The Dented Slides

[bed_head7]

Yeah, strange name, and why I include "The" in team titles for games similar to this one is a mystery even to me. Anyway, got a team yesterday, and already did a bit of shuffling. Two players fired already, and two players bought (Juan Carlos Solano and Mikey Ybarra). My team looks pretty good, but Mistfit tells me that my division is rather tough, and by the looks of the TSI of most players on the top few teams in my division, it will be awhile before I am competetive. Oh, I am also training Stamina to begin with. Not sure what I will train next, but it may very well be playmaking.

Here is the team:


Your 19 players

Eras Encinas
TSI = 2 130 , 27 years, poor form
Has disastrous experience and inadequate leadership abilities

Stamina: inadequate Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: inadequate Passing: solid
Winger: passable Defending: inadequate
Scoring: passable Set Pieces: poor

Planning to sell once Stamina and Playmaking up a bit. At that point, he would be a pretty good winger, it seems, though I would have little use for him since he has so many good talents.

David Sapp
TSI = 2 120 , 21 years, weak form
Has disastrous experience and weak leadership abilities [Quick]

Stamina: weak Keeper: wretched
Playmaking: passable Passing: solid
Winger: weak Defending: inadequate
Scoring: passable Set Pieces: solid

Was thinking of making him the star of the team for the next few years at IM. In the off chance he ever gets fouled we might even score a goal, and if anyone had decent header abilities and was in the area we might even score on that.

Matthew Beyer
TSI = 740 , 23 years, passable form
Has wretched experience and inadequate leadership abilities

Stamina: solid Keeper: wretched
Playmaking: poor Passing: solid
Winger: weak Defending: wretched
Scoring: weak Set Pieces: poor

Also playing IM, am thinking he might be better off with another club at this point, as the Stamina training won't do him much good soon.

Victor Davis
TSI = 440 , 28 years, inadequate form
Has poor experience and weak leadership abilities [Unpredictable]

Stamina: solid Keeper: wretched
Playmaking: poor Passing: weak
Winger: passable Defending: weak
Scoring: weak Set Pieces: poor

Another guy with high Stamina, making Stamina training a waste for him too. Maybe I'd get some money for him with the passable winger skills?

Phillip Henley
TSI = 440 , 26 years, passable form
Has poor experience and weak leadership abilities

Stamina: poor Keeper: weak
Playmaking: disastrous Passing: disastrous
Winger: disastrous Defending: wretched
Scoring: wretched Set Pieces: poor

Will be replaced soon with luck. I want a young, passable keeper if I can find one. It seems like everyone once and a while they go for something in the $20,000 range, and I am hoping for that.

Zhao Luo yong
TSI = 420 , 26 years, weak form
Has wretched experience and inadequate leadership abilities [Quick]

Stamina: poor Keeper: wretched
Playmaking: weak Passing: wretched
Winger: inadequate Defending: passable
Scoring: poor Set Pieces: wretched

Will keep him around on defense for awhile, as he was the only decent defender I got.

Juan Carlos Solano
TSI = 330 , 21 years, weak form
Has wretched experience and weak leadership abilities [Head]

Stamina: weak Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: inadequate Passing: inadequate
Winger: wretched Defending: passable
Scoring: poor Set Pieces: poor

Just got this guy to bolster the defense.

Chad Gilchrist
TSI = 300 , 27 years, weak form
Has poor experience and weak leadership abilities

Stamina: weak Keeper: wretched
Playmaking: poor Passing: weak
Winger: weak Defending: inadequate
Scoring: passable Set Pieces: passable

Will keep him around until I can afford a guy with comparable stats 10 years younger.

Julián Mercado
TSI = 220 , 22 years, inadequate form
Has wretched experience and poor leadership abilities [Head]

Stamina: solid Keeper: wretched
Playmaking: inadequate Passing: disastrous
Winger: weak Defending: disastrous
Scoring: weak Set Pieces: weak

I will try to get his playmaking to passable and then sell.

