Goblin breeding. (Dropping guide)

Observations on the mechanics of goblin breeding. and possible strategies to maximize return. I have stopped working on this and am probably not going to resume.

Goblin Breeding

Guide is a work in progress EDIT: and i am probably not going to expand it further, the progression is tied to progress so as long as you continue to muddle through the story you will unlock traits and higher stats, you cannot strategize to get better goblins beyond a very small amount like getting specific traits, and it just isnt holding my interest enough to play longer. Probably my fault its a solid enough game i just got too excited at the thought of an uber goblin I could breed with enough time and strategy.

OH right if anyone is interested in making a guide feel free to take whatever from this one i know steam asks if you have permission so just assume I have given it if you want to reference something here, even if its just to point and laugh.

I will also try to credit commentator's if they comment before I make an edit, or if their comment is what prompts the edit.
If for instance commenter23 says "Hats are dumb" and I came to that conclusion entirely separately, I will credit them if they made the comment before I hit save. I make no promises.

After sussing out more of the mechanics its apparent the tutorial was a little misleading, you do not need to breed to get the best goblins, you will absolutely just find goblins with higher stats then you can breed just from progressing the story, breedings only purpose seems to be to get specific combinations of traits.

I admit I was hoping after the tutorial that I could breed an uber goblin by grinding enough and laugh as undead and adventurers fall to the mighty spoink which was going to be his name. I will still get to the end game and see if breeding becomes more build defining, as currently it seems there are caps to stats until story progress is made.

This may be the weirdest guide I've ever made.

Unconfirmed observations:
1.Breeding a goblin seems to have a 50/50 chance of the offspring having the stat/trait of one parent or another, I have yet to see a 6 body goblin and a 4 body goblin create a 5 body stat.
Revisement: Confirmed false, not sure why but a body 5 and a body 6 made a body 2, it was the only child with a different number out of 4 though so maybe a small chance of random stat? would probably need a code jockey or developer to confirm how this works.

2.Traits that reduce stats also reduce breeding potential for that stat, I lucked into a goblin who would have had 9 body if not for religious and no matter how much I try he has never produced offspring of 9 body even when the trait is bred out.

3. After multiple attempts to breed higher numbers I believe it is impossible to raise a stat without getting a trait like brute, and even then that doesn't result in offspring with a higher stat.
Due to this the highest stat available is the highest stat you can find.

If I am ever able to be 100% certain this is the case it kind of makes this guide a lot less interesting but i guess i cant break every game I find. Will continue breeding experiments with a focus on trait combinations, hopefully I will discover more than the 8 I've found.

Immediatley after defeating the "Warden" as part of the orcs chapter 2 finale and unlocking acolyte's I started seeing my breeding pairs exceed the stat of 6, with a body 7 appearing as an option, this was between a body 3 (6 base -3 mod) and a body 5 (3 base +2 mod). Ill need to do a few more pairing to confirm but it looks like possible stats are capped to specific story quests, and breeding can get higher stats if the base stats are both high, unsure if traits effect end result, all of the offspring had high stats in general compared to parent. new traits started showing up as well so the guide will be taking a back seat till i hammer out some progress.

4. Someone mentioned this in the comments (The Grapist) but changing a peon into another class costs gold. However if you instead choose their class before aging them up it is free, apparently aging them up just counts as creating a peon class, and so changing their class is what costs money. its not much money but if you choose a class first before aging them up it will save you cash.


Possible strategies:
Level 2 ancestral hall allows for a second warren get this as soon as possible, the next level to increase warren capacity is the final level though.

It is not possible to increase base stats even with adding or removing traits over several generations, the traits have no effect on the base stat. This part of my guide did not update last time I went to save, it was also still referencing the wrong observations, (bryan.d.chen) brought my attention to the mistake with his comment on base stats so thank you!

Random D&D thought:
Really want to make a campaign involving the rich nobility of some D&D city breeding goblins like victorian england bred dogs, "Look I made a goblin breed with 6 foot long legs and arms but the same size body!" and "I bred a goblin with a squashed in face!" like they get into competitions regarding goblin breeding. I could make the players track down a prized competition winning goblin and they find the goblin underground railroad. there will be a gang called the mutts that are actually just normal goblins trying to get the eugenics stopped.

Goblin naming

Technically you can name your goblins whatever or use the auto generated names, however breeding gets complicated after a couple of generations, so I recommend your breeding goblins which should not be in war parties until they have offspring better than them be named similar to below.

I've gone through a couple iterations before I found a comfortable middle ground between breeding camp serial number and noble bloodlines.
Names have 3 parts:

The bloodline, which is just any short name (5-6 letters or less) to indicate a family line, useful as goblins wont breed with relatives. I would avoid bloodline mixing, different bloodlines will probably have different goals so mixing wont be that helpful anyway, instead I would recommend recruiting stock directly from the camp or maintaining additional blank bloodlines with no traits but high general stats.

The generation, in roman numerals I, II, III, IV, V, VI and so on, this is useful to keep track of current heir's like with nobility the youngest heir to a house should not be fighting, they need to be *AHEM* fulfilling their duty to crown and family. once they have a kid with better numbers yeet them at the front lines.

The stat number. straight utility, just the numbers of their stats in order useful because its nice to have a concrete metric of improvement between generation I and IV, and the UI is a little clunky so the less opening of stat pages to find the goblin your after the better.

