Posted June 19, 2021 (edited) The Beginners' Heavy Horse Guide Firstly a note to say, I'm not an expert on breeding horses under the new system, with two toons at around 50AH when the update came out, I felt like a beginner too, but I read the patch notes carefully and came up with a plan to breed draft horses, and (so far) it seems to be working. I thought I would write a brief guide, not an expert guide, but a guide to follow my successes, avoid my mistakes and share my happy accidents breeding Heavy (draft/draught) Horses since the update. For this guide I am assuming you are at 50AH or just below, and not a high level breeder (you probably stopped grinding AH like many did on reaching 50) - if you are then I expect you will have your own better methods. During this guide I refer to 'old' 5-speeds, 4-speeds and 3-speeds etc - this has nothing to do with their age(!), but refers to the way they were described before the update. This guide assumes you are familiar with the minimum breeding age of horses (late adolescent). Step 1: Start Collecting horses: What horses can you get? What's your situation? (Ignore the bred in captivity trait!) A I have the old clean 5-speeds (3 speed 2 draft traits only) You are in a blessed yet awkward position because your horses have more speed traits than draft traits, so if you breed two 5-speeds the usual result will be another speed horse. To crack this, you need to breed your 5-speed with something else. See B. B My neighbours have a free horse pen with the old 1-4 speeds Do you live near a kind neighbour who has a free horse pen, giving away (or selling) their old 3 and 4 speeds? You've possibly struck gold. Ignore the old 4 speeds (at first), and any horses with any other traits than the old 5-speed traits - go straight to the old 2 and 3 speeds. Pick out some nice clean old 3 speeds with strong body and carry more and one speed trait (doesn't matter which) if there are any old 2 speeds with just strong body and carry more, grab those too! Note these horses will not have the draft horse shaped body (they only get that with 3 draft traits) so you you will need to right click Inspect them to check their traits. C I have access to wild horses Collect as many as you can reasonably collect, unless you have access to males described in B, in which case you could get away with just collecting females. Step 2: Pairing up and breeding Don't worry about sorting your horses into happy couples. If you only have access to one or two appropriate males - use them for most of your mares. You can breed them several times per day. If you have access to a FO priest, do get your horses cleaned up and healthy and remove negative traits first, it will make some difference to the success of the outcome. Pay attention to the inbreeding warning, and avoid inbreeding wherever possible. A I have 5 speed mares? Breed all your mares with (in this order of priority): 1 - old (clean) 2 speeds with 2 draft traits 2 - old (clean) 3 speeds with 2 draft and 1 speed trait 3 - old (clean) 4 speeds with 2 draft traits - strong body and carry more 4 - old (clean) 1 speeds with 1 draft trait 5 - wild - 0 trait horses 50% of the time (on average, allowing for RNG) the foal will take after the father (or non-5 speed if the other way round). In this case, for options 1 and 2 this should result in a draft dominant foal more often than not. For option 3 - there's about half the chance of 1 or 2 that you will get a draft dominant foal. For option 4, I have not tried this but it seems to me to be slightly more likely to produce a draft than breeding with a wild horse, it might even be more successful than breeding with a 4 speed - let us know! For 5, the parent is wild, so it's really pot luck. For the 50% of the foals that take after the mother (or 5-speed parent) - I'm sorry, they may most likely be speed based foals. B I have some 2 draft trait horses from the freebie pen? Awesome (the ideal scenario). Each of these horses will have strong body and carry more traits and so they are draft dominant - look at the 1 speed trait they have (if any) because you need to keep a note of this. Pair up your mares and stallions so that the 1 speed trait (if any) is different for each of them (if both have fleeter movement for example, this may increase the chance of fleeter movement being passed on, which we don't want - so find a different mare) A same pairing (Wrong!)Male: It has a strong body. It can carry more than average. It has very strong leg muscles. It has been bred in captivity. Female: It has a strong body. It can carry more than average. It has very strong leg muscles. It has been bred in captivity. A suitable pairing would be (Correct): Male: It has fleeter movement than normal. It has a strong body. It can carry more than average. It has been bred in captivity. Female: It has a strong body. It has lightning movement. It can carry more than average. It has been bred in captivity. You may only have access to old 4-speeds with 2 draft traits, or old 2-speeds with 1 draft trait (or worse!) - if so adjust your pairings according, ensuring that you don't double up on any unwanted traits - make sure any unwanted traits are not present on both the mother and father. C I have access to wild horses. Breed your wild mares with males in the same priority as shown in A. WARNING: Keep an eye on deed ratio (deed tiles per horse) during your mares' pregnancies - you can't afford to lose any, keep it above 15 (you can check this at the Deed Token > Info. Don't keep pregnant mares off deed. Step 3 - The next generation. New foals! so exciting! If you are lucky some of your foals may start to show 3 draft traits - these will usually be: It has a strong body. It can carry more than average. It is easy on its gear. It has been bred in captivity. Don't worry about the number of points as these will be capped at your AH level when you bred the foal. Some foals may have 1 or 2 draft traits - if you can afford to, just concentrate on the 3 trait horses for breeding next time. If you are really lucky, you may have a 4th or a rare 5th trait - keep hold of those foals until they are ready to breed. Some foals may have extra traits; miscellaneous, output or negative. After removing the negative traits, keep these foals safe until you have some good clean 3 draft trait foals, at that point you can put the ones with extra traits aside and concentrate on your new clean draft trait animals. This is the stage I am at - I'm just