Noah could never build his Ark in FFH2

[Inkling]

so i'm trying hard to build the grand menagerie. the dancing bear is easy, hell on my last game there were 2 islands full of them and their bear dens, it was ubsurd. but i almost never, ever get any of the rest, not one, much less one of each.

I know this problem has been around a long while, back before i quit playing. And i've read the posts on the topic since then, but there isn't alot of help there.

i am playing on wildlands, and raging barbarians which i am not sure if it helps or hurts the situation. huge continents, with anywhere from the default to 18 civilizations, doesn't really matter though, the last 18 civlization game i played dropped to 9 before turn 60. they were slaughtered, there was plenty of land for barbarians/animals to spawn in.

i'll be the first to say that given current mechanics i have no idea how to fix the problem, but i can point out some of the causes, in case someone smarter than i cares. Most are probably well known.

first, the AI seems to be actively hunting animals down to kill them. They get a warrior or two with a couple combat promotions and forget about it, they will chase them down to the ends of the earth just to kill them. there really isn't any reason for it, i mean barbarians are slaughtering their civilization and on the other side of the continent they've got a combat five and change warrior killing lions and bears.

second, barbarians. as i understand it only so many barbarians and animals can exist in the world and a good number of the slots must be taken up by the skeletons and lizardmen that gaurd the barrows and the goblins gaurding the forts. if you take barbarian world you are really screwed. and if your goody huts and dungeons go badly, thats some more eaten up, especially if those guys take a city and start producing. Not sure if raging barbarians increases these, or if it increases animals ontop of the wildlands boost.

third The illians. I hate these guys to begin with, and it seems short of specifying the civ for each player i can't keep them out of my games. if barbarians really eat up slots, then sam hain and all those little frostling bastards are certainly contributing to the problem, and the illans go straight for it everytime, and usually get there pretty damn quick.

fourth, promotions. by the time i can get a scout who has survived long enough to actually get the subdue animal promotion, most animals are dead, mainly because the only real way to get that scout to subdue animal is by killing the animals, but to add insult to injury, usually the first move he makes puts him right next to a hill giant, or other impossible nasty, and i get to start over from scratch. i'd go for hunting and the hunting lodge, but such a bee line usually costs me the game as there is really nothing to be gained early on from such an action, maybe i'm just not playing right, but short of hunting as a free tech, i'll go for education or some resource specific tech long before hunting.

fifth, super animals. forget wolves, i've never seen a wolf alive when i could actually catch him save a freak dungeon spawning. but tigers, lions, gorillas, the ones who actually survive to a point when i could catch them usually have like combat five and a host of other promotions. they are more than a match for a scout, the only real hope is to send a stack and try to soften the animal up and hope you don't get lucky/unlucky and kill him first, a true waste of resources given you have really no chance to get all the animals. i've treid to leave them be till i could get a hunter or better yet, a ranger, but the AI in its infinite wisdom will invariable send a stack to kill the animal, or it will just keep fighting till probability kicks in and it looses.

sixth, they just don't spawn. i've gone games where i have never seen a lion, or a tiger, or a gorilla. it seems as if sometimes the creature just doesn't spawn. much less in numbers sufficient that you would have a chance of catching one. and if they did, but on another continent or island, thats what, optics. unless that continent is without a nation, its not gonna happen. I understand part of the problem was they would only spawn on certain terrain types, very little jungle, forget about gorrillas.

seventh, barbarian heroes, and the inevitable can of whoop ass they bring. orthus seems garaunteed to make an appearance, and the illans, who are in all my games will always build mokka and the horde of frostlings. The AI in its infitie wisdom will search every dungeon, barrow, ruin, and what have you it can, usually right outside my borders, spawning who knows what vile creature and his minions. Since an army of scouts isn't gonna do you any real good against these, you are forced to warrior spam against the inevitable. with only a few scouts who soon meet their demise at the perils of the wilds

I haven't tried natures revolt, usually because by the time i can build it, the barbarians are few and far between, and as i recall, certain animals, i believe it was the wolf and the gorilla, would never be a result anyway. Not sure if that has changed,

i also seem to remember rangers started with subdue animal, they don't anymore, while it doesn't really matter much, them coming into the game so late, atleast for me, it was nice to have a recon unit which could get subdue animal without having to kill, which being a recon unit, meant animals.

there was talk of wolf dens, lions dens, tiger dens, to go with bear dens, not sure what the gorillas were gonna get. i see lion is listed in the pedia, but i have never seen one in game, and none of the others are listed, though the pedia is missing a couple things/ don't show in certain veiws.

