Domesticating Plants and Animals

[The Joker]

I don't think we should implement dogs or cats or reindeer. They had very little importance.

And according to GGS elephants have never been domesticated (no I don't believe it either)! The author claims that elephants grow too slow to make domestication profitable. The elephants used in India and other places are actually caught wild, and then tamed.

Anyway, I don't think we should give each animal too specific gameplay effects. Horses should of cause have other and more uses than goats, but generally what would be important would be that the animals were just there, to infect the humans with diseases, which would give them immunity. And they would increase productivity, since they would take off some workload from the people.

But what animals should we have then? Propably the 14 big ones (I have a list somewhere) and then possibly add elephants, due to their importance. Are any others important?

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"In America, first we take the sugar, then we take the power, then we take the women."
- Homer J. Simpson

GGS Website

[Janes]

Sorry I haven't been here in awhile, I left on vacation and I'm glad to see the good suggestions here.

I agree that my earlier brain storming was probably to complex and should be simplified. As someone said having just 14 animal species would be good. It would still give more unique civilizations, economic and disease differences. It would also prevent the ridiculous situation of Aztecs learning polytheism and all of a sudden getting to ride elephants around.

I do think crops are also important though. Maybe more so then animals. Remember the influence the potato had on Europe when the Conquistidores took it back. Someone even wrote a book about it entitiled, I think, "How the humble spud saved the western world" You can look it up on Amazon.

For a good ariticle written on the influence of domestication look on this page by Dale Cozort http://hometown.aol.com/althist1/index.htm
This onlytakes you to a part of it but from here go to his homepage, then alternate history, then alt hist of the month(native american), then Ice age llamas survive in the appalachians. SOrry the directions are a bit fuzzy.

[The Joker]

Hey!

Why hasn't anyone posted here for days????

Oh well.

The reason I think crops might become too much has nothing to do with it's influence on civilization. That can not be denyed. But I still think crops would just give the player too much to worry about.

Diseases has a very direct impact on the game. Animals are important, and the player can see why they are important, since they can be used for warfare, production etc.

But crops only has effect on food production. And I think that might give it too much effect in too narrow an area, and not provide much aditional gameplay.

I am not saying that I refuce to have crops implemented. At the moment I just don't think it is a good idea. But let's see what the other team members say to it.

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"In America, first we take the sugar, then we take the power, then we take the women."
- Homer J. Simpson

GGS Website

[amjayee]

Ok, as VetLegion said in the meeting, we will have to keep this under control. So, I propose that there would be a short list of animals we could domesticate. There needs not be specific species names, just species types. Like:

-cattle. Produce milk, meat, (hide,) and can pull the plow etc. Include cow (ox), yak, african and american large mammals like buffalo etc.
-"wool-producers"; is there better name for this? Produce wool, milk, meat. Not good as beasts of burden, perhaps limited transport capability. Sheep, goats, llamas.
-horses. Provide mounts, can pull carts etc., good for many purposes. Can also produce meat in emergency.
-camels. Mainly good for riding and carrying goods in deserts. Produce also milk and meat (though I don't know is milk used for food). Desert-version of the horse.
-elephant? It is an important animal in India, and it has been used in war, but I'm not sure is it so important we should have it. But perhaps it could be included.
-reindeer is used mainly in Lappland, and sled-dogs in Alaska and Canada. So I think their use is so restricted it might not be appropriate to include them. But; this is based on assumption that every world is quite like ours. In colder worlds, reindeers and dogs might be more important. And elephants are good in jungle; if there was more jungles, they might be more important. So I think if it turns out that having those included does not strain the resources too much, we might have them included also. But at least the first four would be there. And not more than these. I think these are the basic types of animals civilized cultures would use.

It is not really necessary to know what kind of cattle-species or what kind of wool-producing species you have; they are much the same. Here comes in the picture the domestication technology. Cows are the result of thousands of years of domestication work. So, we should have that when animals are being used, the nation's skill of domestication rises, and the animals become better and more productive.

