Animal problems

[carn]

Animal spawning unbalanced a lot of things.
3 Problems i see currently:
-festival
It's now problem and lousily cheap(2-3 scouts) to get 2 wolfpacks. Place them in some wood, let them declare nationality(so open border scouts from others do not kill them) and festival building tunrs from +1 happy +20% culture into +2 happy, + 3 culture, + 20% culture.
There is no reason for creative and the AI does not use this, so is handicapped in culture war. The idea of FFH2, that culture is rare si destroyed.
Even dens can be used, if no open border is there, dens can be just be let alive, if they are inside cultural borders all spawned animals remain and one has enough to improve festivals further. I even once had a bear den, which was excellent, because as soon as i had hunters, all my newfound cities had +3 culture.

-wolve recuits and training grounds
wolves often spawn in mass in tundra and ice. As one seldom selttles there and they can be quickly sealed off due to +3 culture from wolf cages, they can be left there.
Since they are after 100 turns about 50 wolves and packs there, there are 6 or so per square and one can attack them without leaving own borders, so little risk.
This has two important effects, first a few hunters there can capture number of hunters packs per turn. These packs need 4 turns for healing with medic 1.
So in case of war, one can quickly and freely produce expendable str 2,mv 2 units. This is not that useful if the enemy drags hunters along, but as it is nearly for free its nice and the AI doesn't do it.
Later the more useful effect of training can be used. A axeman or maceman with bronzeweapons can get the missing XP to 5 by killing just 1 or 2 wolves and that way has drastically improved chances to survive his first battle. This is especially powerful with raider civic.
Of course this only works with closed borders or on a seperate island, but if one has a den then closed borders are worth the ability to have +1 ahppy,+3 culture per city, +1-3 xp per unit and ability to recruit 1-3 units per turn in times of need.

-spiders + city states
this is the most unbalancing luck based problem
when hunter are there spiders are no longer relevant, but beforehand they are game winners. I have a game on immortal, where 4 turns after researching animal handling my, of course having saved a promotion, scout with animal promotion walked upon a forested hill and then won defending against a giant spider with 30 percent chance - my spiders roled over 2 neighbours counquering 12 cities.
I had to disband 30 spiders and baby spiders to handle costs, but thanks to city states, marcket and elder huts i only had a dip of 25 turns. I stopped playing the game, when i got sailing and started thinkng about getting 30 spiders to conquer the dragon hort on neighbouring ilse. Since i had several barb cities and large uncontrolled areas i could at any time create a few dozen baby spiders for free.
I did only built 1 warrior for every city, no other military units.
On a pangaea map i would have won around turn 150-200 - and all because a single scout turned lucky.

I think it would even work on deity, if one starts with agriculture and researches animal handling first and is lucky with the first scout.

I think it should not depend on a few chances(50% chance unexperienced scout wins first combat, chance spider is nearby, 10-40% chance that scout wins against spider) to get a free, str 4 and invisible army of money limited size around turn 45.

 

[onedreamer]

I agree with your views. In fact, I stopped playing 0.22. I think that animal packs and baby spiders really unbalanced the game towards the human player (and we didn't really need it in FFH ), they aren't that fun, either. They're more of a pain to deal with. Animals because they're too many, baby spiders because they're too many. I played with Svartalfar and it is... insane. Also, it's not that hard to capture an Elephant. Ok, you can't attack, but with strength 7 animals that can easily make experience with other stuff around it's going to be an easy game...
I would scrap everything altogether, however if they have to stay at all costs, baby spiders need a chance to spawn, like 10% and no more, while Svartalfar can have a bonus on this chance (25% ?) rather than on the number of spiders.
Animal dens... I can't think of how to make them interesting.

 

[vorshlumpf]

I like the suggestion that animals of the same type on the same square have a chance to 'merge', creating a more experienced single animal. This should cut down on the numbers a bit and make farming slightly harder.

 

[Joebasalt13]

I don't see what all the complaining is about. I for the first time am trying to capture/subdue bears so I find it fun and I have yet to see any spiders ever?

I see bears, wolves.

Seen Elephant once scared the hell out of me never knew they were in the game.

Gorilla a few times

but no other animals, I want Spiders! Where/how do the show up?

Oh and I seen Tigers to.

 

[3141592]

Spiders are rare and invisible, so you aren't guaranteed to see one every game, especially on quicker settings.

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

I TOLD YOU SO!

When the animal packs mechanics was proposed I knew that the idea behind it was good but the implementation was not so great.

My suggestion is that animal packs should be able to enter cultural borders. Players would have to kill them, they would not be able to cut them of from the world and bred them under control on the edge of their empire. It would be a threat like normal wolf pack are.

