Hi Everyone,
The Hunters and Hunted Update has Arrived!
I am thrilled to get this update moved to the default branch. It has been an intense 10 weeks, with the testing branch participants being true heroes finding tonnes of bugs and giving great suggestions. I really can't thank them enough.
There were so many new emergent behaviors with the new Hunting, Sneaking, and Predator interactions that there is no way that I could have gotten all this working on my own.
Note: Anyone can join the testing branch under Clanfolk/Properties/Betas. If you do join, expect bugs, and if you find any, please report them here or on Discord. It makes Clanfolk better for everyone.
Lets get right to the details :)
Hunting Upgrades
Hunters can now Sneak and no longer chase prey around the map. Instead, they will wait for alerted prey to calm down before approaching so they can get a better shot.
Hunters are also able to back away from prey to ensure that the prey does not notice them. They can be quite stealthy now.
Hunters have a critical hit chance with bows. The base chance is 5% but increases to 15% at level 10, and can be as high as 24% at level 18 if there is an 8x affinity hunter. (Legolas) Critical hits do 3x damage.
Bow damage also increases with Hunting skill as the Hunter will hit better spots on the target. A level 10 Hunter will do 3x the damage of a level 1 hunter. Note: these numbers are subject to tuning.
Movement speed when Hunters sneak is now improved as the Hunting Skill increases
Visibility range for sneaking hunters is lowered as the Hunting Skill increases
Added new Hunter task to Finish Off Hunted animals that have been downed, instead of firing arrows at them.
Flee Task now reads flee visibility to allow good sneakers/hunters to get a lot closer before startling the prey.
Hunters now gain hunting skill points as they sneak to get close to prey
Alert System
Animals now have an Alerted State. When Alerted, animals will sense danger from 2x as far away as normal.
Alerts are triggered from animals fleeing nearby, or the sound of an arrow impacting on the ground in the area. So when a hunter is sneaking and gets too close to their prey, the hunter may be seen and trigger an alert. This causes the prey to flee which then alerts all other nearby animals and the flee will propagate to them as well. It looks quite natural and can make hunting trips quite interesting.
Hunters are aware of alert ranges and will also back off when prey are alerted so they do not need to follow them across the map.
The higher the hunting skill, the closer the hunter can get before triggering an alert in the prey.
Better Fleeing
Fleeing needed an upgrade with the new predators coming online. How fleeing generally happens is that an Alert will be triggered by sight or sound, and then the prey animal will try to get directly away from the threat. This only mostly works though and many times the prey would get stuck in permanent states of running back and forth.
So now the fleeing has a memory of the most recent flee tiles and those tiles are also to be avoided. This prevents back tracking and works quite well. It is like playing a game of snake with their own flee trail.
Flee tasks will also try to avoid tiles that will slow them down, like thistle. Now the animals can be pretty slippery.
Bleeding
With the new Hunting/Wolves, I decided that it was time to introduce bleeding and low health diminishing movement speed. This gives a more natural hunting experience with the prey weakening and slowing over time.
Arrows, Bites, and Claws can cause Bleeding.
If a unit is Bleeding and is hit again with more damage that causes bleeding, the bleeding will get worse.
Bleeding will stop over time, but heavy bleeding is likely fatal. There will be treatments once the Clanfolk run into cases where they are bleeding, but this is not a problem yet though.
Loyal Deerhound
Deerhound were the go to companion in 1300's Scotland. They were an essential hunting tool, they could protect the homestead, and were also just fun to cuddle.
When a Deerhound is born/purchased they will pick a companion. The Deerhound's world generally revolves around their companion and by default they will almost always be at their side.
Deerhound can have their owner set manually by using the set owner button when clicking on a Clanfolk, or using the toggle ownership button when clicking on the Deerhound. There is a new key Icon with a paw to show this relationship.
The Deerhound's main purpose is right in the name. They hunt deer. In 1300's Scotland there were no guns, but there was an abundance of Red Deer. Deer are very difficult to sneak up on and hunt with a bow, but Deerhound were incredibly effective at downing them. In Clanfolk, the Deerhound are equally effective.
Deerhound have three AI modes. These modes are set by selecting the Deerhound, and then at the bottom right of the selection window is a new toggle.
