Wolves and Dogs refuse to become alphas

[Valinor]

Hello! Just made a bug report for this, but I'm a bit concerned, because it looks like there have been multiple reports of this happening before which have since expired. I was hoping to find out if anyone else is having the same problem, and whether they could possibly contribute in the issue tracker so that it doesn't expire this time.

So onwards to the issue. My pack animals (Timber Wolves and African Wild Dogs, as I only have the base game) will NOT become alphas. That stupid "Unable to have mates as a beta animal" message refuses to go away. I've tried everything. I've tried:
1. Saving and restarting, both from main menu and from desktop
2. Sending the offenders to the trade centre and back
3. Boxing and unboxing them
4. Selling all pack animals and buying new ones
5. Turning off all sandbox settings
6. Turning ON all sandbox settings
7. New habitats
10. Brand new zoos with only one male and one female wolf or dog
11. Restarting my computer (lol)
12. Verifying the integrity of game files in Steam
13. And various combinations of the above

As you can see, I've exhausted all the options and this is definitely a bug. It's upsetting, because I just want my lil wolf pups already :'( This is for sandbox only, not sure if it's happening in the other game modes because sandbox is the only mode I play. If anyone else is experiencing this, please, please contribute to the issue tracker so it doesn't expire this time. Thanks!

 

[Arrakai]

I've had this issue too and the way I made it work was to have one male and one female and then wait for about a year or two. It seems it takes quite a while for them to become alpha, so you have to be a bit patient. And then when the pair have finaly become alpha I introduce more to make a real pack.

I see that you have tried the Only one male and one female, but for how long did you leave them there? a few ingame months or several ingame years?

 

[NZFanatic]

That's odd, I've only had this problem once, and it was because my alpha dog became too old to breed, but because I had fighting/death disabled the hierarchy never changed. I solved it by sending my alpha to hospice. This was before the update that changed pack behaviour, however.

Usually I start a pack with one male and one female and the male becomes the 'alpha' almost immediately.

 

[Chante Goodman]

Hey @Valinor! I spoke to the dev team about this, here's what they say:
"What we would expect to see is that individual wolves will take an in-game year (18mins at slow speed) before they can become alphas. If the player changes or moves the individuals, this might reset the timer.
If this is taking longer than 2 in-game years (36mins at slow speed) without forming a mates, we would like to check their save for a different genuine bug."

Please let us know if you've been having this issue for longer than two in-game years without changing or moving the animals, and if so, please send us your save file so we can look into this for you! community@frontier.co.uk is our email address.

 

[Valinor]

I tested the above suggestions to leave it running for an in-game year, and at first it didn't work in my original problem zoo (but did work in my other zoos that I was using to test). Then I went and reset the day-night cycle on a whim in my original zoo, because I usually play paused for long periods while constantly adjusting the time to see how things look in different light. Voila! Nearly instant alphas everywhere. lol I guess the game somehow got stuck because time wasn't moving the same with no day-night cycle? Incidentally, resetting it also fixed a few fertility issues I was having with my other animals. So it's all good now. Thank you for your help.

 

[Wistala]

Not sure how the day-night cycle works, but if you are changing the time of day, its possible you are "stopping" time or something. Good thing you got it fixed tho