Domesticated Megafauna mini alt history development thread

The way it is now: At the tech "Domesticated Megafauna" you have the possibility of constructing a series of wonders, deer, bear, zebra, mammoth, giraffe, rhino and bison trainers allow building of special units in only the city where you have built the wonder.

As with the clockpunk thread, please post any ideas you have WITH tech/resource/good/building requirements, WITH detailed unit/building stats, WITH a small description to go into the civilopedia.

Suggestions:
WONDERS

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BUILDINGS

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UNITS

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Try to keep things balanced. thinking up uberunits and buildings may be fun but human players pwn the AI enough as it is.

This post will be updated as needed. I'm thinking if one person suggests something and three other people say it's good then we can probably add it to the list for testing. Also changes to what's already up there are free for discussion.

To start things off
A. does anyone want to try filling in civilopedia entries?
B. do the stats for the buildings need to be adjusted?
C. a heck of a lot more historically extinct animal related buildings? (that's not a question)
D. and will we be getting a lot more different types of animal constructed buildings to go along with the ton of new beasts to slay appearing in the Subdued Animals thread? This is important to know for such things as, for example, the giant kangaroo enclosure at the zoo.

Requires: Domesticated Megafauna building, tundra in vicinity OR mammoth herd in city

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You cannot have an OR. But you can have an AND.

Also the Megatheium Trainer was removed sicne we did not have a unit for that. Now all that's left is a Megatherium Hunter's Camp. We also have other exinct animal camps such as ...

- Diprotodon Hunter's Camp
- Megaloceros Hunter's Camp
- Woolly Rhino Hunter's Camp
- Giant Bison Hunter's Camp

Others that I planned to add but have not gotten to yet were ...

- Glyptodon Hunter's Camp
- Moa Hunter's Camp
- Elephant Bird Hunter's Camp
- Procoptodon Hunter's Camp

As well as a few others. The trick is getting a prehistoric animal that existed at the same time as people.

Stats: 1 food 1 unhealth, provides Good (Carcass) Good (Fur) Good (Milk) in all cities connected by trade route.

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I am not sure about milking a mammoth but if you did it would have to be a requirement of the Dairy Farm. In addition we already have the "Mammoth Trainer" as a requirement for the Shearing barn so you can get wool from it. And the Mammoth Hunter's Camp already gives Good (Carcass). Also you cannot have a building produce more than 1 good.

I suggest you look though the existing buildings and building dependencies. Much of what you are suggesting is already covered in some way.

Suggestions:

Wonder: Megafauna Domestication
Requires: Megafauna Domestication tech, 2 (possibly 3) of any zebra herd, mammoth herd, rhino herd, giraffe herd, deer herd, bison herd, bear cage
Civilopedia: Ancient stories tell how our people in prehistoric times were closer than most to the giant beasts of the world. Fables tell how we became friends, and eventually partners. These stories shed light on how our primitive forebears perceived the gradual domestication of beasts our neighbors think strange.
Stats: World Wonder, can be built 5 times, limit 1 per team. Provides free building, Domesticated Megafauna in all cities.

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I disagree with this. One civ should not have monopoly on ALL possible megafuana buildings. The way we have it now is each special building is a wonder in which a civ can obtain. Thus one civ could domesticate mammoths while the other domesticate zebras. Its easier just to make them individual wonders instead of a 5 time world wonder. This way only 1 civ gets mammoths and only one civ gets zebras.

Requires: Domesticated Megafauna building, horse and savannah in vicinity OR zebra herd in city

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This is impossible you cannot have a resource OR a building. This is why there are "Hunter's Camps". You can have say "Zebra Hunter's Camp" OR "Herd - Zebra", but you cannot have a build OR resource (or terrain).

Overall you need to get more familiar with the city vicinity buildings that are already in the game. Also do not forget about the Myth buildings.

