The Perfectly Formulated Horse (revised)

[RoyalCrownAcres]

The Perfectly Formulated Horse (and the Confirmation Studies that Accompany)

WARNING: The finding described are going to be difficult to understand without a premium account. I'll eventually add a couple of pictures, but the initial descriptions will be based on the conformation panel details

Some of you may remember a project that I started multiple years ago that I made progress on behind the scenes but never released much of to the public:
The Perfectly Disciplined Horse
viewtopic.php?t=22766&hilit=perfect

I took a large hiatus from the game not long after making that topic, only popping back up for short spurts of time, but this time I'm here to stay (as I've rediscovered this game as a way to feel like I'm being productive while still doing something I enjoy ). As such, I've decided to revamp the project as a whole, changing a few things and reworking things to offer more comprehensible comparison and allow a bit more community involvement (if anyone else is interested).

I'm pulling largely from the first forum post I made, while adding things in as I go. I've decided to tackle the thing I'm most familiar with first: Movement. Which is especially fitting as a 70 movement horse was recently bred by Mythirion.
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I greatly encourage any players who have comments or input to let me know! I'm looking forward to the community aspect of such a project, and hope that it encourages the player-base to breed with an even more competition-forward mindset!

As per my original post (and is subjected to change)
Conformation includes the following:

Face profile
Face length
Jowl
Neck length

Withers/shoulder angle
Point of shoulder
Rib cage
Depth of flank

Hip angle
Hip length
Leg thickness
Stifle placement
Back length
Croup height

The best in each stat:

Speed
Concave/dished head
Shallow jowl
Long neck
Shallow flank
Long hip
Thin legs
Downhill build

Strength
Convex/Roman head
Long face
Thick jowl
Short neck
Sloping haunch
Long hip
Thick legs
Medium, slightly short back
Uphill build

Stamina
Can cave/dished head
Long face
Medium neck
Low point of shoulder
Deep rid cage
Deep flank
Medium, slightly shorter back

Balance
More convex head
Long face
Medium neck
Flat haunch
Thick legs
Longer back

Movement
Shallow jowl
Medium neck
Sloping shoulders
Low point of shoulder
Flat haunch
Back set stifle
Uphill build

Agility
Concave head
Shorter face
Thick jowl
Medium neck
Forward set stifle
Medium, shorter back
Level croup height

Tempo
Concave head
Sloped shoulders
Low point of shoulder
Long back
Level croup height

[RoyalCrownAcres]

reserved fo rfindings

[RoyalCrownAcres]

Movement

I would like to begin with movement, as I breed dressage vanners and high movement competition horses for personal use. I'm hoping I can largely pull from my own stock for this first part, where I would like to go into detail as to what the confirmation panel says about movement. In my original post, I had determined the following:

Movement
Shallow jowl
Medium neck
Sloping shoulders
Low point of shoulder
Flat haunch
Back set stifle
Uphill build

I'd like to expand on this

Conformation is broken up into 3 main sections: head and neck, shoulder and barrel, and back haunches and legs. These section have sections within them as follows:

Head and Neck
face profile
face length
jowl
Neck Length

Shoulder and Barrel
withers/shoulder angle
point of shoulder
rib cage
depth of flank

Back Haunch and Leg
Hip angle
hip length
leg thickness
stifle placement
back length
croup height

based on the comments that accompany each of the sub-sections listed above, not all of the subsections have influence (at least, not that the player can determine) on movement. The sections that determine movement:

Jowl
neck length
withers/shoulder angle
point of shoulder
hip angle
stifle placement
croup height

Based on the subsection comments, these have an optimum, some of which are more outright than others:

Jowl shallow (thick hinders poll flexion, but aids in agility)

Neck Length This one isn't as straightforward. The comments say a medium neck enhances agility and balance, long for speed, and short for strength, but says nothing about movement. However, movement points are allocated. After looking at some of my vanners and dressage stock (and the 70 movement horse) I've compiled the following: a bit left of center gives +5, further left than that gives +2, so the neck can't be too short. A neck that is about 1/3 (arguably) between the center and right side (the bar above the "wh" in "while" for those of you who can see the confo panel) gives +10. I found a horse on the market (that looked like a giraffe. I'm interested to see what a horse with a "fully" long neck looks like) that's slider was a bit more over to the right (over the "le" in while and the "a" next to it for those who can see) and it had +8. So it seems there's a sweet spot for a slightly elongated neck.

