Animal Behaviour

There is currently 3 animal teams:
They have the "Green Man" as their leader.


▲ = Can Attack
▼ = Can Stealth Defend (Enabled by Hide and Seek / Without warning gameoptions)
δ = Can Assassinate, Targets: (Enabled by Hide and Seek / Without warning gameoptions)
♫ = Can spawn within borders

(Note: If playing with "Reckless Animals" Game Option, then most Beasts and Predators will have ▲ instead of ♫)

Wild animal specific promotions:
"Feral I" enables stealth defense and removes the animals ability to enter cultural borders.
"Feral II" enables the animal to attack and to again enter cultural borders.
"Feral III" Enables stampede.

Creaturely Creatures
Members: 116
Only a few of these are violent by nature so unless they have ▲, ▼, or δ, they can be assumed to have ♫.

Beastly Beasts.
Members: 39

Predatory Predators
Members: 39

Insectoids
Leader: Brain bug
Members: 1

Locust swarm...

Toffer90 said:

Insectoids?

Click to expand...

I believe Insectoids would make for an interesting Alien species and we could consider the first ones among them to be encountered being the Locust Swarms which are of course native to Earth and are not Alien... but the difference would be unimportant.

To set them up, we just need to define the Insectoid Civilization info then set the civilization as NPC6_CIVILIZATION in the global define. Tell you what, I'll establish that much on the next commit but like the Neanderthals, they'll need further art and leader definitions in the XML so I'm leaving that to you. And spawns will need to be redefined for the units that should spawn for neanders and insectoids. I think that's Harrier's realm right Harrier?

Doing all of this, Insectoids would NOT be considered Animals nor Barbarians. Nor would they be considered Hominids (The term for Barbs and Neanderthals and any other early hominid branch off we eventually include). But they WOULD be considered NPCs. Therefore no animal or barbarian combat modifiers would affect these swarms and the standard xp limitations for fighting them won't apply and so on. They won't need the animals ignores borders tag and can spawn inside borders if you simply use the bNeutral=0 setting. They would use whatever AI setting we give them and consider themselves at war with everything (except other NPCs if the Peace Among NPC option is in use.)

I suppose you could also include spiders and such in that group...



EDIT: Btw, with these Animal, Neanderthal and Insectoid civilizations, we may really need to review the building and unit lists for them. Perhaps the ONLY unit that Neanderthals should currently be able to train would be UNIT_NEANDERTHAL (and possibly workers). Perhaps very few buildings should be enabled for them. And I wonder what would happen if Insectoids took over a city. I might have to make some additional tags to cover these kinds of things more simply somehow.

The animal list had become completely scrambled after the forum changed design; I just went through all of them re-setting up all numberation, colors, spoilers, and special characters like ▲ that had just turned into &#9835 with different numbers for each special character. Damn that was annoying, took me like 1 hour, and I only checked out the thread because I was going to update it with the recent changes made by TB.

Sorry for the brute force adjustments there. Many of us are feeling many animals that should attack aren't doing so and as I review the list, it's apparent why. Now that you're back onboard I will leave any furthre rebalances to you here. Just know that SO and others are complaining about the lack of attacks and I would advise a slight adjustment towards more aggression in general but not to go overboard either. Now that we'll have improved diversity showing up it shouldn't be too far off imo.

Thunderbrd said:

Sorry for the brute force adjustments there.

Click to expand...

No problem there, I was only angry on the completely changed text formating in posts in the new version of civfanatics, that completely scrambled post made before the change.

Thunderbrd said:

Many of us are feeling many animals that should attack aren't doing so and as I review the list, it's apparent why.

Click to expand...

I set up this list so people could voice their opinions about the initial setup of the animal split. Since no one wrote here I wouldn't know what to change further.

Thunderbrd said:

Now that you're back onboard I will leave any furthre rebalances to you here.

Click to expand...

I'd rather want others on the team to chip in on that front than take ownership of all animal adjustments.

Thunderbrd said:

Just know that SO and others are complaining about the lack of attacks and I would advise a slight adjustment towards more aggression in general but not to go overboard either.

Click to expand...

I'd like to hear some opinions on what specific animals should be more aggressive, and by how much so.

Toffer90 said:

I'd like to hear some opinions on what specific animals should be more aggressive, and by how much so.

Click to expand...

I think the problem lies in the fact that few of us understand what these aggression levels mean.

I've stood next to wolves and bears and hippos (a truly aggressive animal) wondering why I wasn't attacked until I thought about how this system works. And as I look through the whole list I get a general feeling that animals as a rule are a little too passive. But again, I'm not as concerned about it now that we have improved diversity showing up.

