made it to another qualifier in v.130.

2nd place in III.5. I'm curious what's coming down from II, what's coming up from IV, and how my season is going to be affected by an inability to check my team for 2 weeks while in Russia

SI

So my series next year will be much of the same. We will have five teams each capable of beating each other, with three having a chance of winning the series. But I am thinking of retooling my team. My frontline trainees have reached that awkward age. I could raise about $20M by selling them and some spare parts. So I have listed a bunch of guys with pretty high price tags to see if any team desperate to win a qualifier takes the bait.

After that, I will start trying to acquire some new pieces. Defenders seem cheap right now. HT is most fun when you are able to buy new players.

None of my players sold which was half expected. It is kind of a downer though, because there was a WB that I really wanted but didn't have enough cash to bid for him. All I needed to do was to make one sell.

MIJB, do you want to play a friendly this off-season? Can't remember if it is my turn to host or yours.

D'oh, just saw this, right after arranging a friendly for next Wednesday.

I think we're even in hosting, so I think it's my turn to take the plane. ;)

Why not give it another go? Team spirit doesn't reset until Mon or Tues, right?

SI

Part 2 of my 3 part HT Press series on the Hall of Fame was published today. Check it out on the USA front page :)

SI

:(

nothing like a golden goal in the 97th minute.

Well, then...

WTF Hattrick?

http://www94.hattrick.org/Club/Match...2199,437612201

So I took the plunge and fired up my team again. Been about 5 years or so, anything I should know? It looks like you don't need to upgrade your stadium immediately, but otherwise a lot seems the same.

I finished the new manager orientation thing and loaded up with 6 17yo Passable scorers to establish my training program. My VI only has one other active team, and it looks like they'll wipe the walls with me. I should walk all over everyone else though.

Any input on whether I should go full on youth academy or stick with the scouting network?

Vince! let me know which team, so I can send my guys over for a friendly.
Edit: never mind, I think I just found you. ;)

Weclome back, Vince!



Same old hattrick, GE.

It's kind of like poker, you will occasionally get dealt a bad beat that you just can't explain.

sadly, yes.

Any advice re: youth systems? Since I've gotten my whole team up and running for about $10k total and I still have upwards of $200k in the bank, it doesn't look like I need to worry about dropping $20k/week on my youth squad...or do I?

With the new(ish) homegrown bonus, I think I would start a youth team. Not because the players are better if you do that, but more along of the lines of it gives you an advantage of knowing what is coming through your system.

Four of my current six trainees are homegrown. I have two more coming up the pipeline who will be 17 soon and I can promote them. It just allows me to plan things out better.

It also gives you another match per week to prepare for, which makes it a little more fun. Although most teams don't take these games as serious.

Overall, I would say go for the youth squad. You have to spend 20k a week on building up your YA anyway, right?

True. The question is whether or not my economy can sustain $20k/week right out the gate. I'll have a home match this weekend to give me a better idea of what my home draw will be, but right now I have no idea what the weekly take from ticket sales will be.

I expect to be 12-2 this year. Series full of 6 bots, me, and one other team that will cream me.

So my first match netted me 4600 punters, which is far less than I was expecting. That being said, we killed it at 8-1 with only an unpredictable event giving them a goal. And the 4k was worth $40k, so it looks as if $20k is going to be a drop in the bucket, and we'll be re-instating the Isla Vista Vandals effective immediately.

I forgot how much fun this game can be.

Edit - Looks like it was an inexperience event (is that even a thing?), not an unpredictable event.

So our first competitive match included a natural hat trick by young Russian striker trainee Anatoly Shonov, earning him a permanent place in Wreckers lore.

Made it to the 5th rd for the second straight year. Awaiting my draw now.

We drew a team from II. If they trot out the lineup they did last night, we will have a chance. If he sends out his A team, no chance. He has a tough league match, so I guess we will see.

Oh and I also have a tough league match on the road that I really need to win. But I would love to make it to the 6th round of the cup.

Good luck!

Nice win after a shaky start for you.

Glad to see that bots are still easy to walk all over, as I had a (fairly) pedestrian win away from home today.

I'm happy that my main team managed to beat the second best team in the series tonight not even playing my best team. I had 6 defenders on the field, 2 in each sector and still managed a 3-2 win. Now if only I'd have trained defense in week one and CA'd the hell out of the leader of my series...

Hindsight and all that. I knew what he'd do, and still thought I'd win it in a 253, but nopes.

Anyways, winning tonight puts me in great shape to win my series since by the time the tough games come back around I'll be playing my best team in league and be out of the cup.

