Three Greens!

[Argent II]

I run my two accounts at separate times for different projects. The main was used to reach Lipizzans, my goal breed, and now all of my Lipis and pre-Lipis are being held over there. My spare, this account, is currently being used for my conformation project. If I get a really good stud, I'll toss him on my main while I age up my mares, but for the most part, the two accounts haven't collaborated much. I also used to use my spare to age out horses I no longer needed for breeding on my main when I was low on space.

[sableantelope]

Oh, well I still have some room, then! I'm only at 171 right now. That's good news.

It IS a bummer to only be able to have roughly a fifth of your horse total allotment pregnant when you likely have more mares than studs just based on logistics(using public studs, etc).

(though just by fluke of odds I think I had three times more colts than fillies born in the last few weeks)



Yeah, you know I think I will start a second account just to hold on to the rarish breeds/ mixes I have, especially for down the road. I'd like to have my ACD stud out for a while longer, he's not an amazing horse but there are so few in the game it helps to disseminate the breed.

I think it feels skeevy to, say, hold a show horse in a second account and never age but keep entering it in shows ad infinity, but I have no intention to do that!!
So I think if I never show the horses on the second account I wont feel guilty about it.

Thanks for your input Argent and Ann!

BTW, Anne, are the Italian Heavy Draughts in the game the same as the breed known as the Italian Rapid Heavy Draught? They are such a cool, unique breed- a draught made for speed!

[Bumble_Bee]

BTW, Anne, are the Italian Heavy Draughts in the game the same as the breed known as the Italian Rapid Heavy Draught? They are such a cool, unique breed- a draught made for speed!

Yup, that's them.

I don't pay attention much so I'm not sure if I've been having more colts than fillies or not. But I do know that the first 7 or so Pintabians that I had born were all colts, and I struggled to get my first IHD filly as well. Both times my roommate heard me muttering "another boy" under my breath as I got more agitated with each one.

[Argent II]

I definitely get more colts than fillies. I've jokingly complained about it enough that iirc, Larissa said she would check the database toe make sure the game was spitting out equal numbers of each. My colts also tend to be of a better quality, which is frustrating on some level, but it also makes it easier to be very critical of them and only keep the best. I end up drowning in fillies - and later broodmares - because it's difficult to choose which to keep. Eventually I get to the point where I can be more critical of them though; right now, I'm culling all mares that do not have greens in Tempo and Balance and a strong comment in Movement. I've let strength slip for the time being, but it was already weak in my herd.

[Bumble_Bee]

My Italian Heavy Drafts have green stamina and int. I don't really expect them to see a third stat anytime soon since I'm focusing on other things with them right now, but who knows.

I lied, apparently. I just bred an IHD with three greens. Problem is, her third green is balance, and I don't use that in the two competition types that I'm working towards. I haven't even been watching balance while breeding other than making sure it doesn't go red. I'd normally cull her because she's too short. I'll have to let her grow up and see just how short she is.

Edit: I re-homed her. She was sorrel on top of being the wrong height. Oh well.

My colts also tend to be of a better quality, which is frustrating on some level, but it also makes it easier to be very critical of them and only keep the best. I end up drowning in fillies - and later broodmares - because it's difficult to choose which to keep. Eventually I get to the point where I can be more critical of them though; right now, I'm culling all mares that do not have greens in Tempo and Balance and a strong comment in Movement. I've let strength slip for the time being, but it was already weak in my herd.

I only keep one stallion per project so I have to cull those pretty harshly. Mares... I'm finding it difficult to juggle all of the things that I want to balance. I'm trying to maintain: 1) green stamina and int 2) positive strength, movement, and tempo 3) four star evaluation and 4) a strong face profile. I was doing okay until my chestnut turned into a super-bright sorrel that I didn't like, and of course it was the sorrel mares who got the best stats. So the stats of my herd took a dip while I was prioritizing darker chestnut. While I was doing that, I let height slip. Breed standard is 15-16hh. I was keeping 14hh mares because I figured, well, it's just 1hh, what's the harm in that. The harm was that they started throwing foals that were 12-13hh full grown. So I had the color back, and the stats almost back, but I lost the height. Retiring all the mares that threw shorties brought me from 12 mares down to 4, which was incredibly scary for me to do, but it solved the problem. Now I've got the height back, and the color back. Their stats aren't back up to where they used to be yet. Half my mares only have one green and most of them have one average in the other stats. But at least I'm back up to 6 mares, and since I have a lot of other projects going on, I think I'm just going to leave it at that number. The masochist in me decided to go for TWHs so I have crossbreeds galore going on right now.

[Argent II]

Problem is, her third green is balance, and I don't use that in the two competition types that I'm working towards. I haven't even been watching balance while breeding other than making sure it doesn't go red. I'd normally cull her because she's too short. I'll have to let her grow up and see just how short she is.

