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Average Lettuce posted:Ok, then let's change the focus to Passing. Done. March 2024 3.3.24 Backpfeinfengesichter (2-5-4, 6th) @ Zwickau (7-3-1, 2nd)  We now have exactly the number of players we need for a starting squad. No spares, so everyone plays. You will never see other teams play a formation like this. And I can't even imagine handling the media. No keeper. Empty goal the whole way. Anybody we put in there would be less effective there than where they are and would not be working as much towards boosting their sale price. Any of the reserves won't be here long enough to make it worth the effort. For a brief period here, this actually makes sense. Which doesn't stop it from being transparently, aggressively stupid. I hope the scorekeeper ate their Wheaties ...  Oh come on! Let me have my moment. *sigh* I put CD Klosner in there as he has the best defense on the team. 30, which means 15 while he's in goal. That's very close to 'might as well not even be there' territory. First possession, he rolls a 6. Which is lower than Insurrectionist, which is lower than the defensive line got. Super.  An example here of automatic pressing. We'd had a midfield turnover and I didn't give the instruction to do it, but Average Lettuce presses anyway. Any class that has the ability to press without consuming an action will automatically do this if there is an opponent with the ball in range.  Yep, this again. Meanwhile we are running ally_1986 and Average Lettuce ragged. They are sucking wind by halftime, and I take it easy after that, but I'm trying to boost them as quick as possible. At least Insurrectionist is getting plenty of action failing to block shots. 3.10.24 Backpfeifengesichter (2-5-5, 7th) @ Koblenz (3-3-6, 6th) Needed a win to get back ahead of them, and knew we weren't going to get it. I was actually fairly shocked by a 1-0 loss after the previous blowout, they messed up our defense to score once late in the first half. Had a couple of decent shots, but couldn't get anything past their defense. And Insurrectionist had his first blocked shot at the very end, so that was something. 3.17.24 Wuppertal (6-1-6, 4th) @ Backpfeifengesichter (2-5-6, 7th) Wuppertal's not in the greatest of moods these days. Burghausen just locked in the third promotion spot, meaning Wuppertal is stuck in Amateurs for at least another year. Playing with a high defensive line of CDs and still sporting GK Theiner, now at 40 defense, they are basically impervious to anything we can do on both ends. Holding with Posch and hoping they miss tackles so he can try to dribble or Feint is the our best hope.  To even get here, we took the opening kickoff and had to survive a tackle attempt, then hold it on the flank. This was the first of two additional tackle attempts, although now that we're holding we could be confident in them.  They shift a CD closer in response.  A successful Rainbow Feint gets us in position to score, but also surrounded by CDs, three of them ready to counter-tackle. First attempt fails. On the final one ...  That doesn't look pleasant.  Our first-ever penalty kick ensues! The percentages shown here are very slightly different based on ratings, but it's always 100% for the bottom, straight on one. The player taking the kick is chosen by Accuracy so far as I can tell, and I think that adjusts the numbers also. The way this works is that if you guess the same location out of the six possibilities as the keeper, they will make the save. The percentages control whether you make the kick or not - except for the 100% target, there's a chance you just plain miss. I like to go for one of the ones labeled 91%. I don't know if the keeper chooses at pure random or they are more likely to pick one with a lower chance of missing. I also don't know if it's kicker accuracy, keeper defense, or a combination of the two that contributes to the small differences in % that occur. Maybe we'll observe a trend over time, but as mentioned we're talking small variances; the 81% might be as high as mid-80s for example.  One click to select the target zone, as here. A second one confirms it. You can also just select Random if you don't want to bother and let the game make the choice. Frankly, you won't get results that are that much different so this is a surprisingly popular choice. Thinking is hard, and all that.  Looks like the keeper decided to stay put and make sure they didn't give up a cheap score right up the middle. This is what I do when facing a penalty as a keeper; I figure anywhere else they have a chance of missing, but if I dive right or left and could have just stayed where I was and stopped the shot, I feel really stupid. Fried's aim is true. They haven't even had possession yet, and we've taken the lead!  We stopped them until the second half, but here - on a shot that a reasonably trained farm animal could have gotten in the way of - they equalize through the line 1-1. Tried to get in position again to score but we were very fortunate to survive all of those CD challenges the first time around. Drew another foul that was just outside the area, and were able to get in close again - but they made the tackle legally this time.  Ok, gotta hand it to this persistent bunch. Zwickau was ugly, but they were really scrappy these last couple of matches. Draw against Wuppertal without anything resembling a keeper. The defensive front is solid.  Schwerin is almost as good as Sinsheim was last year. Wouldn't be surprised to see the other two bounce back down though. And Oberhausen still hasn't not lost against anyone other than us.  The end-season text still lauds us as mediocre. They have less flattering things to say if we finish last, but we haven't been reduced to that indignity. Yet. And of course we didn't have anyone on the Best XI. The players we sold don't give us any Glory here, because they aren't on the team anymore. Even still, this tells the story. Our defense stood tall for the most part.  I moved Klosner out of goal for this, as seemed fitting. For my money, in the second row, Hense, Fried, and Kallenberger are particularly punchable. Even if two of them are valuable players.  We have a nice 30% bonus this time around since I did a lot of that SL upgrade; the players aren't going to be around long enough to benefit from the other options, so at least I figured let's get some money out of them. Going Jaguarr here naturally. Nice to have a flat reward per match returning, no matter how terrible we are . Of course the big question is, do we have an appropriate youth coming in? I'll just say there's a rather ... nifty ... answer to that question.
