Topic: Feeding

PkK Topic Opener Joined: 2012-01-06, 11:19 Posts: 236 Widelands-Forum-Junkie	Posted at: 2012-03-12, 08:45 I'd like to see more realistic feeding of and on animals: Herbivores (at least big ones) should destroy small trees when feeding on them. Maybe some of them should do the same to fields. This would make gameplay for the barbarians at bit more interesting, due to the additional balance between meat and grain production. And it would amke the hunter a bit more useful for the empire and atlanteans. Animals that can live below ground, such as rabbits should be able to go into hiding. I can see barbarians eating every kind of meat they can get. But I'd expect the empire not to eat wolves. Philipp P.S.: Wasn't there some suggestion about animals breeding by themselves sometime? Especially combined with the hiding suggestion above, rabbits could be (realistically) a problem for agriculture when there are no predators or hunters around. This would add a nice additional dimension to widelands. Top Quote

stulle Joined: 2012-03-12, 03:48 Posts: 6 Pry about Widelands	Posted at: 2012-03-12, 11:16 something like a food chain would be very nice, i think so, too. i love such detail. but i think it's hard to do and hard to get it balanced. i can't imagine the effort would pay... it makes map creation pretty hard, additionally. all maps would have to be edited for it to work. and: the barbarian's gamekeeper would have to be taught what to do by a newly created bulding: the university EDIT: sorry, if that was too harsh. i just read it and thought, one could feel made fun of. i just haven't slept all night (playing wl) and tried to be funny. i find the idea basically very good, by the way! Edited: 2012-03-12, 11:42 Top Quote

SirVer Joined: 2009-02-19, 14:18 Posts: 1445 One Elder of Players Location: Germany - Munich	Posted at: 2012-03-12, 13:20 Most of your suggestion would increase the randomness in widelands which is something I am very critical off at all times because it makes balance more difficult and often leads to an "unfair" feel of the game. Also, I do not see how this would improve the gameplay of the game - we already have a natural grow cycle for trees which I never notice while playing except for when it conquers whole areas of maps - and than it is more annoying than anything. Top Quote

Personal_Joke Joined: 2011-08-10, 13:39 Posts: 29 Pry about Widelands Location: New Zealand	Posted at: 2012-03-13, 02:03 I agree with pkk and stulle that if the wildlife ate each other or small trees it would be quite neat. If the wildlife could breed, then you could make some wildlife reproduce faster than others (rabbits reproducing fast, horses reproducing slower). It may mean some players would need more hunters, but i think these suggestions could be interesting additions to the game. Top Quote

Nasenbaer Joined: 2009-02-21, 17:17 Posts: 828 One Elder of Players Location: Germany	Posted at: 2012-03-13, 06:38 I see all your points and it sounds interesting. And yes there was a discussion about animal breeding - i can't find it at the moment, but as it has not been implemented and no bug report or blueprint was generated, the outcome is obvious ;). Even the randomness of the trees was discussed more than one time and there are still people that don't like the feature. Some points to think about: Widelands is more a boardgame like strategy game, than a "reality simulation" - everything is fictive, starting from the way roads have to be placed over the size of wares, workers and buildings,... It was never meant to be "realistic" in any way and the primary purpose of the game (and idea behind the game) "building up a working economy" has nothing to do with reality, but with tribe specific economy systems. If you want a "as near as possible" reality simulation, Widelands is not the Game you are searching for, because of the points above. implementing such a feature would cost a whole bunch of work - and I see the programming itself (which will indeed take some time) as minor work. The bigger problem is, that this feature changes a lot about how a map works and how the tribes can handle the change. It's all about hundreds of hours of rebalancing the tribes while remodelling every official map. And it won't stop there, but would give map creators another burden they have to take care about. (Maybe we would even need to write a "How can I get the map to work as I want it to" HowTo, that every map creator has to read just to create a normal map. Widelands is already quite complex and the road new players have to go to understand the complexity of the game is already winding, bumpy and long. I like complexity, but I like a playable game as well ;). Reading this points you might again ask: So why is there a feature like self spreading trees? Well in fact that feature was added by one developer alone and has not been discussed before implementation. Afterwards, the discussion arose quite fast and lasted for a long time. There is still no 100% consensus, but as the majority was pro keeping the feature, we still got it. I was and am pro the tree spreading feature, but are still annoyed of it's degeneration which already makes creating good maps much more complex and makes the computer player work less effective. And if there is another discussion coming about randomness in general I would rather say goodbye to the tree spreading feature than voting for implementation of more randomness. Cheers Peter Edited: 2012-03-13, 06:42 Top Quote