Training Switch: Your two cents

[damnMikeBrown]

So here I am, fresh off the biggest sale in the U.S. this week :)

In case I failed to pimp it out enough, I sold my E.T. keeper for $9.8M a few days ago. Come Sunday's home match, I'll have $11M sitting in my bank account.

I'd been planning on switching to winger training, but the trainees I want just aren't on the market. I'd need two American outstanding-brilliant PM with passable+ winger, weak+ passing, 19-20yrs old, and ideally the quick specialty. The other trainees are not difficult to obtain, but the two studs, well, they're not common.

Scoring is attractive, if only because there is no shortage of potential candidates to join the squad. Again, I'd be looking outstanding/brilliant with passable+ passing, 19-20 yrs old, ideally with head/unpredictable specialty.

Finally there's IM. Long the weakness of my squad, I undoubtedly will need to get better here for when I promote to IV...again.... Again, not a tough job to find the guys, but also not really the direction I wanted to go with training.

Note, I intend to fully invest my capital back into my training program. I do not want to have a $1.5M player sitting idle on my team when there is no need to bring him in this season. The stud trainees will be outstanding/brilliant and more than sufficient upgrade to the squad such that I won't need to worry about improving other positions.

[daedalus]

I'm a winger training so, obviously, grain of salt and all that . . .

Winger training is attractive because of the speed and the fact that you can generally make a decent run in the cup, if you time your rotation of trainees decently. As noted, the difficulties lies in finding the correct trainees. Also, to "optimize" training schedule, you ideally want to have decently young wingbacks to receive some wingback training as well and, one, that cost and, two, that can become limiting against strong central attack teams. Personally, I like it.

Scoring is eternally attractive because you will always have a market. Always. Also the only training program where you can decently ignore secondaries and not have it bite you in the ass too much (goalkeeping doesn't count since, well, it doesn't have secondaries). Oh, and you can just about safely ignore stamina training permanently which save you on early season form. Again, as noted, this is about the easiest field to find prospective trainees. The negative I see is that you need a specialized type of winger, one with huge playmaking skill. Unless, of course, you want to be like everybody else and play a glorified inner midfielder out there and play him toward middle. Also, you would need WAY above average inner midfielders for your level to carry you.

The ever popular playmaking training is almost never a wrong choice in Hattrick. You are constantly upgrading the most important aspect of the game. Hard to go wrong with that. Also, if you do not mind being a mercenary, you can make some easy money by picking up half-trained trainees, put them through finishing school and make some quick money. You will also have an easier time finding trainees than many. Having to train stamina every offseason is a major drawback. As is the fact that you will either have to sacrifice early season league games or cup games every two to three seasons when you refresh your trainees. Also, while it is easier to find trainees, you will also be competing against everybody and their grandmother for them. I am also of the opinion that, to optimize your selling ability, you will want to hunt down decent secondaries - specifically, passing skills - for your trainees.

Personally, other than goalkeeper training, I think scoring training is the best option. [Which begs the obvious question: Why am I training wingers? One, because of the youth pulls that came out at the right time. Two, because I hate following crowds or trends.]

[Havok]

Don't train middy's..... while im a HUGE FAN of training middy's when you first start HT. I think when your an established team such as yourself, it hurts more then it helps. If i were you i'd go with either winger or scoring.

If i had your team i'd grab a balanced coach and run a 3-4-3 and train forwards. With your goalie and a balanced coach you'd be putting up WC - Titanic defense probally. Thats good enough for a LONG time. Then i'd buy three 18/19 year old excellent-formidable starter/trainee's then maybe 3 solid-excellent back-up trainee's.

Take everything else and dump it into your midfield. and keep dumping everything you have into your midfield every season. The only weakness in a 3-4-3 is 1 less winger, so its important that your middy's are badass. If you do this, in 1 season from now you'll be signing Havok's guestbook thanking him for such wonderful advice.....:P

[TargetPractice6]

I'd go with scoring. It trains fairly quickly, trainees are relatively cheap, and the final product sells for more than the PM or winger equivilant*. Also you don't have some of the crappy downsides PM has (training stamina, getting a bad midfield in the cup because of playing your trainees...).

*Not guaranteed to be accurate as I don't follow the market all that closely.

[bronconick]

I'd do whatever you *want* to do. This is just a game (blasphemy, I know), and it sounds kind of like despite the lack of winger trainees that you want out there, you're leaning toward doing that. Maybe starting out this time, eliminate the "US only" rule on your super trainees.

As a scoring trainer, the only thing I'd say against it (since the positives are fairly well known) is that more and more people are switching from keeper and midfield training to scoring, and I'm half-fearfully waiting for the market to fall apart. Also, while you *can* ignore passing on the trainees, people that purchase forwards do not. My experience is still with lower level trainees (outstanding and below) but passing adds a premium both to buying and selling, despite it's limited effect on ratings.

And if possible, get the best 3 midfielders you can. I much prefer having the one winger played offensively, since with awesome forwards, even an average winger played offensively nearly matches your central attack, and people can't stack their defense against you. I usually get solid (high) to excellent (very low) central attack, and with an offensive winger (passable winger, negligible passing) that side attack is only 3 or 4 sub-levels lower.

[Mazzone11]

I'd been planning on switching to winger training, but the trainees I want just aren't on the market. I'd need two American outstanding-brilliant PM with passable+ winger, weak+ passing, 19-20yrs old, and ideally the quick specialty. The other trainees are not difficult to obtain, but the two studs, well, they're not common.


I have a 20 year old brilliant PM with passable winger and passable passing. :)

But hes 4 weeks toward mag. pm and being trained as an inner. So if you can wait 3-4 weeks, he's all yours with mag pm/passable winger/passable passing for the right price.

[rickJ]

Right now I'd be leaning toward training wingers, with forwards still staying a close second.

As long as you get the right kind of trainiees it makes plenty of profit and allows you to use a wider array of tactics and formations then the same old 3-4-3. For example with wingers it'a no longer be a waste of salary to own an 2 decent PM wingers, 2 decent defending wingers, good defenders to become good WBs, a high level attacking winger, IM-to be turned winger, etc.

That alone can give your team wide variance from week to week which can be important while trying to stay in D.IV next season.

As for extra cash, sit on it, collect interest and wait for the prices to drop in the last few weeks of the season.

[Vikas]

I myself am training PM right now, set the goal to be 2 magicals and an ET, then switch to scoring training and run a nice 3-4-3....however, wingers are really nice too :) big help there, huh.

Your wish to buy 2 stud US wingers is smart, long term players with less wage...if there is no market for them now you could just start off with lesser wings and wait till you get the opportunity to get the studs. Yeah...i think i'd go with the wingers...

[damnMikeBrown]

Just a note here. I decided to go winger. It's not as smart as going scoring, but I like the thought of having 6 of my starting 11 training. (The IM's swing out to wing in the friendly/cup)

Transfer List=>supporter stats=>USA+Biggest Spender
2nd last week with an outlay of $7,135,000
:)