I think the rating system needs a total overhaul, so that, just running in a black type race doesn't boost ratings, it would be based upon how you place in the race. But this wouldn't stop the current system whereby poor horses are running in decent races, boosting their ratings and thereby entering better races. The AI knows what every horse's stats are, and therefore should be able to limit the quality of horse entered in specific races, and then adjust ratings accordingly. As has been mentioned, there is a trend of horses winning a maiden/novice and then at 3, 4 or 5 running in a claimer/seller. This is great for us then picking up decent horses for very little money, however, is poor for immersion and reality purposes. A trainer would know the horse is way too good for a seller or claimer and would enter it in a conditions race or listed race, but there are far too few opportunities as the schedule is still outdated by a long way, so these horses don't run, have no rating, and then the AI enters them in a seller or claimer.

My current stable is 162 horses, I've done some weeding as it was almost 200. I am currently on 15th March and there are very few opportunities for example for 5 furlong handicappers. I have maybe 20-25 handicappers that want 5 furlongs, there are 2 to 3 races available in the next month of 0-95 or below, and the problem persists through most distances. The number of horses in the game has increased with each edition of Starters Orders, as has the size of stable you can have, but the schedule is still the same one as from much earlier editions of the game, if not from the outset. There is nowhere for a great proportion of the horses in the game to run competitively.

I am not a programmer, 2 of my kids are (1 qualified and 1 about to enter 3rd year of her degree) so I do not know how to code or how difficult the changes are. There has been time and resources spent recently on the online league as recent patches testify, I am hoping the schedule and AI issues are receiving greater attention as a very large proportion of players do not use the league.

It is so annoying. There is a great game in there fighting to get out, but the same limitations are holding it back as have done in the past. I just hope Mark can sort them.

Rant over for now.

I'm not interested in league, but I think I may be, at least that has posted feedback, one of the few that played around with the "hide horse stats" option which has been there and working for many patch cycles.

So I will add, this issue has far more importance in a game where the bars are hidden, whether it is by choice or for league.

If you can't gauge the horse's bars, and the AI has a trap in rating 2yos (with a ripple effect), then how can you ever determine anything? Winning time maybe? But even that won't help unless you breed only horses that prefer to set the pace.

For hidden bars, this is important to fix.

After the latest post; 0.137, which mentioned some minor changes to the trainer AI in regards to lightly raced horses, I've spent the morning playing the game, and to be honest, haven't noticed a difference.

It would be good to know exactly what the changes are that have been made so we know what to look for when playing, but to me horses are still running way too much. Those that are lightly raced seem to not run in feature races, with poor formed overran horses taking the places instead.

There is still the problem with horses that win first time out in maidens and novices seeming to not run again. Novice races never seem to have horses that have won first time out running in them, as if first time out winners are for some reason ineligible for novice races, something that should be fixed because these novice races are often the only place these horses can go after winning first time out, other than into black type races, but they don't seem to run in these neither, as mentioned above, overraced horses are taking their places in these races.

Novice races seem to attract poor horses, often horses that have had quite a few runs and low ratings, whereas maidens attract newcomers and lightly raced horses, I think this should be changed around so novices are more valuable as far as rating and prestige go, as others have mentioned. If novices are considered better races then perhaps it can be in such a way that novice winners are encouraged to run in black type races.

Hopefully this can continue to be looked at.

In real life racing though, novice races are not necessarily better races than maidens. The vast majority of novice races in the UK are Class 4 or Class 5, which is a low standard. You occasionally get Class 2 and Class 3 novice races, but not all that often. Maiden races can also be anything from Class 2 to Class 5. A Class 3 maiden is a better-quality race than a Class 4 novice.

Ideally, the game should generate maiden and novice races of different classes (much in the same way it generates handicaps of different classes), with appropriate levels of horses entered for each. The standard of horse should depend on the class of race, rather than whether it's a maiden or a novice race. I'm not sure how easy it would be to implement this at this stage of development, but this would definitely be the most realistic direction in terms of being closer to real-life racing.

Novice races were introduced primarily to give lower-quality horses more opportunities before moving on to handicap races, without excluding horses that have previously won a race. Any horse that is likely to be group standard would usually run in a maiden or a novice race as a starting point (maybe one of each in some cases), and then just move up to better races.

Yes, I think you are right, if there could be maidens and novices of different classes it would be great!

I also think that the point others have made about not enough lower class races is important, because horses that have ran many times but never won often run in maidens, whereas perhaps they should really be running in handicaps by then, and then maidens and novices could have horses that are more lightly raced.

There's been a lot suggested and I think its difficult to mnow exactly what will work, but It would be nice to have a bit more work done on this side of the game, so we could see what may work.

Another good point on class of races vs realism. Of course the game was handicapping for AI purposes the Maidens as all high class, and Novices as all very low. In the sim, the rating should be closer to the quality of the horses it beat in the win (esp. with the entries issues). Since it seems some of the fairly good horses have the choice of not racing at all or entering a Novice.

