Mod Idea: Animal Domestication

[Stefanskantine]

This idea is a way to add some realism to the animal resources in Civ 4, and at the same time add some diversity in units and resources. Currently, horses and Ivory are the only animal resources required to build any unit. Also, they work by possessing them on the map and building a terrain improvement just like the mineral resources.

In actual human history wild ancestors of animals were caught and domesticated, then spread around by humans. Also, camels, donkeys, reindeer, and some others have been used for work, and the camel at least (and maybe the donkey?) were used in warfare. It's also theoretically possible the above could have been used more frequently, and perhaps even other animals domesticated for warfare (zebra, rhinocerous, moose, giraffe).

Perhaps this could be modeled in game using the function of BTS corporations. If you have access to a resource, say camels (which would obviously have to be added to this mod) in game an then obtained a certain tech (animal husbandry) you could then found Camel Domestication as a "corporation." The only function of the corporation would be to convert the wild camel map resource to a new "domestic camel" resource in that city, just as Standard Ethanol converts grains to oil in BTS. If it's possible with corporations, it should spread somewhat automatically to allow neighboring civilizations to possibly gain the benefits of domestication.

Access to domesticated camels should allow Camel Chariots, Camel Archers, Camel Knights, Camel Cavalry, etc. For flavor, they should have slightly differing statistics than the counterpart units built with different resources (Camel slightly weaker than horse but a bonus in desert, reindeer bonus in tundra, etc). Some animals not domesticated in real life could require a new great person (Great Breeder) to found their "corporation" to represent the difficulty in doing so, this could perhaps be giraffes, bison, rhinos, etc.

I'm interested to hear anyone's thoughts on the idea, I think it could add a lot of interest and flavor to a mod if possible to implement using corporations. I know nothing about modding Civ 4, so I'd like to hear if it's even possible before I attempt to learn. If any skilled modder likes the idea and wants to try to implement it, then that would be even better.

 

[Jimman]

i dont think it would be that hard to implement, like you said its just changing all the corporations but the problem with this is the spreading, it would be too heavly controlled by the civ that founds the 'corporation'

 

[Stefanskantine]

I was thinking you could make the "corporation" spread automatically at a high rate, like the religions, as well as being spreadable by some unit. Or perhaps this isn't possible for corporations?

 

[Jimman]

i dont know whether you can programe that but i dont know what unit you would have to spread it
and also there would be the problem that it would have to be founded in a city which would be a bit strange
im not sure whether it would work better if you just treated it as a religion

 

[Skitters]

To some extent - for game purposes - are horses and camels interchangeable though?

Having said that, perhaps animal domestication could be linked to farming, and perhaps (along with the wheel), it could be the difference between a settler and worker moving at 1 tile/turn and 2?

 

[Stefanskantine]

@Jimman:
I thought of that, but the problem with using the religion function is that it would interfere with civics and state religion functions, not to mention it would interfere with some of the mods out there with inquisitors and religious victory that I'd want to use with it.

@Skitters:
I guess they are somewhat interchangeable, I'm just looking to add some diversity/flavor and some interesting strategy. You could accomplish the goal of affecting workers/settlers by adding a camel/horse/llama worker unit to civs that gain access to that domesticated animal.

I guess another way of doing it would be to have a national wonder or building that converts the wild animal resource to the domesticated resource. Then multiple civs could domesticate the same animal, or they could domesticate different ones and trade surplus resources.

 

[SerriaFox]

In another thread someone suggested that you "domesticate" animals through building, to you his example:

Building stable requires horse, provides horse.

I was thinking you could also expand on the idea to protect your strategic interest:

Building Stable requires horse, provides horse and gelding:
You would need to modify the Units XML to allow geldings to substitute for horse, and the AI to consider horses of more value than geldings for trade. Since that resource cannot be used to make stables.

 

[Stefanskantine]

Interesting idea Serria, that opens up a lot of potential for strategy. That makes the owner of the intitial much more strategically powerful, however.

I guess my main attraction to my idea is the extra flavor of perhaps starting on a continent where say horses and camels are domesticated, and then later discovering a new land where the civilizations employ bison knights and llama archers with slightly different strengths and characteristics (or something similar).

 

[Jimman]

so how many animals are you thinking there should be?

 

[Stefanskantine]

I was thinking there'd be two techs that allow domestication, an early one "animal husbandry" and then slightly later "beast taming." Horse and elephant would serve as the baseline for each group, and all units created from the others would start with some modifiers. For example:

Animal Husbandry:
Horse
Camel -5% strength, bonus in desert
Donkey -5% strength, bonus in hills
Caribou -5% strength, bonus in tundra and arctic
Llama -10% strength, bonus in forest, hills

Beast Taming:
Elephant
Rhinocerous -10% attack, +10% defend
Giraffe -10% strength, +1 visibility
Bison -10% strength, +1 move, bonus in plains
Yak -5% strength, +1 move

 

[NikNaks]

Not quite sure if it's exactly what you're thinking of, but Eusebius made this a while back: Eusebius Live Animals