Withers and Shoulder Angle This one i thought to be straightforward. I've looked through some horses to confirm, and the further right (the more sloped) the shoulder, the higher the movement. This isn't exactly true. When the bar is almost all the way to the right (centered above the "eous" in advantageous), it waivers from +11 to +12 (determined by point of shoulder). But when all the way over to the right, it results in +10. Again, there's a balance to this.

While looking at horses for this, I noticed that a)there is a fine balance between tempo and movement when it comes to shoulder angle, and b) a lot of the top winning dressage horses have sub 60 movement. Just an observation for later.

Point of Shoulder This helps determine the value given for shoulder angle (in terms of movement points). 2 horses can have the same shoulder angle, but a vastly different shoulder point location will will result in 2 different values for shoulder angle. Take these 2 horses for example. Same shoulder angle, different shoulder point, different value for movement under shoulder angle.
https://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/4303577
https://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/2381856
These 2 horses are also a good example of how a very low shoulder is not as advantageous as it appears. I can't seem to find a horse that a value greater than +8 for point of shoulder, but those who do tend to have +12 in movement for shoulder angle, and those with +6 in point of shoulder have +11 in shoulder angle.

Hip Angle Like with most of the previous things, this requires nuance. You don't want a sloped hip, but you don't want it to be too flat either. The highest value I found was +12, with variation in bar placement ranging from any location over the word "degree". Anything before or after that and the value started dropping.

Stifle I expected this one to be the more backward the better, and it seems to be that simple .a Fully backward stifle, like on mythirion's 70 movement stallion, grants +8 movement. Any more forward and the number decreases until it's eventually maintained at 0.

Croup Height Last but not least. It seems that the more uphill a horse (the higher the wither over the croup) the move movement the horse has, but being too uphil has it disadvantages. The highest value I could find was +11, although I'm willing to assume a +12 is possible. Once the bar has passed the word "downhill" (going to the left), movement begins to decrease.


I'd like to dig into how type , genetic potential, conformation interactions, etc go into each stat at a later date as well



NOTE- it seems that, purely based on visuals and assumptions, that most of the sliders allow a possibility of up to +12 to a stat. some of these appear to be up to +10. I'm working on sifting through my horses and some of the top horses in the game to confirm this. I'll update this note once I figure it out.

[RoyalCrownAcres]

I'd like to study a few horses in game and comment on their conformation in terms of what I have found in the above post.
I'd like to start with the 70 movement horse Bred by mythirion,
S6 Empty Sky

This guy has a fairly shallow jowl, a little left of halfway between middle and left side. He has +9 movement for this, and I bet he's close to +10.
His neck length seems perfect, as it gives a +10. Comparing him to other horses, any further to the right (at all) and it would start decreasing, and not much further to the left and it would decrease as well.
His shoulder angle and point of shoulder are perfect from what I've found so far!
His hip angle is +12, which the highest this value seems to be able to get.
His stifle is all the way backwards, meaning his movement score for this one is +8 and slightly reduced.
In terms of croup height, the edge of the bar is just barely touching the "L" in "downhill", so he might very well be an example of the most uphill a horse can be before it starts to become a detriment.

In terms of how this guy is useful, I think he serves as a pretty good example of how we can expect a high movement horse to look. The only things that need improved, in terms of what I've found so far, are his jowl and stifle. I want to say that this his jowl wouldn't be a hinderance if he was horse type rather than pony type, although most uphill horses are pony type (which might beg for an investigation into this!).
All in all, from what I know at the moment I'd say this guy is pretty close to perfect.

I want to say, based on what I've put in the first post and this guy, that the movement cap is somewhere around 74/75, but testing will have to confirm!

[RoyalCrownAcres]

Ping!

Thought you might to see what I've worked on here since I've included your guy

Ping

I'm not sure if you'd be able to actually tell us the values (what's the fun in discovering them then, right? ), but does code exist that serves as a "cap" of sorts for what conformation values can be?

[mythirion]

Ping

Love this! I have a post studying confo for specific disciplines - here - where I found screenshot examples especially for maximum movement. Argent says there should be another point to get to 72 but i haven't been able to find it yet. I found maximum of 71.

[RoyalCrownAcres]

Ping

Love this! I have a post studying confo for specific disciplines - here - where I found screenshot examples especially for maximum movement. Argent says there should be another point to get to 72 but i haven't been able to find it yet. I found maximum of 71.

Nice! I am checking those out!!