Posted November 2, 2012 I have a few specially mated pairs. I'm Somebody X I'm Nobody, Saving Superhero X Super Villain, and Turbo Tracks X Autobot Tracks. I rather enjoy it; all of the above pairings have given me over twenty babies, and those kids all have special naming schemes. The best of them is Saving Superhero X Super Villain with 114 babies. I find collecting their children to be fulfilling. Other than being fun though, I'm not sure there is any real advantage to it. I usually only pair commons together anyhow so that I don't limit myself when it comes lineages with my rarer dragons. Share this post Link to post
Posted November 2, 2012 I have some "lifemated" pairs because I like coming up with descriptions and stories behind it. My two notable ones involve my two CB dark marrows. gOTH x Lord Darkflame will only mate with each other. All their offspring are vampires and dark marrows, and a zombie that I really wish would appear on the progeny list. Lady Giggler will only breed with Darkscourage (and all their offspring are zombies and Dark Marrow), but Darkscourge isn't quite so faithful. It's a rather dysfunctional relationship, but she falsely believes that if she sticks around long enough she can change him. And that's how her sad story goes. Sometimes I wish I could breed gOTH with someone else, for lineages and the like, but I also know that I'd regret it. I already regret breeding Darkscourge with others, but I built that into their storyline so I'm okay with that. Lord Darkflame and gOTH are quite loyal to each other, though, and I'm not going to break that because their story is worth more to me than the breeding convenience of splitting them up. Others are "lifemated" because it keeps things more organized and simpler for me. The dragons in my breeding projects will not breed with other dragons in the same lineage project, as it's the only way I can ensure no inbreeding. If there's a refusal I breed another dragon whenever possible, rather than mixing up my pairs. That said, these sorts of "lifemates" are for convenience only, and if I decide I want to mate a 4th gen purebred red with a 4th gen something-else, I'll use one I've already got rather than breeding another, and I'll know that I won't get confused because the mating dragon would not be one from my lineage project. If I were going to breed a dragon from one of my lineage projects to a dragon that I could confuse as its lineage project mate, of course, I'll breed another one instead and "lifemate" that pair, so as to keep my lineage project clear and understandable for myself. Likewise, my tinsels are generally "lifemated," although again this is convenience, and I would have no problem splitting them up. The majority of my dragons, though, are rather open with their breeding habits, and that's okay, too. Share this post Link to post
Posted November 2, 2012 If I could find a mate for my metals that would consistently produce eggs, I might life mate them. But other than that I just do whatever looks good together, or whatever seems like it has the best chance of producing. Share this post Link to post
Posted November 2, 2012 I would say the greatest Pro for life-mates is for description purposes. I always describe my dragons, so some descriptions do include their mates and children. All of my dragons eventually have mates, but they aren't all faithful. I like even gens, especially checkers, so many of my CB dragons mate outside of their chosen partner. I usually don't have pairs split up, they just have what I call "by-blows" with other dragons for my random projects. I have 2 CB Marrows, and they both have lineaged mates and children; but this year neither bred with their mate, they bred with other CBs I have, so I can make some more checkers. And when the Black Striped Dragon was released, my Blacks and Stripes bred with dragons other than their chosen mate. Things like that. Share this post Link to post
Posted November 2, 2012 I tend to keep my pairs life mated, and the only times they aren't are misclicks, with the exception of one male. This guy had three mates, that are gonna help me start a planned inbreeding project. I wanted to do something different from breeding brothers and sisters, so I'm breeding half-brothers and half-sisters. I'm going to see how inbred I can make them (by inbred quotient standerds, not dc standerds) without ever breeding brother-sister, and while allowing for extra mates ourside the lineage to give each male three mates. There's a story behind this as well that I'm putting in their descriptions but thats the only purpose more than one mate on my scroll Share this post Link to post
Posted November 2, 2012 There is no way I can find lifemates for all of my dragons, so I usually go to a breeding page and click the first dragon there. I don't pay attention to that kind of thing very often, I prefer mixing and matching. Share this post Link to post
