The Problem with Boys

IronBear · 2018-03-28 00:52:54

I am increasingly seeing towns adopt the policy of killing baby boys. I understand the logic of killing boys. It basically forces the game to eventually make a player spawn as a girl and girls ensure a steady supply of new players to your beloved town.

But I have a problem with this mind set.

One is men are better equipped to handle long journey work. We have all been there. We are out away from town and that baby pops. Your time sensitive work now has to deal with a naked baby. I usually lose most of them to either negligence or them suciding because they think they are poor.

Two, it kind of hurts the immersion.

Three, some games I want to be something other than a farmer or nurse. I find that when I am female always on farm or nursing duty because those babies are super fragile

So to the game designer I would like to offer a suggestion. Could you make the baby cool down period tied to proximity to adult males. This would solve the problem with boys, reduce the need for Eves, allow women to do non-farming work better, and improve the immersion.

And if he won't do something about this, could we come up with a compromise rule of thumb. Like only first boy gets to live. I think that would help keep a useful token amount of men, without crashing the town.

Last edited by IronBear (2018-03-28 00:55:10)

Plankst · 2018-03-28 01:33:32

I 100% agree with you with the boys being neglected. There needs to be a change in how people choose who needs to live. A Civilization needs men as workers, or else everyone would be stuck at "home" with no progression due to birth stopping journeys.

EvilBlackCat · 2018-03-28 02:26:48

Yeah, I don't get the "kill the males" mindset. I do feel that men get the short straw in this game because of the fact that they have nothing to do with procreation but I'm always happy to be born male because it means I'm free to actually DO stuff.

Amusingly I'm female in real life and usually always play female characters when a game lets me but this game is different. After a few runs of being female I pray for a game as a male.

TrustyWay · 2018-03-28 02:34:48

I had a game where on 6 childs, 1 girl, my daughter had the same problem, her daughter is having problem to keep them alive, and no daughter for the moment.

Makes me sad to get only boys while having a daughter is really plesant

fragilityh14 · 2018-03-28 02:58:24

yeah I don't get killing boys either, you need people to specialize

Auner · 2018-03-28 03:06:29

To be honest it's rare i've ran into a civilization that was advanced enough they still let go of a few boys. I do think it's more of a symptom of the civilization more than it is the game- and this will all change! Just as a society in need of water has different priorities than a society in need of seeds-- the game will continue!

I think that boys play a very useful role- you go an get stuff without interruption-- and if you really hate the society- you can just run off and likely find a cart and backpack before you can carry it!

I think there should be a gender balance spawn based on how many players are in the sever. I've noticed the less populated the server- the more girls there are. The more populated the server- the more boys. I feel like this was a balance developed that no longer fits out many people this game reaches.

If you think about statistically how huge the infant mortality rate still is and the lag spikes-- honestly when the server hits that 38 mark- you almost want more girls.

Of course- I may be entirely making a pattern that isn't there. Maybe gender is chosen totally randomly.

So-

I do think gender should be decided based on the business of the server

If gender is totally random- it should be altered to look at server use- and aim for a 50/50 spawn of gender

I do think when server levels hit 35+ (assuming 40 is max) it should be 2:1 girls- as we all know it takes just a second for the server to not be full.

Rebel · 2018-03-28 03:32:38

Villages last longer with the whole "casters keep" take the boys out to the woods and only keep girls meta. plus its hard to keep family jobs running with boys, for example, you have a child boy and tell him to hunt he cant have kids to take over him once gone and no one ever knows if that person is dead or not, just one day the rabbit meat stops coming and then you have to reallocate someone. I think boys just need to have a good attribute that we need them for, able to do hard labor jobs (sexist I know) like lumberjacking or blacksmithing, if you really want to make the game impossible, add some sort of breeding mechanic but I personally don't like that idea the game is already hard enough to keep villages alive. At the end of the day, girls reproduce, boys don't you need kids to keep the village alive and boys don't give you that resource. if you had a choice between a carrot plot that kept growing carrots and one that died out
which one would you choose?

