Why do towns need walls?

Buggy · 2019-05-19 03:37:25

From reading some of the forum posts I understand that Jason wants towns to be walled.
I just don't understand why.
In history yes people built walls there are castles and forts and even cities that had walls. However I don't know of any modern cities that are walled where I live (Canada). The only walled places are military bases and prisons not really places I would want to live. What time period are we supposed to be in that we need walls to keep out barbarians but we can use an airplane to fly across the map.

Is each family line supposed to represent a different country in Jasons vision?
I mean the American border is kind of a boundary, this has security at the bridges but the boundary is mostly just lakes that anyone could boat over. It is not a hard wall that people can't cross. Just a boundary that was decided a long time ago (The war of 1912) since then it has remained mostly wall free.

Cities and towns located in the middle of a country simply don't need walls, they are a huge expense and they would just make travel more difficult.

As for the game right now, yes walls can keep feral eves out but they also make resource collection slower, maybe just fence the forges if you are worried about someone stealing your iron and leave the gate open. Oh and make nearby springs into wells!

Buggy · 2019-05-19 03:55:12

This is the quote I was thinking about from Jason found in "Jason's vision" Forum thread by mr.bah

jasonrohrer wrote:

Did you watch the trailer?
I'm killed at the end of my own trailer by a defensive robot who was guarding a city gate.
What made you think it was going to be an entirely peaceful game?
There's also a lot of peaceful stuff going on in that trailer, of course.

But there are other things in that trailer that you currently don't see very much of in the game. Buildings. City walls and gates. Specialization.
Take a look at this spot in the trailer:
https://youtu.be/mT4JktcVQuE?t=1m36s
It's currently STILL very misleading:
1. You see an old man inside a building baking pies. Kids run out, and then he closes the door behind them. (I've never seen anyone baking pies indoors, nor have I seen many people closing doors.)
2. (1:45) You see me walk into a walled village, through what looks like a village gate. (Even before property fences, you almost never saw walls around a village.)
3. (1:47) You see me walk past three specialists who are operating in three different well-defined spaces. Two are enclosed, but one is out in the open because it's too hot to do indoors. (You rarely see spaces in the game structured by walls).
4. (1:50) You see me walk past a sheep herder inside a fenced-in area (you almost never see real fences used for sheep).

That portion of the video shows stuff that is all 100% possible inside the game right now (it was possible at launch). After that, I go into the "future" part of the video.
So a player, seeing 1-4 in the video, might expect to encounter those things in the game. You know, they might expect to see something that looks like a real village. But those things never occur in the game.

My vision for the game is to have those things occurring in the game, almost always.

Many people have said, "Those things are too hard, so that's why we don't do them. Make walls cheaper, and then we'll build buildings."
But that's not it at all. There are plenty of cheap things in the game that you rarely do. And there are plenty of crazy-hard things in the game that you do almost always, in every village. Getting a Newcomen pump up and running is no joke, but every village has one. And whoa, Newcomen machine shops everywhere too now? I hadn't seen many of them for a while...

You don't build buildings or walls or gates in the game for one simple reason: YOU DON'T NEED THEM.

My vision for the game is to actually make you need such things.
To need specialization, and buildings, and walls, and gates, and trade, and businesses, and laws, and judges, and police, and guards, and hospitals, and restaurants, and shepherds, and weavers, and smiths, and millers, and soldiers. To have nurseries and orphanages. To have roads and outposts. To have airplanes and cargo cults.

My vision for the game is to actually make you need civilization.
...

He says a bit more but just notice he mentioned gates and fences quite a few times so he really wants walled cities for this game

Last edited by Buggy (2019-05-19 03:55:57)

RodneyC86 · 2019-05-19 03:59:08

Buggy wrote:

From reading some of the forum posts I understand that Jason wants towns to be walled.
I just don't understand why.
In history yes people built walls there are castles and forts and even cities that had walls. However I don't know of any modern cities that are walled where I live (Canada). The only walled places are military bases and prisons not really places I would want to live. What time period are we supposed to be in that we need walls to keep out barbarians but we can use an airplane to fly across the map.
Is each family line supposed to represent a different country in Jasons vision?
I mean the American border is kind of a boundary, this has security at the bridges but the boundary is mostly just lakes that anyone could boat over. It is not a hard wall that people can't cross. Just a boundary that was decided a long time ago (The war of 1912) since then it has remained mostly wall free.
Cities and towns located in the middle of a country simply don't need walls, they are a huge expense and they would just make travel more difficult.
As for the game right now, yes walls can keep feral eves out but they also make resource collection slower, maybe just fence the forges if you are worried about someone stealing your iron and leave the gate open. Oh and make nearby springs into wells!