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Oct 27, 2022 21:07
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New Youth Player for NiftyBottle! Nifty Bottle, you were the first volunteer and you've been patient. Wait no longer.  Nifty isn't the first word I think of when I look at this fellow. But he's a keeper ...  ... because he has an appropriate attribute distribution for a keeper. It would be better if we switched the defense and control, but with almost all the points in those two categories, this is still what we're looking for right now. I don't know if there's logic to make it more likely we get this kind of player if we don't have a keeper on the squad. But let's not question why. A 0-Giftedness keeper won't take us to great heights of accomplishment, but we have to start somewhere until we can find someone better. Nifty Bottle is that starting point. - Base Class Amateur Goalkeeper (G). This one is not a choice. - Attribute Focus I assume we're sticking with Defense, but Accuracy, Passing, and Control are all available. It would be hilarious to make an accuracy-focused keeper, but only in a train-wreck, rest of the squad strangling you kind of way. When we get there, skills will be a more meaningful choice of course. Even so, Nifty Bottle, you are on the clock and have 48 hours to confirm or change the above two items.
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Oct 27, 2022 21:10
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Do you always have to train youths as GK or can they come pre trained in a position? Training a keeper seems painful. I guess you could always buy one, but that's boring.
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Oct 27, 2022 21:34
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After we upgrade the Youth Academy a few times, we will start having youths come pre-trained in a position. That's mostly good, but it also means you don't get to choose. I.e. you can have a situation where you have a keeper, and a backup keeper, and the Academy gives you a third keeper, basically forcing you to sell one of them. They can also come out with a skill trained eventually, which again is 'more ready to contribute, but less room to control their development'.
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Oct 27, 2022 21:39
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I like that Oberhausen's sole consolation each year is that they didn't lose every match. There's always the draw against BPG to look forward to!
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Oct 27, 2022 21:44
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Yeah, GK (obviously) and defense.
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Oct 27, 2022 22:49
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Kangra posted:I like that Oberhausen's sole consolation each year is that they didn't lose every match. There's always the draw against BPG to look forward to! I'm fairly surprised at them. They will eventually do somewhat better than this and have their moments, but likely never escape the Amateur League. Usually, they've started winning some games by now though. So they managed to get dealt a bad hand even within the context of being at the bottom of the barrel.
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Oct 28, 2022 23:01
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Coaches Report: Summer 2024 The '24-'25 season German Amateur League clubs. Offenbach and Embden return, while Rostock is new after having spent the last two years in the Third League.  I think the only Glory we gained in the last half of last season was the 6 from the player achievements. That's pretty sad. We also lost just about exactly half of our fans from the peak, but Money continues to rise. We've received the second half owed from the transfer payment, as promised.  A side-effect of the fire sale is that we have very little to do in the way of contract extensions for a while. Only Insurrectionist needs a new deal.  ally_1986 has learned Nutmeg Level 1, but is not quite ready to take the next step.  Both of our young midfielders will soon face decisions on what Specialization to embark on next. Contract Extensions - Insurrectionist gets the standard first-renewal 3-year deal for young players. That sets us back 9,125. As the inverse of the saying goes, you have to pay for what you get. Player Sales We have four Universal Defenders (DF). By the end of this transfer window, we will have zero. That's really going to suck. Three can wait till the end, but Hense must go now. If his birthday was three days earlier, I would have had to sell him in the winter. The remaining four players will be sold this coming February.   Almost a tackle per match last season, and the only defender with Head Play talent.  A good price. Reports are that he'll start for Wuppertal, pushing out a younger CD with similar capabilities but no skills yet. Interestingly, the word is FW Kimmel hasn't done much over there, playing in only one match after we sold him partway through last year. They paid a lot for emergency depth in that case, but we'll take the money.  This may be worth looking at now; there's a graph that goes with it but two years doesn't tell you much. We can see that over half our money so far has come from selling players; sponsors are almost double ticket sales to date; and I've gotten about 10% of it in from coach rewards. This will vary over time, but the prominence of player sales is easily seen. All the expenses have gone to players so far, no long-term investments, but that will soon change.  Same kind of breakdown for our Glory.  And Fans as well. When the time comes, note the Relegation category at the bottom. Relegation absolutely crushes the fanbase, unrealistically so IMO. There's not much that isn't worth doing to avoid it.  Oberhausen allowed us to pick up Kahn for no Glory, filling the other gap. He is 33, and joins Hipp at the end of the bench.  Time to come back to the Club Upgrades view. As mentioned, we'll be purchasing our first Youth Academy upgrade, but we're not quite there yet. Just under 41k in the account, but we'll have more than enough before the transfer window ends. This will also expand the options for investing Glory if we choose. We can add up to two youth coaches, and requesting a defender for our next player is still possible. I also may have another option available before the end of the transfer window, as I'm closing in on Level 6. Because of that, I'll delay the Coaches Ballot until the full picture is clear. Until the academy upgrade happens there's no reason to make any firm decisions yet.
