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Re: Few questions about trapping and a couple of misc questions You don't need to worry about open areas if you do it "slash-and-burn" style. Just lay your branches piles in the field shape you want and ignore the tree squares. Light a bunch of the piles and you'll burn down the trees. If you're concerned about spreading fire outsides the field just cut down a couple trees to make a one-square fire break all around the field you want.

oooooooooooo
oTBBTBBBTTBo
oBBBTBTBTBTo
oooooooooooo

o = open
T = tree
B = branches pile

I tend to use 5 branches, but it likely doesn't matter. More probably makes the fire spread easier, but this always works for me. I then move around the branches pile lighting them on fire... by the time I've done a handful of fires it's usually spread to almost everywhere I need. It's a "waste" of trees.. but it's not like any one of us will cut down *ALL* the trees. And it feels more legit.

October 01, 2017, 10:34:57 PM
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Re: Few questions about trapping and a couple of misc questions
Following on from my marsh screw-up....I made such a big mistake. I just made a MASSIVE trap fence, going around 7-8 overworld tiles to fence off the entire peninsula I'm in. Then, excitedly I come to build the pits and....NOPE.

If it wasn't so funny I'd be devestated.


Oh that's so painful. Well at least you have a giant protective fence. If there are any areas you can add pit traps, it's still useful because it will funnel things into them. If any parts of the fence are near diggable terrain, add some pits a few squares from the fence as well, and add a mini perpendicular fence.

F
F
Ffffffffffffffffffff
F              T
F


F = Fence
f = perpendicular fence
T = Trap

Animals of all ilk tend to travel along the fence for stretches so this can still work.

I, too, love building ridiculously big fences, though I often have more success with smaller fence/pit setups placed in more places. If you notice a couple reindeer herd in an area, you can build a small setup (maybe 12 fences, 3 pits) in the area, and actively try to herd them into it. I've had a lot of success with those. More often than not, I can come back in a month and find a random elk in them too.

October 02, 2017, 01:22:12 AM
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Re: Don't Go to Stumpmire Skipped ahead to hear the voice. Definitely figured it was meant to be in that New England Old-Timer - Newfoundlander - West Country - Pirate continuum somewhere. I'll definitely give the whole thing a listen when I get a chance.
October 02, 2017, 01:35:57 AM
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Re: Poems of the Fallen That is awesome. You've inspired me.

Killing livestock, I'm in too deep,
While unconscious, kicked by a sheep.

October 02, 2017, 01:38:19 AM
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Re: Disease, pests, and the joy of cats I think there is merit to the dynamics you discuss. Actual rats would be more fun though... and would attract snakes! I enjoy the idea of leaving the cabin in the morning and seeing dead grouse, ermines, and rats all piled up, and the cat looking pleased with itself.

I don't think you're way off, historically. I have no idea when brown rats made it to Finland, but if there was agriculture then chances are there were rats. Certainly southern Finland was deeply entangled in the Baltic trade system and would have had similar cats to the Scandinavians, as well as some feral landraces. With close connections to Russia and the Middle East, a lot of different cat dna could have been present. However, I doubt cats, nor rats, were that common in the north of our area of interest.

I think as farming and agriculture and what not expands, this could be a very cool idea. Especially domestic animals having offspring. Rather than being exotic and rare, I would expect every village that does any farming to have a cat or two, and would be willing to trade off kittens. Rather than being super expensive, they should require to be fed when they haven't caught something. And would be annoying to keep contained, so they would frequently run off and be eaten by wolves... or come back pregnant.

October 02, 2017, 11:24:45 PM
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Re: Wild Animals in Villages To add to the insanity of this current cursed village. I was chasing a Njerpez around the island for a bit... not really attacking, just watching him run for kicks. He got a bunch of distance so I went somewhere else. I wandered back to the village, and when I zoomed in, low and behold! The njerpez was asleep in their main cabin. He woke up when I arrived and tried to run away... the villagers never cared. I unleashed my hounds and killed him in the village. No one lifted a hand to help me.

So, Atwood... I think you are right. Unless something is actively hostile, villagers just don't care. It makes me wonder what set off all the other Njerps who had wandered in... maybe they saw old men and thought it would be an easy kill or something.

October 03, 2017, 05:47:40 AM
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Re: Blocking Weapons and Assorted Combat Discussion I definitely suck at combat, so I would love to see some of the answers here. I've watched videos of people playing when they take on Njerpez villages, and do all these different patterns of attack.. making me wonder if there's something I'm missing.

I will add one bit of pseudo-knowledge (empirical?). I've found that head attacks succeed really well when the NPC is otherwise engaged. Even if he knows I am there, if it's my first attack (and I have friends), I'll go for the head, and often will land a death blow, or at least something that knocks them out immediately. I like to hunt Njerps with dogs, so usually the dogs get there first and get the Njerps attention, then when I arrive, it's often only one good blow to the head necessary. As soon as the NPC engages me, I retreat to body attacks because I usually can't land anything else.

