Iceland is Nice: An INTERACTIVE Going for Gold Dynasty
 

Hi! My name is Jeff (AKA SecretAgentMan or SAM), and I am a longtime player of sports text sims and a hobbyist programmer. As a player, I have been in Bowl Bound College Football leagues, and I have both played in and been a commissioner for ESMS soccer leagues. (I've also played OOTP before, but I assume that's practically a given in any sports sim community)

As a programmer, my focus is on making something unique: a text-based Olympics sim, titled Going for Gold.

I'm looking to both improve my creation and share it with the sports sim community, and I see a robust and active dynasty area here, so I'm going to share my game via a dynasty thread. I hope you enjoy, and if you have any questions or enjoy what I post, please feel free to reach out!

Prologue
"Greenland is Ice, but Iceland is Nice"
-D2: The Mighty Ducks

I sat down, in my new office, and took a long hard look around. Iceland was indeed as beautiful as had been promised to me. Beautiful cities, beautiful scenery, beautiful buildings....the works. Beautiful office, too, come to think of it, tucked into a small corner of a large, imposing building in Reykjavik. I had been in the country for a few days, seeing the sights, but now it was time to get down to work. And this was going to be a lot of work, make no doubt about it. The 2022 Winter Games had just ended, but 2026 is never far away when you're doing this kind of work.

Oh. Pardon me- I haven't introduced myself yet. They call me Jeffrey Dalesson. It's not actually my name, but I've learned that they do names a little differently around here. I've been hired by the Icelandic Athletic Committee to develop Iceland's High-Performance Winter Sports Program. The goal is simple, really: we want to win a Winter Games medal for Iceland. You'd think a place named "Iceland" would be good at winter sports, right? Well, no, it turns out that's not true. Never had a winter games medal before.

But we're going to change that. We- not me. I've got lots of passion for this job, and lots of skills, too, but this isn't just my battle. I'm also tapping into the power of social media to get people from all around the world interested in Icelandic winter sports. My hope is that you will follow along and help out, too. We can ALL make Iceland very, very nice indeed.

So come along for the ride, and let's get to work!

-END Prologue-

What is this dynasty, and how is it "interactive"? Well, I want to continue making my game, Going for Gold, better, and I love the Winter Games a LOT. So, I want to keep engaging with the sport sim community by presenting a winter sports dynasty using my game. It will help keep me working on regular development and give me a chance to share that development with others. It will also give me a chance to make a unique "dynasty" to share and allow others to play along, whether or not they have a copy of my game. (Though, given that it's currently free...well, just message me and I'll be glad to get you a download link!)

Speaking of which, let's talk about the "interactive" part. It's pretty simple. Any time you make a comment on this thread, you get a dynasty point. You can bank and build up as many dynasty points as you want! Then, you will be able to spend those dynasty points at certain times in each season to influence Iceland's budget decisions. You can give money to favorite athletes or favorite programs, help Iceland build better facilities, or fund youth development efforts.

I plan to update once a week, and I hope that you will get a chance to enjoy it!

Sounds interesting

I'll be reading!

I'll be watching too!

Year 0, Chapter 1- Taking Stock
"Greenland is Ice, but Iceland is Nice"
-D2: The Mighty Ducks

I sighed, and looked back at the report on my desk. Ada Thorsdottir had just dropped it off. Ada was the head of the IAC (Icelandic Athletic Committee) and had hired me for the new job. I had been able to read through the report quickly, because it was nowhere near as thick as it should have been. Unfortunately, it was also far bleaker than I would have liked. I glanced at it again.

Iceland 2022 Winter Games Summary

Iceland had only gotten 13 athletes to the games, and that was....let's say "generous" at that. All but one of the spots had been qualified via open access rules that let ANY country enroll their athletes if they wanted to. (And that one qualified spot, the Women's Cross Country Team Sprint, had resulted in a dead-last finish)

There had been 25 events where an Icelandic athlete had competed, and we had had no more than 1 athlete/team in any event. Of the 25 events, we had managed only 5 results in the Top 30 for the entire games. Nothing in the Top 20. Certainly nowhere close to a medal or even a Top-10.

