Animals with too small Group-Size
- Thread starter Firestar97
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- group size pack size
THIS THIS THIS.
This is the most unrealistic part of this entire game!! My animals seemingly across the board are killing and fighting all their own babies because god knows if you have more than 1 mating pair (even in species that live in real life in large groups) they will immediately fight and continue to do so! This is SO UNREALISTIC.
It is extremely aggravating when I want to make a large carnivore habitat with my wolves, wild dogs, hyenas, etc and they fight non stop! What's even more mind boggling is that this happens with the ungulates in the game too, like ..... has no one on the frontier team watched any animal documentaries? These animals live in LARGE LARGE GROUPS in the wild, and they certainly don't fight// want to kill their offspring as soon as they arrive.
Obviously you're in a zoo setting so you shouldn't have 100 pairs, but let's at least make it more than 1 pair. That's completely asinine.
This is the most unrealistic part of this entire game!! My animals seemingly across the board are killing and fighting all their own babies because god knows if you have more than 1 mating pair (even in species that live in real life in large groups) they will immediately fight and continue to do so! This is SO UNREALISTIC.
It is extremely aggravating when I want to make a large carnivore habitat with my wolves, wild dogs, hyenas, etc and they fight non stop! What's even more mind boggling is that this happens with the ungulates in the game too, like ..... has no one on the frontier team watched any animal documentaries? These animals live in LARGE LARGE GROUPS in the wild, and they certainly don't fight// want to kill their offspring as soon as they arrive.
Obviously you're in a zoo setting so you shouldn't have 100 pairs, but let's at least make it more than 1 pair. That's completely asinine.
I have a large flamingo exhibit with many males and females. They are all happy, no fighting or alerts. Lots of babies though
. This could be a bug affecting some people though so I would report it. The animal social needs/behaviors definetely have major issues but the flamingos seem to be better than most species. They are the only ones I've seen where the babies don't immediately flee from the moms. I was shocked.I'm adding one more to the list. I was looking into adding my first lions to the zoo and I noticed they also have the only one male requirement. Again, this is entirely incorrect. In the wild lion coalitions are the norm. Two or more males, especially brothers, half-brothers, or cousins (but sometimes they can be unrelated as well) will get together to lead a pride of females. So while it may be acceptable to have two unrelated males from the marketplace not get along, brothers or half-brothers should be fine with each other if there's only 2 of them at least, and there's no reason for them to be at each-other's throats. It's unfortunate that for whatever reason the 1 male-x females ratio was taken as a shortcut for virtually every species in the game, especially when they talked so much about how much research and care went into properly simulating animal behaviours.
Honestly, I think they should just do away with max social group sizes altogether for most, if not all, animals, and instead base it on a space requirement- if you've got a massive habitat spanning the ENTIRE ZOO in a wildlife park style setup, there is absolutely no reason you shouldn't be physically able to own a ton of buffalo or zebra or hell, even two prides' worth of lions.
Animal social groups in the wild are known to get absolutely MASSIVE. Yes, some animals should have some limitations i.e. no more than 3 male lions in a social group before they start to fight for breeding rights(because there have been cases of 5 or more male lions co-leading a single pride in the wild) or w/e. Hell, even animals that are solitary in the wild do just fine in groups in captivity- I've even seen tigers housed in groups in zoos, same with cheetahs and many other typically solitary animals.
Basically they should just get rid of the whole "fighting due to overcrowding" thing altogether unless in the case of too many animals in too small of an enclosure, i.e. lack of SPACE.
Yes, territorial animals should be hostile to complete strangers. However, typically animals who are raised together, or fathers and sons and so on, will not fight eachother in captivity. So even animals with a limit on the number of males or whatever should take family relation into account.
Basically, it's simply not realistic AT ALL for group limits to even EXIST in a lot of ingame species. Wildebeest are known to live in herds of 100+ individuals. Yes, I get it, it's a zoo setting, but why should that mean I am limited to a particular group size? Why isn't it dependent on the size of the enclosure, like it SHOULD be?
