Bigger animals should give more meat

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This brings back memories of Age of Kings, which had this feature. Each animal had an amount of meat. As soon as it was killed, this amount started to decrease (the meat decayed). The workers collected the meat up to their carrying capacity (40-50 units). Then they went to the towncenter with it. The meat did not ever decay after being picked up by a worker.

This gave some interesting tactical choices for the player. To minimize loss of meat due to decay, one should send as many workers as possible to hunt an animal. But with too many workers on a single animal, they would not use their full carrying capacity. For a normal deer, it would be reasonable to use 5 workers if it was close to the towncenter, 4 at medium distance and 3 if it was very far away. The players also got a so called scout to start with (a horseman with a sword). It was used to ride around the whole map, exploring, killing lonely enemy workers (if they were in a group they were strong enough to fight back and kill the scout) and killing animals that were too far away to hunt but close to enemies (to make sure that they would not get too much to eat). It was also a useful tactic to hunt the animals close to the nearest enemies first and save the animals near the own home until later, when the enemies had developed military units and it was to dangerours to go hunting near their settlements, or the enemies had hunted those animals themselves.

It was also possible to move the whole animal closer to home while the animal was still alive. For example a deer that was shot with an arrow would jump away a few tiles (in the opposite direction of where the arrow came from). Then the second arrow would kill it. So a good tactic would be to let one hunter sneak around the deer and shoot it from behind so it would move closer to the towncenter. Then let the rest of the hunting team kill it instantly. On the other hand, elephants would move towards the hunters and attack back. After the first arrow, it would walk towards the attacker. After the second arrow, it would run furiously. Actually killing it required several more arrows. So it was advisable to have many workers when killing an elephant. Otherwise workers would die. Attacking from the direction of the towncenter towards the elephant would be a good tactic because it would make the meat carrying distance shorter. It was also possible to shoot an arrow so it would walk for a while, then run away and let the elephant calm down. Then sneak up and shoot another arrow to make it walk some more, and so on. This could save a lot of meat carrying work.

Different animals would have different sizes when they were killed, so 8 workers would fit around a killed deer (to collect meat), while 12 or 16 workers would fit around a killed elephant.

Some animals, like crocodiles and wolves gave no meet at all. And all huntable animals remained completely stationary unless a person came and shot (or otherwise scared) them. (Unlike Widelands where all animals move around randomly most of the time.)

So hunting was an important and interesting aspect of that game. A part of what made it a great game. B...

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On the size of animals, and what they produce, I have some additional comments:

* 'Furry' animals, such as bear, deer and chamois should also produce 'pelts' - these could be managed in a way similar to wool being produced by the sheep farmer. After all, many items of clothing were made with pelts, and this would add a greater measure of realism to the game. It also gives scope to add further animals in the future, such as beaver.

* Sheep as bobs - surely these should also produce wool as well as meat...the sheep farmer does this already.

* Wolf and Fox? Do these really produce meat in real life? (I live in UK, and have never heard of these animals being edible...) However, in their natural environment they would be a 'hazard' and would attack men and kill livestock.

Overall I have a suggestion for consideration. Bob types, especially animals, could be reviewed. Creatures that 'attack' could be classed 'beast' instead of 'critter.' They could have a nominal attack/defence capability, and would attack carriers going about their work, as in real life. If they were in the vicinity of livestock producers, they could also have an effect on the stock levels or production rates.

All workers should also have attack/defence capabilities, as this would prevent a lone wolf killing the whole tribe. Instead, after a couple of attacks, the workers would have inflicted enough damage to finally kill the animal.

My only reasons for making these suggestions are that they leave scope for future additions of creatures and creature types, and this would allow for user created worlds to enter the realms of fantasy, should they so wish. Trolls and dragons, hiding in the forests, would greatly enhance my own enjoyment of the game, and as there already exist fantasy themed maps (Elven Forest) it is clear that these things have already been considered...

I guess, I can do at least something with the issue larger animal = more meat. Will push a branch for playtesting if this works out. Not for Build15, though.

Setting to incomplete for bug sweeping.

I think that this is still a funny idea. If big animals would give lots of meat, then there would be temporary congestions caused by pile of bison meat at the flags.

This would probably lead to meat playing some kind of role for atlanteans, too. The speed of the hunter and gamekeeper would need to be adjusted, to keep things in balance.

Oh, and a player who sees a single big animal wandering somewhere, would probably want to build a hunter's hut just to catch that beast.

I think this sounds cool too.

I have one question though, how will the hunter carry the extra meat around? AFAIK, up until now a worker has only been able to carry one item at a time. After slaying his prey, will the hunter carry several pieces of meat back to his house (flag), or will he make multiple trips to fetch them, one by one?

I would just make him carry the animal to hut in a single round. However, if he would need to make many turns, then slowing up the hunter would be more or less done. Similar ideas for the gamekeeper?

.. if the hunter needs many turns, then how do the other hunters react to a half-emptied corpse in their working range?

I started to work on this a good while ago, but I got distracted by other things; and since I felt that I was the only one finding this idea tempting, I did not really rush it.

I started some data collection on work cycles etc. at https://wl.widelands.org/wiki/history/BlueprintFreshMeat/
There you also find some ideas what to limit to keep the play styles of the tribes different. The blueprint also takes into account (and tries to accommodate for, with a new building) that Empire has no means of an unlimited food resource (as water is currently limited) - this was another bug. And also for the Fishermen... ;-)

Because it was asked: Basic idea of how the "new" hunter works (this is working with the engine widelands currently has): A hunter stalks as usual, kills the animal, and if it was a big animal, he creates a size0 immovable (corpse), carries one meat to his hut, and then returns to pick up the second meat (removing the corpse).
Other hunters would not realize the corpse (first, Barbarian hunters are proud and would probably want to hunt their own bear/elk; and second, usually hunters won't run the same way as other hunters, so how should the second hunter know of the prey of the first one?)

For the gamekeeper this idea might not be working (he can't carry the bear-to-be in two parts and then play Dr. Frankenstein, can he?) Here the idea of the "pack of animals" could come into play as thought about in the Wiki entry.

Setting to incomplete for bug sweeping.

Migrated to https://github.com/widelands/widelands/issues/1767