Derrick Sykes
TSI = 190 , 26 years, poor form
Has poor experience and inadequate leadership abilities

Stamina: wretched Keeper: wretched
Playmaking: solid Passing: weak
Winger: weak Defending: poor
Scoring: poor Set Pieces: disastrous

Will keep him around for the time being.

Zachary Lundy
TSI = 150 , 25 years, weak form
Has poor experience and disastrous leadership abilities

Stamina: wretched Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: wretched Passing: poor
Winger: inadequate Defending: wretched
Scoring: passable Set Pieces: wretched

With the three passable scorers and only now two passable defenders, this prompted the 3-4-3 lineup. May sell him if he is worth anything, and then try to get another decent mid and do 3-5-2 to exploit my strong midfield.

Gus Wagner
TSI = 120 , 24 years, passable form
Has wretched experience and weak leadership abilities

Stamina: poor Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: weak Passing: weak
Winger: disastrous Defending: wretched
Scoring: inadequate Set Pieces: poor

Will be fired in 58 hours or so.

Jackie Ross
TSI = 100 , 24 years, weak form
Has disastrous experience and weak leadership abilities


Stamina: poor Keeper: wretched
Playmaking: disastrous Passing: wretched
Winger: wretched Defending: inadequate
Scoring: inadequate Set Pieces: solid

He isn't a dinosaur yet, and could be a decent filler on defense if absolutely necessary.

Luis Chan
TSI = 90 , 30 years, weak form
Has weak experience and inadequate leadership abilities

Stamina: weak Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: weak Passing: poor
Winger: poor Defending: weak
Scoring: inadequate Set Pieces: inadequate

Probably fired in 46 hours or so.

Mikey Presley
TSI = 90 , 24 years, wretched form
Has wretched experience and weak leadership abilities [Technical]

Stamina: poor Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: inadequate Passing: poor
Winger: poor Defending: inadequate
Scoring: wretched Set Pieces: poor

Probably fired in 34 hours or so.

Scott Sherrod
TSI = 90 , 29 years, weak form
Has poor experience and disastrous leadership abilities

Stamina: disastrous Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: poor Passing: passable
Winger: weak Defending: poor
Scoring: poor Set Pieces: weak

Probably fired in 22 hours or so.

Ernest Bond
TSI = 60 , 20 years, weak form
Has disastrous experience and poor leadership abilities

Stamina: inadequate Keeper: wretched
Playmaking: poor Passing: poor
Winger: inadequate Defending: wretched
Scoring: disastrous Set Pieces: disastrous

Fired in 10 hours or so.

Mikey Ybarra
TSI = 50 , 19 years, passable form
Has disastrous experience and solid leadership abilities [Unpredictable]

Stamina: weak Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: disastrous Passing: inadequate
Winger: poor Defending: poor
Scoring: wretched Set Pieces: poor

Semi-clown, I am told. I guess I'll keep him around for the time being.

Fidel Rooney
TSI = 0 , 40 years, weak form
Has wretched experience and weak leadership abilities [Quick]

Stamina: disastrous Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: disastrous Passing: wretched
Winger: disastrous Defending: wretched
Scoring: disastrous Set Pieces: wretched

And my line up for the next friendly. I am going with 3-4-3 since my defense is a little weak, but I am thinking this is not such a good idea.

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/bed_head7/2005719223929_cubanofugado_match_orders.jpg
44.24 KB

Well, feel free to tell me how wrong I am.

[Dell19]

Eras Encinas - No point in actually training him in playmaking. He is probably best sold as a forward and hope that a newbie pays a silly amount for him which is reasonably likely.

David Sapp - Needs a couple of weeks of stamina training before he will be a good IM

Matthew Beyer - Yep try and sell him as he is a useless player but a newbie may pay a bit for the solid passing.

Victor Davis - Could keep him as a winger

Phillip Henley - You are right that he needs replacing and a passable would be good if you could afford it.

