Animal Husbandry

A way to take the new Nature NPCs and either use them for for commodities or militarily.

New Units for the purpose of trapping/taming of the wild beasts of Illyriad. They should be fairly expensive, needing heavy leather to protect from bites,scratches and books for learning of various techniques and animal types,behaviours, trapping techniques, etc and a high upkeep 

New Building would acts as a barracks type building allowing you to train your captured animals and also the Trappers that caught them

New Researches

•  Opens the the Building and the Units

•  Increase Percent NPCs caught, Lower Trappers killed, etc
  

• Allows the training of the different variety of beast, or just Tier1 and Tier2

• Use NPCs in production items for making leather/saddles/siegeblocks etc
  

Commodities

• Captured NPCs should be tradeable and in a base generic form(i.e. your trappers attacked gathering of wild dogs, instead of capturing the different teirs of pups adults you get just Wild Dogs which you can train later to the ability of your research)
• Some NPCs can be used in the place of horses/cows and have different values(a Elephant can make 3 saddles or 6 leather per animal etc)

Militarily

• Captured NPCs can be trained into Units useable in your armies for attacking/defending

After you train your Trappers your will be able to send them out much like diplomatic units. When they arrive at the specified NPC the 'battle' can either go as

• Your trappers scare the NPCs away, resulting in 0 gain 0 loss
• Your trappers successfully captured the NPC, resulting in gains/losses
  
• Your trappers have not returned, resulting in a total loss of your trappers(eaten/killed by the NPCs attacked)

The trappers effectiveness in stealth/stalking, capture rate, and survivabilty can be increased through research and the level of the New Building. Higher level NPCs will still be difficult to successfully catch and might takes upwards of 20:1 odds to outnumber and overpower the prey.
A successful hunt does not mean that all the NPC will be captured most of the the NPCs will escape or be killed in the attempt and many of you trappers can also be killed in a successful hunt if you attacked a powerful NPC or did not send enough trappers.  Hunts can can gain from 1%-30% of the original NPC group depending on all the variables.

Once you have your prize the NPCs can be trained, sold, or used to your abilities of research/Beastiary(sp? Bestiary)< what im calling the building now

On the Research im not sure whether several hundred new types or a handful would be better
on the military side it could look like this
>Train tier 1 NPC (with Lvl 1 Bestiary)
   > Train tier 2 Npc (with Lvl 5 Bestiary)
      > Train tier 3 Npc (with Lvl 10 Bestiary)
         > Train tier 4 Npc (with Lvl 15 Bestiary)
            > Train tier 5 Npc (with Lvl 20 Bestiary)

or
>Train tier 1 Puma (with Lvl 1 Bestiary)
   > Train tier 2 Puma (with Lvl 5 Bestiary)
      > Train tier 3 Puma (with Lvl 10 Bestiary)
         > Train tier 4 Puma (with Lvl 15 Bestiary)
            > Train tier 5 Puma (with Lvl 20 Bestiary)
>Train tier 1 Mammoth (with Lvl 1 Bestiary)
   > Train tier 2 Mammoth (with Lvl 5 Bestiary)
      > Train tier 3 Mammoth (with Lvl 10 Bestiary)
         > Train tier 4 Mammoth (with Lvl 15 Bestiary)
            > Train tier 5 Mammoth (with Lvl 20 Bestiary)
    With different NPCs requiring different Research cost/times

Units
Elf>Rangers
Orc>Poachers
Human>Trappers
Dwarf>???

Just an idea ive had rattling around please add to it, critic, flame or that its already been posted( glanced through the suggestions)


I apologize for the writing its not my strong point and im to lazy to make it neater atm and ill add more later

I like the idea- it will open new strategic plans. However, HM is right- although I hadn't heard about the pigs....

Edited by Nokigon - 27 Mar 2011 at 18:29

I like the idea, does anyone remember Killer Bunny Cavalry?  I can see animal tournaments coming next, and training the keepers would be interesting as well.  One day I will be done building and researching and I will be confined to diplomacy and harvesting.  Its going to be fun seeing what comes next.

HonoredMule wrote: It's an interesting idea.  Something worth noting, however, is that historically the use of non-domesticated animals in war has been very indecisive at best.  Often the animals caused more harm to allies than enemies.  Also, which animals prove effective can be surprising.  If I recall correctly, elephants trampled mostly allies but enemies had plenty of time to open escape routes which the stampeding animals gladly took rather than charge into formations.  Pigs set afire, on the other hand, wreaked total havoc as well as inspiring great fear in the enemy.  Even the latter is not so effective as blazing logs rolled downhill, however.

I like TS suggestion but what I have to question is - would it be balanced or would it be too comprehensive. Would it overpower a specific group of players, by having "food free units", how much  would it alter the framework for combat, what would an animals upkeep be over time, would it vary with each race etc. etc. Its easy to loose perspective.
I think it would work well if implemented gradually and with only a few basic races to start out with.

Would be fun to have 1 animal champion available - revivable and levellable - unable to aid fellow troops like a soldier champion, but singularly focused on own ability for dealing damage to an enemy. Would give a good incentive for players to aquaint themselves with trapping.

My musing done :)


Edited by Tordenkaffen - 28 Mar 2011 at 23:17