Story Future Tours Program done right

[Bluebagger]

The current real life FTP sucks and the ICC has no balls so I'm here to do it correctly in DBC 17

My plan is to take Australia over a number of years and play home and away against every test playing nation which means playing in Pakistan and not the UAE as well as play ODI's against some associate nations such as Ireland, Afghanistan, Kenya etc when I'm in the neighbourhood and even play the 2019 World Cup. I'll also play one series home and away that doesn't involve Australia such as India v Pakistan and South Africa v England and whoever else I can think of.

For Australia we will play 5 tests home and away against India and South Africa and 3 tests home and away against Bangladesh, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Zimbabwe. The Ashes will be 6 tests in England and 5 tests in Australia. The triangular series will return in Australia for ODI's and everywhere else in the world it will be 5 or 3 ODI's. I won't be playing T20 matches. Each tour will have the touring team play 4 day first class matches against domestic or 'A' teams as well as one day games. Australian tours of England will be quite long but a tour of Zimbabwe for instance will probably be one first class and a single one day game against domestic team.

Before any tour I'll nominated an Australian squad and I can only choose my teams from those players.

What I'm also thinking of is to simulate test series and one day series for all the other series I don't play so that I can replicate a rankings and awards system. I haven't worked out a ranking points system or 'calendar year' but something like 5 points for an away match win, 3 points for a home win, 2 points for an away draw, 1 point for a home draw, 10 points for an away series win, 7 points for a home series win, 5 points for an away series draw and 3 points for a home series draw. Emphasising on away series performances is the right way I think. I'll try and tally up all my played statistics and then simulated series statistics to come up with highest run scorer, leading wicket taker, man of the match awards for players of the year etc emphasising on away performances as well.

I'll work out a schedule tonight and hopefully get started on a tour tonight and can start updating this thread hopefully people will enjoy it

 

[Faithful]

Yea, I was thinking of doing something like this with NZ but wasn't sure how to do it. But I like you idea with the Points and Ranking system as this was what I could not figure out.

 

[Thehairygamer]

I love this idea and have added to my watch list. Very interested to see how it goes. Also a big fan of the way you are doing points, having more for away wins makes sense.

 

[Giraffe]

I am doing the same thing and I am using cricket captain 2016. See my thread here Story - Australian Career Mode - Don Bradman Cricket 17 Forum on PlanetCricket Forums

Btw I am back on it and have been constantly playing matches so will eventually start updating again with the Aus vs RSA series and sheffield shield.

I haven't decided on what I will be using for points but your system is a really good idea

 

[maddawg1136]

If you want to get technical with the rankings I also suggest implementing something like a multiplier depending on what teams you play. For example if you're playing a team one place lower than you you might have the points adjusted by x0.95 or 5 places lower it might be x0.6. And for teams one higher place than you it could be x1.05 or even higher above you could result in x1.5 increase if you win. Those figures are just placeholders but you could work out some kind of method relating to the points each team is on.

That would give you a truer reflection I believe as a series win against Bangladesh should give you less points than a series win against India. Why I suggest working the multiplier out on points not placing is because if you look at the real life rankings there is more of a gap between someone like Bangladesh who might be 9th and the West Indies that might be 8th, that England who could be 4th and South Africa who could be 5th.

Hope you can understand and just an idea that I thought might be pretty cool if a method was worked out

 

[Bluebagger]

I've come up with an FTP program from September 2017 to February 2023 (even though my chart says it ends January I haven't included the ODI series in any month but the tri-series will usually stretch in to february) There's some overlapping in months that I haven't included, for instance in 2017-18 West Indies will play tests in November and December and Pakistan will play tests in December and January but I haven't noted it that way, that was just because I couldn't work out how to multi colour on Libre Office. Every Tri-Series in Australia will be the two teams who tour that season in the test series with the exception of the two Ashes series, I haven't decided who will be invited for that series I was thinking of South Africa in 2018/19 and maybe Sri Lanka in 2022/23. I would have gone with India but I don't really want to double up on playing teams close to each other where I can avoid it, unfortunately it happens though.