Posted November 2, 2012 I don't have any dragons that have fixed mates. I just find the whole idea of it a little limiting. I find that, for me, there are more pros for switching it up a little, and I can't really see many pros for keeping lifelong mates, other than RP reasons and the ease of just clicking the dragon at the top each time. Share this post Link to post
Posted November 3, 2012 I try and keep certain dragons with a life-mate when I'm making lineages so as not to confuse myself. But I find it easier to breed certain rarer dragons that I only have one of with multiple mates. Also, it's nice to mate multiple times to see which dragons look pretty with which. Share this post Link to post
Posted November 3, 2012 I usually don't care about life-mates, but I have about two or three pairs. I usually choose lifemates with how their childrens' lineage is going to come out. Share this post Link to post
Posted November 3, 2012 I have a few that I continue to mate to certain pairs, but nothing is written in stone. Some will do really well for awhile, then they stop, so I may pick out another mate at that point. I have a tinsel that I started with one mate, and it would always give me the common offspring (this is when the tinsels actually bred...) and when I changed the mate, I got better results. *shrugs* I really don't see any cons to keeping life mates except for that issue, but I don't think either way is better than the other. However you like to play the game. Share this post Link to post
Posted November 3, 2012 I'm not much on lifemates. I started before the ordering of previous mates on the breed page, so there wasn't an advantage of one dragon over another. Plus, my first pair that I wanted to be together (Sox and Soxer) refused! That was also before renaming, too. I ended up combining their progeny in the 3rd generation, but there are lots of Red Sox lines out there. And if I had lifemates, I wouldn't have ended up with my massively inbred splits that are from just one male and one female, but not bred together after the second generation. That started before influencing, and I kept getting females, and only had the one male, so he was bred with each successive generation of females. But for my tinsel project, and some other projects, I end up with lifemates, because I only breed the original pairing, but wouldn't mind changing pairs and breeding requests for gifts and such. When I want to avoid inbreeding, there are plenty of inbred checkers out there. I think it's neat that people have written tools like that for us to use. DragCave rocks, and has for a long time. Share this post Link to post
Posted November 3, 2012 I started out with lifemating. It was an easy thing to do and supported my scroll goals anyway (one breeding pair of each new dragon, or one of each gender for unbreedables). Since my dragons are also models for story characters, that worked out as well... but the problems arose when I started getting into active trading. Not everybody wants PB-- and what do you do for holidays? When I first joined, I had no holidays that could be bred, so it wasn't an issue, but inevitably I had to choose between getting a ton of extra CBs I didn't want or otherwise need, just to mate with the holidays and do trades... or give up on lifemates. So I gave up on lifemates. Just as well, once frills went into retirement. At this point, I still maintain that each breeding pair is a pair of lifemates, but on the practical level, all but three or four of my dragons are swingers. Share this post Link to post
Posted November 3, 2012 woulnt know if it has benifits i breed what ever with what ever at random lol Share this post Link to post
Posted November 3, 2012 (edited) I often name my dragons in pairs, so breeding them to other dragons ruins the effect. I do it though when someone requests an egg or I need something for a trade or a lineage. Edited November 3, 2012 by blah Share this post Link to post
Posted November 4, 2012 Most of mine have set mates, others have 2 or 3 mates, others have "broken up" and formed a new mated pair... in some cases its because of their "personality", other times its for a story, and sometimes its for lineage or just because I feel like it. Share this post Link to post
Posted November 4, 2012 Pros: you know they won't refuse each other and you may find that a certain pairing goes well together giving you eggs far more frequently. You may do it just because you like those two as set mates or because the names seem suitable. Cons: There may come times when the two don't do well as mates if you check here http://dragcave.net/progeny/7bJ5 Golden Ray is with Witch Legacy except for a short time in Dragcave history when black and Gold dragons would refuse ( around the time when Black and golds produced a lot of alts and you could tell the alt eggs from regular black.) one another and then he was with a red female. Golden Ray and Witch Legacy have always been good at producing eggs, except for the last year or two when many breedings end up in no egg/no interest. When something like this happens you may want to look for a different mate and see if they do better. May want to break them a part for a certain lineage. Share this post Link to post