How the animals would be handled then? It might be as simple as having a list of species. Each tile would have simple flags telling what kinds of animals can be found there. Also for each animal type would be listed in what kind of environment they can survive, what they produce etc.; separately, of course not in each tile! When the animals are domesticated, they are tamed and put into stables, or some other facility, where they produce the things they produce. In this stage, the domestication skills start to increase. Also in this phase it is possible to transport those animals anywhere in your empire, or sell them for others. If the animals are transported in non-suitable environment, they would produce less, or even die.

Here in Finland we have ostrich farms; they produce meat and feathers. It is cold here, and ostrich is a desert animal, but it survives here quite well. Perhaps they have a tough skin, or the feather-coat keeps them warm. That was just an example to show that animals can be transported away from their natural environment. Instead, moving yaks to desert might prove unwise. We need to think those things out.

The system would be even simpler if we say that horses can be found on every grassland area, or camels in every desert, etc.; but then it would not be possible to have situations like in Australia, where there are no domesticable animals, or like in America, where there was no horses despite of the grasslands. But I think having one bit for each animal type, so 4-7 bits per tile, would be enough. This is of course the _original_ animal population of that tile. Moving domesticated animals into that tile doesn't change the figure.

About crops, I agree with Joker that they are not as important as animals. Every plant produces food, if used properly. Perhaps we would just have one bit telling whether there are domesticable plants or not. Then the tile properties and domestication skill would decide how much food the tile produces.

This is most unclearly said, but I hope you get the idea. I think it would be quite easy to achieve this, and it would bring some depth to the game, if made properly.

I just thought that pigs and hens are also quite important for western world; though I don't know how we should handle those.

[amjayee]

Damn, I just thought of the cloth-producing plants, like cotton and linen (and silk). But perhaps we shoud assume that these can be produced anywhere, if conditions are right; so we would list the conditions the plants need, and every tile meeting those criteria could produce them.

[Guildmaster]

Interesting, but it may also be used to provide other forms of bonuses for less advanced levels of play:

The strongest wood your mideval civ has access to may well be ash, which explains why your enemy is kicking your butt when all their equipment is made of oak. Pine grows fast and replenishes fast, but is weaker when compared to mahogany, oak, and maple.

Also the use and legality of narcotics could provide an unexpected tourism revenue (Amsterdam)...

I don't have a problem with providing yet another avenue for the power-gamer to lose, I actually like the prospect that a player has to pay attention to soooooo many details like ecodiversity or else face severe punishment.
EVENT: Pakistani king decides to introduce Australian Rabbits to boost military strength
RESULT: Rabbits run loose and eradicate 96% of crops one year, 42% of crops the following year before they are contained. Most powerful Pakistani empire goes broke as enemies conspire to sell grain at exorbitant prices. Empire is attacked, empire falls.

This provides another avenue for the rise & fall thing we've been trying so hard to do.

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How will you make it if you never even try?
-Macy Gray

[The Joker]

lol Guildmaster.

quote: Pakistani king decides to introduce Australian Rabbits to boost military strength

So his troops would ride the rabbits to tremble his enemies?

Just kidding.

Anyway, I think that to avoid turning the animals thing into a clash style discussion, where we end up discussing the variables used when finding the cat population's effect on the rat population in each hex, we should keep the whole animals thing simple.

What I had in mind is much like Amjayee explained. You would simply know whether each animal was on a hex or not, and of cause each animal would have certain ecological restrictions, so no elephants working the fields of Finland. And each animal would then have a certain modifier, with which it would increase productivity in farming, on that hex (but since we are using provinces we will need a clever system to handle this). This modifier could be increased with the tech level, up to a certain point. And the people on the hex would just use the animal present with the highest modifier. So if both horses and oxes were on a hex, then in the early game the oxes would have a higher modifier than horses, but later on with increased tech levels the horses would get a higher modifier, and then the farmers would automatically change to use horses in stead of oxes when that happens.

