Contents this issue: Letters to the EditorWords of Wisdom: The Commissioner Explains Playoffs!
Pontification: Guest Pontification: Roster Manipulation
Guest Pontification: How to Train
Forum: What good is the midfield revisited
How much are players worth?
What good is Mark?
Mistake of the Week
Random thoughts for new managers
As is my prerogative, I get to say a few words first. The win I got in the televised match this week was directly attributable to the hints I received from this very magazine, including (but not limited to) using Scramble effectively, improving my mobiles' Defense, and using the scouting reports from KWPD. So read carefully!
From: Henri_Hayim_Farhi@cup.portal.com
Subject: A Power Rating Suggestion
It would be interesting if Mel would generate some sort of power rating for each team (sum of skills divided by number of players and perhaps further modified by average fatigue and/or age). So that we would have some idea of week-to-week variations in team strengths across the league. After all, we have very little idea what the relative strengths are outside of our division... (I like my division: it looks like anyone can be beat) One more question: is there some modifier for home/away during the match resolution?
[Editor's Notes: Power ratings are always great things; Doug Ingram does them for the soccer leagues and they make for interesting reading (Mike Sargent does different ones as well, which are also quite helpful). Now as to home field advantage, I think its only effect is in your monetary gain. Mel, please correct me if I'm wrong, but in my opinion, HFA does not affect the outcome of the match in any interesting way...]
Comissioner's Notes: The post season
Next season there will be tier leagues, so a new naming system is in order. The system should have names for the four existing leagues, and also be expandable in case there is ever a fifth (gasp). Most importantly, the names for the leagues should reflect the fact that the better teams are in one, and so on. One obvious choice would be to just name them "league 1" "league 2" "league 3" and "League 4" but that's a little too boring for me.
Suggestions are welcome, and I'll even throw in 4k sparf for the team who submits the answer I choose (in case of multiple submissions, the one I receive first gets the $$$).
[Editor's Note: Apparently Mel thought he sent this out already, but I for one had never seen it. In any event, if you want to "name the divisions", send your ballots directly to MEL (not me).]
Money for the playoffs will be very much LOWER than in regular games. This is more of a game balance decision than a realism decision. If you want realism, say the extra money is going to the comissioner's office to get him out of debt after the expenses he incurred starting up the league and dealing with all the governments and getting the cities to build stadiums and developing the oscillation overthruster to allow safe commute to planet ten for the home matches of the Black Lectroids, not to mention the officials for the games and all those white lab coats for them to wear.
Money received will depend on the league you end up in. In addition a 5k bonus goes to each of the two teams in the Sparf Cup Match, and another 5k to the winner of the cup.
League Cash 1 50k 2 40k 3 30k 4 20k
To determine your spot in the playoffs, combine your seed with your league. Your seed is the place (1-8) you finished in your league. Your league is abbreviated by it's first letter. Find the column (capital letter) and row (lowercase letter) which refers to your team. In subsequent rounds, teams are referred to by the following template:
< result > < round > < column > < row > or < result > < round > < row >(depending on whether columns need to be distinguished)
Therefore the winner of column A, row a in round 1 is W1Aa, and so on. Also all the Losers in row b of round two may be collectively refered to as L2b. The seed value your team entered the league with does not change and may be refered to in later rounds for comparison in making a pairing. This is a bit complicated, but it allows for placement of all 32 teams into tiered league next season without a situation where performance in a single game changing a person too far from what his seed would suggest. For rounds 3 and 4, some teams will be paired according to seed values. Since multiple pairing may be possible, the method I will use is (this will make sense after you read about rounds 3 and 4)
I refer to the leagues as league 1 (highest rank) through league 4 awaiting the results of the "name the leagues" competition.