In short I have covered most of this stuff already and think you should focus more on the other alternate history ones since this has a lot of stuff made and working. I wonder rather not destroy all the work I put into organizing this feature of C2C.

maybe I'm going about this the wrong way.... Also I didn't have my copy of civ 4 up or I probably wouldn't have made so many mistakes. Thanks for telling me what's impossible and or dumb. I can remove the mammoth farm and change the trainers to require hunting camps or herd... but.... And I'm afraid to start an argument on the internet and understand and feel really bad about the whole stomping on your work, but I feel the opposite about how to handle the training and use of extinct and or odd species. It's hard to explain this but it doesn't feel like the possibilities are "exploited" enough when all Megafauna Domestication entails is a half dozen single use only training buildings and some exotic hunting camps. The existence of these creatures in a society would certainly go beyond merely training some of them for war and tying these additional units and buildings to a multi-use wonder was the simplest way I could think of to tie all these elements together in a cohesive package that says "things are different" in a way that doesn't make it exclusive. Why shouldn't bear riders meet bear riders on the field of battle?

Again, I'm sorry and appreciate the stuff you've already done but I feel there could be more to it. I guess I thought everyone was approving of my ideas because there were no strong objections (I thought) but of course you would be upset about me basically asking you to change up everything you've already done.

steampunk1880 said:

It's hard to explain this but it doesn't feel like the possibilities are "exploited" enough when all Megafauna Domestication entails is a half dozen single use only training buildings and some exotic hunting camps. The existence of these creatures in a society would certainly go beyond merely training some of them for war and tying these additional units and buildings to a multi-use wonder was the simplest way I could think of to tie all these elements together in a cohesive package that says "things are different" in a way that doesn't make it exclusive. Why shouldn't bear riders meet bear riders on the field of battle?

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Maybe we need Brown Bear riders and Polar Bear riders? Though a unit would need to be made for that. Or any other NEW "rider" type.

It may be something to consider to allow in some cases 2 Trainers in the world instead of always just 1. But limited to 1 per nation, and still limited in the number of cities that can produce the actual unit.

Hydromancerx said:

I am not sure about milking a mammoth but if you did it would have to be a requirement of the Dairy Farm.

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Haven't you seen "Meet the Parents" ? You milk just about anything.

I disagree with this. One civ should not have monopoly on ALL possible megafuana buildings. The way we have it now is each special building is a wonder in which a civ can obtain. Thus one civ could domesticate mammoths while the other domesticate zebras. Its easier just to make them individual wonders instead of a 5 time world wonder. This way only 1 civ gets mammoths and only one civ gets zebras.

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I agree with Hydro completely. One Wonder to allow ALL cities to make all those units is OP. On a conceptual level, it may sound like a fun idea, but if you consider the period of time this would fall into, I just don't see every city in a nation raising and producing Bear/Mammoth Riders, etc.

But I will say that in my games so far, the spread is not as even as that. I like the alt-timeline stuff so I'll tend to make 2-3 of the World Wonder Trainers and the AI MIGHT get 1 or 2.

Just an idea. Maybe the wonder could be limited to 1 world wide (like bear training) but only give a secret tech that unlock a normal building needing vicinity bonus (Bear trainer) and let you build the units.

The pro are
-you can build the units in all city that posses the right resources like for horses or camel
-More than one civ can have the units but they need to work for it (trading, spying, conquering)

Con
-Would need to create new building and tech
-Not sure the IA would understand the importance (or lack of) of the new tech

With each being a wonder now does fit better since some are latitude dependent so you wont be able to build all.

I do think that maybe the Myth, Hunting Camp and Herd buildings do need a look at to balance them with the megafauna alt timeline idea.

Similarly with the requirements on these wonders.

Aside: With the huge number of new animal units starting to be available (only o me so far), I did not capture a rhino or giraffe until the late classical period. Where upon I was able to get them to my capital build the myth and then build the megafauna trainer.

robomani said:

Just an idea. Maybe the wonder could be limited to 1 world wide (like bear training) but only give a secret tech that unlock a normal building needing vicinity bonus (Bear trainer) and let you build the units.