Not good. There were maybe 2 or 3 athletes here who had any sort of future in their sport at an elite level. If that.

Viktor Armannson, a speed skier, has some hope. He at least finished in the top 30 in both of his events. Julia Leifsdottir, a balanced alpine skier, also got 2 Top 30s, though she also skied far below those places in her other two events. Beyond that...I don't see anything. Right now, we're going to have only a handful of athletes in the High-Performance Winter Sports Program. I'm going to have to scout our youth ranks hard to figure out where to even put our limited resources, honestly, because I'm not sure where all of the potential is. It's not there right now, at the very least.

I pressed a buzzer at the intercom on my desk. "Katja, could you come in for a moment?" Katja Leifsdottir, my assistant, popped into the the room a short time later. She was a young woman, with her hair pulled up in a bun.

"Yes, Mr. Dalesson?"

"We've only got a few weeks left in the winter sports season. Can you make notes that I will need detailed reports on a few of our athletes when they attend world cup events?"

"Certainly, sir. Who do you need reports on?"

"Well, I need to see how Viktor Armannsson and Julia Leifsdottir do on the Alpine Skiing World Cup, so I will want reports on them. I'd also like to see how Emilia Stefansdottir does on the Cross-Country Skiing world cup."

"3 athletes. Got it! Anybody else?"

I shook my head. "Not at the moment, no. We're going to be checking the youth development ranks over the summer, but nothing else for now."

She exited the room with a smile, and I turned and looked out the window. I had to hope that there was something in those youth ranks, because right now, I wasn't sure how I was going to perform a (sorry) "Miracle on Ice".

-END Chapter 1-

Would you like to help improve Iceland's fortunes? Don't forget that you can! With any comments you make on this post, you get Dynasty Points that you can spend at a later date to increase Iceland's budget. I plan to have the next update out in a week!

Ouch on all that

You would think they'd be better in biathlon !

Apparently, IRL, they don't even have a national Biathlon Association (it's under the umbrella of their national ski association), and the International Biathlon Union doesn't even list any Icelandic athletes on their website. (Which means no World Cup/lower cup OR Youth cup athletes competing in international events at present)

I always found it ironic that Iceland is so Green and Greenland is so... icy?

love the idea of a dynasty thread using an in-development game... and i personally would pay real live money to play the ever living F out of a game like this

Sounds exciting!

Well, I hope I can make that a reality someday!

There should be more folks going face first down mountains! More skeleton!!!

Year 0, Chapter 2- Feb. 2022 Report
"Greenland is Ice, but Iceland is Nice"
-D2: The Mighty Ducks

The door opened. It was Katja, my assistant.

"Mr. Dalesson?"

I looked up. "Yes, Katja?"

"I have this month's performance reports." She set a pair of small reports on my desk. I was surprised. I hadn't been expecting these just yet.

"Already? The winter games just ended a week ago."

"That's true, sir, but the world cup circuits get going again right away, so we have some results from February."

"Right, right...how could I have forgotten?" Okay, so maybe I wasn't quite used to the way winter sports seasons worked just yet. There was a LOT of things to remember at this job, after all. But I will get the hang of it eventually.

"Only two reports, I see. I thought we had our eye on three athletes?"

"We do, sir, but Viktor Armannson only competes in the speed alpine events, and there were only slaloms this weekend."

"Got it." I paused. "How do they look?"

She sighed, and her lips curled into a frown.

"Honestly, I don't think they're great, but I'll let you be the judge of that."

It was my turn to sigh. "Alright, I'll take a look. Thank you, Katja."

She scooted out of the room, and I settled in with my reports.

