Salem

Hi everyone,
A big noob here, I settled in a random location, very noobish small encampent of a leanto and a few logs around a campfire. I noticed there are at least a couple of relatively small walled settlements within a short walk of my leanto... I also noticed that I quite never meet the owners in game so we must be playing on different time zones (I'm in Europe, GMT+2, Italy).

Thing is I really like to play team from time to time. Also to role play a bit, even if it just means sticking to the rules of some bigger settler around me, but how do I contact my neighbors if I don't actually meet them on the map? Is there any way to leave a message hanging somewhere (apart from the forum, to which I'll resort to if needed).


Just to clarify, I won't give away my location here, nor I will give any more clues about my bigger neighbors, even if I'm new I read enough posts to guess that Salem is essentially a game about who NOT to trust.

Short answer, your options are...

wait an alt outside their walls and log him in occasionally to check on them

Or, left click on their claim stone and click "memorize owner" then change the name to something you'll remember, then go to Boston and wait till they come to town

OR.. If you have the skills you can leave them a sign and hope they have the skills to read it

Also the fact that you figured out not to trust people with a post count of 1 shows that your more observant than 90% of players, I get the feeling you'll like this game, welcome aboard

Use boulders to make an arrow near their base pointing towards yours, and a picture out of rocks next to the arrow. If you want to bribe them into liking you, add a basket of inspirationals or something.

That's if you don't have a spare nail to make a sign. Almost everyone has literacy, so don't worry they won't be able to read it.

You can also pave to spell out words in the ground that way. It's relatively cheap if you have space and no nails.

Thanks Icon, I'm really looking forward to it.

Thanks also Mereni for the useful tips... I dont' really want to leave a lot of litter around someone else base but maybe I'll do a "gift + arrow" sign to introduce myself.

I'm quite confident I have pretty decent neighbors cause given the short distance they could have made me miserable a good while ago if they wanted... but cross fingers for me anyway

keys

You can name them however you like. Just build a wicker basket in front of their gates and dump some keys with your message in them (e.g. with your forum name).
Of course this will require you to have locksmithing...

Mereni wrote:Use boulders to make an arrow near their base pointing towards yours, and a picture out of rocks next to the arrow. If you want to bribe them into liking you, add a basket of inspirationals or something.

That's if you don't have a spare nail to make a sign. Almost everyone has literacy, so don't worry they won't be able to read it.

You can also pave to spell out words in the ground that way. It's relatively cheap if you have space and no nails.

what better way to say 'free loot this way'?

do not make an arrow pointing to your base. any raider that happens to notice your neighbour is then 100% sure to notice you, and with multiple potential targets in one area those crappy noob bases seem a little more attractive.

Tamasin wrote:

Mereni wrote:Use boulders to make an arrow near their base pointing towards yours, and a picture out of rocks next to the arrow. If you want to bribe them into liking you, add a basket of inspirationals or something.

That's if you don't have a spare nail to make a sign. Almost everyone has literacy, so don't worry they won't be able to read it.

You can also pave to spell out words in the ground that way. It's relatively cheap if you have space and no nails.

what better way to say 'free loot this way'?

do not make an arrow pointing to your base. any raider that happens to notice your neighbour is then 100% sure to notice you, and with multiple potential targets in one area those crappy noob bases seem a little more attractive.

Don't be silly. If they're as close as he says, a raider would notice all the bases anyway. The area around the target is always scouted for outliers and such. There is such a thing as being Too paranoid when it comes to raiders. Much better for him to start a dialog with his neighbors, if he can, as they already know where he lives and are therefore the greatest danger here.

Mereni wrote:
Don't be silly. If they're as close as he says, a raider would notice all the bases anyway. The area around the target is always scouted for outliers and such. There is such a thing as being Too paranoid when it comes to raiders. Much better for him to start a dialog with his neighbors, if he can, as they already know where he lives and are therefore the greatest danger here.

i suppose if they're that close. its still a terrible idea. if i see an arrow pointing to it i'm probably going to want to raid it. if someone made an arrow near my own base i would be annoyed with them and probably kill them. meanwhile others have made good suggestions that don't involve these negative effects.

Tamasin wrote:if i see an arrow pointing to it i'm probably going to want to raid it. if someone made an arrow near my own base i would be annoyed with them and probably kill them.

I guess it's a good thing he doesn't live next to you then. :/ I don't think that's a common reaction. If I was going to raid someone, I would do it. If I wasn't, an honest attempt at communication wouldn't cause me to fly into a fit of unreasoning rage and kill them all.

I'm not saying the boulders is the best idea, but it is the cheapest and easiest. The best idea is probably a basket of keys, thanks for reminding me of that, Kandarim. I'd forgotten about it, but we had mailboxes with chests and keys and 'new mail' boulders before the reset. They were great for in-game contacts you can't just phone or something.

Mereni wrote:
I guess it's a good thing he doesn't live next to you then. :/

hey, we don't know that yet. i will be on the lookout for arrows near any of my places over the next day or so, just in case