I understand the desire to not have it built every game, but in the games i have played i have had no chance whatsoever of building it. I've given up trying until something changes, i've given up on hunting animals in general except farming bear dens. I'm guessing if i chose some specific set of game settings i might have a chance, but i really rather like my current settings, hopefully someone can come up with a nice easy means of correcting this so that isn't the only option, it will work regardless of your options, like armaggedon scalling to world size, etc.

Anyway, thank you for your time.

 

[lordrune]

I thought about the same points you raise, and I decided that I was never going to be able to do it. So I've never wasted my time trying

 

[Marnok]

Well one way would be, instead of just "bear dens" which get stomped, so have "breeding grounds" for each type of animal which are more persistant. Sometimes breeding grounds will spawn an animal, hunters would be able to use a special ability to search for an animal, it may be possible to hunt an animal to extinction in that area - but maybe they will just move to an adjacent plot.

I was thinking the best way might be to have each animal type as a "resource", using the existing Ivory for the heffalumps, and adding bear, wolf, tiger, etc as map resources. If you drive the animals away or kill them off, there is a chance that a new resource will replace them - a meat type for the carnivores - or perhaps the resource is useful "as is" - bear resource could provide Fur. It's the sort of resource you need to manage though because even with a camp, the Fur could be made unavailable by a spawn of one of these "killer bears". I would probably change the gfx so you don't get mauled by a cub, how embarrassing.

I would also like animals to be able to travel in "owned" land, but perhaps they have less tendancy to attack or tend to wander toward borders away from mankind. They certainly shouldn't attack cities.

 

[Jabie]

I agree with the difficulty in getting all the animals. Beelining hunting for hunters is recommended. You can summon tigers if you have FoL, so that's that one off the list. Bears, wolves and lions are relatively common - look in polar regions for bears, forests for wolves and deserts for lions. Gorillas occur in jungles, but are very scarce and seem to the main problem.

Things that might help Noah and his Ark:

* An event that gave you the opportunity to get an animal of your choice for a set amount of money once you've built a Carnival and/or Hunting Lodge.

* A Gorilla Nest terrain improvement.

* I think the Capture Animal promotion requires Combat I. Removing this requirement would help.

* Grant the caster of the Natures Revolt spell one (or more) animal(s) of their choice. Currently I have no absolutely no reason to cast this ritual and have yet to see the AI do so. If I were to receive the correct animals to build the GM, I might attempt it at least once in a game.

 

[Switchblock]

* An event that gave you the opportunity to get an animal of your choice for a set amount of money once you've built a Carnival and/or Hunting Lodge.

For all you that didn't know, there is an event like that in the game (I'm tired of reading it being suggested in the "Common Events" thread).

I think animals should spawn for longer, that would solve a few problems there. I would suggest that regular barbs also spawn during this elongated period, just less often.

 

[slowcar]

to build the great menagerie i played a earth map with the lanun, beelined optics and let some hunters kill everything on the far continent.
i planned to get the tiger using FoL and looked very long for a gorilla, got some tigers from a dungeon boss spawn by luck and managed to build the menagerie sometime.

raging barbs are not a good option as barbs hinder animals from spawning.

 

[Inkling]

For all you that didn't know, there is an event like that in the game (I'm tired of reading it being suggested in the "Common Events" thread).

while i am aware of the event, i haven't seen it since i started playing again.

raging barbs are not a good option as barbs hinder animals from spawning.

you are right. i was thinking raging barbarians might increase the effect of wildlands, and i wasn't too worried because as i understand it, once barbarians start spawning, animals have already stopped, so they shouldn't interfere. The only concern i had was that samhain, and hostiles from goody huts might increase.
what i forgot ofcourse, is that raging barbarians increases the rate at which barrows and ruins spawn barbarians,(or atleast it used to) which will definitely cut into the animal population. Doh.

i still don't think it will be enough, and i rather like raging barbarians, but i will definitely give it a try.