IronBear · 2018-03-28 03:39:57

Auner wrote:

I do think gender should be decided based on the business of the server

I think that would exacerbate the problem. That is because every mother goes through a cool down period after birth so that a player is no be inflicted with multiple babies at once. When the player reincarnates a minute later they will go to another village and that rule will force them to be a boy. The end result is that the villages and eves that allow boys, will overflow with them. Mean while the ones that only allow girls will be more likely to get that rare freed up a female because they have a much higher portion of potential mothers for the female to spawn to.

I think tying the cool down to number of males with X squares of a woman. Additionally if this can be coded, then it would be easy to piggy off that code and have the paternal portion of the family tree.

IronBear · 2018-03-28 03:51:37

Rebel wrote:

Villages last longer with the whole "casters keep" take the boys out to the woods and only keep girls meta. plus its hard to keep family jobs running with boys, for example, you have a child boy and tell him to hunt he cant have kids to take over him once gone and no one ever knows if that person is dead or not, just one day the rabbit meat stops coming and then you have to reallocate someone. I think boys just need to have a good attribute that we need them for, able to do hard labor jobs (sexist I know) like lumberjacking or blacksmithing, if you really want to make the game impossible, add some sort of breeding mechanic but I personally don't like that idea the game is already hard enough to keep villages alive. At the end of the day, girls reproduce, boys don't you need kids to keep the village alive and boys don't give you that resource. if you had a choice between a carrot plot that kept growing carrots and one that died out
which one would you choose?

That is why tying the cool down period to presence of men would make men a lot more useful. The village that keeps men around may have fewer women, but those women would have more opportunities for a player to spawn from them.

Last edited by IronBear (2018-03-28 03:52:40)

Avalikia · 2018-03-28 03:55:21

I've never seen the logic of killing boys. It's all about the adult to baby ratio - babies can't do anything and young children usually can't do very much, so they're leeches on the community's resources. You want as many adults compared to babies as possible, because they're the ones who can actually add to the community, and men contribute without also adding more. Killing off the boys as babies means that later there will be fewer adults compared to the number of babies, which means life will be that much harder. In fact, I bet that it's a self-perpetuating thing - if there aren't adult men helping out, then you don't have enough adults to take care of the babies, and so you can't raise them all, and so you have to kill some of them, and if you choose to keep just the girls then you only have that same problem again.

And I'm another player that slightly prefers being male. So I can go on long hunting trips and such without having to abandon babies. When I'm female I feel like I need to stay home, which gets boring if do it too many times in a row.

Rebel · 2018-03-28 04:40:51

IronBear wrote:

Rebel wrote:
Villages last longer with the whole "casters keep" take the boys out to the woods and only keep girls meta. plus its hard to keep family jobs running with boys, for example, you have a child boy and tell him to hunt he cant have kids to take over him once gone and no one ever knows if that person is dead or not, just one day the rabbit meat stops coming and then you have to reallocate someone. I think boys just need to have a good attribute that we need them for, able to do hard labor jobs (sexist I know) like lumberjacking or blacksmithing, if you really want to make the game impossible, add some sort of breeding mechanic but I personally don't like that idea the game is already hard enough to keep villages alive. At the end of the day, girls reproduce, boys don't you need kids to keep the village alive and boys don't give you that resource. if you had a choice between a carrot plot that kept growing carrots and one that died out
which one would you choose?
That is why tying the cool down period to presence of men would make men a lot more useful. The village that keeps men around may have fewer women, but those women would have more opportunities for a player to spawn from them.

I like that idea, it's a way to simulate "breeding" without making it impossible without males.

Goliath · 2018-03-28 06:47:39

I have no clue why people kill boys.
Must of been when the game was released everyone wanted to see the birth mechanic.
Unfortunately sons are more reliable, more productive and aren't burden with births

I suppose a den mother solves this but most den mothers should keep the babies in a house to avoid beers.

