Aristocats economics.

[Kingreno]

So here's what I want.

First a little why. I am bored. My div sucks and even though I train defending I cannot seem to make enough to please the manager (me). In a normal 2 weeks I will lose 40k a week in an average 2 weeks. Meaning 80% stadium (total cap: 36k) fill up. When I am still in the cup things are a bit better though still far from awesome; Getting to the 4th round is decent crowdrevenue's but that 6-0 defeat against a zealous 5th divisionside will get my sups to Murderous abolishing next homematch revenues to horrible levels! This realy sucks.
I Will not promote to the next div (nor is it advisable) as I have several teams in my div that besides being boring have mythical PM's/defenders.
The TM seems to drop further daily, it is very hard to make a profit in training that will get things going financialy.

So some tabs to show what I mean:
As it is now:

Expenses:
Stadium 23200
Wages 119000
Staff 64500
YS 20000
Temp 2000
Total 228700

Income:
Crowd 110000 (average is about 240k per match, but there's 7 matches in 16 weeks)
Sponsor 70000 (average)
Financial 0
Total 180000

Loss: 48000
Now; This excludes cupmoney and transfers from YP's. You could asume the best but let's don't.

Now let's say that from now on I sell every Defendingtrainnee as he pops, minimal level Outstanding. This would net me around 11M from the next 7 players in the next 6 weeks. Let's say that for every sold trainnee I buy a solid 18 yr old for 50k each (this is very feasible). Also, as soon as I am out of the cup, I will sell my 4 decent outfieldplayers: 2 forwards and 2 IM's for say 6M. Then, I will also sell someshitty players (like reserve inner mids ect) and just keep to 1 keeper and 5 outfieldplayers (or so).
My economy will then look like this:

Expenses:
Stadium 23200
Wages 50000 (at a maximum!)
Staff 60000 (10 ass coach, 10 economists, 10 physios, 10 doctors)
YS 20000
Temp 2000
total 155200

Income:
Crowd 55000 (that is 120k from a homematch, even with murderous sups that's doable)
Sponsor 60000 (they will love me less, they may even hate me)
Financial 80000 (at least!)

total 195000

Profit: 40000

This too excludes YP money or cuprun! And thus I make a 100k MORE this way then by playing "normal".

This will get better as I will only train from solid to formi/outstanding and then sell. so no salarycosts to speak of. I will probably relegate this year by doing this and I will need to just buy enough to stay in the 7th next year, but after that I will have somthing like 20M to build a new team! If prices go even further down I may even wait out another year. I will definately lose a lot of supporters but that is so easily gained in the year I spend the cash.
Other downsides include a rather high losing streak (though with defenders I will play 5-4-1 all defensive and pressing) and little fun in matches (but I lack that now...).
But on the upside it will allow for some nice daytrades as I have 5 slots to fill with them!

The bottomline is that 10M+ on the bank will get you more cash then having a good squad (excl trainnees) that only costs money (TM drops and players get older). I realise that it is against the spirit of the game but doing average like now has kind'a bored me the past moths...I will keep you posted!

PS: If you see [u]major</u> flaws please do mention them.

[Kemal]

Most important thing is that you enjoy the game you're playing.

I agree that in the current market, living on interest is a good source of solid income when looking at your team from a financial point of view. As you say, result will be horrible though, and relegation inevitable. That's a choice that's up to the manager, and if you feel okay with it, I can't see any (major or minor) flaws, except that already in your first post on this subject you seem to hint that you're not totally comfortable with it, considering the following remark:

quote:
I realise that it is against the spirit of the game...

I do think however, that there are alternatives. Looking at your financial budget, it would be quite simple to cut down on costs outside wages and start making a weekly profit even with the salaries you have today. The YS for example, is where you state a 20k week costs but no income. If you really feel that way about the YS, turn it off, simple as that. If you feel you are breaking even with your pulls, this cost can be negated with temporay income from transfers.

Also your staff costs are horribly high imho, and could easily be cut with as much as 40K/week. That would be an additional 60K/week income without any need to stock money or sell players.

Finally, I would be very interested in not your total wages, but your wages of your starting lineup. As you say, training 5 18y solids to formi might be a good way to earn money, or even skilltrade those 5 slots. That means that, you'd have about 115K a week for your first 11 players, and still make a 12k/week profit. Since you aim to play CA, even with the first 5 defs earning about 55K/week, that leaves another 60k/week to get a decent attack. 2 WC forwards earn 24k/week, 2 WC wingers 15K/week... Since you're not aiming to compete in midfield anyway, your 2 IMs could earn about 5K week, leaving 10K week for a magnificent keeper. Such a team should be able to get around very nicely in div. VI while earning cash on skilltrades/2nd trainee batch, and with the small marginal profit/week be in a very healthy state.