Round 1
match A match B match C match D
a 4S-1H 4H-1D 4D-1C 4C-1S
b 3S-2C 3C-2D 3D-2H 3H-2S
c 8S-5D 8D-5S 8H-5C 8C-5H
d 7S-6H 7H-6D 7D-6C 7C-6S
Round 2
match A match B match C match D
a W1Ab-W1Ba W1Bb-W1Aa W1Cb-W1Da W1Db-W1Ca
b W1Ac-L1Aa W1Bc-L1Ba W1Cc-L1Ca W1Dc-L1Da
c W1Ad-L1Ab W1Bd-L1Bb W1Cd-L1Cb W1Dd-L1Db
d L1Ac-L1Ad L1Bc-L1Bd L1Cc-L1Cd L1Dc-L1Dd
Round 3
W2a will be paired with other W2a. Winners are W3a, losers L3a.
L2a will be paired with W2b/c who have superior seed values (if any exist). Winners are W3b, Losers L3b. If no match exits, L2a default to W3b; W2b/c default to L3b.
L2b/c will be pair with W2d who have superior seed values (if any exist). Winners are W3c, Losers go to league 4. If no match exits, L2b/c default to W3c; W2d default to league 4.
L2d go to league 4.
Round 4
W3a wil play each other for the sparf cup. W3a, L3a, W3b all will go to league 1.
L3b play any versus W3c who have superior seed values (if any exist). Winners go to league 2, losers to league 3. If no match exists, L3b default to league 2 and W3c default to league 3.
This week, the Great Pontificator takes the week off and lets someone else take the reins.
From: Henri_Hayim_Farhi@cup.portal.com
Those that know me from the UEFL should be rather surprised at the tack I have decided to take with the Chaos Demon Stalkers (I gotta lose this name..). A lengthy perusal of the rules (well 15 minutes, anyway) just before the day the first week orders were due, convinced me (for the time being) that the cost of injuries and the likelyhood of them were much too high. In the absence of 20/20/20/20 players floating around in the draft every week, I really could not afford to have any players hurt. In addition, large numbers of players in my roster would dilute my skills rapidly. Thus, I have decided to take the simple way out and be kind to those lazy, no good sods that play in my team (well, they have won two out of three so far). Studying the formulae has led me to the conclusion that I really should try to keep my players under or around a fatigue of 4 (correcting for age, of course). So, small roster and low fatigues and maybe my players (and the dice) will be grateful (and pigs will fly)..
From: emery@acfcri1.arc.nasa.gov (Scott Emery)
I mentioned that I used a program to calculate the maximum possible training. The full program is basically too large for any computer that I have user access too... (I MAINTAIN a cray machine, but there are ethical limits) So I calculate the best case scenario for each number of players (assuming five coaches) and then work from there with the "diff chart", (I will pass those along too)
This is the tail of the maximums file for 28 players.
coach 1 coach 2 coach 3 coach 4 coach 5 coach 6 coach 7 tot. tot. #__F_SK_ #__F_SK #__F_SK #__F_SK #__F_SK #__F_SK #__F_SK fat. skill 2 4 10 2 4 10 2 4 10 3 4 7 4 4 5 6 4 3 9 4 2 112 137 2 4 10 3 4 7 3 4 7 3 4 7 3 4 7 5 4 3 9 4 2 112 137 3 4 7 3 4 7 3 4 7 3 4 7 3 4 7 6 4 3 7 4 2 112 137 3 4 7 3 4 7 3 4 7 4 4 5 4 4 5 4 4 5 7 4 2 112 137 2 4 10 3 4 7 3 4 7 3 4 7 3 4 7 6 4 3 8 4 2 112 138 2 4 10 3 4 7 3 4 7 4 4 5 4 4 5 4 4 5 8 4 2 112 138 2 4 10 3 4 7 3 4 7 4 4 5 4 4 5 6 4 3 6 4 3 112 138 2 4 10 4 4 5 4 4 5 4 4 5 4 4 5 4 4 5 6 4 3 112 138 2 4 10 2 4 10 3 4 7 3 4 7 3 4 7 6 4 3 9 4 2 112 139 2 4 10 2 4 10 3 4 7 4 4 5 4 4 5 4 4 5 9 4 2 112 139 3 4 7 3 4 7 3 4 7 3 4 7 4 4 5 4 4 5 8 4 2 112 140 3 4 7 3 4 7 3 4 7 3 4 7 4 4 5 6 4 3 6 4 3 112 140 3 4 7 3 4 7 4 4 5 4 4 5 4 4 5 4 4 5 6 4 3 112 140 4 4 5 4 4 5 4 4 5 4 4 5 4 4 5 4 4 5 4 4 5 112 140 2 4 10 3 4 7 3 4 7 3 4 7 4 4 5 4 4 5 9 4 2 112 141 3 4 7 3 4 7 3 4 7 3 4 7 3 4 7 4 4 5 9 4 2 112 143
The program was fairly simple to write... and I did a terribly grungy job of it. As a matter of pride I will leave it as an exercise for the reader :-).