FEBRUARY Performance Report- Julia Leifsdottir- Alpine Skiing
Hmm. Not great, and definitely more in line with her worse Olympics results rather than her better.*

FEBRUARY Performance Report- Emilia Stefansdottir- Cross Country Skiing
I made a mental note on the list in my head to cross her off the high-performance program list for next year. This kinds of results aren't close enough, in my opinion.

So, we have maybe 2 athletes in the high-performance program. If that. I made a note to call Kris Einarsson tomorrow. Kris is in charge of our youth development academies. Or, rather, he will be once we actually get those up and running. Right now he's location-scouting. We'd better find some locations fast so we can get some coaches in place, I'm thinking. That's probably our best hope at present.*

March had come in like a lion, but would it go out looking like a lamb? For that matter, do they even use that expression in Iceland? Hmm. Questions for another day, I think.

-END Chapter 2-

Would you like to help improve Iceland's fortunes? Don't forget that you can! With any comments you make on this post, you get Dynasty Points that you can spend at a later date to increase Iceland's budget. I update this thread once each week!

Looking good on the story, poor on the results.

Poor Emilia. Stefan will be heartbroken that she didn’t measure up.

We should dump them all in the middle of a Norwegian fjord and have them find their own way home. And to help encourage them to the Olympic standard…drop a wolf there with them.

Oof, don't get me started on Olympic standards...I have a LOT of programming to do before those are in my game!

Can't really be much worse, focus all on the youth programs! :)

Year 0, Chapter 3- Mar. 2022 Report
"Greenland is Ice, but Iceland is Nice"
-D2: The Mighty Ducks

"A year away? That's seriously the best we can do?"

Kris Einarsson nodded at me from across the table. He was a large man, with a build that could be reasonably described as 'formerly athletic'. His glasses, almost impossibly small, were pinched onto his nose.

"Building permits and land acquisition take time, sir. Plus, we have to find coaches and other employees. Even a basic Level 1 Youth Academy for an outdoor sport will take some time to accomplish. We definitely won't have any before 2023, and that's assuming we can quickly decide which sports to target."

I sighed. "How in the world do we get anything going this year, then? We need youth athletes if we have any hope at the international level in basically any sport. You've seen the March world cup reports, right?"

He had. I had seen them, too. There was one bright spot, but that was it. Skier Viktor Armannsson had gotten world cup points by finishing 23rd in a Super G in France, but otherwise, things were not good. Arguably worse than last month, in some cases.

MARCH Performance Report- Viktor Armannsson- Alpine Skiing

MARCH Performance Report- Julia Leifsdottir- Alpine Skiing

MARCH Performance Report- Emilia Stefansdottir- Cross Country Skiing
"You know...", he said, breaking the silence that had fallen under the room. "We may not be able to build a youth academy this year, but there are likely still ways to increase our youth participation at the various local facilities that we do have."

I perked up at this. "Such as what?"

"Well, we can certainly put together a social media campaign. Encourage kids and teens to try out local sports programs, that kind of thing. It probably won't reach the whole country, but it also won't cost us much. We probably have some young staffers who can run the campaign."

"Well, that's a start, at least." I said. "I will see if I can find some assistance here within the office." I paused. "And then next year, we hit the ground hard with youth academies."

Kris nodded. "That I can agree with. We need to decide which sports soon, and then we'll get moving on the infrastructure."

We exchanged pleasantries, and he exited shortly thereafter. At least that was some sort of plan, if not a great one.

Now, to figure out the social media campaign. And then...budgets. If we can even find someone to spend the money on!
-END Chapter 3-

Would you like to help improve Iceland's fortunes? Don't forget that you can! With any comments you make on this post, you get Dynasty Points that you can spend at a later date to increase Iceland's budget. I update this thread once each week!

I mean, it's something going well

Maybe speed skating will take off. I mean I bet a lot of kids have skates

I was thinking Speed Skating too... you can create ovals, harder to create mountains... :)

Plus shooting ranges for biathalons should be pretty easy to get.