Follow Mode: Follow the companion, help ONLY the Companion with Hunting tasks, defend livestock being stalked by predators. So in follow mode, most of the time is spent with the Companion, but if there are livestock in danger, the deerhound will detect this and try to defend them.
Guard Mode: Patrol around between livestock to defend from predators, ignore hunting tasks, do not follow companion. This is very good for keeping wolves and foxes away from livestock. You lose the hunting help, but the Deerhound is always on guard duty and ready to defend.
Hunting Mode: Help ANY hunter that is hunting wild game. Then guard Livestock when not hunting. Do not follow companion. This is a useful mode if there are some deer in the area. Most of the time will still be spent Guarding, but the Deerhound will break off to help any hunters as a priority.
Deerhounds will inherit the keys of their owner. This allows them to follow their owner into rooms. They also inherit door ownership to allow them to get into the houses of their owners.
Dog beds have been added so the Deerhounds have a comfy place to sleep.
Pet Zones have also been added for cases when Dog or Cat beds are not yet available.
Note: The Deerhound sounds are actually from my Standard Poodle "Max." It turns out that his barking/growling/yipping sounded very similar to the Deerhound sounds I sourced, and he is also a complete acting ham so I can get a much wider variety of emotion out of him. There will be more interaction sounds starring Max to come in the future.
Wildlife Manager
The Wildlife manager now handles all spawning on the map. This means that animal populations will follow seasonal trends. So lots of animals in Summer and in Winter the populations will dwindle considerably.
When animals arrive, they will be assigned to packs or herds. When too many members of one of these groups are killed, the whole group will find the area too dangerous and leave. This means toy should pick the best targets for hunting and not just hunt the while herd of Deer for example.
Each animal group will assign a leader and the pack/herd will migrate around based on the leader's position. This keeps the group together and looks pretty cool. If one leader dies, a new leader will be picked.
Late Spring and Early Summer will now bring many babies to the map, and they will grow as the seasons progress. In Fall, the arriving animals will be older and be juveniles. In Winter only Adults will spawn. Note, babies will follow their mother vs the group leader.
The Wildlife Manager's spawn counts are proportional to the wildlife slider as follows: 1 + (0.25 * WildlifeSetting. So this means a -3 wildlife setting leads to 0.25x wildlife spawning, and a 3 wildlife setting leads to 1.75x wildlife spawning. More wildlife is not always a good thing as this spawns foxes, wolves, too.
Animal migrations onto the map use an accumulating random chance. So if each day there is a 25% chance of wolves arriving, then by day 4, there will be a 100% chance of them arriving (if all other criteria are met) Once the animals arrive, the accumulator resets. This prevents very long RNG stretches without spawning, but still gives spawning variety.
Deer start arriving Day 2
Wolves start arriving Day 21 (Winter Day 1) - Wolves need Deer/Sheep/Goat/Cattle to Spawn
Foxes start arriving Day 11 (Fall Day 1) - Foxes need Bunnies/Chickens to Spawn
Howling Wolves
Wolves are the big new threat. They only fear humans currently, but that will be changing. In particular stealing their kills or attacking/approaching their pups in the future will cause conflict.
So Wolves hunt in packs. This is a new hunting behavior, and very effective. The wolves will prefer to kill deer and stay away from humans, but if a sheep is alone in a field, it is a valid target and will get chomped.
Once wolves make a kill, they cannot eat it all at once (unless it is a huge pack) This means that there will be a carcass. The wolves actually prefer carcasses to hunting and will keep coming back to it until it has been fully eaten. Carcasses are stopped by default, so Clanfolk do not wander into future dangerous situations, but they can be stolen if desired.
While wolves feed on a carcass, they will spoil the meat, so if you want to steal it, steal it quickly. The wolves also consume the actual meat on the carcass, so there will not be a full deer's worth of meat if you steal and butcher the carcass.
Wolves also lose their fear when starving and will venture closer to human settlements. If there are wolves on the map, and no deer on the map, they will be coming for the livestock. For now, keeping the livestock in a pen will keep them safe, but probably not forever. If your livestock are not behind a fence, you are asking for wolf trouble.
Deerhound to the rescue. Deerhounds have no fear of wolves, but the wolves DO fear the Deerhounds. A Deerhound can kill a wolf, and they know it. Any time the wolves are up to no good, the Deerhounds can detect this and will try to protect whatever Livestock is in danger. So if you see the Deerhound run off barking, that is a good sign that the wolves are up to something.
