Free-range cattle

[martinuzz]

Maybe something like a portable village idol..?

[niltrias]

Also a good point. Raises the question of what to do about statues and banners tho. Would the nomads just have to carry them along?
I made a suggestion about an alternate, more nomad-friendly village type shortly after villages were implemented, but it did not seem to take well.

[Jackard]

Well yeah, covered wagons, horses and cowboy hats are a given. OK, maybe not the hats. I'd also love to see dog assistants, but I can't imagine a good interface for controlling multiple sheep dogs.

uhh cowboys what?? i was thinking like gypsies or something more appropriate to the setting

for that matter what about shepherds? they could use no fences too

[Potjeh]

But nobody likes gypsies.

[Chakravanti]

The idea behind sheep dogs is that you don't actually have to tell them what to do unless you are moving or want the sheep penned. most of the time they will just do their thing without guidance. Given that have all owned dogs tied to a single simple ui and abstract cooperative commands and via that. THe ui is 'mobile or sedentary'. Mobile bands the sheep together into a very small area with the dogs, forces them to fil themselves rapidly and form a column atttatch to a moblie authority figure (shepherd or wagon). Sedentary checks terrain type and creates a wander margin that restricts movement.. Dogs doing their job can just either be abstracted or programmed into the ai.

[RandomNub]

Grazing increases pasture/soil quality in real life, not depletes it.

Cattle eat pasture plants, causing the deeper roots of the grass to die underground to match the now short height of the plants, then the grass grows back both above and below ground, nourished by the cattle manure but also by the nutrients it draws out of the air and soil (a good pasture naturally becomes a mosaic of different plants such as clover which draws nitrogen from the air). It groes new roots and the old roots turn into humus. Repeat this year after year and the depth of the topsoil increases. Switch to a cultivated monoculture such as oat grass and the soil quality deteriorates year after year.

Grazing only depletes the ground if it is enclosure grazing and the cattle cannot move on. Early crop rotation historically included a year when the land was fallow and used as pasture because that improved the soil.

[Flame]

[And I reckon that deforested areas should change into grassland after a while]

And then all the noobs or pro will deforeste everything. Ah. Tzk! Wanna know?
After the grass area, should change in wasteland area. And desert. This is the truth, so warning. Deforesting is stupid and a shame of the ground.
Soon the whole map will be desert, so.


Anyway, the grass q is not a bad idea, but i don't have understood if Milk q can be more than 10, if the cows eat good straw or seeds

[kimya]

But nobody likes gypsies.

i like gypsies! and the possibility to really play a nomad or even a nomadic town sounds really great!

ive seen lots of "old" players starting fresh with a noob char now that the new spawing-in-the-wilderness has been implemented. it would be even more fun to be able to take it to the next level...

[kimya]

[And I reckon that deforested areas should change into grassland after a while]

And then all the noobs or pro will deforeste everything. Ah. Tzk! Wanna know?
After the grass area, should change in wasteland area. And desert. This is the truth, so warning. Deforesting is stupid and a shame of the ground.
Soon the whole map will be desert, so.


Anyway, the grass q is not a bad idea, but i don't have understood if Milk q can be more than 10, if the cows eat good straw or seeds

first off, the milk can only get better if the cow has at least the same q food as the milk it gives is. cause the q is capped by the food q.
but the quality changes (-2 to +5) with breeding.

second, usually only newbs deforest areas, as they want to grind lp or dont know better (which is kinda understandable). so i dont think the map will be deserted... but, even if, it would just evolve other behaviour, such as people planting trees or villages taking care of the forest around them.

yeah and the grass idea is good

[theTrav]

The idea behind sheep dogs is that you don't actually have to tell them what to do unless you are moving or want the sheep penned. most of the time they will just do their thing without guidance. Given that have all owned dogs tied to a single simple ui and abstract cooperative commands and via that. THe ui is 'mobile or sedentary'. Mobile bands the sheep together into a very small area with the dogs, forces them to fil themselves rapidly and form a column atttatch to a moblie authority figure (shepherd or wagon). Sedentary checks terrain type and creates a wander margin that restricts movement.. Dogs doing their job can just either be abstracted or programmed into the ai.

That's a pretty cool and practical sounding idea