rainsilent

A pre release of the upcoming v1.1.8 has been installed on the UAT environment. The release contains the following features and improvements:
 
Pending contracts
A complete rework of player contracts extensions. An extension will no longer replace the current contract. Instead it will take effect after the player's current contract ends. This also means that you now have the possibility to handle both this and the next season's finance situation. Once your team has promoted or relegated you'll have the new leagues salary cap available for next season signings. This also comes with a limitation where contract extensions will only be allowed on the last year of the player's current contract. But it you will now be able to offer a contract to player's playing in Europe or in other non playable leagues once the regular season ends. If the player accepts he will join your team next season. Player that you own the rights to will be able to accept a contract offer during the complete season. Note that pending contracts also will be accounted for when releasing a player and they will be included in trade offers just like a normal contract.
 
General happiness
The contract happiness has been removed and is replaced by General happiness. This will be extended in the future to include more happiness factors, such as likes and dislikes in the team. But for now it will handle the contract happiness situation and will give more detail regarding if the player wants to move to a bigger club or just is unhappy with his salary.
 
Computer trading AI improvements
In a further attempt to prevent cheating or abusing computer teams in trades the following has been done:
Computer teams will be less likely to agree on trades involving a large number of players and picks Computer teams will be less likely to agree on trades if already been involved in a large number of trades the current season Computer teams will value incoming draft picks less There is also a new feature introduced where newly signed free agents will be on a trade lock for 20 days before being able to include them in a trade offer.
 
Transactions loading speed*
Improved loading speed for transactions on the transfer page. Also includes extended filtering for world leagues.
 
Note. This is quite untested features so please report back any oddities you might find. Just add to this topic. Thanks

No. I never claimed that you were stupid. I said that your claimed reasoning for it being ok for you to cheat the system is based around a perceived in game issue that doesn't exist. That is a poorly thought out and exceptionally weak argument.
 
Frankly what anyone in Biscuits GHL needs to have more than a slight chance to win the cup is have a certain team let go all of the players they got in the same way you built your team. By exploiting the computer teams through trades. They have dominated for the past 3.5 seasons because of it and will for about 4 more unless they decide to change that by their own decision. You would have no impact on me winning or not.
 
Oh and there is no "getting even" with someone who a fair number of people go to for advice and help because of how good they actually are at managing their team when the only way you can win is by relying on exploiting the game. You would be better off leaving quietly now rather than making yourself look even more like a stuck up child before you go.

Computer trading in of itself isn't cheating no but I have pointed out too many times in this forum that exploiting flaws in a game to your advantage is cheating. That means that exploiting computer teams via trades is cheating. That is exactly what you are doing in your trades.
 
 
Your point is massively flawed, poorly thought out and exceptionally weak as a result.
 
A new manager doesn't need to make trades with computer teams unless there are too few human managers to try to trade with. Unless you are in the GHL (which a new manager will never be able to be in) or on the brink of reaching the GHL you should not be concerned about the GHL, top teams or top players. They are completely out of your reach in every way. You should only be concerned about your league and what you can do in it. Also the edge will never get bigger unless you stop learning the game and resort to things like what you are doing to "catch up" to a perceived gap that isn't there to begin with.
 
Regarding new teams getting to the GHL it is completely within the realm of possibility to have a very competitive team your first year there. I am the perfect example of that. To my knowledge I am the most recent team, and one of the very few, so far that has made the playoffs their first year after promotion in the GHL for this game world and it wasn't by fluke. No it wasn't easy. It was rather difficult. It should be. You are a SHL team promoting to the GHL. Be realistic with your expectations. Honestly I still think that I would have been better off team wise staying in the SHL for one more season but I made my very unexpected promotion to the GHL work. Every offseason there are a number of quality GHL players to grab for the at least 2 teams that rank up into the GHL. Yes the top talent is maybe a total of 3 to 5 players but you only need 2 maybe 3 such players. My first year I grabbed 3 such players out of about 6 or 7. Two forwards and a defender. I then grabbed a few role players to fill out my team and my team played well enough to get into the playoffs. On the way I traded 2 of those top players for a top goalie and 2 lesser skilled forwards. Yes the trades were with computer teams but notice that I traded 2 top talent players for one top talent player and two lesser talented players in return. I didn't try to finagle top talent away from computer teams via giving a number of lesser players in return.
 
Trading with computer teams is not a problem. Exploiting the computer in trades to get an unfair advantage is a problem. No exploiting the computer in trades is not an answer to a bigger problem. There is no bigger problem. The only problem there may be is your own inability to learn and improve yourself as a manager and exploiting the computer in trades is not the solution to that problem. Never, in any multiplayer game, is using in game exploits of any kind to your advantage an "answer" to a "problem" perceived, proven and known or otherwise.

Computer trading in of itself isn't cheating no but I have pointed out too many times in this forum that exploiting flaws in a game to your advantage is cheating. That means that exploiting computer teams via trades is cheating. That is exactly what you are doing in your trades.
 
 
Your point is massively flawed, poorly thought out and exceptionally weak as a result.
 
A new manager doesn't need to make trades with computer teams unless there are too few human managers to try to trade with. Unless you are in the GHL (which a new manager will never be able to be in) or on the brink of reaching the GHL you should not be concerned about the GHL, top teams or top players. They are completely out of your reach in every way. You should only be concerned about your league and what you can do in it. Also the edge will never get bigger unless you stop learning the game and resort to things like what you are doing to "catch up" to a perceived gap that isn't there to begin with.
 
Regarding new teams getting to the GHL it is completely within the realm of possibility to have a very competitive team your first year there. I am the perfect example of that. To my knowledge I am the most recent team, and one of the very few, so far that has made the playoffs their first year after promotion in the GHL for this game world and it wasn't by fluke. No it wasn't easy. It was rather difficult. It should be. You are a SHL team promoting to the GHL. Be realistic with your expectations. Honestly I still think that I would have been better off team wise staying in the SHL for one more season but I made my very unexpected promotion to the GHL work. Every offseason there are a number of quality GHL players to grab for the at least 2 teams that rank up into the GHL. Yes the top talent is maybe a total of 3 to 5 players but you only need 2 maybe 3 such players. My first year I grabbed 3 such players out of about 6 or 7. Two forwards and a defender. I then grabbed a few role players to fill out my team and my team played well enough to get into the playoffs. On the way I traded 2 of those top players for a top goalie and 2 lesser skilled forwards. Yes the trades were with computer teams but notice that I traded 2 top talent players for one top talent player and two lesser talented players in return. I didn't try to finagle top talent away from computer teams via giving a number of lesser players in return.
 
Trading with computer teams is not a problem. Exploiting the computer in trades to get an unfair advantage is a problem. No exploiting the computer in trades is not an answer to a bigger problem. There is no bigger problem. The only problem there may be is your own inability to learn and improve yourself as a manager and exploiting the computer in trades is not the solution to that problem. Never, in any multiplayer game, is using in game exploits of any kind to your advantage an "answer" to a "problem" perceived, proven and known or otherwise.

No. I never claimed that you were stupid. I said that your claimed reasoning for it being ok for you to cheat the system is based around a perceived in game issue that doesn't exist. That is a poorly thought out and exceptionally weak argument.
 
Frankly what anyone in Biscuits GHL needs to have more than a slight chance to win the cup is have a certain team let go all of the players they got in the same way you built your team. By exploiting the computer teams through trades. They have dominated for the past 3.5 seasons because of it and will for about 4 more unless they decide to change that by their own decision. You would have no impact on me winning or not.
 
Oh and there is no "getting even" with someone who a fair number of people go to for advice and help because of how good they actually are at managing their team when the only way you can win is by relying on exploiting the game. You would be better off leaving quietly now rather than making yourself look even more like a stuck up child before you go.

