Topic: Make ejected transport animals huntable
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Sergei Topic Opener
Joined: 2012-12-26, 17:50
Posts: 3  Just found this site |
Posted at: 2012-12-26, 18:25
Executive summary: Why not? Long version: My girl and I thought this could be fun - on some maps, there seems to be a scarcity of huntable animals late in the game, and it's a nice solution to the somewhat inelegant spontaneous disintegration of creatures on the map. We're referring to the animals that get thrown out of the headquarters (and presumably warehouses?) when they're taken by an enemy. Allowing hunters to convert these animals into meat could also lead to new strategic considerations, e.g. placing hunters around an attackable warehouse before taking it down to maximise the meat yield before the animals disperse. Conversely, this delay could give a nearly-defeated enemy one last chance of recovery - perhaps time to evacuate more wares and people than is currently the case. We also considered whether transport animals should generally be subject to hunting - this could be an interesting new way to sabotage an enemy's economy. However, we weren't sure whether this last part would be a good idea - discuss? Edited: 2012-12-26, 18:31
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mxsscott
Joined: 2012-12-26, 18:55
Posts: 12  Pry about Widelands Location: UK |
Posted at: 2012-12-26, 19:09
A discussion occurred on IRC after you posted this... Thousands of horses/oxen/donkeys have been seen on screeen when destroying enemy HQs - and the computer is dragged to a halt - this is why they don't persist A suggestion of "stampede!" was made, where they kill off themselves and other entities (maybe even your own soldiers) in their mad rush to freedom. Maybe even buildings, leaving a muddy mess. The discussion then transgressed towards oxen/horses/donkeys requiring upkeep (think shovel and bucket requirements) and carrot farming requirements along with the need to control the bunny population (and bunny powered attack possibilities if left unchecked by hunters). A fix date of 1st April 2013 was suggested - though maybe this would be the date of filing the wishlist request.
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Sergei Topic Opener
Joined: 2012-12-26, 17:50
Posts: 3 Just found this site |
Posted at: 2012-12-26, 19:23
If your computers are getting dragged to a halt, why are you not limiting the number of animals released? File a bug and get it fixed. It has nothing to do with this suggestion.
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simplypeachy
Joined: 2009-04-23, 11:42
Posts: 153  At home in WL-forums Location: Hampshire, UK |
Posted at: 2012-12-29, 15:49
When destroying opponent's warehouses or HQs, sometimes hundreds of pack animals are released. This significant load causes the game to slow down for a short while as they run around and decide to die off. It's not a bug per se. WARNING: New-style view packet not found. There may be strange effects regarding unseen areas.
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Sergei Topic Opener
Joined: 2012-12-26, 17:50
Posts: 3 Just found this site |
Posted at: 2013-01-04, 13:34
The bottom line seems to be that everyone posting here so far finds the current behaviour problematic. We can butt heads over terminology, but what I mostly see is an attempt to pretend that the status quo is great, when in fact it has problems. Meanwhile, the original idea presented in this thread hasn't been discussed at all.
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mxsscott
Joined: 2012-12-26, 18:55
Posts: 12 Pry about Widelands Location: UK |
Posted at: 2013-01-04, 14:28
On the matter of hunting ejected animals: (a) Can hunters actually be placed close enough to the HQ / warehouse to allow them to kill the animals that are ejected? The placement would be limited by any surrounding enemy defences. Because animals will wander in all directions, is it worth the player's time and resources to build enough hunters to cover enough directions to have an appreciable (and temporary) increase in meat output? The ejected animals might not survive long as it could be said that they will starve to death outside of their warehouse (which presumably had citizens caring for them). (b) Alternatively, is eating of pack animals against the tribe's religion or preferred taste? The meat may not be tender enough (ox being 4+ yr old cattle). The toughness of ox meat may be a reason why not to hunt it from ejected or actively working animals. I'm not trying to kill this idea, but to present reasons why (a) it is not worth doing, or (b) it may be inappropriate for some tribes. Barbarians may love the taste of ox and horse meat, but Atlaneans may abhor the killing of ox. This could be an interesting tribe differential. To counteract the toughness, maybe a single 'meat' ware is only produced from 2 or 3 oxen? Separate to the hunting suggestion, if a player places a warehouse and some road network close to the warehouse being attacked, if the ejected pack animals find this road network they could 'switch sides' and become owned by the attacking player. Could 'raiders' be sent out from the warehouse to the enemy warehouse to plunder its contents? Thoughts?
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simplypeachy
Joined: 2009-04-23, 11:42
Posts: 153 At home in WL-forums Location: Hampshire, UK |
Posted at: 2013-01-04, 20:27
There's another question: is this much extra meat necessary? I've never found food to be a problem in any of my games. WARNING: New-style view packet not found. There may be strange effects regarding unseen areas.
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PkK
Joined: 2012-01-06, 11:19
Posts: 236  Widelands-Forum-Junkie |
Posted at: 2013-01-04, 23:29
Why would anone want to hunt down beasts of burden? These animals are used to being handled by humans. One could just march them straight into one's own warehouse. Or march them to a place to be slaughtered. Just like one could do with one's own animals. IMO, this would amke more sense: Workers have a small chance of converting, when walking over a foreign flag. Beasts of burden have a high chance of converting when walking over a foreign flag. Some tribes have a way (via a special building or whatever) to convert some Beasts of burden into food (barbarians should probably be able to slaughter everything). Philipp
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fschueller
Joined: 2013-01-04, 15:46
Posts: 6 Pry about Widelands |
Posted at: 2013-01-05, 13:31
I like this idea. It is realistic and should not be to hard to implement. (Although i don't know the code)
I agree on the part in the second brackets. But meat is nearly never a problem for the barbarians, so why converting a huge amount of wheat into a Beasts of burden and then eat it, if you can get meat "out of thin air" with a gamekeeper and a hunter?
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SirVer
Joined: 2009-02-19, 14:18
Posts: 1445  One Elder of Players Location: Germany - Munich |
Posted at: 2013-01-05, 13:40
It would be possible to implement something like converting workers of course, it would be non trivial though. Also, though i can say that it would be a nice twist in the situation I feel it would not benefit widelands in the slightest. First it would help the attacker - who is already strong, otherwise it would not have conquered a warehouse already. And secondly it would reward ware fare even more - not something we should enforce. So my 2c: yes for campaing missions where this can be used to make a nice plot and constraint (e.g. you have to conquer warehouses to get wares who are not freely available on the map) but it is a bad idea for the default ruleset.
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