Hence my first bloodline: "Steve I 666" (technically he is like generation 3 but I lost track of his parents they may have died)

They will be followed by the Stink's, Strapy's, Stabby's, Stutr's, Stick's, and Strang.

Genetic Traits: (So far)

Ratings are Trash, Build specific, Good, and top tier
Red:
1. Brute (Build specific): +2 body, -3 mind
2. Ruthless (Top Tier): +5 power every kill made by this goblin (expires at end of combat)
Green:
1. Flabby (Build specific): +6 HP, -3 power
2. Thick Blood (Good): 50% bleed resistance
Blue:
1. Religious (Build specific): +2 spirit, -3 body
2. Skeptic (Build specific): +2 mind, -3 Spirit
Yellow:
1. Alert (Good): +1 armor (or magic armor if magic)
2. Lucky (Good): +5% Critical chance
3. Beast Avert (Trash): if beast is present at beginning of battle flee to rear, +20% damage vs beasts.
Notes:
Justifying trash beast avert, yes damage is good, but favored enemy buffs are always bad, its why D&D rangers get such a terrible rep, and then it also causes bad initiative for that goblin. 20% also only equates to 4 extra damage on a 20 damage attack i would prefer 5% crit over this.

I got Skeptic from two parents who both had Religious, seems like some traits might be a recipe?
Per the above I think its possible to breed new traits, though my efforts are currently on creating a Ubergoblin so I have been using trait-less goblins where possible to avoid modifiers, hence I am uncertain if this is true.

Known bugs

Bug 1: Observed one time, haven't had the opportunity to replicate it yet.
If a goblin raider has inspire and uses exterminate (and kills) the resulting energy/time use is:
1-1inspire=0
And it causes combat to get stuck, I assume this is because it thinks its still his turn but you cant select anything.

Bug 2: unknown circumstances, persists through restarts.
I have a goblin who I was saving for mystic since they have 8 mind but at some point they broke, and i can no longer do anything with them, can retire, dismiss, change class or anything.

Bug3: UI error, seems to not like navigating menus too fast, or maybe its having lots of goblins but the UI doesn't always load all elements.

[XxNeeD4BlooDxX]

I wonder though, after alot of breeding I'm starting to believe that maybe there is really genetics on the traits.
i have 2 Bloodlines that had the trait alert before, and after 3 gens of not having it it actually apeared again when i breed it again, maybe there are hidden stats from old generations that pass over, for example

a gob from 3rd gen had defensive but its predecestor was from breed with A being defensive and B being alert, when i breed it for a 4th alert jumped out again

conclusion on that is they can have 2 traits of the same type being an active trait and a repressed trait

[Ichthyic]

here's your strategy guide:

1. breed gobbos with high stats in one area with gobbos with high stats in another area to hopfully get high stats in both.
2. breed gobbos with the traits you want on one gobbo at least, makes it more likely to show up the trait you want is on both parents.

the rest is completely random. there is no way to predict anything, and the "estimates" you see are complete trash. it takes a LOT of breeding to get to gobbos you want to keep, but once you are there, they can be great. it is still WAY easier to breed good gobbos than find them in cages set up the way you want.

[ThirteenCandles]

The grapist said alot of what I was going to say, but idk how this is possible but you can sometimes get stats and traits completely out of the blue..also blue gobs rock. but regardless when I was advancing in chapter two my first gourmand goblin came from two goblins who never had the trait, also I have in about the same time bred two 6/6/6 goblins into a 6/6/7.

[The Grapist]

Other note, DO pay attention when breeding. When you select the goblins and before you click breed it will give you forecasted stats and traits. It's just forecasted so its not 100%, I dont think.

My other thoughts/opinions you can use or disregard. In no paticular order.
If you have goblins you are using for breeding purposes only, dont put a class on them. That costs money and if all breeding only goblins are in 1 spot its easier to manage (peon).

It doesnt feel good, but you do need to retire out goblins or you'll never get enough souls. Unless you wipe squads. Probably not the best idea. At this point in the game you are allowed to dismiss people even after retired if you need more room.

Advance the game as reasonably fast as you can so you can ditch the horrible base traits. The +2/-3 ones.

[The Grapist]

I'll list below what I have found so far. I am excluding ones you already mentioned and the base shitty ones.
RED:
Ferocious +3 Power
Hard Head Stun resist +50
Hot Blood Cold resist +50

Green:
Thick Blood Bleed resist +50
Gourmand Can eat unlimited food to restore health (there is a limit to how much food you can stuff down goblins throats FYI)
Fit Max life +7
Tough Body Body +2

Blue:
Spirited +2 Spirit
Open Mind +2 Mind

Yellow:
Beast Avert: On battle start vs. beasts flee to rear. +20% damage vs beasts (There are a couple of different averts)
Defensive: +5 Armor/Magic armor at start of combat. Unless you have purpose, you should run this on everyone for a while. It REALLY helps.

[Frenetic]

Ferocious is a hundred times better than Ruthless, and you can get it as as early as Chapter 2.

[bryan.d.chen]

I'm fairly sure the stats are only the base states without traits that can be passed down to the next generation (with I think a chance at a random stat sometimes). You definitely cannot breed someone with more base stats than what you can find, depending on your quest progression. You need to beat the Warden to open up 7 in a stat. It seems after each boss you get more traits as well into the pool. After beating the Warden you can get pure stat increases like Open Mind (+2 mind) and Spirited (+2 Spirit). I haven't beaten the next boss yet but I expect it will maybe open up 8 stat or at least more traits and maybe a new class.