I would love grapes, it would be awesome for scenarios where having a vineyard might really make it even more immersive. I actually like a lot of these ideas.
Herdables: chicken, capibara
Wild animals for food: hippo, bison,giraffa.
Predator: anaconda, polar bear, hyena.
Maybe some fruit trees that turn into wood source after fruits collected(apple, pear, grape etc)
Whales, giving damage to ships that passing from their area.
There are some nice suggestions here, although kangaroo is a bit of a weird one.
Yes, I agree with all these. I also suggest leopards, lynx, hyenas, and gazelles. It would be good to have another deer equivalent for European maps, but I’m not sure what.
No, dolphins and marlin but no whales. Maybe you’re thinking of AoE1?
I usually rename Jaguars as leopards for my scenarios. Gazelles could be ported in from AOE1DE, along with African Elephants, a greyish crocodile and another variant of lion (looks better than the AOE2DE one to be frank).
Someone made a Rottweiler like dog model for Rome at War Mod but it still needs work. We would need a speedier sleeker dog model set for hunting dogs but it could be added as a unit to help villagers hunt.
Black panthers for Jaguars, Pandas, Sharks, Squids…Looking at the other games from the series including AoM and still surprised that there are no Giraffes from African Kingdoms while AoM and AoE3 AR have them
Chicken : they are used since at least antiquity in several regions of the world (Europe, China…), yes they’d have their place. Make them more numerous but yield less food than sheep.
Kangaroos : Australia does not belong to the AOE2 timeframe, there was no developped empire there until the British settled it. That is unless… you want to take Australia’s reputation of having a deadly fauna and turn it to 11 to make a map that would go out of its way to troll players.
Gorilla, Orangutan : not outright predators. While a gorilla can easily overpower a man (adult males can reach 200 kg), I have serious questions about the orangutan’s ability of doing that since adult males weigh between 50 and 100 kg. Their diet is mostly vegetable, they are not man-eaters. However in some parts of the world, they are eaten even to this day. If anything they should be smaller boars (same behaviour, weaker in combat, yield less food, more numerous and just to spice it up, make them defend themselves in group when hunted)
Grapes and cherry blossoms could be an alternative farm but I question how much food they would yield if spawned in nature, before a long work of selective breeding.
