What is COI?

[GracelynEquus]

Hello, I was wondering what is COI? (also, is it with an "i" or an "l"?)

Also, is the higher the better or worst?

Thanks! <3

[BlackOak2]

Hello, I was wondering what is COI? (also, is it with an "i" or an "l"?)

Also, is the higher the better or worst?

Thanks! <3

As found in the 'frequently asked questions & getting started' guide in our help section:

How does COI affect my horse’s performance/physical well-being/fertility?
COI is prediction of genetic homozygosity. Essentially, it estimates how related a horse’s parents are. This can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on what the gene is. Inbreeding can increase the likelihood that a poor gene is enhanced, but it can also enhance a good gene too. There are over 110 genes in the game as of writing this. Some have positive effects, some have negative effects, and some are neutral (for example colours). Always remember that COI is an estimate; a horse could have much more or much homozygosity than its COI would suggest.

COI stands for 'coefficient of inbreeding' so it's coi and not col.

If higher or lower is better, it really is a choice. Having high-inbred horses doesn't really mean much right now (but it could in the future).
Right now, the real problem that comes into play is if you inbreed a line that suddenly starts popping up something you don't what... for instance tall ears or bushy manes... it can take a long time to breed them out and you'll need to use unrelated blood to do so (because when some things start popping up in an inbred herd, it means most or all of them are carrying the same genes).

[GracelynEquus]

.

Thanks!

[Aspenfalls]

Why would anyone want to inbreed? Doesn't that affect the horses' health in real life.. along with defect possibility/probability, etc.? Maybe it should be like that in the game?

[BlackOak2]

Why would anyone want to inbreed? Doesn't that affect the horses' health in real life.. along with defect possibility/probability, etc.? Maybe it should be like that in the game?

There are many reasons in real life and on the game to inbreed and many of them are similar. The basic reason to inbreed is to solidify or 'set' a specific gene. It is scheduled to be added at some point in the future, the downsides to inbreeding but it isn't yet.

So if you really like a horse, body style, type, build, breeder's report, conformation and scoring... so on... you may want to recreate this horse over and over again. Once the inbreeding COI soars somewhere above 90% (or so), repeat horses seem to start appearing. They won't be exactly the same, but they'll begin to appear more and more similar. Even higher COI's will offer what appears to be carbon copies.

Each person breeds differently, some of us like high COI to keep the carbon copies, some of us like low COI for practice when the downsides to inbreeding are introduced and also to keep the gene pool from NOT producing carbon copies. Some of us don't care at all about COI.

The best way I can offer some additional insight into why somebody might want to inbreed or linebreed is to offer this: Perhaps you like really long, bunny-like ears on your horses. In the general gene-pool, it will really only offer you so long. But if you find two horses with long ears and you breed them together, they might produce one with long ears, but also likely not. By using full-blooded siblings and breeding them together, or breeding an offspring to a parent, your chances of getting really long, bunny-ears increase drastically. Thus you begin a line of bunny-eared horses.