Not sure if this has been discussed before but I could not find it when checking the past few months. In general the game is very good including the research. There certainly also are some faults that help the gameplay, otherwise the time would pass much slower if animals gave birth as often as in the nature and you'd be permanently sending the offspring away. However the game could see some more realism that would not hurt the game play. Maybe this can be applied as option for players depending on how much reality they want:
- PZ sees 100% of the offspring survive and grow to be an adult. This is far from being realistic. You have a certain percentage that will never reach adolescence for various reasons. Especially a first birth is often not successful
- Related to this: some animals can certainly give birth at higher ages as it is considered in the game. However, this only applies if the female has given birth before. You will rarely ever find an elephant or a rhino being able to give a first birth at the age of 25 or older, or a big cat at 10 or older.
- Albinism: the percentage of albinistic animals is totally exaggerated. In particular serious zoos would not breed with these animals anymore. I would really love to have a button that disables animals to produce albinistic offspring.
- the length of life is too linear. You can have the best veterinarians but animals hide diseases and injuries. It is obvious that the animals are programmed to die between age X and Y - it is good that most of them reach this certain age but you always have animals that die early and below the expected age.
- some animals have absolutely wrong data. It would be nice if this could be overlooked again, e.g. my elephants rather turn 70 or even older while the chance that this happens in reality is tiny, the life expectancy rather is 50 to 60 with many dying earlier; giraffes at PZ regularly die between 28 and 35 or even older, in reality most die between 15 and 20, some reach 20 to 25, and just singular cases turn older.
- you have animals that live on their own in the nature but that are kept as pair in zoos, big cats except for lions are an example. In reality it can happen that the pair you put together does not click and you need to separate them or send one away and get a new one. And in particular, the danger that they don't click is higher the older the animals are.
A nice feature to integrate more realism would be to apply memberships to certain zoo associations as requirement to get certain animals. I can only speak for Europe and North America but usually depending on the conservation status of the animals they cannot be bought but are in a breeding program. This means you will only get a certain species when you prove a certain standard pay for the membership in such an institution, need to apply for getting this species and prove approriate housing, they can send you a bachelor or a breeding group and determine whether or not you are allowed to breed, whether or not you can keep the offspring, etc. I think this would be a nice game plan if at the beginning you have your small zoo that is only able to have animals that are easy to keep and are not endangered, and from there you have to work your way up.
- PZ sees 100% of the offspring survive and grow to be an adult. This is far from being realistic. You have a certain percentage that will never reach adolescence for various reasons. Especially a first birth is often not successful
- Related to this: some animals can certainly give birth at higher ages as it is considered in the game. However, this only applies if the female has given birth before. You will rarely ever find an elephant or a rhino being able to give a first birth at the age of 25 or older, or a big cat at 10 or older.
- Albinism: the percentage of albinistic animals is totally exaggerated. In particular serious zoos would not breed with these animals anymore. I would really love to have a button that disables animals to produce albinistic offspring.
- the length of life is too linear. You can have the best veterinarians but animals hide diseases and injuries. It is obvious that the animals are programmed to die between age X and Y - it is good that most of them reach this certain age but you always have animals that die early and below the expected age.
- some animals have absolutely wrong data. It would be nice if this could be overlooked again, e.g. my elephants rather turn 70 or even older while the chance that this happens in reality is tiny, the life expectancy rather is 50 to 60 with many dying earlier; giraffes at PZ regularly die between 28 and 35 or even older, in reality most die between 15 and 20, some reach 20 to 25, and just singular cases turn older.
- you have animals that live on their own in the nature but that are kept as pair in zoos, big cats except for lions are an example. In reality it can happen that the pair you put together does not click and you need to separate them or send one away and get a new one. And in particular, the danger that they don't click is higher the older the animals are.
A nice feature to integrate more realism would be to apply memberships to certain zoo associations as requirement to get certain animals. I can only speak for Europe and North America but usually depending on the conservation status of the animals they cannot be bought but are in a breeding program. This means you will only get a certain species when you prove a certain standard pay for the membership in such an institution, need to apply for getting this species and prove approriate housing, they can send you a bachelor or a breeding group and determine whether or not you are allowed to breed, whether or not you can keep the offspring, etc. I think this would be a nice game plan if at the beginning you have your small zoo that is only able to have animals that are easy to keep and are not endangered, and from there you have to work your way up.