Birth system idea

Floofy · 2018-12-03 20:01:16

Gederian wrote:

I think the concerns about older women having more babies is mute since a scoring system will also ensure that same woman has more babies when she is younger thus dropping her score when she is older.

I kinda miss your point here. The system only makes sure everyone gets at least a few girls, and gives them in priority to older women.

But about your other point, i kinda agree, but personally i'd be in favor of letting people decide if they spawn as eve or not. Some people don't want to be an EVE, its pointless to make them one and force them to suicide. And when some people do WANT to be an EVE, its pointless to generate like 7-8 sudden infant deaths.

Gederian · 2018-12-03 20:13:03

Floofy wrote:

I kinda miss your point here. The system only makes sure everyone gets at least a few girls, and gives them in priority to older women.

Some people voiced concern that older women will get a flood of kids just as they can't feed them but I don't think that would be a concern because they will be more likely to get their share of girls when younger.

Floofy wrote:

But about your other point, i kinda agree, but personally i'd be in favor of letting people decide if they spawn as eve or not.

I think choosing different game modes would be great but Jason seems to be against it, but that doesn't mean we have to stop suggesting it! Choosing things like Eve or generation range still provides the randomness of birth. People do this anyways via suicide so Jason really isn't preventing anything, just making it annoying for everyone involved. Either way, you will be born into a town with it's own problems to solve.

Floofy · 2018-12-03 20:45:59

Gederian wrote:

Floofy wrote:
I kinda miss your point here. The system only makes sure everyone gets at least a few girls, and gives them in priority to older women.
Some people voiced concern that older women will get a flood of kids just as they can't feed them but I don't think that would be a concern because they will be more likely to get their share of girls when younger.
Floofy wrote:
But about your other point, i kinda agree, but personally i'd be in favor of letting people decide if they spawn as eve or not.
I think choosing different game modes would be great but Jason seems to be against it, but that doesn't mean we have to stop suggesting it! Choosing things like Eve or generation range still provides the randomness of birth. People do this anyways via suicide so Jason really isn't preventing anything, just making it annoying for everyone involved. Either way, you will be born into a town with it's own problems to solve.

hah makes sense. Well as someone else suggested, maybe increase breast feeding duration to 45 (but babies stop at 40).
And i agree a lot with the second part of your post.

Azrael · 2018-12-04 02:29:46

I find it funny how me being honest makes people not wanna read my whole point as if thats a good excuse. The reason I said what i said is because maybe people need to have a different mindset. Thinking that there is a fundemental issue with the game and not an issue with your play style is very common nowadays. You'd first blame game than blame how you play.

Also, those two examples of you failing as eve cause your kids werent adult females is kinda how the game is supposed to function. There never is a perfect eve spawn; you cant expect to spawn in and have a long lineage. The point of the game is to try to fight against luck and chance to have a near perfect civ. Suggesting a way to make the game easier because you cant have a long lineage while you eve is frankly ridiculous.

For example, Tarr, a long time player, makes sure to eve as often as he can, and since hes so knowledgeable with the game, i can always see at least one tar family active during nearly every time i play. I dont see him complaining about birth mecahnics because he doesnt worry to much about thise things, he can have a successful lineage against all odds because hes played the game enough to know that things like birth and girls are random, the best you can do is try to have many fertile women at good temp in your civ.

The point is that when you suggest a new idea to replace or improve and old one, its usually because the old idea has severe problems with it. Yet i dont understand why jason should fix something that isnt broken?? The system has flaws sure, no one is guranteed a girl that stays, but are we really considering changing it because it makes eveing too difficult?

The few times i eve, my civ always gets far, could be my luck, but i really think the quick decisons of an eve is more important than any birth mechanic.

That sure was fun

Floofy · 2018-12-04 16:07:35

Azrael wrote:

Suggesting a way to make the game easier because you cant have a long lineage while you eve is frankly ridiculous.

