Animal husbandry and physical transport implementation plan

Status: acquisition, local care, owned-enclosure relocation, paid draft training and explicitly selected manual waystation, owned-outpost, bilateral player-trade, finite recurring player-trade and governor draft assistance implemented. A paid, twelve-care-day breeding project produces a named juvenile with its own 30-day maturity and care requirements. A command-driven test proves a cared-for founding pair can produce a new cared-for foal after all 24 finite supplier identities have been purchased and the other 22 lost; wider herd management and disaster recovery remain planned, September 23, 2026. The living world design remains the primary design entry point. This specification develops the animal-services gap in M3 and M5 of the gameplay plan. It does not replace the remaining M0–M8 scope.

Current boundary

Chartered communities use two human carriers, optionally borrowing one actual handcart. Cart trips carry up to 100 weight rather than 60, and used carts return worn for paid repair. A separate construction policy lends the same finite stock to building crews, reducing work by 20%. The same cart cannot support both jobs. Those are playable services.

The development catalog also contains pastures producing eight feed per full-staff day and stables consuming four feed for six abstract haulage. Stable construction pays for two resident horses. The old stable prototype still has no connection to the new identified-livestock system. Animal husbandry now unlocks separately paid enclosures and pastures, a finite 24-horse supplier, real collection journeys and daily feed/water care; paid draft training and explicitly selected manual waystation, owned-outpost, one-time and finite recurring player-trade handcart assistance are now implemented. Explicit governor draft exchanges and the first paid birth/maturation loop are implemented; wider breeding recovery remains open. Chartered stables are already inactive; retained haulage cannot power new chartered orders. Shared development keeps its old behavior.

The former unconditional pasture restriction is superseded: new pastures require adopted, staffed Animal husbandry. Existing pastures, accepted jobs, feed and legacy animals remain intact. The first useful animal chain is pasture → feed → fully cared animals → compost. Each purchased animal is a located identity outside warehouse horse stock. City People exposes acquisition, allowances, condition and receipts. The remaining sections specify the broader target; see the primary design for exact delivered rules.

Intended first playable journey

1. Keep the village's food and human logistics running independently of animals.
2. Research and adopt Animal husbandry, committing a real specialist and operating supplies.
3. Prepare pasture, a water allocation and a staffed livestock enclosure with capacity for a pair.
4. Review a finite supplier's pair, purchase price, animal condition, feed, escort workers, route and receiving capacity.
5. Dispatch a paid livestock collection. Animals become available only after physical arrival and admission.
6. Feed and care for the pair through complete daily checks. Inspect condition, feed runway and competing water demand.
7. Fund training of one fit adult for draft work; no additional animal is created.
8. Borrow that animal and an existing serviceable handcart for an ordinary physical cargo trip. Reserve actual carrier food and animal feed separately.
9. Complete the journey, return the same animal and cart, and pay for rest, feed and cart repair before another trip when required.

The first benefit should be shorter travel with the existing 100-weight handcart ceiling. Keeping the human cart's carrying capacity provides a recovery path if animal assistance fails. Increased payloads and cavalry remain later work; the first paid breeding path now follows this verified custody loop. Human transport remains available throughout.

Knowledge and buildings

Animal husbandry belongs to Agriculture, after Seed selection and Joinery. The delivered topic uses the operational commons and six community practice days, so research does not depend on a pasture that it must itself unlock. Its research must not require already owning horses. The adopted specialist enables new purchases, animal training and dispatch; loss of instruction blocks new commitments while already accepted care and return obligations continue.

Introduce a separately identified husbandry enclosure with explicit livestock capacity and water needs. Do not silently change the old stable definition or charge its two-horse construction cost for an empty new building. Build the enclosure first, then fund and admit its animals. A staffed pasture supplies feed; pasture production still competes for land and workers with household food. UI must compare both outputs before replacing a food plot.

Mounted service preparation now provides a paid riding course for an identified cared horse after military institutions and physical saddles exist. Its qualification and fitted saddle remain on the horse; riders, army mount custody, field feed, mounted units and wages remain separate gates. Religion and political policies are not prerequisites for basic animal care.