Zhao Luo yong - yep, a decent starting defender

Juan Carlos Solano - better defender and for £8000 its a decent deal.

Chad Gilchrist - decent player who you can probably use for a season or three

Julián Mercado - Too old and not good enough really to be trained.

Derrick Sykes - good player but like Sapp he desparately needs stamina.

Zachary Lundy - okay striker

[Dell19]

Mistfit is right that your league is tough and I expect that you will go down this season with 4 points but next season you should be able to compete.

After the couple of weeks of stamina training you should be looking to get a passable coach and getting some 18 year old passables in the area that you want to train and then training them up each week.

www.hottrick.org has a good guide on what training is and basically you should try reading one of the newbie guides so that you don't waste a season and half doing nothing and thus not progressing.

[bed_head7]

Is it better to start with a lower list price or a higher one? Like, how much do you think the starting list price for Eras Encinas should be? And Matthew Beyer?

[Dell19]

It depends how risk averse you are :) I don't like taking risks so I usually use transfer compare on the player screen and set a high price that seems reasonable and then hope someone meets it.

You could try Beyer at $15 000 although no one may bid.

Maybe $32 500 for Encinas

I'm sure others will disagree and I don't really like recommending starting prices that much since its all about luck.

[bed_head7]

I read the platypus guide, and am thinking of doing basically as the guy says for either scorers or midfielders.

[Dell19]

Midfielders is often a nice place to start especially since you don't have that manay great IMs and Sapp could potentially be trained until he was sold because he is 21. Although I think it would be best to sell Sykes once he has some stamina.

You could buy low stamina trainees now and train them up in stamina at the same time btw.

[bed_head7]

I have just completely hit all weak stamina passable playmaking 17 and 18yo on the market. Most were $1,000, some a couple more thousand. Hopefully I get about half of them.

[arne1]

quote:Originally posted by Dell19

It depends how risk averse you are :) I don't like taking risks so I usually use transfer compare on the player screen and set a high price that seems reasonable and then hope someone meets it.

You could try Beyer at $15 000 although no one may bid.

Maybe $32 500 for Encinas

I'm sure others will disagree and I don't really like recommending starting prices that much since its all about luck.


Indeed I disagree, newbies tend to have too less selfcontrol and only look for cheap ones but end up in some kind of bidwar. I have seen it happen quite a lot. I mostly was personnaly involved in the bidding and lost almost all off the bidwars clearly.

[bed_head7]

Oh, oh well. I listed Beyer at $10,000 and Encinas at $40,000, since I did it before Dell19 edited.

[akots]

Not sure, actually Encinas can be a rather not so bad winger offensive. As forward, might be you will not be able to sell him for 40K. On the other hand, if he does sell, you can then buy a solid winger for 50-60K. And the other guy is not worth anything imho, just fire him.

You can buy passable defenders for about 5-10K/head or may be even less. I've bought 3 of these when started and am still playing two of them in friendlies.

Since your league is rather strong, you might indeed forget at all about the results. You'll get your supporters increasing anyhow probably. And go ahead for stamina gambit similar to what Kemal did. If you have time to spend on transfer market. This might give you some cash for next season. Then, the best team will promote and your league will get some shitty relegated team. So then, with a bit of cash you got from stamina training, you can hope for some reasonable results in the league games.

But looks like you are stuck in your league for a few seasons and pretty firmly indeed. Unless all your strong teams will promote.

[Dell19]

quote:Originally posted by bed_head7

Oh, oh well. I listed Beyer at $10,000 and Encinas at $40,000, since I did it before Dell19 edited.