waiting for my 3 draft trait youngsters to grow big enough to breed! With luck, and increased skill I may get a 4th draft trait! Conclusion: I hope this guide helps. It is by no means definitive; advanced breeders will have far better methods, but I am hoping it will help others who have never ground their skill past 50, to breed themselves some lovely chunky draft horses Happy Wurming! - Muse Spoiler Edited June 19, 2021 by Muse RNG + small edit to Pairing Up and Breeding: B. 9 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted June 19, 2021 (edited) Nice guide, well done! A couple of comments: a) you need AH 65 to breed 4-draft horses (unless they have stealth buffed this in the patches without me noticing). b) You say that "50% of the time the foal will take after the father". Well it used to be that horses took mostly after the mother (mother's traits are weighted more), which people found proof of in the source code. I haven't heard anyone say that this has changed (?). Edited June 19, 2021 by CistaCista 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted June 19, 2021 On 5/26/2021 at 11:30 PM, DevBlog said: New: Traits now have categories, the majority category on a creature excluding negative and miscellaneous traits will influence how traits are passed on greatly preferring to pass on its majority to its child. Dominant category is picked from either the mother or the father randomly. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted June 19, 2021 Sounds like using two horses with mainly/only draft traits is the way to go if you can do that. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted June 19, 2021 8 hours ago, Muse said: For this guide I am assuming you are at 50AH or just below, and not a high level breeder (you probably stopped grinding AH like many did on reaching 50) - if you are then I expect you will have your own better methods. Laughs hollowly whilst drinking a cup of tears The "better method" appears to be finding a friend or alt with lower AH and doing as you describe here. High AH draft breeding is a desolate land of random pointless traits from all the wonderful old breeding stock with 5sp+ Anyways, wonderful thread, making it less daunting for those confused or having little success with the new system so far. Thank you @Muse! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted June 23, 2021 (edited) On 6/19/2021 at 3:18 AM, Muse said: This is the stage I am at - I'm just waiting for my 3 draft trait youngsters to grow big enough to breed! With luck, and increased skill I may get a 4th draft trait! The draft traits are worth 20 (useful), 20 (useful), 15 (useful), 10 (trash) points. At 50 AH, you can only get 2 useful and 1 trash (trash being the gear trait) draft traits on your horses. You want 55 to even have a chance at getting the 3 useful draft traits. You want 65 to get all four traits and not have to worry about getting the gear trait and having it block one of the other three useful draft traits. The methods you're using is excellent and this guide will likely help a lot of people. Some of the effort just seems a tad bit wasted if you stay at 50 AH and don't grind your AH to 55. Edited June 23, 2021 by Borstaskor 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted June 23, 2021 (edited) 4 hours ago, Borstaskor said: the effort just seems a tad bit wasted if you stay at 50 AH Of course, 50AH is just the point at which a lot of people are starting out. We're all grooming like mad in reality, and since making this post my AH is up to 58. It's a long slog but once I get up to around 65 like you say, even better results should be possible. Keep Wurming Grooming! Edited June 23, 2021 by Muse Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted June 23, 2021 On 6/19/2021 at 8:45 AM, SmeJack said: On 5/26/2021 at 4:30 PM, DevBlog said: New: Traits now have categories, the majority category on a creature excluding negative and miscellaneous traits will influence how traits are passed on greatly preferring to pass on its majority to its child. Dominant category is picked from either the mother or the father randomly. I must have terrible rng... most, lets say 80% are speed traited.. and I really do not want any of that.. even with 3-4 speed traits for the new creature - 1 of them is the water fake-useful trait; speed traits for me are more common on bison for example, and if drafts transfer.. they do not improve from 2 to 3.. when breeding old 5 speeds, something seems sketchy it's really really low chance to transfer and improve traits like this; so far no luck on my side to get a rare trait of any kind. I've done some breeding from 55(patch release) to 85-90~ maybe.. currently at 92AH.. but I am taking a break 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted July 8, 2021 Very useful guide. Thank you. I might take another shot at breeding some horses but nothing close to what i was doing before. But you guide does give me hope that its possible to create the draft horses. I am going to try your method and ill try to keep you posted 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted October 22, 2021 (edited) Yesterday I finally got my first 4 draft trait foal. 4 draft traits is 65 points, and for the longest time I was breeding with just over 65 AH but with no success. Dozens of 3 draft foals later, I then noticed a thread by @SmeJack which explained that this was due to a math / rounding error in the code, and thus why I wasn't getting any 4 trait foals. ..So I started grinding again towards 70AH. I believe I was watching a Twitch stream where KatsPurr ( @Malena) explained that she had this issue until she had 66 AH, at which skill she was then able to produce 4 trait draft foals. [Space for stream link - if/when I find it] My AH was 68 at this point, so I immediately stopped grinding and started breeding, and yesterday I got my first 4 draft foal BloodPure. TL:DR To get 4 draft traits foals we actually need a minimum 66AH. Good luck everyone! Edited October 22, 2021 by Muse 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted October 22, 2021 Its sad that you missed the part that said you only needed one more point, but its more sad that the problem still exists in the first place 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted October 30, 2021 @SmeJack No worries at all, my oversight, and it didn't take too long to grind. Fixed now with the latest patch too! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
