Concerned About Graves

I'm finding the permanent nature of graves quite problematic. I understand making the skeletons not decay in order to give us a strong incentive to build a graveyard, but I feel like grave stones should slowly decay or something. In a long game, those graveyards eventually occupy huge swathes of land and currently it's gone for good.

 

No grave concerns for me.

 

Well, I'm talking about long games. If graves last forever, and you play long enough, then no matter how big the map is, eventually it will become an issue.

So, I wouldn't say it's a complaint about taking up too much space. It's more about the permanence.

 

Actually, I would like to mention that I was surprised the first time at how few bodies are processed in a graveyard for the space allocated.

 

One idea might be that you could build an Incinerator workshop, which would allow you to dig up graves and burn them, but having grave stones slowly decay would be a lot simpler.

 

Well, that's sort of how real-life graveyards work, too - graveyards are intended to be more or less permanent - or permanent and fabulous, like the gigantic pyramids, and the tomb of King Mausolos and so on. I haven't found graveyards to impinge on my space in my play sessions, but I understand that they represent land that can no longer be used for any other purpose, forever. I wouldn't personally consider them problematic in their present state.

 

Clearly you have never watched Poltergeist.

 

Then we'd have an abundance of urns.

 

My problem is, is that there's no way to really incorporate them into society. They just exist. I love the idea of graveyards as a concept but people who are buried remain on the colonist list, their character isn't reflected on their gravestone, unless you have a name hovering above the grave, you can't tell who the colonist is by their grave. The Graveyard itself looks kinda ugly, and i've never seen a romantic person cry over them.
If people actually used the graveyard to mourn, or seek isolation, or practice un/holy stuff that'd be cool. Like if a Vicar wandered by and consecrated it occasionally, or a cultist tried to raise the dead or something (which granted doesn't fit in with fishy or obeliskian cults but idk).

At the moment with graveyards you scroll far, far away from the village and designate a huge, huge graveyard and you never have to think about it ever again.

 

Well, I could see maybe a structure you could build that serves as an entrance to an infinite catacombs. So, you build it, and it will hold an infinite number of bodies.

I definitely do consider the current graveyard system a problem waiting to happen, which is why I wanted to bring it up now. As the game gets more stable, and game play longer, it will become more of an issue. Plus, having a graveyard that becomes bigger than the town is just silly.

Also, in real life, they can and do reuse graves. They wait a couple of generations and then they remove the marker and bury someone else there. The grave is for the living, not for the departed, as they say.

 

I'm fine with them as they are, though I do like the idea of catacombs of some sort eventually. Or some other proper form of burial building.
It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to think that Aristocrats wouldn't want to be buried alongside the common rabble. They'd want thier own private tombs inlaid with brass and gold and cogs everywhere.

Of course.. that would be inviting all sorts of other trouble later on.

At the moment, I feel thankful that the dead colonists stay dead.

 

I thought I would get more support on this. I get to 25 graves and I already feel like it's a major PITA. I tried burying bandits once and I was like, "Never again!" I don't even have many people. Some people have said they have towns of 60-80 people. What do you do with all the dead bodies? Just lining the entire edge of the map is so lame.

I suspect people will find more problems with it as game development progresses, as the games will get much, much longer and there will be more fighting.

 

I've just never had 'that many' people die to where space becomes an issue.
Even in my largest massacre I posted about here https://community.gaslampgames.com/threads/revision-41-sir-wheres-my-colony-now-available.15940/ (my post is on the first page, towards the bottom) that plot I made there could fit another 10-15 people easily, and it didn't seem like it took up much space.

Does your colony sprawl out across the map? Do you make gigantic buildings?

I'm not doubting that you're having issues, but I just can't wrap my head around how you manage to run out of room for dead people :O

Can you upload a save?

 

I can see what he's saying... especially if you try to bury foreigners and bandits. Graveyards are just kind of giant stockpiles for bodies and you just keep adding more.

What I'd like to see is graveyards like in the promo movies!

If they could be customizable like buildings with modules that would be great! Or plopped and built to order instead of a zone.
If you grew attached to the guy who kept finding those overlooked bonus supplies and he gets eaten by deathwurms... Give him an obelisk! Maybe it costs stone. Bandits I would just choose the wood markers...

Yeah personally I would take and enjoy the time to make this:



Ooo hey maybe the carpenter has to make coffins first... They're usually idle in my colonies anyway.
And aristocrats use gold bars..........!

 

I tend to keep my population small and build small and efficient buildings. Each colonist that dies makes me cringe, not so much because I lost someone, but because it's another permanent grave. I'd rather be anguishing for the former rather than the latter.

I guess the disconnect is that you're thinking in terms of literally not having enough space to continue playing at that moment, while I'm predicting what will happen if I keep playing a game on and on. I also just think having a gigantic graveyard looks dumb. Maybe the Devs just don't expect people to play a single colony all that long.

 

Yeah Blyn, that pic is a stark difference! Unfortunately I have to note that graveyard only holds 11 graves.

I was thinking like the landfill in city simulation games, but stockpile works too. That's what the graveyard feels like right now. At least in those games the trash will very slowly decompose.

 

As I recall, making coffins at the Carpentry Workshop used to be a thing colonists could actually do in an older Revision.

 

I don't personally find graves all that problematic, but surely a mortuary with an infinitely large interior is no more satisfying that a world covered in graves (incidentally, free biome idea for you). I feel like the answer, if there needs to be one lies on the more fantastic side of the scale, e.g fishmen taking bodies or a wizard did it. RA2 had a building called the grinder that would destory units in exchange for cash ect.

 

I think that body accumulation could be a genuinely cool problem that the bureaucrat has to solve. Put them in graveyards? Dig a mass grave (infinite capacity but everybody, everybody will hate it) allow the fishpeople to take them in return for goods? If you do the latter, you'll recieve goods, get rid of bodies, but some people might find out and get angry; or the fish people might be upset if you're lacking things to trade when they come around next!

Maybe an upper class colonist is absolutely terrified of being buried alive and demands to have a pulley system built into his coffin, costing brass cogs and planks, to alert peopl eif he's still alive!

Maybe that bell actually rings and he's dug out alive and well. Hooray! Foodmunch von Whinesalot is with us still.

Thank. Cogggggg.

Disclaimer: I'm not a goth or a necrophile but i'm seriously into graveyards and stuff because sometimes I like to sit around in them irl because they're always grassy, well looked after and pretty.