Cup opponents best watch out, though. I've got a damn studly team.

Tell

Yea, it was a good win for us. Just to put it in context, we won 4-1 on the road against one of three teams (including us) that could win the series. If HT didn't screw me over in that one match, I would be in great shape with 12 points and winning on the road against two of the better teams in the series.

We also did it without playing our two best players up top. I put them on the wing so that I can start them up top in the cup match. One of my starters did play up front though, so he will move to the wing for the cup match. I am going to give it go and MOTS the cup match since we have two easy league matches over the next two weeks.

MIJB, I think it's pretty awesome that you've scored 2 goals in 4 league games and only lost one of them :)

So, this made me go back and look at past seasons because I know there some inept seasons in there.

Somehow, we scored 9 league goals in 14 games and still won 5 and drew 4. In those 14 games, we also got shutout 7 straight times and got 8 shutouts.

crazy season that was.

Thanks. We're playing so undutch (read: ultra-defensive), it puzzles the opponents. ;) I haven't made any friends either, MOTSing against the division leaders in week 13 last season, costing them the title. The eventual champs drew 1-1 with us last weekend, so we showed we can frustrate anybody. The way I raised this team, it looks like it's all my boys can do: sit back and hope to score on a counter attack. :devil:

It's about time to start selling some of those quality defenders though. I was warned about this, some of these players will grow on you and will be tough to sell. Especially USA's Gaylord Younger, my third (1K) signing back when I started and improved to like 1.5M of value, he would be missed...

I am still trying to work out my plan for my cup match for tonight.

Part of me says to play defensive since I am going against a team from II but the other part of me says I have an attacking team and I should go for it.

Here are my options:

4-3-3 with one winger to one side which would generate an ET attack on that side but noting really to the other side.
3-4-3 with two wingers but no fullbacks balanced attack, little light on D as just three guys with one pushing slightly up
4-3-3 no wingers, heavy on defense and would try to score in the middle with a mag central attack

Close match GE.

I squeaked through to round 6 on a quick event goal to my forward. Very evenly matched teams in that round. Next round? Up against Westchester Fire. Current 21st seed.

My team:
The squad consists of 28 players. Together they have a total TSI of 1 820 890 and the total salary is 398 014 US$.

Their team:
The squad consists of 27 players. Together they have a total TSI of 1 361 880 and the total salary is 429 768 US$.

I should win, huh? Both of us in inadequeate average form.

It all comes down to which team he puts out there, league or cup. I can probably own his cup lineup, and even compete against his league lineup.

My poor leadership coach might bite me in this one.

Normal all the way.

I've got like 5 open supporter slots. Who on FOFC am I not supporting?

Heck, I think we have enough people we might need to make a quick little team list again

SI

Willow Glen Wreckers, in VI.815 :)

So I just realized my back-to-back at mid season is against the only team in the series that is human controlled, and I'm likely to lose pretty handily in both matches. How much is that going to crap out my supporter base?

I got a couple of prospects coming out of my youth system that I need to decide what to do with. They will be 17 yr old passable scoring and passable wingers which fits well with my forward toward winger training model.

But all of my training spots are occupied and if move to IV next season, we are going to need all the help we can get. So I got to decide if I want to sell the prospects or sell the better players.

Are they actually good enough to be in your training program (17yo pass/pass)? If not, you have to, pardon the pun, pass. Unless there's some other benefit like the wage savings but I doubt that's a lot on FTWs

SI

MIJB,

The team I am trotting out against you today is pitiful. You should crush me, although I do have two starters playing in training positions.

I couldn't risk injuries before two critical league matches.

We'll have to see about that, as we'll be playing with our projects and over the hill veterans here. Except for my goalkeeper, he'll be in the lineup at central defender to improve his defensive skills. :D

Was checking out the match today and saw that MIJB has an "anonymous" supporter. What's up with that?

SI

If we would have today's HT world back during the FOFC HT heyday, then that would have been quite interesting.

I am guessing there would be some FOFC tournaments, ladders, etc.

I dunno who it could be, I'm unable to see who my supporters are. :D

Yeah, definitely!

Probably me. My free supporter subscription ran out, and I had supported him before it did. I'm really missing many of the features already, and it's only been three or four days. Not sure if I'm missing it enough to pay though...

I have got a true study in my YA. Potential for Excellent winger, solid defending, and passable passing. The only downfall is his age at 16.71.

Sigh. 0/4 on chances, give up a goal in the 83rd minute on the opponent's first chance. Lose 1-0.

