Subdued Animals in C2C discussions

[0100010]

I haven't read this whole thread, so forgive me if this has been suggested before.

I'd like to see a way for animals to stick around a bit longer. By the time barbarian cities are spawning and many cities are settled/conquered most of them are gone due to loss of land.

One possibility is to increase the spawn a bit, or allow a small chance for a random spawn inside your borders on unimproved tiles, so long as a unit is not occupying it.

Another suggestion is to modify the Nature preserve improvement, make it buildable at a much earlier tech (classical era at least) It gives a couple coins as before, but also causes the terrain it was built on to spawn a random animal appropriate to the terrain, feature and/or bonus that the preserve was built on top of. It will do this even if it is inside your borders, and thus the animal can then be harvested/subdued. It should not spawn an animal if a unit of any type is already sitting on the tile.

A water version of the same could also be made for a later tech level.

In essence in exchange for the chance for animal spawns on that tile, your giving up the ability to build other improvements on it.

I haven't finished a game as far as tourism yet, so I don't know what the current nature preserve does, maybe it actually does this, but it has no descriptions so I am not sure.

 

[Thunderbrd]

random spawn inside your borders on unimproved tiles, so long as a unit is not occupying it.

This is a project on the to-do list. It's going to require some additional animal ai work that must take place first.

 

[ls612]

This is a project on the to-do list. It's going to require some additional animal ai work that must take place first.

I would certainly hope not, otherwise you would needlessly and randomly lose workers with no recourse in many cases. This was one of the main reasons IIRC that animals do not spawn or go into cultural borders.

 

[GT Ranma]

I would certainly hope not, otherwise you would needlessly and randomly lose workers with no recourse in many cases. This was one of the main reasons IIRC that animals do not spawn or go into cultural borders.

Two points:

One, someone said that someday, they want to have workers have some form of defense. Not sure what I think on this.

Second, this already happens, ever heard of 'Assassin' or 'Bandit' units?

Third! (OK, I lied) If this happens, it will be in conjunction with more then 1 new feature of the mod. We've talked about 'Lairs' of aggressive mobs, that you need to send units out to clean out. We've talked about only non-aggressive mobs spawning inside your cultural boarders.

So, while it will most likely happen some day, it will not be in the incarnation that the mod is currently in. There is a lot more work to be done before DH even thinks about adding them in. Or so I've gathered.

 

[ls612]

Two points:

One, someone said that someday, they want to have workers have some form of defense. Not sure what I think on this.

Second, this already happens, ever heard of 'Assassin' or 'Bandit' units?

Third! (OK, I lied) If this happens, it will be in conjunction with more then 1 new feature of the mod. We've talked about 'Lairs' of aggressive mobs, that you need to send units out to clean out. We've talked about only non-aggressive mobs spawning inside your cultural boarders.

So, while it will most likely happen some day, it will not be in the incarnation that the mod is currently in. There is a lot more work to be done before DH even thinks about adding them in. Or so I've gathered.

1. I'm the one doing that stuff, and it still needs some work before the AI will be able to use Combat Workers

2. But Assassins and bandits don't randomly spawn, they are built by AIs. That is an important difference, you can do something about them, you can't prevent a random event from wrecking your workers.

 

[GT Ranma]

Well, as far as I've seen, and DH can correct me if I am wrong.

The idea, so far put forwards for aggressive mobs spawning in cultural borders is this:

A 'cave' or 'den' will spawn on a tile. (How this effects the use of said tile by the city I do not know, maybe make it unworkable? Or a -1 to all? No idea, it is all still just ideas at this point) Then said cave or den would spawn the connecting animal, Lions, Tigers, Bears, oh my?

I do not think we were postulating a random smattering of units just popping up in your cultural boarders. Maybe people are, but I am trying to convince DH against that The whole, a cave pops up with a Bear in it that you now have to send someone out to kill b4 you can work the tile idea sounds workable, maybe even fun? I am sure you can give some sort of event bonus from it, to make the players 'want' the event, rather then dread it.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

The main problem with any idea that involves barbarian units popping up inside cultural borders is The Great Wall makes the player with it immune.

 

[strategyonly]

1. I'm the one doing that stuff, and it still needs some work before the AI will be able to use Combat Workers

2. But Assassins and bandits don't randomly spawn, they are built by AIs. That is an important difference, you can do something about them, you can't prevent a random event from wrecking your workers.

I agree here, there is alot of difference between "wanting" it and randomly have it done to you.

I do not think we were postulating a random smattering of units just popping up in your cultural boarders. Maybe people are, but I am trying to convince DH against that The whole, a cave pops up with a Bear in it that you now have to send someone out to kill b4 you can work the tile idea sounds workable, maybe even fun? I am sure you can give some sort of event bonus from it, to make the players 'want' the event, rather then dread it.

