FoodChain: Are There Cannibals?

From: marting@qpsx.oz.au (Martin Gregory)

Date: Sun, 28 May 1995 00:00:00 +0000

Jim> Hi, I'm wondering whether a carnivore's prey pool includes
    Jim> itself when its hunt range includes its own body factor?  The
    Jim> rules imply "yes", but I wonder whether that's a good idea.

Its a long story. Got a minute? :-)

Here it is:

The species _used_ to be included in its prey pool _irrespecitve_ of
Min/Max.  However, if an animal ended up drawing one of its own
species for a target on a hunt, it would simply loose that hunt.  So
canibalism was not possible.

This was one of the the original mechansims by which overpopulaiton
was modelled.  As the species started to number its prey, it started
tripping over itself.

After the Great Climate Change II:

All that was dispensed with.  Before the Hunt, each species' prey pool
is added up.  The species itself is explicitly excluded from its prey
pool, even if the Min/Max include it.  This number is multiplied by
0.25 and this becomes the maximum number of hunts that the the species
will be allowed in the Hunt.

During the Hunt, each time an species is the target of a hunt, one
more of its animals is marked as "hunted".  Once all of a species
animals have been hunted, no more can be.

And this is all there is to it.  You know it all now!

Cheers,

Martin.  (The GameKeeper)