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Oct 28, 2022 23:05
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July 2024 7.21.24 Backpfeifengesichter vs. Emden  Relegated though they were from the Third League, Emden has triple the roster value and double the average player level that we do. This stupid formation is brought to you by the fact that they are sporting double wing forwards. The versatility of our DFs is on display; CDs can't go out wide to deal with them without losing their CD abilities. And since we need Insurrectionist and NiftyBottle in goal, well .... Embden has a fairly good keeper but also a sparse defense. They're relying on the sole CD to keep us from getting close, and a solid keeper to keep us from scoring at distance. It might well be enough.  ally_1986 took advantage of the fact that he just needed a low-odds win against the keeper basically to score. They were a little happy about this. Of course they just fired back right through our line, but I think the Embden keeper has drunkitis or something because he did even worse on the next possession, ally scoring again. And this time Insurrectionist blocked their shot. 2-1 lead after a frenetic start. Was this really happening? Average Lettuce held up in midfield. Next turn, Posch dribbled in, did well holding off their CD. Keeper tried to tackle on their next turn, and it was another penalty for us!  Went high, but they made the play. I think we had a good shot at a win if we made that. It was almost a perfect start, but now Embden is very much still in it. On their second-half kickoff, they rolled a 4 on their shot. And still scored. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it. 2-2. ally's luck ran out, and they came down and scored again. Our rolls were 2 for the interception by Insurrectionist, and 1 for the save by NiftyBottle. It's really hard to do worse than that. We got another stop later, but couldn't equalize.  We simultaneously should have lost worse and tied - if we had made that penalty. Can't complain though, the goals were all pretty lucky as it was. Average result would probably be one score. All three MoM awards went to the new players. Fair to say the youth movement is in full swing. 7.28.24 Backpfeifengesichter (0-0-1, 5th) @ Rostock (0-0-1, 7th) Rostock is the one club in the Amateur League this year that we've never faced before. They've got a forward with 47 accuracy, so they'll just be able to blast the ball through our line. Defenders are good, but keeper is just adequate. We might possibly be able to score, but make no mistake we're losing this one. That was a nice 1 you rolled there on their first shot, NiftyBottle. What is that, the Turnstile Defense? He did show up in the second half when they tried a Cannon Shot, and make his first save, so credit there. Since we'd shifted our defense to their high-accuracy forward, they just used Layoff Pass to lead a forward on the other side around our defensive flank. Darned if we do, and darned if we don't. They have so little respect for us, they actually tried a shot from near midfield, by a defender who had come forward to make a tackle. Then at the final horn, one of their forwards made one from 4 tiles out (ally's long-distance shots come from 3, our forwards shoot from 2 or closer typically, 5 tiles is just over midfield). That might be the most insulting flex I've ever endured in this game. 3-0. The tote-board was heavy afterwards, with five players reaching SL upgrades. Two of them are from the controlled youths.  AM ally_1986 and CM Average Lettuce both face the same choices. Consider yourselves summoned. One change made in a game update that just was released; the transfer sale price boosts under Fan Favourite were increased to 60% and 130%, previously being at 30% and 70%. I think they were already borderline OP and that this is completely excessive. Regardless, if you're thinking of going in that direction it's worth keeping in mind. Level 2 Skill Trainable - ally has Level 1 Nutmeg and could start on L2 immediately. Average Lettuce has 9m 15d yet on the first level of interception before he could start L2. + 30% Experience - Off-set the slow-down in gaining attribute levels somewhat by getting this boost to all match experience. 2 Attribute Points in Focus - Increase the gain in the attribute training is focusing on to at least 2 points per level from the default at least 1 point per level. Glory bonus for getting to the team of the round - Does what it says. +5% sponsor's conditions - give a 5% bonus to sponsors payments at the start of each year, as long as you remain with the club. More energy recovery after the first half - If you played the entire first half, recovery at halftime is doubled. Better energy recovery if the footballer didn't play - 50% more recovery on match day for subs, 150% for reserve squad. Recommendations I would suggest being strategic about this, since both players are young. Think about your long-term goals for your player; i.e. what do you want this tree to look like 3 or 4 SLs into the future? As always reference available on what everything does in the Coaches Corner. Keeping skill training going is important for both player effectiveness and eventual sale value. Taking Level 2 skill training for ally keeps that from being further delayed. For Average Lettuce the situation is not as simple. It's probably best to get something else now and go for that upgrade next time, unless your aim is to finish out the Talent tree or at least get into the reduced training times, because you'd need to grab it anyway to unlock those. Otherwhise, you might want to go for an experience or attribute boost, both of which are more effective the earlier you get them in your career - more time to make use of them and gain levels. Or you could aim to help the club's resource situation by taking the monetary or glory options. ally_1986 and Average Lettuce, you are on the clock. Please report in with a Specialization Level upgrade, deadline on this is by the end of Tuesday.
