Would it be a positive change to add Hunting Dogs back in feudal age?

It would be ofc a pretty situational tech since it will only have effect on maps with water or tons of hunt but idk if it really serves a purpose, would like to hear what you think

Would you go back to all having it and magyar for free?

The plus 25% would be cool but with everyone getting it would seem very situation but i always like options.

I think we could give it a go.

Would rather have the bonus affecting sheep instead of fishing though and maybe even reduce the effect on hunt

Like 20 or 15% faster may be fine

What is hunting dogs?

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It is a removed tech that used to make hunters and fishermen work faster

When was it in? I don’t remember it from the cd version

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It was removed before African Kingdoms I think

it was just a tech that was present in the Forgotten Empires mod version around 2011-2013

it wasn’t added when it was ported over to HD

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Ah, ok, I didn’t have the Forgotten Empires “mod” I only got HD

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What I heard about it is that it was a Dark age technology that boosted hunting/villager fishing and costed a little bit of food and gold? And magyars would have it for free.

But they decided to remove it since they didn’t want to change the balance of the Dark Age. They felt they didn’t want to add more complexity to dark age by having another tech apart from Loom.

Yeah it was that.

Thought it would maybe be interesting to have it in feudal for when you play in maps like Yucatan

Also it’s interesting how they now deviated from the decision about not having additional Dark Age techs by giving Burgundians the option to research eco upgrades in dark age :smiley:

But I guess it’s different since Hunting Dogs was at the Town Center, so I understand why it was a bit awkward to include.

At some point they decided to move it to the mill and make it cost wood instead of gold. They still didnt like it because it made getting early mill too important

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This page had a good comment summarizing some reasons against it:

Here’s the comment I’d like to point out:

I’m good without it. The early game (including Dark Age and Feudal Age) doesn’t need to go any faster, in my opinion. Actually, no age needs to go faster, imo

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What is hunting dogs? Never heard of it

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I don’t see the point of such a tech in feudal age. In most standard maps you’re done with hunting in dark age, but then if you get some hunt/fish heavy maps where there is enough hunt/fish to last until Feudal it’s just asking to make a lucky Mongol/Indian player unstoppable.

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This sums it up pretty well I think. What would the reason be for adding in a feudal age technology that increases the income from hunt and shore fishing? To reward exploration? If you’re going to explore with villagers, you usually want to do it before scouts come out. So even with an upgrade feudal age seems like a stupid moment to do that. On a map like cross/four ponds you might still walk across the map to put up a dock and leave your villager in shore fish, but you’re already getting rewarded for that action just by having the dock and making fishing ships. Is the purpose maybe to stimulate getting feudal age early? So they might still be able to eat a little bit of boar with the bonus? I might be able to get behind that, but the timing feels wrong. The earliest you can get to feudal you’re usually already out of boar at least. And if you want to get their faster you usually need to not just eat boat of your boar but push in deer too. The more you try to save your animals for later, the slower your feudal time is going to be. So it doesn’t seem to work for that purpose. At best the tech would provide some very situational bonuses. Maybe someone could feel like it’s worth it to take the extra resources on a map like slopes in castle age when they’re going out there for a TC on the woodline anyway? (And that mostly just makes your eco more micro intensive.)

It feels like tech tree clutter. There are barely any reasons to research it, it’s just there as a noob trap. (A thing you shouldn’t click, or at least shouldn’t click as soon as it’s available.)

Feudal Age could be interesting. It would allow people to shift to farms later if they decide to continue focusing on hunting, without having many of the downsides that it would have in Dark Age.

Hunting Dogs has never been part of the official AoE2 product. The devs themselves abandoned the idea, back when Forgotten Empires was just a mod, because it was luck dependent, and not an actual choice based on skill or timing.

I mentioned feudal age for a reason