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I am playing this game without killing any animals, using animal products, or using anything derived from animal products.
What I expected:
- expected to miss out on certain parts of gameplay, like hunting, and certain professions, like butchery
- expected nutrition to be more challenging, being limited to plant foods
- expected to lose out on certain efficiencies, like mid-game leather tool upgrades
- expected to miss out on certain clothing options and decorations
What I did not expect:
- did not expect to be shut out from mechanical power generation
- did not expect to be shut out from most professions beyond the early game, including pottery, science, and industry
As far as I can tell, the crux is that "lubricant" can be sourced only from animal tallow, rather than from plant oils. Lubricant is required for the waterwheel and windmill, and thus required for anything dependent on advanced engineering research papers. (Lubricant's alternative recipe uses oil, which recursively requires that engineering research.)
I am a new player, and given that this lubricant ingredient requirement is not yet reflected in the wiki (windmill, waterwheel), I can only assume it's a recent change. I also note that this particular dependency is not yet reflected in the in-game tech tree overview.
Presumably this change was a purposeful design decision, meant to increase technological interdependencies and player cooperation. My guess is that the resulting complete lockout of pacifist gameplay is either
- a) some kind of rigid anti-vegan societal statement from SLG, or
- b) a simple oversight.
Given how much effort they appear to have gone through to make pacifist players feel welcome in this game (generally non-violent gameplay, extensive plant-based food options, references to meatless diets in flavor texts, etc.), I'm betting that option (b) is more likely.
Assuming that's the case, and that the developers still want to motivate that aforementioned technological interdependence, my proposed solution would be to offer an alternative, less calorie-efficient plant-oil-based lubricant recipe. If the recipe is inefficient, introducing it won't affect hardcore servers, whose players will obviously choose to avoid it. However, having this alternate route would mean a lot to me, and any other casual pacifist players out there.
Thank you for looking into this!
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