Bye Bye Steward Bred's

[Dylan Christensen]

I don't really want to resurrect this, but I had a thought this morning.

The Steward tends to breed to a variety of sires, including less-popular sires, much more than the rest of us do. She rarely breeds a mare back to the same sire, and I've never seen her just cycle a mare through the two or three current hottest sires, as many of us tend to do.
Would See You Bye ever have gone to Sepia Tint to produce SYM if Em hadn't done so? I doubt it. I probably wouldn't have. His stats and hypos were average. But thanks to SYM, the Sea the Stars sireline is not only alive and well, but will probably perpetuate itself for many years so come.
Gunmetal Grey, Composer, Gentle Touch, all are by stallions that had little to no commercial appeal before they were bred, but because of them (and pretty much only because of them) their sirelines will persist. They would probably never have existed if we'd been breeding those mares, and those sirelines would have died out.

I can only really speak to turf sprinters because that's obviously what I've been paying attention to for the last however many years, but this is interesting. We as a population are quickly moving (especially since the addition of hypo mates) towards a reality where the best mares are only ever bred to the same few sires. It doesn't take much searching to find player-owned "true blue hens" who have six or seven foals, all by the same two or three sires who result in a flat A hypo, and because the rest of the options are only A-, they'll likely never get a shot. See You Bye has eleven foals by 11 different sires, a huge variety of sirelines, and while not all of those horses were superstars on the track, they are all viable breeding animals and will pass on their outcross sirelines to the next generation, at least to some degree.

So what happens when Em stops breeding? Even looking at the TS foals she's bred this year, more than half are by horses who I would classify as relatively commercially unpopular, i.e. not in the top two "ranks" of hypoers and probably producing less than 4-5% of stakes gallopers. Probably very few or none of us can say that, if we owned those same mares, we'd also send them to $5,000 stallions. Considering that Stew-breds are generally very good, and make up the majority of successful active studs (at least in TS) then, when they aren't around anymore, are we just going to paint ourselves into a genetic corner? Then have to be rescued by introduced outcrosses, like what happened in mixers, which we will then complain about because they're "too good"?

Should we all be making more of an effort to breed our best mares to a larger variety of sires? Probably, but who would do that? If Horse A strikes at 15% stakes and Horse B at 3%, and you only maybe get eight chances from one amazing mare, statistically you'll come out ahead by breeding to Horse A eight times. But at what cost to the gene pool?

Food for thought.

I saw a similar idea brought up earlier in the thread and I think it's a valid point but we can't force Em to keep breeding when she has a lot of other stuff on her plate. As a SIM community we're going to have to start adapting and using those outcrosses one way or another.

[Jon Xett]

OK Boomer (me), here goes: I am happier not thinking about the math and algorithms and prefer to view my SIM horses as living breathing animals that bring fun and pleasure and an escape to my real life. Real life Secretariat stinked (sic), stank, stunk as sire as compared to the expectations generated from saving a nation in need of a hero. (Sorry Big Red - RIP.) There was no math, no spreadsheet that could change real life. Whatever happens in this latest development, I plan on supporting SIM. My suggestion would be for The Steward to cut back in her breeding program perhaps only breed a couple of divisions each year, rotate the crops as it were, and find the fun again in the SIM world she created. The mares will still be there in subsequent years or be made available as lease mares. If The Steward wants to take a break, or stop breeding the Steward bred, that's cool too. Generation SIM, Unite! jX

[Glenn Escobar]

Should we all be making more of an effort to breed our best mares to a larger variety of sires? Probably, but who would do that? If Horse A strikes at 15% stakes and Horse B at 3%, and you only maybe get eight chances from one amazing mare, statistically you'll come out ahead by breeding to Horse A eight times. But at what cost to the gene pool?

As usual, a very thoughtful and thought-filled post here, but this last part is what I'll focus on in answering/discussing.

In this specific example, I actually probably would breed to Horse A, maybe not all eight times, that could be a little overkill, but maybe 5 or 6. And that's before factoring in what Horse A or Horse B will cost me to use.

The reason for this, in my opinion at least, is also part of what makes the discussion interesting. Is it your job, as a player & breeder, to perpetuate any bloodlines or generally expand the gene pool by how you breed? I get that using 8 different Sires with this amazing Mare might look good on paper and I'll also agree that it's cool to do that and come up with 8 possible extensions of lineage through your mare. But at the end of the day it would probably be more in the interest of forwarding your own broodmare band to just send her to the very best. By the time those Foals that are (Horse A x One Amazing Mare) are ready to retire, there will be another couple of Next Big Things to send them to.

