A preponderance of females and lack of males.

[BAG-One]

In my last couple of hunts in Silver Ridge Peaks I've notice a serious lack of male deer and elk. I'll see a large group of them and scan around for the largest male to shoot and find that there either isn't one or is just one.

Last night I was at a watering hole and there were two groups of Rocky Mountain Elk drinking about 150m apart. One group had approximately 12 or so elk, all of them cows, and the other group had about 8-10 elk with only one male. I shot the bull and one of the cows in the other group and was lucky that the bull was a decent sized gold.

I've read numerous recommendations of only shooting males in the hope of respawning higher level males but with groups of females like this should I be culling some of them in the hope of spawning a male?

[yogisgoat]

The way it was explained to me when you kill an animal it's replaced by another of the same sex but random level.
By the way, that's largely the way it works for elk irl. If you see a large group it's almost always just cows. The males also tend to hang together but in smaller groups. If you spot a male there's usually another one nearby.

[Geronimo]

The issue here is the few days delay before the killed animals are replaced.

When you have been killing alot of males in a short amount of time you inevitably end up in a situation where there are alot of males in the waiting queue, which can take a few in-game days to respawn onto the map.

During this time there will be a noticable decrease in male population.

And to make it worse, many players will start shooting the low level males thinking it will help, but all that does is force the AI to replace those low level positions as well.

The only options here are waiting it out or advancing time. How many days is uncertain. Could be one or two, or as many as six plus.

It's even possible that it's not even in-game time but a real time wait that can't be influenced by time advancement. And if that's the case I suspect the YouTubers could be circumventing this by altering the calendar in their game folder.

IOW, finding the date file and resetting it ahead a few days.

That's all guesswork on my part. The fact is nobody knows exactly how this waiting period between the kill and the repopulation actually works.

IMHO, the game's original design did not take into consideration the way that certain methods of gameplay might affect the basics of the design.

They didn't foresee the grinding process to achieve large numbers of trophy animals, and the consequences of that grinding in the theater of the maps.

[BAG-One]

Originally posted by yogisgoat:

The way it was explained to me when you kill an animal it's replaced by another of the same sex but random level.
By the way, that's largely the way it works for elk irl. If you see a large group it's almost always just cows. The males also tend to hang together but in smaller groups. If you spot a male there's usually another one nearby.

Thanks for that. I was thinking it may be normal but wasn't sure.

Originally posted by Geronimo:

The issue here is the few days delay before the killed animals are replaced.

When you have been killing alot of males in a short amount of time you inevitably end up in a situation where there are alot of males in the waiting queue, which can take a few in-game days to respawn onto the map.

During this time there will be a noticable decrease in male population.

And to make it worse, many players will start shooting the low level males thinking it will help, but all that does is force the AI to replace those low level positions as well.

The only options here are waiting it out or advancing time. How many days is uncertain. Could be one or two, or as many as six plus.

It's even possible that it's not even in-game time but a real time wait that can't be influenced by time advancement. And if that's the case I suspect the YouTubers could be circumventing this by altering the calendar in their game folder.

IOW, finding the date file and resetting it ahead a few days.

That's all guesswork on my part. The fact is nobody knows exactly how this waiting period between the kill and the repopulation actually works.

IMHO, the game's original design did not take into consideration the way that certain methods of gameplay might affect the basics of the design.

They didn't foresee the grinding process to achieve large numbers of trophy animals, and the consequences of that grinding in the theater of the maps.

I'm definitely not a grind kind of player.... don't even own a singe tripod.

I don't tend to enjoy the "wait for them on a tripod and kill as many as possible" style of hunting. I'll kill what I can on foot without erasing need zones due to pressure (with the odd "ooops, killed one too many" occasion) and then move on. I won't visit the same area until hunting pressure has disappeared.

[Haddock_Dundee]

Originally posted by yogisgoat:

The males also tend to hang together but in smaller groups.

Right. Just like us with a beer in hand

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by BAG-One:

Originally posted by yogisgoat:

The way it was explained to me when you kill an animal it's replaced by another of the same sex but random level.
By the way, that's largely the way it works for elk irl. If you see a large group it's almost always just cows. The males also tend to hang together but in smaller groups. If you spot a male there's usually another one nearby.

Thanks for that. I was thinking it may be normal but wasn't sure.

Originally posted by Geronimo:

The issue here is the few days delay before the killed animals are replaced.

When you have been killing alot of males in a short amount of time you inevitably end up in a situation where there are alot of males in the waiting queue, which can take a few in-game days to respawn onto the map.

During this time there will be a noticable decrease in male population.

And to make it worse, many players will start shooting the low level males thinking it will help, but all that does is force the AI to replace those low level positions as well.

The only options here are waiting it out or advancing time. How many days is uncertain. Could be one or two, or as many as six plus.

It's even possible that it's not even in-game time but a real time wait that can't be influenced by time advancement. And if that's the case I suspect the YouTubers could be circumventing this by altering the calendar in their game folder.

IOW, finding the date file and resetting it ahead a few days.

That's all guesswork on my part. The fact is nobody knows exactly how this waiting period between the kill and the repopulation actually works.

IMHO, the game's original design did not take into consideration the way that certain methods of gameplay might affect the basics of the design.

They didn't foresee the grinding process to achieve large numbers of trophy animals, and the consequences of that grinding in the theater of the maps.

I'm definitely not a grind kind of player.... don't even own a singe tripod.

I don't tend to enjoy the "wait for them on a tripod and kill as many as possible" style of hunting. I'll kill what I can on foot without erasing need zones due to pressure (with the odd "ooops, killed one too many" occasion) and then move on. I won't visit the same area until hunting pressure has disappeared.

You're not understanding Bags.

Spreading out your kills across the map and avoiding too much pressure in one area is a smart tactic, but what I'm pointing out is the numbers you may have taken in relation to the time delay it takes for them to be replaced can result in having a large number of males waiting in the repopulation queue, and not yet present on the map. Which will be evident by the presence of only does and the lack of males, or having only low level males.

Once a few days passes these repops will be put into the map and you will begin to see the male population increase again.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Haddock_Dundee:

Originally posted by yogisgoat:

The males also tend to hang together but in smaller groups.

Right. Just like us with a beer in hand

Bachelor Beer, a brew for the ages!!!

[VictoriaHuntress]

Having groups of animals that are all female, mostly female with one or two males, bachelor males, and loners is actually part of the game design

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/thehunter-call-of-the-wild---designing-believable-simulated-animal-ai

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by VictoriaHuntress:

Having groups of animals that are all female, mostly female with one or two males, bachelor males, and loners is actually part of the game design

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/thehunter-call-of-the-wild---designing-believable-simulated-animal-ai

This true of course, but doesn't dismiss the point I've made about repops in queue.

[VictoriaHuntress]

Originally posted by Geronimo:

Originally posted by VictoriaHuntress:

Having groups of animals that are all female, mostly female with one or two males, bachelor males, and loners is actually part of the game design

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/thehunter-call-of-the-wild---designing-believable-simulated-animal-ai

This true of course, but doesn't dismiss the point I've made about repops in queue.

I never said it did

[BAG-One]

Well, I had a hunt at a different water hole tonight and it appears that all the males were here. Never seen so many in one spot. I think there was 8-10 males and only a couple of females.