Hive BatHive bats are small flying mammal with large protruding teeth and unhealthy looking patches of fur sticking out in tufts that at a distance might appear quite comical, like clumsy flying balls of fluff, but up close they are rather terrifying.
Hive bats are eusocial, and live in colonies of 1-5 flightless queens and several hundred workers. The workers are male, and castrated by the queen at birth with her teeth. When food grows scarce or the colony is otherwise exposed to large amounts of stress, the queens who normally peacefully cohabit start to become gradually more competitive, culminating in the killing or exile of all but one or two. Those that manage to escape bring a large portion of workers with them and this is how new colonies are usually founded.
Workers technically die of old age at 6 months, but rarely get more than 3 due to wearing out. Queens can reach up to 20 years, but are usually killed by younger and stronger ones at 4 to 6 years. Queens can start breading at 5 to 6 weeks of age. Queens have litters of 20 to 50 every 2 to 3 weeks.
Colonies can persist indefinitely by renewing themselves regularly. They usually split every winter, regardless of their age, sending of 2 or 3 daughter colonies. However if conditions are bad they may not grow to more then one queen and thus not split. If the conditions are extremely good, or conditions are unnatural, colonies may enter a state of flux where large amounts of queens are born and colonies split randomly into as many as 7 every few months, but most are not viable due to insufficient workers and not finding suitable living spaces.
For gameplay purposes, it's probably best to model the number of colonies not individual Hive bats, with a "litter size" of 2-3, maturity of 1 year, and indefinite lifespan, and then add a special event of a single colony exploding to the population cap of the tile in 1 or 2 years when special conditions are meet and/or I get a really good roll.
Food:Opportunism (T1, 5): Hive bats are generalists rather than specialists. (think rats or cockroaches)
PopulationAction:
Flight (T1, 5): Hive bat flight might appear clumsy, but it's more efficient over long distances.
Worker Caste (T1, 5)
Reaction:
Colony Life (T1, 5): Hive bat colonies are usually a series of large cambers hollowed out from rotted trees and quite often using naturally formed hollows, they also block unwanted holes and cracks using refuse. If no trees at a suable stage of decay are available they can also try to dig a nest out from lose soil, but such colonies usually fail.
Power:
Swarm (T1, 5)
Armour: -
Perception: -
Stealth: -
Range: -
Generation:
Hive Queens (T1, 10)
Eusocial (T2, 10:
Worker Caste,
Swarm,
Hive Queens)
Military:Action: -
Reaction: -
Power: -
Armour:
Robust Hives (
T2? T3?, 5:
Colony Life,
Eusocial): Hive bat nests run deep, have low connectivity, and multiple queens, meaning that entirely wiping one out is very hard and that it can fairly rapidly rebound even after almost complete decimation
Perception: -
Stealth: -
Range: -
Generation: -
Author
Topic: Evolution Lite: The return (Read 3660 times)