You need to make the difference between "hard" gameplay, and luck based gameplay. Those 2 examples of mine, i don't believe anyone would have done any better than me, it was just games i couldn't "win". I feel like this type of gameplay isn't fun. That being said, i agree the game does need to be hard, which is why for example i suggested to nerf bananas and ponds before. But the game needs to be hard because it requires skill and good gameplay, not because it requires luck. I am ok with SOME luck, where in some life you will get more girls than others, but getting none at all is boring

Azrael wrote:

For example, Tarr, a long time player, makes sure to eve as often as he can, and since hes so knowledgeable with the game, i can always see at least one tar family active during nearly every time i play.

I don't claim to be a perfect player, and i'd be happy to see how Tarr is managing to create long lines with no girl at all. I do manage to kickstart most of my Eve starts, but it usually goes downhill after my death if no good player was born under me, no matter how nice the town i leave is.

Azrael wrote:

the best you can do is try to have many fertile women at good temp in your civ.

I do admit some of my Eve starts aren't always done in hot temps, might be a mistake. Its fine for survival, but doesn't give optimal birth numbers.

Gederian · 2018-12-04 18:50:44

Azrael wrote:

I find it funny how me being honest makes people not wanna read my whole point as if thats a good excuse.

It's the condescending attitude that makes people stop reading.

Azrael · 2018-12-04 19:24:15

Gederian wrote:

Azrael wrote:
I find it funny how me being honest makes people not wanna read my whole point as if thats a good excuse.
It's the condescending attitude that makes people stop reading.

I can understand that, but that's because we talk over text, in reality, I'm just as passionate as anyone is who makes the initial post. I'm confident that Jason can fix any and all problems that arise if we work together, that being said, sometimes I disagree and an I can get a bit TOO passionate. That's never the intent, but I'm sorry if it rubs off that way.

But that still isn't an excuse to not read the point, if I'm being rude, it's usually because I have a hard time understanding what the initial forum poster meant in his/her post. In this post, I really believe that Floofy is misinterpreting a major part of the game. That is that the environment, the NPCs, the biomes, heck even the mechanics of the game, are working AGAINST you. Birthing isn't supposed to be fair, because life isn't fair, I know many people who wanted girls/boys and didn't have or who wanted biological children, but could not. The point is to be as unfair as possible, and equality? The game gives you an equal chance at everything, believe it or not, all women have an equal chance to give birth (depending on if they're fertile and their temp). Really it's how we interpret the girl-less lineages and how we teach our last-girl-named-hope, that determine if we are successful.

Tarr and I and many others have accepted that sometimes no matter how good you are or how hard you try, your lineage won't always be successful, and such is life. If we put our minds to it, after enough eve runs we WILL be successful, it's just the act of getting there are understanding game mechanics to get there.

And YES! I HATE overanalysing mechanics, I HATE making a simple game more complicated than it really is. But when we talk about the game versus you, the mechanics are what make starting and continuing a lineage so difficult. So yeah, Jason might give us bananas and a good temp biome.... but he makes sure to add mosquitos and make bananas not respawn. Balance is key if everyone could have multiple females and could give birth, where would the balance be? If every eve civ worked out and NO lineages were lost to having fewer girls... where would the difficulty lie? Nowhere!

Overall, the game is supposed to be hard, it's supposed to be impossible and unfair, and as realistic as possible, soon we might even see stillbirths for older women that DON'T reset the birth cooldown. It's all about balance.

Floofy · 2018-12-04 19:40:26

Azrael wrote:

Balance is key if everyone could have multiple females and could give birth, where would the balance be? If every eve civ worked out and NO lineages were lost to having fewer girls... where would the difficulty lie? Nowhere!

The issue is almost every lines is ended because of no girls left. Lines are almost never ended because a civ ran out of food. And imo, that's why the game isn't "balanced". When 90%+ of the lines are ended because of bad rng, and 10% because of extremely poor play, that is not optimal imo. Instead, lines should be ended because the game is actually difficult, not because no girl spawn. That's my view anyways. (Here i'm talking about advanced villages, yes early villages are ended due to famine much more often).