@TB:
I want to revert many of the team changes you made to spawninfos, and wondering if you would be ok with it.

• All your changes to sea animals as I think Orcas (beasts) should be able to attack most large sea animals but you placed most large sea animals on the same side as Orcas.
• All your canine changes, because I feel they should be on the same side as the grey wolf (predators), and the wolverine (beast) prey a lot on red foxes and arctic foxes.
• Almost all the bird changes (just feel it should be discussed a bit first).

• I approve the placement of the great apes, gorillas and orangutans, into the beast category along with the chimpanzee; but I think all the monkeys should remain on the creature team.

• I approve your bear changes.
• I approve the change to hyena, puffadder, tasmanian devil, and sabretooth (smilodon populator).
• Mammoth and zebras were bug fixes, no reason to disapprove. ^^

Toffer90 said:

All your changes to sea animals as I think Orcas (beasts) should be able to attack most large sea animals but you placed most large sea animals on the same side as Orcas.

Click to expand...

Orca aren't going to attack other whales usually. But they do hunt sharks. I was really not sure about the marlin... I'm thinking it should just be prey honestly. I suppose it's also difficult to fit Orca in properly as they are an alpha-alpha rather than something in the middle and to make sea lions and such prey is to insinuate that dolphins may eat sea lions. There's really no perfection without additional teams and we don't want to go that route. I just figured I'd show the Orca as a member of the whale and dolphin club.

Toffer90 said:

All your canine changes, because I feel they should be on the same side as the grey wolf (predators), and the wolverine (beast) prey a lot on red foxes and arctic foxes

Click to expand...

Clarify by unit here please.

Toffer90 said:

I approve the placement of the great apes, gorillas and orangutans, into the beast category along with the chimpanzee; but I think all the monkeys should remain on the creature team.

Click to expand...

That sounds appropriate. Sure.

Thunderbrd said:

Orca aren't going to attack other whales usually. But they do hunt sharks. I was really not sure about the marlin... I'm thinking it should just be prey honestly. I suppose it's also difficult to fit Orca in properly as they are an alpha-alpha rather than something in the middle and to make sea lions and such prey is to insinuate that dolphins may eat sea lions.

Click to expand...

The orca's diet consist primarily of mammals.
Beluga, narwhal, adult bowhead whale, sharks of all kind, rays, seal, walrus and dolphins are recorded as typical prey of the orcas; less typical prey that have been recorded are the great white shark, blue whale and deer. There does exist orcas that are primarily fish eaters too, but there is actually less of them than the mammal eaters.

We could put marlin on the beast team as they are not typical prey to the orca, they do fit the bill of all the animal teams imo, which means I really have no opinion on where they belong.
As an alternative, we could put the orca on the creature team and all the other large aquatic animals on the beast team.

About the dolphin and sea lion remark, I would have them both on the prey team or both on the predator team.

Thunderbrd said:

Clarify by unit here please.

Click to expand...

You placed all these in the beast team:
Red Fox - predator
arctic fox - predator
fennec fox - creature
maned wolf - predator
dingo - predator
dhole - predator
I would revert them as the wolverine prey on both the red fox and arctic fox.

Other remarks:
You changed the Cave Bear to the predator team, but its natural nemesis the Cave Lion is also on the predator team, I would like to put the cave bear on the beast team instead.

Toffer90 said:

less typical prey that have been recorded are the great white shark, blue whale and deer [emphasis added]

Click to expand...

Toffer90 said:

The orca's diet consist primarily of mammals.
Beluga, narwhal, adult bowhead whale, sharks of all kind, rays, seal, walrus and dolphins are recorded as typical prey of the orcas; less typical prey that have been recorded are the great white shark, blue whale and deer. There does exist orcas that are primarily fish eaters too, but there is actually less of them than the mammal eaters.

We could put marlin on the beast team as they are not typical prey to the orca, they do fit the bill of all the animal teams imo, which means I really have no opinion on where they belong.
As an alternative, we could put the orca on the creature team and all the other large aquatic animals on the beast team.

About the dolphin and sea lion remark, I would have them both on the prey team or both on the predator team.

Click to expand...

Maybe just for simplicity's sake, put Orca on the alpha team as they should be then. They won't go after sharks but then again sharks also normally go after each other and that's just about impossible to model.

