Selective breeding

This an idea I've had for a long time. What if domesticated animals could be bred to make them better suited for whatever you use them for? If you had dangerous creatures that you used let's say, for war, or hunting, you could breed them to be bigger or faster, or make them into killing machines. What if you bred a flying creature to be bigger so you could ride it, and create an air force while other tribes were still in the stone age? And if they could alter other animals, they could change themselves too. A warlike tribe would make themselves bigger or stronger, and another tribe might evolve themselves into several different castes, like slaves (obedience) or scientists (intelligence). Of course, it would take a long time for them to change, especially if your species hasn't discovered natural selection yet. I don't know if this is being already implemented, or if somebody has already made a thread about this.

In my humble opinion it is completely unnecisary, by the time you could breed giant bird like animals, your enemy would have all ready invented the P-51. Once sentience\sapience is gained it becomes all about advancing yourself through technology, not evolution. The amount of time humans have been dominante is nothing compared to how long it took us to get there. In short it would be easier to invent weapons then to breed them (unless your training an already existent animal).

Astatine wrote:

good blurb

Already covered in the tech tree, i'm pretty sure.

ackward...

Gorbachof wrote:

In my humble opinion it is completely unnecisary, by the time you could breed giant bird like animals, your enemy would have all ready invented the P-51. Once sentience\sapience is gained it becomes all about advancing yourself through technology, not evolution. The amount of time humans have been dominante is nothing compared to how long it took us to get there. In short it would be easier to invent weapons then to breed them (unless your training an already existent animal).

Actually, I'm basing this on what humans did to wolves 10,000 (I think) years ago. The more friendly and none-dangerous wolves began following humans around for their food and shelter. Over time, the wolves started adopting cub-like traits, like barking and having floppy ears. Where do you think dogs come from?
But the remarkable thing about the wolf-to-dog transition is how little time it took. Look at a gray wolf, than a Pekingese. That took thousands of years, not millions. And that was done by people who didn't even know what they were doing. What I'm suggesting is similar to what would have happened had humans discovered evolution thousands of years earlier.

Domestication is a mechanic largely underdiscussed. Right now it is all under the single entry for effects in the invention "Breeding". Here's what we've got so far:

Research and Invention List wrote:

Enables:
Pay resources to have domesticated animals specialized(+ or - traits), will take time

...research incoming - good national geographic article where it took them about 30 ish years (10 generations of foxes, two of researchers, approximately) to domesticate russian foxes, which then began to display traits not seen in the wild, simply because the pressure came off of suppressing certain genes that were of no advantage, or of a slight disadvantage, in the wild. Other changes were due to selective breeding.

Let me find the article and I'll get back to you all. It was a spring issue, I think...

I like domesticated foxes. Why hasn't anyone tried a tiger yet?

Astatine wrote:

I like domesticated foxes. Why hasn't anyone tried a tiger yet?

Probably because there aren't enough left to select from...

No, because theres not a lot of tamers left to do it...

Because of sigefried and roy, plus if you have a look at housecats, you can see why no one wants a giant housecat. Sure, they're cute when they're under 30 pounds, but never forget that they think you're the pet.

Foxes were tried because they are related to dogs, but not closely enough to breed like wolves and coyotes.

~sciocont wrote:

Astatine wrote:

good blurb

Already covered in the tech tree, i'm pretty sure.

we should name it GM (genetic modification) in tech tree...
i am close enough?