If you could start over...
 

If you were starting a new team (which I am not convinced I want to do yet) what would your plan of action be.. I have been away from the game for quite some time :D

Training?
Youth Squad or no?
any other general nuggets of info you wish to impart..

Hello BTW...

I'd start with a HELLO MISTFIT IS BACK thread :D

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Well I did just that and started new team a year and a half ago or something.

I started a youth academy in the end to compete in the CDZ youth league, pretty sure it's not the most economically sound decision in the game.

Also I've taking a more leisurely approach and train mostly for my own team. Also not an approach that will have you go up in the ranks quickly but with al the tampering with the economy system in the game I feel playing for fun like this suits me best.

And WB man!!! We've missed you here!

Training? Still I think that for starters, goalkeeping is the best. Not much money to invest to get decent trainees and you can sell pretty quickly.

And: Welcome back!!!

Thanks guys..

I think I have decided to train wing.. I happened across Shabba on MSN and he said that is what he is doing and it is fairly quick and decently profitable. I guess I will go ahead and try the youth academy just for grins but may decide differently later.

I'm sure I will have LOTs of questions from you all so keep an eye on the Questions forum :D

Welcome back! Can you help hattrick to redesign their web pages? Their new look is ugly...

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I have to agree with you on that point.. that page is just butt -ugly.. although it seems to work pretty well. Some of the things seemed to be designed to make it more difficult for you to achieve because you do not have supporter.. which all and all is not a bad ploy if you own the website. The transfer market comes to my mind on this.. I would imagine being a supporter would make this precess easier.. saving players.. being notified if people out bid you.. that sort of thing..

Nice to see you still lurking around here akots..

welcome back mistfit. I am still training mids, but for me it is starting to suck for a starte it is quite ok becuase results com quikly then.

Training wingers is quite fast, I agree, so you should get rewarded soon. OTOH, training wingers gives you most, if you buy either defenders or mids that are already up in their skill.

I think, if you assume that the game is still the same, then you are not bad off.

Some details have changed, some with more, others with less effect for starting teams.

I guess, the biggest change is the overcrowding penalty, if you field 3 CD, 3 IM or 3 FW. But still, 3-5-2 is a good lineup if you have the right players for it...it is just that 4-4-2 is now a good alternative...

If anyone hears of a youth league with an open spot let me know as I cannot seem to find one or get anyone to join the one I created.. even with an ad in the forum.

Any suggestion as to the stamina training percentage to start with? about 1/2 of my club is passable or less...

If you only have young players, then 10% should be fine. If you have a mixed team, it might go up to 15 %

I have a rather old team and 18% suits me well.

Thanks Ynnek. The players I 'care' about are all young so.. the 15% for me is a decent mix I guess. I realize that I will wallow around for a while before my team starts to actually look like a team so I guess I will just be patient.

I have a suggestion. Are you currently giving a rat's ass about your league placement or are you aiming for financial gain? If it's the latter, you might want to set it very low.

hmm.. I had not thought of it that way.. I would like to do decent in the league as it will help grow my fan base and I will get more money that way too but I have no delusions of being able to be competitive for 2-3 seasons..

btw.. when do the fixtures come out for the season?

Not for a few more days IIRC

Your cup match is already there, the rest should follow on the weekend.

Thanks for your stadium for the CDZ cup match against akots...;-)

Thanks for your support :P

Just clean up the beer bottles when you leave :P

I looked at my cup match and it will be a one and done for me. The guy is in the same division as me but has already hit 50 stars and 80K TSI.. underachiever

I pulled this chap.. seems like a decent player to start off with... I am planning on training wing with the playmaking secondary so.. hopefully if I play him at wing we can get a good trainee prospect for the main club eventually..

15 years old and solid playmaking possible. That's a really good start into the Academy!

So I should keep this guy too?

Hi boss, nice to speak to you again.

I think I have found a skilled youngster for you. His name is Vernon Schmidt and he is 15 years old.

