How do YOU play/build your pack?

Nice! I don't even know how I would start a breeding project, lol. The only thing I know is I like the irish marking, and I want to pass it down through all my leads! I have contemplated a mini-breeding to try to get hetero eyes, but then I need to find wolves with certain eye colors, and would I want them to be NBWs or from the trading center? I feel like the trading center is cheating because I can literally enter all the things I'm looking for and boom, up pops a wolf for less than 30SC. But NBWS have low stats usually. Should I wait until my regular stud dies and replace it with a stud for that project, or should I use outside studs? See, I'm already tired just thinking about it! And then it just seems like a lot of work so I haven't started yet, lol. 

I breed mainly for looks and Tier II bases and I just happen to get higher stat pups in the process. I got 2 Tier II's in one of my more recent litters. When I started, I rotated biomes with every season change, so like it would be Spring in the Deciduous Forest, than Grassland in the Summer, Mountains in the Fall, and Coniferous forest in the winter. Then I moved to Riparian woodland in the next Spring and have stayed there, as scouting has become more and more difficult. Should I start rotating my home biome and thus where I hunt again? My scout is busy in the Tundra.

Hmm, it's tough to say. If you have hunters with enough stats where they can actually catch prey in harder biomes (I think that's how it works?), it might be worth it to move since I believe they also get more experience for harder biomes! I am currently in the grasslands I think, raking in large prey and making a ton of money lol. Maybe next generation of my pack I will move to a harder biome.

Haven’t been keeping up with this entire thread, but a couple notes wrt biomes: firstly, the biome you live in doesn’t affect scouting difficulty :o (If you knew this already nvm though, it’s just the impression I got from “Then I moved to Riparian woodland in the next Spring and have stayed there, as scouting has become more and more difficult.”) The only real difference home biome makes to scouting is that, when your lead dies, your home then is the only one you’ll have unlocked.

On hunting: I recently moved to a difficult biome, the Taiga, and the EXP boosts are noticeable; I get just under the same from an unsuccessful critter trail here (~80–100EXP) than I did from a successful medium trail in the Mountains (~140–165EXP), and I feel like that’ll add up more over time. That said, I’m also finding basically nothing but one or two critter trails, maybe a small if I’m lucky, and suspect I’ll need much higher stats before it’s comparable to the Mountains variety. (For the record, my main hunting party has around 400–500 stats, levels 12 and 11, with the exception of a lvl9 332-stat stalker since I swapped that role out recently for lore reasons.)

So basically the lack of extra large carcasses to sell is a Big Sad, and if I didn’t have the time to explore regularly I’d probably really be struggling to keep even a small pack fed, BUT in the long-term I think the additional EXP will add up. I guess I can recommend moving one difficulty level at a time, feeling out how well your hunters do and how much big food you’re willing to sacrifice for bigger gains. My own move was a bit of a speedrun for lore reasons, but the interim time in the Coniferous Forest prooobably would’ve been more balanced at the current levels :^D

</whoops that got really long again>

I know my current biome doesn't affect scouting difficulty, what I meant when I said "Then I moved to Riparian woodland in the next Spring and have stayed there, as scouting has become more and more difficult.” is that at the same time that I moved to the Riparian woodland, I have been scouting more and more difficult biomes.

My main goal is to have wolves I think are pretty with good stats. Lately I've been getting invested into Tier III breeding projects so I still get to go along with my original goal, but I try to look for Tier IIs instead of Tier Is.