Horse Corral

Morti · 2018-10-19 11:42:43

Last couple days I was born in Peinado/Shekel Town, or Shektown as the Shekels liked to call it. While there over five lives or so, i made five lassos and tamed five horses, attaching carts to each. See, I really enjoy foraging outside of towns; gathering rabbits for backpacks, flat stones for roads and looking for iron nodes and nice future settlements that I can lay a flat stone road towards. Connecting potentially prosperous areas with roads is one of the things I enjoy most about the game. I added the road going north and west from Belltown (what I liked to think of as 8 town because of the figure 8 flatstone road around the berries at the top and the smith at the bottom) as well as the road going south of it to the expansion I found down there.

Well, while in Shektown during the water shortage, most of the horses I'd tamed were in use or were found later with carts upturned north and west of the town. When all I wanted to do was get on a horse and start gathering flat stones to connect the road going south from the baker to somewhere nice; a nice expansion I'd find while gathering flatstones on horseback, taking the road south. But all the horses were regularly being used by people ferrying wood to the baker, water to the cisterns or just people riding around taking in the view.

Several times now I've been in towns where people have taken it upon themselves to make horse stables of various kinds, which usually have stalls for horses and are made from fences and walls, of stone or adobe. These are nice, but people just don't return the horses to them regularly enough. I'm probably to blame for this in some way as well, as I like to make hitches; fences, in many places around town, as it's just more convenient to leave the horse on the nearest hitch, rather than take it all the way back to where you found it.

Well, now I have a solution to all our horse problems, or at least, an idea that will greatly ease the problems.

I bring you,
The Horse Corral

The horse corral, is, for the most part, your typical pen. You could make it out of oven bases, fences or stone walls, but fences are probably better as they provide you a place to hitch your horses once they are tamed, saddled and have carts attached. The real genius part about the corral is not the enclosure, but the lasso, or, lack thereof. You really only need one lasso to start collecting horses, and, as long as you do not tame them; feeding them a carrot, you are free to get your lasso back by clicking on the ground while using a lasso on a wild horse. Come to think of it, I haven't tried removing the lasso from a tame horse. It may be that when you add the saddle that the lasso becomes a part of the horse, allowing you to hitch it on and off fence posts. Whatever the case may be, it's easiest to collect many horses at a time, if you are just going to tame one.

Since you traveled to them you will know where they are, and how many are in each area of the desert, so you can quickly, and decisively lasso horse after horse and return them home before setting out to lasso more.

I think having all of these horses easily available to all the other people of your village, is a tremendous boon to the supply network.

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There were a few more points I wanted to make but I've been awake awhile and my eyes are shutting themselves closed. I apologize if I sounded boastful about this idea, but I was very excited about it being an addition to our future homes. I hope you can see why and will consider making a pen for horses, A corral, in the future, if you are so inclined.

Goliath · 2018-10-19 11:49:52

I was born into this place, took the horse and went rabbit hunting. It was an awesome life!

Tramax · 2018-10-19 12:39:58

I like wrangling wild horses too, will adopt this practice.

Micca · 2018-10-19 13:31:13

My son - im proud of you and all your horses
I laughed so bad when I saw this pen filled with wild horses.

pein · 2018-10-19 19:09:15

was 4 times eve there, well it was a decaying town at first with most tools,with the dumb fast road inside the forest, and the bottom stone/fence was used as a pen but with a bad entrance
i fixed it and made compost, baskets
i was eve pain, a week ago
the family lasted a bit, most wooden roads were made that time
eve west popped in when i was 58, so they kinda took over our heritage

