Again, apologies for another post, I've had a lot of time to play and experiment with the game recently, I won't have as much time soon so I'm trying to get as much in as I can at the moment. Also, I think i'm getting a bit too excited perhaps about the progress the game is making and the potential that there is.

I think I've found what could be the issue with horses being overraced and such a big dichotomy between some horses running a lot and many others not running at all, and have a few suggestions that could fix this and really improve the AI.

So I'm playing with a large pool of 17000, this enables the game pool to reflect the number of horses in training in real life. With this size pool there is around 4300 2 year olds per season, this number is similar to the number of 2 year olds in training in the UK. However, come the end of the season, of this approximately 4300 2 year olds, 2700 are unraced, this means that throughout the season only around 1600 have ran. This is unlike real life, where a far greater percentage run. I think this fact that so many more horses are unraced than those that are raced is leading to horses having too many runs, as the same horses are having to run again because others are remaining unraced.

And this percentage seems to be pretty fixed, I have tried a few different schedules, including ones I've made with a lot more 2 year old novices, maidens and nurseries, and so a lot more opportunities for new 2 year olds to run, and this did decrease the number of unraced horses at the end of the year but only very slightly, as most of the additional 2 year old races I added were filled with horses that had run. Which leads me to think that there is something inbuilt into the game to have this ratio of raced to unraced 2 year olds, as it appears to be difficult to change this ratio, dispite changing the number of race opportunities drastically.

I think if this ratio can be unfixed or fixed to be far more in favour of raced horses then this will mean a lot more 2 year olds will have run come the end of the season, with new horses racing in place of others that have already had runs, therefore levelling out the number of times horses are racing a little bit, and leading to more unexposed horses with good form going into the 3 year old season. Realistically, another 1500 2 year olds could run in the season, and there would still be over 1000 unraced horses going into the 3 year old season to still have some realistic fields in early season 3 year old maidens and novices, with some unraced horses being introduced.

If this can be done I think it woulld greatly improve the AI and the issue with overraced horses.

Some other suggestions that could help with this I think are for conditions such as maxruns and maxwins to work if the number is set to 0, currently maxruns=0, doesn't work, however I think it should, as this would allow us to make races like the Wood Ditton Stakes, which is for unraced 3 year olds, as well as some 2 year old races that are strictly for unraced horses, such as the newcomer concept in Japan. This would also of course allow races to be added that force new horses to run.

I think more than one condition should be able to be added to a race, currently if there is more than one it doesn't seem to work, I think this might be a bug as there doesn't seem to be a reason why they don't work.

And also, as mentioned before, something to stop horses running so close together needs to be added I think, I know some improvements have been made to this, but they don't seem to be having an effect, and I think something more fixed should be added, as it is happening quite alot in my game.

It would be great if these things can be changed/added, and I think it would improve the game even more.

Thanks, and sorry for the long post.

I think I've figured out how to get more than one condition working on a race, it seems to be working with a comma between the different conditions.

I dont think posts like this are useful. You only have to go through this thread to see that lots of changes have been made and the game is really progressing in this area.

Yes it does work. And what area are you referring to?

Maiden and novice races have seen huge progress.

The code would be:

NAME>Ebf Maiden<RACECOURSE>Sandown:cc_flatTurf1<MONTH>Jan<PRIZE>14000<DISTANCE>5.0<RACECATAG>MAIDEN<AGE>2YO

There is no reason why maxruns and maxwins can't work with 0 so I'll change this. Handicapping tweaks can be made regarding dropping certain horses a bit more and we will see what happens with that. It could cause issues elsewhere but there is a shortage of lower rated horses in certain categories. I suspect many of the horses that don't run are down to horses that prefer longer distances not having enough opportunities.

<CONDITIONS>maxruns=1 comes at the end of the code above, and yes with this you can limit any race to horses that have ran only once. Itll be great to have maxruns=0 working too. And there shouldn't be a problem with void or walk over races, I've added a lot of races with these conditions and haven't seen any.

If the ratio of raced to unraced is not fixed then there is plenty of horses to not ever have a problem with void races or walk overs. So its great that Mark is suggesting there isnt and that the amount of unraced horses is down to other factors.

I do agree that it doesnt seem to be distance related that a lot of horses are going unraced.

I'm not sure you can make it that high, 6 is the highest I know works. But if more horses are running and you can add conditions to some races I dont think itll be necessary as horses should generally be running less anyway.

In my game (stock Australian schedule), for older horses, it's definitely distance issues. For horses that run 1m1f, 1m3f, 1m5f and above, there are very few handicaps at low levels. In some cases, there's one C3 handicap a month. Which is not great for my C6 horse, who can barely cope with C6, let alone horses that could be C2 competing in a lower class. Even in 2yo maidens, I get to the same time of the season when the novice races start and notice that I always end up with 2yos who now have the stamina to run 1m2f or even 1m4f. They're now too slow to win a 2yo maiden and develop potential, when they could actually grow up to be good horses if they had a good 2yo season.

Actually, that might be a thought? The AI seems to only enter horses in races that suit them, so if they're getting 2yos that have the stamina to run further, would they still enter them in the 1m maidens and novices? Because if the AI-bred 2yos work the same way the player's 2yos work, they need a certain amount of runs to actually develop to their best potential, which means they'd be worse 3yos.

I am seeing a lot of staying horses running in mile and above maidens and novices as 2 year olds, and the horses that are unraced seem to be horses of all distances, which is good, the problem is not with distances I think, just that there are too many unraced horses come the end of the season, regardless of their preferred distances. Hopefully if a lot more 2 year old opportunities are added and the inclusion of maxruns=0 working, this will help to encourage more horses of all distances to run at 2.

This assumes a significant increase in 2 year old opportunities, which has not happened, at varying distances. An equal number of 3 year old maidens, novices and condition races would be needed to enable horses to find their grade

It can happen if more opportunities are modded in, the schedule I'm working on has a lot more. The stock schedule could do with more, but as every player may play with a different pool size, the game cant make too many opportunities as those with smaller pool sizes will then get horses running too often as they'll have too many races and mot enough horses. A small amount of modding is necessary to have the game closer to specific ways of playing. I'll be happy to share my schedule when it's ready and some more updates have come.

maxwins etc. should work with zero 0.146.

Also some handicapping changes as decibed in the release notes. It needs to be small steps in case problems are caused elsewhere so please continue with the constructive feedback.

Great! Thanks Mark. I dont think there are huge changes needed to the ratings of lower rated horses so small steps shouldnt be far off.