Computer trading in of itself isn't cheating no but I have pointed out too many times in this forum that exploiting flaws in a game to your advantage is cheating. That means that exploiting computer teams via trades is cheating. That is exactly what you are doing in your trades.
 
 
Your point is massively flawed, poorly thought out and exceptionally weak as a result.
 
A new manager doesn't need to make trades with computer teams unless there are too few human managers to try to trade with. Unless you are in the GHL (which a new manager will never be able to be in) or on the brink of reaching the GHL you should not be concerned about the GHL, top teams or top players. They are completely out of your reach in every way. You should only be concerned about your league and what you can do in it. Also the edge will never get bigger unless you stop learning the game and resort to things like what you are doing to "catch up" to a perceived gap that isn't there to begin with.
 
Regarding new teams getting to the GHL it is completely within the realm of possibility to have a very competitive team your first year there. I am the perfect example of that. To my knowledge I am the most recent team, and one of the very few, so far that has made the playoffs their first year after promotion in the GHL for this game world and it wasn't by fluke. No it wasn't easy. It was rather difficult. It should be. You are a SHL team promoting to the GHL. Be realistic with your expectations. Honestly I still think that I would have been better off team wise staying in the SHL for one more season but I made my very unexpected promotion to the GHL work. Every offseason there are a number of quality GHL players to grab for the at least 2 teams that rank up into the GHL. Yes the top talent is maybe a total of 3 to 5 players but you only need 2 maybe 3 such players. My first year I grabbed 3 such players out of about 6 or 7. Two forwards and a defender. I then grabbed a few role players to fill out my team and my team played well enough to get into the playoffs. On the way I traded 2 of those top players for a top goalie and 2 lesser skilled forwards. Yes the trades were with computer teams but notice that I traded 2 top talent players for one top talent player and two lesser talented players in return. I didn't try to finagle top talent away from computer teams via giving a number of lesser players in return.
 
Trading with computer teams is not a problem. Exploiting the computer in trades to get an unfair advantage is a problem. No exploiting the computer in trades is not an answer to a bigger problem. There is no bigger problem. The only problem there may be is your own inability to learn and improve yourself as a manager and exploiting the computer in trades is not the solution to that problem. Never, in any multiplayer game, is using in game exploits of any kind to your advantage an "answer" to a "problem" perceived, proven and known or otherwise.

Computer trading in of itself isn't cheating no but I have pointed out too many times in this forum that exploiting flaws in a game to your advantage is cheating. That means that exploiting computer teams via trades is cheating. That is exactly what you are doing in your trades.
 
 
Your point is massively flawed, poorly thought out and exceptionally weak as a result.
 
A new manager doesn't need to make trades with computer teams unless there are too few human managers to try to trade with. Unless you are in the GHL (which a new manager will never be able to be in) or on the brink of reaching the GHL you should not be concerned about the GHL, top teams or top players. They are completely out of your reach in every way. You should only be concerned about your league and what you can do in it. Also the edge will never get bigger unless you stop learning the game and resort to things like what you are doing to "catch up" to a perceived gap that isn't there to begin with.
 
Regarding new teams getting to the GHL it is completely within the realm of possibility to have a very competitive team your first year there. I am the perfect example of that. To my knowledge I am the most recent team, and one of the very few, so far that has made the playoffs their first year after promotion in the GHL for this game world and it wasn't by fluke. No it wasn't easy. It was rather difficult. It should be. You are a SHL team promoting to the GHL. Be realistic with your expectations. Honestly I still think that I would have been better off team wise staying in the SHL for one more season but I made my very unexpected promotion to the GHL work. Every offseason there are a number of quality GHL players to grab for the at least 2 teams that rank up into the GHL. Yes the top talent is maybe a total of 3 to 5 players but you only need 2 maybe 3 such players. My first year I grabbed 3 such players out of about 6 or 7. Two forwards and a defender. I then grabbed a few role players to fill out my team and my team played well enough to get into the playoffs. On the way I traded 2 of those top players for a top goalie and 2 lesser skilled forwards. Yes the trades were with computer teams but notice that I traded 2 top talent players for one top talent player and two lesser talented players in return. I didn't try to finagle top talent away from computer teams via giving a number of lesser players in return.
 
Trading with computer teams is not a problem. Exploiting the computer in trades to get an unfair advantage is a problem. No exploiting the computer in trades is not an answer to a bigger problem. There is no bigger problem. The only problem there may be is your own inability to learn and improve yourself as a manager and exploiting the computer in trades is not the solution to that problem. Never, in any multiplayer game, is using in game exploits of any kind to your advantage an "answer" to a "problem" perceived, proven and known or otherwise.

Computer trading in of itself isn't cheating no but I have pointed out too many times in this forum that exploiting flaws in a game to your advantage is cheating. That means that exploiting computer teams via trades is cheating. That is exactly what you are doing in your trades.
 
 
Your point is massively flawed, poorly thought out and exceptionally weak as a result.
 
A new manager doesn't need to make trades with computer teams unless there are too few human managers to try to trade with. Unless you are in the GHL (which a new manager will never be able to be in) or on the brink of reaching the GHL you should not be concerned about the GHL, top teams or top players. They are completely out of your reach in every way. You should only be concerned about your league and what you can do in it. Also the edge will never get bigger unless you stop learning the game and resort to things like what you are doing to "catch up" to a perceived gap that isn't there to begin with.
 
Regarding new teams getting to the GHL it is completely within the realm of possibility to have a very competitive team your first year there. I am the perfect example of that. To my knowledge I am the most recent team, and one of the very few, so far that has made the playoffs their first year after promotion in the GHL for this game world and it wasn't by fluke. No it wasn't easy. It was rather difficult. It should be. You are a SHL team promoting to the GHL. Be realistic with your expectations. Honestly I still think that I would have been better off team wise staying in the SHL for one more season but I made my very unexpected promotion to the GHL work. Every offseason there are a number of quality GHL players to grab for the at least 2 teams that rank up into the GHL. Yes the top talent is maybe a total of 3 to 5 players but you only need 2 maybe 3 such players. My first year I grabbed 3 such players out of about 6 or 7. Two forwards and a defender. I then grabbed a few role players to fill out my team and my team played well enough to get into the playoffs. On the way I traded 2 of those top players for a top goalie and 2 lesser skilled forwards. Yes the trades were with computer teams but notice that I traded 2 top talent players for one top talent player and two lesser talented players in return. I didn't try to finagle top talent away from computer teams via giving a number of lesser players in return.
 
Trading with computer teams is not a problem. Exploiting the computer in trades to get an unfair advantage is a problem. No exploiting the computer in trades is not an answer to a bigger problem. There is no bigger problem. The only problem there may be is your own inability to learn and improve yourself as a manager and exploiting the computer in trades is not the solution to that problem. Never, in any multiplayer game, is using in game exploits of any kind to your advantage an "answer" to a "problem" perceived, proven and known or otherwise.

*Begin wall of text*
 
-- I started with one of those awful teams that as been managed by the computer for a while.  By the way, I don't think a new manager will ever get a competitive team right away because it either has been managed by the computer (so not competitive) -- I made a lot of trades with computer and signed some free agents.  I wasn't always fair with the way I used free agents to make trades.  My apoligies if I ruined anyone experience --
 
Part of the reason why computer teams are not competitive off the bat might just be that they're robbed of their picks, and/or young talent. A big problem is the ability to trade freshly signed free agents for "free" assets, especially picks. Maybe one doesn't ruin anyone's experience right away, but making such trades just condemn new players into pilfered teams that will take ages to build up. You might just have started with such a team.
 
