are animals too weak?
Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2016 12:13 pm
When we introduced animals, we underestimated the impact of the high reproduction rates. We had a town - the name slipped my mind - where raccoons were reproducing like madness and even though they did very little damage when attacking, the sheer number of them meant that the entire town - which was a nice, active town - was killed.
That was not the idea behind introducing animals.
This was adjusted and soon enough, most towns were doing fine with animals. They became a mild nuisance only - you just make a shield, distribute it, and you're fine. And they're a nice sources of bones and meat. Nowadays we even have domestication with farming and traveling applications and I must say, that is probably the coolest improvement to the game in the past ten years.
In most regions of the game, that was the whole story, but some islands were heavily populated with animals and sparsely with humans, so surviving there required significant protection. It was nice to have the game world somewhat separated between populated regions and wilderness, so that gave an interesting dimension to the game.
Now I see some players complain about the size of the game world. In particular what I think is known as Fu is very large indeed. I must admit, one of my favourite activities was designing new lands, and I couldn't stop myself
... But I also like the sheer size of Fu and the fact that it exists for future exploration and exploitation. But now people complain it leads to too wide distribution of characters and too small towns that cannot develop into the kind of complex societies Cantr was designed to have. It was never meant to be a game about tons of tiny villages.
So, I wonder, are animals too calm these days? In other words, one way of having at the same time a big (much to explore) and a small (high population density) world in the game, is to make the wilderness wilder. Simply manufacturing a nice shield should not suffice to travel through the wilderness. And villages should not be able to protect themselves that simply. But also, it should not be a huge task to protect a village, so we can get on with other things.
So I wonder whether you need stronger animals - at least some breeds - that will dominate in large, lightly populated areas, but that can be protected against for example by building city walls or other enclosures.
It would be nice if developing a large island would require cooperative efforts; if towns could be safe havens for travelers; if particular safe routes allow towns to require tolls; and if exploration of Fu was basically postponed until other areas are more densily populated.
Now, I'm very aware that one major problem would be that some tiny language zones are in such wilderness regions, which is a problem that would need to be addressed, but putting that aside for the minute, does this make any sense?
Probably already debated to death and also discussed repeatedly in GAC / GAB over the years, but just because I saw suggestions of removing Fu that just pain me ...
That was not the idea behind introducing animals.
This was adjusted and soon enough, most towns were doing fine with animals. They became a mild nuisance only - you just make a shield, distribute it, and you're fine. And they're a nice sources of bones and meat. Nowadays we even have domestication with farming and traveling applications and I must say, that is probably the coolest improvement to the game in the past ten years.
In most regions of the game, that was the whole story, but some islands were heavily populated with animals and sparsely with humans, so surviving there required significant protection. It was nice to have the game world somewhat separated between populated regions and wilderness, so that gave an interesting dimension to the game.
Now I see some players complain about the size of the game world. In particular what I think is known as Fu is very large indeed. I must admit, one of my favourite activities was designing new lands, and I couldn't stop myself
... But I also like the sheer size of Fu and the fact that it exists for future exploration and exploitation. But now people complain it leads to too wide distribution of characters and too small towns that cannot develop into the kind of complex societies Cantr was designed to have. It was never meant to be a game about tons of tiny villages.So, I wonder, are animals too calm these days? In other words, one way of having at the same time a big (much to explore) and a small (high population density) world in the game, is to make the wilderness wilder. Simply manufacturing a nice shield should not suffice to travel through the wilderness. And villages should not be able to protect themselves that simply. But also, it should not be a huge task to protect a village, so we can get on with other things.
So I wonder whether you need stronger animals - at least some breeds - that will dominate in large, lightly populated areas, but that can be protected against for example by building city walls or other enclosures.
It would be nice if developing a large island would require cooperative efforts; if towns could be safe havens for travelers; if particular safe routes allow towns to require tolls; and if exploration of Fu was basically postponed until other areas are more densily populated.
Now, I'm very aware that one major problem would be that some tiny language zones are in such wilderness regions, which is a problem that would need to be addressed, but putting that aside for the minute, does this make any sense?
Probably already debated to death and also discussed repeatedly in GAC / GAB over the years, but just because I saw suggestions of removing Fu that just pain me ...