Yeah I realised that I had the exchange rate since I originally thought I should double the values when really they should be multiplied by 1.5

[bed_head7]

Ended up getting 63,000 minus whatever percentage for Encinas and 11,000 for Beyer, which goes a long way towards covering the 110,000 total I spent on replacing my original coach with a passable trainer with weak leadership, and then buying a defender and my bevy of midfield trainees. I can't wait to see what I can get for 18yo with excellent stamina and (hopefully) formidable playmaking towards the end of next season, though I may need to hold on until the beginning of the season after. Would an 18yo near the end of the season get more, or a 19yo towards the beginning when everyone is putting together their teams? Or am I overestimating how quickly I can get 17yo with passable playmaking and weak-inadequate stamina up to formidable playmaking?

[yndy]

I think you have evaluated the time till he's formidable pretty well. Prices change all the time and the trends are changing as well. Normally at the end of a season prices will drop. However, early in the season the prices will remain low as some managers delay their investments until they can 'feel' the way their opponents teams have changed. Also the managers that did not want to sell cheap late in the previous season are now crowding to sell their players. So prices may pick up from week 3 or later in the season and the price increase may last to week 7 or so.

Take a look here (http://www.lokesoftware.dk/ham/menu.cfm?showMenu=tpestats)at the individual graphs (click on a skill) to have an idea how average prices change from a season to another

[bed_head7]

So, I won my first game in league on Sunday, against the even more pathetic 8th place team. And now my supporters are "high on life." How quickly will this fall and how far after I lose the rest of the games this season? And will this temporary attitude help draw out fans? I need more supporters to be able to afford to keep going, as it looks like I will be bleeding $20,000-40,000/week depending on whether the match is home or away. And I accidentally accepted a friendly internationally against a guy who probably has no following, meaning a loss of just under the $6,000 booking cost.

[Dell19]

Very quickly. Fans on HT are very tempermental and sometimes seem to largely base their mood on your last game. You should get more supporters this week and you can still gain supporters when you lose if they are not heavy defeats although you would gain less.

Mine was decent after drawing 0-0 away, then losing 6-0 at home saw it drop to murderous. The fans were furious after losing 5-0 away and then irritated after losing 2-1 at home on sunday.

About 12000 less fans came to last sundays game than the one two weeks before when I lost 6-0. Hopefully a few more will turn up next week as I play at home again.

[bed_head7]

Okay, impulsively just bought a solid 19yo keeper for $116,000, which I realize wasn't really worth it to me at this point. So I am probably going to be bankrupt in the near future. I have two goaltending coaches at the moment. Is it worth it to hire another?

[yndy]

No, you don't need more goaltending coaches. You could even fire one if you are in red.

[bed_head7]

Bought this guy for $20,000. I thought it was a good deal, but now I am not so sure it was worth it, as I am running low on cash. It seems like I would be able to resell and play the "day trader" for more based on transfer compare. Am I missing something?


Vital Sallee
TSI = 740 , 19 years, passable form
Has disastrous experience and weak leadership abilities

Stamina: wretched Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: inadequate Passing: wretched
Winger: inadequate Defending: weak
Scoring: solid Set Pieces: wretched

[akots]

Well, you are in Division V? I've just realized it. That is a strange situation. I thought you are in Division 6.

[bed_head7]

Yeah, I started in V. But, what does that have to do with Sallee?

[akots]

Nothing, he's a good player except for wretched passing and might as well sell for 40K or may be even more.

[bed_head7]

Cool. Considering my relative lack of money, I am trying to pay a lot of attention for good deals to see if I can't make a bit buying cheap and then selling for a few more. But it is a bit tough, considering I am not altogether sure of my evaluation of players.

[akots]

Just try to make the ends meet. You'll be making more money both from training and supporters. Trading might require horrendous amount of time on transfer market.

[bed_head7]

That is certainly true. But to keep from going in the red, a few extra thousand here and there won't hurt.

[bed_head7]

Okay, so I doubt I have a chance, but I thought I would ask here. Is there anything my team can do to beat thaumaturgists, with teamid# 222031?

By the way, I opted to do one extra week of stamina training for a few reasons, so I can play any legal formation, even if it is not a trainable formation.