I always felt planes and cars shouldn't exist ...yet. I really am not sure what Jason had in mind when those were introduced but if I was player then you can bet my ass I would have something to say about that.

Anyway, walls are not needed anymore simply because they SUCK for security now. War paradigms have shifted towards a doctrine that focusses on mobility. Walls were useful because they kept out foot soldiers.

These days, we have bombs, mortars, air strikes, artillery. Walling yourself in is best way to give your enemies an easy target to kill everyone very very quickly.

This is, since artillery, howitzers have advanced tremendously, walls and fortifications become useless, hence why no walls now

Spoonwood · 2019-05-19 04:23:35

Fly away to a tutorial area and walls I don't think needed unless another family settles there or Eves break out of tutorial zones (which takes some time... not sure griefers want to make a hammer, axe, and shovel before trolling people).

City walls as needed? Probably not.

Dodge · 2019-05-19 06:07:37

There are no walls in modern society?

Try living in another country without the proper paperwork, you will get kicked out fast.

There are maybe no literal walls but there is definitly a limit between each country.

Maybe at some point in OHOL we will have borders, laws, prison etc. But right now if you want to protect something you better put it behind some fence or wall.

Buggy · 2019-05-19 06:14:04

Dodge wrote:

There are no walls in modern society?
Try living in another country without the proper paperwork, you will get kicked out fast.
There are maybe no literal walls but there is definitly a limit between each country.
Maybe at some point in OHOL we will have borders, laws, prison etc. But right now if you want to protect something you better put it behind some fence or wall.

Jason wants literal walls around advanced cities though not borders. And this is part of the confusion is each family town supposed to represent an entire country? All we have in our towns is one or two families and one kitchen. Each town is more like a large house than a country.

DestinyCall · 2019-05-19 06:35:10

I don't see the point of walls. Or buildings, for that matter. They just get in the way of gathering and working. I don't like walled towns. It just feels like I'm living in a cage.

Dodge · 2019-05-19 06:49:02

Buggy wrote:

Dodge wrote:
There are no walls in modern society?
Try living in another country without the proper paperwork, you will get kicked out fast.
There are maybe no literal walls but there is definitly a limit between each country.
Maybe at some point in OHOL we will have borders, laws, prison etc. But right now if you want to protect something you better put it behind some fence or wall.
Jason wants literal walls around advanced cities though not borders. And this is part of the confusion is each family town supposed to represent an entire country? All we have in our towns is one or two families and one kitchen. Each town is more like a large house than a country.

Only because we couldnt enforce borders right now because we dont have prison, police etc.

Right now a town is a town and villages are much closer than before, so you can adapt however you want to this new situation.

Also why do we still stay in a tribal/everything is shared kind of setting?, why are we not building individual family houses and branching out?

Im sure it's the kind of question Jason is asking himself.

Maybe it's just because of the old habits and we will see family houses emerge (oven, forge, small farm and pen outside).

I think it's partly due to lack of specialization, you cant have a "baker family" that trades with the "tailor family" that trades with the "farmer family" right now it wouldnt make sense since everyone can do as much as the next person as long as they know how to do it (crafting recipe).

Buggy · 2019-05-19 14:51:30

I think in order for a towns to always need walls there has to be a constant outside threat to balance the effort of making guarding and maintaining the walls. To me this feral eves just isn't enough of a threat to counter the downsides of town wall building.
Also the threat has to be dumb like an AI animal that attacks (for example we fence mosquitos it is worth the effort). If the threat is other people they will always find ways around the walls, and if to counter that Jason makes wall impossible to breach people will get bored of attacking towns and stop which makes the walls useless again.

Amon · 2019-05-19 15:51:38

Being indoors should be better than ideal temperature just simply by being a room, clothed or not. Perhaps there should be more 'inteligent' creatures that get attracted to villages that persisted for a long time. and those could bring hazards overtime, but those creatures cannot go into places which are considered 'houses/walled off with propepr flooring'
The wild animals should ignore property fences because animals don't care for trasspassing!

Again we keep getting to this... better storage. Better storage combats clutter, allowing for smaller buildings to be more space efficient for the protective bonuses they give.

Last edited by Amon (2019-05-19 15:53:14)

Astelon · 2019-05-19 16:24:33

Dodge wrote:

Also why do we still stay in a tribal/everything is shared kind of setting?, why are we not building individual family houses and branching out?

