I’ve been thinking about this for a while, but haven’t ever remembered it long enough to post about it.
Basically, what I’d like to do is setup (at birth - and retroactively for current horses) a random age/date when a horse will need to retire from breeding, and another random age/date when a horse would die.
At the moment, the “rule” is that studs retire from breeding at 16, mares retire from breeding at 15, and all horses die at age 20. But since we’re adding so much realism to racing/training/ownership/etc, it seems a bit lopsided to not have horse ages/deaths be realistic as well.
If I get really fancy, this will also be affected by a horse’s racing career…more frequent races and more races in a racing career would mean the horse has a greater chance of a shorter breeding career and/or shorter lifespan.
So, presumably, if randomly generated, the age/date ranges would be:
Retirement: 10-20
Death: 15-25
So…what do you guys think? Vote, and please post your thoughts/opinions.
I voted for random death, retire at 15, but that’s becaue I don’t like the concept of horses sometimes retiring from breeding at 10. We originally put 15 (from what I remember) because we didn’t want too many horses/etc. However, now that we’re trying to “inflate” the number of horses in the game some and we’ve got more automation, I think retiring them that early is a bit unrealistic.
I’d be able to get more behind something like… random retirement between 15 and 25 and death from like 18-28 and then a random chance of horses (studs and mares) being infertile (so like I dunno, 1:100 chance of sterility)? And you could maybe do that each year for breeding stock to account for “accidents” (so stud could get sick or mare could have internal damage during foaling, etc). But there’d also be a chance of a horse being born sterile so that they’d never be able to breed. Might be a bit more complicated then what you’re looking for though
For Studs:
Random retirement age between 10-20
For Mares:
Random retirement age between 15-25
For both:
Random death age between 15-25 (Obviously if they’re supposed to die when they’re 18, they don’t get to breed until they’re 20/25)
The reason for this being:
Mares are already “at risk” of dying when they’re bred, both due to foaling complications and the strain of carrying twins
Studs generally have more problems physically continuing to breed…mares, generally, will keep breeding until they die if you can get them pregnant every year (as they get older if they skip a year it’s usually harder to get them rebred again the next year)
Our stud:mare ratio is insane at the moment, so I’m all for reducing the number of studs available at any given time
I would go with random, in RL everything is random… and as far as stallions & mares longevity in the breeding shed… welll Seattle Slew’s last foal Broke her 2 year old Maiden this year…she was born after he died… very long breeding career for that Grand Stallion… but look at the breeding problems with Genuine Risk… one of only three fillies to ever win the Kentucky Derby… only 2 live foals… both colts… and one is a gelding… he was gelded for a bad temperment…
Hey Shanthi… ever think about bringin in her son as a stud… nice bloodlines…
Sterility and accidents? Haha, thatd be pretty amusing actualy. When a mare reaches her random retirement age, will we get a warning the year before telling us the baby she is carrying is to be her last?
I’m open to considering any/all famous studs, provided that there is member interest and I can have some vague semblance of being able to replicate their abilities in a realistic fashion.
True, but on the flipside, you have Cigar, who’s infertile, and studs like Free House, who died at age 10. You also have mares popping out foals every year into their 20s (I rode a 23yo once who had a 2yo filly). So it goes both ways.
The only issue now is what to do with current breeding horses. If we take, say, a 14yo stud and generate a random retirement date for him, he could end up having had to retire at age 10…or he could get lucky and make it to age 19. So some of these “last year” studs may not actually have next year be their last year. (The same applies for mares, obviously.)
What I think I will do is generate a random date for every horse that is not set to retire at the end of this year (so basically anyone who is 14 or younger)…if their retirement and/or death dates are in the past (so they sould have retired at age 10, and now they’re 14), then they will retire at the end of this year. (For mares, this means that they would not be bred next year, but they would successfully have their 2010 foal.)
If their retirement and/or death dates are in the future, then they’ll get to continue breeding until they hit that date.
Please note: this means that a stud’s breeding season could be cut short if their retirement date is in, say, May…they will retire on that date, so if you don’t have your breeding in by then, you don’t get to breed to them.
For mares, I think I will modify the breeding code to check for a retirement date in the next year, and if there is one, then the mare will not conceive. (I may get fancy and check to see if she’s due to retire around the time she would foal…so say it’s currently 4/20/10, and she’s due to retire on 3/8/11…she would still be allowed to breed, but she’d be due to retire and foal at the same time, so the foal would likely be born premature.)
I’m assuming/imagining that if a stud retires pre-August of a given year then his status will become Retired Stallion as of the day he retires so that mare owners could book to different stallions (as opposed to simply never getting a foal the next year because the stallion retired but no one knew)?
Yeah…the end result won’t be that confusing. Horses will have a set retirement date, and a set death date…once they reach either of those dates, they will immediately retire/die. Once they’ve retired/died, they obviously won’t be able to be bred anymore.
The only slight confusion is what to do with mares…but as I said before, what I will likely do is check if the mare is due to retire within 345 days (normal gestation length) of the breeding date…if so, there will be a chance that the foal will be stillborn, a chance that the foal will be premature, and a chance that the mare will just not end up in foal at all. If not, the mare will be fine to be bred as normal.
OK, all horses now have retirement and death dates assigned.
Studs who will be retiring as of 12/31/09:
Class Act
Conspiracy Theory
Killing Time
Lucky Cigar
Redwood Prince
Resident Evil
Townsend Prince
Valid Wager
All other studs will retire at some point after Dec 31, 2009.