Exact research costs, enclosure capacity, pasture yields, feeding rates and speed benefits are playtest values. Store accepted prices and journey terms in versioned records so subsequent tuning cannot change paid contracts.

Animal and enclosure state

Use actual animal identities, bounded by enclosure and supplier capacity. Each animal records provenance, age class, condition, training and one current custodian/location. Possible custody locations are supplier, settlement enclosure, livestock shipment, cargo-team loan or recovery party. A horse is never simultaneously a warehouse good, breeding resident and borrowed mount.

Enclosures reserve admission places for paid arrivals. Travelling animals retain a home place until an explicit lawful transfer is accepted. Demolition, evacuation and transfer previews include livestock and reservations. They must arrange safe local relocation or a separately funded physical evacuation; demolishing a stable must not reset or duplicate an animal loan.

Livestock does not use material warehouse capacity. Feed and equipment do. Resource views can expose a livestock count as a separate located asset, with custody detail, without making it spendable by generic warehouse recipes. Books, ordinary goods and existing equipment keep their current meanings.

Finite acquisition and trade

Start with a separately marked, finite NPC livestock allocation whose identities and remaining stock persist. Payment uses real communal coins and a conservation ledger. No unlimited refill, free player grant or implicit conversion of old haulage is allowed. An accepted purchase reserves supplier animals and receiving enclosure places; it does not materialize them at home.

Use a livestock-specific shipment record. Generic cargo contracts currently treat their goods as divisible or whole warehouse stock and do not implement animal care. Do not add horses to their selectors before custody, water, food and admission are supported for those routes.

Supplier withdrawal, immediate recall, later recall, failed home admission and full feed storage require defined outcomes. Reserved payment remains held until the agreed exchange point; each refund or credit happens once. Care continues during delays and return. An animal that cannot be admitted waits under the funded handler's custody, remains visible, and cannot be assigned locally.

Player livestock trade is a later extension of the same animal-identity transfer, requiring separate buyer consent and both parties' capacity checks. Selling a loaned or reserved animal rejects. Succession does not duplicate a supplier allocation or reset a purchase.

Feeding, care and recovery

At each actual daily check, account for feed and water used by present animals. Pasture output is material feed, not automatic feeding capacity. Feed has a warehouse location and must be carried to remote animals. People keep their existing household-water priority; the livestock quote must not create spare water or silently take already protected irrigation allocations.

Care uses explicitly assigned residents. Household food reserves cannot be satisfied with animal feed. Producer input allowances, shared operating ceilings and animal-care commitments must distinguish authorized spending from stock already withdrawn. An automatic care policy needs visible cumulative limits and a safe failure warning.

Condition records actual sustained shortages; it cannot reset through transfer, rebuilding or repeated training. Fit animals can work, tired animals need a full paid rest interval, and injured animals need care. Severe prolonged neglect may cause recorded mortality without inventing meat, tools or replacement mounts. Initial thresholds need recovery time and clear warnings before an irreversible loss.

Owned-outpost Scouting detours are now playable for selected draft teams on both legs. The immutable accepted loan route determines the originally paid feed; a separately validated actual route follows the same horse, cart, handlers and cargo around newly blocked fire or recorded floodwater. Extra travel consumes carried food and feed and wears the animal without creating a top-up. Older loans migrate with no detour path.

For a journey, quote carrier rations, animal feed, likely duration and a disclosed contingency separately. Both food and feed count against the cart's material load. Consumption follows elapsed simulation time, including fire delays, detours and full-store unloading, rather than camera updates or successful travel steps alone.

When provisions fall below the funded return requirement, order a physical return and stop the animal speed benefit. Human carriers can move the same load at the ordinary cart pace if the animal can walk. An immobilized animal requires a supplied recovery party or care in place; the client cannot teleport it home or discard it to free the cart. Mortality, if it occurs, closes that identity while surviving people and gear still return through the route.

Draft work and transport terms

Training reserves one adult, a real trainer, feed and elapsed work. Cancellation returns only unused materials and releases that same animal. Completed training changes its qualification, not the livestock count. Resting or already assigned animals cannot start training or a second loan.

