Topic: Vegetarian Food

Uh, what about fish, and the fact that you absolutely need to have bread?

I'm sorry, but in my opinion, changing the gameplay to cater to particular people's belief systems is a bad idea. It's just a game, for $DEITY's sake.

Edit: Besides, you could always play the Atlanteans. It was a pretty conscious decision to make those "more vegetarian", if you will, to distinguish them from the other tribes, which are consciously made "less vegetarian". It just makes sense like that.

And don't you find it the least bit curious that killing animals is so bad, while killing the people of another tribe is somehow okay? Get some perspective, please.

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@malmut: I sympathize with your and your children's sensitivities. While Widelands does cater to fantasy (e.g. the Atlanteans), meat consumption was a very large part of the real historical barbarian and imperial (vis a vis Roman) economies as I am sure you know.

I for one like the concept of adding a totally vegetarian economy. Tomato farmers would certainly add some more color to the traffic of wares on the roads.

For now, the atlanteans are the closest thing. We are actively working on the graphics for the atlantean workers, and that may make playing that tribe more attractive in the near future. Until then, as in real life, we'll just have to recognize the meat-economies and the unfortunate need for militaristic conflict over territory and take them "with a grain of salt".

I see little people.

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Sorry to crush some of this; at the moment I am most concerned about the balance of the three tribes. I am quite satisfied with how the mechanis and strengths are distributed so I am strongly opposed to changing much (for example making the atlanteans more vegetarian).

There will be more tribes in the future, I am very positive about this. Why not making a vegetarian one then. But not before the current tribe structure has proven to be quite well balanced.

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chuckw:

I agree with you. The atlanteans are probably the best chance to add such a vegetarian culture. They are high-tech compared to other tribes and have a strong religious system. It would certainly fit them best.

SirVer:

I totally see your point. But the two points are not actually conflicting! It would certainly be good to have a balanced atlantean tribe in the game as soon as possible. However the way it works just right now is far from being balanced. I have to admit that bread and fish work really well. However with the meat it is rather problematic. The atlanteans would either need to have another way of acquiring meat or they need some kind of gamekeeper badly. Breeding cattle is kind of imperial and giving them the gamekeeper makes them more barbaric. Now what about dropping meat? Right, they would not be truly vegetarian as they still consume fish, but that'd be a compromise to "balance first!".

I don't know if many people read my suggestion on this. In this thread (http://wl.widelands.org/forum/post/1939/) I suggested the following:

• Remove the hunter. It's next to useless, anyway (except if you add a gamekeeper but that would be too similar to the barbarians).
• Simply rename the atlantean fisher Algae harvester and replace fish with algae. This should be done in a moment.
• Add an animal breeding building that however does not produce meat but milk instead. I thought about alpaca being the animal to keep it a bit exotic fitting with spiders 'n stuff. Astuur suggested having an alpaca herder instead of an alpaca farm I first thought about. I think it's a brilliant idea. So the new building could be a mix between the gamekeeper (it generates alpaca) and a hunter (it "harvests" from them).
• A Creamery would basicly be a renamed smokery. It would make cheese from milk and curd from milk + algae. And since milk is rather easy to produce, I think it's not a problem with a double requirement.

Algae could technically be identical to fish - it'd be found where fish is and if it is harvested, the number of "fish" in the water decreases. Atlanteans value the algae since they are an important source of many vital substances for a vegitarian culture. However the algae cannot be eaten directly. I have thought about the alpaca herder needing water only to produce milk. While the empire needs something to feed their animals to gain meat, the barbarians need nothing except that they are dependant on two buildings. Meeting in the middle would be the herder that has a little range and needs water to feed it's animals that return into the house with hin drinking and being milked.

All these changes are not digging very deep and touching the fundament of the tribe but instead are actually more in a "cosmetic" way but still (likely) solving or at least helping the balancing issue.

malmut:

It's an interesting thing that you're working on. Doing it with your children is certainly a good thing for all to learn. And I'm sure some people will like this kind of mod - just watch the balance. Will you share it with us here on the forums when it's done?

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SirVer wrote: Meat is not mandatory for the atlanteans and that the smoking of fish/meat is hard to keep going is by design. It is one of the harder parts of atlantean gameplay.

Sorry, SirVer, I think my post was a bit unclear. I have no problems with the smokery (actually I forgot to mention the wood requirement, that's true). What I have a problem with, is the possibility to run out of meat. You stated several times that each tribe needs to be able to thrive in every map and every possible location. But this is not the case right now as the atlanteans have a severe disadvantage! Imagine a typical starting point somewhere inside the land. It is possible not to have any water nearby, so there will be no fishing. Now if there's also not many animals around, it's no problem for the empire: They will grow grain and breed pigs. Everything fine. Now the barbarians don't have any problem either: Growing grain and building a few gamekeepers so that their hunters will have animals to hunt. But what about the atlanteans? As soon as the few animals are gone, they are in trouble. Especially since they only have the big-type mines! Now imagine the more or less typical desert level. Water is scarce and so are huntable wild animals. What should the atlanteans do?

The idea that they have to process their food (two farms and a mill to bake bread; the need so smoke both fish and meat) is something I do like and would not speak against. The main point where I complain is that the atlanteans must be given a source of "meat" - be it meat or some replacement like "milk" that I suggested. The later is, like I said, actually cosmetics. But the first one is a vital thing that needs to be addressed. Or did I overlook something and the atlanteans have a possibility to develop properly even in such a (not that uncommon!) situation?

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