 
-- everyone has the exact same opportunity to trade with computer teams.--
 
Technically, yes, but every (computer) team has a limited number of assets. Once they're gone, they're gone. Also, just being able to do something doesn't quite equal that it should be done. It can't be a race of "who is the fastest to sign FA's and turn them into computer picks".
 
 
-- What's keeping new players from joining this game is the huge edge teams from GHL have on any other teams in this world because they get the best prospects (first two rounds so best 30 prospects every season) and the best free agents seasons after seasons --
--Right now, my best player is 86 overall, and a 85 goalie, I have a few 81-83 and mostly 80 overall players.  If I'm lucky, I might sign 1 or 2 players over 85 overall, a few 83-85 as free agents.  How will I compete with the top 4 GHL teams--
 
Comparing lower league teams to GHL teams is not a really good practice. Yes, they sign the best FA's. Yes, they get the best prospects. And so will you, if you make it to GHL and stay there. It's now my 3rd season in GHL, and I'm tied for 6th in the standings. The first two seasons I finished 12th. I never expected to compete for the first couple of seasons in GHL, my only goal was to not relegate and gradually build up the team. Maybe I'll even make the playoffs this season. I might even have a shot at the cup in a season or two. Even right now I probably couldn't win a playoff series against a top-4 team. But at some point I will. And the whole process has been, and continues to be, exciting.
 
Point being, I don't think you're expected to stand up to the best GHL as you come out of SHL. Hell, when I got to the GHL I barely knew a player's overall might be displayed in green (I think I had one, 81). It takes time, and it should, to become competitive when you move up a league level. For me, that's what a sports management game is all about - seeing your long term decisions, trades, signings combine into a hopefully winning package over time.
 
 
 
I might've ventured a bit off topic - computer trading in itself is not a problem. Computer trading, when used to accomplish trades that wouldn't be feasible between human managers, is a problem. That, and the FA flipping for computer picks.
 
*End wall of text*

There are some more improvements on the way regarding computer team trading AI. This will include computer teams less likely to agree on trades with unrealistic number of players involved. Computer teams will be less likely to get involved in too many trades each season. They will value incoming trade picks less but will still demand great value for their own. I'm also thinking of introducing a lock down period for free agents before being able to trade them. This is not decided but maybe would prevent quite a lot of abuse.
 
Can't say when this will be ready since I'm in the middle of another update at the moment. But I will really try to speed things up or perhaps pause the other update and squeeze this one in before.
 
Thanks for all your comments and commitment of making this game better!

Per Reggie's comments, I think one solution to this would be to have a league that is designed differently, ie not and up and down, but more an NHL static level with equal leagues/divisions.  Some prefer that, some this.  If you want to jump in and be competitive in a season or two, then that style of league makes it possible, but not the current promotion/demotion style.  Each have their pros and cons.  
 
Like Erzac said, moving from SHL to GHL really requires most of us to spend 3 or more seasons before we have a realistic chance at the Finals.  My biggest challenge is not screwing up my plan and being impatient in the interim, haha.  
 
But more importantly, not doing these types of trades is also part of the sportsmanship of the league.  Anyone from GHL could easily pick off the top 2-3 players in each computer SHL team for a 3rd round pick and/or a bench warmer.  But we don't to not screw the real SHL players and we recognize the game is more fun this way, for us all.  We're all competitive, but we don't want to ruin the integrity of the game just to win a handful more of games each season.  

The restriction of 30 days on team or 15 games played makes a lot of sense. It still allows teams to be able to trade away players that they will lose via demotion that they signed in the offseason or early season while getting rid of quick sign and trades.

The restriction of 30 days on team or 15 games played makes a lot of sense. It still allows teams to be able to trade away players that they will lose via demotion that they signed in the offseason or early season while getting rid of quick sign and trades.

I believe it's much harder today than it was a couple months ago to exploit computer teams. As mentioned above you have to give up valuable players to get your trade accepted. With that said, it's still possible to exploit the system.
 
I still have a few ideas on how to improve the computer trading AI further without having to introduce any restrictions in trading. I believe we're making progress, even if it's one small step at a time.
 
Regarding trade moderatorsI have still to decide if it's the best way to go. I like the basic idea and it would probably help the community to get involved. But what happens when there isn't anyone signing up to be an officer? Or even worse, if the officers themselves decides to exploit the system for their own benefit?
 
How about this instead:
Maybe we could create a system where you could "up" or "down" vote a trade adding positive or negative value to the managers trade reputation. That way we could easily spot which managers are exploiting the system and avoid trading with them. I could also make computer teams aware of this reputation and therefore more likely to reject trades from those managers.
 
Thoughts?

First there is no in game meter that truly gives an idea on what is and isn't a fair trade. No the two ownership groups being ok with the trade is not a trade balance meter. Second ripping the AI off via a trade is an exploit. Using in game exploits to your advantage is against the rules. Hence why it is an issue and hence why there are people complaining about it.

First there is no in game meter that truly gives an idea on what is and isn't a fair trade. No the two ownership groups being ok with the trade is not a trade balance meter. Second ripping the AI off via a trade is an exploit. Using in game exploits to your advantage is against the rules. Hence why it is an issue and hence why there are people complaining about it.

Player Advanced
 
To start this section off I will give the biggest mistake I see regularly from many managers regarding players. Overall fixation. Overall means nothing. Yes, it means nothing. Seriously it means nothing. No really. It means nothing. Ok, it means something. But only what you can expect a player to ask for when it comes to contracts. Beyond that it means about as much to you as the favorite color of that person you don't know driving a boat somewhere in an ocean nowhere near you that you will never meet. The player's individual skills are what is important. Let me give you an example. 2 players. Player one (P1) has an overall of 80. Player two (P2) an overall of 79. The mistake I see many managers make is going for higher overall players in FA when they don't need to and playing higher overall players higher in their lineup over more skilled players. There are at least two mismanagement issues happening here that I will get into much more deeper later. Let's look at the skills of the players I gave as examples.
 
        P1 | P2
Spd  85 | 75
Pas  75 | 85
Pct   85 | 85
Sht   75 | 85
Def   75 | 75
Phy  85 | 75
Spi   75 | 75
End  85 | 75
Fof   85 | 85
 
P1 is nothing more than a 4th line SHL or GHL checker or a poor choice for a BHL offensive forward whereas P2 is a player, depending upon the talent of the league, that can potentially play a 2nd or 3rd line offensive role in the GHL.
 
 
Player roles. How to identify them and using that to determine how to put your team together.
 
To be good at doing this yourself requires that you do a little bit of homework. Specifically scouting. More specifically scouting your league. To identify what roles a player can fill you need to know what the general "best" of your league is. You basically want to find out what the best 20 of x look like in your league. For instance I know that I have two of the best 9 playmakers (passing and puckhandling skills combined) in my game world (I used to have 3 of them but I believe in giving something to get something from the AI aka I like to make fair trades with the AI) in Mikulas Rakita and Waide Rose, yet they are 84 and 83 overall respectively. They are the two lowest overall of the top 9 but there is no reason they should not be in any other teams top 6 forward group. There are only 7 other players that are as good playmakers in the entire game world. How about a more extreme example. There is a 79 overall player in my game world that is one of the top 19 playmakers of the entire game world. The next closest of the rest of the 19 on overall is 83. That player should be playing a top 6 forward role in the GHL because again there are only 18 other players in the entire game world as good as they are as a playmaker. Yes, the player is pretty much crap outside of his offensive skills but he is the perfect example of a role player. He is an amazing offensive GHL talent relative to the current league and should be playing in a top 6 role. That is how you identify the roles a player can potentially play but how do you determine where to play them in your lineup?
 
