Caspian thoughts

[broadzilla]

If this isn't the right board for a topic like this, let me know...

But if it is, I would love to talk about Caspians-- namely how I've noticed that they seem to be the least popular AC breed, and I'm now wondering if it's because of their stats.

I had this side account here that I hadn't been doing much with, so I decided to start trying to raise up a little herd of Caspians with the thought of improving the breed and maybe trying for some of those extremely rare Caspian-based breeds... but holy cow their stats are not great. I mean, I know that horses from the AC are supposed to start out quite low in stats, and that it's the luck of the draw with exactly what you get, but they've seemed to be steadily worse than the other breeds I've worked with before. I haven't gotten far with breeding them yet, but usually I see some stat improvement by now, and I'm just getting nothing.

So, I'm curious! Are Caspians really as hard to work with as they seem? Is there some other reason that they're so unpopular compared to the other AC breeds? Are there secret Caspian fans floating around that I have somehow missed? I'd love to hear thoughts about any of this!

[BlackOak2]

If this isn't the right board for a topic like this, let me know...

But if it is, I would love to talk about Caspians-- namely how I've noticed that they seem to be the least popular AC breed, and I'm now wondering if it's because of their stats.

I had this side account here that I hadn't been doing much with, so I decided to start trying to raise up a little herd of Caspians with the thought of improving the breed and maybe trying for some of those extremely rare Caspian-based breeds... but holy cow their stats are not great. I mean, I know that horses from the AC are supposed to start out quite low in stats, and that it's the luck of the draw with exactly what you get, but they've seemed to be steadily worse than the other breeds I've worked with before. I haven't gotten far with breeding them yet, but usually I see some stat improvement by now, and I'm just getting nothing.

So, I'm curious! Are Caspians really as hard to work with as they seem? Is there some other reason that they're so unpopular compared to the other AC breeds? Are there secret Caspian fans floating around that I have somehow missed? I'd love to hear thoughts about any of this!

So I can't offer all of the insight you might be looking for, but I can offer something.
Caspians are no more difficult to work with then other AC breeds, as far as improving stats, at least in my experience. They seem to breed out better when crossing to other breeds perhaps, so maybe their weak areas are weak for most or all of that breed then other AC horses, but I haven't really experienced this.
From what I've seen, shetlands tend to have the worst breeding report and the caspians I've adopted have had the least amount of reds, however, I haven't adopted too many of them, so it could've just been the luck of the draw.

Their popularity, rather lack thereof, is probably because of the limited recipe breeds that call for it. The least AC breed recipe is the shetland with a whopping eight. The caspian comes in with the przewalski with a list-shattering nine.
The caspain does quite well for breeding out, at least the few times I've used the breed to create other recipe breeds.

So those are the answers I can offer.
Cheers!

[broadzilla]

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Haha yes I have noticed that shetlands seem to be full of piles of red stats. The caspians I've been dealing with so far however have a lot of those "hidden" bad stats that would be red if those stats ever showed in that color. And yeah it's when they're bred to other caspians that their stats have just not cooperated in going up. I'm hoping it's just a matter of coincidence, and not them lacking some of whatever genes it is that makes stats tend to improve.

At least I can hope for them improving when bred out to start working on those rare breeds, then. I guess this is more reason for me to start trying for it now, instead of waiting for an improved generation of Caspians first.

[BlackOak2]

...

It could be a number of different reasons for the lack of improvement.
What I could suggest (a frozen account is especially useful in this case), train up the AC stock you have and give them player-made competition tests. Then match them up against one another. AC stock will have an average-type of results. Find the couple that top that average scale, either in one area or in multiple areas. These will be your prime breeding stock for increasing that report the fastest. It'll still be a grind with getting acceptable foals, but if you hand-pick the best AC stock from competition trials, this should hurry your improvement along. I have noticed in my own breeding, that once the 45k line is broken for the HGP, the bloodline is much more willing to move higher, rather than lower. But then again, that could entirely be because there is already upward movement. If a line was taken from 60k and forced lower, the effect may be just the opposite.
The best thing about taking this route, is all the caspians that aren't prime breeding material now, can still be used as new blood later, well after you've broken that weak HGP trend.

[broadzilla]

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Oh, interesting! I've just been looking at the numeric version of their stats and leaving it at that. I try to pair up horses that might cover each other's weak points, and then only keep the offspring that fall within their ranges or trend upward. I'd never thought to train them up and actually throw them into competitions and see how they do. I suppose doing that might test more than just their numeric stats, and that's the benefit there?

