Big towns are as fragile as Eve camps but for different reasons.

futurebird · 2019-04-14 20:48:50

I bet it's happened to you too. You are born in a substantial town, berry patch looks good, compost piles getting ready, lots of water, wheat and carrots growing sheep pen looks fine. So, in theory there should be more food than anyone can eat. 2-3 people can make that happen for up to 12 people. So, you think "I'll work on something different this time..." And you work on a radio, or rubber or building or even just taking the time to chat and joke and get to know your family better something that isn't keeping the pies and berries coming then you go to get a pie and there are only two left, or you try to grab a berry and the bushes are picked clean and new players and babies are starving.

There are many causes:
-someone watered all the carrots and didn't pick them
-new player and griefers eating berries when they are down just one pip combined with someone trying to feed sheep for clothing.
-someone harvested all the wheat and let it despawn
-someone(s) left one berry on every bush and then when those got eaten the field went brown all at once
-no one is dedicated to making pies because the bakery is a place of chaos
-there is no shovel or hoe and no black smith is fixing it

Now this kind of problem won't kill a town but add some drama and a chain of murders and you have the end of the line. It can happen fast. As I mention in another post I think that part of the issue is that we don't build up enough surplus. People see two baskets of pies when there are 18 people in a town and think "That's a lot of pies" It isn't though. You are about to run out. A good real surplus is 6 pies for every person in the town. Yes that's more than you can eat in a life if you are careful and warm, but that's kind of the point, people are not careful and there are always new people.

There is this attitude that you need to be focused and almost paranoid to keep and Eve camp alive but when you get the compost cycle now you can relax. I think this is why large towns die so often. We think they are much more robust than they really are.

I would like to see more kinds of storage to make other kinds of surplus possible: for example flour sacks or bin (or even just let us put 6 bowls of flour in a croc pot to store it) Cisterns are great and any town should have one mostly full and another full to the brim in reserve. But, even without in game changes I think the key to making a town last longer is aiming for much greater surplus. If making pies is boring do it with stew or burritos.

Anyway. Big towns are fragile things that live only for a short time in most cases. Bring some of that Eve camp urgency to your big town game!

Amon · 2019-04-14 21:02:05

There are far more things to add onto the list.

Spacing out various facilities that are interconnected hightens chaos along the way and mispalced tools.
Tools that get taken from one working facility often end up in another facility but due the distance you'll keep searching for those tools (eyes the kitchen round stone that keeps getting kidnapped, please jason, give us a dedicted mortar and pestle!)
Wider spaced out means it is harder to keep an eye on people. Griefers are most sucessful in towns because they are more likely to get unnoticed.

Population decline. When there is a population declie in a big town it's... actually hard to notice since not everyone is in the same spot.
One time I thought everything was dandy since I spend all my time with a single person working in a due untill suddenly my auntie runs up to me "You and me are the last females left."
O snap.

Honestly I wish we had megaphones.

Last edited by Amon (2019-04-14 21:03:00)

futurebird · 2019-04-14 21:16:55

Population decline is related to the shortages and bottle necks. In theory, you have more than one girl who lives to have more girls and the population climbs a bit. But, when the town is big enough that it attracts people who think that it's safe and sturdy when it isn't you end up having too many of the less experienced players dead at 5 or 6 years old because they couldn't find anything to eat that they understood. Then you get an "only girl" problem or a sausage town.

I think part of it is we don't really have the tools to make real surpluses except for maybe with water. And part of it is people see buildings and a few baskets of pies and think "I don't need to help make food"

My recent town lives have been just running around putting out one crisis after another "no berries" I water and soil them "no water" I run the pump fill the cistern "no kindle" I stack kindle "no soil" I make compost "no carrots" I grow some "no wheat" I grow that too "no pies" I start baking "no plates" I collect them, "no hoe" I forge one and on and on.

It's not the most fun when it feels like you and maybe 3 other people see the crisis and everyone else is arguing about something, or people just ignore you when you ask for help.

I would be happy to do any one of these things for a life, like make a ton of kindling and solve that for a few generations, or making tons of pies or filling a bunch of cisterns, but I never get to do that since none of the connected tasks are being done by anyone who can really stick to them.