The pro are
-you can build the units in all city that posses the right resources like for horses or camel
-More than one civ can have the units but they need to work for it (trading, spying, conquering)

Con
-Would need to create new building and tech
-Not sure the IA would understand the importance (or lack of) of the new tech

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It is possible to have a tech require a building. It is one way to make sure that the AI does not go down meaningless, for it, tech paths. Since we don't have dead end techs it has not been useful in C2C until now.

Edit There are units for wolf riders and pig chariots. I would prefer wolf chariots myself.

Throwing out another radical idea which will require a big set of changes to the tech tree and rethink of the myth, herd and hunter camp buildings.

1. break the connection between horses and the mounted and chariot technologies completely.

2. have dead end techs off of the megafauna tech each requiring a "wrangler" building of the correct type. Basically you need access to the animal type someone in your nation that knows about the animal type before you can start to domesticate them. Note the "wrangler" building only rrequires access somewhere in your nation. See point 4

3. dead end techs

• equine domestication (Horse and donkey)
• bovine domestication (cow, bison, buffalo and water buffalo)
• pachyderm domestication (elephant and mammoth)
• camel domestication
• deer domestication (deer and gembok)
• giraffe domestication

4. Each tech allows the building of a wonder that provides access to the units and lets you build

• a "wrangler stable hand" who can build the training building in a canother city
• a training building for the unit if you have teh resource in the vicinity

steampunk1880 said:

maybe I'm going about this the wrong way.... Also I didn't have my copy of civ 4 up or I probably wouldn't have made so many mistakes. Thanks for telling me what's impossible and or dumb.

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These have been in the mod for quite some time. The only more recent changes were the zebra ones (v17), the bear/giraffe/bison/deer some where in the middle and the mammoth has been there since near the beginning since it was the reason we put in the megafauna domestication tech in the first place.

It's hard to explain this but it doesn't feel like the possibilities are "exploited" enough when all Megafauna Domestication entails is a half dozen single use only training buildings and some exotic hunting camps. The existence of these creatures in a society would certainly go beyond merely training some of them for war and tying these additional units and buildings to a multi-use wonder was the simplest way I could think of to tie all these elements together in a cohesive package that says "things are different" in a way that doesn't make it exclusive.

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This stuff should be rare this is why you either have to capture an animal to make the building for it OR be lucky enough to have resources in the right location to build a fake resource. Not all games should have mammoth riders or zebra chariots. For the most part the game should occur with our real life units. But on occasion you get a game with these units. Thus making every game different and unique.

Why shouldn't bear riders meet bear riders on the field of battle?

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Because unlike say common animals like horses, bear are rare and would be hard to domesticate. This alone would mean that only a specialized culture dedicated to doing this could achieve something like bear riders. For example in Europe the Sami and Nenets peoples herded and actually used reindeer to herd sleds. Yet people over in the Americas who heavy depended upon reindeer for food never domesticated them.

In short these animals are much harder to domesticate and thus should not only be hard to get but limited to 1 civ per game.

Aside: With the huge number of new animal units starting to be available (only o me so far), I did not capture a rhino or giraffe until the late classical period. Where upon I was able to get them to my capital build the myth and then build the megafauna trainer.

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This is a good thing since there should not always be a rhino or giraffe trainer made in every game.

Throwing out another radical idea which will require a big set of changes to the tech tree and rethink of the myth, herd and hunter camp buildings.

1. break the connection between horses and the mounted and chariot technologies completely.

2. have dead end techs off of the megafauna tech each requiring a "wrangler" building of the correct type. Basically you need access to the animal type someone in your nation that knows about the animal type before you can start to domesticate them. Note the "wrangler" building only rrequires access somewhere in your nation. See point 4

3. dead end techs

• equine domestication (Horse and donkey)
• bovine domestication (cow, bison, buffalo and water buffalo)
• pachyderm domestication (elephant and mammoth)
• camel domestication
• deer domestication (deer and gembok)
• giraffe domestication

4. Each tech allows the building of a wonder that provides access to the units and lets you build

• a "wrangler stable hand" who can build the training building in a canother city
• a training building for the unit if you have teh resource in the vicinity

Click to expand...