I haven't decided when I will play against Afghanistan but I am thinking it'll be when I tour Bangladesh and either we will play a tri-series or I will play a few ODI's before getting in to it with Bangladesh. I will play Ireland in a 3 match series when I tour England and I'll fit in a game or two against the Netherlands and Scotland, when I tour Pakistan I'll head on over to the UAE to play a match or two against them and probably against Canada and the USA when I tour the Caribbean. This is a fair FTP after all

I've also decided that the 'calendar year' will be from September 1 to August 31 which I believe is what they currently do but I'm not sure, so I'll make sure that no series is on going between August and September and ideally I'll get teams play 4 series in each calendar year, 2 home and 2 away to try and make things fair.

I don't think I've made mistakes and double booked but I probably have, here's the FTP I've worked out on the series I intend to play. For the series that don't involve Australia I will play as the away team to make it fair and I'll include ODI's against associate teams as well. New Zealand vs Canada and USA in the Caribbean, India vs UAE on the tour in Pakistan etc I also haven't looked at competition creator but I'm hoping I can create a world cup that was more like the 2015 world cup with 14 teams rather than the 10 team world cup that's probably in the game but if I can't I will just manually play the games and simulate non-Australian games.

And the schedule for the first tour, Australia in Zimbabwe and Kenya

The 16 man squad chosen to tour Zimbabwe and Kenya is:

Steve Smith
Jackson Bird
Pat Cummins
James Faulkner
Peter Handscomb
Josh Hazlewood
Travis Head
Usman Khawaja
Nathan Lyon
Shaun Marsh
Peter Nevill
Matt Renshaw
Mitchell Starc
Matthew Wade
David Warner
Adam Zampa

And of course, many many many thanks goes to all of the guys and gals over in the Cricket Academy sub-forum and whoever else may not be a member of this website for creating such awesome teams and stadiums to make this possible. The main reason behind this is just to play in as many of these wonderfully created stadiums.

Yea, I was thinking of doing something like this with NZ but wasn't sure how to do it. But I like you idea with the Points and Ranking system as this was what I could not figure out.

Definitely give it a go if you like the idea of tours and playing against the domestic teams, especially for New Zealand you'll be playing half of your games in the brilliant and gorgeous stadiums over there.

I love this idea and have added to my watch list. Very interested to see how it goes. Also a big fan of the way you are doing points, having more for away wins makes sense.

Thanks mate! I haven't decided how I will update so there might be slow responses on the first tour until I figure it out. I could record a little but I've never done that before but I'll see how I go.

 

[Dutch]

Great idea!

 

[Giraffe]

Looks great so far. Are you planning on player development? So over the years new players coming through the ranks and pushing for the test teams.

 

[Faithful]

Looks great so far. Are you planning on player development? So over the years new players coming through the ranks and pushing for the test teams.

I was thinking of this myself, and my idea was to give players skill points (like in career mode) either based on performances or matches played.( From domestic competitions) But the only problem is that old players will improve at the same rate young players do.

 

[Giraffe]

Yeah it is definitely not an easy thing to manage. What I am doing is at the end of the season just going in and editing players at my will based on their performances. So if an old player has a bad year in the domestic game I will lower him down, if a young player does well I will increase his ratings. How much by, I do not know. I will also probably slightly lower older players in general and raise younger ones just to give a sense of regen

 

[Bluebagger]

I finished my first innings against Matabeleland and I'm not sure if I should just post the innings scorecards as I finish them or I should throw them all up at once after the game has been finished, any suggestions on what is best?

Looks great so far. Are you planning on player development? So over the years new players coming through the ranks and pushing for the test teams.

I'm not sure about player development but I will be dropping under performers and phasing out some of the older players. I think that the World Cup will be around the time where players like Shaun Marsh are gone completely while Adam Voges isn't under consideration at all and I'll probably have Lehmann and Patterson next in line for the number 6 position with it being possible that Mitch Marsh and Hilton Cartwright forcing their way in as well, it will take Maddinson a while to get back in to the team. I'll also keep an eye on who is performing in the real world and maybe take them on a tour and give them a tour game for experience but I don't really want to be changing stats and skills.

