Pedigree Lines

I keep two sets of horses just to avoid this. :P

I have my Western Paints - a lot of them are evenly bred, store generations that I can count back to the last ancestor - normally only a couple gens, others are ones that I started when I first got on the game, was buying up stock and didn't care about looking 5+ generations back in order to find some form of inbreeding, if it's there.

Then I have my Racing Paints. I'm only on the first generation at the moment, but I'm raising them up to breed (either once or twice, I'm not entirely sure) so I can have a brand new set of fresh lines with no sort of inbreeding.

I'm doing the same thing with my Vanners, a fresh set of 50 horses for my store lines and then just my "other" Vanners of mixed generations.

On the new pedigree pages it states that a lot of the horses listed as "deceased" are simply ones that have not been imported, because their owners have not transferred their accounts.

That's kind of a bummer, and I don't *like* seeing the holes, but I also don't really care too much. I'm not going to get rid of my horses just because they were related to horses belonging to someone who stopped playing, nor will I let that keep me from buying a horse I'd otherwise be interested in.
If someone else doesn't want to breed to a stud of mine or buy a horse from me, then oh well.

It DOES also state that after a year, so there's ample chance for players to return and import their accounts, that then all horses that had foals will be imported here for the sake of pedigrees. So those broken lines will theoretically not be permanent.

Everyday more of my pedigree gaps are filling up as more people move their accounts to the recode.

On the pedigree pages there's an FAQ where Abbey says regarding non-imported horses that show up as 'deceased':
"If, after a year, the other member hasn't imported their account and horses, then we will be importing ALL missing horses that have had foals so that we can fill out pedigrees. "

So it's only temporary even if the player who owns the horse doesn't come back.

I feel it's unfair to penalise people for having gaps in their pedigrees under the circumstances.

When you say fix the broken line over time.. do you mean breeding so the parents grandparents and great grandparents are eventually all filled on that page?

The problem UB is that we can't check for inbreeding if the horse is missing.

Marble Demons father was a fifth generation horse, however because his grandparents on his father's side haven't been imported you can't see past those "deceased" horses. He has no inbreeding, but because those horses are missing you'll have to trust me on that. The only way around this would be to lock him until the other horses are imported in (possibly a year).

I don't inbreed in my lines at all (or line breed), so it could cause problems for my lines (in a year) when all those horses are important and I suddenly realize I've inbred unwittingly due to "deceased" horses.

Last edited on 2016-02-19 at 09:27:00 by Aɢʟᴇᴛ

First, so called "broken lines" and "uneven lines" don't bother me a bit. But, for those that don't like them, why would you even consider these as "broken lines"? It's because of the recode, making the game better! It's not "broken" by player intention. Personally, if there are horses who never have their ancestors added at a later date by other breeders, these horses, are basically foundation horses.

What I do find sad about it is if it's a horse that maybe had a really nice pedigree with generations of ancestors, and these horses will never be looked at based on their lost pedigrees ever again.

Last edited on 2016-02-19 at 09:35:52 by Sarah Badr

@Aglet, I don't know how the new inbreeding thing works. How many generations is considered "inbreeding"?

I just tried to breed several mares and, even though they all had "deceased" parents, it did several times tell me that I couldn't breed the selected horses because they were too closely related.

For me any horse occurring twice in a pedigree is inbreeding.

I honestly don't know how the inbreeding block works (I never even tried testing it on beta). However I believe it blocks breeding of mother/father to their children, and grandparents to grand-offspring, brother to sister, maybe even cousins?

Last edited on 2016-02-19 at 09:40:04 by Aɢʟᴇᴛ

So, like 3 generations back maybe?

That is probably far enough that the inbreeding block won't stop you from breeding them.

I agree with UB, many of my horses have gaps in their pedigree because of the recode, but that's the only reason :/ considering this is only temporary it doesn't make sense to expect people to scrap their hard work for pedigree aesthetics. I supposed though its personal preference.

I personally haven't run into a lot of inbreeding either and have none of it in my horses so I suppose that's why I'm not concerned.

Inbreeding block in BETA was set for immediate inbreeding.....

Father X Daughter
Mother X Son
Siblings
Father X Granddaughter
etc.


pretty much first 2 gens from my knowledge

I'll be honest. I really fail to understand the whole objection to having a horse appear in a pedigree twice, if it is several generations back. In real life horse breeding, that is inevitable if you are going to breed purebred horses. There is a limited amount of foundation stock, and once the books are closed, you are limited to that stock. It's not a problem as long as the breed population is big enough to have sufficient variety. And, if you have a particularly exceptional horse, it is standard practice to do some cautious line breeding in order to make those great traits breed true. Which is how breeds were created in the first place.

In fact, even humans, by your strict definitions, are inbred. My parents were born hundreds of miles apart, in different states. They never met until adulthood. Their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents were complete strangers. I recently did some ancestry work, and discovered that they were related multiple times over, with the closest being a double sixth cousinship. Further ancestry work revealed that I am also related multiple times to my ex husband, though he also was a complete stranger to me until adulthood, and born in a different state than me and both my parents.. In fact, in all the ancestry work I've done, I am related to everyone who has any ancestry in colonial New England, any state. I shared enough ancestry with the owners of an antique house I rented to be the equivalent of a third cousin, even though I was not born in the state, and neither were my parents or grandparents or great-grandparents. I had a boyfriend who only had one ancestor who lived in New England for one generation. I am related to that ancestor two different ways.

Inbreeding is a fact of life. As long as it is not close enough to bring out rare, harmful genetic mutations, then it is not a problem at all.

In the context of this game, it seems to be some sort of artificial parameter that people set up for themselves to make the game more challenging. It doesn't actually improve the quality of your stock, and it doesn't make the game more true to life.

That's why I breed for basic genetic diversity, but I really don't care if I match a pair that share an ancestor five generations back. I wouldn't care if I were breeding real life horses (unless there was a known genetic issue with that ancestor.) I wouldn't even care if it were someone I were dating.

Simple answer? It's "icky".

Long answer: people try to humanize animals using the reasoning "I wouldn't want to have kids with my brother/sister/mother/father/whatever". This ignores the fact that animals have very little issue with breeding with relatives. It's common for the dominant male animal to drive out younger male animals. This isn't because "oh, this animal is my son, I better not let him breed his mom!". It's "This other male animal might breed my mates and prevent my lines from continuing."

You'll notice that the daughters are never driven out, which means....Sire is doing the dirty with his daughters. When it comes to breeding season, the only thing animals care about is doing the dirty. They don't really care /who/ it's with.

People argue that inbreeding results in deformed or sickly offspring. Sure it can, but so can breeding two unrelated animals together. If a breeder is going to inbreed, it requires knowing the pedigrees of the animals being used to help prevent issues.

But, people always go back to making decisions with their emotions and humanizing animals, rather than looking at factual data.

So, meh.