I’ve spent some time playing around with the horses in The Legend of Khiimori, and while the game doesn’t explain everything in detail, there are a few things you slowly start to understand as you play. So I thought I’d put together a small guide sharing what I’ve personally learned so far. This isn’t meant to be some super technical breakdown, just a helpful explanation of how horses work based on my experience in the game.
Buying Your First Horse
Like most players, I’m sure the first thing you want to do is jump straight into breeding and start making better horses. Unfortunately, the game makes you wait a little bit before you can get into that.
At the beginning you’ll go through the first quest segments, and once those are finished you’ve basically completed the tutorial. After that, Yisu gives you some money so you can finally buy your own horse.
At that moment you only have three choices, and the coat patterns are pretty basic. Some people might care about that, but honestly it didn’t bother me too much since it’s only your starter horse anyway.
The seller tells you that you can buy either:
- a strong horse
- a fast horse
- a balanced horse
Which one you pick really depends on what you want. Personally, I chose the strong horse, mostly because I liked the breed option attached to it.
You can choose between three breeds here:
- Mongolian horse
- Akhal Teke
- Ferghana
I ended up going with the Ferghana model, which in my case had the higher strength stat.
Strength mainly determines how many items your horse can carry, endurance affects how efficient its stamina usage is, and balance helps your horse avoid tripping on steep slopes.
At the end of the day, it really comes down to your playstyle. Also keep in mind that you’re not stuck with this horse forever. Later in the game you can always sell it to the horse trader and replace it with something better. For now though, you just need a horse to get around.
Breeding Process
After playing for a while you’ll probably notice you’ve built up a bit of money. That’s usually the point where breeding starts to become an option.
One important thing to know is that you need at least three horses before breeding becomes possible. One horse is needed for riding, while the other two will be used for breeding.
You also need one stallion and one mare. Without that pair you won’t be able to start the breeding process.
To get them, head over to the horse trader and buy the horses you need. I’d recommend saving around 1000 coins before trying to do this. If the trader doesn’t have horses you like, you can simply wait a few in-game days and check again since his selection changes.
When you’re ready, breeding two horses costs 20 coins, and it takes one full in-game day for the foal to be born.
If you don’t feel like waiting around, you can go to your nearby shack and sleep until sunrise, which will usually bring you right to the moment the foal appears.
Once the foal is born, you can interact with it and the mare. To do this, walk over to the gate on the left side of the breeding station and interact with it. That teleports you inside the area where you can pet the horses.
The foal doesn’t grow up immediately. It takes a few in-game days, roughly around three, before it becomes fully grown. After that, it becomes a horse you can actually ride and use as your new delivery companion.
Horse Skills (Stats)
Horses in the game have five different skills, and these can either be bred into new horses or trained over time.
The five stats are:
- Strength
- Agility
- Endurance
- Balance
- Spirit
If you open your horse profile by pressing O, the game actually explains what each stat affects. It also mentions how each one can be trained. I’ll list the training methods here exactly as they’re described.
Strength
Strength can be improved through:
- Carrying heavy cargo (going out with large loads)
- Riding through rough terrain like sand, snow, mud, and water
- Enduring injury or poison
So for example, if your horse trips and gets injured, that situation can actually help build strength. Of course, you probably shouldn’t leave your horse injured for too long since that likely has its own downsides.
Agility
Agility can be trained by:
- Galloping
- Riding on rock, ice, or through forests
- Performing a power stop
Riding through forests at higher speeds seems to be a good way to help build agility.
Endurance
Endurance increases through tougher conditions such as:
- Riding with low health
- Enduring freezing weather
- Enduring hot weather
Basically, situations where the horse has to push through difficult environmental conditions.
Balance
Balance improves when you:
- Ride up slopes
- Ride while the horse is unbalanced due to cargo placement
- Ride into headwinds
So if your cargo is uneven and the horse has to compensate while moving, that actually helps train this stat.
Spirit
Spirit is trained through more intense situations:
- Jumping over obstacles
- Enduring scary conditions like running away from bears or wolves
- Riding with low stamina
This one seems to involve putting your horse in stressful situations and letting it push through them.
Horse Traits
Something I really like about this game is that horses can have traits, which basically give them a bit of personality.
These traits can either help you or make things a bit more difficult depending on what they do.
For example, one of my Mongolian horses named Bchan has a few traits.
She has Nocturnal, which means she actually enjoys being active during the night and her mood increases when it’s dark.
She also has Drinker, which just means she tends to drink more water than my other horses.
On top of that she has Lazy, meaning she doesn’t enjoy galloping very much and her mood drops if she has to do it often.
Another horse I have, a Mongolian mare named Athena, has completely different traits.
She has Galloper, which boosts her mood whenever she gallops around. But she also has Wind Spooked, meaning strong wind makes her nervous and her mood drops if she stays in it too long.
I’m sure there are many more traits in the game that I haven’t discovered yet, but these are a few that I’ve personally come across so far.
One important thing to know is that traits can be passed down to foals, which makes breeding even more interesting.
Wild Horses
You might have noticed wild horses roaming around the world while exploring.
Unfortunately, at least in the current early access version of the game, there isn’t any way to interact with them yet.
So for now all we can really do is admire them from a distance and hope that future updates allow us to actually do something with them.
That’s pretty much everything I’ve learned about horses in The Legend of Khiimori so far. As the game continues to update there will probably be more mechanics and features added, but hopefully this helps make things a little clearer if you’re just getting started with the horse system.