This is the very start of a new pillar of ETG: breeding!
When setting out to design the breeding feature, we knew we wanted a system realistic enough for breeding enthusiasts, that was still fun and approachable to all players. We have made extensive research into horse genetics and set up systems that imitates real life genes - actually, there’s an entire new tab in the horse info panel, where players can take a closer look at each horse’s DNA string. This genetic setup determines both what the horse looks like, and what personality it has. ETG horses both have realistic genes for appearance, such as agouti, red, cream and so on - and also our very own genes that determines its temperament, traits and more. We’re very excited to let you deep dive into the genetics and explore how the horses are built up under the hood.
With this first version of breeding comes 7 new coats: red dun, dunalino, dunskin, smoky cream, perlino, smoky black and smoky grey dun. Each of these come in several variants. As we continue to add coats, more and more possible coat outcomes will be enabled as we fill out all the gene variations. Champagne, Roan and Pangaré are just a few genes that we will further explore down the line. And of course - patterns! Needless to say, we’re very excited about the future of breeding.
In order for existing horses to be able to breed correctly, they will now be assigned genes, which they didn’t have before. The next time you update ETG, your horses will get genes that correspond to their look & personality, so that they can pass on their characteristics in a correct manner.
We’re very excited to bring true crossbreeding to ETG. Players can mix breeds freely, and if doing so, the foal will inherit its physical appearance from both its parents. If an Arabian and Friesian are bred, the foal will be an actual mix of the two - instead of getting the 3D model from one of them, for example. As far as I know, this hasn’t been done in the 3D horse game world before, and this will enable our players to create truly unique horses.
Inheritance quick tips!
- Coat color is inherited via genes & not randomized (note that the correctness of the coat outcome will improve as we add more coat colors!)
- The foal’s model will be an accurate mix of all existing breeds it is made up from
- The foal will inherit a mane and tail style that is allowed from one of the parents’ breed (down the line players will be able to change hairstyles)
- The foal will get a height in between, or slightly smaller or bigger than the parents
- For each stat, the foal will get a potential in between, or slightly over or under the parents’ stat (in this version, there’s no way of affecting this through gameplay)
- Temperament is inherited via genes (hint: check the TZ gene!)
We’ve included 2 new traits that work independently from other traits: “Purebred” and “Certified Purebred”. ETG players will know that we already have a competition class, Breeder’s Cup, reserved for purebred horses of each breed. This is to give all horses a fair and meaningful way to compete against peers with similar qualifications. Breeder’s Cup will continue to be open for horses with the new Purebred trait - that includes all horses bought from the Market or Created Horses, but not crossbreds. In order to be considered a Purebred, a horse needs to be >90% of one breed. So, you can mix breeds to breed for certain characteristics or stats, and then breed back to 90% of the original breed, and then have a horse that’s considered a Purebred. The horse also needs to be within the size span for that breed.
However, in order to reach the criteria of the other trait, Certified Purebred, the horse also needs to have an appearance that is allowed according to the ETG breed registry. This means that for example, Friesians are only allowed in a black coat color, and no markings are allowed except for a white star (check out the Wiki for the full breed registries!). The Certified Purebred trait has no effect on gameplay today.
Regarding inbreeding, the player will be prevented from inbreeding horses too much in ETG. If a horse appears in both horse’s family trees, those horses cannot breed.
The actual breeding takes place in a new building called the Breeding Facility. It’s built from the Estate view and like other buildings, it has 10 levels. Every other level adds a breeding slot, and every other level makes the gestation time shorter!
A breeding slot is occupied when: two horses are mating, a mare is in gestation, or a foal is born and waiting to be sent to the stables.
Today, mating two horses takes 4 hours. When the mating is finished, the stallion is sent to the stable and can be used again, while the mare remains in the breeding facility and the gestation starts. During this time, the mare will rest and cannot be used for riding, training etc. The gestation lasts several days, but the wait gets shorter with a higher level building. After the foal has been born, the mare needs a few days to recover before she can breed again, but during this time she can be trained and competed as usual.
Pedigree! A horse now has a pedigree tab in the stable view. Here, players can see the horse’s family tree and some information about the parents and grandparents. More stuff will be added here too!
Ageing was a mechanic we until very recently planned to ship with this version of breeding, but sadly we had to scratch it to be able to finish this update in time. We plan to add it as an update as soon as possible after summer.
This is the very first version of breeding. Small quality of life things we want to add are tooltips in the gene tab so players can read more about the genes. Being able to expand the coat probability calculator when breeding to read in letters which coats have a % chance of inheritance. And many, many other things. In this version, foals will start as 4 year olds, but we will of course add proper foals later on! We plan on bringing big updates to this feature for some time to come, this is really only the beginning. So, while we get back to work, we sincerely hope you will enjoy breeding in ETG. Thank you all for playing!