Thoughts on switching from hermit to Lawspeaker...

[Ogrim]

Here's the history: I've been playing for a bit. Mostly as a hermit with a few attempts to work at the village life with Alts (Emerald City and Death Messenger's villages). I helped a young group of hearthlings build a village (G9) and then rebuild another village (Triforce) when that one got destroyed. I've traveled all over the map, killed bears, survived griefers and raiders and made some friends.

Now I've got my hermitage built up to the point where maintaining it solo is getting tricky. I'm almost done with a brick wall, have breeding pairs of all the animals, good q crops, a mine that opens to a HUGE cave complex and a second level on that mine that hit several different types of ores. I'm near several good q swamps for foraging, have a low q clay node (q25), and basically import all the high q water, clay and soil I use.

Here's my question: Since I'm not used to sharing (I'm a generous giver but don't like being forced to share, mostly because people are loafs and mooches) what kind of structure could I set up for allowing folks to benefit from the safety of my land and the quality of my stuff without them walking all over my work and ruining it without any benefit on my part?

At the moment I'm considering building the village idol (still haven't made one on my land yet to keep things low key) underground and limiting folks from even accessing the surface where my animals and crops are. Maybe just allowing one villager to access this area if they had responsibilities for tending it.

Thoughts? What has worked for you?

[Eemerald]

be very very careful when recruiting people

When you pick good decent people, you omit the issues u get from those who take, and dont give back.

good luck:)

[Ogrim]

If I am picky about who I include, I still don't want to just open up my doors and have a little hippie commune. I'm fine providing food, curios, tools and raw materials but I want there to be some measure of fair trade for whatever it is they are spending their time on.

For example, should someone want to be a miner. I'd give them access to the mine areas and provide food & curios for a set amount of metal bars or finished metal goods.

If someone wanted to be a cook, I'd give them open access to the crop storage and curios in exchange for keeping everyone's food cabinets stocked.

In all areas, I would be interested in working with each villager to improve the quality of the items they were focused on. Investing in a high q kiln, herbalist tables or ore smelter is well worth my effort if I have the villager cranking out some extra so we can trade for the highest q items possible.

Figuring out the system of trade for access to the food/curios is what I'm still wrestling with.

[Infraynor]

Every full chest of produce they finish, is a chest full off curios/food for them?

[Ogrim]

Every full chest of produce they finish, is a chest full off curios/food for them?

This is not what I was looking for. It has about as much thought behind it as if a 5 y/o considered the issue.

I'm asking for actual lawspeakers and veterans for what they do. Emerald's answer was an example of the experience I'm looking to tap into.

[Poly1212]

Hiya.

I've been LS off and on since W3.

First: Assuming a communal style arrangement with some to all stuff shared....
Blindly inviting ANYONE from the forums to an existing village almost always causes problems. Some turn into takers, some draw unwanted attention by crimes, and others just become slackers, and a few help out and do stuff then think they're king shit cause they donated a deer to the village. A rare few become good friends and allies.

Second: (most successful style IMO) the village of hermits.
This is a large area blocked out into multiple lots for individual peeps. People do their own thing and can mostly be assured of security of them character and property. But I'm guessing this is not the case if your upgrading from a hermit to a village.

If you are seriously interested in finding someone to join you i suggest walling off your village Idal / build it outside your existing wall and recruiting someone to help you secure a new area next to or near you that will be theirs when finished and then sharing your crops and a few off spring from your animals. Then instead off sharing the work of one village.. you specialize into areas of expertize(one person makes silk , the other makes cheese).

[ArtemisGray]

Be picky when accepting new applicants into your village, but don't be too picky to the point where you turn down the vast majority of people. (and this games player base isn't exactly huge as we're all well aware.)

My issue as a LS last world and a chieftain this, is both times, we got far too picky as to whom we allowed to join, only accepting a small handful over the course of months from a pretty decent amount of applicants. Over time they disappeared, and it generally came down to just myself and the chief or LS. The large amount of applicants who could have maybe been good enough villagers have been turned down, and likely joined other villages or gone down their own path. And thus, we had trouble finding replacements.

I think that sort of thing just cuts down the amount of people you can potentially have in the future if whatever small amount of people you have leave at some point in time and you need to recruit again. You can get lucky and find people who play consistently for hours at a time, but let's face it,for others there is that chance of them dropping the game out of the blue leaving you with tasks undone and a role not filled.

And there is obviously a variety of methods you can use to secure your village, so you can have the option of allowing a few people in you might not have if you didn't have this or that in place to keep your goods secure.

Walled plots, etc. Maybe that isn't your cup of tea however.

But I'm talking out my ass now and haven't answered any relevant question, this is simply one issue that has arisen for me personally that limited the progress, and increased the amount of labor in my villages.

But of course, if you feel the need to accept very few out of many for the sake of gaining friendly, quality villagers that's fair enough. Take my small piece of advice with a grain of salt.

[Ogrim]

My concern with a village of hermits is that this would have to be on the surface. I'd like to keep my footprint on the surface minimal and make the village somewhere deep in my mine. That does not lend itself well to the 'hermit village' idea, but I'll keep that in mind.

I might just go back to the idea of starting a trade village for hermits in my mine. Won't help me with my daily routine but will open up trade for folks.

On the topic of trade, not everyone values pearls. I understand why they are the currency but I'd appreciate the barter system personally a bit more. If I'm going to blow my time putting together a LC of high q pumpkin pies, I'd appreciate it if I got something useful in return. The most useful thing I'd like to trade for is labor, which brings me back to my initial problem. A pearl just sits around until I need to buy something expensive.

[Ignus]

Hello, Glorious Leader here. Being in charge of a community requires three things:

1. Charisma.
2. Delegation
3. Everything else (but if you have the first two everything else falls into place.)

The most important quality is charisma. Charisma is the thing that makes people want to have you in charge. Charisma lets you make the hard decisions and get forgiven for it. If no one likes and/or respects you, you cannot lead.

Delegation is essential. There's nothing more common than the one man show and nothing more fragile. This is the first big battle many leaders face; you have to stop being a control freak long enough to trust people to do their jobs. If you delegate, people will feel more a part of what you are trying to build. If you want to create a family or group of friends, you have the leisure of controlling as much as you like but if you want anything larger then delegation is non-negotiable. Struggle against your ego.

Everything else is just details and will work itself out as you find your feet.

[Istaan]

Hello, Glorious Leader here. Being in charge of a community requires three things:

1. Charisma.
2. Delegation
3. Everything else (but if you have the first two everything else falls into place.)

The most important quality is charisma. Charisma is the thing that makes people want to have you in charge. Charisma lets you make the hard decisions and get forgiven for it. If no one likes and/or respects you, you cannot lead.

Delegation is essential. There's nothing more common than the one man show and nothing more fragile. This is the first big battle many leaders face; you have to stop being a control freak long enough to trust people to do their jobs. If you delegate, people will feel more a part of what you are trying to build. If you want to create a family or group of friends, you have the leisure of controlling as much as you like but if you want anything larger then delegation is non-negotiable. Struggle against your ego.

Everything else is just details and will work itself out as you find your feet.

As cocky as he sounds, he's pretty much right. More or less, this is also how to lead teams in real life. The main difference (and important one) is being able to trust someone on an online game.