Y35 New Gender Selection Format

[Lisa Strummer]

I was curious about real life broodmares so I looked a few up. I know there are a few that only produced colts or fillies, but the only one I can remember at this moment is Flute, as of 2010 she has had only fillies.

The first mares I looked up all had disproportionate amount of one gender, so I looked up more mares to see if it changed. After looking at twenty random mares, 13 of them had considerably more of one gender foals, and 7 had a mostly even amount of colts/fillies.

Flute - 8 foals-0 colts, 8 fillies.

Teeming - 5 foals-0 colts, 5 fillies.

Beautiful Pleasure - 7 foals-5 colts, 2 fillies.

Winning Colors - 10 foals-2 colts, 8 fillies.

Baby Zip - 13 foals-9 colts, 4 fillies.

Surfside - 6 foals-5 colts, 1 filly.

Cara Rafaela - 10 foals- 3 colts, 7 fillies.

Felicita - 10 foals-3 colts, 7 fillies.

Secret Status - 8 foals-6 colts, 2 fillies.

Clear Mandate - 11 foals-8 colts, 3 fillies.

Hollywood Wildcat - 13 foals-9 colts, 4 fillies.

Jewel Princess - 9 foals-2 colts, 7 fillies.

Memories of Silver - 9 foals-3 colts, 6 fillies.


Mares with a more even amount of colts/fillies:

Troussaud - 10 foals-5 colts, 5 fillies.

Hasili - 9 foals, 4 colts, 5 fillies.

Viviana - 10 foals-4 colts, 6 fillies.

Serena's Song - 12 foals- 7 colts, 5 fillies.

Flanders - 12 foals-6 colts, 6 fillies.

Eliza - 14 foals-7 colts, 7 fillies.

Madcap Escapade - 6 foals-3 colts, 3 fillies.

[Louise Bayou]

I just don't see the need for gender control here in this game...even if the gender does slant more in one way then the other.

I like a lot of the realism in the game but at some point if it gets too real it loses a lot of the fun and fantasy aspect that drew so many here....including myself.

Stormy

Totally agree Stormy. This is a fantasy game and while I totally enjoy how real it is, some "fantasy" aspects of the game are needed and wanted.

[Bradley Davis]

Does someone have a year by year account of how many more fillies there were over colts?

Paul keeps track of the numbers every year (or has in every year since I joined) in his annual M/F thread in the Breeding section of the forum. I expect the numbers are in there.

Also, I don't understand why it even makes a difference?

So what if there is 60% fillies? They race - they retire...and can only have 1 foal (sometimes 2 foals a year). Where as the colts, a male can sire 1 on up into the hundreds each year. Those that can't become sires become pretty much worthless geldings upon retirement - whose only hope to do anything for a stable is to become a rodeo, event horse or something and even then...older mares that don't produce nice foals can do that too.

I just don't see the need for gender control here in this game...even if the gender does slant more in one way then the other.

I like a lot of the realism in the game but at some point if it gets too real it loses a lot of the fun and fantasy aspect that drew so many here....including myself.

Stormy

A stallion can't sire hundreds of foals without hundreds of females around to bear those foals. So the argument that a colt might contribute more to overpopulation than an out-of-whack number of females is a non-starter.

In the same way that some people 'don't see the need' to keep the number of extra fillies down, I don't see how the new rules really affect much. Look at it this way, you get to choose 20 per year. For me, I'll breed roughly 100 foals this year, maybe more, maybe less. I can pick the gender for 20% of them, for my most expensive leases or whatever. For the rest, there's still a 50% chance I'm going to get the gender I want, if indeed I want it. It's a coin flip; roughly half the time you'll get what you want. That sounds pretty good to me.

[Paul Heinrich]

Does someone have a year by year account of how many more fillies there were over colts?

Also, I don't understand why it even makes a difference?

So what if there is 60% fillies? They race - they retire...and can only have 1 foal (sometimes 2 foals a year). Where as the colts, a male can sire 1 on up into the hundreds each year. Those that can't become sires become pretty much worthless geldings upon retirement - whose only hope to do anything for a stable is to become a rodeo, event horse or something and even then...older mares that don't produce nice foals can do that too.

I just don't see the need for gender control here in this game...even if the gender does slant more in one way then the other.

I can't blame you for avoiding (or wanting to forget) the long, boring 500 post threads on this subject in the past. The bottom line is that the game developers have always been watching the numbers, and told us to police ourselves. A change in the system means they feel it's an issue.

As to *why* it's an problem if we have 60% filly foal crops, the heart of the issue is going to be fake horse number proliferation, and making sure the number of horses available doesn't outpace the number of trainers who want to enter them. If we can assume 33000 foals will be bred this year, a 60/40 split means roughly 6000 more fillies than colts, 19500 to 13500 (3000 "extra" fillies, or fillies over and above what would be expected with 50/50 selection). That's 3000 more potential broodmares in 3 or 4 seasons. The only number that really matters in this discussion is actual number of fillies born every year. Every filly born is a potential broodmare (obviously until pension or death). On a personal level, you can have a herd of 20 mares, and it doesn't matter if you have one stallion available to use, or 1000; you're going to have a foal crop of 20. Same concept with the SIM as a whole.

