Zed Run is a game of discovery, and we must use all the evidence at our disposal to become better players. This theory involves the roles of mares and stallions within the genetic algorithm. It is only a theory based on circumstantial evidence from what we know about the rules of Zed Run. This article takes a look at crossover and mutation.
Genetic Algorithms
Zed Run uses a genetic algorithm(GA) to breed it’s horses leveraging smart contracts for execution. There are many previous articles on ZedGazette examining what is possible within GAs(1 2 3 4 5 6). For this article, stables simply need to know crossover and mutation are always present in GAs. Crossover is the action of moving DNA from one horse to another at a specific point; as seen below. Zed Run likely uses to point crossover because of it’s efficient history solving GAs. Mutation is tied to population size. A small population size requires more mutation to reveal all the possible genetic code (audio).
Mares
The ZedGazette Team breeding theory heavily values mares. We believe that mares control roughly 65% of genetic inheritance similar to stallions controlling roughly 65% of coat color inheritance (link). Mares also have the recursive nature in their exclusive and elite breeds, meaning they can breed back into genesis stallions and their foals remain exclusive or elite (link). For this reason, I believe that mares are responsible for controlling mutation. You would not want the mutation associated with a genesis stallion mutating the DNA of an exclusive mare.
Stallions
While I believe that mares control mutation because of their recursive nature, I believe that stallions control crossover points. Each breeding cycle these crossover points move to a new position, and then are mutated by the mare. This makes breeding stallion style all the more important. If we are able to have offspring from a mare in different breeding cycles within the same stallion’s single cycle (link), stables will collect similar DNA with a different mutation. This is important for identical by descent GA theory (link).
Conclusion
In conclusion, I believe that mares control mutation because of their recursive nature with exclusive and elite breed horses. I believe stallions control crossover points, and we can leverage this with stallion style breeding. If mares control mutation, it will be important not to breed back into genesis breed mares due to their high mutation rates at low populations.
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