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Oct 29, 2022 23:18
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I'd go for Level 2 Skill Trainable.
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Oct 30, 2022 10:43
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Average Lettuce posted:I'd go for Level 2 Skill Trainable. ditto
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Oct 30, 2022 12:31
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Well aren't the two of you just over-achievers  . Both added, and ally starts training Nutmeg 2 right away. Time to completion: 2 years 11 months. Hope you're not in a hurry.
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Oct 30, 2022 12:41
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August 2024 & Skill for NiftyBottle 8.4.24 Offenbach (2-0-0, 1st) @ Backpfeifengesichter (0-0-2) Two years ago, Offenbach beat us 5-0 and 2-0. I don't expect a better result this time.  They have a quality DM and GK. Having ally as an AM helps since we can just pass directly to him from this starting position and there's nowhere to intercept. Counterattacking will get interesting though, and I doubt we get any shots through anyway. Average Lettuce is quite tired, but I'll try to get a half out of him. Somehow we held them off. No shots even got to NiftyBottle. Brummern handled most of the work in midfield and ran himself ragged, while Kehr made multiple plays in the second half on the weak side of the defense. A scoreless draw is cause for celebration in this case, and Kehr was the rightful Man of the Match. 8.11.24 Oberhausen (0-0-3, 8th) @ Backpfeifengesichter (0-1-2, 7th) Still sticking with their 6-2-2. I'd take another draw this time around.  A foul 20 minutes in gets us this. Unfortunately ally_1986 is too far for a normal pass. I'm hoping the loft here goes to one of our players or empty space - either way should get us a shot.  Empty space FTW. This is a coin-flip chance. Decent roll on the shot, but a 20 on the save. Boo. ally is motivated, but we can't get the ball back. Second half goes better. He blasts not one, but two long-range efforts past Ebner. It's just enough to get us the win:  Even without a proper keeper, we're still not as bad as they are. Insurrectionist is now a Sweeper, and up to Level 8. 8.16.24 Potsdam @ Backpfeifengesichter Prestige Cup Qualifying Round, 1st Leg Our luck has run out. We have Potsdam at home, and then two days later Potsdam on the road for a league match. Oh, and it's hot today also. Go figure. Still no reason not to go all-in for this match, then if we get blasted in the league, so be it.  ally scored a quick one, but they equalized immediately and the heat was already having it's effect with all our regular midfielders coming in low on energy as it was. So I tried the control approach with Posch, who eventually drew this foul. Nothing came of it though.  Wild game. We got a goal from Fried off another foul, but their forwards just shot through our defense too often. If we weren't about to sell off the defensive line, a one-goal defeat would leave us with a sliver of hope to advance to the next round. As it is, I expect the 2nd leg to be uglier.  The choices here were: - Improve President's Mood. Yeah, don't care. - Inspire Footballers. A random amount of motivation at the start of a half to all the players. Useful. Also costs more Glory than I'll probably want to spend. - Rivalry among youth. Choose a random footballer from among 2 variants. This is a powerful ability for improving what we get from the Academy. Yeah, we're going with the last one. NiftyBottle has become an Amateur Goalkeeper. He can now theoretically put up some resistance. In practice, he needs to become a GK before he can do much, but I can see the occasional save possibly happening now.  Welp, time to choose. Reaction, Long Pass, or Playing Out. Long Pass is not often chosen for keepers, because it means not getting one of the valuable talents for stopping the other team from scoring in different ways. It is an effective counterattacking skill though - with it, a keeper can effectively get the ball to midfield, often going through an opposing forward to it and not consuming an action. Having a defender, esp. a fullback, with Long Pass is not as fast but 'safer'. NiftyBottle, you are now on the clock. What say you? Coaches Corner Reference
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Oct 30, 2022 23:46