[Kemal]

It looks quite grim indeed, imho. He edges you out in all categories, but what is probably even worse is that even if he plays his B-squad, it looks like he has PIC-ed his last 2 matches, meaning his midfield will probably be above the Poor (low) rating he had in round 1.

The formation you'd best play of course heavily depends on what player material you have available, if you could get a poor (low) midfield yourself as well you should be around 50/50 in possession, and you might get lucky even though his defense and attack are better than yours.

Another option is trying to strengthen one specific part of your defense and attack (for example the central attack/defense) and hoping that the random factor directs most of his attacks through the middle.... and the few you'll get as well. Any chance on the wings would be a certain miss for you, and a certain goal for him, so that approach is even more risky perhaps.

If you can field a team with a lot of specialists, maybe playing creatively might be an option too... If you can, try to obtain as much midfield as possible, and try to get your goals via Special Events.

However, in the end I think I'd Pic if I were you, and take my losses. The increased team spirit is a 100% certainty then, whereas not pic-ing and hoping for the best only gives you a marginal chance of winning in the end, or so I think.

[bed_head7]

Reviving this thread to ask another cup related question. Next week in round 2, I play Ratsder, with teamid# 71583. As my three league matches after this will be easy wins for me, I can MotS. However, with the game against Giggs Has Scored! on Sunday, the #2 team in my series, I will probably have to play my best mids on Sunday in order to make the game a good contest. As the team Giggs plays is more out of his league, I don't expect him to make an effort to win. Besides, he is a winger trainer, I think, so his midfield is always the same anyway. A loss against Giggs wouldn't be the end of the world though, and I could play Creatively and field ten players with specialties (though I guess the Head specialty is probably unaffected by playing Creatively) against Giggs and then give my best in the cup match (my best being pretty much what I did in my Cup match this week against the bot). What do you think?

[Kemal]

Hmm, I'd think that if you really think a loss vs Giggs would be no biggie, sure try and defeat Ratsder and rake in another round of ticket sales. However, I believe this Ratsder guy maybe trying to mask his true potential by not playing up to his best standards in his first cup game. He has several very good players in his squad, including a very experienced 8500 TSI and two 18000 and 20000 TSI midfielders.

His history shows he is apparently not training anything in particular (maybe stamina or set pieces) since he does not have any young inexperienced player, and last season he usually played the same (midfielders, at least) in both the cup and league matches. He obviously picced last match, so his TS will boost the midfield again, and last season he averaged about weak (high) in his away matches.

I would personally go for the Giggs match I think, make sure my supps were as happy as can be, sell out a full house and Pic vs Ratsder, since winning as many league matches as possible is necessary for autopromotion. But only if your goal is to autopromote of course... if not, maybe you could even Pic the Giggs match, then Mots Ratsder and see what happens, after all you only get one shot at the national cup each season, always nice to do well there.

[bed_head7]

I am not ready to play in most Div V series in the USA, so I am by no means interested in autopromotion. If all went ideally, I would once again win the league title, earning the little extra cash for being in the number one spot as well as the somewhat more substantial ticket sales from the qualifier to go along with an extra week of training. A loss against Giggs would not kill those chances, though winning at home against him would make things easier for me. I guess I will have to investigate my cup opponent more thoroughly, and see what the best scenario I can come up with is that maximize profit without hurting training.

[Mistfit]

There is no Autopromotion from Division VI in the US. You would need to win a qualification match to get there. In my Division VI.180 the same guy has won the division both seasons I've been playing and he is still here :(

btw... stop by the Logo Resquest area and give me some ideas for a team logo now that you area a supporter.

[Kemal]

You can still autopromote even in leagues where qualifiers are played, if you have enough points to be part of the top half of the teams that could promote based on where they finished in the league. Most people though prefer to be part of the bottom half and actively lose matches to play a qualifier, yet remain in the division they are already in, thus having yet another easy season full of victories -> full stadiums.