Adding class to the races may be more realistic and cleaner AI call on what to enter where and how to rate a win, Cons: may be more involved schedule change?

I've not had time to test the changes yet. Have the grandchild this weekend, and not gotten time to play through a full season. So I have no opinions on change so far.

It am excited to see it is getting worked out!

I've only skimmed most of this thread (though I think you make some great points about over-running) and just wanted to respond to this in particular:



If by "start of the year" that means January, since I've noticed the generated races seem to be the same no matter which country you're playing in, this actually does suit the AU schedule, in that we only have Novice races towards the end of the season. In fact, in the AU schedule, we start in August and there are no Novice races at all until January 1st. I dislike it, because it means that any 2yos who win their first Maiden in August/September do nothing but eat food and chill out for three months of the season. When they're the ones I actually want to race again.

Though, in the AU schedule, all the Maiden and Novice races are C4s? Like how Claimers are C7 on the schedule.

I think the key point to fixing the AI issues in regards to horses running too often, poor field quality in good races, almost no unexposed horses in 3 year old races such as classic trials, is that there is a huge divide between almost half of the horses running way too often, and almost half running once and then not again.

This works against itself as the horses that run too often seem to be the ones filling the entries in feature races, obviously therefore meaning they run even more, whereas of those that have run only once, so many don't run again, or at least don't do until the next season or the season after that.

The point raised about horses winning first time out not running again may not be as valid as I thought it was, as it seems there are just as many horses that have ran once, not winning, that then don't run again, so it might not be anything to do with winning the race, just an issue with so many horses having a run and then not running again.

I think a good place to start for fixing the AI issues would be to even out the number of runs horses are having, for example if you take all horses of one age group, at the moment you may have the total number of runs for that age group at say 20000 for example, with maybe 16000 of those runs being ran by about 40% of the population, with the other 4000 runs coming from the other 60%, with most having one run, some having a couple and some none. This could be levelled out a lot more.

Of course there will always be some horses that run more often than others, but generally speaking it could be evened out more.

Also, at the moment it seems that its feature races that work as automatic preps for other feature races, regardless of where horses may have finished in previous feature races, this means feature races are being filled with horses that have previously ran in feature races, so these horses are running a lot, when there are so many horses with one or two runs in maidens or novices that could be progressing to feature races, which would give them a place to run to make sure they are not being stuck and never running again, and also give the feature races far more realistic fields.

So perhaps something can be put into the AI which makes novices and maiden winners more likely to progress onto feature races, particularly late season 2 year old and early season 3 year old maiden and novice winners. I have noticed the game seems to have an inbuilt prep system, whereby often horses that have ran in race A for example, tend to go on to run in race B. This happens all throughout the game, so if this is in fact something that exists, perhaps more novice races and maidens can be used as inbuilt preps for feature races in order to help encourage these horses to go onto feature races.

Another quite simple change to the schedule that I think will help, is that currently there are way too many early season 2 year old maidens and novice races, way too many!

By reducing the amount of these, it would mean 2 year olds run less because there will be less races in the early season for them to run in, leading to more horses with fewer runs. And also, these races can be replaced by much needed lower class handicap races to give options for lower class horses to run in.

Another quite simple change to the schedule that I think will help, is that currently there are way too many early season 2 year old maidens and novice races, way too many!

By reducing the amount of these, it would mean 2 year olds run less because there will be less races in the early season for them to run in, leading to more horses with fewer runs. And also, these races can be replaced by much needed lower class handicap races to give options for lower class horses to run in.

On the issue that someone raised with certain horses winning at 2 and not running again (or finally running in a seller) there is a bug that has been unearthed today that results in the AI viewing a horse with only one run from the previous season as very poor. It also results in that horse having a lower handicap rating if and when it get's one. This will affect all horses with just one run in their first season and not just winners.

A patch should be available tomorrow.

Hi Mark, great to hear that a patch will be out to fix this!

I second that emotion Just need the much needed overhaul of the schedule. The field for the 2000 guineas in my game, as you know I play very slowly, in season 3 I think (same game as since release) is finally looking like a quality field for such a prestigious race We may soon have a serious game on our hands. Any news when the schedule overhaul will be complete Mark?

Wow u boys want everything done for u, u can make any race stronger if u prep it up uself that doesn't take very long and u can mess and write races uself. There is not one race in my US game i've not done myself and it doesn't take ages to do. If u want something done then do it uself, it's not hard to do.

You are missing the point ghosty. I make my own schedules too,the issues raised are suggestions for improvements to the AI that we cannot do ourselves. Believe me, over the last few editions I have tried every possible way of modding the schedule and showcase to make it as realistic as possible, and it works to an extent. But there are limitations because of some issues with the inbuilt schedule and AI, all we are doing is suggesting improvements that we feel are needed in order to improve the game and make it that much more realistic.