Fighting for alpha status could be kept as a thing in SOME species that exhibit that behavior. Some bull animals in ungulate herds will behave in that manner, HOWEVER those fights rarely if ever end in serious injury and are JUST for show, to impress the females and assert dominance... not to actually kill. Multiple males can live in a single herd, just one is the "lead bull."
But wolves(and most other animals too honestly but wolves are my best example as I know a ton about them) straight up should not have a limit at all. The only reason wolves ever leave their birth pack is either A. to find a mate or B. because food has become scarce and can't support the large pack anymore. Wolves are not attacked and chased out of their pack, that isn't how it works. Therefore, in captivity, you should be able to keep as many wolves in a pack as you have enclosure space for them. Food is plentiful in a zoo setting, therefore the pack would not separate except for some wanting to find mates, but even then they're not going to suddenly turn hostile towards their family.
Specifically for wolves, and any other species in which pack behavior depends on family relations, they could make it so that the only way to have a pack is to pair two together and have them breed(i.e. all pack members must be family related somehow)... however, even in the wild, some packs HAVE been known to take in strangers, so it'd be nice if there was SOME flexibility there and it wasn't so hard-coded that "introduce stranger wolf, other wolves kill it". Especially since, if you want to KEEP a pack going, you eventually would have to phase out the old breeding pair and introduce a new male or female to the pack for the new "alpha".(even tho wolves don't actually have alphas, but instead 'breeding pairs'... in captivity, a daughter can in fact become the breeding female of her mother's pack once her mother dies and in fact this does happen in the wild as well on occasion)
tl;dr get rid of group limits and instead base it on space requirement. keep alpha fight behavior limited to specific species, and reduce the likelihood of injury as a result, and don't make the fighting constant. Multiple males should be able to live together EVEN IN "alpha behavior" species, just one will be "in charge" and they may OCCASIONALLY butt heads about it.
Animal social groups in the wild are known to get absolutely MASSIVE. Yes, some animals should have some limitations i.e. no more than 3 male lions in a social group before they start to fight for breeding rights(because there have been cases of 5 or more male lions co-leading a single pride in the wild) or w/e. Hell, even animals that are solitary in the wild do just fine in groups in captivity- I've even seen tigers housed in groups in zoos, same with cheetahs and many other typically solitary animals.
Basically they should just get rid of the whole "fighting due to overcrowding" thing altogether unless in the case of too many animals in too small of an enclosure, i.e. lack of SPACE.
Yes, territorial animals should be hostile to complete strangers. However, typically animals who are raised together, or fathers and sons and so on, will not fight eachother in captivity. So even animals with a limit on the number of males or whatever should take family relation into account.
Basically, it's simply not realistic AT ALL for group limits to even EXIST in a lot of ingame species. Wildebeest are known to live in herds of 100+ individuals. Yes, I get it, it's a zoo setting, but why should that mean I am limited to a particular group size? Why isn't it dependent on the size of the enclosure, like it SHOULD be?
Fighting for alpha status could be kept as a thing in SOME species that exhibit that behavior. Some bull animals in ungulate herds will behave in that manner, HOWEVER those fights rarely if ever end in serious injury and are JUST for show, to impress the females and assert dominance... not to actually kill. Multiple males can live in a single herd, just one is the "lead bull."
But wolves(and most other animals too honestly but wolves are my best example as I know a ton about them) straight up should not have a limit at all. The only reason wolves ever leave their birth pack is either A. to find a mate or B. because food has become scarce and can't support the large pack anymore. Wolves are not attacked and chased out of their pack, that isn't how it works. Therefore, in captivity, you should be able to keep as many wolves in a pack as you have enclosure space for them. Food is plentiful in a zoo setting, therefore the pack would not separate except for some wanting to find mates, but even then they're not going to suddenly turn hostile towards their family.