The first transport mode requires a fit trained horse, a serviceable handcart and the existing two-person team. It changes speed only, retaining the ordinary handcart load ceiling. Dispatch borrows both identified assets atomically, then records accepted route, movement terms, feed custody and return home. No separate inventory quantity named haulage is created.

Manual home-market, owned-outpost supply and bilaterally accepted one-time player trades now support explicitly chosen draft service. Finite recurring player-trade schedules also bind a named horse and per-round animal feed at proposal and acceptance, then recheck it before each actual round; failed readiness waits without switching to human service or spending. Governor exchange plans now use a separately reviewed named horse and feed allowance. Every extension must account for feed weight, reserve costs, gross spending and projected duration through its own quotation path. Do not expose an unsupported route as selectable merely because a global transport policy exists.

Local roads, detours and military escorts must use the same accepted movement contract. Increasing speed must not break escort co-location or skip raid contact. Save old journey versions unchanged; a policy switch affects future dispatches only.

At home, unload material cargo, return the cart using its existing wear rules, and admit the same animal to its reserved enclosure place. If either asset is held, preserve custody and a recovery control. Animal rest does not magically repair the cart, and cart repair cannot restore animal condition.

Breeding and wider uses

The first transport release now supports breeding as an explicit funded long-running project with two suitable present adults, adequate care, spare enclosure capacity and a minimum biological interval. Record both parents and the resulting juvenile identity. Moving or loaning a parent pauses the project under defined rules; repeated cancel/refund cycles cannot shorten its interval.

A birth now creates a juvenile requiring food, water, space and maturation before training. Feed-to-horse production recipes are insufficient. A finite founder supply can become renewable through slow, costly breeding without giving unlimited instant replacements. Distinguish aging, mortality and breeding conservation from material conservation in tests.

Complete home care already produces compost. Later work may introduce pack transport without a cart, heavier wagons, cavalry and wider player markets. Each needs an actual consumer, physical inputs and recovery rules. These remain outside the first animal transport release and do not postpone other M8 requirements such as major watershed works.

City, map and return information

Add a livestock panel with local animals, reserved places, travelling loans, condition, feed runway and the next care check. Select an animal to inspect provenance, training, current home and funded work. Public settlement labels must not expose another player's herd or private stocks.

Supply chains should show pasture → stored feed → actual care/training/travel consumption. Horses appear as custodial assets, not an output from a standard material recipe. Quotes show workers, animal/cart reservations, provisions, travel time and recovery conditions together. Region and return briefings prioritize care failure, blocked admission, an immobilized team and animals returning without sufficient home capacity.

Forecasts copy the same husbandry ledger and execute its real deadlines. They include animal care's competition for feed, workers, water and storage. Read-only inspection must never heal, feed, breed, train or move an animal.

Save compatibility and delivery gates

H0 alone does not satisfy H1. Paid acquisition, care and owned-enclosure relocation are now live, together with H2 paid training/manual draft assistance. Wider H1 and H3 recovery and H4 herd-scale operations still require implementation. Do not treat an animal display as completed draft transport.

Migrations create empty new custody ledgers, not healthy trained horses. Legacy shared-development resident horses and abstract haulage retain their old terms. Old charter animals require a separately reviewed conversion with a proven destination, finite identity mapping and care costs before joining the new simulation; conversion must be one-way and recorded. Old human/cart trips complete under the contract accepted at dispatch.

Required scenarios include simultaneous purchases of the last supplier pair; duplicated delivery acknowledgment; death of the buyer's character while animals travel; loss or demolition of home facilities; feed exhaustion during a fire detour; a full returning warehouse; blocked livestock admission; an escort losing co-location; a borrowed animal offered for sale; and restart at dispatch, exchange, arrival, rest completion and birth. Compare foreground and offline advancement, test foreign reads and commands, and verify exact stock, animal identity, payment and equipment conservation after every recovery.

A released slice needs current player and technical wiki guidance, primary design/status updates, a command-driven journey with no late inventory grants, responsive browser checks and persistence verification. Full M0–M8 completion still requires its independent acceptance gates.