Posted November 4, 2012 I have a permanent pairing I like to use with each other. Two of my CB Golds..CB Charlestown and CB Golden Orb have produced nine 2nd Gen Purebred Gold dragons between them. Mated for life? You bet. Share this post Link to post
Posted November 8, 2012 Back when I was new to DC, I accidentally bred a couple of my dragons with two or three other dragons, but that stopped when I realized what was happening. Now, all of my dragons have set life mates, except where they were accidentally bred irresponsibly before and had to be "re-paired" with other dragons (I made descriptions for these to tell about the circumstances of their separations, lol. All of my holiday dragons have single mates and will stay mated to them for the rest of their lives. I guess I just decided to do life mates out of personal beliefs. I don't think one dragon should have more than one mate, because dragons seem intelligent enough to recognize a partner and stick with them. I haven't had problems with inbreeding yet, but I have to watch the progeny when it comes to even gen lineages so that they don't end up with common ancestors. Share this post Link to post
Posted November 8, 2012 With the last bred to dragon showing up on top of the breeding list, I have a tendency to breed to one or two mates out of habit, but I don't keep my dragons in lifemate pairs. I like the flexibility offered by free breeding. That also helps since I do more breeding for others than myself and they can chose their own pairs. .... as long as they don't refuse. Share this post Link to post
Posted November 8, 2012 Some of my dragons have a single mate, while other have several mates (Does ''Alpha Male'' ring a bell?). The ones with a single mate are generally those of pairings I like or with a very specific lineage (Like stairs, spiral or color based) Share this post Link to post
Posted November 8, 2012 Wow...tbh.. I've been on this website for years and I haven't even adapted one single permanent pair of mates. Guess all my dragons are players. D: Well at least I know what I'm going to be working on this month! Share this post Link to post
Posted November 12, 2012 (edited) I never set out to create life-mates for my dragons, but some of them (like the members of my PB Stripe collection and my Seawyrms) wound up with them just for the sake of a lineage - because there was no other reason for them to be bred. This is not true of most of the CBs involved in those lineages: even if they're named specifically for the lineage, I still consider open to use with other mates. There are a few exceptions. I wound up considering a certain magma to be life-mated to a Royal Blue because I liked their lineages together and because they seemed to breed easily. I also finally decided that two CB pillows were life-mates because of the story I created for them in their descriptions, and I hadn't bred them with anyone else for some time. For the most part, though, I find it easier to leave mating options open unless I'm creating a specific lineage. Edited November 12, 2012 by LibbyLishly Share this post Link to post
Posted November 12, 2012 Actually, I've been thinking of pairing at least one life-time couple. I think it's a very cool idea. Share this post Link to post
Posted November 13, 2012 Most of my dragons are in open marriages. Yes I may pair them up, and yes I may give them similar names or themed names, but sooner or later I'll pair them off with other dragons, be it for lineages, better egg production, or funsies. I do have exceptions, however, namely this Thunder lady and her Fog mate, as well as this new Lurker and Daydream pair. They're lifemates, end of. Why? No idea. I just want them to be. I'd love for this Royal Blue to have a lifemate too, but I think that will be impossible due to A.) his lineage, and B.) I don't like the idea of a lifemated dragon having had previous offspring to another dragon before its lifemate. Which is strange as I don't particularly care for lifemated dragons to begin with. Meh. I dunno. Share this post Link to post
Posted November 13, 2012 I don't breed 'messy lineaged' dragons, so most of my dragons have set mates, that way I don't get mixed up on what 'gen' each dragon is. However, I do break the pairing if I'm trying for a certain lineage for a trade. I also have a few dragons that have 2-3 others I mate it with on a regular basis. I keep a spreadsheet of who's mated to who, but I'm way behind on updating it. Share this post Link to post
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