Creating a lineup sounds easy to do however it is a lot easier to mess it up than it is to get it right. This is where I see a lot of managers getting it wrong. The first thing I do when making a line is to decide on whom I am building that line around. Choose a player for each line and then find 2 complimentary players to play alongside them. I prefer to build around my centers. It makes things rather straightforward. No matter the 4 players you choose the next step is building the lineup around those players via finding players that complement the players you are building each line around. The key to doing that well is identifying the strengths of your players. If the player you chose for your first line is a sniper you want to get a playmaker to play with him and the third be good, but not great, at both just in case either one of the other two players have a bad game to prevent the line from being shut down. Likewise, if the player for the 2nd line is more of a playmaker you want to be finding a shooter and another who can do a bit of both. What about if the player is a two way forward? Well, the key thing to remember is that, at the end of the game, the goal is to score more points than your opponent. This means that you want your more defensive lines to be able to contribute offensively as well every once in a while. Thus when building those lines take a look at their offensive skills and build them with that still in mind but with less emphasis.
 
So this is my IHL team's roster.


 
Something you will notice is a lot of centers. It wasn't intentional. That said let me go over how I built the lines and why I did what I did. First I chose who I would build the lines around. As I said I prefer to build my lines around my centers. The 6 best centers I have are, in no particular order, Chenard, Keef, Gagnier, Spiva, Sibelius, and Sibley. Of those 6 I went with Gagnier, Chenard, Sibelius, and Spiva.
 
I built my first line around Gagnier. He is my best offensive center and you want your first line to be your best offensive line. That said Gagnier is a do everything offensive player which means I want to pair him with a playmaker and a scorer. The idea behind that is if any one player on that line has a bad game the other two can comfortably take up the slack without much difficulty as, no matter what, there is still a playmaker and shooter. My best playmaker and my best scorer are Fausher and Mckennon respectively so I put them with Gagnier. For an offensive line you want to focus on offensive talent no matter what tactics you are using nor the rest of the skill set of the player in question. Even if everything else skill wise is bad if the player has some of the best offensive skills on your team play him in your top 6.
 
I built my second line around Chenard. At this point, things got tricky for me because you want your 2nd line to be your 2nd best offensive line however that couldn't have been done if I gave Keef his own line as he is my 2nd best playmaker and I don't really have a suitable 3rd playmaker for a top 6 playmaker role. Thus instead of giving Keef his own line I put him on the wing here and gave the line a shooter in Markkula for the best offensive balance I could manage.
 
The 3rd line is where you ideally want to start really striking a balance between offense and defense. While this line isn't ideal in that manner I know it should be an ok line as it was my best line in the LIHL the season prior. The center is Sibelius and the two wingers are Hoy and Lymburner. Again if you look you see a playmaker, scorer and a third that can do a bit of both on that line. As I said prior this helps assure offensive balance on the line making it harder to shut down.
 
The 4th line can easily be a do anything line that you can scrape together for specialist purposes. I've created checking and energy lines with my 4th line and found success with such set ups both times by finding the right players. However, this line is just what is left with what I have. It is centered by Spiva with Stpeter and Wahlstrom as the wingers. While it isn't ideal and is kind of ho-hum with nothing really interesting going on I didn't really have an option at this point.

Team Advanced
 
To start this section off I will give the 3 most common mistakes I see managers make and add the key reason to why so many people struggle to do well as a manager of a team consistently.
 
1. Too many big contracts, especially in term (aka length). The only reason you should give a player a contract longer than 3 season is because you can guarantee that they will be a major player on your team for the entirety of the contract from the moment they sign until the season that contract ends. Major being core of your offense, defense or #1 goalie that is exceptionally talented relative to your league. Everybody else you should be signing, and if you want resigning, to deals 1-3 seasons in length. A rule of thumb to use is having no more than 6 or so players with contracts longer than 3 seasons.
 
2. How young can you go? There are a number of managers that are obscenely obsessed with having a young team. I have seen a post before of a manager offering a 25yo player looking for a young player in return. 25 IS YOUNG! Yes you want some young players but you want some vets too. A veteran player gets a veteran experience bonus to their play making them typically play better than younger players of equal talent. At the same time players develop more the more they play. The key is striking a balance between youth and vets on your team. Keep in mind you also have draft picks that will turn into players every year. Even if you don't bother with the draft you are pretty much guaranteed to be getting 1 player than can make your roster in 3 seasons time. Having a roster full of young players is a potential disaster as you could be forced into letting go a young and talented player.
 
3. Role players are key. As much as you need offensively talented forwards you also need defensively talented ones as well. As much as you need defensively talented forwards you need defensive puck movers as well. I have seen one manager get as many of the top talented forwards as possible and not bother about D or goaltending. I have also seen a team with 4 lines of very good offensive forwards struggle because of no defensive forwards despite very good D and very good goalie. I have also seen a team that had 6 great defensive Dmen but could not pass the puck and again struggled. They were all missing key components that are needed to make a successful team. Something as "simple" as not having a handful of quality defensive forwards can make an otherwise top 6 talent team in a league finish bottom 6 in results. Just as important as having those key role players is also utilizing them correctly in your roster.
 
The one key reason players struggle with manager games is because they forget one key aspect of what a manager needs to do. Balance long term with short term. Too many managers focus on the current and very near future and it bites them big 3 or 4 seasons from then. This is most commonly seen in excessive youth movement teams and on teams that give out too many long term contracts.
 
Time for me to start on the bigger part of this. However before that a forward note. The most important thing has nothing to do with the players on your team, the tactics or anything in game really. It is all about you. More specifically you identifying what kind of team you want. What do you want the identity of your team to be? That is by far the most important thing. Do you want an all out speed team like the Pittsburgh Penguins? A physical team like the Boston Bruins? A skill possession team like the Montreal Canadiens? Without an identity for your team it is more likely to end up relying mostly on random luck for good seasons and looking mostly like the Edmonton Oilers of the past 6 or 7 seasons on a more long term basis. The big thing here is identifying what you want the identity of your team to be, to stick to it and never lose sight of it. The identity you create for your team is the foundation for your team and the basis of which everything else relies. The second most important thing is again you. Specifically you learning what you need to know.
 
Now that I have said that let us look at how that applies in the most obvious way to your team. Tactics. First and foremost the "core" tactics. The core tactics are the basis of how your team will play on the ice. These core tactics are all under the tactics section and are; Offensive tactic, Defensive tactic, Power play and Penalty kill. These dictate the foundations of how your team plays on the ice. You should choose them based upon what I said above regarding your chosen team identity. Also once you make a decision on what you will use stick to it as changing one of these will have profound negative impacts to the play of your team for an extended period until they get familiar with the new core tactic. So what is the difference between them and what kind of players skill wise do you need to make them work successfully?
 
Tactics disclaimer: I would love to get deep into the details of these tactics but honestly I can't. The tactics in this game have been simplified to a great deal to the point where multiple and very drastically different things are combined into the same categories. For example in the offensive section below almost every NHL team crashes the net and plays dump and chase to some degree while having a puck possession focused offense. Honestly though the tactics being this way is likely for the better for newer players so as not to overwhelm them.
 
Offensive tactics
 
Crash the Net: This is very simple. Puck and players to the net. In real life this isn't a tactic so much as it is a way of life. Hockey players are preached to crash the net. "Go to the net and good things will happen," "throw the puck to the net because anything could happen" and "there is no such thing as a bad shot" (there actually is) are things you commonly hear if you watch NHL games.
 
What do you need for this tactic? Players high in the physical attribute. Bigger sized players are also a plus. The good about this tactic: You only need one skill to make it work and it is very simple. The Bad: You NEED one skill to make it work or it will not work at all, it is heavily reliant on your players to have higher physical skills and be bigger than the opposing defensemen for it to work, it is simple and very easy to counter.
 
