Subject: I.1

Oh yeah, he purchased one of my guys back when he was rebuilding. Headhog is right though. He made a mistake buying all players at the same age. He'll probably sell and replace players over the next few seasons after watching how CL is affected.

That looks like an incredible team. All that needs to be done is to choose the 11 or so players that turn out to be the best (including good CL paths) and sell the rest, as necessary. It should be possible to keep the core of the team together through free agency.

Isn't that why Leggs left? You are battling bidding from around the world. Sure, you can keep a number of them, but it's gonna be hard to beat all of the top teams from cleaning your closet. These players that he is developing, will be at the very top, the best players in the world. When those players come out for free agency, it's not a normal bidding war, it's insane. These top teams have billions of dollars and there are so many more once you think of the number of teams around the world with this money, they will pick him clean one by one......in my opinion. I usually only get insane offers for my very best players and mine are a long way from the very best in the world. The other offers are harmless for the slightly less players. Leggs was a top of the world manager, some of the best players in the world. As I recall, after the first few of his best players went to free agency.......he quit, realizing his team that he spent years developing was about to be gutted piece by piece.

If the manager sells most of the players and saves money for a few years, it should be possible to save at least one or two lines. Even if it is not possible to keep the team together, the team will still get a ton of money (if the players are sold at 26) to build another good team. After a few rebuilds and a lot of success, it might be possible to maintain a steady stream of prospects to take over every few years (like in the NHL when a team is faced with players going into free agency and has to replace the older more expensive players with cheaper players to stay under the salary cap). If it is impossible to keep all of your players, then this would be the best way to maintain a very good team, though it would be necessary to accept that it is impossible for most to maintain a top team (unless many seasons have been spent earning enough money to try to deal with free agency).

II.1 was one of the 10 richest leagues in the world last season, most likely because of the Irresistible Force.

Also, the season bonuses should actually be helpful for this team.

It would be nice to hear what Leggs was going through? He was always on the top of the world lists for managers until he quit.......which I thought was due to his free agent problems? Caps, you may be right, I do not really know if it will work or not.......it just might?
Another thought is, when a team sells some or most of his best players around the same time frame, many managers look at one player......have a look at him on the teams roster and they notice the rest of the players that are for sale or coming up for sale. That keeps bidders interested in the teams players and usually a bidding war results due to the high level of interest. I know when I start bidding on a player from a team rebuilding.....it is tough to get a player for a decent price....just too many bidders.
I guess if he keeps all his money coming in and the sale of his lesser players is enough......it may be enough to outbid the sharks? To be honest, I hope it does work......I mean, that is what we all wish for is to have and keep a team like that together. It would put you into the world manager society for sure and that is what we are all striving for.
At any rate, it is going to be a fantastic team for sure.......I wish it was a US team that had it!

In any case, you definitely have the most experience with this problem. I haven't yet had to spend substantial money to keep any of my players.

It will be interesting to see whether the team manages to survive the future free agent frenzy or not and how the team will handle it.

I thought that Leggman was just bored with the game since the Irresistible Force was always in first and had little chance of becoming even more successful.

In the worst case scenario, the team might not be elite for at least 5 or so seasons and have only a few seasons before the free agent frenzy. If the team doesn't manage to sufficiently stay together, then it would be a lot of work for a handful of successful seasons (which still might not be good enough in a country with so many other good teams). I think the team might survive to reap the benefits of the current strategy, but I still prefer a revolving door strategy.

Well, just another strategy to examine for the future. Nice to finally have some heady conversation on our board.......it really needs some energy to get some good conversation going. I like that we see things differently......that is the whole challenge of the game, to build your franchise better than the next guy. I have been hanging around the top with aging vets with lots of experience. This year I am sending in an influx of all kinds. Some young, some old, varying c/l, varying abilities. I have been looking at the builds of the Demon Flyers players(the number one team in the world) and have found that most of my builds were close to what he has......but there were some interesting differences too. Trying to decide if I copy em all or try my own strategy. Maybe I should have torn it to the ground like this guy . We will see you at the rink!