I would say as an allrounder, he's weak. Right now I would say his Winger capabilities are around the poor level. Given the chance to improve his Playmaking skills, this guy might well reach solid in that department.

What do you say? Should we give him a chance?

Wow! Two PM trainees. That's a superb start of the academy. Especially because as of next season it is worthwhile to keep your youth academy players for your own senior team.

now I am wondering if I should switch over my training to PM as primary focus for my youths although this guy might end up a good winger...

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f3...Sigs/youth.jpg

I am not very familiar with the youth star rating system but 7 seems pretty good for a 15 yr old.

The 7 stars surely come,at least partly, from PM, so I'd say, train him in PM and maybe in the mean time you get his possible skill in wing from the coach (you get some values even in stuff that you haven't trained)

BTW, the 7 stars do not necessarily reflect what he can now, but are somehwere between his current skill and his possible skill.

In the adult club I am training wing so I have been pulling wing prospects. I have been training Primary: crossing - Secondary: PM

Do you think these guys are good enough PM prospects to change training on my youth club over to PM? Or should I keep with the current system and train them from the IM spot occasionally?

I'd change to PM training (crossing secondary). As soon as the players is solid PM I'd switch back to crossing.

If you plan to use the players in your main squad afterwards, then it is especially important to max out the secondaries (if decent) as you'll train the main skill in your A-team anyway.

(BTW, maybe you should read the interview that yndy did with Aggie in HTPress, Aggie hopefully has the link)

But I disagree with Aggie here, PM main and crossing secondary is a rather bad combination...

I'd propose PM main and either passing or individual as secondary as you'd otherwise lose a little training.

You might use the youth friendlies (don't forget to arrange one every 3 weeks) for training crossing, just to get to know the potentials of your players.

BTW, training speed in A-squad is skill depnedent (lowerr levels train faster), so you might even go with a low A-skill as start of your trainees if the rest is nice.

More info received on one of my guys...


Nicholas Rider:
Keeper: unknown
Defending: unknown
Playmaking: 7/8-1/7 unknown (max solid)
Winger: 6/? passable (max unknown)
Passing: 4/? weak (max unknown)
Scoring: unknown
Set pieces: unknown


Correct me if I am wrong here but it was my thought that if I trained both playmaking and winger that my wingers would get trained twice.. is that not the case?

I will switch over to playmaking as my main focus after todays friendly we will see what becomes of it.

If you train both PM and Wing, then your winger gets full wing,but only half PM training, that's why I proposed to not use that combination for a single game (then it is better to have one week this, one week that in my opinion)

That guy is really great! And if you are lucky, then he might even be quick (oh, I see, he has head, but that's not bad either)

I think I never got such a great layer with even age of 15.

Forgive me my questions but seeing that I have this good player I do not want to screw him up... If I understand you correctly you are suggesting:

Playmaking + Passing/Individual: for league matches
Wing + Playmaking: for friendlies (which are once every 3 weeks IIRC)

During league matches make sure to play these guys in an IM spot and play them at wing for the friendlies.

Did I get this right?

Yes, almost. For friendlies, I propose Wing + Passing or Individual. (for same reason, non-optimal lineup for combining both)

But things changed, you now know that he is decent in Wing skill, so it is also fine, if you use Wing + Passing or Individual in league matches (and let him play on winging spot)

(If you train wing, you might even use the variant of passing which trains everyone except strikers, as otherwise your wing backs don't receive passing but wing training)

But if you are unlucky (yu'd see this if the skill bars turn to yellow), then he is already maxed out after one of the next wing trainings anyway. Double solid would be very nice...

but with those I will not get any PM training which seems to be an important secondary for any winger.. I have a little time to train this guy so hopefully in the coming weeks I can get to know his potential.


If I train PM and passing and play him at IM will he get any passing training or will he only get PM?