Gederian · 2018-12-04 20:17:01

Azrael wrote:

I can understand that, but that's because we talk over text, in reality, I'm just as passionate as anyone is who makes the initial post.

I completely understand that and I used to be the same way, people confused my passion for arrogance. I often re-read all my communications and remove things that don't forward the conversation. In fact, in my original post to you I had another sentence along the line of "I bet your a gem in person" but I removed it because it did nothing but antagonize. I bet if I left that there instead of reflecting on what I wanted to say you would have understandably ignored it and sniped back.

And in your full response (which I read the whole thing) I actually agree with many of the points you made. Had I sniped you and you sniped back nothing would have been accomplished. But here we are now, understanding each other and agreeing.

Gederian · 2018-12-04 20:22:47

Floofy wrote:

The issue is almost every lines is ended because of no girls left.

I think this is the main point to focus on however the proposed solution may not be ideal because as Azrael points out, life should not be fair and this is a "make it fair" change.

The reality is few civilizations fail because there aren't enough girls to carry on a line (usually overpopulation kills) however in this game it seems the vast majority of lines fail because there aren't enough girls.

Maybe we can put our heads together and find a way to make life unfair but the end not so predictable.

Tramax · 2018-12-04 20:48:35

Azrael wrote:

Gederian wrote:
Azrael wrote:
I find it funny how me being honest makes people not wanna read my whole point as if thats a good excuse.
It's the condescending attitude that makes people stop reading.

I can understand that, but that's because we talk over text, in reality, I'm just as passionate as anyone is who makes the initial post. I'm confident that Jason can fix any and all problems that arise if we work together, that being said, sometimes I disagree and an I can get a bit TOO passionate. That's never the intent, but I'm sorry if it rubs off that way.
But that still isn't an excuse to not read the point, if I'm being rude, it's usually because I have a hard time understanding what the initial forum poster meant in his/her post. In this post, I really believe that Floofy is misinterpreting a major part of the game. That is that the environment, the NPCs, the biomes, heck even the mechanics of the game, are working AGAINST you. Birthing isn't supposed to be fair, because life isn't fair, I know many people who wanted girls/boys and didn't have or who wanted biological children, but could not. The point is to be as unfair as possible, and equality? The game gives you an equal chance at everything, believe it or not, all women have an equal chance to give birth (depending on if they're fertile and their temp). Really it's how we interpret the girl-less lineages and how we teach our last-girl-named-hope, that determine if we are successful.
Tarr and I and many others have accepted that sometimes no matter how good you are or how hard you try, your lineage won't always be successful, and such is life. If we put our minds to it, after enough eve runs we WILL be successful, it's just the act of getting there are understanding game mechanics to get there.
And YES! I HATE overanalysing mechanics, I HATE making a simple game more complicated than it really is. But when we talk about the game versus you, the mechanics are what make starting and continuing a lineage so difficult. So yeah, Jason might give us bananas and a good temp biome.... but he makes sure to add mosquitos and make bananas not respawn. Balance is key if everyone could have multiple females and could give birth, where would the balance be? If every eve civ worked out and NO lineages were lost to having fewer girls... where would the difficulty lie? Nowhere!
Overall, the game is supposed to be hard, it's supposed to be impossible and unfair, and as realistic as possible, soon we might even see stillbirths for older women that DON'T reset the birth cooldown. It's all about balance.

Yep. As I previously pointed out in the "Griefer Guide" thread Floofy made you historically took your vendetta a bit far beyond just rude from a bystander's perspective... Having said that this post and the post before it in this thread are more respectful of differing opinions and I can detect that you're not just butthurt about someone trying to contribute because you do evidently feel passionate about these things. You're right about the unfairness of life and it being reflected in game however a lot of things can be gamified in a more fun manner. There is a lot of value in respecting the philosophy that seasoned players develop regarding futulity etcetera and just enjoying things that you get to experience that you alluded to - no doubt about that.

