Creature training after a year of not playing B&W

Albalrogue

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Dec 20, 2007
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It's been a year (or more) since I last played Black and White and I thought it would be a good idea to start playing again.
The only problem is that I now remember how horrible it was to train a creature...  :bomb

So I was just wanting advise or if you don't mind, the solution to get my creature to behave as it's master desires.

I've got an idea of how I would like it to act :

-I would like it to eat something that isn't on the other side of the island so that it doesn't have to run a marathon just to have a snack. And drink when it's thirsty.

-I would like it to grow to it's maximum size as fast as possible but I prefer it to sleep anywhere than in it's pen since I remember that it became a bad habit last time I played.

-I would like it to play with toys so it could build up mass yet I don't know if it's possible to make it play away from villages so it doesn't roll the dices on the villagers.

-I would like it to water crops, trees, heal villagers when sick, use the food and wood miracle on the storehouse when the villages need that particular ressource, grow forests (I saw this being done once), impress other villages and basically helping everyone (yet looking after it's self first).

I also would like the villagers to look after themselves since everytime I played black and white they just sat there or bowed in front of the totem all day long. (This isn't part of the creature training but it still counts as training.)
 
I think I can help on most parts, but perhaps not on everything:

In general, you need to know the most generic way to reward your creature for the behavior you want. Usually you show him something (or order him to do it if you can, e.g. pick something up and eat it) on the leash of learning.  He should then try to copy you and do it again himself.  When he does it the first time, reward him something around 50-60% (if you want him to do it a lot) or less if you want him to do it less than other more important actions.

After petting him, he'll most likely do it again, this time reward him half of what you did the first time.  An he should have a good idea.  Some times, you may have to go back and teach him again, but I found this method pretty good.

If he starts doing something too much, slap him about 20-30% max and repeat as needed for each "accident".  You probably don't want him to stop altogether, so you just want to discourage how much of it he does.

I nearly always played with the Ape and he copped on pretty quick when i was showing him things, but the slightly less intelligent creatures may need a few more tries on things.

The Ape's strength is also his weakness in that he'll learn bad habits quickly too, so watch out for that if you use him :;):  .

Albalrogue said:
-I would like it to eat something that isn't on the other side of the island so that it doesn't have to run a marathon just to have a snack. And drink when it's thirsty.

It helps to let him have a varied diet. Using the method above to get him to pick up food and eat it.  Reward him equally for eating different types of animals (but perhaps not with one after another if you want to avoid a fatso) and he should be OK.

Albalrogue said:
-I would like it to grow to it's maximum size as fast as possible but I prefer it to sleep anywhere than in it's pen since I remember that it became a bad habit last time I played.

I know this problem well and I could never truly get him to quit the habit of going all the way back to the pen once he was fully grown.  The best I could do was encourage him whenever he slept outside once he grew up, but more often than not, he just got lazy and sleep too much and I had to slap him thereby putting me right back to square one 9sleeping in the pen).  That said, sleeping in the Pen at night is the definitive way to get him to full size without using cheat programs, so you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Albalrogue said:
-I would like it to play with toys so it could build up mass yet I don't know if it's possible to make it play away from villages so it doesn't roll the dices on the villagers.
It was always cute to see him play with Toys but they were more hassle than they were worth in my opinion.  If you're not in a village, you're most likely by the shore and the Toys are most likely going to get lost fast.  Best to just let him play with them in the Pen.  If you're looking to build up some muscle, use a skirmish map with some big rocks and the creature shrink miracle.  Have him pick up the biggest stone he can, shrink him and take him for a walk.  This builds up muscle faster.

Albalrogue said:
-I would like it to water crops, trees, heal villagers when sick, use the food and wood miracle on the storehouse when the villages need that particular ressource, grow forests (I saw this being done once), impress other villages and basically helping everyone (yet looking after it's self first).
Use the method I mentioned at the start of this post.  Just reward the actions you want done more first.  personally, I rewarded doing flock of birds a lot (for impressing unconverted villages which I taught only in those types of villages so he only did it there).  I rewarded heal increase slightly less.  Casting food and wood also ranked relatively high.  Although getting him to water trees was handy too as I always had a decent supply of natural wood.

Albalrogue said:
I also would like the villagers to look after themselves since everytime I played black and white they just sat there or bowed in front of the totem all day long. (This isn't part of the creature training but it still counts as training.)
That's probably when you've gotten over the hump of building up the village and met most of their immediate needs.  After that, it's mostly a case of balancing whatever is the most important need.  In any case, once a village is established, they just get lazy.  Create disciples as you need them is all I can suggest here.
 
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