You have to consider that this is also about keeping some spawn control. Minimal alphas will spawn and become the thing you want to clear out so you can get at the more frequently spawning Beasts and Prey/Creatures. Beasts spawn less than Prey as well and represent the middle of the food chain - creatures that both eat smaller animals and are eaten by larger. Thus, tuna is clearly prey, Dolphins Beasts because they feed on the lesser creatures and are fed on by much larger ones (though they often defeat those who attempt to prey on them.) As would Sea Lions be Beasts as well right? So then Orca probably should be Alphas and even though some alphas may hunt each other, we have to admit we just don't have the 'player resolution' level to be able to perfectly encapsulate sea life.

Toffer90 said:

I would revert them as the wolverine prey on both the red fox and arctic fox.

Click to expand...

The problem here is we don't have the rabbits and field mice in the game that these canines prey ON. Considering nothing really preys on the Wolverine, then make the Wolverine an Alpha, which really, it is. I suppose with him I was thinking he wasn't all that carnivorous in the first place but if he does go after midlevel hunters then make him an alpha level hunter. Wolves and big cats might go after wolverines but its the same problem as the orca where a 4th team could/should exist but is just getting to be too much... usually the wolverine can defend itself pretty well when that happens anyhow. If we try to model too accurately then we'll be running into each creature should be its own team.

Toffer90 said:

You changed the Cave Bear to the predator team, but its natural nemesis the Cave Lion is also on the predator team, I would like to put the cave bear on the beast team instead.

Click to expand...

Seems odd that Grizzly Bears would be on the predator team while the larger Cave Bear would be a lesser beast. Here we have an Orca/Shark dillema and we have to make the determination that it's more important to reflect that an ecosystem cannot support the spawning rate of a mid-level creature for such a large hunter.

Thunderbrd said:

Maybe just for simplicity's sake, put Orca on the alpha team as they should be then. They won't go after sharks but then again sharks also normally go after each other and that's just about impossible to model.

Click to expand...

The beast team is also an alpha team... I kinda liked the thought of great whites keeping the orca population in check and vice versa; with the occasional dolphin or whale successfully killing one of them (orca, great white) in defense.

Thunderbrd said:

You have to consider that this is also about keeping some spawn control. Minimal alphas will spawn and become the thing you want to clear out so you can get at the more frequently spawning Beasts and Prey/Creatures. Beasts spawn less than Prey as well and represent the middle of the food chain - creatures that both eat smaller animals and are eaten by larger. Thus, tuna is clearly prey, Dolphins Beasts because they feed on the lesser creatures and are fed on by much larger ones (though they often defeat those who attempt to prey on them.) As would Sea Lions be Beasts as well right? So then Orca probably should be

Click to expand...

Beasts should imo spawn as infrequent as the predator team; as they both represent the near top of the food chain. As I said earlier I would like to see whales, sea lion and dolphins on the less aggressive creature team. The Tuna is actually a predator which is seldom eaten by anything else than sharks.
Wikipedia: "Dolphins swim beside several tuna species. These include yellowfin tuna in the eastern Pacific Ocean, but not albacore. Tuna schools are believed to associate themselves with dolphins for protection against sharks, which are tuna predators.[58]"

Thunderbrd said:

The problem here is we don't have the rabbits and field mice in the game that these canines prey ON. Considering nothing really preys on the Wolverine, then make the Wolverine an Alpha, which really, it is. I suppose with him I was thinking he wasn't all that carnivorous in the first place but if he does go after midlevel hunters then make him an alpha level hunter. Wolves and big cats might go after wolverines but its the same problem as the orca where a 4th team could/should exist but is just getting to be too much... usually the wolverine can defend itself pretty well when that happens anyhow. If we try to model too accurately then we'll be running into each creature should be its own team.

Click to expand...

I could accept that soloution, having the wolverine on the predator team and all ursine and canine units on the beast team.

Thunderbrd said:

Seems odd that Grizzly Bears would be on the predator team while the larger Cave Bear would be a lesser beast. Here we have an Orca/Shark dillema and we have to make the determination that it's more important to reflect that an ecosystem cannot support the spawning rate of a mid-level creature for such a large hunter.

Click to expand...

Here is the core of our disagreements, imo there is nothing lesser about the beast team. it is just the alternative alpha apex team.
My reasoning behind having the cave bear on the creature, or beast team is that it was mainly a herbivore and corpse scavanger, more so than the typical european brown bear; the grizzly is as I understand it more of a hunter/predator.


Here's one I forgot, you changed the ball python from creature to beast, but there is no animal in the game in which it prey on and there are about 20 animals in the game that might prey on it. The name "ball python" refers to the animal's tendency to curl into a ball when stressed or frightened. They are considered good pets due to their placid nature and were often used as live jewelry by african big shots.