Year 0, Chapter 4- Audience Participation
"Greenland is Ice, but Iceland is Nice"
-D2: The Mighty Ducks

"Alright, Gunnar, what do you have for me?"

The eager face staring at me from across the conference table was that of Gunnar Kristjansson, a tall blond intern who was probably 23 or 24, but still looked like he was 17.

"Well, we're going to try and flood social media with a campaign to nominate the next Icelandic winter sports star. We have some posts lined up, with some memes for youth engagement, and we are going to ask them to tag any potentially strong winter athletes below the age of 21. That way, we can reach out and scout them and see if they would be a good fit for developmental athlete funding."

I smiled (internally). The whole notion of this method of finding athletes was silly, but Gunnar had done an admirable job putting together the logistics of such a thing.

"You said you had some memes lined up."

"Yes, a few. I can show you the first one"



Of course.

"Won't the youth contingent find this to be a bit...old?"

"Possibly. We think that will benefit us, though, because they will see it as ironic. More importantly, we think it's going to encourage older people to participate in the campaign, and we think that they might have eyes on some promising athletes."

I nodded. "Why not?" I thought. Stranger things have worked, after all.

"Alright, let's get this going, and push it out to as many social media sites and forums as we can manage.

"Just leave it to me, sir!"

I sat at my desk, and looked out the window as he exited. Early spring in Reykjavik was pretty. I felt good about this, surprisingly. Time to see if that optimism is misplaced.
[END Chapter 4]

Okay....so, this is where you, the reader, come into play. This is your first chance to help formulate the direction of this dynasty effort.

*Anybody who has been lurking and reading this thread has 1 Dynasty point
*Anybody who has made comments has 1 additional Dynasty point for each comment they have made on this thread
Here is that list

(A quick note on this: I am cross-posting this at 3 different sites (SimNation, GMGames, and FOFC), so if you see a name you don't recognize, that's probably why)

What can you do to spend those dynasty points?
1 Dynasty point = Discover a youth athlete (They will be added to the high performance watchlist, and we will track their performance. Please find an athlete of your choice (age 21 or lower) from the athlete list at the bottom of the post.


1 Dynasty point= Add $10K to any athlete's training budget for the year, which makes a skill increase more likely. (Max $100k per athlete)

The following athletes are already receiving funding as part of the high-performance program


1 Dynasty point= Create a Level 1 Social Media campaign for a particular winter sport. This gives a 10% chance of creating an extra Under-18 athlete in that sport for next year. (These campaigns stack, so if you do 5 of them, it's a 50% chance of creating an extra U-18 athlete in that sport, for example)

If you don't want to spend your points now, don't worry. You can bank those dynasty points to make a big impact at a later date if you choose.

Let me know what questions you have, and let's have some fun with this!
-Jeff
Iceland Athlete List

Wall of numbers with nothing really telling us what they do, if anything, so, anything to tell us there?

Good point, and apologies for the confusion! Here's a brief explanation:


You basically need to know the following:

Skill = How good the athlete is in that sport. 0-99 is possible; truly elite athletes are low 90s and up. The athlete above is at 83. Viktor Armannsson, currently our top skier, is at 81, and finishing in the 30s/40s pretty regularly in his events.

Sport = Which sport the athlete plays. Fairly self explanatory.

Name

Age = Currently, 17 is minimum, 36 is max. We're currently looking for 21 and Under

Gender

The other numbers and values can be effectively ignored. I hope that helps, and I am happy to explain further if it doesn't

Fun stuff. Years ago, I started work on a design document for an Olympic sim where you were in charge of a country and raising their sports profiles, though my own had the Summer Olympics as the focus. Unfortunately, math and I do not get along, yet alone programming, so I eventually abandoned it

Let's throw 50k onto snowboarding, and try and help a sport out.

Let's throw all 5 points into social media for short track speed skating... let's get a young gun going in that sport!

I'll put 2 points into a media campaign to promote Biathlon!

