Dirty Breeding

(psst- post this in the suggestions, not theories--)

I would definitely rewrite it though to include how inbreeding has its advantages that cleanbreeding doesn't, (market is screwed over so I don't think cost has much of an affect until it stabilizes)

You would have to take into consideration how far back the shared relative was. A shared immediate grandfather is not the same thing as a shared grandmother that was 10+ generations back

I do have a slight catch with the term 'dirty' breeding. It just fosters antagonism between people who want non-inbred lines and those who don't care.

But either way, I do have a major issue with penalising inbreeding when the game mechanics punish you if you choose not to. Currently only one male wolf can breed to all your female wolves and it is a steep price to replace them, especially if they are also your lead. As such, unless you want to breed your wolf with his daughters/grandaughters, you have to use studs which is also expensive. Therefore, until this is changed, it would be extremely unfair to force players to use expensive methods in order to not be punished by making the most out of their sole breeding male.

Oh, yesterday I wrote a suggestion post about how hidden immunity genes could work an be introduced. Every wolf has two letters for their immunity genes, and inherit them from their parents. AB breeds with CD and has BC, DA, BC, etc. If RB breeds with RF, there is a 25% chance the wolf will be born with RR. If a wolf has RR, I just think they should have a weaker immune system and maybe make them more prone to sickness, more likely to catch it from others, or lose more health each rollover they are unsure. Check out my recent posts to read it, its kind of interesting as a theory but I want to hear others' opinions.

The pros and cons of inbreeding and not inbreeding already kind of weigh out though anyways, in my opinion.

Inbreeding pro: no restriction on the pool of wolves to buy and to breed to and overall easier to breed for certain traits.

Inbreeding con: no market interest from NIB breeders.

Nib Pro: market interest from other NIB breeders.

Nib con: Limited pool of wolves to choose from to buy and breed to.

Considering the pros and cons of either is the responsibility of a player, if you choose to breed either way you are accepting the positives and negatives of what you choose. I've learned that generally people don't like for the game to have realism features that would make the game less fun to them, and I think that even if immunity genes were realistic and interesting it would still affect a large part of players negatively. I love the concept, but by playing games we're all trying to escape the difficult real world, not bring it wish us

hmm.. the thing is though, not all inbreeding is bad. rodent breeders especially tend to use "line breeding". this is essentially a fancy term for inbreeding. more distant relations are used, like aunt to nephew, half brother to half sister. its actually a very common for breeding with actually a number of benefits ^^

the reason being, especially in rodents, health, temperament, and genetic testing to not exist. so with rodents, its very important that you breed two animals that outwardly show no issues with either of those three categories. many rodent breeders will set up their own "lines", and then breed from that, only out sourcing for fresh lines every few generations or so

its far more..stable, to breed from your own lines. you will fully know their genetics (as you would own their family), their health, and you would of course, know their temperament.

for rats for instance, sometimes hormonal aggression can pop up suddenly (which usually pops up around 4-6 months). there's know what to *know* that this is going to pop up, it seems to happen randomly. as a rat breeder, you would then backtrack the line, and possibly retire it altogether, or trace to see if its caused from a specific parent (all of moms babies with different dads develop HA, then its the moms fault).

this..wouldn't be possible, or as easy, had you used an outside rat. was it the mothers fault? the fathers? its impossible to know, or track the outside/new rats genetics as well, as you wouldn't own their family. you would need to get back in touch with the breeder they were purchased from, and hope they can backtrack and retire the line.

now: it is important to introduce new stock every few generations to avoid negative side effects. but in rodents (and specifically rats at least), line breeding is actually *useful* and important. if a rat breeder never line bred, it would be impossible to predict the genetics, health & temperament of the rats born! & thus, people who adopt rats..may get nasty surprises.

obviously, I understand this is rats & not dogs (or wolves) which are a whole lot different. but I think the idea of inbreeding/line breeding gets a "worse rep" than it should in animals. it can actually be a really useful tool when done correctly (and *not* breeding mother to son or sister to brother!).

I also think as humans, we anthropomorphise it a bit too much. we have morals and societal norms, and we're also not animals that need to be bred for health, genetics or temperament. therefore, I think we also push the "inbreeding bad" onto animals without looking at the bigger picture, which is that when done responsibility is a good tool, and doesn't instantly lead to puppies born with severe birth effects, but could actually lead to *strengthen* genetics & health.

i accidentally bred 2 siblings once 🚶‍♀️ 

- Didn't realize this was a ghost thread, my bad. Reply deleted.