It'll be hard since this is my side account, so I don't have an account where I can freeze horses, and so can only train one or two at a time (since I definitely don't have enough money to pay for someone else to do it) but I can try. Also, is the way you're describing compatible with trying to keep no COI%, or does doing that kind of defeat the purpose?

[BlackOak2]

Oh, interesting! I've just been looking at the numeric version of their stats and leaving it at that. I try to pair up horses that might cover each other's weak points, and then only keep the offspring that fall within their ranges or trend upward. I'd never thought to train them up and actually throw them into competitions and see how they do. I suppose doing that might test more than just their numeric stats, and that's the benefit there?

It'll be hard since this is my side account, so I don't have an account where I can freeze horses, and so can only train one or two at a time (since I definitely don't have enough money to pay for someone else to do it) but I can try. Also, is the way you're describing compatible with trying to keep no COI%, or does doing that kind of defeat the purpose?

Pairing up to cover weak points is a good idea when the strong points are strong enough to maintain themselves and the average areas don't have hidden weaknesses. What I'm offering is, when crossing two separate breeds, this is the way I'd recommend. When working with the same breed that has the same weaknesses in the same areas, you may not have the genes needed to strengthen the areas you want. However, the nice thing about this game is that it's designed to be able to strengthen even the weakest genes and even when you have nothing but poor genetics to work with. Granted, there is a limit to how high (and also how low) certain genes in certain breeds with certain body types can grow or fall. Some breeds have the genes that will max out in certain areas while others will always be lacking (think strength in belgians versus strength in arabians). But it doesn't mean that we'll be limited so much that we can't make some sort of upward progress even in the worst areas. One just needs to find which horse has that key gene that unlocks that upward (or downward) movement that's sought.
Doing the test does have additional benefits then just staring at numeric values offers. If you're looking at just a solid number, how can you make the determination of how that number breaks down? It's not evenly spread through each of the eight stat areas. One will have more then the others, one will have less than the others. The other six are somewhere in between. A really high stat in one area will mean that the rest of the 7 are really low, even if the solid number is higher than the other horses, this horse in particular could actually be weaker genetically speaking then another. By training them up and running them through some trials, this offers us an interior look at hidden genes that we can't visually see.

Now if you were upgraded, there is some further in-depth I could offer with the conformation evaluation. Which I will describe now, but you can also just skip over this part. HGP is an actual hard number of the stat genes the horse has. The HGP number is a combination of the hard genes for each stat with the conformation evaluation numbers included. However, the breeding report is just the hard genes for each stat and does not include the conformation evaluation numbers. Although we don't need to see the conformation evaluation to figure out which horse might have what we're looking for when breeding, it does offer us a little further insight into which horse is more likely what we're looking for. For instance, a conformation evaluation solid number of 56 on strength with a non-colored comment likely indicates that the high strength eval number is almost wholly due to the body build of the horse and very little to do with the actual gene that controls strength. However, if you have a gold strength comment, but the eval number is a whopping 25 points, you can be decently sure that the horse has very strong strength genes even though the body itself is very poorly designed for the strength stat.

So now back to the task at hand.
By training them up and comping them, not only will you be able to tell which horse is 'better' then the others, but it will also help you define which genes may be stronger than others. If all the horses comped do really poorly in log pull, but you see one that has an average outcome, somewhere in the middle of all the rest, but the report comment is red, meanwhile all the rest have average comments, then this particular horse may have stronger strength genes then the others.
It can be a long process to work with, but by moving this route, you won't just increase the breeding report at a much quicker rate (once you've figured out what to create your base stock from), it will also apply the best 'upward' facing genes that will move the genes upward at a much quicker rate.

As for no COI.
I recommend staring with low COI and not focusing solely on no COI. The difference between them:
No COI, you will waste a lot of PT purchasing caspians with a lot of little or slow movement upward. You will need to pay attention to the 7 generation limit very carefully. OR you will need to never keep more than one foal for each pairing. OR you will need to breed in an AC horse with each generation... Or some combination of these.
Low COI is much easier to work with and is used even in the real world. I use the low COI method. Aim to keep it under 30% and to do this, you will need to breed in new blood ever third generation or so. Make sure that the new blood offspring and the following generation breeds out into your herd and not together. So when you use the grandchildren of the new blood, the next generation will 'require' a new AC stallion or mare. This will help to keep your COI low and not immediately make it climb. In fact, using this method, even when keeping a large herd, will help to maintain your COI well under 30%. This also helps to inject the new blood into an established line without drawing down too much of the report stats you've worked hard to increase while offering the new blood that contains the genes your line may find very helpful.

