Increasing Animal Spawn Rates Before the Freeze

[Northstar1989]

There was some discussion of this in which I participated earlier, and seemed to be some consensus that animal spawn rates could use a slight adjustment upwards, so as to delay the state that eventually evolves of animals becoming virtually extinct on the map by the beginning of the Ancient Era...


I would suggest, in accordance with earlier discussion, that default animal spawn rates be adjusted upwards by 10-15% before the freeze of the SVN.


This would be a rather moderate increase to animal spawn rates- and would delay animals becoming overly-rare on the map before a realistic (or fun) time...

It would also add slightly to the danger or challenge of surviving in the wilderness, as wandering/traveling units would be more likely to encounter dangerous predators while still recovering from previous encounters... (in real life, predators tend to target weak or injured individuals)


Please let me know any thoughts on this. I strongly believe in making moderate changes like this to the game when an issue is identified, which might not end up having any exceptional impact on the game experience in the end, rather than going straight to large changes to fix issues like this (wild animals becoming virtually extinct on the map).


Regards,
Northstar

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

The current default value is 150. I run at 200 but don't have Neanderthals on. I a finding this is too low with some of the current changes. Animals are still spawning in the unclaimed areas in the late Renaissance. I also play with limited cities on so there are large wilderness areas on the map in the late Ren.

 

[strategyonly]

The current default value is 150. I run at 200 but don't have Neanderthals on. I a finding this is too low with some of the current changes. Animals are still spawning in the unclaimed areas in the late Renaissance. I also play with limited cities on so there are large wilderness areas on the map in the late Ren.

Yeah i like it alot more if the spawn was up also, and i am sooo glad that they still spawn, would be nice if they spawned all the way through the entire game. And i also like the limited cities.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

They would spawn throughout the game if there were wild or unowned areas. The only place they don't spawn is inside cultural borders.

 

[Faustmouse]

Maybe we could have a National Park Improvement that works reverse then forts and removes any culture on a plot. Also, it would greatly increase the animal spawn rate.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Maybe we could have a National Park Improvement that works reverse then forts and removes any culture on a plot. Also, it would greatly increase the animal spawn rate.

We'd still have to make it possible for animals to spawn within borders first. It's a planned project (with many limitations.)

And YES, they do not spawn nearly enough right now! (Bears do spawn a lot by comparison too.)

 

[Faustmouse]

Why is this necessary? What I propose here is something that would remove a plot from your control. So basically a reverse fort: They are build on neutral terrain and makes you own the plot by spreading your culture. The national park would be build on your terrain and make it neutral by draining your culture.

 

[Stormwind]

One thing to remember is that there is a hard limit to the amount of barbarian units, which includes animals (unless something has changed). More animals ususally mean less neanderthals and less barbarian combat units, especially on larger maps. Btw, could this be a cause of the non-defended barb cities?

 

[strategyonly]

Btw, could this be a cause of the non-defended barb cities?

Nope, because i am in the industrial Era, and ai have cities that have NO defenders in them, just as soon as i get 5 tiles away, they move out also?? (Not all the time but some)

The AI started to be corrected just before Koshling left, but now that he is gone, it is TERRIBLE again.

They actually went to other continents and made cities, now they just sit on 1 continent (Unless it it under 5-6 tiles away).

 

[LumenAngel]

The AI started to be corrected just before Koshling left, but now that he is gone, it is TERRIBLE again.

If Ai was better inv33, you can look at difference in related files. I dont remember a lot of things impacting units AI these last months

 

[olduser]

Nope, because i am in the industrial Era, and ai have cities that have NO defenders in them, just as soon as i get 5 tiles away, they move out also?? (Not all the time but some)

The AI started to be corrected just before Koshling left, but now that he is gone, it is TERRIBLE again.

They actually went to other continents and made cities, now they just sit on 1 continent (Unless it it under 5-6 tiles away).