It's important to understand that nothing lasts forever - but a system not necessarily verbatim from Floofy's pitch but modifications to put fairness into consideration in the interest of maintaining people feeling slightly less of an uphill battle could be good food for thought both for Jason and members of the community - after all once Jason retires on this project it's up to the community to take the source code and pay attention to fan demands to give the game a second life... Which I reckon it really deserves because of how neat a social experiment the concept is.

Last edited by Tramax (2018-12-04 23:51:07)

Azrael · 2018-12-04 23:41:37

I get everyone's points about fairness, at some point it becomes ALL about luck and you're stuck with no girls.

The reason I kept trying to refute that is that in theory, Jason's system works well, 50% chance of male/female and a possibility to have a female from every fertile woman. The problem is how it's executed, did you know that two of the characters aka skins in the game do NOT follow genetics? The pale ginger woman and very dark male are both skins that since their other skin colours for the opposite gender of their class were not added yet, they don't have normal spawn mechanics like a dark/light person would. Another problem is the lack of skins that are female, many people spawn in looking the same with limited flexibility in that aspect, not that having no skins significantly affects the problem, but it is there. The result is that Jason will add more in time.

But the main problem with the system that has existed for months! Is the lack of players. Babies and spawn mechanics, only apply when a player joins a specific server. We're looking at 40-60 people on a top server at average, but no people at all or barely any at the lowest rated servers! This problem existed way before steam release, and at midnight in my area, at MAX we would have up to 30 people... in all of the servers!

Lack of girls is what made the last few months before release hell. Players were leaving left and right to such an extent that I could feel the community dying, luckily the steam release was soon enough so that new players learned and some old ones rejoined to help. At first the new players were screwing civs by themselves from "too many girls/boys" and yes I'd say majority civ failures were from that. As more players leave and more players learn the result is that the same process that existed beforehand will affect the game again, this time it will be slower, but you can feel that many steam players are putting the game down already...

SO what's the solution? Well, we can't magically "make" the players join the server we need the most help in, if they're using custom, and I already think the game does a fair job in distributing the players evenly on each of the servers. What do we do?

I got an idea, well not my idea, but... let's picture this first. When I joined the community in late March, the game was very different, yes by mechanics and yes by the items in game, biomes, players attitudes, skill, but one of the things that MOST changed were the spawn mechanics. You see, back then we didn't have lineage trees or names for people, or "your mother" or "your first cousin" we didn't have titles. What we had were advanced civs (at the time) and many eves spawning left and right, all people in one jumbled area, I would say that people spawned on old civs all the time, so much so and so closely that I would say within 1K you could find every person in that server all jumbled up.

Jason eventually changed this with the addition of lineage, he made eves so far away that no one could stumble into another civ... He eventually adjusted it and more recently, he HAS paid attention to your cries, because he changed the eve proximity spawn range from 500 ~> 250 tiles. This is huge! And I notice more eves spawning closer in an advanced civ. Really, Jason is reverting the game kinda to what it was before.

Overall, I don't know of an immediate solution but I can give facts

Ellesanna · 2018-12-05 01:12:06

A huge problem is that men cannot carry on the family line. They cannot produce children or even adopt children or marry a girl from another town over and work to keep both family lines alive. Thus, we are forced to pray for one girl to be born smart enough and lucky enough to make it to maturity and produce a smart and lucky daughter of her own and so on and so forth. But eventually, you either have too many daughters popping out babies and you over populate-due to players having no control over how many children they have unlike how things are in rl civilizations- or you have a bout of bad luck where all your daughters die young and you're left with only sons.
The point of this isn't to say boys are useless or anything like. Being a guy has its benefits but I wish there was a way for a guy to continue their family line in some way or form, maybe having it so family trees can be intertwined? I know Jason wanted to avoid boys being able to reproduce for the sake of avoiding incest and issues of consent, but I really really want it so family trees can be connected. By doing this, you would encourage villages to be closer to each other. Marriage ties and family are huge essential parts of human history and by having our men being unable to contribute directly to the production of offspring and avoiding the iffy topic of marriage we are losing half of human culture and history in one swoop.