I also recommend, that if you find a remarkable competitor, you take the time to share that horse's genes to as many as half the matches in your herd. Such genes will certainly do more good for your herd then the bit of inbreeding (COI effects) that will occur.

Did I hit on all your concerns?

[broadzilla]

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Oh wow! You're so thorough. I think I understood most of that, but let me see.

I'd originally thought that the conformation evaluation that comes with being upgraded only had to do with the shape of the horse, and that was what influenced how they did in competitions, but it shows more than that? And what you're explaining about HGP helps me understand that aspect a little bit more. I knew HGP was kind of summary of genes, but didn't know exactly what it covered.

Up until now, what I'd been doing was been using the calculator spreadsheet thing that shows exactly (or as close to exact as you can get) what the numerical amounts are behind each breeder comment, and that's how I'd been looking to see if a pair's offspring were trending upwards or downwards, watching how those numbers changed. Does that logic actually hold true, or am I not really learning what I think I'm learning by watching that. Basically, the only offspring I keep are the ones that stay within the range of their parents' various stat numbers or turn out higher, thereby hopefully weeding out the genes that make those numbers sink.

And as for COI, that all makes sense, for what I understand of it. There doesn't happen to be a guide or a diagram that shows how that sort of breeding should go, generation-by-generation, is there? It's really hard for me to visualize lol

[BlackOak2]

Oh wow! You're so thorough. I think I understood most of that, but let me see.

I'd originally thought that the conformation evaluation that comes with being upgraded only had to do with the shape of the horse, and that was what influenced how they did in competitions, but it shows more than that? And what you're explaining about HGP helps me understand that aspect a little bit more. I knew HGP was kind of summary of genes, but didn't know exactly what it covered.

Up until now, what I'd been doing was been using the calculator spreadsheet thing that shows exactly (or as close to exact as you can get) what the numerical amounts are behind each breeder comment, and that's how I'd been looking to see if a pair's offspring were trending upwards or downwards, watching how those numbers changed. Does that logic actually hold true, or am I not really learning what I think I'm learning by watching that. Basically, the only offspring I keep are the ones that stay within the range of their parents' various stat numbers or turn out higher, thereby hopefully weeding out the genes that make those numbers sink.

And as for COI, that all makes sense, for what I understand of it. There doesn't happen to be a guide or a diagram that shows how that sort of breeding should go, generation-by-generation, is there? It's really hard for me to visualize lol

You're correct. The conformation evaluation does only have to do with the shape of the horse and that this does and can affect how they do in competitions. But this conf eval is included in the HGP number. So two horses with the exact same genes can have two different HGP numbers because of their body shape. It's a 'work backwards' style of help. It answers a type of question like: Is the downhill style of body what's responsible for the great racing competitions, or is the genes responsible?

So the report is a description of the type of genes the horse has.
The evaluation conformation is a description of the type of body style the horse has.
The HGP number is both of these combined.

If the calculator is the one made by Silverine, it should do a fair job of aiding in what you need (I don't use it and haven't tried it so I don't know), but she's tested and tried it herself and it seems to do well as it also offers a little more in-depth on 'what might my horse be good in?' I can say no more about it, I just lack experience for that. (Of course, she may follow up and add in some additional information for you)
For your use with it, if there is so little change between the numbers, it may not be enough of a change for you to make a solidly informed decision. I do know that the calculator is based upon how we 'think' the comments line up. A lot of the comments overlap numbers and some cover much wider or shorter ranges then we may have pinned down. So if any of those parts of the calculator is off, then your outcome will not be correct. I might suggest to find big differences and not rely too much on small differences, that would be considered a 'margin of error'.
The long and short of it: if what you've been using are not offering the results you want or expect, then something needs to change.

So I don't know if this will help or hurt.

So just look at the chart itself (not the inbreeding aspects).
Let's say the first two (the top pair) is a fresh pair of unrelated blood from your herd (they can have no, or low COI, this is just an example of a starting point).
They have some children. Their children have some children (regardless of inbreeding). This third line is grandchildren. This would be the start of your fresh blood. Breed this third line (shouldn't be all of them, just select a few of the best ones) to new blood. Mark any acceptable children born from these parents as 'blooded' (this is the way I keep track of them). Any blooded horse will have offspring that should be marked 'bloodline'. So now, if we start afresh at the top of this chart again, with a herd horse paired with an AC horse, the second line will be marked blooded and the third line will be marked bloodline. The fourth line that's not here would be fully introduced into your herd and you can breed them to any horse thereafter. I would suggest picking one or a couple of these fourth line horses as the mate for another AC horse. Continue like this and your COI should be kept minimized.
As a last note: No AC, blooded or bloodline marked horse should be bred to each other, they should only be bred to members of your herd.

