Okay, so I seem to get quite a few pms about the general running of EC's so I've decided to pop in a few handy little hints and tips to help you along the way.
Boxes
~~~~~
Space -Always try to use the 18m2 boxes, I know that they are expensive but in the long run you will be better for it, having the biggest boxes means that box space will be at 100%.
Bedding -Using flax bedding is a good idea; it is the best quality and therefore will make your bedding prestige 100%.
Cleanliness - You need to make sure you have enough grooms. Without enough grooms your boxes will not be as clean as they should. I hire as many as the game will allow me to, however, you do not necessarily have to do this, keep a close eye on your boxes, if they are maintaining impeccable cleanliness (100%) this means you have enough grooms but in saying that, keep a close eye on when the groom contracts expire, if you do not have enough grooms at update due to a contract expiring, your boxes will lose cleanliness. I have found it is better to have too many than not enough. You need one groom for every 20 boxes. Your first groom is free, so you need to start hiring grooms at box number 21.
Health Mash - Make sure you take the time to grow the required crops to make the mash; it does help a lot. You need 10 mashes per box you own.
**Pets - You need one pet per box. All pets provide the same amount of prestige. Having full pets in your EC equals ~11% box prestige, which is a lot. The pets are as follows:
• Hen – Prevents your horse from getting worms. However, they eat wheat, barley or oat seeds sometimes. It’s very important to note that they eat seeds, not the harvested grain.
• Rabbit – Allows your horses to have two carrots a day. They can also nibble on some carrots from the EC stock.
• Falabella – It’s presence protects the horse from any disease.
• Zebra – The horse will always have 100% morale.
Meadows
~~~~~~~~
Cleanliness - The same rule for box cleanliness applies to meadows. You need to have enough grooms to keep meadows clean.
Space - The minimum rate of space required is one acre per horse, if you have 4 boxes you will need at least 4 acres of meadows. This is something that is easily figured out by trial and error, if you do not have 100% prestige for meadow space slowly buy more meadows until you do. Remember, it is better to have too many than too little and extra for crops is a good idea too.
Fertility - This one is quite simple. If you purchase infertile meadows they will *never* reach 100% fertility, it is simply not possible. So, when you buy meadows make sure that they are the fertile ones. This part may get confusing but I will try and make it as simple as possible. What I have done is made sure I have an even amount of meadows so that I can rotate them on a daily basis and not lose space prestige. I will try to make an example here;
If you have 30 acres of meadow that you use for pasture, buy another 30 acres so you can swap them around daily. This way you should never drop down below 99% fertility and make sure you buy separate meadows to use for crops (I have 10 crop meadows in total - each of them has a scarecrow, this not only helps your crops yield but also helps to distinguish between crop meadows and pasture meadows)
**Planting Crops – You can plant a total of 5 crop meadows at any given time.
**Greenhouse – This is a 6-acre field. It will count as one of your crop meadows when crops are planted in it. It cannot hold a scarecrow and you cannot plant apples in it. It can grow any other crop year-round.
**Scarecrows – Once placed, a scarecrow can never be moved, so choose wisely. Scarecrows increase the crop yield by 50%. It is advised to again, use them on only fertile meadows.
Competitions
~~~~~~~~~~~
Okay, we all know that trying to get your comps to run can be super frustrating and even now I have some trouble getting mine to run but I will tell you what I did to get mine up as high as they are.
I think the most important thing to remember is to start low, if you try to make the hardest comp before it has had time to build a decent purse, it will never run, it's as simple as that.
I suggest that you go out and buy yourself a minimally trained horse to suit each race and make sure you reserve the race for that breed. For example, I used Standardbreds for my trot race, Thoroughbreds for my gallop, Arabians for my cross country and hanos for my showjumping and remember that you can enter 2 horses in each race so it may help to purchase two horses around the same skills.