lionon · 2018-12-05 08:35:06

Yesterday following thought occurred to me. I played one of these dull female lives in a larger town. Even before I could set of to make a backpack I started popping out babies like crazy. So I went to the bakery and spent most of my life nursing for the kids and some backing. It was boring and the kids constantly interrupted getting anything useful to do. But on the other hand, I did get that family line on, yes? No! Looking at the family tree none of that many kids that I had to care of and kept interrupting me made it to become an adult, only one guy made it to 30. Everyone else died before 10. A life utterly wasted.

Now the taught is, suppose the amount of players online stays about roughly equal. How many children should I have as a female? Actually only two. If every player would be fertile, everyone would have to have about one child if the playerbase stays constant. But since only half of them are, females should get about two. However how many did I get? Six. Why? Well guess because only 15-20% of the playbase got a clue, everyone else seems to spawn in fast cycle life after life and dying young. Which soon ends them up as Eves further damaging established towns taking away players.

How about as female we're at least guaranteed to have 1 of our kids to have a clue? Preferably if the famliy line is thinned out a female? Easy way to judge, did they in their last life became an elder or died young (skipping suicides as death before 4)

Last edited by lionon (2018-12-05 08:35:29)

Azrael · 2018-12-05 08:55:56

lionon wrote:

Yesterday following thought occurred to me. I played one of these dull female lives in a larger town. Even before I could set of to make a backpack I started popping out babies like crazy. So I went to the bakery and spent most of my life nursing for the kids and some backing. It was boring and the kids constantly interrupted getting anything useful to do. But on the other hand, I did get that family line on, yes? No! Looking at the family tree none of that many kids that I had to care of and kept interrupting me made it to become an adult, only one guy made it to 30. Everyone else died before 10. A life utterly wasted.
Now the taught is, suppose the amount of players online stays about roughly equal. How many children should I have as a female? Actually only two. If every player would be fertile, everyone would have to have about one child if the playerbase stays constant. But since only half of them are, females should get about two. However how many did I get? Six. Why? Well guess because only 15-20% of the playbase got a clue, everyone else seems to spawn in fast cycle life after life and dying young. Which soon ends them up as Eves further damaging established towns taking away players.
How about as female we're at least guaranteed to have 1 of our kids to have a clue? Preferably if the family line is thinned out a female? Easy way to judge, did they in their last life became an elder or died young (skipping suicides as death before 4)

Hm... that won't work, here's why:

As annoying as having many kids for a big civ is, this is simply the job of a caretaker, if all the kids in the town were concentrated in one place, it means that other players and women, for example, can live a relatively sound life away from all the crying and feeding. It is simply necessary to have a caretaker or a nurse for many children in a big civ, because more players are concentrated there, more kids pop out, and that's just how it is.

The number of children you "should" have is, as before mentioned, not up to you and is frankly the game's decision for now, but I get your point. Even though the whole "playerbase that has a clue" is confusing because how do you expect to judge a player on how good they are based on how long they live??? YES, people who live long are usually good players...?? except that's not always true. At this point we need to acknowledge sponges exist, and that many new players will ride on other player's achievements all the way to 60. What if they were born in many advanced civs and just ate food all day? Or what if a pro player has to go and leave the game, or is accidentally bit by a hidden snake/boar or is bitten by some mosquitos, or what if the advanced player decides to die early not to waste food in their old age? (Seen it happen loads of times)

You simply can't just judge a player on how good they are based on the age they reach, also, what if they're murdered/murdered a griefer and got stabbed or starved. Lots of factors make pro players not live to 60 and make noobs live to 60.