 

[Fafnir13]

I've managed to build it once, thanks to an island heavy map and a FoL neighbor.
It would help things a lot if animals would never stop spawning. I believe FF does that.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

Well one way would be, instead of just "bear dens" which get stomped, so have "breeding grounds" for each type of animal which are more persistant. Sometimes breeding grounds will spawn an animal, hunters would be able to use a special ability to search for an animal, it may be possible to hunt an animal to extinction in that area - but maybe they will just move to an adjacent plot.

I was thinking the best way might be to have each animal type as a "resource", using the existing Ivory for the heffalumps, and adding bear, wolf, tiger, etc as map resources. If you drive the animals away or kill them off, there is a chance that a new resource will replace them - a meat type for the carnivores - or perhaps the resource is useful "as is" - bear resource could provide Fur. It's the sort of resource you need to manage though because even with a camp, the Fur could be made unavailable by a spawn of one of these "killer bears". I would probably change the gfx so you don't get mauled by a cub, how embarrassing.

I would also like animals to be able to travel in "owned" land, but perhaps they have less tendancy to attack or tend to wander toward borders away from mankind. They certainly shouldn't attack cities.

I fully agree with this. also, having animals spawn the whole game like FF would be great. more animal lairs, like those in Orbi ( gorilla shack, griffon nests, etc. ) too. subdue animal/beast promos not needing combat I might be good. and rangers/beastmasters should DEFINITELY start with subdue animal/beasts imho. I've never really understood the reason behind that change tbh

 

[Sarisin]

You raise a lot of good points. I think the Grand Menagerie is tough to build because few Wonders, certainly those that can be early Wonders, have the rewards that this one offers.

There is a lot of luck involved in terms of hitting goody huts (for Animal Husbandry, Hunting, etc.) before the animals start getting wiped out.

I just built it mid-game in my current game. I was missing the Tiger and the Lion. The Tiger I got from my FOL Priest - all my cities got a summoned Tiger. The Lion I got when I built Nature's Revolt. That loaded the map with Tigers, Lions, Bears and Wolves. No Griffons, Elephants, or Spiders, but you don't need those for the GM. But, most importantly, no Gorillas - that is the toughest one to get IMO.

Other ways to get animals include from lairs, dungeons, etc. Unfortunately, there is often a boss with them and he will pound or even kill your critter-catching unit. Still, I have got animals that way.

Then, the pure dumb luck way (and I have got this too) is the event that offers to sell you an animal. I just love that event, but it comes very rarely in my experience.

I hear all those suggesting ways to make the GM easier to build, but then it will probably be nerfed, so be careful what you wish for.

 

[Charlie_B]

I've played a fair number of FFH games - approaching at least one with every Civ - and today was the first time I'd ever seen a Gorilla.
I quite like rare features like this, as they're more rewarding when you finally complete them. What I have realised, however, is that it's foolish to base your game around getting the GM in any way. You've just got to hope you've researched the right techs, and trained up a suitable animal catcher when the opportunity presents itself.

 

[Brokenbone]

I've played a good while, and played well IMHO, but have never found enough animals for the GM either... well, except in the tutorial type scenario with the Lanun.

Maybe a den for each kind of animal, plus it needing exploration before destruction (like a barrows or dungeon) would meaningfully increase chances of managing your way into the GM? That is, dens wouldn't vanish as soon as someone stomped on them?

As to any late game creation of the wonder, I truly forget how "Nature's Revolt" works, what animals, exactly, do barbarians get turned into? I am certain I've seen well promoted wolves and lions where previously barbarian nasties lurked, but as to other flavors of animals, I've got no recollection. Again, by that point of the game, often no "normal" animals are left, you're stuck cursing barbarians into animal shapes, which is kind of cool, creates a new strong stock of animals at least. If for some reason they only turn into wolves / lions, maybe making sure they can end up as any sort of animal would be a good change.

 

[Micky Onimusha]

I've managed to build the GM once, but that was the Svartalfar, who get an advantage in this regard (Str 3 Scouts and starting with Agri make it possible to nab animals early, and of course, Tigers from FoL help the process). Even then I needed the Hunter event to come by and purchase myself a Gorilla.