The best solution to deal with problem wolves is to go on the offensive and hunt them with a few Deerhounds as backup.
Sneaky Foxes
Foxes are now a threat. A yipping cute little threat.
Foxes like to eat bunnies when they can, but they will also take a chicken that is unguarded. The thing about foxes is, if they are hungry enough, they will crawl under doors to steal chickens, so beware.
Foxes will try to avoid humans/deerhounds as much as possible, unless starving, then all bets are off with them.
Free range chickens are going to get eaten, so have some kind of chicken pen ready before Fall 1, or at least have a Deerhound on guard duty. The Deerhound will usually only put up with one or two sneaky attempts by a Fox before deciding enough is enough and killing it itself.
As with Wolves, if the Foxes become a problem, it is best to hunt them. Once the bunny population gets low, they can be a menace.
Finite Rabbits
Up until now, the Rabbit Holes controlled Rabbit spawning and would try to maintain a constant map population of Rabbits. Now the Wildlife spawner handles Rabbits. That means there are only so many possible rabbits a day and that the number of rabbits is highly based on the current season.
This leads to some scarcity problem because everything seems to eat rabbits, and when the rabbits run low, then livestock tends to be on the menu.
Rabbit spawning is also based on the number of rabbit holes on the map as follows.
Rabbits are allowed to spawn up to 2 + 2*Rabbit Hole Count on map, but also must respect seasonal population limits.
When rabbits find a large patch of grass with no holes nearby, they will dig a warren there. This then becomes a spawning node for future rabbits and allows the daily rabbit count to increase. So this means a map without grass will not have many holes which means few rabbits.
Baby Rabbits will be much more common now (Due to Rabbits breeding like they do, babies arrive all seasons aside from winter)
Baby Rabbits will now follow mother and nurse as needed
Honking Red Deer
Scotland is full of Red Deer, even today. They were a major source of food in 1300's Scotland and lead to the rise in popularity of the Deerhound.
The Red Deer will migrate onto and leave the map over time. They are a great bonus food source when they arrive, but they also have a chance to attract wolves, so beware.
The sounds for the Red Deer in Clanfolk are actual Scottish Red Deer recorded in Scotland, so although really odd sounding, they are accurate.
The Red Deer arrive in Herds and will leave if too many of their members die.
The Baby Red Deer will mostly arrive in Late Spring. They look like Bambi. Don't burn the forest please.
Stances
This seems like a little thing, but it adds so much personality to the animals. All the animals can now lie down when sleeping. Some like Dogs/Cats can also sit. In fact Cats/Dogs can sleep in two different ways.
When animals are stuck in a rain or snowstorm they will now lie down in a ball to keep warm.
The Little Things
Clanfolk now have a 5% chance of Twins!
No more fence to wall connection gaps. Fences now terminate with posts!
Flipped the windows vertically to make their perspective look better.
Made it possible for Seniors to marry! Seniors prefer other Seniors, but will also partner with Adults if needed
When the stop button is used on pets, they will sit... just because
Hens sit down on eggs now when brooding.
Change Logs
So usually I post all the change logs here for easy perusal, but I ran into a problem. The change log text is way longer than this text box will allow, and I ran out of characters. It has been a very busy couple of months.
So for those interested in the full story of this update, please take a look at the Steam Forums here:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1700870/discussions/0/3183488858470509508/?ctp=13
Update 10 starts with changelist 0.334. It is a pretty interesting read if you like fine detail!
Road Map
There is a lot more to come! Please take a look at the Road Map for further long term details as well.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1700870/view/3388412789658793666
Diving back into the code now.
Thanks very much for playing Clanfolk!
Andrew Hume (Blorf)
MinMax Games Ltd.
P.S.
I just wanted to give a quick shout out to my partner Narlak's latest creation "No Creeps Were Harmed." We both have been solo developing our own games since Space Pirates and Zombies 2, and if you like tower defense style games at all, please take a look.
Narlak and i have been working together for over 18 years now, originally working on Scarface the World is Yours, then SPAZ 1 and SPAZ 2. He is the other half of MinMax and really does make a great game :)
Note: I will not be working on NCWH, and it does not impact my development of Clanfolk. I just wanted to make sure Narlak's game got some visibility, which is so hard to do these days.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1932260/No_Creeps_Were_Harmed_TD/