Now, contrast the above paragraph with both the mission of Stewardbreds and also the perspective of the Steward herself. Her broodmare band is full of impeccable female options. Her Foals are designed to extract money from the game via Auctions. Meanwhile, her Colts that she breeds are uniquely able to hop right in (not always, but lots of the time) as Stallions after they race, precisely because of the aforementioned impeccable female sides. Or if not impeccable, certainly very, very well built relatively speaking. So it's in the interest of that set of reasons for breeding to keep expanding outwards into new crosses, which the Steward has done and done well. The outcrosses are interesting, they're marketable, and with that kind of broodmare firepower, they're significantly less risky.

My point is this..........Stewardbreds have been very diverse over the Years, but you can see why and also how they differ from playerbreds. If we as players create or keep creating diverse lines, then there won't be any problem. If we start to pigeonhole and only use Horse A or Horse B, then I would honestly turn to the owner(s) of those horses and see if they're valuing them correctly, i.e. charging a high enough fee, or maybe even limiting their usage -- see Dave Matthews Band in Year 54.

[Danny Derby]

Everyone Else: Bickering back and forth about not succeeding without Steward Breds

Me & Danny: THERE IS A SET LIMIT AMOUNT ON HOW MANY NICE HORSES THERE ARE PER GAME CROP/YEAR?! I really just want to know how the game knows which horses to nerf down to allowance or productive or whatever. Like... Is it random? Is there a set formula? Does it reconfigure the random slide on all horses whenever a horse is born?

Rest assured, it was not just "you and Danny" who noticed. Far, far from it.

But you also probably worried too much about how the categorization is done. In that, in might just be "you and Danny", I don't know.

Just think of it this way.............every horse gets a number at birth, and all the horses line up in numerical order. The number scale truly does not matter. But let's just say they get assigned a number from 0-100.

The 100's all get in the front of the line, followed by the 99's and so on. It does not matter when the horse was bred, in terms of sequence relative to other horses. It doesn't matter, honestly, who bred it - so The Steward isn't intrinsically taking up spots, she's just breeding exceptionally great mares.

And then, all the Foals from a given Crop just line up numerically against one another.

Then, the SIM designates the top 1% (or whatever) to be "Freaks". The next 3% are Stakes, IDK it's just numbers, but the point is, the Gallops are just reflections of how they stack up to one another. This is important, because we aren't saying "all the 100s, 99s, and 98s are Freaks", we are just saying that the top percentile are Freaks.........so it's wholly dependent on how many horses are bred, and at what quality. And you know this, from practical experience. Go look at workout times over the years. Tell me what a "fast Allowance" ran 20 or 15 or 10 or 5 SIM Years ago. They've gotten faster, because little bits at a time, the bloodlines push the horses into faster and faster outcomes.

And for crying out loud...........THE GALLOPS CHANGE!!! Remember a few weeks ago when everyone was all excited because the late bloomers had XYZ# of gallop changes? So they're not even set in stone, anyhow. I had Allowances moving up to Stakes as a Gallop readout, and Stakes moving up to Freak. And they are Thoroughbreds, because I know someone will ask that question.

My advice? Play as you've been playing. You're still playing against the same players, using the same system.

Despite it always having been presented as there being a hard numerical cutoff for gallop comments across the board? I’m less concerned with how I’m playing the game, I just want consistency in when we get these kinds of answers.

[Joseph Depaulo]

OK Boomer (me), here goes: I am happier not thinking about the math and algorithms and prefer to view my SIM horses as living breathing animals that bring fun and pleasure and an escape to my real life. Real life Secretariat stinked (sic), stank, stunk as sire as compared to the expectations generated from saving a nation in need of a hero. (Sorry Big Red - RIP.) There was no math, no spreadsheet that could change real life. Whatever happens in this latest development, I plan on supporting SIM. My suggestion would be for The Steward to cut back in her breeding program perhaps only breed a couple of divisions each year, rotate the crops as it were, and find the fun again in the SIM world she created. The mares will still be there in subsequent years or be made available as lease mares. If The Steward wants to take a break, or stop breeding the Steward bred, that's cool too. Generation SIM, Unite! jX

Secretariat may not of produced horses that could run close to his level but he is one of the greateast broodmare sires ever. So he still has impacted the breed just on the dam side. Just saying
Also i support Em in all her choices as long as there not forced by oustide pressure

[Rochelle Bos]

Maybe Em could start including in the edge which sire-line(s) of mares each stud would like? Or would that cause too much pinhole breeding?

