Naslov: Questions and Answers

Now that I examine it, he seems to grow 1 cm every 22 days. If this continues, then he'll next grow on Aug. 6 and 28, and again Sep. 19. So he should reach PF size very early into next season.

He's already tall enough for PF (200cm). The low end for C starts at 205cm...

If he is growing that slowly, he'll probably make a tall PF (caps at 215 cm), or a short C (starts at 205cm).

Either way, he has good height!

Agreed. And good players with good height are the hardest to find IMO.

Ah, thanks! It seems I was stuck on SF size ranges. I also have to stop thinking this game exactly mirrors real life, and learn to play it on its own terms.

My advice would be not to build on him long term. You are most likely going to be in II league next season and you will build few levels of HR and arena by then, which will increase your income by a lot. That means that very soon you will be able to afford players with OR around 1000. (If you check latest transfers, you can get players with such OR for 10k, but I dont recommend you buying them yet, as they eat more salary, and you dont need them yet to win III league). Your guy also has low qualities, and with your training facilities level it will take him probably 8 seasons to get to OR 1000. So he will be expandable in a season or two.

This makes sense. I've actually been trying to think ahead on how to avoid relegation if I make it to Division II. Of course, there's no guarantee I promote, but it's probably good to plan.

The problem with promoting before your team/arena/facilities are good enough is simple math. To maintain your general and media sponsorship dollars,
you need to win enough games to replace the OTR you will lose at the end of each league year. Generally, that is 1/3 of your final OTR, less if you promote.(20% I think). If you promote, and then don't win enough games to replace the lost OTR, you will have even less OTR, especially after the 1/3 loss of OTR the following season. OTR is also important in deciding if you win or lose games, and it is therefore impertive to keep it as high as possible. The objective each season should be to finish with a higher OTR than you did last season!!!

So I need to find a way to tank now if I think I'll end up relegating? I'm currently playing every league game on very low. Maybe I just "rest" my main players for a while. Or do I find a way to tank a little at the very end of the regular season, and continue it into the playoffs? Or is this whole thing forbidden? lol Another potential issue is that I chose the deal where I get paid according to wins. So far, that's paid off well. I suppose I could renegotiate in 14-15 days or whenever that comes up. Or I could just really come up with a way to stay in Division II.

From the guide:

The sponsors also take into account whether your team was promoted or relegated. If your team was promoted to a higher league, you can expect better offers. On the other hand if it was relegated, the offers will be worse. Sponsors pay special attention to how your team approaches key games in connection with promotion or relegation. If they find out that your team plays these games with significantly weakened lineup, it will reflect on their offers at the end of the season. These key games are playoff quarterfinals, semifinals and finals as well as the promotion/relegation games.

It doesn't pay to "throw" games!! You will get a warning if it seems you are tying to lose to an opponent you have a chance of beating. If you do not adjust, your year end offers will suffer!!

Never heard of anyone ever getting warnings for tanking.

@reverist:

As for staying in division II, I don't think that would be a problem. If you can bring your team OR to 50-60, that will suffice. (Veteran players with OR 1000 that you can buy for 10k). Don't forget that almost every season there is at least one dead team that will finish last, and there is almost no way you will lose relegation playoff. So you just must be better than 1 active team.

If you do prefer to stay in III you should do it smartly. You have to win as many games during regular season as you can, because it determines your income for next season. then you have to buy really bad players(OR 100-200) and set the worst tactics to lose in the playoffs. It might be hard to lose, because by then you might be playing against dead teams.

If I were you, I wouldn't follow this strategy before figuring out how much weaker teams in division II get from sponsors, and whether you are ready to play agains dead teams for 3 more month. The claims that tanking will bring you more money later are not backed by any numbers, and most of the people(including me) are too lazy to do the math(it is also hard to collect any data to begin with).

This game is 99% financial simulator, has few to do with basketball. So you need to make sound financial decisions.

Just before you buy any players or stuff, look at your finances, if your salaries are more than half of your income, that's not good. Players salaries raise quickly, and in one or two seasons you might find your team paralized financially. You don't need to have more than 10-12 players on your team(especially at this stage), you are just wasting money on them. Compute their season salary, and think whether you want to keep them.

Also, the staff you bought, I would get rid of them. You have no benefit from a sporting director, and I bet you pay him 100k a day! You should however buy managers(with good marketing skills) before contract negotiations(last week of the season). It might increase you contract(but be careful, and have a look at their daily salary and see if your team can handle it).

Yes, there are strict penalties for tanking in "key" games (like promotion games, playoffs, etc).

I got caught by this accidentally in hockey when I sent my good players on camp since I was playing an unwinnable team. I still got docked the penalty, and got a message about it too. Not fun.

I've done the promotion/relegation bounce before, and it's actually not bad. I recommend promoting for the first time, as there is a huge cash bonus! Relegating the next season doesn't matter, and allows OTR recover.

So no need to tank! The top and the bottom are easiest; though mid-pack is the worst, financially.

I'm mid-pack in I.1, and have been for a long time now. My once super OTR has dwindled over the seasons, sigh. But I enjoy the pride of being in the top league, as well as the skill involved (I often had the lowest strength team in the league season after season without relegating!). Even though I'm mid-strength now, the challenge is much greater than other leagues, so it makes it fun.

PPM is a very slow game, so you've got to find something you enjoy about it in order to stick around (literally years) to make it to the top. For me it's the challenge of outperforming my team strength in basketball and managing the NT in soccer.

For others it's "winning" financially, growing a team with only local players, chasing awards, or other things. Having a "rival" (same league) or "buddy" (different country) around the same level can make things interesting!

When I first started I had a "buddy" from Czech who started almost the same day as me, and we used to compare tips, trade strategies, comment on players, etc. It helped me learn a lot about the game, and was different to getting advice from experts, since we were both the same level.

Also, whenever my (self-chosen) "rival" comes up, I always play my "A" game. They don't know they're my rival, they were just the toughest team by far to beat when I was trying to work my way up through the ranks (they started season 0, while I started season 4, so there was a big jump back then). Now they are trapped in the relegation/promotion cycle, while I'm hanging in I.1, but they sometimes spend big in the market and dominate for a season, so are still worthy of rival status.

In the end, these are just little things to keep it interesting year after year!

PS
I agree staff are a waste for new teams (except managers with some marketing training).

Apparently you missed the first 3 words of my entry,

"From the guide"

This appears in the guide for each and every one of the four sports, and I have recieved 3 of said notices for "tanking", but all happened early in the playoffs and I was able to adjust without penalty. It is my belief tht the first notice is the warning and that penalties are not assessed unless you fail to make changes.

Also from the guide:
Also from the guide:

If you play a league game (or part of it) on very low or low game importance and you don't win, the fans will remember that your team's effort was weak and they might not be willing to attend your next home league game. The attendance drop will be bigger if you play on very low and smaller if you play on low importance. Also the portion of the game that you play on low or very low will be taken into account. If you win, the importance that you used will have no effect on the attendance of the following game. Also, if your team is much weaker than the opponent, your fans will forgive you even if you play on very low and lose.

There is lots of other useful information "in the guide" and I encourage you to read it often. Maybe it's my advanced age, but I often find little tidbits of info that I missed or forgot from previous readings.

Thanks man, I appreciate this. Yeah, I'm spending just under $41k per day on the sporting director.

I think I will go ahead and try to make the best of it.