Well if we are throwing out a radical idea like this perhaps the mounted techs like "Horse Breeding" should be changed to something generic like "Selective Breeding". That way it would not have to require horses. Or Horseback Riding could be changed to "Animal Riding". Thus you would have ...

"____ Domestication" -> "Animal Riding" -> "Selective Breeding"

Note that "Elephant Riding" could just be changed to "Pachyderm Domestication". Thus the beginning tech only allows for basic building and some units like a Work Elephant. But then the Mounts only get unlocked at "Animal Riding" (and Chariots).

Hydromancerx said:

Because unlike say common animals like horses, bear are rare and would be hard to domesticate. This alone would mean that only a specialized culture dedicated to doing this could achieve something like bear riders. For example in Europe the Sami and Nenets peoples herded and actually used reindeer to herd sleds. Yet people over in the Americas who heavy depended upon reindeer for food never domesticated them.

In short these animals are much harder to domesticate and thus should not only be hard to get but limited to 1 civ per game.

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I am not convinced that they are harder to domesticate, it "just" takes 50 generations or so. This means that short lived animals should be easier to domesticate than long lived ones. However if they are seen as useful or "traditional" then why not.

E.G. all young men go out and capture a bear cub as a passage to manhood. Some whimp will quickly figure out that getting a cub from a hand reared mother bear is probably easier.

Dancing Hoskuld said:

I am not convinced that they are harder to domesticate, it "just" takes 50 generations or so. This means that short lived animals should be easier to domesticate than long lived ones. However if they are seen as useful or "traditional" then why not.

E.G. all young men go out and capture a bear cub as a passage to manhood. Some whimp will quickly figure out that getting a cub from a hand reared mother bear is probably easier.

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Well specifically with bears, your right they have a very long gestation time. In Russia scientists experimented with domesticating the Silver Fox. It turned out in a relatively short time they were able to breed out bad traits and keep good traits which made them more tame and dog-like. As a result they also had pigment changes such as patches of colors, etc, which could explain how wolves were bread into so many types of dogs. At any rate, I am not saying that bears could not be domesticated, I am just saying that from a game point of view such special units should be more rare to see in game. In the same way not every nation has reindeer or silver foxes as pets.

Also check my edit above.

Hydromancerx said:

"____ Domestication" -> "Animal Riding" -> "Selective Breeding"

Note that "Elephant Riding" could just be changed to "Pachyderm Domestication". Thus the beginning tech only allows for basic building and some units like a Work Elephant. But then the Mounts only get unlocked at "Animal Riding" (and Chariots).

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I would have gone

With "Stirrup" requiring "Mounted Archery" or "Mounted Infantry".

Note this assumes the above dead end techs for domestication of the animals. Mind you I now think fewer of the domestication techs may be better.

Just as a thought, concidering we already have Neanderthalls running around... why not what scientists are nicknaming 'hobbits' and 'halflings'? threeish foot tall humaniods. The use for these is that they are jockeys for the more random units. They make ridable war animals out of much smaller species that human sized ones. Having wolves or pigs pull a hobbit sized charriot means much easier selective breeding/upkeep then a normal human/neanderthall one.

Thank you for coming one step closer to fulfilling my dream of assembling a midget death squad.

