The main problem with the Africa pack, in my opinion

[yoav_r]

We already discussed the Africa pack's merits and lacks when it came out, including the amazing animals and scenery, the disconnect between them, and so on and so forth.

In retrospect, I think the Africa pack suffered from feeling incomplete. The animals in it don't really go together in the same zoo area, and I can now say I couldn't make a new africa zoo, because I've already made a few of them, because of the africa-heavy basic roster.

I'd say all packs so far suffer from this to an extent, but africa was both worse in this regard, and unlike other packs we already have a ton of african animals so people already made many african areas in zoos (unlike SA or australia). Plus, the theme really didn't fit any animal except the fennec (and scarab), unlike previous packs where the theme fit all animals + preexisting animals.

The reason I bring this up now is because we are probably facing a pack that will be controversial in a similar way if it's a 4+1 NA pack, as someone's "must have" NA animal will be missing, regardless of the chosen animals, and I wandered if this can be avoided in your opinion?

 

[avietar]

Could be avoided by choosing a different format like an animal pack, or by choosing a new format altogether (6+1 & limited new building pieces) ?

 

[Aidan635]

Your claim about the Africa Pack feeling incomplete is very true in my opinion. For a zoo I'm working on, I'm limiting the animal count to about 50 species. Within those 50 species, each DLC has 3 to 4 animals representing it in different sections, but the Africa Pack was a head scratcher. I knew I loved the Fennec Fox and wanted to add them but I wasn't sure where to put them, so they (along with the Sacred Scarab Beetle) are going in a miscellaneous area called the Discovery Zone. There's no reason to create a Moroccan themed area. The theme is pretty useless to me.

As far as the animals go, I prefer the Indian Rhino over the White Rhino and the King Penguin over the African Penguin. So, the Africa Pack's animals just miss the cut for me. I'm just going to say it... the Africa Pack is the weakest Planet Zoo DLC so far.

 

[Antimony96]

What Frontier should have done was a Middle East/North African pack that would include the building theme that we got with the actual Africa pack (Fennec fox, Dromedary, Hamadryas baboon, Barbary ibex, sacred scarab beetle) and then later an African animal pack (meerkat, African penguin, white rhino, red river hog, De Brazza's monkey, grey crowned crane, greater kudu, African bullfrog).

 

[ElectricMonk]

Your claim about the Africa Pack feeling incomplete is very true in my opinion. For a zoo I'm working on, I'm limiting the animal count to about 50 species. Within those 50 species, each DLC has 3 to 4 animals representing it in different sections, but the Africa Pack was a head scratcher. I knew I loved the Fennec Fox and wanted to add them but I wasn't sure where to put them, so they (along with the Sacred Scarab Beetle) are going in a miscellaneous area called the Discovery Zone. There's no reason to create a Moroccan themed area. The theme is pretty useless to me.

As far as the animals go, I prefer the Indian Rhino over the White Rhino and the King Penguin over the African Penguin. So, the Africa Pack's animals just miss the cut for me. I'm just going to say it... the Africa Pack is the weakest Planet Zoo DLC so far.

I couldn’t disagree more. The Africa pack is no worse than any other (excepting maybe the SEA pack in terms of filling one particular region. The animal choices IMO would be hard to beat - the inclusion of three zoo staples in the fennec fox, the rhino and the meerkat (especially the meerkat) would have been a crime to exclude and the penguin provides a very valuable warmer-temperature small penguin. The build prices, though themed are among the most flexible releases so far. Overall, I think the pack is in the top two packs thus far and is quite possibly the best.

if you think the animals aren’t cohesive enough, or that they don’t match the theme, can you describe how the other packs are any better in this regard?

 

[yoav_r]

I couldn’t disagree more. The Africa pack is no worse than any other (excepting maybe the SEA pack in terms of filling one particular region. The animal choices IMO would be hard to beat - the inclusion of three zoo staples in the fennec fox, the rhino and the meerkat (especially the meerkat) would have been a crime to exclude and the penguin provides a very valuable warmer-temperature small penguin. The build prices, though themed are among the most flexible releases so far. Overall, I think the pack is in the top two packs thus far and is quite possibly the best.

I agree the animal choices were very popular and important zoo staples, and I love the african penguin.

if you think the animals aren’t cohesive enough, or that they don’t match the theme, can you describe how the other packs are any better in this regard?

Let's review:
* arctic - all animals are in the same region, the theme is a bit detouched, but it gave us christmas stuff

* South america - the theme splits into very generic "rainforest" and "temple" pieces, which fit the animals in the pack (the llama goes well with the temple theme), and the rainforest pieces fit with most rainforest animals in the game.

Plus 3+1 of the animals go well together in a "amazon"/"colombia" area, and sit well with the Tapir.

* Australia - the theme mostly allows building an australian ranch + aboriginal pieces, which fits all animals in the pack. The pack lacks the emu and a wallaby, which IMO bars us from making a realistic australia area, but the animals in the pack are often displayed together.