 

[Giraffe]

Fair enough with the regens. Only reason I fiddle with ratings is that right now domestic sides choose sides automatically in a comp, so if I don't change the ratings of Voges for example he will keep getting picked even if he doesn't score a century in five years

I am no experienced campaigner at this, but for personal convenience I will be posting my screenshots all at one time after the match. Reasons are for me is that I sometimes like to just keep playing the match rather than stop to write up a summary and post screenshots and the fact that there is a chance the game will crash or something and you will lose everything. Just my opinion, it is entirely up to you of course

 

[Bluebagger]

Matabeleland Tuskers vs Australian XI, 1,2,3,4 September, 2017.

Hello everyone and welcome to the Queen's Sports Club in Bulawayo for this four day first class tour match between the Matabeleland Tuskers and the Australian XI. Australia have chosen a full strength team which will most probably be their lineup for the first test against Zimbabwe. The pitch is a hard, worn and crumbly surface with no cracks to speak of with temperatures being cool but with high humidity. Australia have won the toss and elected to bat first

It wasn't the greatest batting performance from the Aussies but with a few unlucky dismissals I don't think that they will be too concerned heading in to the first test at Harare next week. Matt Renshaw was unlucky to be bowled after an inside edge was played back on to his stumps defending a ball he should have left alone, Mitchell Starc was also bowled after a ball struck his leg and bounced back on to the stumps while Usman Khawaja, Peter Nevill and Josh Hazlewood were all caught behind playing the hook shot. Quite a few starts were made in this innings but the standout performance was obviously David Warner at the top with 119 while he was supported with Shaun Marsh's 43 runs combining with the innings high partnership of 77 from 118 balls.

Australia to bowl with about 20 overs left in the day.

Whoah! Mitchell Starc ran rampant in this evening's play taking 5 wickets in 7 overs including a hattrick dismissing Nkosana Mpofu, Richmond Mutumbami and Sean Williams in consecutive deliveries. Matabeleland are in all sorts of trouble closing play at 7/49 and a whopping 258 runs behind the Australians and staring down at a huge defeat already on day one. Can they salvage anything on day two?

Unfortunately the Matabeleland innings lasted only 6.5 overs on the second days play, being dismissed all out for 69 in a truly dreadful display of batting. Mitchell Star was by far the pick of the bowlers with his 6/20 off 10 overs including the hattrick on day one.

The Australians have decided not to enforce the follow on and will bat again.

The Australians declared their innings closed at 7/174 after 45 overs. Once again a few unlucky dismissals went against the Australians such as Steve Smith being dismissed thanks to a wonder catch at 5th slip from Brian Vitori and Matt Renshaw once again was unlucky to play a ball back on to his stumps this time it came off his leg to clip the leg stump but he will disappointed for playing such a poor stroke to begin with. Peter Handscomb was once again deceived by a cutting delivery to be dismissed LBW. The Aussies had decided at 5 down to end the innings after 50 overs regardless so scoring runs as fast as possible was on the agenda but once Peter Nevill was dismissed captain Steve Smith decided not to play out the 5 overs.

Matabeleland have been set a target of 419 runs to win with plenty of time on their side. Can Matabeleland improve on their woeful first innings display?

Unfortunately the answer to that question is no they cannot. While they did manage to go past their dismal first innings score they end the days play at 6/88 which is not much better than had achieved in the first innings. Mitchell Starc was once again the destroyer of the Tuskers and he was well supported by Josh Hazlewood. Nathan Lyon has not bowled at all in this match so far with the pace and movement from the seamers too much for the Matabeleland batsmen to handle.

The Australians will be looking to wrap this one up early on day three.

Taking just 9.2 overs to finish the job the Australian XI complete a comprehensive victory by 307 runs early on day 3. Mitchell Starc took 4 wickets to go with his 6 wickets in the first innings to give him match figures of 10/64 and receiving man of the match honours.

The Australians will be pleased with their bowling efforts but the batting might have to improve if they are to cause Zimbabwe any problems in the first test match on Friday.