And certain units requiring animals would only be producable in provinces with hexes with the animal on.

I think the food producing value of the animal would be done even simpler than the production things. Basically you should be able to get food from certain animals/all animals. And to get meat (a type of food) you would have to either hunt for it, or take it from a domesticated animal. And if you hunt for it the productivity would drop fast, so you wouldn't be able to get very much meat out of each tile. If you get it from a domesticated animal the productivity would propably not drop at all. So having animals would mean you would be able to get meat from them, and if you don't have them you would have to hunt for it.

A similar thing could be done with clothes. To make clothes in a province you would need either to hunt for hides, which would be very unproductive, have the required animals for clothing production, or have cotton or silk worms in the province.

It could be done that simple.

I have also been thinking a bit about having crops in the game. And since we are having raw materials anyway, it would make sence to have some plants, and just treat them like all other raw materials (like iron and coal) only make it possible to move them to new areas. Of cause the amount of plants should be restricted. And I still see no point in having wheat, corn and yams in the game. They all produce food, so what? Modelling all of them would be a lot of trouble with very little gain.

But having silk, cotton (and maybe cocaine?) as valuable trading goods, and give them a few extra options that other raw materials doesn't have would be cool.

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"It ain't broke, so BREAK it."
- Raingoon

GGS Website

[XWaste]

Plants are also important for medicines, especially in rainforests they are discovering useful compounds all the time. With diseases being so important I don't think this aspect can be neglected.

Hallucinogenic plants/fungus and fermentation(alcohol) were historically VERY important, they played significant roles in religious ceremonies the world over. The development of this use would have very high economic gains.

Perhaps each tile could contain naturally 0-2 herd animals, 0-2 wild crops. For realism each tile should probably contain 0-2 types of vermin/weeds/pests/predators - not all animals/plants are benificial, and combating plagues of locusts/rabbits/mice or protecting herds from wolves has been as important to farmers as combating the elements.

As well as having the major exploitable species there should also be a biodiversity rating. This indicates the tiles usefulness as well as environmental health. Once a tile has been used for farming the biodiversity drops, and soon the land becomes pratically useless for anything but. Also once the biodiversity drops vermin/pests become more significant (no natural balances to halt their growth).

Biodiverse tiles will become important in the late/modern stages of the game - they will be a source of the before mentioned new medicines, and will be a weapon against environmental damage (carbon sinks for forests) maybe even a source of revenue for 'eco-tourism'

Introducing the wrong type of animal into an ecology can be devistating to the biodiversity. Australia is a prime example of this. Civs can unintentionally transport their vermin with then, and domesticated animals can also turn into pests. Even the wrong type of domesticated animal can be a disaster. I can't be sure of the exact reason, this is only what I can sorta remember but ungulates (hooved animals) have been very damaging to Australia, I think mainly because our native ground cover is not as dense so that they churn up the ground more than in other areas which promotes soil erosion and a whole host of other problems. Camels, because they have soft feet have been a much less damaging introduction to Australia.

How plants and animals are used I think really depends on the research system. I have some thoughts, but I don't know how much has been done on this already.

Oh, I've just thought of something, the most important plant product besides food - timber. Biodivisity can also indicate the effects of logging, and tree plantations are pretty useful and profitable.

[amjayee]

I agree with Joker about plants; they should be raw materials. As for special properties, we will most propably have special properties for every raw material.

About producing stuff with animals; hunting would work like that, yes. For example certain amount of hunters would produce certain amount of food and/or hides per turn, depending on what kinds of animals are available. Perhaps hides could also be a trade good? About using domesticated animals, I thought that there would be farms, that would produce certain amount of stuff depending on the situation. Quite like all other production; though we haven't decided yet how production is excactly handled.