2 days later i came back as eve pain, most kids didnt wanted to stay, had one daughter, she had one more, purvi
the rest suicided, 3 sons lived to older age, someone made a fence on top, so i just finished it, first it was like 8x5 or so

i came back as eve peinado and this time i found my sons, Baker came in as my daughter, the old fam died out, i made a full blue clothing set and one extra hat, and 4th apron or so
we had tons of straw hats, like 15 or so, later they got lost

same day i was eve third time, i named myself kelly and left 2 kids in baby fire, but no one card for them
i tried to make a pack, and disconnected at 25, i came back as a peinado boy, and extended the fences to 9x9 and added one more entrance, made an oven inside and some wheat to left side

the other day i was back and didnt really had mood to play, made a cistern and few berries
i didnt liked the lack of optimization ,the oven is still on the old post, and no berry near pen, so they carted sheep food and meat back, when there was 2 wells near/above pen and a suitable desert for a good oven

the half stone rooms around bear caves look bad, the roads were ok to other swamp

anyway, wild horses stay inside the biome, so even easier containment is to find a tiny desert, not a fragmented one, completely surrounded by other biomes, now the wild horses wont leave it on their own
also beware with pens for horses cause they can actually ignore it, cause first comes the 'stay inside the desert' command, so if half of the pen is in the desert and half other biome, the ones on desert can just run out regardless the entrances, now im not sure on horses with saddle or horses fed with carrot but the wild ones surely had this interaction
i think its only with deserts, havent tested extensively, just had horses in a half desert/half badland pen and they never stood inside for long when i dropped them with a lasso, i think even after being fed they are still doing that, but not with a saddle on. i remember a big lineage had a totally bad room with a bad entrance to it but the horses were standing inside because it had a tiny 2x3 desert

Morti · 2018-10-19 23:06:49

Thank you Pein. I'm glad you got to share the story of, what I will now refer to as, El Peinado.

As for the other points I wanted to make this morning before I was interrupted by sleep, I want to point out a few things about what having such a speedy, long range, supply network is going to mean for us and our surrounding areas.

There is bad to take with the good, but bad that we can mitigate with some consideration.

But first, the good.

When your new town is in it's early stages of development, let's say, generations 3-10, the horse and cart is invaluable.
Using it to bring in 4 carts and a back pack full of soil, when the compost is taking it's sweet time, allows your farms to grow ten times as fast as a naked boy running with a basket back and forth between the nearest soil deposit. More food, means more stability and your women can eat more and stay comfortable warm by the fire or on the edge of the desert where they are more likely to be chosen by the game's algorithm for pregnancy. More people means more talking, greater quality of life, and more workers. But it will decrease the amount of work done per capita as people settle in, make pies and chit chat. I consider this an overall net gain for our civilizations, as those who desire the satisfaction of providing for our families, and the work that they do, generally outpaces the alternative.

Using it to bring 4 flat rocks to the road network.

Rather than go ahead of where the road may eventually lead to collect flat rocks and bring them back, I will first set off go off 45 degrees from the road to search for rocks and then bring them in, and drop them in a line of four making it as easy as possible for myself, or the other person hammering the stakes with the rocks to easily swap between stake, rock and stone by dropping one on top of the other. Many people with good intentions make this process more difficult by setting the flat rocks in piles of four, setting their rocks or stakes off to the side while swapping between them, or laying multiple stakes before laying multiple flat rocks. One stake, one stone and a line of flat rocks and a lot of repetition are the quickest way to get these roads laid out, and from there, it's all smooth running.

Gathering branches.

This is often overlooked, except when it comes to straight branches for their shafts. People often set out with an ax and cut down trees for the fire wood and butt logs they provide, and when branches are far, and the stumps turned to kindling have run out, people will often turn firewood into kindling to make fires, charcoal and to heat ovens. This puts additional stress on the iron and milkweed production as the stone hatchets and axes break more often than necessary if only someone had gone out to the grassland and gathered curved and yew branches to bring home, keeping the firewood for the fire, the butt logs for the froes and saws. That way we don't need to cut down more trees than necessary and aren't leaving the landscape around our homes barren and lifeless canvases. Happy little trees. The more life people see, the more potential we see as life and the more adventurous they will feel when exploring their surroundings. Find the balance between revealing the area so people avoid dangers like snakes, boars and wolves; revealing resources like clay and reeds; and giving them a reminder of what makes oxygen metabolizing life possible; our rooted, planty, brethren who, willingly or not, provide us their arms for warmth.

