Best levels to train horse before breeding for saving horseshoes?

mbarb3 (US1)

I tried replying to the "Help instructions & tips for horse breeding & training" thread here, but that thread seems to be abandoned, so I thought I would ask here. If this is not allowed, please let me know and I'll delete this post!

I wanted to figure out how the % that are displayed influenced the actual saved horseshoes, so I recorded how much it cost to train up my own horses to different levels, and I learned some info:

• Level 10 is the first time that a % shows up the breeding window, which gives -25% to training cost
• At level 11, it gives -50% to training cost
• It is cheaper by ~500 horseshoes to level a pair of horses to level 11, breed, and then level the resulting horse to level 13, rather than level the pair of horses to level 13 and breed
• It is cheaper by ~100 horseshoes to level a pair of horses to level 11, breed, and then level the resulting horse to level 13, rather than level the pair of horses to level 10, breed, and then level the resulting horse to level 13 

I posted a link & photo of my calculations in the post mentioned above if anyone wants to see them.

These quotes are also from the above thread:

Nafaru wrote: »

The % displayed only indicates how much your current horse has already veered off the optimal breeding path and how much better off you would be after breeding. In general we would like you to breed often in order to not waste too many training points.

This also means that a big % is actually not so much of a good thing to achieve, as you have to invest a lot more training points to begin with in order to get to higher percentages.

Hence I would advise you to breed rather early (not too early, though, as soon as % are shown is a good time) and only with 2 horses of roughly the same breeding value in order to not lose any progress.

I hope it's at least a little more clear now.

Regards,
Steffi

aaabbb1 (INT1) said:

It does not work like happines!. The -84% reduction and -8% reduction acctualy lead to the same reduction. Did you noticed that these procentages start apear at the same time as traninig becomes hard? This is because they mean the same thing.
What is worse and what is better depends on how you look at things:


1. At the short range, a -84% is worse, but the harm was already done. It just means that for the last one or two levels of breeding you used more horseshoes than you should. If you did a breeding two levels before, you could reached these last two levels with less horseshoes.
2. If you look a larger picture, pushing level or two above "ideal path" can save you one breeding in a long run and save you some time and some horseshoes. Or if you have a lvl 69 horse, maybe is better to waste a couple of horseshoes to bring it to lvl 70 because of the new effect, esspecially in the middle of turnament.

So, to conclude, the window for breeding starts from the moment these procentage start to show up and ends some two to three lvls above, depending on personal situation.

I'm confused about the benefits of training past the first time the % shows up, especially around which points it becomes harmful.

TL;DR, calculations show that training horses to higher levels to get a larger % training cost reduction is beneficial beyond when a % first shows up, but it does become more expensive at a certain point. Is there a way to figure out those points, apart from just trial and error?

BriannospamGame (SKN1)

Training and breeding horse in Bigfarm is 'a little' complicated, and you may have to do a lot of choices, both strategic choices and fingerspitsgefül choices.... and ofen your are on you own to do what you find best to do.  

But I can tell you about how do it.  

If it cost more than around 300-350 horseshoes to raise the  breeding value minimun one level, I feel it's not worth to use more horseshoes on that horse... it's time to breed it with another horse.

mbarb3 (US1)

Yeah, figuring out the numbers for benefits took so much work, and that was just for finding which level was better in comparison to the level 13 suggested by Larino's Corner, and only for the first breeding.

But with levelling and breeding after that, I have no idea. If you train past the ~10 level mark that seems to be when the % show up, does the pattern of "train past by x levels, then breed" continue, or does it change? The first % that showed up after training my level 11 bred horses to level 21 were at 8%, nowhere near the first 25% that showed up when I trained their parents to level 10.

EDIT: I trained the pair of horses to level 21, and the % jumped to 50%. I'll add more info about the benefit/detriment of this when I get their offspring to level 25 for comparison. 

mbarb3 (US1)

Or even, if the horses had been trained to level 10 and bred then instead, would their offspring have had % show up at level 20, and would it have been larger than 8%? Or more beneficial in the long run?

It could be tested with trial and error, but that would take an enormous amount of work. Is there a better method?

!!!_396723 (GB1)

I've no idea if this is the most efficient way, but I always train my horse to the point where the number of horseshoes required for the next level doubles from the previous level - this usually occurs at multiples of 11, so I breed the horses at level 11, 22, 33 etc.

This progression does not work if you have bought a horse from the market, but I still use the same principle of training until the horseshoes required for the next level increases substantially.