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- NOTES ON SPORTS SIMULATIONS
-
-
- CONTENTS
-
- 1. Overview
-
- 2. Installation
- a. DOS
- b. Windows 3.1 or Windows 95/98
-
- 3. Intro to the game
-
- 4. Online Leagues
-
-
- 1. Overview
-
-
- Coach, Manager, Hockey, and Basket are a full line of professional sports
- simulations, and College Coach and College Basket are similar college sports
- simulations. The goal of these games is to simulate the experience of owning
- a team, being general manager, and/or being head coach. These are NOT games
- where you will grab a joystick and run your players around, rather they are
- strategy games.
-
- Each game is fully featured, with appropriate roster actions, preseason,
- full regular seasons, and playoffs. The players and teams are purely
- fictional, so there is no inherent difference between different teams.
-
- The order of a full season is as follows:
- -Initialize season: players get a year older, pro contracts and leases are
- updated, players may retire or graduate, and incoming high school/college
- players are created.
- -Owner actions (pro games only): hire coaches, negotiate stadium lease and/or
- construction, set ticket prices, and set team salary cap.
- -Offseason: cut/draft/trade/free agents in pro; cut and recruit in college.
- -Position changes and training camps: coaches start getting the team ready to
- play.
- -Preseason: 4 games in football, 6 in pro basketball and hockey
- -Full regular season
- -Playoffs, depending on game.
- -Awards: all-star teams and various coach and player awards given out.
-
- After each season is completed, a YEARxxxx.STS file is written out, which
- lists the records and stats of every team and the best players from each
- position. If you run a team, you also get a YEARxxxx.<team> file, which
- has the stats for all the players and coaches on your team.
-
- If you have any comments about any of these games, feel free to contact me.
- My e-mail address is andy@dolphinsim.com. Many of the features in the game
- today are due to people just like you who thought things should be added.
-
- This product is under no warranty, and is sold as-is. Additionally, I
- cannot be held responsible for any unintended effects that running this
- software might have on your system. Use of this game implies your
- agreement to these terms.
-
-
- 2. Installation
-
- a. Installing the game under DOS
-
- In order to play this game under DOS, you will need a DPMI server. If
- you already have one installed on your machine, simply create an empty
- directory on your hard drive and unzip this game into the blank directory.
-
- If you do not have a DPMI server, you must get one. A free server can
- be found on my ftp site, dolphinsim.com, in /pub/sports.
-
-
- b. Installing the game under Windows
-
- This game should run as-is in Windows 3.1 or 95/98. No extra files should
- be needed. Simply create an empty directory, and unzip this .ZIP file into
- that directory. I am told that if you have Norton Utilities running when
- your run any of these games, the system will slow down. This is apparently
- a memory conflict or a bug in NU.
-
-
- 3. Intro to the game
-
-
- These games are almost entirely menu-driven, so it should not be terribly
- difficult to get aquainted with the games. There are two types of menus you
- will see: one with options along the bottom line of the screen and one with a
- full page.
-
- The first type will have from one to nine options, and may be selected either
- with the arrow keys and enter or by pressing the number corresponding to the
- desired choice. (The left-most is option 1, the second is option 2, etc.)
-
- The second type is a full-screen scrolling menu, most often used to select
- players. The arrow keys move up and down one choice, the page up and page down
- keys move up and down a full screen, and home and end go to the first and last
- choices. While viewing players, pressing 'm' will alternate view modes
- between offensive stats, defensive stats, attributes, and salaries. Pressing
- 'r' while viewing free agents or college players will cycle through your
- team's roster, so that you can get a reminder of what your players and needs
- are. Pressing 's' while viewing free agents, college/high school players, or
- players to trade for will allow you to skip quickly through the list by either
- choosing the position (free agents or college player) or the team (trades) to
- move to.
-
- You will also be asked to enter a registration code. If you downloaded
- this game and are trying as a demo, just press enter when asked for the
- code. Otherwise, enter it at this time.
-
- When you run the game, you will first see a player screen. This is where you
- need to add yourself if you want to play the game. You are asked for your
- name, which must be less than 30 characters. You can also change the name of
- an existing player or delete a player.
-
- Last, you can change how loose the game is with coaching and owning
- assignments with the coaching mode option. In pro, the options are whether or
- not you must have enough money to buy a team. In college, the options are
- whether you can coach any team you want or if you can only get jobs you are
- offered.
-
- The second menu will let you choose options. The first lets you decide if
- you just want game scores, if you want to see play-by-play, or if you want
- sideline control of your team during the game. The second option will have a
- rather large file created at the end of each season with the stats of all
- players. The third option will run the seasons automatically, and may only be
- chosen if you are not controlling any teams. If you select this option, the
- game will run until you press ESC, at which point it will finish the current
- season and exit. Note that the insides of the game are rather detailed, so if
- it takes a long time, you don't have to worry that your computer has locked up.
-
-
- 4. E-mail leagues
-
- There are a number of e-mail leagues that are running off of versions of my
- sports simulations. This is very enjoyable, as it involves playing a fairly
- detailed sports game, while interacting with other human beings running the
- other teams instead of computer coaches. The quality of play is also much
- higher than playing the home version, as you have between a day and a week
- to scout your next opponent.
-
- If you are interested, the "Dolphin E-mail Leagues" web site is at
- http://www.dolphinsim.com/, and I can be contacted via e-mail at
- andy@dolphinsim.com.
-
-
- copyright (c) 1997-2000 Andy Dolphin
-