CAM and CAH needs an overhaul

[Carole Hanson]

At the moment, Create a Horse/Mare seems absolutely useless. I can understand CAH yielding worse results because you’re not meant to be able to create champion racehorses out of thin air. But the CAM option should have mares that are at least a bit better than ‘no potential’.

Now I know why they’re rated that, they have old pedigrees that the SIM thinks are absolutely trash and so it doesn’t rate the mare highly at all. But does that mean the mare is completely useless?

Like, did I waste 5k GP on creating this mare? Or is her ‘no potential’ comment a fluke and she might actually be able to produce something nice?
Here’s some hypos I did on her fyi:
B/C to Brilliance
C/C to DMB
C+/C to Fearless Spirit
C/C to All of Time
B-/C to See You Monday
C+/C to Walk Off Grandslam

[Carole Hanson]

And just to clarify, I knew the risk when I created the mare and I’m not complaining about her ability, I knew she would be trash. But I do think this feature needs to be fixed up a bit, especially for the amount of GP it costs. I imagine if it was actually useful, people would pay for it.

[The Steward]

Lol the name of that mare is amazing.

[Carole Hanson]

I’m glad you like the name But am I correct in thinking she will just be a useless mare now? Or do her awful comment and hypos not matter and she has a chance to make it as a broodmare, just like the real life broodmares that make it into the game with real life pedigrees. Songbird for example or Beholder were successful with RL pedigrees.

And would the SIM team consider overhauling the CAM system or is it better to just get rid of it entirely at this point?

[Kaine Saracen]

I spent a small fortune on CAM's in an attempt to diversify and create something a little more unique, out of the hundreds of dollars invested, I have, I think two mares that survived that first clean out, though Caitriona is quite impressive as a hypoing guide and produced a couple of stakes types, her offspring are far from impressive in the shed and the line will likely die a lingering death. the second, Shokatee Steel has a couple of daughter's getting allowance types, but certainly not holding my breath there either.

The hint that the CAM's needed an overhaul came years ago... and I am pretty sure I mean real life years, I believe Louise was helping with it at one point but the whole exercise seems to have faded to nothing as well. As for your no potentials, I believe they made up close to 40% of what I made. Formidables were rarer than breeding a freak these days and anything above that non existent. Simply put, could NOT recommend the use of CAM's in this game at all.

[Gwen Morse]

Oh this is a great topic! Thank you for bringing it up.

I've paid for 4 CAMs. I have a pet project of getting Easy Goer bloodlines into my barn.

I have 3 "Some Potentials" and 1 "Formidable". The Formidable mare is a lower rating (B's to most sires except B+'s the super-nicking sires in her DR division like Allonsy and James Dean). The 3 potential mares are B- to most and flat B to super sires.

I also bought a "Formidable" CAM from another player. She was old and I only got one breeding out of her. Her nicks before death were flat B and B+ as well. This was, at the time, the last living and unpensioned daughter of Easy Goer in the sim so I would have bought her regardless of her rating.

Based on what Carole and Kaine said above, I've actually been very lucky. I didn't roll a single "No Potential" mare, yet. I can use these mares as guinea pigs to try and figure out which modern sim bloodlines will be positive crosses when I buy more CAMs and eventually score another Formidable.

But it would be so much nicer if they weren't worthless (relatively speaking), especially since they cost real money.

[Tammy Stawicki]

At the moment, Create a Horse/Mare seems absolutely useless. I can understand CAH yielding worse results because you’re not meant to be able to create champion racehorses out of thin air. But the CAM option should have mares that are at least a bit better than ‘no potential’.

Now I know why they’re rated that, they have old pedigrees that the SIM thinks are absolutely trash and so it doesn’t rate the mare highly at all. But does that mean the mare is completely useless?

Like, did I waste 5k GP on creating this mare? Or is her ‘no potential’ comment a fluke and she might actually be able to produce something nice?
Here’s some hypos I did on her fyi:
B/C to Brilliance
C/C to DMB
C+/C to Fearless Spirit
C/C to All of Time
B-/C to See You Monday
C+/C to Walk Off Grandslam

Based on other conversations in recent years about CAM I would say the mare is likely to be useless. This thread pops up every so often, hey why can't I get any good horses off of CAM??? and then dies down until the next person that doesn't realize they are useless comes along frustrated after getting some. My guess is it is a matter of the available horses not being updated. So whereas sim horses have been improving through the years the CAMs are still producing the same numbers from when they were created. Back when they were created those numbers were competitive, today they aren't.

Case in point way back in Y31 I actually had a really nice CAM. She produced 2 stakes winners, as did one of her daughters and my thoroughbred steward's cup winner of last year actually traces back to her. But looking at her best foal (who while not a world beater was a stakes winner with $200,000+ in earnings) it's fastest gallop was a 47.12 and most of it's speed figures were in the low to mid 70s. Back in the year 30s that still made for a nice horse. Looking at my current 2yos I have claimer gallopers with faster workout times.

So I would avoid CAM/CAH until an overhaul is announced which would be nice as it seems a great way to get game points spent and also a nice way for newer players to improve their bloodlines.

[Katie Stepanian]

Would love to see an overhaul. I’d definitely be up for creating some mares if they had a chance to be any good.

[The Steward]

The plan is to do away with CAH - which was only created when there weren't a lot of horses ever on the sales page, which is obviously NOT an issue now.

CAM will get an overhaul..... sometime.

As for your particular mare you created, she herself is pretty bad, but as Gwen said sometimes they aren't useless, I think Ryan Whitehead??? maybe created a few that weren't useless too, but agree overhaul is overdue.

[Carole Hanson]

Thanks for the clarification!

[Laura Smith]

Great news! I know for sure I'd pour some GPs into CAM if they had a chance of being decent... especially if there were a variety of multiple surface/distance options.

[Louise Bayou]

I've kiiiiiiiind of been asking about this for years. Still have a note app on my phone full of GP studs that I thought could be used for Sires/Dam sires.

[Gwen Morse]

CAM will get an overhaul..... sometime.

As for your particular mare you created, she herself is pretty bad, but as Gwen said sometimes they aren't useless, I think Ryan Whitehead??? maybe created a few that weren't useless too, but agree overhaul is overdue.

I have a lot of thoughts on CAMs and I've written an article. I figure I might as well get paid while airing my views. Now seems as good a time as any to post it.

The short version is : it would be super-cool if they get overhauled .