Imvho, it is questionable behaviour... then again, as bed head indicated, the difference in league strengths can be a good reason to delay promotion for a while, after all nobody likes to be obliterated each week for a full season only to end up in the 6th again.

[Dell19]

There is a guy on the English conference who regularily gets slated for constantly throwing qualifiers to remain in an easy league. He then boasts about all his VI and V medals whilst offering a game with a 5 hatstats deficit as a game where he has won a match through better tactics.

[bed_head7]

I am not doing anything like that. I won by virtue of good TS management, some good exploitation of weak wing defense, and a lot of luck. There were two teams in my league that averaged over the season higher hatstats, and all but one of the teams in my league have been around longer than I have. This means that my stadium is actually the smallest one at this point (though that will soon change, once I make some sales from skill trading in the next few weeks) as team newer than mine got two youth pulls back in October that sold for over a million dollars combined. My finishing below the autopromotion line while still winning was certainly a goal of mine at the beginning of last season and still is this season, but I won't have to throw any matches to get it done.

[bed_head7]

I was looking for an article that was in Between the Lines a couple of months ago on special event goals, but could not find it, so I though I would ask here. Are there any positives in having Unpredictable defenders? And does playing creatively affect the number of corner kicks or what could happen in corner kicks? I have three players with Head specialty in my lineup, so I am hoping creative play would help, but it doesn't really make sense that it would.

On an unrelated note, does anyone know how long arena construction takes? I don't really have much money at the moment, but I should make about $350-400k next week, so I am thinking of spending a fair amount of that on an arena upgrade. But if construction would finish after my cup match, improving it now will only mean higher upkeep costs for this week and less money in the bank, and I am also going to be in the market for a new 17yo trainee in the next week or so when one of my older guys pops.

[Kemal]

Unpred defenders with sufficient amount of passing can give a positive SE creating a chance for another player. However, they can also create negative SE due to having insufficient defending.

Since playing creative increases the chances of SEs happening, it would also increase the chance of getting a corner, since corners are SEs too. I think a head specialist alone cannot create any chances by himself, though (except negative SE when he faces a technical player). It's my opinion that he can only help to score other SEs (winger/corner) and defend against corner SEs your opponent gets. These special events themselves are created by wingers and set pieces skill though, or so I believe.

Not sure on stadium construction, I think it is about 10 days or so.

[Dell19]

Stadium construction varies and can take about 14 days to complete in a worst case.

[bed_head7]

Thanks for the answers. I guess I will wait a little bit on the stadium expansion then. I probably won't start selling out (well, the first league match and the cup match probably will, but it is too late for that) until five or six weeks into the season. But with a fan club of 820 that is still growing about 25 a week, I definitely need to expand beyond the original 12,000.

[bed_head7]

I have a 20yo excellent stamina formidable playmaker. I know that that the jump to outstanding brings in more money, but he is old (the last remnant of my original training program which started with marginal players). Should I train him one more level (which would take most of the rest of the season) or sell him now?

[socralynnek]

For me, a player at 20 is not too old to train.
I sell my playmakers at 22 and so they are very strong and improving my team in the mean time.
If you don't need the money now, don't sell him.

[bed_head7]

I decided to list him, as I do need the money to convert a player to a solid trainer.

[socralynnek]

OK, that's worth it...

[bed_head7]

Okay, so in my second round cup match (http://www58.hattrick.org/common/matchDetails.asp?matchID=80409081), I play a team whose cup lineup is not completely out of my league. I was thinking of PiCing, which after PiCing in league should give me stats very similar to those in my first cup match. I am assuming my opponent's stats will be rather similar. I was also considering pressing, and playing for a tie, or a game that came down to SEs as that improves my chances. Any other good advice, or should I just hope to get lucky?

I'm a jerk. But that Tubby guy is awesome

[BCLG100]

spambots inside a thread... genius!