Gathering iron and stones.

We keep our fires burning outside to spark the ones inside. With each new life, there is a greater demand for tools and food. The faster we maintain this replenishment of resources the more stable our growth becomes. The iron eases our labors and makes new technology possible, while the stones allow us to collect and store more, and more, water for the lives of our crops. The stones also serve as tools across the settlement and are often in short supply when new wells are going in. If you see that these things are in short supply; the steel is sped thin, the ponds are drying up, stones; sharpened or not, are not easy to find, then bringing in baskets of stones from the badlands, deserts and snow biomes, can save people around the colony many small headaches.

There are, of course other things to gather with the carts, but I want to make a point about just one more that has a potentially drastic downside for the future of any village and the expanse of it's network;

Milkweed

At the moment milkweed serves three important roles, thread, rope and lassos, and with this Horse Corral idea and having an abundance of fast transportation for people, I fear that this is going to add additional stress to the ease at which our families branch out to populate the surrounding areas. It is already common, even necessary given the time and resource limits, for people to travel out on foot to additional grassland biomes to harvest the milkweed necessary for their tools, backpacks and other uses for rope and thread. Farming is not everyone's cup of tea; it's not always something we want to do every life, but it is something someone has to do with every family to keep food and growable resources localized. While it can be a great asset to your immediate family to set out with a horse and cart, cut reeds for baskets and fill them with the thread and rope you've collects across multiple grasslands, doing so has a tremendous drawback for the expansionists among your descendants who may have opted to settle near one of those grasslands, only to find there isn't even enough milkweed to make the tools necessary for fire. Let alone thread for clothes to stay warm.

A solution to this problem, which has been ongoing, but now has the potential to be an even bigger threat, is to dramatically step up our milkweed production for rope and lassos, while also keeping needles and balls of thread, readily available so that milkweed is used less often for the purposes of thread.

Not every grassland harbors a haven for a settlement; bordering an edge with a swamp at least, or is an intersection between grassland, swamp, desert and prairie at best. But the ones that do harbor these potential havens for mothers who may want a fresh start with their own personal families, or for our brothers, who may just want to strike out on their own to test their wits against the elements, the milkweed supplies of these locations should be harvested reservedly. Additionally, by having an abundance of milkweed and rope ready at home, anyone who wants to set out on their own, or as a group, can make their basic tools in advance and travel with them to their future destination without denying the home of their origin those tools they were counting on to start a new fire.

To make this possible, an abundance of horse carts laden with baskets , moving out to collect soil from areas otherwise undesirable as homes, would greatly easy the stress on the farmers and shepherds back at home, keep the carrots, berries and wheat replenished, as well as relieve stress from the smiths and iron collectors who maintain their tool supplies. Yes, their is a limited supply of soil within reasonable traveling distances for anyone, but the soil of surrounding grasslands is one of the last resources that are tapped in those areas.

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There are always more points to make; more things to consider, about every aspect of the game. That includes you, the code, our thoughts and desires for the world we want to share together. I welcome you to share yours on anything related to these matters.

Joseph Stalin · 2018-10-19 23:18:07

hear, hear!

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2018-10-19 11:42:43

Horse Corral

#2 2018-10-19 11:49:52

Re: Horse Corral

#3 2018-10-19 12:39:58

Re: Horse Corral

#4 2018-10-19 13:31:13

Re: Horse Corral

#5 2018-10-19 19:09:15

Re: Horse Corral

#6 2018-10-19 23:06:49

Re: Horse Corral

#7 2018-10-19 23:18:07

Re: Horse Corral

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