11-27-2011, 01:42 AM
I know I've done this before and I've seen a lot of other players do it, too: we have our characters build up food stores for 'winter.' And don't get me wrong, I can imagine why -- with our heavily grain based diet, it makes sense to us as humans. Plant products dominate our food pyramid, and plants ain't growin' much in winter.
But here's the thing -- the animals wolves prey upon rely on those same plants. As it gets harder for them to find food and they lose their strength to snow, they get weaker and easier to hunt as the winter season progresses. Wolves actually have a much harder time catching a decent meal when warm weather returns, and their prey's strength with it.*
Not that I think this is a major problem -- it makes it easier to relate to our characters, just as we assume they have full colour vision, human emotions & habits, etc. I just found it interesting that it's never been addressed before (that I'm aware of, anyway x_x) and I wonder if it would even be possible to apply this 'counterintuitive' thinking on a board-wide scale.
*Sources:
FAQ by International Wolf Center
Yellowstone by BBC Earth
But here's the thing -- the animals wolves prey upon rely on those same plants. As it gets harder for them to find food and they lose their strength to snow, they get weaker and easier to hunt as the winter season progresses. Wolves actually have a much harder time catching a decent meal when warm weather returns, and their prey's strength with it.*
Not that I think this is a major problem -- it makes it easier to relate to our characters, just as we assume they have full colour vision, human emotions & habits, etc. I just found it interesting that it's never been addressed before (that I'm aware of, anyway x_x) and I wonder if it would even be possible to apply this 'counterintuitive' thinking on a board-wide scale.
*Sources:
FAQ by International Wolf Center
Yellowstone by BBC Earth