You got twisted up a bit on Carnivores too...
I really think the feeding group for animals should be split into the three:
Carnivore, Herbivore, Omnivore.
I'll look over the rest later today and edit the first post to reflect.
There's also a few new combat class definition concepts that have come up since that post and I'll try to include them.
This should help a lot to pin things down!
Anyone else have any review comments on Hydro's list or mine?
Well there is the Order "Carnivora" which includes Cats, Dogs, Bears, Weasels, Hyenas, Seals and Sea Lions. And then there are "Carnivores" which means they prey upon other creatures. Such as a Lion is both a Carnivore and in the order Carnivora but a Crocodile is just a Carnivore.
The problem really is actual taxonomy vs common knowledge taxonomy. People know the name "Feline" or "Canine" or even "Marsupial" but not many know "Pinniped" or "Monotreme". Also sicne we have a limited amount of animals and of those they are very lopsided towards mammals and of those lopsided towards the large ones.
This is why I think we should have the main 6 groups plus add additional subgroups as we need them. For instance a pigeon only really needs to be categorized as a bird. But we could always categorize an Eagle as a Bird and Raptor if we have stuff specific to that group of birds.
Carnivore, Omnivore and Herbivore are not good for categories since the wide varies in diet. What about Nectarvore, Pollinivore, Frugivore, Granivore, Folivore, Rhizophagy, Sapivore, Mycophagic, Xylophagy, Detritivore, Coprophagic, Lepidophagy, Trophallaxic, Planktovore, Insectivore, Ovivore, Piscivore, Paedophagic, Scavenger, Pyroivore, Parasite, Sanguivore, Liquivore, Cytovore, Kinetivore, Lithivore, Chemotroph, Photovoltaic or Photosynthetic? So yeah please don't group them by their diet.
@Hydro:
Quick question here, I may have missed something in this or another thread, but what gameplay effect do we intend to have with giving Animals another combat type specific to their clade? Are we going to be doing things like making a promotion that has +25% vs Birds, because that seems like a bit much to me.
Like I said I think general 6 classes (mammal, bird, reptile, etc) should cover what we want. Any subclasses like Canine or Equine can be made on a case by case basis. We don't really need a sub-class for aardvarks. They can do fine as just mammal class.
A particular weapon might be worth giving a bonus vs Birds (like blowguns for example)... How about managing the Bird Flu accurately?
I don't believe we should hesitate to categorize in wide strokes at the moment but I don't mind holding off on more detailed definitions until they show themselves useful.
This issue with Python is kinda annoying though... We really just need to figure out what the process is to update python to handle new combat classes so it won't be but a little added step.
Yes use VERY wide strokes for now. Bird Hunting with just Bird category will suffice. If you want a Raptor (ex. Eagle) or Rattie (ex. Ostrich) we can make those specifically but I do not think we need a special Ox Pecker category even though we have it as a unit.