Peaceful uses for horses

It’s great to have horses in the game but it’d be nice if they had uses outside of warfare. If you’re playing in peaceful mode then right now there is no utility for them at all. Well, I suppose you can eat them, but why bother with horses for that when cows/goats/chickens exist for that purpose.

Long-distance travel is the obvious one. First just have villagers grab a horse if they need to travel beyond a certain threshold distance. We could later upgrade to horse-drawn carts for multiple villagers at a time. They could also be used in farming.

I’m sure there are many creative ways they could be peacefully incorporated.

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Allow villagers to ride a horse when they explore the map instead of only travelling on foot.

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Other horse uses would be more for the cargo transport carts. Horses die because of age and they need to be replaced. Also the speed needs to go up from the transport carts with horses. Because horses can run/walk faster with the carts. Maybe we can setup coach with horses to transport people faster with longer distances.

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In the farms add a horse to the number of labourers used to improve farm yields? Or just check a box and a horse gets added in the icon where men are used alongside the crop planted on the rotation.

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A good use would be along with a L2 wagon that uses horses to move deep mine produce around quicker.

And I like the idea of using them to explore the map quicker too!

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I can honestly think of only 2 uses for Horses outside of combat.

  • As others have suggested, transport
  • And of course Peasants(?) using Horses to work on the fields more efficiently (like they did in the IRL in the past)
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good idea, and some plows from the blacksmith in combination with a horse. A new farm house to shelter the horse and equipment near farms with storage for the products

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Limit the size of the field horses can be used in, otherwise you’ll have no horses for breeding, meat or cavalry.

Indeed. I would say for each 3 farmers you need 1 horse. If the assigned farmers are below that count (for example having only 2 out of maximum 4 on a small/medium sized field) will result in not being able to assign a horse for field work.

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For one thing, using horses for “plowing” farming plots would speed up the time it takes to get a plot ready, even a small 5x5 one. I find the farm plots horribly weedy when they first announce they are ready. It takes three game-years to really prepare a farm plot for planting. Using horses to “plow under” the weeds as one apparently does with growing clover would speed up the time it takes to prepare a farm plot. Just my 2 cents.

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Agree. They’d certainly be good for map exploration, as Donner5822 said.

As for farm yields, wasn’t a big jump in agricultural productivity in medieval Europe due to inventions like horse collars and horseshoes causing horses to become better plow animals? Maybe a jump in agricultural yields, or at least more efficiency from farm workers, could occur at some point due to horses.

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Yes to this! (how do you like a post :slight_smile: ?)

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To like a post, see the line under the post with a heart, a link of chain, a pen, three dots, and the reply arrow? The heart is for liking a post.

I have a heart and a paper clip, no pen.2024-11-28T14:00:00Z

It would be great to use horses to help w farming. I feel like too many farmers are needed to farm a field.

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The pen is only shown on your own post…it is to edit your post.

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I also support farm horses, scout, and transport horse.

Maybe we can use horses to outfit a caravan if we ever grt player directed trading?

Also maybe more horses for industry like an alternate to windmill with querns or a crude powersource/mechanical tool for other things? Horses pulling stone blocks and other resources for mega constructions/ bigger walls?

Also depending on how high tech devs want to go horses are good for pulling early cannons and siege equipment (this obviously military though)

1 Like