I agree it's close to impossible, but it is technically possible, and I don't mind it that way to be honest. My main problem with the animal system is that, as others have noted, by the time you can actually catch them, they've stopped spawning. I'd prefer it if they would be able to keep spawning even after the main barbs begin their run abouts. Maybe have them have their own separate limit (e.g. the map limit is 100 barbs / 25 animals rather than 125 barbs).

But yeah, the GM is hellish to obtain and I never set out at the beginning of a game to try and get it. If I ever do get it, it's more down to coincidental luck than effort.

 

[Marnok]

I usually only attempt it if I score a gorilla. Sometimes I "save" gorillas for when I can tame them by putting cities around and avoiding combat!

(still thinking about making Gorillas semi-civilized; make upgrades with simple weapons etc.)

 

[slowcar]

it is not only the menagerie, catching animals is like a subgame, and the higher the difficulty you play the less you are able to enjoy it.

i second the proposal to let barbarians and animals co-exist, at least until the barbs start to advance to axemen or rangers.

 

[Inkling]

Glad to see all these suggestions and discussion. I was worried i was the only one interested in this.

I've played a fair number of FFH games - approaching at least one with every Civ - and today was the first time I'd ever seen a Gorilla.
I quite like rare features like this, as they're more rewarding when you finally complete them. What I have realised, however, is that it's foolish to base your game around getting the GM in any way. You've just got to hope you've researched the right techs, and trained up a suitable animal catcher when the opportunity presents itself.

To be clear, i agree rare makes it more interesting, i would not want it common place, showing up every game. but as i said, its not a rarity for me, even with the intention of getting it for several games now, its been impossible.

since some of you do get it, i'm guessing the solution is a matter of adapting the game mechanics to support a wider array of play options. something like increasing the animal spawn rate when more players are added, much like the armaggedon counter increases with map size. though clearly it would take more than that, likely one of the many suggestions already made here. But I would hate for it to be adjusted in a such a way that i finally have a real chance to build it, and it becomes common place for someone elses set up, detracting from their game play.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

raising gorilla/tiger spawn rates would probably be nice. and I definitely agree that nature's revolt should have barbarians morph into ALL kinds of animals ( so even gorillas, griffons, elephants, spiders... )

 

[Ranos]

I finally got my first GM in my last game. Captured the lion, wolf, and bear early on, got a couple of tigers from a dungeon spawn (not that it would have mattered since I was researching FoL and got really lucky with the hunter event.

It would be nice if the animals would spawn for longer but other than that, I like it the way it is. Getting the Grand Menagerie gives you a Trophy so it shouldn't be an easy task, once in twenty games at most. Some of it is just luck. One person gets it two games in a row, another doesn't get it after playing 50 games.

It seems like only one or two gorillas spawn and maybe twice as many tigers. Lions and wolves are common and bears are like the plague.

I think that Wolf Packs and Lion Prides should be able to spawn since the animals upgrading on their own, especially the wolves, is close to impossible. Either that or let the normal units build dens. Leave Tigers and Gorillas the way they are. Having those two as rare units is great. Finding one allive and being able to catch it is like winning the FfH lottery.

 

[thapagan]

Mountain gorillas, Give gorillas the impassable Trait (for mimics to steal) and a desire to head to the nearest mountain to nest, and spawn other gorillas, (or baby gorillas).
I for would like to see how it works. Would there be a island full of gorillas.
If there are enough gorllas in one place would the set up a civ (not under current rules)

Just an idea, good or bad?

 

[zup]

Well my scouts sure don't find many lions or wolves. All they find are hill giants and griffons. And then they are dead. They might spot the occasional elephant but that's just as interesting as say...hitting end turn 30 times because Auric cast Stasis? I could never figure out why there are so few animals and they are gone so quickly either. The world should be literally full of them until some turn 300 (normal speed). I never understood why animals don't cross my borders either. It's not like they should care.

I'd like that animals spawned on any unimproved tile (even inside borders) for the entire game. And they moved inside borders as well. Obviously they will never attack cities, they are not that bold, but anything outside is fair game. I'm sure players would soon start to protect their workers with combat units then. From my experience, AI already does so. What a better way to make AI more competitive than force the human do like it does? I also don't understand why bears are so aggressive. AFAIK if they could talk they'd say 'leave me alone and I leave you alone'.