This tactic is the least efficient tactic out there and the most reliant on the opposing team being weak to it makes it pretty much not worth it. This tactic isn't garbage. it is just over reliant on a few things making it a very situational tactic at best. Using a situational tactic all of the time isn't exactly an ideal situation.
 
Dump and Chase: This is all about getting the puck deep and then getting the puck via a strong forecheck. This tactic is less about skill and more about the defensive posture of the opposing team through the neutral zone. If the defensive posture is "up" then a dump and chase is a very good tactic to use. However that is in a real hockey game.
 
What do you need for this tactic? Speed and physical skills predominantly. Like above bigger sized players are a plus. The good: This tactic is all about using your teams physical attributes to the greatest possible effect. It isn't overly reliant on puck skills. The bad: Due to the aggressive hitting nature of this tactic over aggressive players will take a lot of penalties, considering that your team will take more penalties off of the bat as it is that could really kill any momentum your team builds on a regular basis making it difficult for your team to generate much offense.
 
This tactic is still very reliant on a players physical skill so not having a lot of forwards with high physical ratings will hurt this offense a lot. This tactic and the tactic above are the two physically focused offensive styles. The dump and chase is the more versatile of the two as it is less reliant on the opponent and their skills and more about your own players and theirs.
 
Puck possession: This is all about controlling the puck in the opponents end by passing the puck around. This tactic is the basis of most modern hockey offenses. Even the LA Kings use a puck possession offense with a heavy influence of physical play whereas the Chicago Blackhawks use a more finesse based puck possession style.
 
What you need: Puck handling and passing and then more puck handling and passing and then even more. The Good: This tactic is all about the puck skills of your players. This is the most difficult offense to stop with a skilled team. The bad: This is the most difficult offense to run because it is exceptionally reliant on the puck skills of your players.
 
This tactic is very high risk high reward in nature. As a result if you don't do things right things can very easily go very wrong with this tactic. You don't need fast or physical players but that will definitely help.
 
Transition rushes: This is all about counter attacking quickly. Get the puck and get it up ice quickly trying to create odd man rushes. However in the real life game this is not an offensive strategy per se and more another part of the game altogether.
 
What you need: A lot of skating, passing and puck handling. The good: Very aggressive and fast offensive tactic that aims to take advantage of both the speed and skill of your players. The bad: This tactic has the most demands from the players as they need to be fast, good puck handlers and passers.
 
Like puck possession this is high risk high reward but it is also the tactic that demands the most out of the players which demands the most out of you as well as you need the right players for this tactic to work. Also this tactic has some reliance on the opposing team as well making it that much more harder to implement successfully.
 
Defensive tactics coming up hopefully shortly.

Player Basics
 
This section is all about the basics you need to know about your players. Player skills and roles combined into one, profiles and training will be covered here.
 
Player skills and roles: First I am going to break down the players into 3. Forwards, defensemen and goalies. The reasoning relates to one skill. Faceoffs. Anybody can play the center position. However you want the most highly skilled players at faceoffs to be taking faceoffs no matter if they are a center or forward. On that note faceoffs shows how good a player is at faceoffs.
 
Skating shows how good a skater the player is. The importance of this skill is relevant to the team tactics you choose to use. That, along with other such information, will be covered later. Passing and puck handling show how good a player is at passing and puck handling. Combined these two skills are used to determine how good the player is at playing in a playmaker role as a forward. Shooting is about how good a shooter the player is and alone is used to determine how good the player is at playing a sniper role as a forward. Defense shows how good the player is at defense and is used to determine how good the player is at in playing the two way role as a forward. Physical is a representation of how physical the player plays. This is used to determine 2 roles. In the power forward role physical is combined with shooting and passing to determine how good the player will be for that role as a forward. A power forward is a forward that plays physical and has offensive skill. Physical is also used in combination with the players actual size (height and weight) to determine how good of an enforcer role the player can fill as a forward. Spirit, according to the old help system was a determination of how willing the player was to block shots and how hard the player back checked. Basically I sum it up as how much the player is willing to put into each game in terms of giving it all for the team. In terms of player roles this is used to determine how good a player would be as a grinder in the forward role. Endurance shows how much the player can do before getting tired.
 
You may have noticed that I didn't include defensive player roles. The reasoning is simple. I don't think they work quite the way they should. So far as I can tell for a defenseman to be good at the two way role a defender has to be good in a defensive or offensive role first. There is a reason that I think this. I have never seen a defenseman that was only good at being a two way. However all the time I see a defender that is good at being offensive or defensive. If a requirement for one role is to be good at another first i don't think something is right.
 
The question then inevitably turns into what skills are most important for my forwards/Dmen? Well that is mostly determined by what team tactics and to a lesser degree line tactics you chose to use which again will be covered later. However I will say a few things now that I think are more basic. First will be the concession that, arguably, the most important skill for a majority of your defensemen is defense and everything else is secondary. Second that you will need some passers, scorers and pk players. Also right handed players are more likely to score more than left handed players. If you see two players with 85 in shooting with one being left handed and the other right the right handed player will be more likely to score more goals. So far as I can tell that is the only difference between right handed players and left. That being said you don't need to have but maybe one or two right handed shooter. Also player overall means nothing outside of base values for contract negotiations with players. The players individual skills are much more important than a players overall. An 85 overall player is not instantly better than an 81 overall player because of higher overall. Height and weight seem to not matter too much however the game ratings given to players is biased to physical players.
 
What about goalies? Goalies have their own skills so covering them separately seemed to be appropriate. Also there is an order of importance for skills when it comes to goalies that will pretty much never change. So here are the goalie skills grouped in order of importance and what they show. (And before anyone gets upset about me revealing something so "important" this stuff should be obvious to everyone outside of managers relatively new to hockey management games that know nothing about hockey. Also this is a guide. A guide is meant to help a player get better. A good game guide gets into the details of a game so players can understand what and why things work the way they do in game. Moving on.) Reflexes, positioning and athletics. These are the three skills that directly relate to a goalies ability to make saves and that is the primary function of your goalies. Reflexes show how quickly your goalie can react, positioning how well the goalie is at positioning themselves to the puck relative to the net and athletics is how mobile the goalie is. Puck control and spirit. These are two "modifier" skills. Puck control is how well the goalie can control their rebounds and spirit is again how all out the goalie is willing to go. The last two skills pretty much don't matter. Endurance and Puck handling. Puck handling is how well the goalie can play the puck. Endurance seems to mean nothing on a goalie since all goalies seem to be able to go the same number of games before getting tired. Also goalies that are tired seem to show no drop off in play due to fatigue.
 
Player Profiles: First it needs to be said that there are 2 hidden traits. Potential and greed. Potential is how good the player can be. Greed is how much money the player wants. The visible traits are ego, dirty, leadership, big games and ambition. Ego is how big of an ego the player has. Players with bigger egos can potentially be locker room problems. Dirty is how dirty the player plays. The more dirty they play the more likely they are to take penalties. Leadership is how good of a leader the player can be. Big games is how well a player can handle pressure. Ambition is how much desire the player has to be the best they possibly can be.
 
Training: Training can be focused one of three ways. Offensive, general and defensive. The differences between them is dictated by the team tactics you choose as those dictate what your players focus on training the most. Intensity is how hard the player trains. There is no reason to not be training on hard. Even if a player is all 99 they should be training on hard because it helps them keep that rating. Hard intensity training can also help delay a players regression due to age. If a player is getting tired give them less playing time so you can keep them on hard training.

This is a general user guide. For now it will be split up into 4 sections but I am saving room for one more just in case. Please know that this is never complete and is always an ongoing project with the work in progress label as nobody except for Anders knows everything about this game and even the best of us are constantly learning about this game. This will be bare to start with but I plan on having most of it filled to some degree within about a week or two depending upon the time available to me.
 
