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[Granite26]

Ok, I'm lovin' all the new animals, but it's hard to get breeding pairs of pets with dwarves showing up with all sorts of weird stuff.

1  maybe it's time to make cows, etc not pets?
2  that doesn't mean a farmer won't show up with stock(like how other professions get their tools)
3  reduce the number of common cultural animals by civ.
   A. Easiest way is to set in raws.
   B.  Second easiest is to pick randomly.
   C.  Maybe this does, maybe it doesn't restrict your embqrks.  Maybe just the price
   D.  Could be tags for common, rare, pet.
   E.  Adds extra value to elves, other civ trading.
   F.  Third option is location/climes
   G.  Could tag for role as well.  Maybe guarantee at least one large grazer(cow,ox,muskox,yak,etc).  Maybe limit to just one per role (additional types have mqint. costs)
 


Maybe more later.  Anyone have any extra thoughts?

[Silverionmox]

1. Which animals are considered pets is a matter of culture and should be defined in the civ raw. The docility (potential) of animals is still a property of the animal itself.

2. Preferably with ropes around their necks already.

3. Let the number of common domestics depend on the civ's preferences (dwarves will have little, elves will have a gazillion).
Let the likelihood of domestication depend on a. Local availibility of creatures, modified for their docility and b. trade availability. Common domestic animals will be present in much larger numbers and automatically cheaper. The other will be rarer (with commensurate prices) or not available at all.

I wouldn't guarantee anything. After a while, players won't pay attention anymore to the differences between all animals of one type, since they fulfill their predefined role anyway; on the other hand it would make it impossible to play a civ with three types egg-laying creatures and nothing else, with all the consequences for their diet, trade goods etc. Odd combinations make memorable games.

[Granite26]

Hmmm. Good points...  what do you think of all the people bitching about lack of metals 'ruining their ability to play the game'?  Not that I agree, mind you.

[Demonic Gophers]

I've actually been thinking about this a bit lately.  It seems to me that the CREATURE_CLASS system could provide a more versatile replacement for the COMMON_DOMESTIC tag, and the related entity tokens.  I'm picturing something like this:

Code: [Select]

[USES_PET_CLASS:COMMON_DOMESTIC:ALWAYS]There'd be a set of these tokens to match the current COMMON_DOMESTIC_PACK and so forth.  I've been working out a rough list of possibilities.

USES_PET_CLASS would be for pets.  Creatures on this list would sometimes turn up belonging to individuals, instead of to a group, in towns in Adventure Mode and migrant waves in Fortress Mode.  For humans, and maybe dwarves, it would include things like cats and dogs, but probably not cows and the like.
USES_PACK_CLASS would determine what pack animals an entity used.
USES_PULL_CLASS would determine wagon haulers.  If things like plows and ore carts go in, it'd probably control what animals were generally used to pull them, too.
USES_MOUNT_CLASS would control what the entity's cavalry would ride, and any other riders that turn up.  Once mounts go in for adventure mode, these would probably be readily available at any town.
USES_SPECIAL_MOUNT class would be for mounts that only turn up in small numbers.  Squad leaders in sieges might ride them, but not common soldiers.  This could be anything from mildly exotic creatures like war bears and cave crocodiles up to tamed megabeasts, depending on the entity.  Migrant waves probably wouldn't bring these, and they'd be rare in caravans and Adventure Mode towns.
USES_LIVESTOCK_CLASS would be for animals that are raised for meat, leather, milk, and the like.  It would determine what animal products an entity sells, along with any tokens for hunting and fishing and such.  Humans probably wouldn't have dogs and cats on this list, although dwarves might.
USES_WAR_CLASS would determine the the animals that are used in battle.  They would take part in battles during world gen, and turn up in sieges and ambushes.  If trainable, they might be found as trained war animals in towns and migrant waves, either assigned to someone with military skills or unassigned.
USES_HUNTING_CLASS would be similar, but for animals used in hunting.  They probably wouldn't take part in world gen battles, but might accompany wanderers and beast hunters.  They could turn up assigned to hunters, and possibly to herbalists and wood cutters.

What do you think?
COMMON_DOMESTIC could be any CREATURE_CLASS.  It might also accept a few general categories, like ANY_PET, ANY_EXOTIC_PET, ANY_CAVE_PET, ALL_EVIL, ALL_GOOD, ALL_ANIMALS, and such.

I'd thought of the frequency as being ALWAYS, which would be like common domestics are now, and IF_AVAILABLE, which would add any animals that are discovered and tamed by the entity during world gen.  To cut down on the length of the list a bit, it might also accept the clothing frequency tokens - COMMON, UNCOMMON, and RARE, or whatever the list is.  Then it could randomly generate a list for each instance of an entity, like it does with clothing right now.

EDIT: Added war and hunting animals.

[Granite26]

I kinda like Silver's 'animal determines what it can be used for, civ determines if it does (or/and how common it is)' idea.  Especially with your long list of various uses and frequencies.

How would gnomes riding dogs work in a rqndomized setting?

[Knight Otu]

What do you think?

I think I have a bit of a deja vu.