The general idea in training players is to minimize fatigue while maximizing skill value. Other interests in training are to distribute the skill in a pleasing manner, decide on an acceptable level of fatigue (chance of injury) but these ideas are not covered here. To figure out which groupings are best, and whether it is better to rest or to fatigue, I came up with the diff chart.
The diff chart is another way of looking at the training chart. In it I have subtracted the fatigue change from the skill change. If the result is positive, then I have a net gain in skill over fatigue. If the result is negative, then the players are getting more fatigue than skill. In some entries there are two numbers. I those cases I have simply multiplied the number of players in the group by the "diff" for a single player, to give me an idea of the effect of the group.
Let us take an example and see how it works. I want train a group of three players and add three (3) fatigue to the group. The skill change for an individual player in that case is five (5). I subtract the fatigue change from the skill change (5 - 3) to get two (2). This means that my skill is now two higher in relation to my fatigue than it used to be. Hence the left side entry in the diff chart is a two (2). There are a maximum of three players in the group so the number to the right is (3 * 2) six (6).
As a result of this analysis I have changed my approach to training. In general, I only fatigue +4 or -4, since the big wins are on the edges of the chart. Note that this is not necessarily true of 5+. This chart also graphically illustrates the general notion that big groups are "bad". Note also that between 4 and 9 it is "better" (If you buy into my logic) to rest a group than to train it hard. I find myself violating this rule frequently, but it is something that I always keep in mind. Finally, the big thing that I do with this chart is find the optimal way of falling off of the computer generated charts above, when (as frequently happens) I have to rest some of my team, but may fatigue the rest.
# of players -4 -2 0 +1 +2 +3 +4 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 +5/5 +4/4 +3/3 +4/4 +5/5 +7/7 +11/11 2 +4/8 +3/6 +2/4 +2/4 +3/6 +4/8 +6/12 3 +3/9 +2/6 +1/3 +1/3 +1/3 +2/6* +3/9 4 +2/8 +1/4 0 0 0 0 +1/4 5-6 +1/6 0 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1/-6 7-9 -1/-9 -1 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2/-18 10-14 -3/-42 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3/-42 15-19 -6 -5 -5 -4 -4 -4 -4 20+ -11 -8 -7 -6 -5 -5 -5/-100
* used for example in text
The training chart follows so that you do not have to scramble for the email message of many moons ago.
# of players -4 -2 0 +1 +2 +3 +4 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 +1 +2 +3 +5 +7 +10 +15 2 0 +1 +2 +3 +5 +7 +10 3 -1 0 +1 +2 +3 +5 +7 4 -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3 +5 5-6 -3 -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3 7-9 -5 -3 -2 -1 0 +1 +2 10-14 -7 -5 -3 -2 -1 0 +1 15-19 -10 -7 -5 -3 -2 -1 0 20+ -15 -10 -7 -5 -3 -2 -1
You may notice that between 4 and 9 it is better to be resting the groups that exercising them, that is, the skill change minus the fatigue change is higher when the groups are resting. Thus when I find that I need to rest a couple of players I rest them in groups of four when I can, it is still better to rest them in groups of 3, but it is worse to be fatiguing them in groups of 4... Would you like to buy a bridge?
Two weeks ago TOW asked what you thought about the importance of the midfield. Someone actually responded, although they asked if I could withhold their name. I did better than that; I stripped the header off the mail message and now can't even remember it myself. But it points something out: if you are afraid submitting to ToW will "give your master plan away," just send it and ask me to strip the header. The same goes for questions.
The topic: Mid-Field Dominance: Fact or Fiction?
you may remember that this was asked in the forum several weeks ago, and no-one responded.