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Coaches Ballot, Summer 2024 Now that we know for sure what our options are, it's time to decide if we are going to spend any Glory before the winter. We currently have 50 Glory.  This is the new youth option. It is more likely we get a higher-Giftedness player if we have two to choose from, but we can't choose the position here. We can also decide to make sure we get a defender, but then we don't get the benefit of choosing between two players. Both options cost 9 Glory after the first Youth Academy upgrade. They were 4 before, and it will get higher each time we boost the Academy.  Getting the upgrade will allow us to hire up to two youth coaches, the effects of which are shown here. We could get both in one category or one of each. The cost of the first coach is 8 Glory, but if we want a second the cost for that is 15. Note that this does not just increase the cost of the youth coaches, but also for staff at the Training Grounds and Medical Centre in the future. The other benefits of the Youth Academy upgrade: - Youth players will come in at Level 1-5. Currently they are always level 1. So they get a bit of a head start. - Giftedness is better. 0* - was 90%, now 40% 1* - was 8.8%, now 56% 2* - was 1%, now 3.5% 3* - was 0.2%, now 0.5% Another way of looking at this is the average Giftedness under the old non-existent Academy was 0.114 stars; now it is 0.645. It will be more likely that we get a 1-star than a 0 going forward. On some level there is now a formal effort by the club to search out and identify talented youngsters. FWIW, the next Academy upgrade is priced at 105k, more than twice the cost of this one. We won't have that kind of money anytime soon. What should we spend our Glory on, if anything? - Youth Work; Identify Rivalry, Request Defender, or Nothing. - Youth Coaches: Hire One, Hire Two, or Hire None. If you want to hire youth coaches, please specify if you want a First Youth Coach, a Second Youth Coach, or Both. These questions can be resolved anytime up to the Winter Break. Let's call it Wednesday/earlier clear consensus for a deadline. What say you all?
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Oct 31, 2022 00:18
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Does fan appreciation change based on 'good' matches, or is it strictly some formula of stat-based success? I feel like playing Emden that close and losing would have been more exciting to be at than beating Oberhausen. e: Voting for Youth Rivalry and Hire One Coach (If we can get 'Second Youth Coach' when getting only one, do that, but it's unclear if that is possible). Kangra fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Oct 31, 2022 |
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Oct 31, 2022 00:35
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1) Do nothing, save some of that Glory for later. We may need defensemen but if we’re dropping half our Glory on coaches I’d like to have some in reserve for an emergency. 2) Hire one of each coach for 23 total Glory. We’re playing the kids a lot. Giving them +10% XP means maybe 1 or 2 XP per match at this level, but that investment will shine when we eventually get out of Amateur. Plus getting a better focus on preferred skill helps decide where we should put them, and will be useful for future GKs who already have this buff to their Def and/or FWs with Accuracy.
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Oct 31, 2022 00:41
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It does change based on the opponent, but the biggest factor is win/loss. You're not punished as much for losing to a strong opponent, but keep losing and they'll leave no matter how good the opponent was. On the other side they're not as impressed by beating bad team as a good one, but mostly they just want you to win.
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Oct 31, 2022 00:41
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Kangra posted:e: Voting for Youth Rivalry and Hire One Coach. Point of clarification; which kind of coach (First or Second Youth Coach) do you want?
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Oct 31, 2022 00:43
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Strategic Sage posted:Point of clarification; which kind of coach (First or Second Youth Coach) do you want? Edited my post, but Second Youth Coach. That's a confusing title if we can get only one, and it's the 'Second'.
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Oct 31, 2022 00:46
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Voting for Youth Rivalry, Second Coach, and second Second Coach in order of priority. EDIT: updated my post Quackles fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Oct 31, 2022 |
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Oct 31, 2022 00:54
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You can get up to two coaches right now: First Youth Coach and Second Youth Coach are the type of coach it is. If we upgrade them all the way, we will eventually have 10 First Youth Coaches and 10 Second Youth Coaches. Definitely could have been named better in the game, but 
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Oct 31, 2022 00:54
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Check above - I updated my post.
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Oct 31, 2022 00:58
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Reaction for the skill I think. Youth Rivalry and hire one couch (first youth coach)
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Oct 31, 2022 07:44
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Youth Rivalry. We can slot in whatever the academy gives us, and it gives more chances to get a non 0-star player. And get both coaches. Investing more now means getting out of this hellhole of a league earlier.
