If you could start over...

[akots]

Originally Posted by Mistfit

... I was going to use 5 seasons of training (6 seasons from now) as a benchmark for when I look at the system to see where I am at and what I need at the time. If I decide that having 5 Mag defenders and 5 Mag IM's is not what I need I can train them another season and bring em up to WC. If their DEF and PM skills are high enough I could switch to wing for the extra boost or passing.. ...

The main problem with this plan as I see it is that you actually don't have the flexibility because you are fully committed to training both defending and PM. IMO, it is possible at this time point (due to market situation and salary calculations) to train PM full throttle in 6 trainees. With some moderate investment, you can have 3 primary trainees which will bring good cash when trained to WC level and then, once these are sold, you can invest the money and buy some older but high performance defenders. Price on defenders drops at around age 27-28 but they still keep the main skill up until age of 35. Of course, there is a problem of injuries in older players but they are not that valuable and we are talking about brilliant level players, which can perform at 4.5-5 stars due to experience. You then can continue training PM to bring your three secondary trainees to WC or above and train some back up for them in case of injury or for better secondaries. But for now, you need a good keeper, that is for certain. This actually also helps with boosting defense ratings.

So, I'd say that if you are going to train your own good keeper, you don't need to train any defenders. I have had no problems with defense ratings even in Div III with quite moderate investment. Formidable central defense and excellent wing defense should suffice for majority of Div IV. Midfield is another problem and this requires heavy investment or good established training program for good players with strong secondaries. For some reason, and I guess it is not USA-specific, people like to invest heavily in midfield and majority of teams play 3-5-2 still regardless of rule changes. Thus, it is quite common to face brilliant/outstanding MF rating in Div IV but then, this type of teams would have inadequate attack and passable defense just because they are barely making the ends meet as it is. So, in order to win, you'd have to invest heavily in MF and very moderately in defense and attack to bring these to about passable and formidable, respectively.

On the other hand, you can heavily invest in defending and go for it at Kingreno's style. However, these type of teams usually do not do very well in the USA due to match income problems. Keep in mind that the sponsor/match/cup games income of Div III in the USA is somewhat roughly equivalent to the income of Div V (may be IV) in Netherlands. Divisions IV and V in the USA are roughly similar to Divisions VIII through VI (may be V) in major European leagues. So, just copying the European strategies does not work, you can never get as much money and thus, can never reach the same level of players/stars. About 300 H-stars would bring you in Div II in the USA and it is barely enough to survive in Div III in the Netherlands. This is all of course just my POV. I don't think that this type of discussion can be seen somewhere in HT forums just because they are trying hard to balance the leagues so that people from smaller countries still continue to play. But they also cannot make the rules/engine/calculations different between the countries. So, actually, they are doing quite a good job in terms of balance.

[Mistfit]

hmm.. I will have to think on that. I really want to make use of the group of U17 players I have coming down the pike. Maybe I could just go boring and train them in PM. It is likely the best way to succeed in HT anyway. Although it is not nearly as creative or different as my idea was :P

[Mistfit]

I suppose I could go the traditional route of pulling my 5 youths and training them in PM forever (up to titanic) then switch them over to Wing forever (til titanic) then passing til 27 yrs old and then try to get a triple titanic in the NT. That would only take about 160 weeks

Taking the friendly players to make money. Seems a bit pedestrian though

[akots]

Originally Posted by Mistfit

I suppose I could go the traditional route of pulling my 5 youths and training them in PM forever (up to titanic) then switch them over to Wing forever (til titanic) then passing til 27 yrs old and then try to get a triple titanic in the NT. That would only take about 160 weeks

Taking the friendly players to make money. Seems a bit pedestrian though

You might try titanic but it is possible it won't bring you to Div III. I had trained for myself supernatural keeper from YP and he was the weakest keeper in the league with lowest TSI. Since then, I have mightily regretted that I stopped training him back when I was in Div V. My defenders were at magnificent/WC Otherwise, you'd need to invest in at least 4 wc+ (titanic?) experienced defenders which might be as much as 7-8 million. But indeed titanic is the optimal skill level with still affordable wage and almost adequate rating.

In terms of playmaking, you probably need at least 3 players with mythical main skill and at least passable/solid passing and one combo player for WTM with WC PM and some similar level of winger and solid passing. Of course, you would need lower levels (titanic?) with older players. As a plus, this type of players can always fetch a good price on the market regardless of rule updates. So, if it does not work well to your taste, sell them and start over from Div V. Rinse and repeat and in 20-22 seasons you'll have 40 million which might be enough to get to Division II with some luck and patience. I always lacked the second of these virtues and just cannot contain myself even though I ain't got no money to even get to Div III within reasonable time. And as I said, it is very hard to make any cash in Div IV. It is possible only to break even in the long run. So it is not a good idea to get stuck there and you might consider jumping up to Div III right from Div V.

It is actually quote noticeable since Div V somewhat dominates the cup in the USA. Of course, they don't get close to winning or advancing really far. But on average, Div V teams do much better than Div IV teams.

[Mistfit]

@ akots - What would your plan entail if you were to start over?

To give a little insight as to where I am at right now.

I have a keeper trainee (US) that is at Formidable +.98 and is 18.31 yrs old

A second keeper that is foreign and about one skill level behind the first and a touch younger.

I have 1 player in my youth system that will be pulled in the 11th week of the coming season at solid pm - solid wing - inad passing. He could be a cornerstone for my team or he could go a long way to financing a new scheme.

By the time he comes around my keeper will be at magnificent +.5

@yennek or anyone else please chime in as to what you would do if you were in my situation.

[akots]

Originally Posted by Mistfit

@ akots - What would your plan entail if you were to start over?