I'm not saying that this is a superior method or is something that you as a manager should follow, but justed wanted to show that I think there might be more ways to make money without losing sight of team performance altogether.

Again though, choose whatever fits *you* best, I don't think we can give any advice on that.

[romeothemonk]

KingReno, for a good example of what you are proposing, I suggest you look at the Florida Marlins in MLB.

They use a similar strategy quite effectively.

[socralynnek]

I also think that the interest income can be a very important thing in the next few seasons.
My plan is to get there more slowly. I think I can stay in my division without big investments so I am just selling my top trainees soon and then save on wages and get interest.

If you are bored you could field your best players in the cup and try to advance there very far.

OTOH your concept is good. Once HT was a game where it was most important to get cash via trainees and then you look where to reinvest.
Now HT is more a game for us Civ micromanagers who have to take care of their weekly income. Wages are more important than the sum you pay for a player.

[yndy]

Let me tell you how I see this. I guess you'll lose more games than you expect as people can adapt to your play if you don't have means to adjust that.

Managing your team's economics in general and salaries in particular is becoming just as important as training in today's hattrick. Getting to 11M in the bank is now one of the main objectives in HT, that 100k extra revenue is key in the team's development.

Also minimizing payroll and maximising team strength is another. There are some key things to do:
- don't buy players with mainskill above supernatural (possibly with the exception of the keeper);
- buy only players of the same nationality as yours;
- keep reserves to a minimum.

Following these rules I think I can get a competitive team with salaries of about 250k, which will keep my weekly income close to 0. This is what I intend to do, I only have 5M in the bank now but a lot of players to sell this season. Also my current salaries are 140k and I'm doing pretty good with a positive 2 weeks balance.

The flaw I seeing in KRs plan is that 3 seasons from now, every division will be much stronger and it will be hard to promote back to VI, not mentioning going further. I could have promoted to IV about 4 seasons ago but I chose not to, now I'm fighting against relegation in V.

[Kingreno]

[u]IF</u> I could get to 10M cash [u]AND</u> still get decent enough results to stay up I would. However, I cannot, and therefore why would I waste 60k on Salaries if the only difference is a 7-0 defeat instead of a 4-0 defeat?
There is also the simple matter of exploring this possibility. I want to go "all the way" on this just to see how it works out. If I get bored with it in say 2 seasons I am pretty sure the 20M cash will buy me back into my current position very fast.

[Kemal]

Well, good luck with the project KR and keep us posted.

At least it will give me the opportunity to beat you in the CDZ Cup, for once. []

[Shabbaman]

The only thing I don't get is how you get 55k people in your stadium when your supporters are in murdurous mood. I don't get 40k unless my supporters are in good mood.

Anyway, I'm going to relegate this season and keep all the money I can. In this division I can't have a good run, so no big stadium income either. The 30k extra sponsor income doesn't really compensate, I'm afraid. If I save up money for 3 to 4 season I should have enough money to live from the interest.Although I'm afraid that when enough people figure that out, the asshole HT's will simply change the interest rate.

[Kemal]

My final thought on the matter:

Yes, it is easy to get easy money via interest rates and sell your best players to start making cash instead of paying wages. However, yndy has a very good point in stating that getting up again on the division ladder will become more and more difficult as time progresses as hattrick is ever expanding. That means that once you get the 11M put away safely, you have to start building up another team from the money you will be making then.

In the meantime, lots of teams will have expanded and evolved their team towards their natural salary cap, resulting in more or less evenly matched divisions where it becomes extremely difficult to push forward except by heavily overinvesting for a season. That means that when you get stuck, you'll be in a lower division which means you will permanently be feeling the effects of lower crowds and lower sponsor income.
If you get stuck in the 4th or 5th instead, the extra money you will be making then will, imho, outweigh any 80K a week you are collecting from interest. So I'd say proceed with caution.

And as indicated by KR's plan, if you're in 4th or 5th with a strong team, a 80k/week interest rate is only 3 days away by mass selling. If you're down in 6th or 7th, getting back up there to the increased sponsor/crowd income plus the increased fanbase cap, could be a very, very tough job indeed.

That said, I agree with all that interest rate is a very good source of income, and I'm slowly building up cash reserves myself as well, last season I made about 40K/week excluding training, this season that will probably be down to about 20K/week, but with a better 1st team and training program.

Justed want to indicate that if your aim is to play in higher division, think carefully about taking the chance when it presents itself, as it may not be around again.

[Kingreno]

@ Shabba: that's 55000 Euro's. Not people.

@ Kemal: I can instantly turn 15M into midfield and offense just for the occasion.