I saw the poll in the news this week which considered dropping lioness fertility based on her age.

To start with, all the ages listed are way too low! Real lionesses don't have lower fertility until age 11 so starting the drop at age 5 or 8 isn't more realistic at all. It should be at age 11 at earliest.

I didn't see much of any discussion or information on what this these changes would mean for the game at large even in the chat box. Just making a large gameplay decision without talking it over can lead to regret to put it mildly. So here's a suggestion/conversation thread to get things started. Don't agree? Want to add something? Let's talk!

Other reasons to reconsider such an early fertility drop regardless of what the polls say

Age 8 is literally middle age on a lion. You can find NCLs at age 8 because they're still "good". This makes NCLs even less valuable as now you don't have time to really train them.

It skews the game towards mutant breeders and away from stats. I get it: there are lots of mutant breeders who all want very low fertility. Not everyone wants mutants, though, and some even breed for high fertility. I don't think this game is supposed to be about mutants anyway. That's why they are supposed to be RARE.

Don't cubs inherit their mother's fertility (with a little randomization)? If so, an older lioness with dropped fertility will mean less fertile cubs. If I'm reading this right, it means A goddess at age 14 is looking at 65% (average!) at best. Her cubs will be looking at cubs with 35% once they're the same age. That's from 100% to 35% in two generations. Do we really need to force people into using vuka vuka/chaseberry just for "average" lionesses?

Every time you breed past age 8 will create a fertility drop. Period. The cooldown naturally creates this from having to wait and having the fertility lower during this time. Even if I got the part on fertilities passing down wrong, this (and the rest) should still hold true.

It nerfs Vuka Vuka fruit into a single use item that loses effectiveness constantly until it's like you never used it. This is a GB purchased item ONLY. It's not an event item that you can earn through the game or a random world drop. This means it should be less expensive and less rare with a less "special" effect.

Using multiple chasteberries for a single breeding suddenly becomes more cost efficient than Vuka Vuka which will hurt GB sales. Can't use that many berries? Well... just buy GB. Can't buy GB? This could be a problem.

It makes pride dynasty basically useless. Few people use them already, but they do see use! With lionesses becoming weaker so early in their lives almost nobody will want to keep old lionesses unless they're a mutant breeder because it's just too expensive to bother breeding them.

From a non-mechanics, lore-building standpoint it's horrifying. Even non-NCL lionesses are going to face a Logan's Run scenario where they're all killed before they get "old" to make way for younger, more fertile gals. Chased gals won't be wanted because they're too old so they will die alone on the plains. Even the nature reserves aren't good as it hampers conservation efforts as they're full of less fertile gals. The future looks grim for lion kind.

We already have pretty much everyone not looking for mutants breeding with the highest stat males and all the lions are starting to look the same. Lower fertility will make it even harder to create a new high stat male without resorting to breeding to the already existing high stat males.

As you can see, there's a lot to reconsider here, even the point that fertility dropping at age 8 "Just makes sense"! Please reconsider having fertility drop at such an early age regardless of what the poll says.

Thank you.