Before you set up your race take a look at the difficulty level and purse of other races that are available to your low skilled horse and try and set your race around that level. You will find a lower difficulty race with a slightly higher purse will become available to run more often than a higher difficulty race with less of a purse.
As your race improves and begins to run more frequently, adjust it so it is a little more difficult. If you have purchased a minimally trained horse the horses skills should increase as your race becomes more popular, if not you can simply sell the horses you have purchased for the race and get some new ones that are a little bit better.
After your races begin running very regularly and with a decent purse you can then switch them from reserved to open breed races, this means that there is more opportunity for your race to be entered due to the increased number of horses that can enter.
It can be a long process but the results are worth it in the end.
Lessons
~~~~~~~
Lesson price and skills gain are contributed to by the horses you have boarding in your centre, your riding instructors and the overall prestige of your EC.
Make sure you have enough riding instructors working for you. As for the boarders, the higher the dressage and health level of the residents the better your lesson price and skills gain will be. As your overall prestige grows, your lessons will as well.
Having minimum skills level set for the EC will help this to a certain degree.
Healthcare
~~~~~~~~~
*This relates to your employees. You need full vets, a blacksmith and a saddler to get 100% healthcare, as well as making sure that *all* your employees are at top pay. Make sure to always check your saddler as they cannot be temp employees. If any of your other employees run out of their contract, hire a temp.
Stabling
~~~~~~~
*This is based off the skills level of the horses in boarding. While the health and dressage affects the lessons, here only the overall skills of the horses matter.
My final piece of advice is this...
Do not go in to running an EC thinking it is going to be easy, the truth is that if you want to be successful, it will be hard, time consuming work. It helps to start off small.
Quite often an EC with on a handful of boxes that have 100% cleanliness, space and bedding and meadows that are 100%clean, fertile and spacious, will do far better than an EC that has a heap of unclean, infertile and non spacious boxes and meadows.
Happy EC directing everyone
(If you are unclear on anything I have said here, have any further questions or can contribute to this post, feel free to pm me)
* = Edited/updated by kitsune247
** = Added by kitsune247
Boxes
~~~~~
Space -Always try to use the 18m2 boxes, I know that they are expensive but in the long run you will be better for it, having the biggest boxes means that box space will be at 100%.
Bedding -Using flax bedding is a good idea; it is the best quality and therefore will make your bedding prestige 100%.
Cleanliness - You need to make sure you have enough grooms. Without enough grooms your boxes will not be as clean as they should. I hire as many as the game will allow me to, however, you do not necessarily have to do this, keep a close eye on your boxes, if they are maintaining impeccable cleanliness (100%) this means you have enough grooms but in saying that, keep a close eye on when the groom contracts expire, if you do not have enough grooms at update due to a contract expiring, your boxes will lose cleanliness. I have found it is better to have too many than not enough. You need one groom for every 20 boxes. Your first groom is free, so you need to start hiring grooms at box number 21.
Health Mash - Make sure you take the time to grow the required crops to make the mash; it does help a lot. You need 10 mashes per box you own.
**Pets - You need one pet per box. All pets provide the same amount of prestige. Having full pets in your EC equals ~11% box prestige, which is a lot. The pets are as follows:
• Hen – Prevents your horse from getting worms. However, they eat wheat, barley or oat seeds sometimes. It’s very important to note that they eat seeds, not the harvested grain.
• Rabbit – Allows your horses to have two carrots a day. They can also nibble on some carrots from the EC stock.
• Falabella – It’s presence protects the horse from any disease.
• Zebra – The horse will always have 100% morale.
Meadows
~~~~~~~~
Cleanliness - The same rule for box cleanliness applies to meadows. You need to have enough grooms to keep meadows clean.
Space - The minimum rate of space required is one acre per horse, if you have 4 boxes you will need at least 4 acres of meadows. This is something that is easily figured out by trial and error, if you do not have 100% prestige for meadow space slowly buy more meadows until you do. Remember, it is better to have too many than too little and extra for crops is a good idea too.