While it is annoying to have lots of kids that aren't successful, the best you can do in that life is to raise them, help them if they ask questions, and GIVE THEM A JOB! That's so very important for ALL players. Usually, they don't receive any kind of job or task and end up "doing their own thing" or just goofing off. Being a good parent makes sure that your kids can be useful!

Switch on and off from being a caretaker to provide for your noob children, teach them something, make them do something, create usefulness in a field of sponges. That's how we thrive!

lionon · 2018-12-05 09:37:25

"should" isn't ment here in a normative way, but what statistical thinking would imply. At first sight as a woman you 'should' have 6 children if the playerbase triples during your life...

I don't understand your position tough. You are advocating a total luck of the draw system, but at the same time criticizing any idea that would polish some rough edges of that "child-clue-gender-lottery" as not being perfect but still have a considerable random component in it.

For example, judging by the average age of your 'n' last lives isn't perfect yes. Yes there a free loafers (which would reduce my guess on clue-percentage even somewhat) and there are murders. But judging from my family trees only a small percentage of children get murdered and a good portion of them may have deserved it as I did bore griefers as well. It ain't perfect and it may be unlucky if you "one almost guaranteed to become elder" child turns out to be freeloafer.. but it ain't worse as the total luck of the draw responsible for most family tree wipes sooner or later

Gederian · 2018-12-05 18:15:34

lionon wrote:

How about as female we're at least guaranteed to have 1 of our kids to have a clue?

I like where you're going with this. Instead of women scores to decide who gets a girl each lineage can have a score based on the skill of spawned players in the past hour, this way each line is likely to get some good players instead of all new players. This will help lines live longer and help new players by ensuring there are skilled players in town to teach them.

Floofy · 2018-12-05 20:46:27

Azrael wrote:

Or what if a pro player has to go and leave the game, or is accidentally bit by a hidden snake/boar or is bitten by some mosquitos, or what if the advanced player decides to die early not to waste food in their old age? (Seen it happen loads of times)

Pro players (not just decent, pro), very rarely die to wild animals. It can happen, but its rare. Since i play with huge field of view, i usually get to see those "hidden" animals in advance. I don't think i ever die to yellow fever anymore.

Azrael wrote:

You simply can't just judge a player on how good they are based on the age they reach, also, what if they're murdered/murdered a griefer and got stabbed or starved. Lots of factors make pro players not live to 60 and make noobs live to 60.

Its hard to truly judge how good someone is. I sometimes had kids i really thought were good, just to have them die to a random boar. I also did sometimes have those kids that live a long time but were just chilling by the fire chatting.

Azrael wrote:

While it is annoying to have lots of kids that aren't successful, the best you can do in that life is to raise them, help them if they ask questions, and GIVE THEM A JOB! That's so very important for ALL players. Usually, they don't receive any kind of job or task and end up "doing their own thing" or just goofing off. Being a good parent makes sure that your kids can be useful!

Giving a job to a decent player isn't very usefull, but i agree its REALLY important to do it with newbs. If you give one simple task to a newb, he will usually to do it fairly decently. Something like "bring bananas".
I personally i play with a big fov and switch between jobs as needed. My last game i was a mix of a butcher, sheperd, clothe maker, farmer, nurse

lionon · 2018-12-05 21:38:24

Floofy wrote:

Giving a job to a decent player isn't very usefull, but i agree its REALLY important to do it with newbs. If you give one simple task to a newb, he will usually to do it fairly decently. Something like "bring bananas".
I personally i play with a big fov and switch between jobs as needed. My last game i was a mix of a butcher, sheperd, clothe maker, farmer, nurse

I'm not really decent, but at a place where I feel annoyed when I'm assigned a job.

For babies, a nice thing I've seen is simply to ask "are you new", and if they say 'Y' you give em a job, if they say 'N' you simply feed them until they run of by themselves as soon they are old enough to pick up stuff.

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