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Oct 31, 2022 08:11
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Fat Samurai posted:Youth Rivalry. We can slot in whatever the academy gives us, and it gives more chances to get a non 0-star player. And get both coaches. Investing more now means getting out of this hellhole of a league earlier. what this guy said
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Oct 31, 2022 18:29
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Fat Samurai posted:Youth Rivalry. We can slot in whatever the academy gives us, and it gives more chances to get a non 0-star player. And get both coaches. Investing more now means getting out of this hellhole of a league earlier. This sounds good.
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Oct 31, 2022 19:49
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Fat Samurai posted:Youth Rivalry. We can slot in whatever the academy gives us, and it gives more chances to get a non 0-star player. And get both coaches. Investing more now means getting out of this hellhole of a league earlier. This. We've gotta climb out of this prison somehow.
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Oct 31, 2022 21:33
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Fat Samurai posted:Youth Rivalry. We can slot in whatever the academy gives us, and it gives more chances to get a non 0-star player. And get both coaches. Investing more now means getting out of this hellhole of a league earlier. Agreed!
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Nov 1, 2022 02:02
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That looks like a pretty clear decision to me. Thanks, everyone. Youth Rivalry and one of each youth coach it is.
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Nov 1, 2022 03:11
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August - September 2024 8.18.24 Backpfeifengesichter (1-1-2, 6th) @ Potsdam (1-1-2, 5th) We're exhausted and I can either play some garbage-timers from the start or risk injuries. I go with the first option; playing tired players just means you keep playing them tired in future matches. I worked on getting NiftyBottle progress towards being a GK, and we lose 2-0. Which is better than I expected. One decent shot off a first-half foul, but a very poor effort by Fried. 8.25.24 Koblenz (2-0-3, 6th) @ Backpfeifengesichter (1-1-3, 7th) Our last match with the three DFs before we have to sell them. Fatigue isn't good in midfield but it's ok everywhere else - at home I wanted to try for at least a draw here.  They have multiple defenders with reaction to prevent any Rainbow Feint shenanigans, and the CDs will be effective at keeping ally far away. I don't really have a good way to attack here so scoring will be hard.  They tried a cross which I missed getting a picture of, I'll try to show it next time it happens. NiftyBottle blocked the attempt, a corner resulted, and then we were fouled resulting in this. At least we were going to sell Kehr anyway, but this is still not fun. Best part; it was deemed only a yellow-card offense, Brummeren made a bad pass in midfield, and they scored on the ensuing turn. So just crap all the way around.  They got another cross towards the end of the match, and unfortunately scored. When we get doing this ourselves, I'll do an effortpost with the details. Short version: Their player at the top puts the cross in. Their passing skill is compared to a cross factor. When they get as close as they were here, it's very low. Any defenders with head play have a chance to intercept. We have none; Insurrectionist is working on training that, but several months remain before he will have it. Their attackers with head play can try a header, which their player on the bottom does since he's a CF. And NiftyBottle's ability to stop this is based not on defense, but on positioning (Control, plus any Playing Out talent adds to it). The first time he made the save. Here, he did not.  3-0. They score again at the final buzzer. A particularly pathetic look here for NiftyBottle. Hands on hips, disgusted, and motivated by his failure to make the save. Lot of good that'll do him since the match is over now. The strike rolled only a 10, which won't be enough to get anything by us once he and Insurrectionist are more developed. But for now, they couldn't stop it. We tipped over the 45k mark at this match and got the Youth Academy upgrade.  There's just something therapeutic about seeing that half-star there. Our first investment in permanent infrastructure. And a few days later, it was time to rip our defensive formation a new one.   Almost a tackle per match for Mergel, who was good at retaining possession when needed and had a number of shot blocks/interceptions as did the others who will be sold here.  As his contract was about to expire - literally one day left - he did not command as high a price as the others.  Very similar stats. Used Milde a lot for passing out of defense. Even so, wow is he hideous. Somebody punch that face for me please.   It isn't an accident that the bad clubs are most interested in our players. The better clubs even in the Amateur League are generally 'nah .... '   Slightly higher matches, not quite as many tackles. Kehr was often on the opposite wing from the action, due to his higher Control but lower Defense.  Fortunately, other clubs are not averse to paying full price for injured players.  First of the 34-year-old crew to walk. They played sparingly or not at all. It's good that they were here - Schlomer was the top emergency sub in midfield - but there's no point in fanfare as they go. 9.1.24 Backpfeifengesichter (1-1-4, 7th) @ Wuppertal (2-1-3, 6th)  Last league match of the first half. Isn't our defense glorious? If you're wondering why I cut off the bottom of the screen there, well ... it's not cut off. That's our bench. All of it. All three players. We are down to 14 on the squad.  