On the realism factor, that's an old debate I don't care to re-hash here, except to note that lots of people are attracted to the game for lots of reasons (including realism and a feeling of likeness to the RL industry).

[Ronnie Dee]

a much larger chunk of foals should never make it to the track

I think this change would be interesting and add to my enjoyment of the game.

a huge percentage of 2yos should have nagging problems that prevent them from running until they turn 3, not bucked shins that they recover from early in their 2yo year.

I think this change would be interesting and add to my enjoyment of the game.

For one year we are testing random gender selection. Your ability to breed whatever gender you want whenever you want will be taken away, but do not panic: You will get to pick 20 genders a year. That way you can select your lease genders or your most special mares whenever you want, although it will cut you off at 20.

I think this change will be interesting and add to my enjoyment of the game.

[Stormy Peak]

Not all mares are bred, just like not all colts are used for breeding...that is, I suppose the main point I have with it all....as to why one gender having slightly more than the other really matters.

I own like 463 mares, I utilize probably the same 40 or 50 every year, sometimes dropping a few and trying out other mares the next season and so on.

I also have been pretty good about keeping my crops balanced gender-wise.

Stormy

[Paul Heinrich]

Not all mares are bred, just like not all colts are used for breeding...that is, I suppose the main point I have with it all....as to why one gender having slightly more than the other really matters.

I own like 463 mares, I utilize probably the same 40 or 50 every year, sometimes dropping a few and trying out other mares the next season and so on.

I also have been pretty good about keeping my crops balanced gender-wise.

Stormy

According to the numbers I posted at the time (so not including CAHs or CAMs "born" later), 20,626 thoroughbred foals were born in Y31. 21,897 thoroughbred foals were born in Y32, increase of ~1200. That number jumped by ~1000 to 22,986 in Y33. Last year, 24,375 foals were born, a ~1400 foal increase. So over the course of 3 seasons, the number of TB mares bred increased by ~3600.

Slight differences year over year compound one another, and the cumulative effect is an ever-growing fake horse population. This would be more acceptable if it went along with an ever-growing number of trainers, and an ever-growing number of stakes races carded. Minus that, there are going to be gameplay issues. I'm not going to rehash those now either. But whatever we think of the significance of rampant fake-horse population growth, the bottom line is what the game-developers think.

[Rebecca Rose Hepburn]

Best solution, stop breeding crappy mares. Its what im working on!

[Chani Ruzzo]

Has anyone thought to contribute numbers to a rising population of game players?

[Bradley Davis]

I can't speak for the current situation Chani, as my impression is that the SIM is recruiting and keeping new players, but my recollection is that the problem was rising horse numbers without a corresponding rise in player numbers to own these horses. The current number of active owners is just over a 1000, and that's more or less where it has been since I joined in Y27. The number of truly 'active' players may have risen, but I don't know for sure.

[Abe Froman]

Has anyone thought to contribute numbers to a rising population of game players?

As Bradley said, I don't think the number of active owners has risen much, if at all. I don't ever recall seeing overall owners above 1100 since I have started in Y22, and it mostly stays stagnant around 1000. Since I'm a bit bored, I went and dug up a little data, and especially, since we are on break, I think this can be used to determine how many people are actually actively logging in, and breeding or getting ready to start the season. Also, part of this will take into account people that have signed up and will never log in again. When I did this in the past, it was also around 400-430, so I using the assumption that the number of active owners isn't changing much.

# People logged into the sim in last:
1 Day - 61
3 days - 181
5 day - 260
7 days - 296
14 days - 453

[Abe Froman]

I actually went back, and it appears my number may be off, though it seems a bit extreme. Basing it off the data I had for yesterday, it was showing 323 people as logging in on 2-2.

# People logged into the sim in last:
1 Day - 323
3 days - 431
7 days - 529
14 days - 653

For sake of the game, I hope these are more accurate numbers, showing that there is an actual growth in active accounts, though I figure there has to be a certain percentage of those that have logged in during the last 3 days that may never log in again.

Again, searching for what appears to be new accounts created in the last:
1 Day - 6
3 days - 16
7 days - 40

Either way, the active number could be considered somewhere around 500, which is higher than the 3-400 I used to think it was (I did something like this somewhere around 6 sim years ago maybe). Coincidentally enough, TBs that are 6 this year, there were 22822 bred, so at some point there was a decline in number of TB foals bred, while now that trend is increasing, as Paul points out. I didn't separate out the CAHs or CAMs, but I assume it isn't going to be a big difference. Only 6yo+ crops could contain CAMs, and 2+ could have CAHs.

Code: Select all

Age	# bred	% change
10	17870	
9	18737	5%
8	20223	7%
7	20438	1%
6	22822	10%
5	20477	-11%
4	21552	5%
3	22125	3%
2	23077	4%
1	24375	5%

[Charles Bunbury]

Selecting gender. Do twins count as one or two selections?

[Charles Bunbury]

Double post

[Mike Springer]

I wish I could sell or trade 10 or 15 of my gender selections to other trainers who need/want more. I will most likely only use 5-7 of them.