Lead wolf gender selection chat

Let's chat lead wolf gender selection.

Did you choose a male or female, and why? 

Are there any particular in game benefits to keep in mind when choosing one or the other?

Do you feel studding is more successful with a lead wolf acting as stud or a separate wolf acting as stud?

Interested to hear everyone's input 😁

1) If you're not breeding your lead wolf, then it doesn't matter.

2) If you are breeding your lead wolf, females have some disadvantages: they get less energy while pregnant, and there's an annoying issue that if you explore before rollover and lose 1% hunger, the pups won't get the survival boost.

I think it makes sense to breed your lead wolf, since the lead wolf and two scouts are the wolves who gain XP (and thus level up and gain stats) the fastest, and stats are important for breeding. I think having your breeding male as your lead wolf is probably the best option, since that way you can level up faster by doing more battling, plus breeding female lead wolves have the hunger issue.

That said, my lead wolf is a non-breeding male, because he's my starter and I don't think it's really worth the GC to replace him (plus I don't really want to kill him, and there's no non-killing method to retire a lead wolf).  But my next lead will be my breeding male, I think.

I chose a lady wolf because I'm a lady. Not that complicated lol. I also made my companion a girl. Not sure how I feel about that, ultimately. Simple fact is that my breeding male has given me ten uninteresting babies lol

My lead wolf was an amalgamation of two male characters, so... he's male, haha.

I chose female because having a female leader is nice for once compared to Lioden.

Female leads have the problem of short energy regen and worrying about hunger when pregnant and having pups, but I still think I prefer them because of the stats.

Lead wolves gain a lot of stats and there’s no shortage of high stat studs, so if I have a female lead I don’t have to worry about getting a decent looking, not nbw female and training them as a scout to get better stats. This is more relevant early game and for people not buying a lot of pups out of the pack though. 

Oh interesting! You're right that if you're focusing on pup stats, it makes sense to focus on getting high-stat females and breeding them to highest-stat outside studs.