@Tynan RE a Twitter post

[Crimsonknight3]

RE: This post https://twitter.com/TynanSylvester/status/479646464629411840

It is easier to write what I wanted to reply here as twitter wouldn't let me haha!!

I was thinking that certain low-level plants could have a set "weight" based on what type of plant they are either based on real world plants, like plants that "strangle" others or perhaps based purely on height/sunlight. Plant types that are more robust can spread easier and need less sunlight, however can be "overtaken and eradicated" by other plant types that are more reliant on sunlight.

You could then tie this into Horticulture and perhaps add in being able to "capture" muffalos and designate zones for them to graze on. This way the player could choose to influence a certain area by moving grazing muffalo around. Also it would allow you freedom to add in a bit more "difficulty" by adding in more aggressive plants if a player chooses to over-hunt the local animals. Plants that could damage pawns, or perhaps damage the fertility of the land they are growing on based on how long said plant occupies the tile, eventually turning the tile into sand or "parched dirt" or something.

I know the coding could be complicated if you went down the route of plants effectively "fighting" eachother on a slow scale, however having an "ecosystem" to manage/ignore and potentially survive/die as a result would really really add to the feeling like you are deserted on a strange planet striving to survive long enough in a strange harsh environment to get home!

I have a few more ideas but I'd like to hear your thoughts before I carry on typing out an essay

[TwixFunSize]

that sounds pretty cool. I hope Tynan sees this!

[mrofa]

Dunno its hard to say how it should look since not all terrain stuff is implemented, also you need to take in consideration incients, player activity ,animals and ofc squierrls.
And if evrything fails tyn can just make a incdent of a giant seed(advenced squierrls altilery) falling form the sky and seeding eveything in large radius, then blowing up and spawning instane squieerls unicorns

[Nocebo]

I like the idea but isn't plant warfare on a completely different timescale than the rest of the game?

[Crimsonknight3]

I like the idea but isn't plant warfare on a completely different timescale than the rest of the game?

Well considering most plants grow in 1-3 odd rim days, if the average game lasts around 50 days, it doesn't really take too much, if a higher weight plant is growing next to a lower weight plant, and the lower plant is at 12% growth and the heigher weight plant is at say 50% growth, then there would be a chance the higher weight plant kills the lower, and plants a seed of its own, this could all happen in a matter of a few days over 50 days a large section of the map could be "overgrown"

[Tynan]

There are lots of great ideas about plants here and elsewhere but none of them address the original question, which is how to make the ecosystem stable over time. This means no plants dominate, and no plants die out. It also means clusters stay as clusters, and the ecosystem doesn't homogenize. It means that the same proportion of e.g. grass tends to be young vs old. And this ecosystem has to re-fill gaps caused by e.g. fires, mass plant cutting, etc.

I wrote new code in A5 to make the ecosystem a lot more stable than A4 and before, but it still isn't truly stable in all the ways I want it to be.