Is building a county side too easy? (ICC09)

[Myrmecophaga]

I started a save on normal with Glamorgan, because they are rubbish. They have fewer stars for batting and for bowling than every other county:

Long babble that you probably want to skip:

2009: Skipped through the whole season to get to the contracts section.

Then I terminated the contracts of the majority of the side, signed every decent looking youth player, maximised Youth and Coaching with remaining money.

2010, 2011: Continued in the same vein, loosing more or less everything, but collecting Youth players. I put them all in the side when I could, and gave them all technique coaching, regardless of form.

Predictably, I lost almost everything in 2010, but in 2011, despite my total disregard for players form and indeed also my habit of skipping games, I came 4th in division 2 of the Pro40 and runner up in the Challenge trophy (which actually rather annoyed me because it just increased the risk that a player I was training would get injured by adding extra games).

2012: Won Challenge Trophy, promoted in both Leagues (Won CC div2). Still using all my coaching for training only and using games as match practise, rather than trying to win.

2013, 14, 15: Won CC three times; Challenge Trophy, 2 wins, 1 QF; 20 overs 2 wins, once RU. Pro40 annoys me (pointless tournament at the end of the season) so I've skipped all the games, the result being that I've floated around mid to low table (5th-7th). I had to sign some pacemen in their mid-30s whilst youth players got good enough in 2013 and 2014

Now, in 2016, I have 3 batsmen and 3 bowlers who are frequently selected for England (normally 2 of each), my five batsmen now all average above 40, my all-rounder averaged 37 with the bat, 22 with the ball last year, I have four pacemen who average between 20 and 30, plus two more who most probably will when I get them into the team more often to give them some experience. My 'keeper consistently averages 30-35 with the bat. My only weakness is having to use my overseas player as my lone spinner.

In other words, without cheating to get better re-gens, but rather just by spending a few years training new players (from my own and other youth sides), I have built from the worst side one head and shoulders above the rest. In the 1st XI there remains just J Harris from when I started, as has been the case since about 2012, and there are only two other players (G Rees and M Powell) in the second team who were there to start with. To loose Harris would weaken my side only slightly, because he players for England most of the time); Rees now plays only when both of my first team openers are unavailable, and Powell will only play when either 3 openers or 5 batsmen in general are unavailable, and will be leaving at the end of this season.

Unless I am just really lucky, its unrealistic that more or less a whole team could be replaced by youngsters in just 4 years, and even so be totally dominant.

I've noted two major things that cause this:

1. The AI doesn't keep onto its own good regens. At least half of my side came from signing players left alone by their own counties. I didn't have any competition when it came to signing them either.

2. Youth players come too good "out of the box". My training didn't turn second team players into reasonable county players, all of them were turned from good enough players for county cricket into Test standard or not far from Test standard players.

 

[Hooper]

2009: Skipped through the whole season to get to the contracts section.

Then I terminated the contracts of the majority of the side, signed every decent looking youth player, maximised Youth and Coaching with remaining money.

Stopped reading here.

This is why its easy. I don't think doing this is very realistic is it? Imagine if in real life if a team did that? Of course they would be gun.

 

[Myrmecophaga]

Well exactly- I shouldn't have been able to- but there was absolutely no competition for signing those players.

Is it really the case that in order to have a realistic game you have to decide "I won't sign him, or I'll become unrealistically good", rather than realising that you can't because somebody just out-bid you. At the moment, for some youth players you may as well pay 40-50k for them too, because they will be dead certain to perform for you right from the start.

 

[Hooper]

You shouldn't be firing half your squad in the first place. No team does a full clean out like that.

 

[Myrmecophaga]

The reason why it isn't done is because you haven't a hope in hell of getting a full squad of players who are good enough, let alone who are going to become the mainstay of the test side. The failing in the game is that you can fire your whole second eleven, and replace them in a single season, with people who are better.

To put it simply, if releasing or firing half your squad worked, then counties would be doing it. They don't therefore it doesn't work. However, it does work on the game, therefore the game is very unrealistic.

It isn't good enough to say "well, just don't do it", because then the game stops being a cricket simulator, and instead you become the simulator. The purpose of the algorithms in the game is to make it realistic, the purpose of the player is to try to win, rather than the purpose of the player being to make it realistic and the purpose of the algorithms being to store information in a database for the player to access.