Not a game we should have won by any means, but still frustrating.

I won my game pretty easily, 6-1. Also took the lead in the series on GD after an epic 89th minute comeback from the third place team to topple top ranked junior tu papa.

84th minute on, 4 goals, one missed chance. Went from 2-3 to 3-3, 3-4, 4-4, missed chance by away team, 5-4 win. Last three in the 89th.

Just epic.

Now I can just win out and not have to worry about GD anymore.

Tell

Nice, Tell!

Anyone recall what the typical V->IV promotion line usually is?

I'm looking at buying some wingers and/or IM to improve my team but not sure if i can still auto-promote...

it sure would surprise people in v.130 if i did anything besides CA since that's all we've done for the last 1.5 years or so

How is a bot team fourth in your series? They must have just went bot.

I think around two losses is the normal auto-promote line. You will be cutting it pretty close.

We swept the mid-season series against the division winners last season. We took the road game 4-1 and scored two unanswered goals to win the home match 2-1.

Yeah. they just went bot.. I was surprised, too...

My plan is to buy IM and/or wings and switch to passing training anyway for the rest of the season...

all my trainee forwards are or about to be magnificient.

Sweet! The Hattrick gods were with us yesterday, letting us counter to a 2-1 victory at the not-anymore series leaders to hop out of the relegation zone on goal difference. Still 1/3rd of the season to go, but it's good to see we finally got our first league victory of the season.

I ran a 5-4-1 for winger training purposes so we only beat one the weaker teams in my series 3-0.

But I am hoping that the series and auto-promotion does not come down to point differences anyway.

So I've managed to get a few interesting players into the Youth Academy now, and I'm wondering what my training rotation should look like. How do I best rotate training so that the guys I'm interested in reach their potential?

Here are the players I'm mostly interested in:

Leslie Johnson (15 years, 81 days)
???/Weak Defending
???/Passable Winger
???/Inadequate Passing
Weak/Inadequate Scoring

Ben Switzer (16 years 51 days)
Inadequate/Passable Defending
???/Weak Playmaking

Hugh Parrish (16 years 72 days)
???/Solid Keeper

Akash Gibson (16 years 75 days)
Inadequate/Solid Scoring
Weak/Weak Passing (not maxed yet)

Milton Cid (16 years 84 days)
Inadequate/??? Keeper
(just pulled him, scout says Weak all-rounder)

Luis Arellano (17 years, 26 days)
???/Passable Defending

Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to get any of the really interesting ones to Solid before they hit 17, but how do I maximize my potential return here?

I'm not very good with my youth squad. But I have noticed my best profits happen with solid 17.00 players and it's not even close. A passable guy or even solid guy at 17.70 is $50K or less but a pass/pass or solid 17.00 is $100K+.

Looking at what you have, I'd try to figure out what Hugh Parrish was this week. Train goalkeeping first and see if he's close to solid. Keepers still have some set value so even at 18, a solid keeper is worth- well, whatever a transfer compare shows you.

You can try to get Gibson up to solid scoring but he's going to be close to 18 and weak passing won't be the most attractive secondary.

Frankly, if not for the added fun of the youth academy, I would have ditched it a long time ago as it's not really profitable for me.

SI

Looks like the company that bought Hattrick is about to go splat. (ironically, about an interest payment due to the creators of Hattrick)

Zattikka struggles to meet loan payments | GamesIndustry International

We had a disappointing draw at home over the weekend, meaning we are back in second place on goal differential. I still think we win the league, but auto-promotion is most likely out of the question at this point. We play the second place team on the road the last game of the season, so I don't if we will be able to build up a good ToS or not.

Tonight we made a big leap towards relegation, losing 4-1 at the team that was below us. The good news is that we'll host the other team 1 point ahead of us in the last game. If we just manage a draw, we'll need the other rivals to lose by 3 goals to survive. It'll make for a rough last night of the season...

I'm in 2nd, down 4 points with 2 games to go. I have a match with the #1 team at their place this week and I'm MOTS'ing in the slim event to pass them up. I had a golden chance to make up points last week as they drew but I also drew while PIC'ing at home against a team I should have beaten. Still a huge long shot to win the series and have a chance to get back to II but not mathematically eliminated yet.

SI

Got thumped 4-2 and am locked into 2nd place

SI

Bummer SI :(

How long does it take for sponsors to get their panties out of a wad? I lost the two back-to-back matches at the turn against the #1 team in the series (the second being a close 1-0 match at home that we ended up with the better ratings), but have won every other match on the league table to the tune of a +61 goal differential. The sponsors are still at Irritated. I know they'll be reset at the turn of the season, but for future reference, what does it take to get them out of their funk?