Theiner annoys me. Even getting a close shot for ally_1986 off of a foul, it's still an unlikely try. As expected, he gobbled this up easily. On the other end, Insurrectionist got in the way of three shots in the first half alone, keeping it scoreless. Drew another foul in the second half - keeper actually had to move to make the save on that one. What an accomplishment.  Schnabel just doesn't like Posch apparently. Unfortunately this happened just after they scored on a header.  Our attackers were too tired to equalize. 9.13.24 Backpfeifengesichter @ Potsdam Prestige Cup Qualifying Round, 2nd Leg Time to take our medicine - I don't see us advancing. Opening kickoff: they roll a 22 on the shot. Insurrection gets a 4, but NiftyBottle had his back by ... also rolling a 4. Losing is one thing, fellas. Playing dead is another. Immediate turnover in midfield by Average Lettuce, with a 21-10 edge on that roll. They score again righit away, and it wasn't close. Just an absolute catastrophe. I almost want to fire myself, and it's 18 minutes into the match.  Slide Tackle. AKA the anti-Holding device. Of course they moved it up and shot it through our defensive 'line'. Warm up the bus.  Aggressive tackle from behind, with the score 3-0, midway through the second half. Adding insult to ...  Maneuvering for a decent shot late in the match, only to have it blocked by Holz. And further embarass ourselves pathetically on their final possession, which we might as well have walked off the pitch for.  Prestige Cup ends for us emphatically, 7-2.  Just in case you're thinking 'eh, that's not too bad' - more fans would almost certainly have left if they could. We're down to the minimum of 15. Friends and family time only, and part of me is surprised they haven't deserted us yet.  You might have wait a bit longer than that sir.
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Nov 1, 2022 03:15
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Ouch. It's going to take a while to filter the bad players out, but still, that hurts.
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Nov 1, 2022 12:12
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New Youth Player for Odd Wilson With youth rivalry purchased, we get this Choice button at the start of a transfer window.  Then we get two to pick from. I was actually fairly annoyed when I saw this, because I figured our run of good RNG was over. We are going to pay for this at some point - nobody escapes the law of averages indefinitely. We'll hit a run of players that are in the bad luck category, and probably at a point in time when something better is needed. As it is though, we have another 2-star player with Schlarp. There will be times when I put this decision up to the coaches, but here it's a 0* and a 2*. The choice is obvious.  Then we are told how much our youth coach changed their attributes.  Here's what he looks like. But a request was made to have 'the largest beard possible'.  I can change the color if you like.  I have changed the name of course to Odd Wilson. Time to make some choices: - Beard Color; if you don't like what it is, tell me what would be better. We can go through multiple iterations if you like until you're happy with it or test out a couple different ones, no hurry on this. - Base Class: This is going to be Midfielder. Central midfielder was requested although we can change this, go MF/winger/whatever when we find out the Skill options. - Attribute Training: Accuracy, Passing, Defense, or Control. Odd Wilson, you are on the clock. 48 hours to give your instructions.
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Nov 2, 2022 01:13
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Coaches Report, Winter 2025 Remember the heady days a year or two ago when we were solidly mid-table? Ahh, the memories .... I know there is impatience to leave the Amateur League and rightfully so, but realistically we need to fill out our squad with more young players before we can do that. We're about to hit rock bottom in terms of how bad we are going to get, but the good news is after that we should be able to gradually, but steadily, improve. Especially if we keep getting talented youths.  We are approaching the end of Phase One for the club; in a month we will have reached it. This is marked by the selling of the last of our initial players that we can. Klosner our lone CD, Brummern our possession midfielder, and starting forwards Posch and Fried will all be gone at the end of the transfer window. That will leave everything up to the new generation to carry .... or drop ... the fortunes of the club. I will still be holding the purse strings until we get a full squad of young players, and we are only just short of halfway there. We must have enough money to continue extending their contracts as needed. This will be the Phase Two period, after which all of you will decide who we extend/sell and when, if we invest in more club upgrades and when ... at that point it will be out of my hands other than the match tactics.  Insurrectionist is set to have Head Play finished in about a month.  NiftyBottle will be a GK soon as well. Opposing forwards are still going to be able to get fairly close until we get a defensive line built back up, but it will still help minimize the damage.  Considering we just spent 45k on the Academy, I feel pretty good about the Money here. The majority of our Glory has been spent but we still have some, and the reality has sunk in on the Fans side, as we have just two above the minimum and are likely to remain near the bottom on that for some time. Contract Extensions NiftyBottle signs his 3-year boost for 2,854.
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Nov 2, 2022 01:17
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Coaches Ballot, Winter 2025 We're back to only the Youth Work decision for this transfer window. With 18 Glory, we can: - Spend 9 Glory to Request Defender - Spend 9 Glory to get another Youth Rivalry - Do Nothing and save the Glory for another time.