Players generally profit from both trainings, if they are set at the correct positions. only secondary training has a weaker effect (with additional malus if first = secondary)

So if you play him as IM and have training at PM + Pass, he will improve in both.
And in the weeks with Wing + Defense passing, he will improve in wing + pass.

Okay so I have been doing some reading on how to best move forward with these youth players (here and at HT) and I think I have a plan of attack...

I have learned that if you have a player in a training position:
Primary Training will - give 100% training and possibly reveal Current levels of that training

Secondary Training will - give 50% training and possibly reveal Potential levels of that training

I will concentrate on these 3 guys for now...

Best Prospect:

Nicholas Rider
15 years and 48 days, Next birthday: 9-21-2011

Speciality: Head

Keeper: unknown
Defending: unknown
Playmaking: unknown (max solid)
Winger: passable (max unknown)
Passing: weak (max unknown)
Scoring: unknown
Set pieces: unknown

Second Guy (pulled this week):

Vernon Schmidt
15 years and 15 days, Next birthday: 10-24-2011

Keeper: unknown
Defending: unknown
Playmaking: unknown (max solid)
Winger: poor (max unknown)
Passing: unknown
Scoring: unknown
Set pieces: unknown

3rd Guy (youngest of the initial guys I pulled)

Zeb Lewis

15 years and 21 days
Keeper: unknown
Defending: unknown
Playmaking: unknown
Winger:
3/? poor (max unknown)
Passing: unknown
Scoring: unknown
Set pieces: unknown

I might play with this guy a bit too even though he is older....He has gotten 5.5 stars in forward...

Logan Tripp

16 years and 25 days
Keeper: unknown
Defending:
5/8-1/5 unknown (max inadequate)
Playmaking: unknown
Winger: unknown
Passing: unknown
Scoring: unknown
Set pieces: unknown

My plan for the coming weeks is to play the first 3 at IM to try and reveal their Current PM skills. Once one of them gets a current PM skill I will move them to wing and use that as secondary to try and find out potential.

I will also try and find out their potentials in defending and scoring (just in case)

This seems rather complicated but the first 2 guys have the potential to be good senior club trainees or trade bait to improve my team in a couple of years.

Focus on the first two, forget about the others (of course you should fill all training spots, if you are lucky, you can get a few bucks by selling them, but as you said, the first two are really great)

Don't forget: For every training report, one skill is chosen for which you get the potential of one of your 3 best players anyway. But it might take too long to use that to get the winger skills of your players.

Personally, I wouldn't let them miss half of a PM training just to have the chance to get to know their potential in wing.

I'd train them in PM and then start maxing out wing. You sometimes get their potential skill when they get close to it anyway, so personally I prefer to get the potential that way for players that I'll train in that skill anyway. Time is often too short for that...(but maybe not for your players)

But the path you propose is surely not wrong. And probably my youth team shouldn't be a shining example anyway...

+1

IMO, the reveal skill function is completely random. Sometimes, you train and train that same thing and your best youth don't have any info and right before he gets 17, you finally know he was passable all the way and did not improve at all.

IMO, looking at the stars is not that bad idea and gives a more or less reliable estimate.

IMHO, if you train winger with the main team, you can get this first best guy to passable in no time. He'll pop every week or two. It would be barely enough time to get his stamina in good shape which helps to sell greatly. So, no need to waste youth training on winger unless you have him at excellent potential.

But, I have not had an excellent youth potential up until now, not a single one.

My YS is not that bad, it pays the maintenance although brings very little extra cash.

I agree with akots on all points.

You think I should keep this guy? I am planning on working playmaking and wing on my current youth star but a solid defender might be worth it too..

You think I could do better with my 2 other pulls?

Sounds nice. But depending on how close he is to 17yo, it might be hard getting him to where he can.

At least I wouldn't change the training scheme for him, but maybe it is worth it giving him some PM training as well as probably you haven't filled up all spots for that. But the other guys are better.

I kept him.. 16 years and 43 days

Should I plug him into the wing spot while training PM/short passing ? he should get some training there right?