Looking for wisdom.

[Leesy]

Hello fellow hunters. I am only LVL 43 at the moment and looking for some insight as to what level animals i should not shoot. Can you actually wipe out a herd never to be seen again? Should i only shoot males above a certain level to promote good herd management?. I realise these are far reaching questions so would really appreciate if someone could give me a little bit of guidance, thanks in advance.

[kesi96]

Hello,
it depends on what you want to do. When you just go for some hunting experience you can shoot what ever you want without any negative consequences on your herd management.

Every animal you shoot will be replaced a few hours or days later by an animal of the same species, sex and a level and trophy score somewhere around the value of the animal you shot. The spawning animals can reach slightly higher or lower scores than the animal you shot. So for the spawning of big high level animals with diamond score it is necessary to shoot the biggest ones on your map. Shooting females will not bring you any big males with trophies (gemsbok, hares and foxes excluded where females can rarely also reach diamond).

[Leesy]

Thanks for that Kesi96, at least i know i am not wiping out entire species now.

[Woodyplank]

The developers have promised that we'll get a replacement animal of the same species and gender of the animals we've slain. They have never promised us the replacements will spawn in the same location as those we've slain or what level that replacement will be.

There is no guaranteed method of determining or influencing exactly where a replacement will spawn or what level it will be. No system devised by players thus far to do those two things has worked 100% of the time. Some have appeared to work better than others but nothing is written in stone.

As to your questions: "Can I wipe out a herd?" In a specific location the answer is yes but the total number of that species on your map will only be temporarily lowered until such time as replacement animals are spawned. No guarantee about where those replacements will spawn. More often than not, you'll have to reduce or eliminate the hunting pressure in that area you wiped the herd out if and when you see many replacement animals there.

"Should I kill only large males to promote herd management?" Well, Kesi96 s' response above regarding species with trophy females is spot on. For all other species the answer is yes to shooting males only. As to what level of animals you should kill? Killing higher level animals appears to work a little better at getting a diamond to spawn than randomly reducing the male population. What matters is that you create vacancies for a potential diamond to spawn into. I suggest that once you harvest a max level animal in an area, that you keep that area on your list of places to hunt. Kill 1 or 2 there, reduce hunting pressure, rinse and repeat.

[Leesy]

Thank you Woodyplank much appreciated.

[Geronimo]

In CoTW managing hunting pressure is key to having a viable population in any area, even those areas that seem to be teeming with life.

And IMHO how long that affect on an area lasts doesn't coincide with the purple/pink color you see on the map. That coloring only represents the degree/intensity of the pressure. And yes that color will dissipate in coincidence with hunting in other areas, that might seem to suggest a correlating relief of pressure, but in my four thousand-plus hours of experience these affected areas do not begin to return to their previous states just because the color has faded from the map.

IMO, how long the area remains affected depends on the degree it was pressured, and may also involve the accumulated dynamics of pressure in nearby surrounding areas. I think it's crucial to always be reminding ourselves that these animals travel from area to area on daily flightpaths that are certainly going to be altered by fluctuations of hunting pressure in areas all around the habitat in which they travel.

[Leesy]

I think i might have experienced what you are saying in Vurhonga savanna Geronimo. Some drink zones definitely changed after shooting around the area.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Leesy:

I think i might have experienced what you are saying in Vurhonga savanna Geronimo. Some drink zones definitely changed after shooting around the area.

Changed?

[Leesy]

Sorry, that may have come across a bit cryptic. One of my zones when first hunted showed great promise for lions, now i am lucky if i see one or anything else for that matter. At no point did i over hunt the area going by the colour on the map. similar scenarios have occurred around the map and on other maps as well. With a few more levels and a lot more time under the belt i should start to understand how it all works.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Leesy:

Sorry, that may have come across a bit cryptic. One of my zones when first hunted showed great promise for lions, now i am lucky if i see one or anything else for that matter. At no point did i over hunt the area going by the colour on the map. similar scenarios have occurred around the map and on other maps as well. With a few more levels and a lot more time under the belt i should start to understand how it all works.

It sounds like you may have committed the unforgivable sin.

When you open up a Need Zone onto your map by tagging an animal that is using it, or by tagging their tracks within it, if you immediately kill that animal, and it is the only animal yet to use that zone, than the zone will be deleted.

In order for the zone to continue that animal has to be let to live until more animals begin using that zone.

Many new players aren't aware of this, and it's just natural for a person to kill the animal, especially if it was a trophy.

I try to only unlock zones with females, and only kill males. This helps to avoid making that mistake.

[Leesy]

So what you are saying is when you open a need zone the best strategy is leave it alone and come back later and see if more animals turn up before shooting.

[Leesy]

Now i think i understand what you mean, try not to tag the males on any prospective zones to start with. That's what i did on that lion zone i spoke of. first thing i saw was a mythical male lion and shot him straight away hence i killed the zone. Once again thank you for sharing you'r knowledge of the game Geronimo.

[Mo0on]

Spot but don't kill any low level animals unless you want to delete the zone. The more low level animals you have on a map the higher chance of spawning something nice. Once you spot something and quit to desktop, you come back, those spotted animals still exist on that map.

Some people go nuts with this and get EVERY need zone and wipe out everything above a certain threshold and they get mythicals to spawn all the time. You kill all the decent scoring animals so nothing but trash exists on the map, then kill 1-2 animals and reload the game until something crazy spawns.

I think it kind of ruins some of the enjoyment of the game, but there are ways to "farm" the game.

[Leesy]

Thanks for that i think, what the heck should i shoot?

[Findus]

In my experience and as a conclusion after several tests, hunting pressure doesn't affect the spawning or behavior of animals at all (with the caveat that I'm playing with an older version of the game).

You'd expect hunting pressure (as in the purple spots) to make animals more cautious or cause them to avoid the area, but in reality, its only effect seems to be the deletion of need zones (the currently used need zones of specific animals in the area). As many factors can influence the behavior of animals, it's easy to misattribute changes to unrelated things.

Beyond the purple spots, there is no mechanism in place to make animals "remember" anything past the current game session and they will gladly frequent and stay in areas with even the highest hunting pressure if they have a reason to or haven't been held up elsewhere.

Lions are solitary animals. Several ones can use the same need zone, but if not, the need zone regularly will be deleted (if you shoot the attached animal). Keeping a lion alive won't change the likelihood of other lions spawning in the area or establishing a drink zone in the same spot or nearby (if anything, the game might attempt to spread the animals out a bit). Prossible drink zone "spots" are limited/predetermined and after a while you'll get an idea of where drink zones can be established. Over time, the lion "hot spots" might shift a bit between lakes, but in my experience, that seems to be random.

Like MoOon wrote, there is a theory that the game is trying to balance the overall level (and/or perhaps the trophy score) of animals on a map on a per species/gender base which seems to work pretty well. So it might be a good idea to shoot high level animals either way and maybe additionally have some periods where you weed out the middle level animals if you are in for the long run or notice you are getting a lot of trolls (highest level animals that don't make diamond because of the trophy rating). Basically, following that tactic, you are trying to not only have high level animals but also as many lowest level animals of a species on a map as possible, which in turn increases the likelihood of high level animals you are shooting to be replaced with even higher level animals to balance the overall score. But in the short term, it might be the most efficient approach to only shoot high level animals, especially if you already have a favorable level distribution on a map.

[Geronimo]

Look for my Don't post in Toasted Rippers OP, Am I Doing Something Wrong.

It's a list of things many new players do that causes problems for them.