Lol, I had the same thing happen. My first green was in agility, which I was not breeding for or paying any attention to, and my starter breeds - NAB and FH - are both supposed to have poor genes for that attribute. It took me several more weeks to get a green in a stat I was actually breeding for iirc.

I was doing okay until my chestnut turned into a super-bright sorrel that I didn't like, and of course it was the sorrel mares who got the best stats. So the stats of my herd took a dip while I was prioritizing darker chestnut. While I was doing that, I let height slip. Breed standard is 15-16hh. I was keeping 14hh mares because I figured, well, it's just 1hh, what's the harm in that. The harm was that they started throwing foals that were 12-13hh full grown. So I had the color back, and the stats almost back, but I lost the height. Retiring all the mares that threw shorties brought me from 12 mares down to 4, which was incredibly scary for me to do, but it solved the problem. Now I've got the height back, and the color back.

I had a similar issue. At first, all of my FH-NABs were bay, and then all of a sudden I was overrun with chestnuts. They were so dark, they looked black, but since my color goals are black-based horses, the presence of the recessive 'e' was unwelcome. Problem was, a lot of my good studs and mares were chestnut, so I had a hard time getting rid of it. Since I was breeding for height to help with producing a Cleveland Bay, I selected taller foals (9hh at birth minimum) and ended up with giants. 19hh was the average in my herd for the longest time. To this day, the TBs and TB crosses I produced from that line are absurdly tall. And since my foundation TB was dun, the vast majority of my current TBs and crosses are as well.

[Bumble_Bee]

I had a similar issue. At first, all of my FH-NABs were bay, and then all of a sudden I was overrun with chestnuts. They were so dark, they looked black, but since my color goals are black-based horses, the presence of the recessive 'e' was unwelcome. Problem was, a lot of my good studs and mares were chestnut, so I had a hard time getting rid of it.

I had the opposite of this problem. In the beginning I had black, bay, and brown. I was planning on having multiple lines to preserve all the colors. But then I decided to scale my IHDs down to a side project and find another breed to be my main focus. IHDs in reality are predominantly chestnut, so I figured my herd should reflect that. All I had were two red duns (I didn't want dun in my herd) and one chestnut, all with absolutely horrible stats and their body shape/feathering were even worse. It took me a week to convert my herd over to ee while keeping the stats decent.

Now my chestnuts are all starting to go dark. Does a nice medium chestnut have to be this difficult? I wanted to maintain this color:



But they're turning into this:



I'm trying to decide if I'm okay with that or not. I think I might have to be. This was the sorrel, I didn't like it. We've got 50 shades of chestnut going on here:

[Argent II]

Oh wow, the last one is super bright. Looks like a carrot XD. Most of my chestnuts looked like the horse you have in the middle, which looks really cool with the tiger eye, but I understand your preference for the medium chestnut.

[Bumble_Bee]

I had a sorrel named Sunglasses because it hurt my eyes to look at, haha. I wish I'd thought of the carrot thing, you're right. That would've been a great opportunity for names. Carrot Juice. Carrot Top. Carrot Cake. Oh well, too late now.

Given the choice between bright and dark, I'll pick dark any day, so I think I need to just get used to it.

[nyraeia]

I was considering going for a Speed/Tempo/Balance/Intelligence combo on greens since I've been getting random green speeds, which I have no use for :P But currently I'm breeding toward green Movement, and getting awfully close, I think, and then I'll push for a green strength; my horses have bad conformation for it, but some get surprisingly positive comments, so I think the genes are there.

So you would breed spd/tmp/bal/int green for fun?
I'm going for stm/spd/agi/tmp (endurance) so I could go without intelligence for now. You mentioned intelligence being a freebie for later on - can you expand a bit on what you mean by that? Will intelligence influence competition stats even if it's not in the discipline summary? I thought you were going for dressage horses (mov/temp/bal/str).

Any chance this guy will be up for stud? I understand if you want to keep that for your lines only but I just have to be shameless and ask.

This guy probably not. I first want to make sure that I can reliably produce triple greens - so if I manage this, his offspring probably will be up someday. :)

I feel too guilty running a second account. :( It feels like cheating somehow. Do you guys running breeding projects run two accounts?/

Yep, I do. All my Arabians with green speed stem from my second account. Sometimes I transfer over some of my "normal" Arabs to get some of their qualities into my "speed line".

This girl is so awesome. If you get another Arab with a green in tempo, I'd be happy to take him/her off your hands :P

My colts also tend to be of a better quality, which is frustrating on some level, but it also makes it easier to be very critical of them and only keep the best.

I suspect that's a game-wide thing. At least, I've experienced (or imagined to experience) that it's easier to produce greens in colts than in fillies.