Specifically for wolves, and any other species in which pack behavior depends on family relations, they could make it so that the only way to have a pack is to pair two together and have them breed(i.e. all pack members must be family related somehow)... however, even in the wild, some packs HAVE been known to take in strangers, so it'd be nice if there was SOME flexibility there and it wasn't so hard-coded that "introduce stranger wolf, other wolves kill it". Especially since, if you want to KEEP a pack going, you eventually would have to phase out the old breeding pair and introduce a new male or female to the pack for the new "alpha".(even tho wolves don't actually have alphas, but instead 'breeding pairs'... in captivity, a daughter can in fact become the breeding female of her mother's pack once her mother dies and in fact this does happen in the wild as well on occasion)
tl;dr get rid of group limits and instead base it on space requirement. keep alpha fight behavior limited to specific species, and reduce the likelihood of injury as a result, and don't make the fighting constant. Multiple males should be able to live together EVEN IN "alpha behavior" species, just one will be "in charge" and they may OCCASIONALLY butt heads about it.
I agree so much with all of you.
Why do almost all animals have this ridiculous alpha system anyway? this is a very specific structure limited to one, maybe two animals on the roster? The rest should have completely different behavior towards others animals of the species, I’m by no means an animal expert and I can spot how wrong the Zoopedia is by reading it! (Or sometimes is right, but the actual mechanics decides to do another thing anyway).
I don’t expect to see the complex hierarchy systems of every animal, I just want to put them together realistically.
Why do almost all animals have this ridiculous alpha system anyway? this is a very specific structure limited to one, maybe two animals on the roster? The rest should have completely different behavior towards others animals of the species, I’m by no means an animal expert and I can spot how wrong the Zoopedia is by reading it! (Or sometimes is right, but the actual mechanics decides to do another thing anyway).
I don’t expect to see the complex hierarchy systems of every animal, I just want to put them together realistically.
Normal black bears, maybe. But the Formosan Black Bear is extremely solitary much like pandas. They live a rather nomadic lifestyle from what I understand (Chinese is not my native language). In fact these bears are the only bears in the world
edit: Apparently it's not to raise young. They're not sure why the bears make nests: http://blackbear.ysnp.gov.tw/English/bear/action.asp
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I agree with you all AND it's weird the game doesn't calculate SPACE in for group sizes. In a big habitat like some people wrote here (wildlife) they could be more than one family of lions for example, they just would live in another corner of the habitat, like they would do it in the wild too. Since the game doesn't count the space for a habitat, you can have kilometers of habitat and your two wolves (and other species) would still fight, because they feel limited - makes no sense at all and needs a big change.
I will try to cut it short, since the tone here is quite toxic. Like Frontier MUST do this or that…
I don’t think the game has to come with a wildlife-simulator, when it clearly states that it’s a zoo-game.
Animals in Zoos don’t have a lot of space. That’s a fact. You don’t have multiple prides of lions in the same enclosure. Or hyenas, lions and zebras. At least not for long.
And if two animals fight, they can’t get away from each other like they would in the wild. Therefore, fights are much more dangerous – and can end up deadly if no one intercepts.
“But one zoo has six cheetahs living happily together… and in the wild there was a group of seven!”
That’s great, media love to focus on the extraordinary. But normal is something else. Like, people here are whining for prides with five or more male lions, when there are only two or three documented cases in the wild…
I would love some changes, especially with the wolves, but I don’t think group sizes are so far off that it’s a gamebreaker.
I don’t think the game has to come with a wildlife-simulator, when it clearly states that it’s a zoo-game.
Animals in Zoos don’t have a lot of space. That’s a fact. You don’t have multiple prides of lions in the same enclosure. Or hyenas, lions and zebras. At least not for long.
And if two animals fight, they can’t get away from each other like they would in the wild. Therefore, fights are much more dangerous – and can end up deadly if no one intercepts.
“But one zoo has six cheetahs living happily together… and in the wild there was a group of seven!”
That’s great, media love to focus on the extraordinary. But normal is something else. Like, people here are whining for prides with five or more male lions, when there are only two or three documented cases in the wild…
I would love some changes, especially with the wolves, but I don’t think group sizes are so far off that it’s a gamebreaker.