October 04, 2017, 03:03:29 AM
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Re: Disease, pests, and the joy of cats
I think there was another kind of rat (black?) in the area before the brown rat invaded and took over that niche. Regardless, there are smaller rodents (mice, voles, etc.) that can make cause serious damage to your food stores even if rats are not introduced.

I agree cats probably have no role in the northern tribes as those don't have any agriculture (although that doesn't stop those villages from having farmers...).

I'm not sure I agree with the thought that cats would have a role in fighting disease, but they certainly ought to have one in fighting vermin munching through your food stores.

As a trade off, a cat at your homestead might mean small traps near it are less likely to catch anything, as the cat(s) scare them away (and the blood thirsty critters may also kill or mutilate creatures that actually are trapped).

Yea the disease thing is a good point. Does the game have the plague yet? We could go one step further and introduce fleas hah.

I really like the idea of pests eating stores in general. It would be a check against the increasingly huge pile of food we keep in our cellars.

As for a game dynamic... vermin could be represented as more of a swarm, "It's several mice", though that might not model into the game well. If rats are applicable though, I think they could be represented singularly, like ermines and their ilk, and could stand in for all vermin activity. And certain kinds of terrain, including building walls, could be places they disappear into, similar to seals and beavers going under water. It'd certainly make a cat more necessary.

October 04, 2017, 03:38:55 AM
1
Re: Blocking Weapons and Assorted Combat Discussion
(presuming one lives)

This is the important part for me, I make no qualms about essentially playing this game wrong, but that's the best part about it! I pretty much just pick fights with anyone Spiritually safe to do so with, pile up the loot and farm animals, trade for food til I have the basic smokehouse and trap fence, and see how long I can go before I drown or something else stupid (of me). I pretty much don't die in fights anymore, I used to easily and early with better set up characters, so it's worth practicing. My one save scummed character was a really great way to experiment, kept testing the same situation for better and better outcomes until I could handle it safely anytime it comes up.

Meh, wrong is in the eye of the beholder. It's a high risk/high reward start and that's cool in its own right.

Sometimes when I am making a character, I will mess something up in the build, or decide against some choice I made. But because I can't go all the way back, I'll play the character with the escaped slave start just to practice. I once made a character where something went wrong (don't remember what), so I annoyedly put skills in random things, and started.

For some reason, luck was on my side that day, and I managed to get the whole Njerpez village fighting each other. They all killed each other one by one while I hid. I grabbed a scimitar, came out of hiding and killed the last one who was pretty hobbled. Suddenly I had hundreds of squirrel hides worth of goods, and a village to myself. The character was so random, that it felt weird playing it, so I just saved and left it there, with the plan of coming back one day. It was one version back so I probably never will. Still... the violent starts can be ridiculously wealthy, if you don't die.

October 05, 2017, 11:10:49 PM
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Re: Anachronistic swords I definitely like the idea of bringing weapons more in alignment with the historical period and place.

In university I specialized in early medieval military history (my thesis was on the "supply side" of the Carolingian slave trade, but I mostly was interested in the Eurasian steppe, making Finland somewhat peripheral). Certainly, sword use was no where near as important as historical dramas (and sagas) would have us belief, but held value as status items. That being said, I think swords as long as the bastard swords would not be completely out of place in Finland, but would be incredibly rare and costly (this is a bit late, but interesting: http://www.medievalists.net/2013/11/grave-of-12th-century-warrior-discovered-in-finland/). The battlesword is probably ridiculous.

Nowadays I look more at early North American history, but the story is always the same everywhere. Spears, spears and more spears. Not only would I like to see more spear types, but I think combat would be improved a lot if spears did things differently.

For example, an Ango ran through a shield should make that shield largely useless, but the ango itself would also be dropped by the user.  More variety in javelins as well, from hunting javelins, javelins designed for disarming shields (like the Frankish Angon, which is more in keeping with the traditional ango), longer range javelins meant to unnerve opponents, and short heavy javelins (darts) for bird hunting.

I don't know much about glaives, but generally long, heavy polearms were used in groups and designed to disarm and disrupt the enemy. It could fit, but like I say, I don't know much about it.

A lot of the difficulty is that in this period you had three major physical cultures happening. The coast had a lot of influence from Scandinavian designs and ideas (hence the viking burials and coin hordes), the north tended to avoid fighting if possible and focused on hunting tools, and the interior had a blend of the two. There's a saga where a Viking leader goes into the interior of Finland and is harassed by the locals (using bows primarily) until it got too annoying and left. At the same time there are artifacts from the interior that blend Scandinavian and local designs.I will say "physical" culture though, because there is lots of evidence that Finns joined and possibly led a lot of the Rus activity. So even things that seem too fancy, such as nice swords, crossbows, etc. are still likely to have been present (though rare) in what we call "Driik", "Reemi", etc.

A "weapon" I'd love to see, especially once there are horses, is the lasso. That, and nets, were the common armaments of slave raiders... the Njerps. Something about being run down and lassoed by a Njerp seems horrifying.

October 07, 2017, 01:13:58 AM
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anything