IronBear · 2018-03-28 11:39:07

Goliath wrote:

I have no clue why people kill boys.

I do. I have seen or played several games where a village was nothing but men and the village either dies out there or a lucky eve finds her way there.

I still remember the game where I was an Eve and stumbled on an advanced village of only 3 men. They let me and my kids inherit their town, but they wouldn't talk to me. It was creepy and in retrospect could tell that they were angry that their line had died out, but they also didn't want their work to go to waste.

I also remember the village where I was the last male. I was pretty depressing. I ended up just practicing my skills until I died.

Last edited by IronBear (2018-03-28 11:40:50)

Rebel · 2018-03-28 12:44:00

Just had a fun moment where I traded a set of clothes for a baby female from another village as all our females died or were too old. I do love this game.

FlRugbyChick · 2018-03-28 14:02:33

Rebel wrote:

Just had a fun moment where I traded a set of clothes for a baby female from another village as all our females died or were too old. I do love this game.

Lmao that is awesome!

ned · 2018-03-28 14:06:33

When you mouse over a male in your tribe, what's the one name that you will never ever see?

"Father."

You have Uncles, Brothers, Nephews, etc., but no Fathers. This needs to change, and I think a father can be identified simply by being the closest male around when a woman gives birth. This, of course, creates some complexity (both in the game and socially), especially if the only males and females around are direct relatives (ew, but let's not pretend it wasn't common when the population was low).

Because of this, I think a proximity timer is a great idea, and with the necessity of Adams in the child making process, this even opens up the possibility of Adams being spawned in the wilderness.

On a side note, I wonder if people who don't see men as worthless feel obligated to raise every child they pop out. As a woman, I can be equally efficient as a man, because, as bad as it sounds, letting my child starve is pretty easy, especially when the town already has so many other children.

FlRugbyChick · 2018-03-28 15:42:45

I try my best to feed ever baby. If I can't, I say "sorry baby" and I feel like they understand.

tcecrog · 2018-03-28 21:21:00

Rebel wrote:

IronBear wrote:
Rebel wrote:
Villages last longer with the whole "casters keep" take the boys out to the woods and only keep girls meta. plus its hard to keep family jobs running with boys, for example, you have a child boy and tell him to hunt he cant have kids to take over him once gone and no one ever knows if that person is dead or not, just one day the rabbit meat stops coming and then you have to reallocate someone. I think boys just need to have a good attribute that we need them for, able to do hard labor jobs (sexist I know) like lumberjacking or blacksmithing, if you really want to make the game impossible, add some sort of breeding mechanic but I personally don't like that idea the game is already hard enough to keep villages alive. At the end of the day, girls reproduce, boys don't you need kids to keep the village alive and boys don't give you that resource. if you had a choice between a carrot plot that kept growing carrots and one that died out
which one would you choose?
That is why tying the cool down period to presence of men would make men a lot more useful. The village that keeps men around may have fewer women, but those women would have more opportunities for a player to spawn from them.
I like that idea, it's a way to simulate "breeding" without making it impossible without males.

I think males should be able to do an action to a female that makes those female have a high priority of getting a child over non acted upon females. During low birthrates, it helps families maintain population over eves. It also give value to males during those times.

The problem with the shorter cool down period in the presence of men is that during high birthrates, you get a runaway population boom since giving birth to a male increase the birthrates on all females to get another male. It becomes a positive feedback loop (these are bad).

That is why I think players should have an option where the next birth should be. Like giving males an action to do on females to have the next birth instead of an non acted upon female.

I wonder what the action would be called.

Lexyvil · 2018-03-28 22:51:02

I found boys to be ideal as workers, while mothers can breastfeed and teach children for the first 3 minutes that they're born about the town rules, the town layout, and what they need to work on to improve the civilization. I often ask my newborns if they're new, so that I can know right away if explaining needs to be done, about the basics on what to do and what to not do.