I really hate the "one male for two billion females" thing. I mean, come on. Zebra, wildebeest, bison, and many others live in large groups that have an equal amount of males and females.
Yes, for the carnivores it might not be as big a priority. But there are many herd animals that do need some fixing.I will try to cut it short, since the tone here is quite toxic. Like Frontier MUST do this or that…
I don’t think the game has to come with a wildlife-simulator, when it clearly states that it’s a zoo-game.
Animals in Zoos don’t have a lot of space. That’s a fact. You don’t have multiple prides of lions in the same enclosure. Or hyenas, lions and zebras. At least not for long.
And if two animals fight, they can’t get away from each other like they would in the wild. Therefore, fights are much more dangerous – and can end up deadly if no one intercepts.
“But one zoo has six cheetahs living happily together… and in the wild there was a group of seven!”
That’s great, media love to focus on the extraordinary. But normal is something else. Like, people here are whining for prides with five or more male lions, when there are only two or three documented cases in the wild…
I would love some changes, especially with the wolves, but I don’t think group sizes are so far off that it’s a gamebreaker.
It’s true that this is a zoo simulator and the space it’s not usually that big. I’m actually fine with the game not calculating the space and having a fixed numbers for every species. I understand it’s easier and I don’t mind it.
But the thing is that the fixed numbers are WRONG. Like I know most zoos don’t have wolves packs of 35, but 5-10 looks pretty reasonable? Definitely not 2. And I don’t need to have 200 American bisons like in the wild, but the group should DEFINITELY be fine with 10-15 mixed individuals of the same species. There is solitaire animals that a should stick with a max group of two, and I don’t mind reduced numbers for the rest, but there’s so many species that needs the number adjusted.
Then there’s flamingos, that accepts hundreds, and I’m fine with it too, but do any zoo actually have 500 flamingos? (Legitimate questions, in my country they are keep in groups of about 20 adults for space reasons).
But the thing is that the fixed numbers are WRONG. Like I know most zoos don’t have wolves packs of 35, but 5-10 looks pretty reasonable? Definitely not 2. And I don’t need to have 200 American bisons like in the wild, but the group should DEFINITELY be fine with 10-15 mixed individuals of the same species. There is solitaire animals that a should stick with a max group of two, and I don’t mind reduced numbers for the rest, but there’s so many species that needs the number adjusted.
Then there’s flamingos, that accepts hundreds, and I’m fine with it too, but do any zoo actually have 500 flamingos? (Legitimate questions, in my country they are keep in groups of about 20 adults for space reasons).
A german bird park (Walsrode) kept over 200 flamingos in a group for a few years and other zoos have many of them, too!
So I think 500 is quite a big number, but it doesn't seem too unrealistic. Otherwise I totally agree that some max individuum numbers have to be changed (especially those for only 1 male for some species. There's only 1 dominant male, but there are for sure more males in one group). I understand, why these limitations are in the game (animal management), but it does make the game much more difficult and it contributes to the time issue, because your zookeepers don't do the population management for you.
I think too they should do it like that. When I have 2 female Hyenas in one Enclosure, they fight. But in the Zoopedia is written that 2 female Hyenas can live together
They were conservative with group sizes and I understand why people want more.
But It's realistic in a Zoo setting if you want to absolutely avoid fights.
It would be nice if they allowed for bigger grps in bigger habitats and they may add that in the future, but it takes a whole new system for multiple grps in one habitat.
And you have the option to just ignore the alpha thing and use vets to fix the animals up. This may even increase the "fame" of the animals.
I do this in quite a few habitats and had no deaths yet, so it seems viable. (i do hate that annoying alarm)
But It's realistic in a Zoo setting if you want to absolutely avoid fights.
It would be nice if they allowed for bigger grps in bigger habitats and they may add that in the future, but it takes a whole new system for multiple grps in one habitat.
And you have the option to just ignore the alpha thing and use vets to fix the animals up. This may even increase the "fame" of the animals.
I do this in quite a few habitats and had no deaths yet, so it seems viable. (i do hate that annoying alarm)