Oh, also - sold out my first home match, and I'm sitting on nearly half a million dollars. Probably going to upgrade my stadium in the offseason, what are the going %'s for the different locations? Some cursory forum searches gave me approximately these numbers, but I'm not sure:

55% Terraces
24% Basic Seats
18% Seats Under Roof
3% VIP Seats

But I want to make sure I do it right.

Final game of the season against the #2 who beat me 1-0 in the first week of the season. He drew 0-0 in his last match to drop behind by 2 points and I own him on GD. I'm MOTS'ing and should manage at least a brilliant midfield with my team with some studly attack ratings. I'm so going to promote out of this crap V finally.

So damn happy about it!

Now watch me lose. :(

No jinx!

Tell

Jesus. Is your V one of the tougher ones? With how terrible my (and most that I look at) VI is, I figured that by the time I finish next season and sell a round of trainees that I'd have a team ready to compete for a V crown, but Brilliant midfield is probably going to be out of the question even with a nice spending spree.

It's not one of the toughest, no. Also, my team is not typical of a V team. I highly believe that my team is capable of winning a III series as it stands right now. I'm in V because I trained IM's and Keepers in defense for 2 season before switching to passing for the end of last and all of this and beginning of next.

My Brilliant midfield plus is a MOTS, after all. However, in the cup with WOC TS I can pull that brilliant midfield with a normal.

3x Titanic PM, 2x wingers with SN or WC PM, Defenders with Magnif and Brilliant PM, and a wanna be TDF that I'll train in PM when I switch back to it next season.

Tell

You know what's really sad? Figuring out "Make this the standard lineup for friendlies" is a Supporter only feature nearly a month after your supporter runs out.

Playing for the title on Sunday. We should have clinched it last week but gave up a 3 goal lead at home.

Depends- if you can throttle someone the next week, you'll probably stop bleeding sponsors. However, the "smart fans" are silly. I'd do a little diatribe on them but it would just be wasted typing.

SI

That's the thing, I am crushing the competition. 5 wins in a row, 8-1, 7-0, 7-0, 7-0, 9-0 and they're still at irritated. I'm not losing fans, still gaining them like crazy. My sponsors are at 'Irritated,' however. It's just a cosmetic thing, but it seems pretty ridiculous that with a 38-1 goal differential in 5 straight league matches that they're still upset about a 0-3 and then a 0-1 loss against the clear #1 team in the series.

I mean, when I finally give them a legitimate reason to be pissed, what's it going to take to get out of the doghouse? :)

Oh, wait! Your sponsors not your supporters? You need spokespersons on your staff, if you don't already!

You might be leaving money on the table, otherwise, as your sponsor money is probably low. I run a full 10 and my sponsors are up to "dancing in the streets" after about week 3 no matter how bad or good I am. But you have to make it fit within your 30 staff. I believe in lower levels, you don't want to go with a full 10 as you won't quite get the full benefit.

Hattrix-Ray has a sponsor calculator to see how many you need last I checked

SI

I have 2 I think. I'll look into Hattrix-Ray to see if I should have more.

Today had a pleasant surprise. Going into the last league match of the season, the league leader in scoring was on the runaway 1st place team with 19 goals scored. Today he was shut out, and my leading scorer Wilhelm Larsson managed four goals to pull into a 19-19 tie and get me a nice little bonus for the top scorer in the series.

I had two of the four players in my series that won the top goal scorer award. 20k me, yay!

Also won 5-1 and put up a brilliant very high midfield on the mots. Totally looking forward to owning my IV series, wherever it may be.

Tell

We got a dramatic late equalizer in the 80th minute to tie the match which meant we held out to win the series. It is my V title. The bad news is my best player is out injured for three weeks. The qualifier is winnable, but probably not with him out.

Looks my series finished as the 23rd toughest in V with two bots. Yikes. I would like to get out of it.

I have got about $4mil to spend to try to win the game, but I only want to buy players that have a future with the team. I am eyeing a WTM that will set me back at least 3.5M but I am not really sure if that will be enough to get the W on Sunday.

I also don't think the team I am playing will want to drop down into my division. Like I said, it is tough.

As an update, I didn't have any. I picked up two, and the sponsors are immediately better. Hattrix-Ray says I'd do better with just one but it's only a couple hundred dollars a week, and I will probably be better with two soon enough anyway. The auto-promoting team in my series had a big enough goal differential that I almost have to be getting a bot in return.

