Intended Difficulty Mechanisms?

[Jacob1989]

I didn't know where to post this thread, since I'm not certain of the things I've mentioned below. If I was certain I would have posted it to feedback. Feel free to change the subforum.

• Do animals favor inbreeding? I've placed several macaques in the same enclosure for the challenge, in which all macaques had 50% chance of inbreeding with the remaining population. My plan was to turn contraception on for those cases. Somehow 95% of all mating attempts were accompanied with an inbreeding warning which resulted in using contraception all the time and eventually I had to change plan.
• I had a pair of macaques that had 89% chance of conceiving, yet after like a half a dozen tries they were still unsuccessful (contraception was off). I was like a birth or two away from the next reward, so I wonder if this is an intentional mechanic to make it "more difficult".

I would really love to get an official response to this if possible, to know whether or not I just had bad luck within the same hour or if this is some sort of mechanic to make challenges more difficult.

 

[Jaggid Edje]

They don't favor inbreeding, but I think once mates are established for many animals, they aren't going to change. In other words, it may have been 50/50 initially, but once you lose that coin flip it stays lost.
Inbreeding is very easy to completely avoid, with just a single enclosure, but it requires "saving" animals in the trade center for future generations. Save 1 male, and however many females you want from each generation. The females go into the habitat for the "next" generation, the males go in 2 generations out.

So for my macaques for this challenge I started by buying two males and 5 females. The habitat got one of the males, and all the females. I saved 5 females and 1 male from that 2nd generation. Once the initial animals started getting old I put in all the generation 2 females that I saved and the 1 remaining trade center male from the start. Again, I saved 5 females and 1 male from that 3rd generation. Once those animals got old, I put in the 2nd gen male, and all the 3rd gen females. Repeat on down the line, always using males from 2 generations back, and females from 1 back. Never any inbreeding doing it that way, ever.

 

[Jacob1989]

They don't favor inbreeding, but I think once mates are established for many animals, they aren't going to change. In other words, it may have been 50/50 initially, but once you lose that coin flip it stays lost.
Inbreeding is very easy to completely avoid, with just a single enclosure, but it requires "saving" animals in the trade center for future generations. Save 1 male, and however many females you want from each generation. The females go into the habitat for the "next" generation, the males go in 2 generations out.

So for my macaques for this challenge I started by buying two males and 5 females. The habitat got one of the males, and all the females. I saved 5 females and 1 male from that 2nd generation. Once the initial animals started getting old I put in all the generation 2 females that I saved and the 1 remaining trade center male from the start. Again, I saved 5 females and 1 male from that 3rd generation. Once those animals got old, I put in the 2nd gen male, and all the 3rd gen females. Repeat on down the line, always using males from 2 generations back, and females from 1 back. Never any inbreeding doing it that way, ever.

I use that very method myself, it is very efficient, but I just wanted to test something out this time. And I agree, even promiscuous animals tend to mate with the same animal after the first "coin flip". That's what I had assumed, glad to see others have observed the same thing.