That's the method I try to stick to (I've been lazy lately, I have a full house so I haven't been able to keep up with COI right now. I'm in the high 20's to low 30's for much of my herd at the moment ).

Did that make sense?
Does that cover everything?

[broadzilla]

...

Wow yeah, this does explain a lot. I'm still unsure of some of the details of how HGP works (such as, if it's including body conformation, is it judging how "good" a conformation stat is, or is the range between two things like dishy and roman nose given a value?) but overall it answers a ton that I wasn't understanding. And the chart along with explanation is extremely helpful for how to actually go about inbreeding in a smart and organized way!

All in all, you have gone far out of your way to explain things, and I very much appreciate that. Thank you so much for your help! I'll definitely be saving all of this in a word file to reference later.

[BlackOak2]

Wow yeah, this does explain a lot. I'm still unsure of some of the details of how HGP works (such as, if it's including body conformation, is it judging how "good" a conformation stat is, or is the range between two things like dishy and roman nose given a value?) but overall it answers a ton that I wasn't understanding. And the chart along with explanation is extremely helpful for how to actually go about inbreeding in a smart and organized way!

All in all, you have gone far out of your way to explain things, and I very much appreciate that. Thank you so much for your help! I'll definitely be saving all of this in a word file to reference later.

That sounds like a plan.

So lets see if I can finish enlightening you on the HGP.
HGP as we understand is the actual number that adds together both the genes and the conformation evaluation.
So...
Each gene (not the comment, but the actual gene) has a solid number score. As an example, this is NOT actual gene numbers: if strength genes can have a score between 1 (being the lowest and weakest) and 100 (being the highest and the strongest), and the horse has a strength gene of 50. The evaluation conformation does give an actual number for us (say 20), so we add

***I must make a correction to what I told you before. this comment I made: "However, the breeding report is just the hard genes for each stat and does not include the conformation evaluation numbers."
Is entirely incorrect and I'm not sure I suddenly confused myself with this. The breeding report is a combination of both the physical body as well as the genes. But it doesn't change what I've been explaining.
I apologize as I've not only confused you on this, at that moment, apparently I also confused myself...

So now I get back to what I was saying.
The evaluation conformation does give an actual number for us (say 20), so we'll add this to the hard score that the gene provides (we said 50 for our example), and we get 70. Being at the upper end of the strength score (total of 100), we should see at least a green comment (if our colored comments are cut in thirds, 33 and less is red, 34 to 66 is non-colored and 67 to 100 is split evenly between green and gold). I need to add that I do not know if the gene number and the conformation evaluation number are limited together (they can not go above 100 together) or if they are separate (they each have their own limits separately, such as they both can go up to 100 and add together to make 200). I do know that each stat does have limits and cannot exceed them, I just don't know (I don't think anybody does) what those limits are.

So the HGP takes all of these stats: Strength; Speed; Stamina; Movement; Tempo; Balance; Agility: & Intelligence and adds them all together and we get HGP 32,578 for the horse. (I used a random HGP number)
But we don't know how this HGP number total is split up.
By using the evaluation conformation, we can pin down a little more accurately, which stats the horse carries that are probably more due to body conformation or from gene level, but we don't absolutely need it. By understanding what conformation affects what stat (downhill is better for speed, uphill is better for strength), we can make an educated guess of how much the body conformation may be affecting the report comments and the score (for instance, if you have a downhill body style with a gold speed comment, then perhaps the gold speed is due more from genes and not from body style).

The HGP is the all the solid numbers of all the genes and the conformation evaluation solid numbers added together. HGP doesn't judge on how good or bad a stat or the horse in total is. It's just a solid number that we can see so that we can make a determination of whether we're going in the direction we want. If it increases, we assume the horse line is improving, if it decreases, we assume the horse line is getting worse. However with just a little movement one way or another is quite within a margin of error because each horse will not be a duplicate of it's parents.

Well, maybe I'm not explaining it the way you can understand. But at least I hope I haven't confused you more.