I am very pleasantly surprised by the way that the european animal count is slowly tickling up.
Now with three other additions, i thought abit about what i would say is needed, to make Europe a finished and fully satisfying region in the game, without just completly bloating the raster.
Goal is simple, not more then 20 animals but a good and diverse raster, lets dive in.
First and foremost, Europe has 2 apex predators, the wolf and the brownbear.
Right now we have 1/2, but i only really see either the european brownbear or the syrian brownbear making it in something like a grabbag dlc with other low effort animals like the american flamingo.
The second most important category would be "wild". Wild is hunterslang for the different herbivores of middle europe, and they make out a good part of the selection in most "wildparks". Park means the same in english, so i guess you should get that connection to our common local zoos. Technically, also other animals would count to "wild" as its just huntable animals, but in common usage only the ungulates are spoken of when talking about wild, with maybe the addition of hares and pheasants. Main reason though is because thats the stuff you eat in a hunting style restaurant lol.
I would say atleast 4 would be fine, some noteable examples that could fill these roles would be red deer, fallow deer, wild boar, chamois, roe deer, mouflon and ibex.
But right now thats a fair and square 0/4, see me after class.
The next most important group would be small carnivores, we have a bunch of them and they are next to the wild the most commonly displayed animals in wildparks.
Again i would say about 4 would do fine, with one slot actually being taken care of by newly revealed polarfox. Other good candidates would be the red fox, european polecat, european wildcat (look them up, they look like cute tabby cats), lynx, european badger, a marten or even the river otter.
After shooting out half the slots, lets take a look at birds! While technically already having one in the game, europe has two that are an absolute must have, the eurasian pheasant, one of the culturally most important birds and the pheasant with by far the furthest distribution, even before we imported them everywhere, including in europe, and the wester capercallie. I doubt that anyone would argue against these 2, so we have a nice an easy 1/3 if we count the flamingo. There would also be other great birds like the mute swan, but i would prefer the first two even though i would love other birds aswell.
Another fun one are rodents, because europe actually has quite a few fun ones. We just got the beaver, but the crested porcupine, red squirrel, alpine marmot and european hare or mountainhare all have some great things going for them. I would be happy to see them all, but i think a second one would be enough to be satisfied, so we have a nice 1/2.
The one group where im fully satisfied with right now would be the pinipeds. The harbour seal would be nice, but the greyseal already covers his niche and does a great job at it, so 1/1.
One thing that i belive should also be included in europe would be domestic animals. We dont need much, already having the reindeer, but i would love to see atleast one more european breed, some favorites of mine would be the scottish highland cattle, a saddleback pig and the mallard. 1/2.
Lastly, i would like to see the 2 beefy giants of europe, the wisent (european bison) and the moose. The moose is already confirmed to be coming, but i would love to see them both. 1/2.
So thats it, exactly 20 slots seperated between different categories, but for the fun, here is what i would choose specificly:
Apex:
- Gray wolf (in the game)
- eurasian Brownbear
Wild:
- Fallow deer
- Red deer
- Wild boar
- Alpine Ibex
Small Carnivore:
- Polarfox (in the game) (would have been the red fox before, but you take what you get and two diffrent foxes in 4 slots is overkill, still think hes coming though and im glad about it)
- Lynx
- Eurasian Polecat
- European Badger
Birds:
- Eurasian pheasant
- Western capricallie
- Greater flamingo (in the game)
Rodents:
- Beaver (in the game, i dont care that its the american subspecies it looks the same)
- red squirrel
Pinipeds:
- grey seal (in the game)
Domestic:
- Reindeer (in the game)
- Scottish highland cattle
Big boys:
- Moose (in the game)
- Wisent
Total completion:
7/20
So yeah thats it, what would you guys like to see for europe?
Anything you disagree with? Anything i missed? Cant wait to hear it and see what you would like to see.
forums.frontier.co.uk
), probably other Asian Countries too, also in Australia if you want to do something like a Invasive Species Exhibition (could be nice next to a Exhibit with Cane Toads)
). Maybe there are just too many small predatory Animals here that prevent them from taking over.
