Store Page
Jon Shafer's At the Gates
All Discussions Screenshots Artwork Broadcasts Videos News Guides Reviews

Jon Shafer's At the Gates

Store Page
Axelius 24 Jan, 2019 @ 4:16pm
Exploit - Cattle drain and gain
So, an exploit I found in the early game is that you can effectively "move" the animals from a pasture directly into your stockpile by using the caravan, at a cost of 2 treasure per animal. As the animals are added to your stockpile when they are pastured they can be sold directly to the caravan for 4 treasure each. However, the caravan is also nice enough to let you buy them back at 6 treasure apiece. These bought animals go also straight into your normal stockpile without needing a pasture, freeing up the rancher to go do something else.

Furthermore doing this drain won't actually remove the herd from the map (although it contains 0 animals) meaning that once you got your stone block economy going you can have the rancher return and build a ranch at the spot for the constant animal gain.

I haven't tried this with animals already spare in the stockpile, so I don't know if the caravan buys first from your "settlement stockpile" or your "pasture stockpile", or what happens if you have multiple pastures, but it is still a very convenient thing to do.
Last edited by Axelius; 24 Jan, 2019 @ 4:17pm
The author of this topic has marked a post as the answer to their question.
Click here to jump to that post.
Originally posted by Jon Shafer:
Wow, really interesting strategy, I hadn't thought of that one. You're probably right that it's a bit of an exploit though, as freeing up that clan and still getting a usable Stone Pasture is a pretty good deal.

Anyone have ideas on how to best fix this one?

- Jon
< >
Showing 1-10 of 10 comments
The author of this thread has indicated that this post answers the original topic.
Jon Shafer  [developer] 25 Jan, 2019 @ 8:52am 
Wow, really interesting strategy, I hadn't thought of that one. You're probably right that it's a bit of an exploit though, as freeing up that clan and still getting a usable Stone Pasture is a pretty good deal.

Anyone have ideas on how to best fix this one?

- Jon
#1
Axelius 25 Jan, 2019 @ 10:18am 
My first thought is some kind of storage cap system, with settlements, pastures and ranches all contributing to a limit to the number of animals you can have. This need not necessarily be a hard cap, but maybe some attrition/spoilage system with you losing animals due to lack of food for them, or that they eat food if they are in your "settlement stockpile". This might also encourage players to build more pastures and ranches.
#2
Axelius 25 Jan, 2019 @ 10:20am 
A straight up fix would be that animals bought from traders of a kind that you have a pasture or ranch which is not at "full size" are added to that building rather than the stockpile.
#3
Jon Shafer  [developer] 25 Jan, 2019 @ 10:38am 
Yeah, I've thought about that, but it seems really finicky. Managing resources and keeping track of where everything is (from) is already pretty tough. It also doesn't feel right for caravans to simply not sell livestock at all.

Having everything be pasture-based instead of stockpile-based sounds pretty good at first, but given how rare you're already going to have the right type of pasture it might as well be that caravans don't sell livestock at all.

This is a tough one!

- Jon
#4
becephalus 25 Jan, 2019 @ 11:34am 
Originally posted by Jon Shafer:
Yeah, I've thought about that, but it seems really finicky. Managing resources and keeping track of where everything is (from) is already pretty tough. It also doesn't feel right for caravans to simply not sell livestock at all.

Having everything be pasture-based instead of stockpile-based sounds pretty good at first, but given how rare you're already going to have the right type of pasture it might as well be that caravans don't sell livestock at all.

This is a tough one!

- Jon

I think the whole pasture system probably needs a minor rework honestly. Something for a few patches in. Just MO.

Seems odd there is so little value to having more than 2 pastures of a type.

It would also be really nice if you could swap clans with the same professions. So if you built a ranch with suboptimal clan A, and 40 turns later you get perfect rancher clan B, why can't if they are both ranchers on the same tile, you can swap them without abandoning the building?
Last edited by becephalus; 25 Jan, 2019 @ 11:35am
#5
Axelius 25 Jan, 2019 @ 12:03pm 
Originally posted by Jon Shafer:
Yeah, I've thought about that, but it seems really finicky. Managing resources and keeping track of where everything is (from) is already pretty tough. It also doesn't feel right for caravans to simply not sell livestock at all.

Having everything be pasture-based instead of stockpile-based sounds pretty good at first, but given how rare you're already going to have the right type of pasture it might as well be that caravans don't sell livestock at all.

This is a tough one!

- Jon
Well, in the second it would only move it to the pasture if you have one of the right type, otherwise it goes into the stockpile as normal. Although at the moment there is no reason why you would want them there.
#6
clayffo 25 Jan, 2019 @ 12:10pm 
I strongly disagree with caravan not selling livestock. In certain games it’s necessary for food or crafting materials or to get stock to build war horses . Buying horses and selling war horses in return is a good deal

I also don’t feel there is a meaningful impact as it’s costing you 20x6 ( small herd) gold which is a lot of early game money.



#7
Dr Duh 25 Jan, 2019 @ 2:18pm 
I think the suggestion I made in another thread potentially addresses this situation as well as other buy/sell caravan problems - during a turn while the caravan is there, all buy/sell of x and sell/buy of x should be treated as do/undo of a scheduled action and only the net difference should be applied at the end of the turn or if someone forces a commit via further action (like spending the tools you just sold/bought to perform an upgrade).

Address it piecemeal and you'll be patching one ingenious hack after another.
#8
Jon Shafer  [developer] 28 Jan, 2019 @ 12:35pm 
Thanks for the ideas all. I'll make sure this is addressed.

- Jon
#9
Shadow0fadoubt 28 Jan, 2019 @ 1:36pm 
Can we get a way to move the herds into the stockpile if the settlement is packed up? And then back into a pasture when I reach a new location?

Unless I am missing something, if I want to move my settlement I have 4 choices.
1. Exploit the caravan system to sell and buy them into stockpile
2. Leave the herds behind when I abandon the pasture
3. Leave the pasture and rancher isolated far from my settlement
4. Slaughter or sell them all.

If we were allowed to create pastures on any grassland we could move the herd with the settlement then dump them into a new pasture at the new location.
Maybe give a malus or food loss to oversized herds in the stockpile to compensate.
Last edited by Shadow0fadoubt; 28 Jan, 2019 @ 1:37pm
#10
< >
Showing 1-10 of 10 comments
Per page: 1530 50

Jon Shafer's At the Gates > General Discussions > Topic Details
Date Posted: 24 Jan, 2019 @ 4:16pm
Posts: 10

Discussions Rules and Guidelines