditionally female".

Auner · 2018-05-01 02:45:46

Uncle Gus wrote:

Can we just, for the sake of simplicity, assume that in this game and in this thread gender = sex = genitalia? I'm all for people deciding what gender they want to be today, but in this game, you either have a penis or a vagina and childbirth is intricately linked to that fact. I don't think it's productive to derail this conversation into whether or not Jason means "people with vaginas" or "people who identify as traditionally female".

As i said many times up there- this was just a FYI. An effort to educate him on human history. I understand the need to generalize for the sake of simplicity, but I also saw all these "I thinks" in his post which leads me to believe- Someone should probably inform him.

While I'm fine with adhering to sex=genitalia in this conversation-- my major argument here is the gender shouldn't determine your role in society. I think Jason is hinting at that males should possibly get special warrior privileges/women getting anti-warrior -- and no one would have fun with that if you're super mad at someone in game and are some how rendered un-able to get revenge based on gender.

What he'd really want to do is give incentives to stay home by the fire- and they could still get some work done by the fire while they feed babies--- and apart of that is pure "but there's not enough space or storage options"

FeignedSanity · 2018-05-01 02:46:20

Auner wrote:

jasonrohrer wrote:
I think that gender had a huge role to play in the history of the world, and I think it would have a role to play if we had to rebuild the world from scratch. .

Oh my goodness, just to do you the favor of informing you- the answer is gender has played a huge role in the history of the world as we know it today. Historians and Anthropologists alike have noted several times that gender has not always been binary in humans. Probably the most cited and easiest to find information on such is the tribe with seven genders. Biology isn't always cut and dry, hermaphrodites along with a whole world of fairly common differences are as old as time and have been largely sighted near the equator. Just FYI.
jasonrohrer wrote:
what is the biggest and most important difference between males and females?
From a 10,000 eye perspective, or rather an anthropologist hat-- where in some cultures gender was determined based on what you are good at an not sex. Overwhelmingly to sum it up-- basically there was a point in time in history where we needed warriors- And thus the whole 'male role' and 'not the one who reproduces' really gets built. In some cultures who live fairly secluded from others, gender can get really bendy to us. But that's because we have had a world built where we understand gender roles based on genitals. We are in a scenario where the males=warriors, and thus the binary is not a bad pick for the game.
jasonrohrer wrote:
But a society that sends their women to war loses every chance at a future.
Jason. No. What? *sigh* OK!! This is part 2 for why i explained above- you don't want to mix genitalia with societal roles. In reality- if you're born a woman and you're pissed off-- Child birth will not stop you from revenge. *sigh* leaving all my upsets to this conclusion and it's impact in our real life society out of this-- this practically wont play out as such in game (if you're pissed off, being a woman wont stop you) and also the smarter imperialist will just hold a knife to all the invaded kids necks and say "come with me and/or slaughtered"- make up for the lost births on the way there- and tbh- that'd be an interesting way to start my life! Then you'd REALLY wanna set-up those home markers!

Whoooosh

Last edited by FeignedSanity (2018-05-01 02:52:35)

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#1 2018-04-30 22:16:29

The role of males in the game

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