* aquatic - again a generic harbor-town theme which fits with mostly any species. The animals come in pairs. Otter + caiman for a SA region, and penguin + seal for a polar region. The pack mostly completes the roster, but it also introduced new mechanics which were interesting to try.

* SEA - no theme, tonnes of region speficic animals.

*Africa - Moroccan theme (with really greatvpieces, worth mentioning), with only one north african habitat animal in the entire game that fits it, the fennec.

The fennec is in its own region alone, the penguin js isolated from other animals, and the rhino abd meerkats mostly fill holes in the pre-existing roster, so the 4 animals don't really sit well in the same area together, and a cohesive area would mean a lot of retread of old african animals.

 

[Frowerssx]

Frontier should just do a 6+1 or a 7+1 animal and scenery expansion, already. Imagine if they introduced that to the packs we have now. People could get their emu, their river hogs, the De Brazza's monkey, grey crowned crane, greater kudu, the Platiupus and Capybara.

 

[Frowerssx]

Plus calling the DLC'S expansions just sounds better over all. These little packs we get are no better than the packs the Sims 4 do

 

[ElectricMonk]

* arctic - all animals are in the same region, the theme is a bit detouched, but it gave us christmas stuff

The Christmas stuff is almost unusable for most builds and the animals are not from the same region. The Sheep isn’t even an arctic animal. the theme is Scandinavian which doesn’t fit either the sheep or the wolf

Edited to correct misinformation.

* South america - the theme splits into very generic "rainforest" and "temple" pieces, which fit the animals in the pack (the llama goes well with the temple theme), and the rainforest pieces fit with most rainforest animals in the game.

I don’t really think the temple pieces are very generic- almost all are clearly central/South American. The llama isn’t even a wild animal and the animals don’t come from the same region… you certainly couldn’t use the pack to create a coherent Amazon themed area.

Plus 3+1 of the animals go well together in a "amazon"/"colombia" area, and sit well with the Tapir.

Which 3+1? The frog, llama and monkey aren’t Amazon species.

* Australia - the theme mostly allows building an australian ranch + aboriginal pieces, which fits all animals in the pack. The pack lacks the emu and a wallaby, which IMO bars us from making a realistic australia area, but the animals in the pack are often displayed together.

Much of the theme is great and super flexible. The aboriginal pieces no more represent the whole of Australia’s than the Moroccan pieces represent the whole of Africa or the Scandinavian pieces represent the whole of Europe - indigenous Australian cultures vary a LOT more than that across the continent. The animals don’t really go all they well together a coherent whole - none of the species overlap with the cassowary, the koala and kangaroo don’t overlap either.

* aquatic - again a generic harbor-town theme which fits with mostly any species. The animals come in pairs. Otter + caiman for a SA region, and penguin + seal for a polar region. The pack mostly completes the roster, but it also introduced new mechanics which were interesting to try.

Great build prices but hardly a coherent group of animals - the penguin and the seal are from opposite ends of the earth!

* SEA - no theme, tonnes of region speficic animals.

these animals mostly fit together in a coherent theme , as I noted in my original comment.

*Africa - Moroccan theme (with really greatvpieces, worth mentioning), with only one north african habitat animal in the entire game that fits it, the fennec.

The plaster pieces are very flexible and the Moroccan theme actually matches what is used for a lot of early 20th century elephant houses and other zoo architecture.. even if that’s actually inappropriate, it’s realistic.

The fennec is in its own region alone, the penguin js isolated from other animals, and the rhino abd meerkats mostly fill holes in the pre-existing roster, so the 4 animals don't really sit well in the same area together, and a cohesive area would mean a lot of retread of old african animals.

The animals fit together just as well as those from any other DLC, except the SEA pack. They also fit well with animals from the base game (except the fennec). The base game + earlier DLC include a lot of pieces that can be used for sub-Saharan Africa so a Northern Africa theme is very welcome, especially given the flexibility of the plaster pieces, which can be used for almost any region in the world as well as for pool edges, modernist builds and much, much more.

 

[NZFanatic]

The Sheep isn’t even an arctic animal.

Yes it is. The range of the Dall sheep extends well into the Alaskan Arctic Circle.

 

[ElectricMonk]

Yes it is. The range of the Dall sheep extends well into the Alaskan Arctic Circle.

Fair enough - I should’ve checked rather than passing on incorrect info. Apologies.

 

[SalamAnders]

I believe they called the pack 'Africa' instead of something more specific, to be able to be unspecific.
Same can actually be said about a lot of zoos in real life. You will often see zoos split their sections in continents without getting much more specific than that. Even in mixed species enclosures you can sometimes find species together that lives in each end of the continent.

The animals in the pack fits within the theme: Africa

The building set in the pack fits within the theme: Africa

The only issue I see, is when they do thematic scenery pieces for animals not fitting the theme of the building set, which the Africa pack is guilty of.