Fertility - This one is quite simple. If you purchase infertile meadows they will *never* reach 100% fertility, it is simply not possible. So, when you buy meadows make sure that they are the fertile ones. This part may get confusing but I will try and make it as simple as possible. What I have done is made sure I have an even amount of meadows so that I can rotate them on a daily basis and not lose space prestige. I will try to make an example here;
If you have 30 acres of meadow that you use for pasture, buy another 30 acres so you can swap them around daily. This way you should never drop down below 99% fertility and make sure you buy separate meadows to use for crops (I have 10 crop meadows in total - each of them has a scarecrow, this not only helps your crops yield but also helps to distinguish between crop meadows and pasture meadows)
**Planting Crops – You can plant a total of 5 crop meadows at any given time.
**Greenhouse – This is a 6-acre field. It will count as one of your crop meadows when crops are planted in it. It cannot hold a scarecrow and you cannot plant apples in it. It can grow any other crop year-round.
**Scarecrows – Once placed, a scarecrow can never be moved, so choose wisely. Scarecrows increase the crop yield by 50%. It is advised to again, use them on only fertile meadows.
Competitions
~~~~~~~~~~~
Okay, we all know that trying to get your comps to run can be super frustrating and even now I have some trouble getting mine to run but I will tell you what I did to get mine up as high as they are.
I think the most important thing to remember is to start low, if you try to make the hardest comp before it has had time to build a decent purse, it will never run, it's as simple as that.
I suggest that you go out and buy yourself a minimally trained horse to suit each race and make sure you reserve the race for that breed. For example, I used Standardbreds for my trot race, Thoroughbreds for my gallop, Arabians for my cross country and hanos for my showjumping and remember that you can enter 2 horses in each race so it may help to purchase two horses around the same skills.
Before you set up your race take a look at the difficulty level and purse of other races that are available to your low skilled horse and try and set your race around that level. You will find a lower difficulty race with a slightly higher purse will become available to run more often than a higher difficulty race with less of a purse.
As your race improves and begins to run more frequently, adjust it so it is a little more difficult. If you have purchased a minimally trained horse the horses skills should increase as your race becomes more popular, if not you can simply sell the horses you have purchased for the race and get some new ones that are a little bit better.
After your races begin running very regularly and with a decent purse you can then switch them from reserved to open breed races, this means that there is more opportunity for your race to be entered due to the increased number of horses that can enter.
It can be a long process but the results are worth it in the end.
Lessons
~~~~~~~
Lesson price and skills gain are contributed to by the horses you have boarding in your centre, your riding instructors and the overall prestige of your EC.
Make sure you have enough riding instructors working for you. As for the boarders, the higher the dressage and health level of the residents the better your lesson price and skills gain will be. As your overall prestige grows, your lessons will as well.
Having minimum skills level set for the EC will help this to a certain degree.
Healthcare
~~~~~~~~~
*This relates to your employees. You need full vets, a blacksmith and a saddler to get 100% healthcare, as well as making sure that *all* your employees are at top pay. Make sure to always check your saddler as they cannot be temp employees. If any of your other employees run out of their contract, hire a temp.
Stabling
~~~~~~~
*This is based off the skills level of the horses in boarding. While the health and dressage affects the lessons, here only the overall skills of the horses matter.
My final piece of advice is this...
Do not go in to running an EC thinking it is going to be easy, the truth is that if you want to be successful, it will be hard, time consuming work. It helps to start off small.
Quite often an EC with on a handful of boxes that have 100% cleanliness, space and bedding and meadows that are 100%clean, fertile and spacious, will do far better than an EC that has a heap of unclean, infertile and non spacious boxes and meadows.
Happy EC directing everyone
(If you are unclear on anything I have said here, have any further questions or can contribute to this post, feel free to pm me)
* = Edited/updated by kitsune247
** = Added by kitsune247