[Dylan Christensen]

Maybe Em could start including in the edge which sire-line(s) of mares each stud would like? Or would that cause too much pinhole breeding?

I mean I don't see an issue with that, we essentially do it anyways looking at what Em has bred with certain dam Sires. We're just kind of flipping it here.

[Mr. Lord Rich]

We can get rid of hypos? Keep mare comments so we can determine if the mare is worth breeding to.
It would force us players to experiment find the successful crosses.

Hypomates are the one thing killing many of the lower end studs. Once we see the hypos and the word gets out, those studs tend to simply disappear and the better hypoing studs are abused.

[Glenn Escobar]

We can get rid of hypos? Keep mare comments so we can determine if the mare is worth breeding to.
It would force us players to experiment find the successful crosses.

Hypomates are the one thing killing many of the lower end studs. Once we see the hypos and the word gets out, those studs tend to simply disappear and the better hypoing studs are abused.

This is a good point. I like Hypos but since they have a clear readout as a letter grade, it does tend to limit people’s perceived choices.

[Danny Derby]

We can get rid of hypos? Keep mare comments so we can determine if the mare is worth breeding to.
It would force us players to experiment find the successful crosses.

Hypomates are the one thing killing many of the lower end studs. Once we see the hypos and the word gets out, those studs tend to simply disappear and the better hypoing studs are abused.

I agree with this so much, but I also would wager that hypos are one of the biggest drivers of GP spending in the game. They'd need to replace that income somehow.

[Andrew James]

We can get rid of hypos? Keep mare comments so we can determine if the mare is worth breeding to.
It would force us players to experiment find the successful crosses.

Hypomates are the one thing killing many of the lower end studs. Once we see the hypos and the word gets out, those studs tend to simply disappear and the better hypoing studs are abused.

I agree with this so much, but I also would wager that hypos are one of the biggest drivers of GP spending in the game. They'd need to replace that income somehow.

Do people still Hypo every breeding? I used to use them then quickly realized they said a lot more about the stud than they did the mare. Now I only use them to check if a horse has an affinity for other distance/surfaces. Id be very okay with them going away. Maybe replace them with a comment that definitively tells you what type of foals (distance/surface) a cross is going to produce.

[The Steward]

We can get rid of hypos? Keep mare comments so we can determine if the mare is worth breeding to.
It would force us players to experiment find the successful crosses.

Hypomates are the one thing killing many of the lower end studs. Once we see the hypos and the word gets out, those studs tend to simply disappear and the better hypoing studs are abused.

I agree with this so much, but I also would wager that hypos are one of the biggest drivers of GP spending in the game. They'd need to replace that income somehow.

Yeah, hypos make the world go round - and the servers churn - unfortunately.

[Rochelle Bos]

We can get rid of hypos? Keep mare comments so we can determine if the mare is worth breeding to.
It would force us players to experiment find the successful crosses.

Hypomates are the one thing killing many of the lower end studs. Once we see the hypos and the word gets out, those studs tend to simply disappear and the better hypoing studs are abused.

I agree with this so much, but I also would wager that hypos are one of the biggest drivers of GP spending in the game. They'd need to replace that income somehow.

Do people still Hypo every breeding? I used to use them then quickly realized they said a lot more about the stud than they did the mare. Now I only use them to check if a horse has an affinity for other distance/surfaces. Id be very okay with them going away. Maybe replace them with a comment that definitively tells you what type of foals (distance/surface) a cross is going to produce.

I generally only hypo a mare once to a stallion I know hypos well. For example my DR get hypoed with Allonsy, James Dean, or DMB. Just once. Just do I can get an idea of the mare, since usually for those boys they hypo A- (or if you have a magic mare A/A+), if my mare give me a B+ I’ll definitely look her more closely and see if I REALLY want to breed her, sometimes I’ll still breed if I like her pedigree

[Mr. Lord Rich]

I mainly use hypos to determine a studs worth.
Is there was some other form of doing that similar to a broodmare comment i think it could be replaced.

But then again if that is the biggest form of gp spending... might have to stay or simply find a new something to spend gp on.

[Mr. Lord Rich]

Hmmm I’m still rambling, but turn the bsa comment from 10k sim cash to instead 1000 gp.

Remove hypo and place a 10k gp to bsa your stud.


The exchange exists so players can convert sim cash to gps if they don’t want to open their wallets.

Keeps the exchange economy active.