Last edited by Lexyvil (2018-03-28 22:51:55)

Sakkiyn · 2018-03-28 23:26:30

Currently I really feel like this game hates and shames males/boys. This needs to change for the better.

a multiplayer survival game of parenting
and civilization building by Jason Rohrer

parenting not female parent ...please add some way for men to be part of this process and hence respected members of the civilization. Maybe make men better at killing bears and wolves? there is a tendency in game to starve and kill baby boys, this is actually the opposite of how things are done in ancient civilizations. The boys were the most valued not least, how about let men take a wife, add marriage ...then there is a Father. The children of this union will be part of the male line.

If a civilization is down to only men, then can strike out and find an eve or a girl from another village (this was quite common in tribes that had no girls) marry her and carry on the family name. Please reconsider this hatred for males and male parentage. Make this a true family game and add marriage, make men great again.

Hiker170 · 2018-03-29 01:09:53

IronBear wrote:

Goliath wrote:
I have no clue why people kill boys.
I do. I have seen or played several games where a village was nothing but men and the village either dies out there or a lucky eve finds her way there.
I still remember the game where I was an Eve and stumbled on an advanced village of only 3 men. They let me and my kids inherit their town, but they wouldn't talk to me. It was creepy and in retrospect could tell that they were angry that their line had died out, but they also didn't want their work to go to waste.
I also remember the village where I was the last male. I was pretty depressing. I ended up just practicing my skills until I died.

I have been in this situation many times but it is mainly because the last females either dies for dumb reasons, or they never have any children. Which I have had happen on multiple occasions, both while being a male and the female in that situation. You sometimes just can't help it, we could never be sure if the people who died as children actually would respawn there or not. It's strange though that they wouldn't talk maybe that was just how they were before you turned up, trying to make sure there would be enough supplies left behind.

Lily · 2018-03-29 01:18:15

Yeah, I am conflicted on this issue. I wouldn't kill off boys, since I think they are useful. They don't need to suddenly stop when they pop out a bunch of children and need to care of them. Also since they don't have children you don't need to worry about them making more children down the road, which is a good thing if you have a large population. That said, it can be the kiss of death if you are in a small group. You can't continue a village with a male, and often times the last person is a male(occasionally a female who didn't have any children) and the place just dies and there is nothing you can do.

Cyniko · 2018-03-29 01:45:58

Its very much a death sentence sometimes to get a male spawn which is a shame.

When born a male I often leave the village and setup mini bases for the next Eve coming through, make their lives easier if they pass by. Just give me a basket of food and maybe abackpack if you have one and Im happily on my way!
Exploring is often fun sometimes, you stumble across ghost towns or other lone players out there

Lily · 2018-03-29 02:05:45

Cyniko wrote:

Its very much a death sentence sometimes to get a male spawn which is a shame.
When born a male I often leave the village and setup mini bases for the next Eve coming through, make their lives easier if they pass by. Just give me a basket of food and maybe abackpack if you have one and Im happily on my way!
Exploring is often fun sometimes, you stumble across ghost towns or other lone players out there

Yeah, I agree. If there is no food, then you have to do what you have to do. However, if you are worried about longer term survival and not immediate needs, there is no reason you can't raise them until they can pick up objects and give them a basket of food to run off with.

Often times people know of near by cities and stuff too, so you can send them there. Or they can even help find near by villages and stuff. Worst case, if you really need a female to take over, you can give them a task of finding one. It might be difficult to find a young girl to bring back, but I don't think killing them improves your chance of having a new child.

Cyniko · 2018-03-29 03:23:50

Hah! I really appreciate any idea that creates fun things to do in games.

When a random player asks what task they can help with, Mother responds "Find and bring back an Eve, and save us all my son."
With head held high and a spring in their step they leave, charged with their epic and monumental task...
Meanwhile you sit there chuckling under your breath ..."sucker"

And yet, its still a win win! er.. or maybe my imagination runs wild.

But again to actually contribute to this thread, I am never a fan asking for features to be taken or nerfed. And hope this does not become normal or standard practice.

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The Problem with Boys

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Re: The Problem with Boys

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