Starting A New Season (Tips for Newbies)

[cheetum]

Hire a few psychologists
you will never be over-confident in your first match. I suggest 3-5, more if your first opponent is strong and you expect a loss

Play it cool
Use PIC as much as possible and avoid using MOTS. Building your team spirit early will help you in tough matches later in the season.

Research your new opponents
Study the new teams who have promoted/demoted to your series. Look through their previous matches to determine their tendencies, and look for strengths and weaknesses. Check their transfer history to see if they have made any changes to their team for the new season. Don't forget to see what type of coach they have (he could be new too).

Plan your season
Look at your season schedule (fixtures) as soon as it is finalized. Predict which matches are going to be important and try to figure out the best plan for gaining the best position possible. For example, lets say you have back to back matches in week 7 and 8 against an opponent who is stronger. You may be able to split with him by MOTS the first match (especially if its home) and PIC the second to repair TS. It can often be good strategy to plan to PIC tough opponents, accept a loss, so that you have a better chance to beat other opponents with strong team spirit. Also, if your schedule looks tough, it may be better for your economy to sacrifice a bit of your league position for a longer cup run. Another example, a team that plays home cup matches and finished 5th (which also means a home qualifier) will earn a lot more extra money, then if he had finished 2nd but was eliminated early in the cup.

feel free to add more tips or comment on mine above. Hopefully some of you will find this helpful.

[MikeVic]

I was told not to PIC unless you had a team leader that could hold it?

[finkenst]

Originally Posted by MikeVic

I was told not to PIC unless you had a team leader that could hold it?

a coach that could hold it.

[cheetum]

yes thats true, PIC may not do some teams much good. especially if your coach's leadership is really bad.

however, you dont need to have the strongest leader as coach to raise team spirit while you are in the cup. the cup allows you to PIC twice a week which makes raising TS twice as easy. Its important to take advantage of this if you can.

[cheetum]

Oh i forgot one:

Hire spokesmen
I forgot this one because i keep the maximum spokesmen at all times. Frogman (and some others i believe) have done extensive research on the effects of spokesmen and have shown you can optimize your profit from sponsor money by firing some each week toward the end of the season, as their wages start to exceed your sponsor money growth. Personally, I just keep them all as I like the added growth they provide for my supporter club. Either way, you should always start your season with the most you can afford (up to 10)

[PilotMan]

Cheetum, your HT-arena site is fantastic. Thought you should know.

[cheetum]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

Cheetum, your HT-arena site is fantastic. Thought you should know.

unfortunately due to lack of time (and other issues like my hard drive getting wiped out including all my graphic work, software, and tools I had accumulated) i have pretty much given up on keeping it updated. its been several weeks since i did anything new with it.

but thank you very much for the compliment!

[PilotMan]

How very sad, it looked like you had put a lot of work into it. I could never do anything like that.

[TargetPractice6]

I can never get your site to load because of the .tk redirect. Would be great if you included the HT-Arena link so I could check it out.

[cheetum]

www.ht-arena.com/superstars

guess i should just update that heh

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by cheetum

unfortunately due to lack of time (and other issues like my hard drive getting wiped out including all my graphic work, software, and tools I had accumulated) i have pretty much given up on keeping it updated. its been several weeks since i did anything new with it.

but thank you very much for the compliment!

This is very sad that you're not updating it anymore. Watch it though, after some weeks, they simply close your account... I left my site stil for about a month, may have been more, and when I went back, I couldn't log in, and it's now been deleted...

FM

[OldGiants]

Originally Posted by cheetum

yes thats true, PIC may not do some teams much good. especially if your coach's leadership is really bad.

however, you dont need to have the strongest leader as coach to raise team spirit while you are in the cup. the cup allows you to PIC twice a week which makes raising TS twice as easy. Its important to take advantage of this if you can.

Before I forget, I wanted to post the results of my PICing last season. I PICed my first 12 league matches and my first round Cup match. The 'double up' from the Cup and first league match was well worth doing. Even with a Weak coach, my TS moved two notches, from Composed to Content.

As the season progressed, and I PICed league matches (won them all, no problem) my TS bounced higher following every match. Not every game saw a change in the label, but I gradually moved to Satisfied, Deliriious and then POE. Finally, I held the POE level through Monday, then Tuesday. So I know my underlying numeric value was increasing even if I was down to Satisfied by game time each week.

I suspect this will be become even more obvious with the new 4-ply team ratings for the coming season. While player factors (form, improvement, etc) will blur results, we should be able to detect the impact of changes in TS more clearly this season.

In any event, I now believe any PIC is worth doing, even if the results aren't visible in the labeling. They are real.

[Mr. Wednesday]

Originally Posted by MikeVic

I was told not to PIC unless you had a team leader that could hold it?

It'll work down through a poor leadership coach if you have at least a semi-clown (speaking from last season's experience), and I would guess that it'll work pretty well for any coach when you're still in the cup.