Spoiler: Class lists and class list modifications (click to show/hide)

Class lists would be a new raw file type that gathers a number of objects together under certain labels. These would include the current creature class and reaction class (ideally renamed material class to allow reaction classes to be classes of reactions), as well as potentially syndrome classes, reaction classes, and other class types as they are added. Creature class lists could then used in entities as lists of pets or mounts, for "at peace with" tags, and similar places where lists of creatures could be called for. Similarly, material classes could be used as identifiers of building materials available (or not available) to an entity. Also, class lists could act as a grouping for likes and dislikes, so that, for instance, a dwarf could like all flux stones equally. There should of course a way to automatically populate larger class lists.

class_list_creature.txt
[CREATURE_CLASS:GENERAL_POISON:NO_TEXT]
   [POPULATE_LIST:BY_TOKEN:GETS_WOUND_INFECTIONS]
   [NOT_LIKEABLE]

[CREATURE_CLASS:CONSTRUCT:construct:constructs]
   [CREATURE:COLOSSUS_BRONZE:ALL]
   [PREFSTRING:creation processes]

[CREATURE_CLASS:WILDLIFE:NS:wildlife]
   [POPULATE_LIST:BY_TOKEN:NATURAL:AND_TOKEN:BIOME]
   [EXCLUDE_CREATURE:BY_TOKEN:EVIL]
   [NOT_LIKEABLE]

class_list_material.txt
[MATERIAL_CLASS:FLUX:flux:flux]
   [INORGANIC:CALCITE]
   [INORGANIC:CHALK]
   [INORGANIC:DOLOMITE]
   [INORGANIC:LIMESTONE]
   [INORGANIC:MARBLE]
As an extension to the above, as it is likely that lists would be among the most-changed files in mods, another way to change lists should come from other files, such as the following (yeah, cat would likely be already part of the common dwarf pet list). This would again be a way to minimize changing existing raw files.

class_list_creature_modification.txt
[EXPAND_CREATURE_CLASS:COMMON_DWARF_PET]
   [CREATURE:CAT:ALL]
...

Spoiler: Entity tokens (click to show/hide)

[PET:COMMON:USE_CLASS_LIST:COMMON_DWARF_PET]
[PULLER:RARE:USE_CLASS_LIST:RARE_DWARF_PULLER]
[WAR:EXOTIC:USE_CLASS_LIST:EXOTIC_DWARF_WAR_PET]
These tags would make the most sense with the creature class lists above, to allow fine-tuning of the creatures that a civilization has access to (say drow could get spider pets). The creature kinds would be likely MOUNT, PULLER, PACK, WAR and HUNT. The "rarities" I would see are common (as common domestic, the entity always has access to the creature), uncommon (the civilization will always use the creature if it has access to them via biomes or trade or similar), rare (only important positions will make use of the creature, and only with access (this rarity might be unneeded with economic rewrites?)), and exotic (where the civilization needs someone capable to tame/domesticate the creature first).

Yeah, we don't quite have the same ideas here, but they're similar enough.

I agree that realistically, it should depend on the creature whether they are tamable, ridable, etc. For the most part that could still be the case, but a few cultures could produce odd results (elves). Procedural cultures with such oddities or gnomish riding dogs are a challenge though, unless the appropriate creatures are generated along with them, then distributed on the world for the cultures to find them (or not). Or the procedures slightly alter the creature raws to make the chosen creature fit the new role (making dogs ridable for the gnomes)?

[Demonic Gophers]

Oh yeah, I was going to mention that.  For things like mounts and wagon pullers, only creatures with the proper use tokens (WAGON_PULLER and such) should be chosen from the CREATURE_CLASS.


For mounts specifically, there should probably be some relative size requirements.  This would work best based on individuals, instead of entities.  A demon that's set itself up as ruler of a human civilization probably isn't going to be able to ride an ordinary horse.

So anything that could potentially be ridden by anything would have the MOUNT token, and then creatures would only ride mounts that are actually big enough to carry them.

Knight Otu: Yeah, we definitely have a lot of overlap here.  Great minds think alike?
Also, you reminded me of a couple more uses I was going to include in my list, and forgot - war and hunting animals.

[Granite26]

Knight,  search pulls up a version of that post with civ/pet ties, but it wasn't in the actual post.

[Knight Otu]

The stuff should be in spoiler tags in my original post, which is linked by the quote. It wasn't a thread dedicated to pets, so the things I quoted may be 'buried' by other stuff.

[Silverionmox]

Hmmm. Good points...  what do you think of all the people bitching about lack of metals 'ruining their ability to play the game'?  Not that I agree, mind you.

They're spoiled brats .

They do have a point in that the alternatives are a bit underdeveloped (stone weapons, trade). Also, goblins seem to be born wielding metal weapons: that's bloody inconsistent.


Specific animals should be able to be forced in for the case when players really, really want to play with a particular animal. (Eg. war mammoths in a tundra world or something flavourful like that will probably be desired at some point.) However, that will limit the ability of the game to do its procedural magic and can lead to all kinds of problems like animals that can't possibly find enough suitable food etc, leading to post-apocalyptic scenarios with starved mammoths on every street corner, or with pack-hunting rats that proved a bit too competitive in worldgen, reducing all of civilization to empty ruins.. But these are the modder's risks.

The baseline should still be aiming for interesting, variable worlds without much input of details.

[Granite26]

2  that doesn't mean a farmer won't show up with stock(like how other professions get their tools)

Turns out, the dev thinks of everything...  This is happening in 31.19 already

[Silverionmox]

2  that doesn't mean a farmer won't show up with stock(like how other professions get their tools)

Turns out, the dev thinks of everything...  This is happening in 31.19 already

Mmm... then I'm going to see what dumping amethysts on my booze stockpile does.

[Granite26]

2  that doesn't mean a farmer won't show up with stock(like how other professions get their tools)

Turns out, the dev thinks of everything...  This is happening in 31.19 already

Mmm... then I'm going to see what dumping amethysts on my booze stockpile does.

Did yah hear the whoooosh sound?