Whats the point of naturalists?

Discussion in 'Clockwork Empires General' started by vonnyboy, Oct 6, 2014.

  1. vonnyboy

    vonnyboy Member

    They gobble my food, and join cults, is the benefit of their long stake greater than when they just wander around and don't help your colony?
     
  2. Alephred

    Alephred Royal Archivist for Queen And Empire

    So, there are many different types of Upper Class 'non-workers', among them, the Poet, the Aristocrat, the Capitalist, and your friend the Naturalist.

    Ironically, the Naturalist is the only one among them who actually does anything - he will explore your Explore beacons. Without him, nothing gets explored. The Poet may accidentally get some exploring done, because they will tend to wander into the wilderness to Seek Inspiration.

    The Devs have implied that the general function of the Upper Class is to be supported by the lower classes. Think of it this way: the Aristocracy does not facilitate your economy in any way - the Aristocracy is the end product of your economy. The more Upper Class folks you have, the classier your tumbledown heap of logs and bricks is.
     
  3. dbaumgart

    dbaumgart Art Director Staff Member

    It's definitely planned for naturalists to do actually, you know, naturalism. Plus be smarter about exploration. They're basically a placeholder/expendable scout/cult evangelizer right now.
     
  4. vonnyboy

    vonnyboy Member

    Wonderful,
    Hopefully they will allow for some actual science integration of plant breeding via the punnett square system with crops? That would be pretty epic?
     
  5. Alephred

    Alephred Royal Archivist for Queen And Empire

    As I have made the crop and food entries in the official wiki my pet project, an n! increase in crop complexity will probably drive me to murder. But it would still be pretty cool.
     
  6. vonnyboy

    vonnyboy Member

    well maybe it could be something that could be managed if the player wants to? Otherwise crop traits would be random, and player can himself order breeding of crops.
     
  7. Alephred

    Alephred Royal Archivist for Queen And Empire

    A Mendellian crop cross-breeding simulator would be cool (sugarcane with the taste and consistency of potatos, woo), but I think that passes far beyond 'feature creep' into 'entirely new game'.
     
  8. Micah J Best

    Micah J Best Member

    If Joseph and Chris built a Feature Creep I would totally write the code for it.

    (Just kidding a Creeping Feature would be too scary, even for our game).
     
  9. Turbo164

    Turbo164 Member

    Maybe there could be some general "Your Pumpkin crops have been Scienced by a Naturalist! Growth time changed by [d20-8], spoil threshold by [d20-12], nutrition by [d37-d23+i^2], Fishmen pummel resistence [1d4-2]" etc.

    If I remember right they said long ago that another planned feature was gaining Prestige by discovering new species or something?
     
  10. vonnyboy

    vonnyboy Member

    yeah i guess it would take far too long to code
     
  11. I'm sorry but it's settled. We now must have traits for cabbages.
     
    Alephred and Euel Ball like this.
  12. Euel Ball

    Euel Ball Member

    Well, they have hit points now. Wonder if the cultists can recruit them?
     
  13. vonnyboy

    vonnyboy Member

    yes, the cultist can recruit them by turning them into tiny tentacle creatures!
     
    zetjester likes this.
  14. zetjester

    zetjester Member

    I wondered where those creatures came from lol, for my four penneth I like the naturalist/explorer character and lets not forget they always seem to muck in on graveyard/burial duty as well. I expect it maybe planned already but a 'go out there and automatically explore' as an alternative to manually placing the beacons will be most useful. Who knows what they may find??
     
    Last edited: Oct 10, 2014