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[Albedo]

I had a breeding pair of muskoxen whitout buying. Also brought a pair of muskoxen...

Wait - how do you know the two you got for free were a breeding pair if you started with 4? 

[Untelligent]

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with a mod'ed experiment.  We have no idea how the code works and what other factors those tags affected.

If yours is the only counter-example, I'll have to discard it.  Black box and all that. 

(For example, did you know that if you add the "hunts vermin" tag to a dog, it will also adopt a master on its own, just like cats?  This is hardly predictable from what little we can observe, but it happens in practice.)

Albedo, I've been around quite a bit longer than you have, so trust me when I say I know the way the raws and the base game mechanics interact a bit better than you do; and that is that the game is intended to run the same, regardless of the contents of the raws. You can move things around to apply different mechanics to different creatures, but all in all, the vanilla raws are essentially Toady's own mod to the game.


Since you undoubtedly won't trust me anyway, I went and extracted the vanilla game fresh from the zipfile, and chose "Play Now" over and over again until I got a breeding pair of wagon animals, which I did. If you still don't believe me, here's a screenshot and a Dwarvideo.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-1317-yesitsabreedingpairofwagonmuskoxen

[Naia]

Wait - how do you know the two you got for free were a breeding pair if you started with 4? 

 When you buy you always get a different gender every second time. So if you buy 2 you always get one male and one female.
 As i brougt 2 (m+f), the other 2 have to have been the free pair.

[Albedo]

U -

It's not about believing you, it's hardly about trust, it's about methodology - what is true for a modded game doesn't seem approp to use as fact for the wiki.  And modding one thing ~does~ change others, that's a fact as well. You've seen it, I've seen it - it cascades.  The cat-tag thing is just one example.

If you say you finally got some, then... okay.  How many tries? Does it seem exceptionally rare?

The whole reason I followed this up was just that - it was sitting here several days, and I was surprised no one has said "Oh, hell yes, hundreds of times!"  You didn't before now, and you've been playing this game a long time.

When you buy you always get a different gender every second time. So if you buy 2 you always get one male and one female.
 As i brougt 2 (m+f), the other 2 have to have been the free pair.

Your assumption proves your conclusion.

How about this for alternate theory, with assumptions that prove my theory and nothing that contradicts your experience -

1) Starting draft animals are random with regard to species.
2) If you start with 2 draft animals of the same species, you always start with 2 of the same sex.
3) If you buy more of the same species, then ~those~ are alternated with what you started with.

So, you started with two of the same sex, bought two more, and those were alternated - 2 matched pair.

Sorry, your experience isn't conclusive, but thanks anyway.

[[deleted]]

Interestingly enough, I just had a horse give birth to a pair of foals (both female). The other animal that came with the wagon was a female donkey. Unless my dogs are breeding with the horses, it appears that the animals that come with your wagon start the game pregnant.

edit: And no, I didn't read this thread before making this post, sorry if it's old news.

[Albedo]

(It is, but it's related - no worries by me. 

Have Wild Horses ever wandered about on your map? There's some speculation that, since impregnation is telepathic, that's all it takes.)

[Derakon]

Albedo, nothing has changed. Odds are simply bad that you will get a breeding pair.

A quick look at the raws tells me there's 5 possible beasts of burden for wagons -- mules, donkeys, one- and two-humped camels, and musk oxen. I'm going by the presence of the TRADE_CAPACITY tag, so if that's not right, feel free to correct me. To get a breeding pair, you need both the right species (1/5 chance) and the right gender (1/2 chance), for overall odds of 10%. That is, one in ten times, you'll get a breeding pair.

[Albedo]

If that's all there is to it, then fine.

I'm still surprised no one like you can say "Oh, sure, lots of times" off the top of their head, just from experience.  There are scores of experienced players, and none have come forward to make that statement.  (Even Untelligent had to run some tests).

(Or maybe it's just not that big of a priority, that any experienced player would remember?)

But even then, that breaks the paradigm that animals always alternate sexes, in all situations.

[Rockphed]

Birth also violates the "Always, in all cases, alternate sexes of animals."

[Albedo]

True.  I meant when "purchasing/acquiring", but that's just more fuel on the fire.

Seems the absoluteness of this is a myth on several levels.

[Derakon]

Nothing alternates gender except for buying new animals at embark time. At any other time, the gender is randomized.

And the reason that nobody's leaping forward with this is because nobody cares. Getting a breeding pair at embark is not a huge deal; you just get some free meat, bones, and leather out of it. It simply doesn't register on your long-term memory, compared to all the other stuff you're doing when you work on that fort.

[Albedo]

And the reason that nobody's leaping forward with this is because nobody cares.

Well, if you can speak for everyone, I'll take your word for it.

To me, it's a big early advantage, to get a breeding program going maybe a year early.  But I guess experience will teach me better.

Thanks for your wisdom.

[yggiz]

And the reason that nobody's leaping forward with this is because nobody cares.

Well, if you can speak for everyone, I'll take your word for it.

To me, it's a big early advantage, to get a breeding program going maybe a year early.  But I guess experience will teach me better.

Thanks for your wisdom.

It is a big headstart, but it is also not a gamebreaker. In the current version, I got a breeding pair of horses once, pulling the wagon. I decided to use them, even though I shelled out dwarfbucks for cows and dogs at embark. I usually just pick an animal that yields large amounts of bones to raise.

I also like then the draft animals are both females. Then random wilderness animals of the same type, or visiting caravans' animals can also get them pregnant. I am unsure if I have had two females, but it is a boon when my female muskox gets knocked up by the first visiting dwarven caravan musk ox.

In the long run, it doesn't usually matter. I will have my horde of livestock anyway. And all I have to do is wait for the elves to bring something cooler.

[Untelligent]

I still don't understand Albedo's comparison with dogs and the verminhunter tag. Of course it makes dogs hunt vermin and adopt owners, that's what the tag does.

[zchris13]

Yah, Albedo's flippin out.  Going all serious business on this problem.

And nobody remembers their starting animals.  I barely even check.