Offer on a mating
Making an offer on a batch of matings put up for auction.
The auction rules are exactly those of horses, and they are set out in detail in Make an offer: one offer only per sale, which replaces the previous one; a raising step of 1 % above the best offer; no bidding on your own sale; the total of your offers capped by your balance; and the 10 % penalty waiting for the bidder who has become insolvent by the deadline.
This page deals only with what differs — and the difference is a large one.
Your offer is for one single mating
The minimum price is for one, and your offer is too. You are not bidding on the batch: you are bidding for one mating.
That is what makes these auctions affordable. A batch of five matings at a 50,000 minimum does not ask for 250,000: it asks for at least 50,000, and that is the amount that will be held in your current offers.
A batch is shared out among several winners
Here is the mechanism, and it is surprising the first time.
At the deadline, the game ranks the offers from the highest to the lowest, retains the first whose author can pay, and awards them one mating at their amount. Then it starts again with the rest of the batch and the remaining offers, until one or the other runs out.
A batch of five matings therefore goes to the five best solvent bidders, and each pays what they offered — not the first one's price, not an average. The highest bidder pays the most.
Two consequences that change the way it is played:
- Being second or fifth does not mean losing. On a batch of several matings, it is enough to be among the first as far as the quantity offered. There is no point fighting for the top of the ranking.
- Raising out of reflex costs dear for nothing. If the batch holds five matings and four players are ahead of you, you are already served. Going up will not give you one mating more, only a heavier bill.
So the right calculation is: look at the quantity of the batch before looking at the offers, and offer what the mating is worth to you, not what it takes to be first.
If nothing is awarded to you
The offers not served are closed, at no charge and with no sequel. And the unsold quota goes back to the stallion: his owner will be able to offer it some other way.
For the market, see Buy a mating, and for what one is really buying, breeding.