Actually i agree here also, the Bear stuff does sound intriguing. BUT

The main problem with any idea that involves barbarian units popping up inside cultural borders is The Great Wall makes the player with it immune.

I dont see it that way, i see it as "Do I really want the Great Wall" or "Do I really need the Great Wall at all?"

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

The point is that any event (eg slave/serf revolt or animal spawn eg locusts) inside your cultural borders is irrelevant to the nation with the Great Wall as those barbarian units will be expelled automatically at the end of the turn! This make The Great Wall OP and the events useless.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I would certainly hope not, otherwise you would needlessly and randomly lose workers with no recourse in many cases. This was one of the main reasons IIRC that animals do not spawn or go into cultural borders.

The point is that any event (eg slave/serf revolt or animal spawn eg locusts) inside your cultural borders is irrelevant to the nation with the Great Wall as those barbarian units will be expelled automatically at the end of the turn! This make The Great Wall OP and the events useless.

Well... first of all we're not talking about non-animal barbs right now... just animal ones.

Second, with some additional animal ai work, most of the animals I want to allow free reign within borders wouldn't attack - they'd be completely apathetic to humans but COULD be hunted.

Third, I also feel we need to get the workers some defense before this all takes place. Some dangerous animals should on occasion be spawned within borders but if they are there should be also an immediate warning notification of it happening. Regardless, as workers advance, their strengths should as well so they should be capable of surviving a tiger attack perhaps. So I'd put the combat worker ai issues on a level of priority ahead of animal inside border spawns.

Fourth... The great wall issue would indeed be something the code would have to carefully tackle to enable such a system for animals.

 

[strategyonly]

Second, with some additional animal ai work, most of the animals I want to allow free reign within borders wouldn't attack - they'd be completely apathetic to humans but COULD be hunted.

Third, I also feel we need to get the workers some defense before this all takes place. Some dangerous animals should on occasion be spawned within borders but if they are there should be also an immediate warning notification of it happening. Regardless, as workers advance, their strengths should as well so they should be capable of surviving a tiger attack perhaps. So I'd put the combat worker ai issues on a level of priority ahead of animal inside border spawns.

I understand that this is TRUE in RL, BUT as a gameplay perspective, I am leaning more towards i believe what DH is alluding to. In other words, do WE really need this, this complicated without the MultiMaps inplace. I say its just a good idea, but not really that important in gameplay at this TIME. Or am i on the wrong track with what your saying DH??

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I am just saying that the issue is more complex than people seem to be assuming. We can think and write about it but it should not detract from what we are getting ready for the next release.

 

[strategyonly]

I am just saying that the issue is more complex than people seem to be assuming. We can think and write about it but it should not detract from what we are getting ready for the next release.

ahaha thats what i thought.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Yeah... its not a project I'm working on right now. There's a lot that comes before all that.

 

[GT Ranma]

Now, onto the idea of Multi-Maps.

When does the Great Wall go Obsolete? Because once you are on mars, any Martians, or local Fauna would not give one rat's butt about you having the Great Wall on earth. . .

I still think a possible solution is to create the faction 'Wild', because then you could create 'Space' and say, 'Alien_onPlanet', ect ect.

At the point of having multi-maps, I almost feel as if everything being labeled 'barbarian' would be way to limiting.

 

[Faustmouse]

I once made it to a point where the AI had Hovertanks and such (I was the only remaining player). Even than it's very weird that the Great Wall prevents them from entering your boarders. Maybe it should just go obsolete at Rifling like the other walls.

 

[MaXimillionZero]

When does the Great Wall go Obsolete? Because once you are on mars, any Martians, or local Fauna would not give one rat's butt about you having the Great Wall on earth. . .

Doesn't the Great Wall only affect the continent it was built on?

 

[ls612]

Doesn't the Great Wall only affect the continent it was built on?

I don't know. I think it did in vanilla.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Either way, its a good point made here that more advanced units, even if they are barbarians, should have no trouble with it, so perhaps there should come an obsoletion point for the wall.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

If barbarians were not able to go from not-cultural plot to cultural plot instead then there would be no problem. On building "The Great Wall" all barbarian units inside the cultural borders of the builder would be expelled. From then on no new barbarians could move into cultural borders but any that spawn inside would not be restricted and any who are suddenly inside because of cultural expansion for any reason would still function as we are suggestion.

So how difficult is it to change the way the Great Wall code works? Currently at the end of the turn it expels all barbarians. We only want that to happen on the turn the Wall is built. I think that is the only code change needed. Edit No - barbarians would also need to be able to move from cultural plot to same cultural plot.

Doing that will allow us to put back the real slave/serf revolts and allow animal and other spawns to happen inside borders giving you what you say you want.