Quick point of clarification on this one. Do you want 50k going to any one particular athlete in snowboarding, or do you just want me to pick one? Or do you want me to divide it up amongst multiple athletes?

That's indeed the basic goal/focus of my game. I do have it set for both winter and summer games, though my personal favorite games are the winter ones, so I probably spend a bit more of my time and attention on those.

The 50k was to social media, you know 5 points for a youth prospect, sorry if I put them in incorrectly.

Got it. Thank you!

Let's put 4 dynasty points into a social media campaign for speed skating and 20k each for the bobsledding pair.

Year 0, Chapter 5- Bobsleigh Time???????
"Greenland is Ice, but Iceland is Nice"
-D2: The Mighty Ducks

"You realize how much this is going to wreck the budget, right?" My voice was already exasperated, and that still didn't properly convey the astonishment I was feeling.

"And you realize, Mr. Dalesson, that the amount of interest we've had in these two young women is absolutely unprecedented. This social media campaign you cooked up has provided us a great opportunity here."

Ada Thorsdottir stared at me from the other side of a video screen. The head of the Icelanic Athletic Committee was normally quite pleasant, but the conversation we were having today was an intense one, and she was making it clear that she was going to get her way in this situation. I sighed.

"It's a great opportunity, yes, but a very expensive one. We don't even have a sliding track. We'll have to send them off somewhere to train."

"That's true, we will."

"To say nothing of starting a national Bobsleigh Foundation!"

"Also, true. But tell me....what else have you found so far to even spend your budget on?"

She had me there. Only two athletes identified thus far for the High-Performance program meant a lot of leftover money. That we apparently were going to spend on bobsleigh. I paused for dramatic effect, even though we both knew the outcome of this one was already over.

"Alright, alright. Let's give the people what they want."

"Good. See to it that they do." She smiled for the first time in several minutes, and the conversation terminated shortly thereafter.

What the people apparently wanted was Bobsleigh. Well, not just bobsleigh, specifically. They were possibly more interested in the sledders themselves. The social media campaigns had been in full swing for a few weeks now, and we were turning up leads on prospective athletes all over the place. There were pushes being made for particular young athletes in Snowboarding, Speed Skating, Short Track Speed Skating, and Biathlon, and we were checking up on all of them with due diligence.

However, early in the campaign a runaway favorite emerged. Well, two of them, really. A pair of 19 year-old women, Katla Vilhjalmsdottir and Emilia Olvirsdottir, had started sharing pictures of themselves photoshopped into racing suits as the "Iceland Women's Bobsleigh Team". Judging from their social media posts, both women are outgoing, engaging, and quite attractive, and the photos took off quickly and went viral- well, viral around Iceland at least.

There's only one problem. Iceland doesn't have a Women's Bobsleigh Team. Or a Men's Bobsleigh Team. Or any Bobsleigh teams at all. No National Bobsleigh Federation. No sliding track. Just....none of it.

And THAT was what caught on the biggest from this. We thought our whole campaign was going to derail...some jokers making a mockery of our efforts. We contacted them to try to get them to take their posts down, and that's when things got REALLY weird.

See, it turns out that they were serious. They do WANT to be Iceland's Women's Bobsleigh Team. And they're both athletic. We checked carefully, and it turns out that both are capable track sprinters and willing to train full-time to be athletes. Its just that they are interested in a sport that we absolutely do not have here in this country, and they figured this was their ticket. We told them that we would love to work with them to promote Icelandic winter sports, but that we couldn't afford to fund any of their efforts in Bobsleigh. We figured that would be the end of it. Of course, it wasn't.

They posted a crowdfunding campaign. With more pictures. And videos. And it went viral, too. Before we knew it, they had each raised 20K dollars to train full-time for bobsleigh. (Which is a pittance, to be fair, but these are 19-year-olds, and they can probably live off it for a year) We had no choice but to work with them at that point. Well, that was what Ada said, at least, and I had to acknowledge that she was right, even though that was not what I had planned.