Well, I tried it this week. My form of mid-field dominance was the following: Push the best defenders forward to the second line, and push the best offensive people back to the second line (long offense and long defense at the same time).
This strategy seemed to be effective. However, the mobiles on the other team had a very low defense, which was mentioned in an earlier TOW as being a big factor in winning/losing a game. My mobiles, on the other hand had a "GOOD" defense, which may have helped me in winning also....
More on this next week. I think that an interesting strategy would be to move the best offensive people into the center/wings position, in order to get the ball close enough for the mobiles/forwards to score. Since many people are weakest in the middle, this might work....
Last week, Tales of Woe asks the age-old question: How much are players worth?
From: supermeo@binkley.cs.mcgill.ca (Francois LARAMEE)
Answer from the Montreal Maulers to "how much is a player worth":
Well, the average player isn't worth a whole lot, but accumulating money until you drown under it is even worse. Consider that you have about 100 thousand SPARF bucks to spend every year. You are not likely to need much more than 10 new players to fill up holes in your roster, either via the Trade or the Free Agent Pool. So, giving away 10 bucks for an average player isn't too bad.
Now, I don't like spending money on Free Agents, because they are not likely to be better than any of my 24 non-Taxi Squad players. I did, however, bid humongous amounts of money in the Draft this year: since I had screwed WPD out of a lot of dough in a late-season trade last year, I had about 40K more than everyone else and spent 62K on the best Age 0 player available in the draft (he had skills of 15 across the board, same as a standard Age 1 guy for new teams). A player like that, if trained properly this year, will be one of my mobiles for 3 more seasons.
My advice would therefore be: 8 to 10K on an average player is fine. Any amount of money for a potential all-star in even better...
[Editor's Defensive Sulking: Hey, now, let's not go abusing the editor, eh? On the other hand, I traded him an Age 3 good player (I'd hesitate to say "star" after his injury) for a cranked Age 0, semi-cranked Age 1, and Age 2 defensive specialist (which helped a lot with my injury situation) So maybe $40K was a little too much. Money didn't seem to mean much last season.]
[Um, I forgot who wrote this. It is probably Michael Sander.]
Forum: Price for Free agents Well, judging from the trades at the beginning of the season, the going rate for a (healthy) free agents is around 5k SPARF, at least in trades. As for as signings for dropped players, I'd say a little less... maybe around 3k SPARF, unless you're desperate and have LOTS of money!
SO...we have a couple of conflicting views, but not terribly far apart. Now that you know how much you have to spare (from Issue 3 Section B), you can make your own judgements on how much to spend. It's obviously a combination of need and cash, but keep this in mind: WPD bought about 8 free agents last season (I was expeimenting). The max I ever paid was $2K. Did I buy inferior players or do people not bid on free agents very agressively? Yes.
This week, ToW looks at the Mark skill. Kick scores goals and passes, Scramble is now considered really important because you compare it to the opposing Defense, and you know to have better D on those Mobiles. So why crank someone's Mark? Intuitively, a forward should have a good Mark to be able to catch passes and get easy shots. Is that true? Is that all?
From: Michael Sander <344LWKC@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU>
Mistake of the Week: (I'll take this away from you...) My mistake of the Week was (accidently) placing one of my Stars geared towards offense in the RW spot, thus making sure he accomplished ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in the game.
Sure I had two tests, a dental appointment, and to work part of the day that I sent my lineup on, but that's a pretty weak excuse, don't you think [:-)] ?
[Editor's Note: Ostensibly, a star at RW might GENERATE offense by passing effectively to the forwards, but it certainly isn't worth it. And a dental appointment is certainly a better excuse than "I haven't read the rules carefully," which is my personal favorite...;-)]
One fun thing to do with press is to start a "press war". The soccer leagues I sometimes mentioned have several good ones going; one of my favorites involves a team that claims his rival is controlled by Organized Crime. To start a Press War, you simply make up Big Fat Lies (tm) about an opponent you particularly dislike (say, the division leader, or a personal friend). Coordinated press is fun as well. Press does not have to be an "unnecessary evil;" make it mean something, especially if it's something mean ;-).