Suggestion: eliminate silk except for spider pens

feydras

Prince
Joined
Apr 10, 2006
Messages
398
Location
Seattle
What the title says. I think silk would be much neater if it was only available via spider pens.

- feydras
 
Yeah, it at least needs to be a lot rarer from other sources if not eliminated al together. It is rather annoying to be placed in a position that is quite weak resource-wise except for the presence of 5 sources of silk, which you would be able to get by means of spider cages without wasting a tile that would be better worked with a cottage or if it had any other resources other resource
 
I'm for this idea, like it was in AoI. However...

They would need a way to boost the animal spawn by a ton though for it to work. Seed lairs around the map that crank out various animals or something. As it is now even with the wildlands option turned on, all the animals are usually dead on the map by the time you get subdue animal.

Out of 10 games I think once I got a dancing bear, let alone a spider pen or anything else....
 
100% agree.

And not only for silk...
In fact I would like to have in Custom Game an option with "very few resources", in order to trigger more meanings to resource wars!
 
I'm for this idea, like it was in AoI. However...

They would need a way to boost the animal spawn by a ton though for it to work. Seed lairs around the map that crank out various animals or something. As it is now even with the wildlands option turned on, all the animals are usually dead on the map by the time you get subdue animal.

Out of 10 games I think once I got a dancing bear, let alone a spider pen or anything else....

Yes, I agree that in the new version animals, even with that setting, do seem sparse. In the prior version they seemed more plentiful and I was even able to build the Grand Menagerie sometimes.

Also, in the map I play most, Fantasy Realm, Silk definitely shows up in clumps. I would rather get the Happiness boost from the Spider Pen like some of the other animals than Silk.

Now what's all this about Chuck Norris? He and I were in the same Tae Kwon Do class at Osan AB, Korea way back when. :)
 
Does like everyone but me subdue animals? I prefer to beeline towards specific techs so aside from playing as either of the elven races I don't end up getting the subdue animal promotion for a long time.
 
I pay on Huge maps at epic speed and I find animal mastery is a great way to build an early lead. Once you have festivals you can easily add 1 to 3 extra happy and 3 to 9 extra culture per turn to your best cities, giving them plenty of extra citizens for a great SE start. And dancing bears are perfect if you don't feel like building monuments in your border towns.
 
I play on Standards but I'll give it a try next game. I've never built one of those cages. XD
 
I think that these should be a few animal dens placed on the map from the beginning, to make sure they don't all go extinct early on.

I was thinking that if we really want to keep the animal around longer, we shouldn't boost their spawn rate so much as place some of their dens on the impassible peaks (Bears and LotR type Giant Spiders seem like they would like to live in caves in the mountains anyway). Since Ranger, Beastmasters, and Druids can move through impassible terrain anyway, you could still destroy their dens in the mid to late game ,and these units would be more useful.
 
I don't like the idea of removing silk; I'd just as soon add a new "spider silk" resource. Silk is a useful resource from a game point of view, it's nice to add a couple commerce to a forrest tile.

A new resource would be good too. The problem at the moment is just that the silk from a spider pen is totally useless, as silk is ridiculously common.

Would be nice if animals stuck around longer too, it's so rare that I get to build more than one or two of the pen buildings :(
 
I think that these should be a few animal dens placed on the map from the beginning, to make sure they don't all go extinct early on.

I was thinking that if we really want to keep the animal around longer, we shouldn't boost their spawn rate so much as place some of their dens on the impassible peaks (Bears and LotR type Giant Spiders seem like they would like to live in caves in the mountains anyway). Since Ranger, Beastmasters, and Druids can move through impassible terrain anyway, you could still destroy their dens in the mid to late game ,and these units would be more useful.

I agree, however placing the dens for spiders and bears in the mountains would ensure every city had a dancing bear and a spider pen (and therefore access to silk). Maybe the lairs in the mountains should be for a stronger animal with a lower spawn rate. You can still turn it into a "cage" but the animal would have a lesser impact on the later game. It may also give hunters a bit more of a challenge. You could even put a Hill Giant lair in the mountains...

As far as spiders and silk, on larger maps you don't always have access to silk so they are definately useful. I do like the idea of the pen granting the new resource "spider silk" as it would be a bonus to everyone who captures one (even if you are sitting next to 5 silks).
 
I'd support more resources, and i want to point out that it is unlikely the ai would be able to get spider silk routinely the way the player can.
 
I would be OK with having Silk simply being more rare but not removed altogether. It should certainly be rare enough that not every player could have Silk without Spider Pens.

I actually don't mind having a lot of Silk in the early game because it shows up in Forests and results in 2F 1H 1C / 1F 2H 1C tiles.
 
I agree, however placing the dens for spiders and bears in the mountains would ensure every city had a dancing bear and a spider pen (and therefore access to silk). Maybe the lairs in the mountains should be for a stronger animal with a lower spawn rate. You can still turn it into a "cage" but the animal would have a lesser impact on the later game. It may also give hunters a bit more of a challenge. You could even put a Hill Giant lair in the mountains...

As far as spiders and silk, on larger maps you don't always have access to silk so they are definately useful. I do like the idea of the pen granting the new resource "spider silk" as it would be a bonus to everyone who captures one (even if you are sitting next to 5 silks).

How about a "Wendigo" animal?
It will be one lair placed on a random mountain top each map, and then it will only provide two wendigos at the same time. One that guards the lair and the other one that roams the land.
If one is killed, a new one spawns after 30-40 turns.
The unit will have 1 movement, and 9 strength. Also, if captured, it will have the march promotion.

With the wendigo captured, you can build a cage for it, or something like that, and it gives +1 culture, and +1 happines, also providing a new unit to build in the city it's built. You can then produce wendigos in your realms, but you have to have the national maximum at something between 2-3.


How about that? ^.^
 
Speaking of animals, I've found that Bears are usually available near the poles and there will be a couple of Lion dens somewhere. Elephants seem more plentiful than Spiders, but there are few of each. But Tigers and Gorillas are very scarce indeed. Still I'm seeing many more Lizard/Skelly lairs than anything else.
 
Animals need to continue to spawn along with barbarians. As it is, they get replaced entirely when orcs and goblins start showing up. Lair are supposed to have this effect, but they don't always work very well, and it seems to me that it usually ends up that there is just an area or two that gets inundated with bears, while all the other lairs are easily destroyed earlier.

With all the added possible players, is it possible that animals and barbarians could be different civs? Then animal spawns could be increased, as barbs would also fight them, and they could have the same odds of spawning throughout the game in hidden tiles as barbarians, possible becoming replaced with beasts, werewolves, and other non standard barbarian units, in later turns or higher Armageddon count.

Given this, silk could totally be removes in favor of perhaps improving cotton a bit, and having spices, with reagents replaced with something more along the lines of herbs.
 
The civ limit is now 40 so it's no longer preventing making barbs and animals separate.
The spider silk resource could be interesting if it also prvided some bonus for units (spidersilk armor or something like that) because spidersilk is stronger than steel and can be used in bulletproof vests
 
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