To give a little insight as to where I am at right now. ...

Circumstances always dictated me in hattrick for some reason. And for the past 10 seasons, the game was very well balanced. I have had to keep even so that regular expenses approximately match the income. Otherwise, if your players are weaker, you can relegate. Maybe not immediately but during next one or two seasons. In higher divisions, this is not enough (Div III) because you have to have a good start up squad after promotion to make sure you perform. Then, it is possible to make the balance.

I have a general idea of your situation. So, IMO, continue like you do now and after you pull your YP, you can see the actual situation and how much money this particular YP can fetch on the market. Interrupting training keeper program is highly undesirable up until you get to at least SN level (the higher you can get, the better you are off). Depending on situation, you can sell either the main trainee and continue with the secondary or continue with the main one and sell secondaries. You make less money with the latter in the short run but your performance is improved in the long run.

I'd say that the main goal for you now, is to comfortably settle in Div V and continue your program plan of choice from there. I understand that you already went that way and have little interest to repeat the same thing. However, there is little possibility for some other way unless you really like to gamble heavily. The money you get from selling both goalkeepers and your YP should be enough to bring you to stable life in Div V. From that point, you might want to look back and see what the rules are and how you make the budget and what the market is and then decide where to go. If you can sell your YP well, it would be better to just buy (or pull) cheap trainees and start from passable in the main skill. The way training works these days, you get to excellent in no time. So, there is really no point in training your own YP unless you are aiming at a U-20 player. I've had one who actually was in U-20 in some league (Chile IIRC) and it was really hard to maintain the best training possible. You need a lot of luck with that because injuries, bad timed secondaries training, form, etc do influence the outcome a lot. And the prices for these players drop as soon as they are out of suitable U-20 age range. So, once he got injured (again IIRC), he was out of the loop but I was still able to sell him for a very fat piece of cash even below WC level. This is just one of the options you might want to consider.

In the USA, U-20 is extremely competitive and even if you have a good prospect, his training has to be perfect. You might be better off with some smaller country where U-20 is not that tough to get into. Just need to spend some time on the market to get a reasonable buy. If your trainee has at least one or two matches in anyone's U-20, the price rises dramatically, may be by 50% or even more. Again, this is quite a huge investment usually and it is never a given thing even with smaller countries just because they sometimes don't have an active coach or one who can read and understand your messages in English. You can try to translate though, these days it is easier than before.

This new loyalty thing seems to be nice but actually is not that good because only your team gets the bonus and thus, it is not sellable unless you come across some buyer who is completely naive. Alas, this is not expected with large cash sales. Thus, your flexibility choice (keep training/sell) is limited very effectively.

[Mistfit]

Thanks for your input. I really have no chance at U20 for this kid as he is really not a good age for it. If I wait to get my keepers to the SN and beyond range I will HAVE to sell off my Stud YA as he will be in the senior club before my keeper is ready.

So.. by your plan I would..

Spend the rest of next season and the season after in Div VI training my keeper to as high as I can. Sell my YA player for 2mil (Guessing here)? Sell my secondary keeper (the foreign one) and use that money to: 1.) buy trainees 2.) buy a team I can be comfortable with in Div V.

Edit: Can a Div V team be built with ~5 mil USD?

What do you think you would train after keepers?

[akots]

Originally Posted by Mistfit

... Sell my YA player for 2mil (Guessing here)? Sell my secondary keeper (the foreign one) and use that money to: 1.) buy trainees 2.) buy a team I can be comfortable with in Div V.

Edit: Can a Div V team be built with ~5 mil USD? ...

If you can get 2 mil, then yes, definitely sell him, that is 100%. I'm not sure you can get that much though. But I'm not good at selling, it takes some planning as well. I usually sell at about average price and then, sometimes, some players are re-sold for extra 10-20% to somebody else with additional stamina or slight gain in TSI or just good timing.

IMO, 5 mil should be about enough to buy a Div V team and a decent one to live there comfortably without a fear of relegation for a few seasons. Then, of course, you'd need some maintenance. Also, keep in mind, that you have to perform a little bit, at least around places 3-4 to have match and sponsor income higher than you have now in Div VI. Optimal would be second place.

[akots]

Originally Posted by Mistfit

... What do you think you would train after keepers?

IMO, it does not matter. You might not want to train defending long term just because you don't want to play 5-3-2 or 5-4-1. If you train forwards (3-4-3), you might be prepared to playing with only one winger and at least one of the forwards towards the opposite wing. Or may be get AIM experience for the team. However, central defense of the opponents is usually quite good on average. IMO, you need a reasonable wing attack ratings as well for some matches. The idea is to exclude fluctuations in league strength as much as possible for as long as you stick to a long term training program so that you still can perform at least a little. So, you can train PM as long as you can buy three reasonable midfield trainees for your main team and in friendlies you can train any players. I'm not sure about the cup performance however. Buying 6 good PM trainees is very costly. So, training PM means you can forget about the cup for some time up until your secondary trainees will grow a bit. Winger training is also a good choice because it has lower impact on performance but it is not very profitable. Training forwards is reasonable. But sometimes, you need to make the right guess with these winger-FTW setup. Another option is to continue to train keepers which requires you to spend some time looking for secondary trainee at a reasonable price at around brilliant level to train him eventually to titanic and then sell and rinse and repeat.

So, as I said, there are pluses and minuses to every option which means that the game is pretty well balanced at this moment IMO.

[Aggie]

Originally Posted by akots

So, as I said, there are pluses and minuses to every option which means that the game is pretty well balanced at this moment IMO.

Although I had to start from scratch due to the rule changes I have to agree here. I decided to start my training regime with defending, because it trains 10 players at once. But indeed this means neglecting the league and cup on short term.