Hunting mechanics

[Vokarya]

I'm almost done with new stuff. The whole reason to introduce the mechanic was to strengthen the Storytelling tech, and with this addition, every tech is now fully supported with 2 full tricks' worth of content. The techs that couldn't meet the 2-trick threshold got cut. In fact, most of what I've been doing over the last few months has been either getting every single tech up to the threshold or just organizing existing stuff so that it flows together.

There are now definitely places where we don't need anything new; I'd have a hard time with adding any new units or religions. New buildings would almost certainly need to intersect with existing buildings to be worthwhile; I'm planning to do a hunt for "orphan" buildings and see what we can do with some of those. I'm not in favor of new civic categories, but I think there's still some room for civic choices. Anything beyond XML-adjustments are way past my skill level.

 

[Vokarya]

Vokarya, if i settle a captured elephant in a city, a cow resource appears instead of the elephant one. Can you take a look?

It's a copy-paste mistake on my part. I have some other unit adjustments I want to do; I'll probably upload all the unit changes by the end of tomorrow.

Also, can you actually settle a captured animal in a city? You shouldn't be able to do that. You should be able to settle your animals in tiles within your borders that are appropriate for the animal resource, but not in a city.

 

[RyoHazuki]

Sorry, i meant in the tiles surrounding a city.

 

[gay_Aleks]

How do you put resources and which animals can put resources?

 

[Vokarya]

How do you put resources and which animals can put resources?

If you have Animal Husbandry, then a captured animal can do a mission that spawns one tile of the matching resource and uses up the animal. Only the prey animals can spawn resources, and each animal only spawns its own type of resource (Elephant is currently bugged, but I'll fix it today). I used the pasture button for the mission, and it shows up in the middle of the buttons, so you may have to hunt to find it.

The game also does check that the resource is legal to plant on the target tile; for example, no animal can be planted on a bare Desert. Furthermore, you can't plant an animal adjacent to another tile of the same type.

 

[<Nexus>]

I remember in C2C there is a promotion (Hunting?) that increased the chance of capturing animals. Perhaps we could have it too?

 

[Vokarya]

I remember in C2C there is a promotion (Hunting?) that increased the chance of capturing animals. Perhaps we could have it too?

Guerrilla and Woodsman increase the chance to capture. The bonus is nominally 10% per level of Woodsman and 5% per level of Guerrilla, but there's some kind of diminishing factor that I don't know how to adjust. A unit with Woodsman is showing up as 18%/25%/30% per level, and a unit with Guerrilla is showing up as 14%/18%/21%. G1+W1 is 21%, G2+W2 is 30%, and G3+W3 (the max you could get) is 37%. I don't want to add any more promotions just for hunting. I think we can add some help text to Guerrilla and Woodsman, but I don't want to get too specific because of how odd the numbers are acting.

 

[RyoHazuki]

Guerrilla and Woodsman increase the chance to capture. The bonus is nominally 10% per level of Woodsman and 5% per level of Guerrilla, but there's some kind of diminishing factor that I don't know how to adjust. A unit with Woodsman is showing up as 18%/25%/30% per level, and a unit with Guerrilla is showing up as 14%/18%/21%. G1+W1 is 21%, G2+W2 is 30%, and G3+W3 (the max you could get) is 37%. I don't want to add any more promotions just for hunting. I think we can add some help text to Guerrilla and Woodsman, but I don't want to get too specific because of how odd the numbers are acting.

Now i understand why i use to capture so many animals in my games. Its quite easy to reach W2 in the early game, and if i understand correctly, that means a 25% chance to capture an animal, which in my humble opinion is too high, i have been able to settle a couple of prey animals around the capital in some games, which is a so huge boost that i even feel im cheating. Actually, im considering to set as 1 the max prey animals to be planted in a game. Anyone else have experienced that? Of course it depends a lot on how crowded the map is, the more civs, the less animals you will haunt.

 

[<Nexus>]

Now i understand why i use to capture so many animals in my games. Its quite easy to reach W2 in the early game, and if i understand correctly, that means a 25% chance to capture an animal, which in my humble opinion is too high, i have been able to settle a couple of prey animals around the capital in some games, which is a so huge boost that i even feel im cheating. Actually, im considering to set as 1 the max prey animals to be planted in a game. Anyone else have experienced that? Of course it depends a lot on how crowded the map is, the more civs, the less animals you will haunt.

Strange. I experienced quite the opposite.
Animals spawned rarely and could capture only a few.
I started a non crowded game with less civs than default. Lot of empty places.
Maybe it was because I always start my games on Settler and let it climb up to Deity?

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Strange. I experienced quite the opposite.
Animals spawned rarely and could capture only a few.
I started a non crowded game with less civs than default. Lot of empty places.
Maybe it was because I always start my games on Settler and let it climb up to Deity?

Definitely that's the cause. Settler is not really meant to be played. Chieftain too actually. Anyway anything below noble will probably spawn too few animals.

 

[<Nexus>]

Definitely that's the cause. Settler is not really meant to be played. Chieftain too actually. Anyway anything below noble will probably spawn too few animals.

Perhaps the spawn rate could be increased on those difficulties too?
The low value was meant to be a help before, but with hunting a higher value would be the help.

 

[RyoHazuki]

Ok, i didnt know spawning rate was deppending on difficulty. I play on emperor si it may be the cause to have so many battles in my game and therefor higher chances to capture.

 

[<Nexus>]

I think animals should have the % to spawn on all difficulties, only barbarians be scaled.

BTW:
Does <iUnownedTilesPerGameAnimal>80</iUnownedTilesPerGameAnimal> mean: 1 animal per 80 unowned (dark) tile every turn? Or the formula is more complex than that?

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

I think animals should have the % to spawn on all difficulties, only barbarians be scaled.

BTW:
Does <iUnownedTilesPerGameAnimal>80</iUnownedTilesPerGameAnimal> mean: 1 animal per 80 unowned (dark) tile every turn? Or the formula is more complex than that?

Correct, IIRC. I'll change it in the next update

 

[RyoHazuki]

I´ve noticed something in my last game. AI is researching Animal Husbandry too late, when there are barely no animals in the map, so no one is able to settle their prey animals. Could anyone check it?

EDIT: Even if they have the right tech, they seem to prefer to butcher the prey animal instead of settle it.

 

[Afforess]

I´ve noticed something in my last game. AI is researching Animal Husbandry too late, when there are barely no animals in the map, so no one is able to settle their prey animals. Could anyone check it?

EDIT: Even if they have the right tech, they seem to prefer to butcher the prey animal instead of settle it.

Yep. The AI actually was incapable of settling animals. Another user messaged me earlier and asked me about this. An investigation of the AI code showed that settling animals was never coded for the AI. This is now fixed in Rev 931.

 

[RyoHazuki]

Thanks for the fix Afforess!

 

[RyoHazuki]

I´ve been checking and AI doesnt seem to be settling animals, in fact, i wasnt able to find any city with a menagerie or a mith of the beast. In my games they are butchering every animal they capture. Could anyone take a look at it? Just to make sure it wasnt a bad research.

 

[<Nexus>]

I´ve been checking and AI doesnt seem to be settling animals, in fact, i wasnt able to find any city with a menagerie or a mith of the beast. In my games they are butchering every animal they capture. Could anyone take a look at it? Just to make sure it wasnt a bad research.

I have the same feeling, though I didn't investigate it.
But at least the AI does butcher them, and not just hoard them in its cities EDIT like it does with some other units.

 

[Noyyau]

I have the same feeling, though I didn't investigate it.
But at least the AI does butcher them, and not just hoard them in its cities

*cough cough* Treasures *cough cough*