I think I've figured out the "art of the instant commit"

[Deegeezy]

Sorry if this is old news but in year 5 of my Tulane dynasty, I think I have finally figured out how to get instant commits at a high rate as it seems the CPU does.

After carefully watching how the CPU handles its recruits, it looks like if you are patient and hold off on offering a scholarship until your school is green on the recruits' meter, the odds of you getting the instant commit go up a ton.

If the player has already visited and it was good visit and the bar is in the green, it makes it pretty much guaranteed that you'll get an instant commit.

Anyone else have similar success?

I decided to try using this method this season because I notice the CPU recruits a ton of guys but seem to wait until the last minute to offer a scholarship quite often.

[canes21]

That would make sense, but I tend to offer a scholarship right away to make sure I get enough points early on to stay with the CPU or get an advantage. If anyone has any helpful recruiting strategies, that would be nice.

[Deegeezy]

Quote: Originally Posted by canes21

That would make sense, but I tend to offer a scholarship right away to make sure I get enough points early on to stay with the CPU or get an advantage. If anyone has any helpful recruiting strategies, that would be nice.

I think this is the same trap we all fall into. I think this strategy should only be used in dire situations. Like if you're trailing by 500+ points to a team that has already offered or if you're going after someone who doesn't have you in their initial top 10.

[Hellisan]

Replying to the original post: Interesting, and makes a lot of sense. In the right situation it looks like something very useful.

Quote: Originally Posted by canes21

That would make sense, but I tend to offer a scholarship right away to make sure I get enough points early on to stay with the CPU or get an advantage. If anyone has any helpful recruiting strategies, that would be nice.

Quote: Originally Posted by Deegeezy

I think this is the same trap we all fall into. I think this strategy should only be used in dire situations. Like if you're trailing by 500+ points to a team that has already offered or if you're going after someone who doesn't have you in their initial top 10.

See I don't think this is necessarily a "trap" I think it's often times the best thing to do when recruiting against the cpu.

I have a solo online dynasty (Xbox 360, All American recruiting difficulty) and within this dynasty I have a spreadsheet where I track how many points I am ahead or behind, on each recruit, each week. I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that you're not getting the EXACT points as displayed, in every single situation. This dynasty is played for fun but also to study recruiting and I sim a lot. I also have the recruiting coordinator so I can double check and see how much time the cpu puts into certain players in a given week, etc.

One such situation is when you hesitate to offer a scholarship. If I'm typically getting say 350-400 points per call on a certain player, and I'm in week 5 and haven't offered a scholarship... and the cpu is say 20-60 points ahead of me and has been in that range each week... Then I offer the scholarship and have a 500-600 point call... WITHOUT FAIL I will not jump them the following week. Sometimes I fall behind FURTHER than I was. If it were very occasionally I'd say o.k. the cpu had a X2 or something. But based on what I've seen, I'm quite convinced that offering the scholarship gains you no points after your initial contact with them in relation to cpu teams. Human teams... I'm not so sure.

[Hellisan]

I'll tell you another thing. I always get on people for saying that there's a comeback code, or that the cpu cheats etc. but they DEFINITELY cheat you in recruiting. If there is a guy that you find and put on your board at any point in the week who has no scholarship offers from anybody.. And you start going after him... That very week the cpu will very often put 60 minutes into him.

Now... I know these guys are on the cpu's board already and that they just hadn't been putting any minutes in. But there would be no way for them to know that you added them and started going after them. The only way for it to be fair is them to react AFTER you go after them. But they are prescient. Cheats.

[rudyjuly2]

Quote: Originally Posted by Hellisan

I'll tell you another thing. I always get on people for saying that there's a comeback code, or that the cpu cheats etc. but they DEFINITELY cheat you in recruiting. If there is a guy that you find and put on your board at any point in the week who has no scholarship offers from anybody.. And you start going after him... That very week the cpu will very often put 60 minutes into him. Now... I know these guys are on the cpu's board already and that they just hadn't been putting any minutes in. But there would be no way for them to know that you added them and started going after them. The only way for it to be fair is them to react AFTER you go after them. But they are prescient. Cheats.

I've definitely seen this. If you don't go after players you don't fall too far behind but as soon as you start investing you don't gain any ground either. I'm fine with it though because I'm still smarter than the cpu when recruiting. They don't offer good prospects sometimes, schedule visits late, etc. On Heisman recruiting I still get Top 5 classes.

As far as instant commits your odds do go up as you wait but you can still get them when they are yellow. And the longer you wait the more you waste the instant commit. If you can get a kid to instant commit the first week it frees up a ton of time over the next few weeks to go after another kid. That is invaluable.

[Deegeezy]

Yeah I too have seen the situations where the CPU is suddenly interested in my player once I start going for them even though they are throwing 0 points at the player every week prior.

There is definitely a different mechanism that the CPU uses to recruit and it is based off the user's actions.

Like others have said, I think this "mechanism" offsets the advantages that the Human team(s) have. Advntages such as being smarter than the AI as well as being able to have first shot at scheduling a visit.

[CTP]

i've noticed this to. say there is a guy who u dont have time for but u constantly come up on his list of teams. when i end up 1st on him, i'll go ahead and offer him and get him to commit right away.