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Nov 2, 2022 01:18
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The beard color is good, he's looking very punchable. Yeah, we can go Midfielder, see where the skills land before we think about changing it any more. Comparing his skills to what we've got on the team now, it seems like it'd be good if we could train up a really Defensive mid, but our base is really low there. This really wasn't that amazing of a stat roll, was it? If diving hard into Defense on a midfielder would be a good thing for the team in the long term, let's do that. Although, I don't know if we can raise it to a useful level in time. If you don't think we can, let's go all in on Passing instead. Become the Passing King. Let's hold onto our Glory for now. Maybe our luck will be better in the next transfer window.
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Nov 2, 2022 01:51
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Yeah, let's keep our options open with respect to Glory.
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Nov 2, 2022 02:10
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Defense I would say is too low. Going for more of a possession midfielder via Control would be the main alternative to Passing I would say. The Passing approach is something we don't have; Average Lettuce is pretty split Passing-Control already. So I'll take these facts assembled together as Passing for the choice. If you get Slide Tackle as a skill choice, you might not have to worry about the defense side.
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Nov 2, 2022 02:12
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Sounds good to me! Ready to get my dude's face punched.
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Nov 2, 2022 02:18
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Keep the Glory. Fates only know when we’re going to get more with the exodus coming.
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Nov 2, 2022 12:26
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February 2025 2.2.25 Backpfeifengesichter (1-1-5, 7th) @ Embden (5-0-2, 2nd)  A bit of hope here, esp. for the future. At the start of the season, Embden had a full GK. Now they have a greenshirt in there, having either sold or, more likely, had their keeper retire. This will happen from time to time in the lower couple of leagues - clubs don't have the resources to maintain experience backups, so when they lose a player at a position they have to rebuild. This creates opportunities, and also contributes to the ceiling they will have. And then of course there's our stupid-looking defensive formation thanks to facing dual wing forwards. Stopped the break-in, but also allows them to march easily to good shooting range anyway and easily blast it through.  However, ally_1986 has very good chances to score for us as well. That defender right in front of goal is a CD, so he can't intercept. He buries it to even the score, 1-1 12 minutes in. This could go on for a while; who misses first?  Halftime. The answer was 'nobody', so far. ally is going to get tired though, and they have more options. To get a good chance of beating that first defender, he has to use False Kick every time. Fried shooting through their defense, a bit closer on the same side, is our fall-back option.  The defender on that side was motivated, but ally was just good enough to beat him starting out the second half. Then enough fatigue set in to switch to Fried, who actually has a slightly better chance.  After scoring six times, their go-to option Grogoloth was yanked. Maybe we'd get a stop one of these last two turns? Both sides scored again. They hit a perfect strike through a motivated Insurrectionist, but NiftyBottle was motivated for the final turns. They'd changed up their defense though and brought in a better defender on that side ... and for the first time we couldn't score. ally intercepted their desperation lofted-pass attempt, and that was it. 7-7 draw. Wow was that match stupid. On the other hand, we got a draw against the second-place club and NiftyBottle got a lot closer to being a full GK. We just scored 7 goals in a match, after having scored 4 goals in our first 7 matches.  Whenever someone recovers from an injury we get one of these. They need a few days to recover fatigue to full though. We'll probably just give him a half, as ally is still feeling the effects of all that effort in the last match. 2.9.25 Rostock (4-2-2, 4th) @ Backpfeifengesichter (1-2-5, 7th) Back to reality here. ally_1986 had a decent chance of scoring, perhaps 30%, on our usual opening move. Saved by their keeper, long-pass through the midfield, and they shoot through our defense. Using the Posch Hold strategy doesn't work as they have a slide tackler in position. So it's hopeless, and we lose 5-0.  This happens afterwards however. Let's see how much it helps. He does make the occasional save already - one more against Rostock - but they should come a little more frequently. 2.16.25 Backpfeifengesichter (1-2-6, 7th) @ Offenbach (6-3-0, 1st) The only club in the Amateur League without a loss, Offenbach has allowed four goals this year. Second-best is Rostock with eight. Solid DM, good defense, we're going nowhere and getting their fast against them. Their first shot scored through the line, but NiftyBottle stopped the second one and Insurrectionist the third. Ok, better. Not good, but better. Then one of those 'lol, that actually worked' moments hit. One of our lob passes over their DM went to a place where ally could get to it, and with a 17 against a 38 he caught their keeper on a bad roll and scored to tie it up at 1-1, early second half. Another save by NiftyBottle on their next possession, and all of a sudden we're thinking about a draw!  They converted a lofted pass at the end to get a good final shot, but a clutch interception by Insurrectionist stopped it. We did not deserve this point. Since it was a more possession-style match, I was also able to get Odd Wilson more action in the midfield.
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Nov 3, 2022 03:28
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