Are you referring to those creatures whose skeletons were found on Flores Island in southeast Asia? There's no evidence, sadly, that would indicate they existed anywhere beyond there, whereas Neanderthals inhabited both Europe and a significant portion of the Middle East at some point (and I understand the Neanderthal unit is not representative solely of H. neanderthalis, but of other hominid creatures like H. ergaster and H. erectus and H. habilis. as well)

Necratoid said:

Just as a thought, concidering we already have Neanderthalls running around... why not what scientists are nicknaming 'hobbits' and 'halflings'? threeish foot tall humaniods. The use for these is that they are jockeys for the more random units. They make ridable war animals out of much smaller species that human sized ones. Having wolves or pigs pull a hobbit sized charriot means much easier selective breeding/upkeep then a normal human/neanderthall one.

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I was having that thought JUST THE OTHER DAY!!! Great idea actually... then it led to the consideration that perhaps at the very beginning of the game we need to see a number of other hominid species that we had fairly rapidly caused to go extinct (and of course this would mean backing up the starting yearcount to something a bit more accurate...). Of course, that sort of thing would take some intensive research by someone to come up with those alternative hominid varieties.

Additionally, we really should have all the megalithic creatures in the game as wandering and develop out the shift in the ages from a real biological perspective. That, too, would take some time and research to pull off but would really be worth it from the perspective of making the 'caveman' era really feel right.

I have more ideas for that era as well but lets stop there and consider those points. Would anyone be able to make these manifest?

So there are three radical ideas to alter how megafauna domestication and riding animals are handled. Robomani's, Hydro's and Hoskulds. I'd like to blank the OP and start compiling tech wonder and building discussion on one of these. Can we get three people to agree on one that seems most promising to expand?

Edit: or I can just change it to list what is currently already implemented (the tech, the wonders and the hunting camps) and work from there. That is, if work on this is desired at all.

So I was thinking about the Haast's Eagle and thought what if say the Maori domesticated them and then had a warrior class of people breed to be jockey sized. Could you then make Eagle Riders?

If done it would be like an Eagle Trainer building that would require say Megafauna Domestication and Falconry. And to be super rare it would only be able to be made from a Subdued Haast's Eagle. Maybe even link it to the Maroi culture to make it extra rare.

I also seem to recall seeing some sort of LOTR Giant Eagle rider in the download section too.

What do you think? Too extreme. It basically would have to be like a scouting unit, which battle would be too hard when the eagle is having a hard enough time carrying the rider.

Hydromancerx said:

So I was thinking about the Haast's Eagle and thought what if say the Maori domesticated them and then had a warrior class of people breed to be jockey sized. Could you then make Eagle Riders?

If done it would be like an Eagle Trainer building that would require say Megafauna Domestication and Falconry. And to be super rare it would only be able to be made from a Subdued Haast's Eagle. Maybe even link it to the Maroi culture to make it extra rare.

I also seem to recall seeing some sort of LOTR Giant Eagle rider in the download section too.

What do you think? Too extreme. It basically would have to be like a scouting unit, which battle would be too hard when the eagle is having a hard enough time carrying the rider.

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A scout that could cross coastal waters - could be very interesting. Linking it to the Maroi culture may be a bit too rare. It would upgrade to helicopter or fighter unit.

Yeah the Maroi culture was just to amke it super rare, but if its a wonder I suppose it would be ok. Especially if you are on random maps and the Haast's Eagle could live far away from the Maroi and some other culture develops this.

I was thinking this could upgrade to the hot Air Balloon, thus the helicopter path.

So, now that we have things like bear and deer riders in summary with the other fantastic subdued animals: What do you think about Caribou Riders or Moose Riders (maybe we could make them in such a various way like the Zebra, Camel and Mammoth Units)?

I'm thinking of animals like:
Caribou (!)
Moose (!)
Gazelle (?)
Gemsbock (?)
Moa (!)
Ostrich (?)
Musk Ox (!)
Okapi (in the way the Giraffe works?)
Wildebeest (?)
Water Buffalo (!)

I'm thinking that then we have a little more variety in the Megafauna Timeline!

So, what do you think, can we make it modular?

The Swedish army supposedly experimented with moose cavalery in (I think) the 18th century. You can apparently train a moose to accept a rider, but they absoloutly refuse to chrge large numbers of armed people.