Also I thought that all animals and plants could be made "raw materials" that could be hunted, produced in farms, or sold to others. This way we would not need any special system for them. Anyway the system would need to be simple. What does this sound like?

[Guildmaster]

Hmm I agree that we should limit the ammount of calculations we have to do regarding animals, like tracking cat populations vs. rat population. Maybe in the future we could do something like that but if we're going to go to that level of detail with the entire game we might as well be programming for the next 20 years.

Also I would like to introduce a different kind of animal:
"Exotic$namex$"
this is basically a luxury trade good, where "Name X" would refer to a list of available names for animals: Pandas, Koalas, Spotted Owels, Anacondas, Cheetah, etc. Each one would have a habitat no greater than three tiles, maybe even one or two tiles (maybe 4 depending). No separate demand functions for each one, the trade good itself is simply referred to as "Exotic Animals" and you import/export them one at a time.
More later right now I have to leave

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How will you make it if you never even try?
-Macy Gray

[Janes]

Simplifing the animals down to five or so groups is a good idea, but I'm not convinced why plants should be so simplified that they are simulated entirely differently then animals.

I agree that most areas of the world have had the chance to domesticate plants and that they all produce food. But different plants have enough difference and have had enough historical impact to be included in the game. Look at the impact New World foods had on European agriculture. Potatoes and corn greatly increased crop yield, the most famous example being Ireland. Using the efficient potato that had a high yeild and was able to grow in cold rocky soils the Irish were able to massively increase their population in a few generations. Then because they relied so much on one crop the Irish Potato Famine had disasterous effects on their country. We should be able to simulate that. Other notable times plants affected history include how the Carribean was turned into sugar plantions that were so valuable at the time of the American Revolution that they were worth more than America in terms of sales. Or their was the Chinese silk monopoly and all the trade that created.

There. So why simulate plants in an entirely different way then animals? You could have a couple plant types; exotic(sugar cane, tobbaco, rubber, silk worm mulbery bush, etc.), potato, grain type 1, grain type 2, and hmmm actualy that might be all you would need.
The reason for having two grain types instead of corn, wheat, rice, barley, etc. is that 1) it simplifies it and 2) by having more then one it allows for an agricultural boost if you diversify, which would encourage people to explore

The reason I left fruits and such out is that there are so many of them and grains and potatos account for something like 90% of our plant based intake.

Well I might be taking this to far so I'll think on it for awhile.

[cavebear]

Hi - I realize I am new to the discussion, but I think everyone may be making the plant and animal domestication too complicated for programming success.

Why not treat them as "technologies", using Civ2-type research to "domesticate"? Individual plants and animals could be improved through 3 levels each (for example, plants could be discovered in original form, improved to basic cultivation, then improved to modern standards). Animals could be discovered as food, improved to "husbandry" (raised food), then improved to labor status.

Plants and animals could be introduced for potential use in approximately the worldwide order of domestication (balanced out for competitive fairness).

Perhaps terrain and latitude would determine the timing of initial discovery. Terrain could determine which plants and animals are available for discovery. You could designate grassland to allow different plants and animals in different world regions (China grasslands would have slightly different plants and animals than South American grassland - grass1 and grass2).

I think that would keep to the GGS ideas, and reduce the computational complexity considerably.

I guess an important question is whether the game is primary and the GGS theme secondary, or vice versa... There are plenty of competitive games on themes, but only one GGS theme around which to construct a game.

[VetLegion]

cavebear,

I agree we should keep complexity under control. Computer resources are not that big a problem (modern machines can handle it) but gameplay is. Anyway, independant of what we will implement in what model, this discussion brings thought, and thought is good

About the book. I havent read GGS book, but I think we should not wrap the game around it. There is no book big enough to describe all mechanisms we should try to simulate in game. And some of the mechanisms the book describes are very troublesome (what is that with north south movement? ). The fact that something "fits" to our logic thought does not have to mean it is accurate, nor that it happened.

