Breeding / Family mode with longer animal lifespans

I'd love to have a mode that focuses more on the family relations of the animals.

Animals would live longer, remain children for more days, pregnancies would be longer.

Maybe animals could even have relationships with each others. If they spent time together, groom each other, etc the relationship improves. A certain level of relationship could be required to breed.

Okay I definitely like the first half of the post. Longer lifespan and stuff are awesome!

I am a little sceptical about the 'breeding needs a certain amount of relationship' while it sounds nice, in my opinion it would take away some of the role playing aspect which would in turn be hugely improved by longer lifespans. What I mean is, for example I have a pairing that doesn't like each other (in my head of course) but I think they are both very responsible and will still breed with each other to ensure the passing of genes or if you play an amazon tribe where the females just choose a male they like but don't care what the males thinks. These examples wouldn't work as well with the 'required amount rule'. So  yeah, I would not be a fan of the 'certain amount of relationship required to breed' of course there still could be benefits for a high relationship like: the mutation menu chances will be increased, they are more fertile (if the aren't already), there is a higher chance for twins etc.

So yeah. I would still love to see longer lifespans

That sounds awesome :-)

I'm a huge fan of longer life-spans! I think there should be a setting you can tweak in the game options menu that can extend the average life-span. Either that, or they can add genetics that cause the little guys to age more slowly