Toffer90 said:

Here is the core of our disagreements, imo there is nothing lesser about the beast team. it is just the alternative alpha apex team.

Click to expand...

It's much easier to sort out spawn frequencies and to cognize the concept of the beast team if it's considered a mid level food chain or simply not as meat consuming predatorial type that other largers would tend to feast on. In a sense, this should mean they indeed are lesser, or just not as purely carnivorous...

Toffer90 said:

My reasoning behind having the cave bear on the creature, or beast team is that it was mainly a herbivore and corpse scavanger, more so than the typical european brown bear; the grizzly is as I understand it more of a hunter/predator.

Click to expand...

The same justification can be just as applicable to the grizzly or most any other kind of bear as most bears don't do a lot of hunting at all really... mostly just fish and some small game and lots of bugs. Otherwise they feed mostly on berries and roots. As a HUNTING predator, they aren't usually that invested into stalking and killing but are also so powerful as to be rarely hunted by others. They can be intensely territorial though.

They really could all be made beasts quite logically. But they seem to fit in game terms into the alphas because they are so very dangerous and unless truly desperate, usually even other predators won't mess with them. Wolves will sometimes hunt them if their pack is large enough and meat is scarce enough. I would be more compelled to consider most all bear types, even grizzlies, a beast. Most big cats and canines need to be on differing teams though because big cats usually LOVE to hunt canines but most big cats know better than to risk life and limb to go after a bear. Such cats are not as brave as folks often think, because they are very conscious that their ability to hunt is based on staying uninjured and taking time to heal can be the time it takes to starve. Canines are usually the more prolific creatures so would fit into the mid-range predator (beast) more than alphas (perhaps ALL wolves should be beasts). Since canines SOMETIMES hunt bear and cats rarely ever do, this would then make more sense to have the big cats and the more powerful bear types be Alphas.

But as omnivores, ursines do seem to fit better into the idea of the Beasts. This is where I ended up on the fence with bears and they tipped onto the side of the Alpha rather than the best team.

Toffer90 said:

"Dolphins swim beside several tuna species. These include yellowfin tuna in the eastern Pacific Ocean, but not albacore. Tuna schools are believed to associate themselves with dolphins for protection against sharks, which are tuna predators.[58]" (Wikipedia)

Click to expand...

When dolphins hunt fish, they use advanced techniques to do so (corralling them into large groups they've surrounded and can easily dart through to grab a mouthfull) but they certainly DO hunt fish. The tuna would like the presence of dolphins because the tax on their lives would not be as great as when exposed to pods of sharks and sharks veer away from dolphins which are very good at (and love to actively go after) killing them. I'm not entirely sure dolphins eat TUNA per-se but if they don't it could be due to recognition that the actions of the tuna may help warn them about approaching dangers.

Beasts should imo spawn as infrequent as the predator team; as they both represent the near top of the food chain.

Click to expand...

There are some types of animals, canines being a perfect example, that are more prolific than the most dangerous predators, and hunt quite a lot but are not at all the top of the food chain. That's the point of the mid level beasts, is it not?

Thunderbrd said:

It's much easier to sort out spawn frequencies and to cognize the concept of the beast team if it's considered a mid level food chain or simply not as meat consuming predatorial type that other largers would tend to feast on.

Click to expand...

I don't see why it would be harder to adjust their spawn values if they are on one team or another... They will all require individual attention on this point anyway.

Thunderbrd said:

The same justification can be just as applicable to the grizzly or most any other kind of bear as most bears don't do a lot of hunting at all really... mostly just fish and some small game and lots of bugs. Otherwise they feed mostly on berries and roots. As a HUNTING predator, they aren't usually that invested into stalking and killing but are also so powerful as to be rarely hunted by others. They can be intensely territorial though.

Click to expand...

Polar bears are purely carnivore and hunt all the time. The grizzly bear hunt sometimes; and the rest are more or less close to non-hunters and therefore fit the creature or beast category best.

Thunderbrd said:

They really could all be made beasts quite logically. But they seem to fit in game terms into the alphas because they are so very dangerous and unless truly desperate, usually even other predators won't mess with them.

Click to expand...

The same can be said about elephants, water buffaloes and hippopotamus.