By the same token we could forget about actually making county games realistic, and just have a tool that plays them time and time again until a reasonable result occurs, and then move onto the next game, but that's not what its about.

The crux of the issue is this: youth players are too good and too easily available, so that they can always be relied upon to fill the whole second team, and second team players are too irrelevant or too expensive.

 

[Sureshot]

Has any county fired half their squad? Anyway, you are talking about 2nd XI players, who are thus fringe players, and being Glamorgan 2nd XI, are probably woeful cricketers. Don't expect realistic results from unrealistic inputs.

Either way, we are going to look into revitalising the whole of our transfer system for 2010. So this could be revamped. Hopefully, of course stumbling blocks can occur, but who knows!

 

[Myrmecophaga]

Thinking about it more, the problem lies with the AI more than the transfer system, because the AI just doesn't bid for good players often enough, or create bidding wars, which would break this method.

 

[Sureshot]

I often have to increase my bid by a lot for good players.

 

[Myrmecophaga]

btw, the problem for me is much more that it is easy rather than it is unrealistic, but fixing the ease with which you can build a side probably fixes the lack of realism.

 

[Hooper]

Has any county fired half their squad? Anyway, you are talking about 2nd XI players, who are thus fringe players, and being Glamorgan 2nd XI, are probably woeful cricketers. Don't expect realistic results from unrealistic inputs.

Either way, we are going to look into revitalising the whole of our transfer system for 2010. So this could be revamped. Hopefully, of course stumbling blocks can occur, but who knows!

Exactly.

Don't expect a county like Glamorgan to do well... They aren't anything special.

I find the AI raises bids for good players - so don't know what your going on about there.

 

[Howsie]

I've quite often lost out on a regen player because the AI has gone up another 5-6 thousand pounds.

 

[bladescape]

I've tried that,by 2019 I still hadn't got out of 2nd devision in County Championships.
However,in another game I got 2 batsman in 2011 who are both averaging 60.

 

[blake]

Hooper and Sureshot, your arguments aren't working - Myrmecophaga has a very valid point.

He shouldn't be forced to not want to buy people just so the game becomes more realistic. I also found that when I play lots of young people I tend to win everything, it has happened a lot. I played as Derbyshire who used to have the worst ratings on ICC06 and after five years we were unbeatable and dominated thanks to some freak regens.

Sureshot, I understand that you are trying to defend your game but you can't use the excuse 'it doesn't happen to me so therefore it can't happen to anyone' with regards to AIs bidding for players.

And also, Hooper, Myr also proved your first point wrong and he is absolutely right. Counties do not fire half their squad in real life, because otherwise they would do terrible and they wouldn't get anywhere. Just stating that counties never fire their squads isn't a fair call - it is a simulator, you should be allowed to do what you want, and if firing half your squad makes you unbeatable in the future then all counties would be doing it in real life.

I agree in the fact that the game is a bit too easy in the future. It wouldn't be impossi ble to tweak - more just the fact that we need to make it 1. Harder to sign very good players and 2. There is too many good regens in the game - especially ones that go unsigned by the team that owns the youth academy. In reality, only the bad regens would be left in the transfer market in the end - yet I find regens with averages from 50-65 at the transfer market that have been discarded by teams.

It's a fun game, but the building up is a bit too easy. Still, I'm having fun.

 

[CG123]

i agree with blake
transfer market may need a bit of tweaking which i think your planning to do next year
maybe another difficulty level (hard) which is a real challenge or something

i started a game with Lanchashire got rid of about 10 players in my squad first season (all the rubbish ones)
then signed some good youth players and a good overseas player, i was currently skipping games but even doing this my 20 year old batsmen were averages 30-40.
im about 3-4 seasons in now, bowler was on domestic transfer market for 80000 picked him up to add to my overseas bowler and anderson plus a couple of good all rounders. batting wise just a few seasons in i have 2 regens representing england pretty regularly, as well as a good keeper and alistair cook
overall my point is the same as Myrmecophaga's, even just 4 seasons in i have already built a good side just skipping games
still love the game however but maybe need a "hard" level to add to normal and easy.

 

[iridescentt]

You shouldn't be firing half your squad in the first place. No team does a full clean out like that.

:laugh The Newcastle Knights.