Now we have patch f so lets hope the spawning rates will normalize the 'wild' situation.

 

[onedreamer]

Spiders were rare. Now with the baby spiders they're everywhere.
The complaints about tons of animals are because the game has been transformed into a MMO where you have to farm all the animals around your city... pretty boring and repetitive.
Btw I could get my hands on a good deal of animals even prior to 0.22. Of course it's a matter of strategy, if you beeline for Education like everyone seems to do, then you'll have hard chances. But I think that if we wanted to have more chances to capture animals the best solution would have been to move the subdue animal promotion to Exploration.

 

[carn]

What is the reason no animals spawn in later game?

That would seem the better solution to having chances to capture a lot of animals, instead of having them only spawn early, but if left undisturbed(=player protects them), respawn into ridiculous numbers.

 

[carn]

Seems to be, that in patch e most of the problems i mentioned are solved, as Spider growth is more unlikely, wolf cages are less useful and farming becomes more difficult.

 

[Sarisin]

Spiders were rare. Now with the baby spiders they're everywhere.
The complaints about tons of animals are because the game has been transformed into a MMO where you have to farm all the animals around your city... pretty boring and repetitive.
Btw I could get my hands on a good deal of animals even prior to 0.22. Of course it's a matter of strategy, if you beeline for Education like everyone seems to do, then you'll have hard chances. But I think that if we wanted to have more chances to capture animals the best solution would have been to move the subdue animal promotion to Exploration.

I agree, onedreamer.

It seems like by the time I can get a Hunter with subdue animal the animals, except for elephants are all gone. My only chance then is to wait until I can built Nature's Revolt.

I think if you are lucky and get Animal Husbandry from a goodie hut and Hunting quickly (difficult in an Epic/Marathon game), you might be able to corral some of the critters.

I know you are loathe to play .22. Personally, I am playing two games alternating each day. I play an Ice game one day. I still like Ice because IMO it takes a great game Civ 4 and gives it a fantasy theme making it one of the best games ever. Fire is more of an MMO or another game as you mentioned and moves away from the Civ 4 theme by adding many new and different features. I enjoy playing it too just to try out all the civs and features.

 

[carn]

It seems like by the time I can get a Hunter with subdue animal the animals, except for elephants are all gone. My only chance then is to wait until I can built Nature's Revolt.

One can send 2 scouts, the less experienced is suizided and the second is likely to win.(Does not work with elephants and giants) Considering that a bear gives +1 happy and +3 culture this is worthwhile as comparable buildings are later tech and more expensive.
And after some time the scout is experienced enough to take all animals if on a forested hill.

I play an Ice game one day.

What is an "Ice" game?

I thought "Ice" would be the last development stage of FFH2, where properly the illians get some stuff fitting there theme to bring back the ice age.

 

[Kael]

He means "Light".

 

[onedreamer]

It seems like by the time I can get a Hunter with subdue animal the animals, except for elephants are all gone. My only chance then is to wait until I can built Nature's Revolt.

All you need to capture animals is animal husbandry and scouts. A scout can easily overcome wolves, lions and panthers. They have chances to win versus gorillas and tigers too, if they are already experienced. Hunters are only needed for spiders and bears (although if you're very very lucky and have a combat 5 scout defending a forested hill, you can win vs unpromoted bear and spider too). I rarely capture animals with hunters because hardly there is anyone left around, but I never found it so hard to do it with scouts.

 

[Caradoc]

I'd like to see the animal lairs provide enough defense to make it a challenge to take them out. I'd also like to see a lair (circus?) that puts out the scarce animals (gorillas, tigers, etc) that do not have lairs of their own. And maybe a captured lair could be worked like a resource generator.

BTW: I just love it that the captive animals can escape and go on a rampage.

 

[Sarisin]

I'd like to see the animal lairs provide enough defense to make it a challenge to take them out. I'd also like to see a lair (circus?) that puts out the scarce animals (gorillas, tigers, etc) that do not have lairs of their own. And maybe a captured lair could be worked like a resource generator.

BTW: I just love it that the captive animals can escape and go on a rampage.

What rampage? I have called it more an Animal Suicide as the animals, certainly the ones with more than one movement point, turn around, attack and are killed. Come to think of it, the last time I had a jailbreak (my last game as there always seems to be one!), all the animals escaped, attacked and died. Maybe because of the roads?

Of course, as the jailbreak always seems to happen when the animals have disappeared from the map, your happy cap can take a real hit.

I like your ideas on lairs! I find them more often protected by barbs (warriors, goblins, etc.) rather than animals. I don't think the regular barbs should be given lair guard duty - let the animals guard their own lairs, and let the barbs go out and pillage, attack, etc.