So that brings us back to now. Now we need to start a bobsleigh foundation. And hire a coach. And possibly provide even more training money for these young women in the hopes that it will pay us dividends.

Bobsleigh time, indeed.
[END Chapter 5]

Alright, let's peel back the curtain a touch. If you put in a social media campaign, you will see what the results were from that next week. However, I wanted to take this bobsleigh thing and run with it a bit.

See, I was doing some behind-the-scenes work updating my sport ratings and rankings this week, and I discovered that, indeed, Iceland does not HAVE a bobsleigh foundation in real life. That means that the game shouldn't create athletes for that sport. However, it looks to me like I had some sort of settings glitch or other problem when I ran the original files, because, well, there most certainly are bobsledders in the athlete list. There shouldn't be, but there they are.

So we're going to take it and have some fun with it!

As always, remember that you can help improve Iceland's fortunes! With any comments you make on this post, you get Dynasty Points that you can spend at a later date to increase Iceland's budget. I update this thread once each week!

As Bob Ross would say, there are no mistakes, just happy accidents.

We have Happy little Bobsledders!

Just catching up on this thread, what a fun concept for a game.

Thank you!

So the Bobsledders happened independent of our programs? I didn't see anyone in the peanut gallery going for bobsledding.. :) I'm exceedingly getting interested in this one...

Chas, I put in 20k for each of the female bobsledders

Oh, I have some plans now, believe me. We're going to have fun with this!

To be fair, it could be dual citizens living abroad as well or just athletes in another nation's set-up, which does happen

I read up and down the board 3x and still missed that... LOL... thanks!

Mine was real late too . Very Easy to miss!.



I can't wait to see how effective our social media is in the various disciplines!

Year 0, Chapter 6- Social Media Campaign Results
"Greenland is Ice, but Iceland is Nice"
-D2: The Mighty Ducks

"All right, Kris. How do things look?" I had barely given Kris Einarsson, our youth development director, time to sit down before I was agitating for his report. After all, this was where we found out if our social media campaigns had been worth the time.

He adjusted his glasses. "We're pleased. We definitely have discovered a few athletes that otherwise wouldn't have found."

"We got big pushes from four sports. The fans of Biathlon, Short Track, Speed Skating, and Snowboarding were very vocal in their interactions. Our scouts followed up on every lead they gave us. Unfortunately, the Biathlon and Short Track campaigns were a bust in terms of identifying athletes, but the speed skating campaign discovered two new men's athletes that we are now monitoring."

"And the snowboarding?"

He smiled. "There's the big success. 4 men's athletes found and 4 women's athletes found. That includes the Stefansdottir sisters...Emma and Emilia are both siblings who were not on our radar before"

"Hey, I like to hear that. Let's take a look at their scouting reports, then, how about it?"


"Now this number here, the 52(0) that I'm seeing....that's the rating from 1-100 by the scouts, correct?"

"Correct"

"So realistically, which of these athletes should we be keeping a close eye on?"

"Given our current international standing, I would say that anybody rated 60 or higher would be a candidate for future funding."

"Got it." I made a note to Katja to add snowboarders Daniel Robertsson, Emma Stefansdottir, and Emilia Stefandottir to our monitoring lists. "Anything else for today, Kris?"

"Not today, sir, but I will have more reports from our coaching staff as we get closer to the season. There will be some additional youth athletes coming through the ranks via more traditional methods there."

"Sounds good. See you soon, Kris."

Finally, the 2022-2023 season was coming soon, and it looked like there were some reasons to be optimistic.

[END Chapter 6]

As always, remember that you can help improve Iceland's fortunes! With any comments you make on this post, you get Dynasty Points that you can spend at a later date to increase Iceland's budget. I update this thread once each week! Next week, a sport-by-sport preview of our new season

So is there something random in the way your identifying athletes? Seems a bit *lucky* you'd get 8 from one sport when the $$$ was similar to others...