Poll: Making Animal-Unique buildings constructable with appropriate Folklore+

[Maltazard]

Dangerous Wildlife does exactly this.

Forgot about that entirely - I used to play with it and then at some point I stopped using the option for some reason... I can't remember why though.

The culture work I've been doing, that seems to have ended up being something of an overhaul, might present another option though in that borders will expand far more slowly when realistic culture and one tile start is on, which hopefully should preserve spots of unclaimed territory until much later than the current late ancient era or whenever it is that all tiles are claimed.

Indeed, it's also a matter of map size and map type and whatnot... if you're playing with 40 civs, there's 40 contenders for those animal units, and on a faster game speed, many will be left wanting. On the other hand, with few civs on a large map on slower speeds, eventually everything should be collectable, provided sea travel to different biomes comes fast enough. On the plus side, you now only need one of each unit, so I still think that was a good change.

 

[Somebody613]

I stopped using the option for some reason... I can't remember why though.

Probably the stupid "enemy appeared" message SPAM that has to be eliminated entirely (or BUG'd) the sooner the better - it provides near-zero benefits alongside a ton of nuisance spam.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I still balk a bit - folklore is just knowledge of an animal, not proof it even exists nor that you have access to them - to be hunted at will, nor domesticated or bred in any fashion. I might not require a subdual of the animal to introduce lore - just having encountered one should be enough for that, but that would take some interesting new coding. But... meh... trying to let go more here anyhow.

My problem is the story aspect of that process. Just because you've heard of a critter means you can act like it's common?

Also, a good quarter of us appreciate the collecting and guiding of animals? That alone seems grounds for some kind of bug or game option to control this as a switchable feature. But I do realize that would be a bit difficult to establish. There are always those here that LOVE the micro and that's why they like the mod, and those that hate it and are in the mod for other reasons but consider it to be a burden to shed.

Just some thoughts.

 

[Blazenclaw]

My problem is the story aspect of that process. Just because you've heard of a critter means you can act like it's common?

Also, a good quarter of us appreciate the collecting and guiding of animals?

The idea here as implemented is that the unique buildings for them are quite expensive if built with hammers - it is not acting as they're common, but more like you have some basic knowledge of them, so it is possible to fund an expedition to acquire one for the special use. It is decidedly more hammer efficient to build a hunter and go catch them yourself, rather than construct it nominally.

This preserves reason for the "go hunt" minigame, both for unique and copies, while not outright requiring it.

In later years/eras, the animal buildings will be effectively cheap compared to buildings of the current time yes - but by definition that's also many years after they were probably first discovered.

Lastly herds also require a second copy, so it's not quite "just need one" (though one can, at significant hammer cost, work all your way up to tamed animals).

 

[Thunderbrd]

The idea here as implemented is that the unique buildings for them are quite expensive if built with hammers - it is not acting as they're common, but more like you have some basic knowledge of them, so it is possible to fund an expedition to acquire one for the special use. It is decidedly more hammer efficient to build a hunter and go catch them yourself, rather than construct it nominally.

This preserves reason for the "go hunt" minigame, both for unique and copies, while not outright requiring it.

In later years/eras, the animal buildings will be effectively cheap compared to buildings of the current time yes - but by definition that's also many years after they were probably first discovered.

Lastly herds also require a second copy, so it's not quite "just need one" (though one can, at significant hammer cost, work all your way up to tamed animals).

I will reserve further opinion formulation until I see how it feels in the game. It might be good? Not even sure what I think for certain about it til then.

 

[Maltazard]

Also, a good quarter of us appreciate the collecting and guiding of animals? That alone seems grounds for some kind of bug or game option to control this as a switchable feature. But I do realize that would be a bit difficult to establish. There are always those here that LOVE the micro and that's why they like the mod, and those that hate it and are in the mod for other reasons but consider it to be a burden to shed.

For this purpose, the teleporting hunting awards option is much more disruptive. If you play with it, the more tedious part of hunting is eliminated from the game. If you play without it, well then you're micromanaging every captured animal back to your cities. Way more impactful of an option and it's already in the game.

 

[Thunderbrd]

For this purpose, the teleporting hunting awards option is much more disruptive. If you play with it, the more tedious part of hunting is eliminated from the game. If you play without it, well then you're micromanaging every captured animal back to your cities. Way more impactful of an option and it's already in the game.

Yeah the issue with that one is that if you don't use it, the AI is really just not ever going to be as good at getting animals back properly. There are advanced handoff strategies, healing considerations, etc that all make non-teleported captures a bit rough for the AI to manage, plus the additional concerns regarding the player seeing opportunities to knock out animal stacks enroute with ambush units and so on that make it hard for the player to not find it exploitable against the AI.

 

[BlueTemplar]

Hey... what about a "teleporting for AI only" option ?
(Admittedly, there's already too many options in the game...)

 

[BlueTemplar]

OtoH, what about grouping the options ?

And if it would be too hard/janky in the Custom Game screen (like using options that do nothing to signify ==GROUPS==), then embrace how so many of them are already in the BUG screen :
Leave only the map generation (including civ placement) ones in Custom Game,
and have a BUG-like screen pop up at the start of the game.
(Is it possible to do so *before* placing the units and revealing the map ? If not, might need the various values to be reloaded again...)

 

[Thunderbrd]

The custom game screen is almost off limits to us - we can modify a few things about it and some really advanced guys like AIAndy have discussed ways to make something of our own to come up before it or something along those lines but it is, itself, generally highly constricted by being managed by the EXE with some xml inputs.

 

[Blazenclaw]

OtoH, what about grouping the options ?

This is something I'd like seen for next savebreak (I think it savebreaks?), reordering and adding prefixes to options so they're grouped more logically. There's already a few for C2C combat mod options, and a system like that ought to be extended.

As for teleporting units for AI only, I can see it as an option, but don't have a big desire to implement it. Kinda against cheats for AI, even though yes it is far more easy to implement than good AI.