We escaped with a 1-0 victory!
Like true relegation survivors, we won 4 of our last 6 games, bouncing back after just 4 points in the first 8 winless games. :cool:

Congrats buddy!

We fired a 3.6M bullet on a WTM to try to help win our qualifier. It's going to be a close match and will probably depend on my form updates on Thursday.

Is anyone else playing a qualifier?

finished 3rd in v.130. Yawn.

May sell some foreign trainees and get new ones...

maybe chaneg to passing training after that

Nice! I think it's a good investment even if the qualifier doesn't go well. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed.

I know there used to be a promotion/relegation predictor - does that exist any more? I'd like to know if I'm getting a bot or a real team into my series next season.

Yes, hatstats just recently came back and has all the info you seek.

Awesome. Irony, thy name is Hattrick. The top team in my series looks to be promoting to V.25 - the exact series I began my hattrick career in back in the day as the Isla Vista Vandals. The series is just as tough as I remember it; even with two bot teams they come in at 43rd of 256 in terms of average ratings. One team is averaging well over 300 overall ratings and there are 3 more in the 250-range. My poor series mate (who caps out around 180-ish) is (un?)lucky enough to have two bots coming into the series with him, so he'll likely earn qualifiers for many seasons while getting his head kicked in by the much stronger teams in his series.

Good luck!

I restarted the Deacons yesterday. Started in VI.127 It looks like the only other human is about to have a qualifier.

So I've a second team that is in a VI league. Does anyone want to go to a new league so we have a few people and not a ton of bots?

Just pick a league number for us all to join with our VI league teams, and boom, we all go when we are able to.

I'm down for that.

Tell

An all VI series of FOFC teams would be cool, I would sign up for a second team.

What are the rules/restrictions on moving to a different series? I'd be ok with moving my squad to a different series.

As far as I know, it's just a matter of us picking a series number to go to and when series swapping opens up, we all choose to move to that series. I'm not sure when that happens, after qualifiers, I think. However, cursory look at the manual shows nothing that mentions series swapping. I just know that they opened it up for the USA in V and VI series two seasons ago.

Hatstats has a useful little page that shows all the series and how many bots they have in them. We could use that to find a new series to populate with all our FOFC VI level teams.

Tell

So, FOFC HT Braintrust, I need advice. I'm sitting on $610k, looking at a full season as the only team in a bot-filled division VI (if we don't move), and I'm already filling up my stadium of 12,000 with a fan club of about 570. I'm training scoring, and have 6 dudes at or about to pop Excellent (most right around 18 years old). I'm going to whale on my series next season, so I'm anticipating 19 fans per update. I'd expect to finish next season around 1,000 fans. I'm looking at expanding my arena to 20,000 seats (basing it on around an 800 fan club size)...but that'll cost me $600,000. I've got positive cash flow, so it's no big deal...but that's a hefty chunk of change. Should I aim lower, or actually wait longer and expand for a larger expected fan club size, since I'm going to wreck the place next season?

It's been a while since I've had to worry about this so it might be bad, old information. But it feels like when things are going well, you're going to overfill the stadium. So, this might be the best chance to take advantage of those higher attendance figures. Then when you're getting knocked around in V for a little bit, you might have a harder time filling it even with the 10% more supporters.

As an aside, I've always thought the spelling of "whale" in that context was odd (albeit correct). I just have this image of someone hitting someone else with a giant cetacean. And I would totally watch that in a 12K, 20K, or 40K stadium :D

SI

I would totally be down for bashing people with cetaceans. Probably sell out whatever sized stadium I could imagine :)

I figure that maintenance costs even upwards of 20k seats aren't so bad, so once I get to V (Season 54) and start to get knocked around, it won't be that big a deal. I just wonder if I should hold out a little longer and expand even further - 25k or so.

Looks like the time to move series is Thursday and Friday.

I am in VI.127 if we are thinking about a FOFC series... That is one to consider. But we need to start moving on it since we have only the next 2 days to decide.

I'll move my team to your series. Maybe others will to and we can have a few more. My team stinks, for the record.

Tell

That is ok mine is brand new. (Less than a week)

Anyone else for VI.127? Last day to transfer to the series and Deacon and me are there with another new team that started this season.

Tell

So I guess I can't join you guys? I was out of town for Labor Day weekend, and didn't get a chance to log in.

They only let teams move Thursday and Friday, so not this season.

There is always next, though, if it all works out again that we have teams in VI.

Tell

Lame. In an all-bot series, the chances of me still being in VI are very low. We'll see.