Psychos might remember why Leggs left? He is about the last one to challenge him. Maybe he can weigh in? I definitely remember Leggs complaining about the free agency, just not sure that is why he left. Leggs was smoking all of us, but he was always challenged with the champions league, world league and tourneys. I wonder if there is a search of this forum that could show us his last posts?

Caps, I did a search and found Leggs post before he left (see below). I am thinking he probably did not prepare for free agency.......it was the first time for everyone? Who knew? Now that teams know what to expect from these uber players and free agency, they can take the time to build up the funds to keep their players. Interesting either way, I am wondering if Psychos is saving his money in preparation for future free agency? He's gonna have some monsters soon. I spent just under one billion last year on players and I never had more money than him in the info, top teams, money stats. And the sad part is even after I spent that money, he is still head and shoulders above me with all that fantastic youth he has been grooming. Any thoughts on this topic from the top dog?

Any tidbits would be appreciated by all! All kidding aside, what do you guys in 1.1 think about all of these strategies/ideas? Would be nice to get a topic to start us talking and make the league days more interesting.



Leggman

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Reply
| 11.08.2013 04:06:15

honestly not getting much enjoyment out of this game these past 2-3 seasons - am going to retire before I lose everyone to free agency.
spent over 700 million last year or so just to keep Cornillon, Sandberg and Kazulis - can't keep everyone and can't afford to bring in anyone else.

It's been fun but it's about run its course...
Putting everyone up on the market so if there's someone you covet grab 'em.

I'm glad my post started some discussion.

In terms of free agency, my players are no where near the skill level it takes to cripple a team. I've tried to develop a team where the age of my players is diverse. I feel like I have a good chance to stay in that 3-4 range for a while with players good enough to keep me up there but not good enough to force me to cough up a huge amount of money in free agency.

I am trying to take that big step into becoming one of the elite US teams and coming in 2nd in the regular season and playoffs was surprising. I definitely did not expect that this season. I know its mostly because Psychos never play above very low in the regular season but if that's the way he chooses to play, that's on him. Well, by slotting into that 2nd spot, I'll be making a couple hundred million more than I would normally, so I'll take it.

Rich boy problems

That makes sense since the free agency was introduced later. It looks like, at least for now, it would be enough if $300,000,000 could be budgeted for each player. Although there are a lot of bidders, there are also a lot more teams producing high quality players to bid on instead (though the scarcity of the most elite players might still tend to cause prices to continue to inflate).

Weren't the season bonuses a relatively new addition at some point? The older teams might not have been able to use them in planning for the future initially. Once I finally get around to trying to build a team that's more than a division I/II tweener, I might use all the bonuses for 4 players (probably including a goaltender), giving me up to a 55% additional discount (for a player that goes for $300,000,000, only $90,000,000 would be needed to keep the player and only $30,000,000 after that). With that much help, it should be reasonably possible to at least keep an elite first line together.

Looking at the Psychos roster, they only seem to have 4 players over 25, and no more than 4 or 5 players (all very good players) for each age group. The Psychos should probably be earning enough to retain a good quantity of those players. Once I finally get around to rebuilding, after maxing out my remaining facilities and saving money for a few seasons, I would probably adopt a similar strategy for players.


It seems that my puck collection will be complete (assuming no cancellations of a few scheduled exhibition matches) with a division III team from Denmark, a division III team from Lithuania, and the dreaded division II team from Turkey.

My new player seems to have the 10th best AVQ in the world. It is too bad he can't use it at this point.

Season bonuses were introduced in season 7.

Scratch that, season 3.

I think it's definitely tough to try to budget for free-agency that far in advance when raising young talent.

Since I started transitioning into a rebuild, I've been making consistently less money in terms of sponsors and bonuses. All of the cash that I do have goes towards completing the youth roster. Because my funds are tied up, I haven't touched my arena/facilities in a while, and will still have to max them out once I'm done buying players.

All said, I'll have maybe 3 seasons as an elite team in the US before players start hitting free agency. Player values will vary, but most will probably be in the low to mid hundreds of millions. Multiply that by 21 players, and it will be virtually impossible to stockpile enough money to keep the team together.