The 4 sections will be as follows. Team Basics, Player Basics, Team Advanced and Player Advanced. The 5th I am saving for something unforeseen or not thought of in advanced and may eventually just be used as a frequently asked questions list. If I end up needing more than 5. Umm... Oops. I'll make it work.
 
 
 
Team Basics
 
This section is all about the very basics on how to run a team. The topics covered here will be roster, cap, line and tactic basics. The very first thing to do is learn your team. Since player basics is the second part we will be getting more in depth with the player part there and we will skip to the roster in general.
 
Roster basics: The most obvious thing is that you need 18 skaters and 2 goalies at minimum. In an ideal situation you would also want 2 or 3 forwards and 1 or 2 defensemen as scratches in case of injury. Injuries happen. It is inevitable. It is best to be prepared for when it does happen so you aren't scrambling when it does. Beyond this part, in which many have probably rolled their eyes at, the only other things to really address here is team spirit and team reputation. Team spirit has 3 things underneath it. Confidence shows exactly how confidant your team is in its play. It will be more likely to grow with positive overall team results. Teamwork shows how well your team plays together. Winner instinct is basically a teams "it" factor. Does the team have "it" in them to consistently pull out wins in meaningful games.
 
Cap basics: A GHL team has a cap of 60 million to play with. SHL 15 million, BHL 4.5 million, IHL, 1.5 million and LIHL 750k. Every player has a contract that lasts a certain number of seasons. Contracts can have clauses as well. a Promotion clause means that the if the player remains on the team and the team promotes to a higher league the salary of the player will go up in proportion with the new salary. A one way clause means that the player will not go down to a lower league no matter what.
 
Line basics: Each forward line needs 3 skaters. Each defensive line 2 skaters. For the C position any skater can play it so you want to be playing the players with the best face off rating regardless of position. Also you want your best shooter not playing at C to be on the side opposite their handedness. This is called playing the off-wing. It allows this player to get better quality shots on net.
 
Tactic basics: Team tactics work in a rock, paper, scissors fashion. Each offensive and defensive system has strengths and weaknesses. However these tactics have a say in how your players develop, how your team performs and the team has to get familiar with the team tactic. When it comes to team tactics it is best to choose one based upon how you want you team to play in the long run. This is because when you change team tactics there is a "learning" period that the team has to go through and it will perform worse in the process. The players will adapt to the system. Line tactics (aka line settings) however do not work in a rock, paper, scissors fashion. Rather there basically are instructions to the players on how to play within the team system. Also they can be changed game to game without worry of change in the quality of team play.

This is a general user guide. For now it will be split up into 4 sections but I am saving room for one more just in case. Please know that this is never complete and is always an ongoing project with the work in progress label as nobody except for Anders knows everything about this game and even the best of us are constantly learning about this game. This will be bare to start with but I plan on having most of it filled to some degree within about a week or two depending upon the time available to me.
 
The 4 sections will be as follows. Team Basics, Player Basics, Team Advanced and Player Advanced. The 5th I am saving for something unforeseen or not thought of in advanced and may eventually just be used as a frequently asked questions list. If I end up needing more than 5. Umm... Oops. I'll make it work.
 
 
 
Team Basics
 
This section is all about the very basics on how to run a team. The topics covered here will be roster, cap, line and tactic basics. The very first thing to do is learn your team. Since player basics is the second part we will be getting more in depth with the player part there and we will skip to the roster in general.
 
Roster basics: The most obvious thing is that you need 18 skaters and 2 goalies at minimum. In an ideal situation you would also want 2 or 3 forwards and 1 or 2 defensemen as scratches in case of injury. Injuries happen. It is inevitable. It is best to be prepared for when it does happen so you aren't scrambling when it does. Beyond this part, in which many have probably rolled their eyes at, the only other things to really address here is team spirit and team reputation. Team spirit has 3 things underneath it. Confidence shows exactly how confidant your team is in its play. It will be more likely to grow with positive overall team results. Teamwork shows how well your team plays together. Winner instinct is basically a teams "it" factor. Does the team have "it" in them to consistently pull out wins in meaningful games.
 
Cap basics: A GHL team has a cap of 60 million to play with. SHL 15 million, BHL 4.5 million, IHL, 1.5 million and LIHL 750k. Every player has a contract that lasts a certain number of seasons. Contracts can have clauses as well. a Promotion clause means that the if the player remains on the team and the team promotes to a higher league the salary of the player will go up in proportion with the new salary. A one way clause means that the player will not go down to a lower league no matter what.
 
Line basics: Each forward line needs 3 skaters. Each defensive line 2 skaters. For the C position any skater can play it so you want to be playing the players with the best face off rating regardless of position. Also you want your best shooter not playing at C to be on the side opposite their handedness. This is called playing the off-wing. It allows this player to get better quality shots on net.
 
Tactic basics: Team tactics work in a rock, paper, scissors fashion. Each offensive and defensive system has strengths and weaknesses. However these tactics have a say in how your players develop, how your team performs and the team has to get familiar with the team tactic. When it comes to team tactics it is best to choose one based upon how you want you team to play in the long run. This is because when you change team tactics there is a "learning" period that the team has to go through and it will perform worse in the process. The players will adapt to the system. Line tactics (aka line settings) however do not work in a rock, paper, scissors fashion. Rather there basically are instructions to the players on how to play within the team system. Also they can be changed game to game without worry of change in the quality of team play.

Player Basics
 
This section is all about the basics you need to know about your players. Player skills and roles combined into one, profiles and training will be covered here.
 
Player skills and roles: First I am going to break down the players into 3. Forwards, defensemen and goalies. The reasoning relates to one skill. Faceoffs. Anybody can play the center position. However you want the most highly skilled players at faceoffs to be taking faceoffs no matter if they are a center or forward. On that note faceoffs shows how good a player is at faceoffs.
 
Skating shows how good a skater the player is. The importance of this skill is relevant to the team tactics you choose to use. That, along with other such information, will be covered later. Passing and puck handling show how good a player is at passing and puck handling. Combined these two skills are used to determine how good the player is at playing in a playmaker role as a forward. Shooting is about how good a shooter the player is and alone is used to determine how good the player is at playing a sniper role as a forward. Defense shows how good the player is at defense and is used to determine how good the player is at in playing the two way role as a forward. Physical is a representation of how physical the player plays. This is used to determine 2 roles. In the power forward role physical is combined with shooting and passing to determine how good the player will be for that role as a forward. A power forward is a forward that plays physical and has offensive skill. Physical is also used in combination with the players actual size (height and weight) to determine how good of an enforcer role the player can fill as a forward. Spirit, according to the old help system was a determination of how willing the player was to block shots and how hard the player back checked. Basically I sum it up as how much the player is willing to put into each game in terms of giving it all for the team. In terms of player roles this is used to determine how good a player would be as a grinder in the forward role. Endurance shows how much the player can do before getting tired.
 
You may have noticed that I didn't include defensive player roles. The reasoning is simple. I don't think they work quite the way they should. So far as I can tell for a defenseman to be good at the two way role a defender has to be good in a defensive or offensive role first. There is a reason that I think this. I have never seen a defenseman that was only good at being a two way. However all the time I see a defender that is good at being offensive or defensive. If a requirement for one role is to be good at another first i don't think something is right.
 
The question then inevitably turns into what skills are most important for my forwards/Dmen? Well that is mostly determined by what team tactics and to a lesser degree line tactics you chose to use which again will be covered later. However I will say a few things now that I think are more basic. First will be the concession that, arguably, the most important skill for a majority of your defensemen is defense and everything else is secondary. Second that you will need some passers, scorers and pk players. Also right handed players are more likely to score more than left handed players. If you see two players with 85 in shooting with one being left handed and the other right the right handed player will be more likely to score more goals. So far as I can tell that is the only difference between right handed players and left. That being said you don't need to have but maybe one or two right handed shooter. Also player overall means nothing outside of base values for contract negotiations with players. The players individual skills are much more important than a players overall. An 85 overall player is not instantly better than an 81 overall player because of higher overall. Height and weight seem to not matter too much however the game ratings given to players is biased to physical players.
 