No offense to the fans of the book I wish I could read it, no copies came here.

[XWaste]

These ideas aren't fully worked out, but here are some thoughts I've been having on why I think a sophisticated model is needed for the environment, including types of plants and animals/domestication.

OK, the main problem I have with these sorts of games is that there is little motivation for war, except for the fact that it is a GAME and there an empire can somehow win.

Having a sophisticated land/animal system is needed so it can be linked to the economy/trade to provide the sort of motivations needed for realistic war with limited goals rather than the sort of huge empire building that is the only real motivation in these games.

OK, in the basic form you will have resource rich areas and resource poor, so if your neighbour has good land you are going to take it, especially if yours sucks. Also basic is the control of trading cities to bring in revenue.

But, consider these scenarios. Your big empire suddenly falls prey to a mouse plague destroying half your crops. Despite the hunger in the normal populace, you also have a large army demanding rations - you can either buy food (expensive) or put those grumbling solidiers to work.

Again, crop failure are also big causes of migration, look at the Irish potato famine. Whether you can find new land easily or have to take it by force is the choice you will have to make. I don't know if there has been any talk about having natural disasters (volcano's etc), but these are another reason for forced relocation.

Damaging agricultural practices have devasted large areas of land, producing many ghost towns.

There are cases where water resources are very scarce and have created conflict. What happens if a civ dams a river that was flowing into your land and used to irrigate your farms. Or what happens if the environmentally damaging practices of one civ on your borders starts to affect your lands? These all give reason for tension and conflict.

Also trade wars in the attempt to set up monopolies. The whole spice/drug wars of the 17/18 centuries (I think). These call for some sort of differentiation between different types of cash crops. If you are making lots of money off of say tea and start losing revenue to competition, you are going to start thinking about ways to get rid of them, either peaceful (stop trading this and I will give you this) or not.

The fact that some things can only be grown in certain areas is one of the huge motivating factors for expansion - why spread yourself out thin with all the problems of delayed command when you could just grow it at home. You need settlements/bases there to be able to collect the stuff - and ensure no one else gets it as well.

A sophisticated model will not just mean - oh I can have cattle and bison do the same thing, or grow both wheat and maize...wow. It will make the whole game environment much more dynamic, giving a lot more opportunity for both conflict and cooperation, giving each region there own real feel, giving the player much more control over the land whilst at the same time increasing their possible vulnerability (the rise fall thing you want to achieve). It will mean that rather having enemies attacking, and breaking alliances for no real reason other than you are doing too well will be less common, and what will be more common is that wars will be in response to cricumstance.

Just some thoughts anyway, I think a sophisticated model will provide much more benifit to the game than what people may think will be lost with the perceived complexity

[The Joker]

Amjayee:

quote: About producing stuff with animals; hunting would work like that, yes. For example certain amount of hunters would produce certain amount of food and/or hides per turn, depending on what kinds of animals are available.

Actually I think hunting would just depend on the terrain. Only when domesticating the animals they would be handled seperately.


Guildmaster:

Hmm, yeah, maybe. It might be pretty cool to have it, but I think we should try to not have too many things that in the big picture are pretty much unimportant. I mean, really, how much money is spent trading pandas per year in the world? What I am saying is, that we shouldn't have too many distinct goods, that are all really "small". Having one or a few Luxury Goods could propably be ok.


Plants:
I can see why you all believe they should be implemented. And I can see reasons why they should. But I can also see reasons why they shouldn't. I think that in order to have plants in the game they should provide some gameplay effect, other than the historical realism one.

I can't really decide this right now. I think that further discussion is required. And we don't have to decide anything at this point. Just, plants should be kept simple. We can't have too much complexity here. And they should have some gameplay effect.

Keep the discussion going!

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"It ain't broke, so BREAK it."
- Raingoon

GGS Website