It's not TERRIBLE again it's still TERRIBLE in many ways and specially in case of not settling on other continents because since Koshling left no one changed anything about settling.
This is something that should be fixed at some point. It has nothing to do with tranporting settlers to another continent because if you place some units and an settler on another continent they still don't settle. Maybe the AI thinks it's not good to do it or????

But cities that have NO defenders should be looked at before the release.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Why is this necessary? What I propose here is something that would remove a plot from your control. So basically a reverse fort: They are build on neutral terrain and makes you own the plot by spreading your culture. The national park would be build on your terrain and make it neutral by draining your culture.

Which would incidentally be an invitation to AI settlers to plant a city there. Don't give 'em open borders! At war they'd love to take these spots with their settlers. This was one of the problems with Civ I/II/III until 4 finally fixed it with a more national style border.

One thing to remember is that there is a hard limit to the amount of barbarian units, which includes animals (unless something has changed). More animals ususally mean less neanderthals and less barbarian combat units, especially on larger maps. Btw, could this be a cause of the non-defended barb cities?

I'm only a few versions away from splitting animals and barbs if things go right from here.

Nope, because i am in the industrial Era, and ai have cities that have NO defenders in them, just as soon as i get 5 tiles away, they move out also?? (Not all the time but some)

The AI started to be corrected just before Koshling left, but now that he is gone, it is TERRIBLE again.

They actually went to other continents and made cities, now they just sit on 1 continent (Unless it it under 5-6 tiles away).

There's certainly some issues with the AI but there hasn't been MUCH going on in it to change it, and very little that should actually be causing change so much as what is hopefully seamless adaptation to new things it needs to consider. But fundamentally the AI is in the state that Koshling left it, which in some areas were some new beta realms that still now need debugging. It's unfortunate because this is not my best strength by any means but I do think between Afforess, Alberts2, myself and whatever other help we can garner we'll eventually start seeing it improve in key areas like these. The foundation was improved by Koshling but the details still need some tweaking to get right in many places.

 

[JanusTalaiini]

The current default value is 150. I run at 200 but don't have Neanderthals on. I a finding this is too low with some of the current changes. Animals are still spawning in the unclaimed areas in the late Renaissance. I also play with limited cities on so there are large wilderness areas on the map in the late Ren.

Wait, limited cities? I've never seen that option, where is it?

 

[Faustmouse]

Which would incidentally be an invitation to AI settlers to plant a city there. Don't give 'em open borders! At war they'd love to take these spots with their settlers. This was one of the problems with Civ I/II/III until 4 finally fixed it with a more national style border.

Sounds like a fair trade off
But yeah, would be annyoing... Is there a way to give an improvement a "can't settle cities here" tag?

 

[Thunderbrd]

Probably but I'd rather allow some animals to co-exist with humans inside their borders first.

 

[climat]

Would animals spawned in the border attack humans? If then, I think they may be a nuisance rather than benefit.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Would animals spawned in the border attack humans? If then, I think they may be a nuisance rather than benefit.

Probably not. Though some further thought might be given to Mouse's concept if we want to retain predatory critters in the game later.

 

[Yudishtira]

This is something that should be fixed at some point. It has nothing to do with tranporting settlers to another continent because if you place some units and an settler on another continent they still don't settle. Maybe the AI thinks it's not good to do it or????

I agree it doesn't happen enough, but the Dutch in my game have just (late Renaissance for me; they're now teching Critical Thought) settled only their 4th city on the other side of the world. My closest rivals the Congolese (20 cities) have had cities all over the place for ages - including two on a large island/small continent where I also have two.

 

[olduser]

I agree it doesn't happen enough, but the Dutch in my game have just (late Renaissance for me; they're now teching Critical Thought) settled only their 4th city on the other side of the world. My closest rivals the Congolese (20 cities) have had cities all over the place for ages - including two on a large island/small continent where I also have two.

This confirms what i had in mind about this issue. It looks like sometimes the AI thinks it's not good to settle on another continent or waits longer as a human would until they do it.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

It also seems to depend on the traits of the AI leader. Expansionist seem to be more likely to expand to neighbouring small islands and then to other continents when they have the tech.