Thunderbrd said:

Wolves will sometimes hunt them if their pack is large enough and meat is scarce enough. I would be more compelled to consider most all bear types, even grizzlies, a beast. Most big cats and canines need to be on differing teams though because big cats usually LOVE to hunt canines but most big cats know better than to risk life and limb to go after a bear. Such cats are not as brave as folks often think, because they are very conscious that their ability to hunt is based on staying uninjured and taking time to heal can be the time it takes to starve. Canines are usually the more prolific creatures so would fit into the mid-range predator (beast) more than alphas (perhaps ALL wolves should be beasts). Since canines SOMETIMES hunt bear and cats rarely ever do, this would then make more sense to have the big cats and the more powerful bear types be Alphas.

Click to expand...

The aspect of ursines not fighting felines, and they both sometimes hustling with canines is a point I've considered before and placed me really on the fence on the matter, this is also the reason why I spread bears into all animal teams, with most of them as creatures/prey. Nevertheless the cave bear imo should be an odd one out here. Cave lions probably hunted cave bears regularly while the cave bear most likely never hunted anything.
Placing the wolf in the beast category would be okay with me. but then I think some of the other canines should be downgraded further to creatures; red and arctic fox mainly but perhaps also the dingo, dhole and maned wolf.

Thunderbrd said:

But as omnivores, ursines do seem to fit better into the idea of the Beasts. This is where I ended up on the fence with bears and they tipped onto the side of the Alpha rather than the best team.

Click to expand...

You did actually place more bears into beast than the predator category in your recent change.

Thunderbrd said:

When dolphins hunt fish, they use advanced techniques to do so (corralling them into large groups they've surrounded and can easily dart through to grab a mouthfull) but they certainly DO hunt fish.

Click to expand...

Indeed, but their prey is not really represented in-game, we do have cod though.

Thunderbrd said:

There are some types of animals, canines being a perfect example, that are more prolific than the most dangerous predators, and hunt quite a lot but are not at all the top of the food chain. That's the point of the mid level beasts, is it not?

Click to expand...

I felt the beast team was added mostly for flavour, to have something to challenge the predator team or represent the odd one out.

tmv said:

Click to expand...

Haha it's called the killer whale for a reason; it has been recorded preying on a large range of swimming land mammals, it is however really rare and I should probably not have listed it in that context. ^^

Making some aggression changes to be committed to SVN soonish, I update the lists here while I make the changes in xml.

Toffer90 said:

I don't see why it would be harder to adjust their spawn values if they are on one team or another... They will all require individual attention on this point anyway.

Click to expand...

Actually there are team spawn variation values to help with balance between NON-Peace Among NPCs and Peace Among NPC options. The idea is that spawns are set individually for the frequency with which they are ideal to show up on a Peace Among NPCs game and then the NON-peace game applies these modifiers. The modifiers are setup a little opposite to what one would assume though - less is more frequent and more is less frequent. But it still works nicely for balancing between those options. Currently, Alphas, the most dangerous and thus the most consuming, are the least frequent. Beasts are in between because generally they aren't as dominant. And Prey tend to be very frequent. There is a little bit of a str vs str assumption here that assumes that Prey are more likely to be taken out by the opponent teams of animals and barbs so need to be more frequent to be encountered and to benefit the player that keeps his hunting territory clear of competing predators. My point is that it IS an influencing factor that the balance of power between the animal groups will determine more or less need for frequency of spawns on a sweeping level.

Toffer90 said:

Polar bears are purely carnivore and hunt all the time. The grizzly bear hunt sometimes; and the rest are more or less close to non-hunters and therefore fit the creature or beast category best.

Click to expand...

So maybe we just keep the polar bear as an alpha. The rest could be beasts and it would work.

Toffer90 said:

but then I think some of the other canines should be downgraded further to creatures; red and arctic fox mainly but perhaps also the dingo, dhole and maned wolf.

Click to expand...

Problem with this is that their prey is just waiting to come into the game and I don't think I can be ok envisioning a predator in the Creature category. We really need more lesser prey critters to flesh this out properly. Mice, rats, rabbits, squirrels, etc... Obviously, foxes are on the lower end of the predator category but that's what beasts are about really. Most other canines probably won't go after foxes too often. And foxes don't breed with the rate you'd expect of a prey creature. The others are pretty core concept Beast imo.

Toffer90 said:

Indeed, but their prey is not really represented in-game, we do have cod though.

Click to expand...

But whales and such should be on the same 'team' as well, which suits the mid-level beasts. No dolphin is going to hunt or have to defend itself against a whale of just about any kind (except for perhaps an orca.) I think we could have a few more fish types too. We also have crab in the prey sector.


Hopefully, this discussion helps us gell our perspectives. Another reason for some of the adjustments were overall counts of each team and trying to balance that out a bit more. I do want to state that I'm not terribly attached to any opinions here... just hoping that some of the design intents can be on the same page here.