What about goalies? Goalies have their own skills so covering them separately seemed to be appropriate. Also there is an order of importance for skills when it comes to goalies that will pretty much never change. So here are the goalie skills grouped in order of importance and what they show. (And before anyone gets upset about me revealing something so "important" this stuff should be obvious to everyone outside of managers relatively new to hockey management games that know nothing about hockey. Also this is a guide. A guide is meant to help a player get better. A good game guide gets into the details of a game so players can understand what and why things work the way they do in game. Moving on.) Reflexes, positioning and athletics. These are the three skills that directly relate to a goalies ability to make saves and that is the primary function of your goalies. Reflexes show how quickly your goalie can react, positioning how well the goalie is at positioning themselves to the puck relative to the net and athletics is how mobile the goalie is. Puck control and spirit. These are two "modifier" skills. Puck control is how well the goalie can control their rebounds and spirit is again how all out the goalie is willing to go. The last two skills pretty much don't matter. Endurance and Puck handling. Puck handling is how well the goalie can play the puck. Endurance seems to mean nothing on a goalie since all goalies seem to be able to go the same number of games before getting tired. Also goalies that are tired seem to show no drop off in play due to fatigue.
 
Player Profiles: First it needs to be said that there are 2 hidden traits. Potential and greed. Potential is how good the player can be. Greed is how much money the player wants. The visible traits are ego, dirty, leadership, big games and ambition. Ego is how big of an ego the player has. Players with bigger egos can potentially be locker room problems. Dirty is how dirty the player plays. The more dirty they play the more likely they are to take penalties. Leadership is how good of a leader the player can be. Big games is how well a player can handle pressure. Ambition is how much desire the player has to be the best they possibly can be.
 
Training: Training can be focused one of three ways. Offensive, general and defensive. The differences between them is dictated by the team tactics you choose as those dictate what your players focus on training the most. Intensity is how hard the player trains. There is no reason to not be training on hard. Even if a player is all 99 they should be training on hard because it helps them keep that rating. Hard intensity training can also help delay a players regression due to age. If a player is getting tired give them less playing time so you can keep them on hard training.

Saved 4

Player Advanced
 
To start this section off I will give the biggest mistake I see regularly from many managers regarding players. Overall fixation. Overall means nothing. Yes, it means nothing. Seriously it means nothing. No really. It means nothing. Ok, it means something. But only what you can expect a player to ask for when it comes to contracts. Beyond that it means about as much to you as the favorite color of that person you don't know driving a boat somewhere in an ocean nowhere near you that you will never meet. The player's individual skills are what is important. Let me give you an example. 2 players. Player one (P1) has an overall of 80. Player two (P2) an overall of 79. The mistake I see many managers make is going for higher overall players in FA when they don't need to and playing higher overall players higher in their lineup over more skilled players. There are at least two mismanagement issues happening here that I will get into much more deeper later. Let's look at the skills of the players I gave as examples.
 
        P1 | P2
Spd  85 | 75
Pas  75 | 85
Pct   85 | 85
Sht   75 | 85
Def   75 | 75
Phy  85 | 75
Spi   75 | 75
End  85 | 75
Fof   85 | 85
 
P1 is nothing more than a 4th line SHL or GHL checker or a poor choice for a BHL offensive forward whereas P2 is a player, depending upon the talent of the league, that can potentially play a 2nd or 3rd line offensive role in the GHL.
 
 
Player roles. How to identify them and using that to determine how to put your team together.
 
To be good at doing this yourself requires that you do a little bit of homework. Specifically scouting. More specifically scouting your league. To identify what roles a player can fill you need to know what the general "best" of your league is. You basically want to find out what the best 20 of x look like in your league. For instance I know that I have two of the best 9 playmakers (passing and puckhandling skills combined) in my game world (I used to have 3 of them but I believe in giving something to get something from the AI aka I like to make fair trades with the AI) in Mikulas Rakita and Waide Rose, yet they are 84 and 83 overall respectively. They are the two lowest overall of the top 9 but there is no reason they should not be in any other teams top 6 forward group. There are only 7 other players that are as good playmakers in the entire game world. How about a more extreme example. There is a 79 overall player in my game world that is one of the top 19 playmakers of the entire game world. The next closest of the rest of the 19 on overall is 83. That player should be playing a top 6 forward role in the GHL because again there are only 18 other players in the entire game world as good as they are as a playmaker. Yes, the player is pretty much crap outside of his offensive skills but he is the perfect example of a role player. He is an amazing offensive GHL talent relative to the current league and should be playing in a top 6 role. That is how you identify the roles a player can potentially play but how do you determine where to play them in your lineup?
 
Creating a lineup sounds easy to do however it is a lot easier to mess it up than it is to get it right. This is where I see a lot of managers getting it wrong. The first thing I do when making a line is to decide on whom I am building that line around. Choose a player for each line and then find 2 complimentary players to play alongside them. I prefer to build around my centers. It makes things rather straightforward. No matter the 4 players you choose the next step is building the lineup around those players via finding players that complement the players you are building each line around. The key to doing that well is identifying the strengths of your players. If the player you chose for your first line is a sniper you want to get a playmaker to play with him and the third be good, but not great, at both just in case either one of the other two players have a bad game to prevent the line from being shut down. Likewise, if the player for the 2nd line is more of a playmaker you want to be finding a shooter and another who can do a bit of both. What about if the player is a two way forward? Well, the key thing to remember is that, at the end of the game, the goal is to score more points than your opponent. This means that you want your more defensive lines to be able to contribute offensively as well every once in a while. Thus when building those lines take a look at their offensive skills and build them with that still in mind but with less emphasis.
 
So this is my IHL team's roster.


 
Something you will notice is a lot of centers. It wasn't intentional. That said let me go over how I built the lines and why I did what I did. First I chose who I would build the lines around. As I said I prefer to build my lines around my centers. The 6 best centers I have are, in no particular order, Chenard, Keef, Gagnier, Spiva, Sibelius, and Sibley. Of those 6 I went with Gagnier, Chenard, Sibelius, and Spiva.
 
I built my first line around Gagnier. He is my best offensive center and you want your first line to be your best offensive line. That said Gagnier is a do everything offensive player which means I want to pair him with a playmaker and a scorer. The idea behind that is if any one player on that line has a bad game the other two can comfortably take up the slack without much difficulty as, no matter what, there is still a playmaker and shooter. My best playmaker and my best scorer are Fausher and Mckennon respectively so I put them with Gagnier. For an offensive line you want to focus on offensive talent no matter what tactics you are using nor the rest of the skill set of the player in question. Even if everything else skill wise is bad if the player has some of the best offensive skills on your team play him in your top 6.
 
I built my second line around Chenard. At this point, things got tricky for me because you want your 2nd line to be your 2nd best offensive line however that couldn't have been done if I gave Keef his own line as he is my 2nd best playmaker and I don't really have a suitable 3rd playmaker for a top 6 playmaker role. Thus instead of giving Keef his own line I put him on the wing here and gave the line a shooter in Markkula for the best offensive balance I could manage.
 
The 3rd line is where you ideally want to start really striking a balance between offense and defense. While this line isn't ideal in that manner I know it should be an ok line as it was my best line in the LIHL the season prior. The center is Sibelius and the two wingers are Hoy and Lymburner. Again if you look you see a playmaker, scorer and a third that can do a bit of both on that line. As I said prior this helps assure offensive balance on the line making it harder to shut down.
 