Part of me just feels like I should go in to a life, pick one thing that needs to be done do it really well (like planting milk weed or wheat) and to hell with the town if no one can pick up the rest. I can run the whole damn place.

I know I'm not the only person working but it just feels like things have been off in this way since the last update. Or maybe I've had bad luck with towns.

Amon · 2019-04-14 21:38:22

again those are space problems.
When you're away dedicatedly smithing or planting milkweed you have no clue that suddenly someone is not baking or suddenly some griefer killed all the sheep.

I really feel you on that one there, best thing is to just do a thing and do it good instead of running everywhere, organisation of town is a stump.

Spoonwood · 2019-04-14 21:53:04

Not sure if there's enough reason to care about how long a town lives with the current lineage ban. Sorry. I'm not saying that griefing is ok, but with the lineage ban and not having much of a chance to go back to that town, its more like there's only enough reason to care about the people you see in your life.

breezeknight · 2019-04-14 22:10:29

you've forgotten one basic point - backpacks

backpacks are the life saver in many cases
without a backpack you are not an efficient worker
everybody who has no backpack will be having problems to stay alive if there are food shortages & as you described, those happen fast

- - -

breezeknight · 2019-04-14 22:15:39

i've been today to a newish town & someone was building there a tool shed
it was not very well placed, but what building in OHOL really is ?

it was not a big house, probably 3x4, it had two doors on one side, several boxes to keep the various tools more organized

it is probably one of the good ideas one should keep as an OHOL staple

- - -

BlueDiamondAvatar · 2019-04-15 02:44:18

futurebird wrote:

I know I'm not the only person working but it just feels like things have been off in this way since the last update. Or maybe I've had bad luck with towns.

Or maybe you had good luck with towns before the last update???

Honestly, I think this has been a problem for as long as I've been playing. You did a great job explaining the issue. We feel too safe, and then we take things for granted and stuff falls apart.

In my last life, I took over the bakery as a four year old, and got us to the point that we had three baskets of pies in a box by the time I was ten. But then... there was a little girl that obviously wanted to take over the bakery. Since I was playing a boy, and baking is one of those things that can be done while raising babies in town, I let her take over.

I went and farmed milkweed and made buckets and carts, did some exploring, etc. I'd run by the bakery to pick up pie time to time, and my cousin managed to add to the surplus as she raised her kids. By the time I'm late forties I've got the rope to go tame that horse i spotted, BUT! No one is making compost. AND the guy who is now in the bakery seems pretty lost. <sigh>

After many years of composting, I run back by the bakery to deliver some mutton, and realize the pie surplus is completely gone. The bakery looks like people have been delivering supplies to it, but no one is making it into food.

How do we keep track of who is the baker? Who is the composter?

We really need some quick visual messages. A sign outside the bakery that says, "Maria is baking" that can be updated on the fly would be so useful.

Between the lack of visibility across all the critical workstations in your town, and the lack of easy communication between players, I think towns are just destined to keep falling apart.

Psykout · 2019-04-15 03:04:01

Another thing to note is that an optimal player caan support a town during their lifetime but once their time is done, its done. Their can be a surplus of every resource possible but if the last girls don't understand their importance the town will fall. The entire game is complex sand castles with a constant tide ebbing to wipe it clean. If your last girl only knows how to eat berries and doesn't know to keep a carrot or something on them to avoid starving when venturing out means evryone is six feet under is huge.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-04-14 20:48:50

Big towns are as fragile as Eve camps but for different reasons.

#2 2019-04-14 21:02:05

Re: Big towns are as fragile as Eve camps but for different reasons.

#3 2019-04-14 21:16:55

Re: Big towns are as fragile as Eve camps but for different reasons.

#4 2019-04-14 21:38:22

Re: Big towns are as fragile as Eve camps but for different reasons.

#5 2019-04-14 21:53:04

Re: Big towns are as fragile as Eve camps but for different reasons.

#6 2019-04-14 22:10:29

Re: Big towns are as fragile as Eve camps but for different reasons.

#7 2019-04-14 22:15:39

Re: Big towns are as fragile as Eve camps but for different reasons.

#8 2019-04-15 02:44:18

Re: Big towns are as fragile as Eve camps but for different reasons.

#9 2019-04-15 03:04:01

Re: Big towns are as fragile as Eve camps but for different reasons.

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