Because there are too few people in villages. You can hardly even call them villages, because even these in real life have in average hundreds of people. They also often don't last long enough for one group of people to consider themselves different from the others, which are in fact still their relatives. And when they do last long enough for that and you get several private properties, they usually die out soon after.

Basically, it's more efficient to share everything for the current size of settlements.

Draicclan · 2019-05-19 16:26:43

What if it was implemented that being indoors reduces food consumption rates by a good chunk? Walls suddenly have a lot more purpose for late game towns and would work well together with the yum chain system. I wonder if this would shift the meta a bit or not.

Tarr · 2019-05-19 16:33:55

Dodge wrote:

Also why do we still stay in a tribal/everything is shared kind of setting?, why are we not building individual family houses and branching out?
Im sure it's the kind of question Jason is asking himself.
Maybe it's just because of the old habits and we will see family houses emerge (oven, forge, small farm and pen outside).
I think it's partly due to lack of specialization, you cant have a "baker family" that trades with the "tailor family" that trades with the "farmer family" right now it wouldnt make sense since everyone can do as much as the next person as long as they know how to do it (crafting recipe).

I believe it's because people don't want to play in small family units and would rather play in a town than with one or two other people. When I had a fully self sustainable homestead I think I had people stay with me for an hour put of the four I played in the place. We had sheep, water, our own personal forge, a heated bakery, we had anything and everything except one thing. Players. They would just leave and rejoin the dying town to the north where no one really did any work.

Personal houses are a pipe dream at the moment because they serve absolutely no use in the current state and haven't really ever served a use besides taking up space.

I don't think forcing specialization would cause people to work together because at the end of the day someone who doesn't want to bake isn't going to do it. Even if you have a specialized recipe doesn't mean you'll use it if you want to go build instead of catch rabbits like you get an advantage to.

Dodge · 2019-05-19 18:03:48

Tarr wrote:

Dodge wrote:
Also why do we still stay in a tribal/everything is shared kind of setting?, why are we not building individual family houses and branching out?
Im sure it's the kind of question Jason is asking himself.
Maybe it's just because of the old habits and we will see family houses emerge (oven, forge, small farm and pen outside).
I think it's partly due to lack of specialization, you cant have a "baker family" that trades with the "tailor family" that trades with the "farmer family" right now it wouldnt make sense since everyone can do as much as the next person as long as they know how to do it (crafting recipe).
I believe it's because people don't want to play in small family units and would rather play in a town than with one or two other people. When I had a fully self sustainable homestead I think I had people stay with me for an hour put of the four I played in the place. We had sheep, water, our own personal forge, a heated bakery, we had anything and everything except one thing. Players. They would just leave and rejoin the dying town to the north where no one really did any work.
Personal houses are a pipe dream at the moment because they serve absolutely no use in the current state and haven't really ever served a use besides taking up space.
I don't think forcing specialization would cause people to work together because at the end of the day someone who doesn't want to bake isn't going to do it. Even if you have a specialized recipe doesn't mean you'll use it if you want to go build instead of catch rabbits like you get an advantage to.

I was picturing more going back and forth from family house to big village not necessarly staying the full hour in a low pop setting, like you would have your family house with an oven, forge, and small farm and pen just the basics and go to town to do other stuff and maybe trade ressources from your specialty in the big city or other small families.

They serve the use of having private property (not getting your stuff taken all the time) also a spread out lineage is less likely to die due to murders and even eventual food shortage.

It's true you cant force someone who wants to make clothes to be baker for example, but you would still gain skill doing tailoring stuff even if you are better at baking so it wouldnt be lost.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-05-19 03:37:25

Why do towns need walls?

#2 2019-05-19 03:55:12

Re: Why do towns need walls?

#3 2019-05-19 03:59:08

Re: Why do towns need walls?

#4 2019-05-19 04:23:35

Re: Why do towns need walls?

#5 2019-05-19 06:07:37

Re: Why do towns need walls?

#6 2019-05-19 06:14:04

Re: Why do towns need walls?

#7 2019-05-19 06:35:10

Re: Why do towns need walls?

#8 2019-05-19 06:49:02

Re: Why do towns need walls?

#9 2019-05-19 14:51:30

Re: Why do towns need walls?

#10 2019-05-19 15:51:38

Re: Why do towns need walls?

#11 2019-05-19 16:24:33

Re: Why do towns need walls?

#12 2019-05-19 16:26:43

Re: Why do towns need walls?

#13 2019-05-19 16:33:55

Re: Why do towns need walls?

#14 2019-05-19 18:03:48

Re: Why do towns need walls?

Board footer