Welcome ladies and villeins to another bi-weekly Under The Yoke devlog! I'm definitely not posting this from a train while slightly hungover so forgive any errors made in my hazy proof reading this morning, 'Tis the season.
Can you believe it's nearly been a year since we started these devlogs? As time has gone on development has naturally begun to loop back around to polish and refine some features. So this week we'll be covering some old ground and some new in Animals.
In History
The medieval period was a rough time to be a farm animal. To be fair, it's always been a pretty rough time to be a farm animal, but rather than factory farms the medieval villages had common land. Common land was shared between villagers and served as meadows to keep animals on.
In Winter months the animals would live indoors, with serfs having to keep their animals in their Lord's care, depriving peasants of important fertiliser. Often prior to winter there would be a slaughtering of animals that would require more hay than had been harvested during the year.
As for the farm animals, you had similar animals to today, pigs, sheep, goats, cows, horses and chickens. Alongside these you may have had geese or even doves.
In medieval England, sheep were the real cash crop, with most wool being exported raw for processing on the mainland.
In Under The Yoke
Animals take a prominent role in Under The Yoke. You can acquire or sell all of the major animals as before, pigs, sheep, goats, cows, horses and chickens, in town. Though they are pricey and hard to maintain their upsides are numerous.
Firstly, horses (who cannot be slaughtered for meat due to a Papal Bull against it by Pope Gregory III), are an excellent work animal, able to pull a plough or carry goods to market. These are followed closely by Oxen who are the more traditional work animal of the poor peasant.
Cows of course provide leather as well as milk and beef, goats can provide milk and meat, while chickens provide eggs alongside their meat and fast reproduction (though they do require feed beyond grass and need a henhouse to collect eggs). These both can be used as an important source of protein.
The real cash cow, ironically, are sheep. Able to be shorn for wool, their wool can then be processed by the player into fabrics which can be dyed and used to make clothes for sale at large profits. Assuming one can maintain a flock.
This is all ground we've covered before, along with how you care for your animals but we now have implemented a buying and selling system in town, where you can sell excess animals rather than having to butcher them, and buy randomly generated animals of various value based on their age and health. Of course, selling your animals does incur a Drover's fee of 10% for getting your animals to market. A conscience can cost you.
Next week we will be celebrating one year of these devlogs with issue number 26, where we'll take you behind the scenes to learn a little more about the development and the team (singular) behind our medieval life-sim.
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