The 4th line can easily be a do anything line that you can scrape together for specialist purposes. I've created checking and energy lines with my 4th line and found success with such set ups both times by finding the right players. However, this line is just what is left with what I have. It is centered by Spiva with Stpeter and Wahlstrom as the wingers. While it isn't ideal and is kind of ho-hum with nothing really interesting going on I didn't really have an option at this point.

Team Advanced
 
To start this section off I will give the 3 most common mistakes I see managers make and add the key reason to why so many people struggle to do well as a manager of a team consistently.
 
1. Too many big contracts, especially in term (aka length). The only reason you should give a player a contract longer than 3 season is because you can guarantee that they will be a major player on your team for the entirety of the contract from the moment they sign until the season that contract ends. Major being core of your offense, defense or #1 goalie that is exceptionally talented relative to your league. Everybody else you should be signing, and if you want resigning, to deals 1-3 seasons in length. A rule of thumb to use is having no more than 6 or so players with contracts longer than 3 seasons.
 
2. How young can you go? There are a number of managers that are obscenely obsessed with having a young team. I have seen a post before of a manager offering a 25yo player looking for a young player in return. 25 IS YOUNG! Yes you want some young players but you want some vets too. A veteran player gets a veteran experience bonus to their play making them typically play better than younger players of equal talent. At the same time players develop more the more they play. The key is striking a balance between youth and vets on your team. Keep in mind you also have draft picks that will turn into players every year. Even if you don't bother with the draft you are pretty much guaranteed to be getting 1 player than can make your roster in 3 seasons time. Having a roster full of young players is a potential disaster as you could be forced into letting go a young and talented player.
 
3. Role players are key. As much as you need offensively talented forwards you also need defensively talented ones as well. As much as you need defensively talented forwards you need defensive puck movers as well. I have seen one manager get as many of the top talented forwards as possible and not bother about D or goaltending. I have also seen a team with 4 lines of very good offensive forwards struggle because of no defensive forwards despite very good D and very good goalie. I have also seen a team that had 6 great defensive Dmen but could not pass the puck and again struggled. They were all missing key components that are needed to make a successful team. Something as "simple" as not having a handful of quality defensive forwards can make an otherwise top 6 talent team in a league finish bottom 6 in results. Just as important as having those key role players is also utilizing them correctly in your roster.
 
The one key reason players struggle with manager games is because they forget one key aspect of what a manager needs to do. Balance long term with short term. Too many managers focus on the current and very near future and it bites them big 3 or 4 seasons from then. This is most commonly seen in excessive youth movement teams and on teams that give out too many long term contracts.
 
Time for me to start on the bigger part of this. However before that a forward note. The most important thing has nothing to do with the players on your team, the tactics or anything in game really. It is all about you. More specifically you identifying what kind of team you want. What do you want the identity of your team to be? That is by far the most important thing. Do you want an all out speed team like the Pittsburgh Penguins? A physical team like the Boston Bruins? A skill possession team like the Montreal Canadiens? Without an identity for your team it is more likely to end up relying mostly on random luck for good seasons and looking mostly like the Edmonton Oilers of the past 6 or 7 seasons on a more long term basis. The big thing here is identifying what you want the identity of your team to be, to stick to it and never lose sight of it. The identity you create for your team is the foundation for your team and the basis of which everything else relies. The second most important thing is again you. Specifically you learning what you need to know.
 
Now that I have said that let us look at how that applies in the most obvious way to your team. Tactics. First and foremost the "core" tactics. The core tactics are the basis of how your team will play on the ice. These core tactics are all under the tactics section and are; Offensive tactic, Defensive tactic, Power play and Penalty kill. These dictate the foundations of how your team plays on the ice. You should choose them based upon what I said above regarding your chosen team identity. Also once you make a decision on what you will use stick to it as changing one of these will have profound negative impacts to the play of your team for an extended period until they get familiar with the new core tactic. So what is the difference between them and what kind of players skill wise do you need to make them work successfully?
 
Tactics disclaimer: I would love to get deep into the details of these tactics but honestly I can't. The tactics in this game have been simplified to a great deal to the point where multiple and very drastically different things are combined into the same categories. For example in the offensive section below almost every NHL team crashes the net and plays dump and chase to some degree while having a puck possession focused offense. Honestly though the tactics being this way is likely for the better for newer players so as not to overwhelm them.
 
Offensive tactics
 
Crash the Net: This is very simple. Puck and players to the net. In real life this isn't a tactic so much as it is a way of life. Hockey players are preached to crash the net. "Go to the net and good things will happen," "throw the puck to the net because anything could happen" and "there is no such thing as a bad shot" (there actually is) are things you commonly hear if you watch NHL games.
 
What do you need for this tactic? Players high in the physical attribute. Bigger sized players are also a plus. The good about this tactic: You only need one skill to make it work and it is very simple. The Bad: You NEED one skill to make it work or it will not work at all, it is heavily reliant on your players to have higher physical skills and be bigger than the opposing defensemen for it to work, it is simple and very easy to counter.
 
This tactic is the least efficient tactic out there and the most reliant on the opposing team being weak to it makes it pretty much not worth it. This tactic isn't garbage. it is just over reliant on a few things making it a very situational tactic at best. Using a situational tactic all of the time isn't exactly an ideal situation.
 
Dump and Chase: This is all about getting the puck deep and then getting the puck via a strong forecheck. This tactic is less about skill and more about the defensive posture of the opposing team through the neutral zone. If the defensive posture is "up" then a dump and chase is a very good tactic to use. However that is in a real hockey game.
 
What do you need for this tactic? Speed and physical skills predominantly. Like above bigger sized players are a plus. The good: This tactic is all about using your teams physical attributes to the greatest possible effect. It isn't overly reliant on puck skills. The bad: Due to the aggressive hitting nature of this tactic over aggressive players will take a lot of penalties, considering that your team will take more penalties off of the bat as it is that could really kill any momentum your team builds on a regular basis making it difficult for your team to generate much offense.
 
This tactic is still very reliant on a players physical skill so not having a lot of forwards with high physical ratings will hurt this offense a lot. This tactic and the tactic above are the two physically focused offensive styles. The dump and chase is the more versatile of the two as it is less reliant on the opponent and their skills and more about your own players and theirs.
 
Puck possession: This is all about controlling the puck in the opponents end by passing the puck around. This tactic is the basis of most modern hockey offenses. Even the LA Kings use a puck possession offense with a heavy influence of physical play whereas the Chicago Blackhawks use a more finesse based puck possession style.
 
What you need: Puck handling and passing and then more puck handling and passing and then even more. The Good: This tactic is all about the puck skills of your players. This is the most difficult offense to stop with a skilled team. The bad: This is the most difficult offense to run because it is exceptionally reliant on the puck skills of your players.
 
This tactic is very high risk high reward in nature. As a result if you don't do things right things can very easily go very wrong with this tactic. You don't need fast or physical players but that will definitely help.
 
Transition rushes: This is all about counter attacking quickly. Get the puck and get it up ice quickly trying to create odd man rushes. However in the real life game this is not an offensive strategy per se and more another part of the game altogether.
 
What you need: A lot of skating, passing and puck handling. The good: Very aggressive and fast offensive tactic that aims to take advantage of both the speed and skill of your players. The bad: This tactic has the most demands from the players as they need to be fast, good puck handlers and passers.
 
Like puck possession this is high risk high reward but it is also the tactic that demands the most out of the players which demands the most out of you as well as you need the right players for this tactic to work. Also this tactic has some reliance on the opposing team as well making it that much more harder to implement successfully.
 
Defensive tactics coming up hopefully shortly.