What is your Franchise style?

[mavfan21]

Do you start up and play season one or do you build your team up to your liking and then hit the field?

I find I prefer to sim at least one usually 2 seasons to overhaul or upgrade the roster to my liking and then I play. I just like to play when it feels more like "my" team and has my identity. What do you guys do?

Do you have any house rules?

I run a 32 team franchise (let the CPU run most everything for the other 31 teams) and I make sure to hand pick the first round and do a few deals for the CPU teams to improve them. I like to take a few franchises under my wing in the off-season to improve them.

Draft: When drafting I can't pick a player more than 1 round removed from the current round. Ex: If it's the 2nd round I can only pick a guy proejected to go in the 2nd or 3rd round.

Gameplay: I'll super sim a quarter each game, either the 1st, 2nd or 3rd to create a challenge once in awhile. In the playoffs I will sometimes do two. It can be pretty exciting if I get down and have to try to come back.

[TheSaints7]

Re: What is your Franchise style?

I choose my favorite team (Saints) and I try to turn them into an all round team. Great Defense and Great Offense. After finishing my Second Season I will upgrade my Stadium. I am Currently Half way through my Second Season at the Moment and I won the Superbowl in my first year. So that means Sean Payton has won one during the 2010/2011 season and one in the 2011/2012 season. I hope to At least win one more bringing the total of Superbowl rings to three for Porter, Brees and Payton. After that I will consider signing a new Head Coach, Offensive Coordinator and Defensive Coordinator. Then once Brees is hitting the end of his time as a Saints I will sign another QB and try to adapt his style of game as the same a Drew's. The record for the most consecutive Superbowl victories is 2 which has been done by many teams. Cowboys, Packers, Steelers, Patriots and Jets are just some of them but I hope to break a record and win it 3 times on a trot. Not only this but overall the Steelers have won it the most times, 6. They tried to extend their record by 2 as the 49ers and the Cowboys are only one behind them winning 5. Unfortunately for them they fell to the Packers in the 2011 Superbowl and also to the Saints in 2012 (Who I was controlling).
Even though so far the Saints have won 2 Superbowl's (Bare in mind I am including the one in my Franchise). I hope to take them past the Steelers and earn the record from my personal rivals the Steelers. Even though my main rivals are the Colts but I have yet to express some real emoticon as I have not played them in my career. The next Superbowl is being played at the Lucas Oil Stadium home of the Colts but as I have said that Superbowl has already been played. So the next venue is the Superdome, the Home of the Saints.
I which to write history and bring another Superbowl to New Orleans as well as winning it in our home town.
I am enjoying my Franchise and am having alot of fun. When I next create a new one which will be a long time away where I will choose the Bills and try and re create a team which was so dominant in previous years. Getting to a Superbowl 4 times in a row is memorable but unfortunately for them they couldn't quite clinch the precious trophy, hopefully I cant write a different script.

[bichettehappens]

Re: What is your Franchise style?

Last year I simmed most of season 1 and took over from there (I played maybe 3-4 games to kind of get a feel for some of the players). This year, though, once a patch comes out and I actually start my franchises I think I'm going to start from year 1 to work on building storylines, since I post my franchise progress in the Dynasty section.

Last year only controlled 1 team, will control all 32 this year.

[AStubbs7]

Re: What is your Franchise style?

Controlling 32 teams seems crazy. I am used to having one team and attempting to build them up. If you control 32 teams, do you play with one certain team or what?

[bichettehappens]

Controlling 32 teams seems crazy. I am used to having one team and attempting to build them up. If you control 32 teams, do you play with one certain team or what?

Yeah, the 32 Team control is just to ensure teams dont make weird moves like drafting a QB top 5 2 years in a row or cutting a 2nd round pick in favor of a UDFA, for example. Helps keep things a bit more realistic

[Midgeotto]

Re: What is your Franchise style?

Personally I control all 32 teams. I tried to start a dynasty this year controlling only 1, but the issues that arise from doing so made it impossible for me to keep with it and still find it enjoyable. For my first real season of play I simulated to 2013 so I could use my Quarterback imported from NCAA 12.

When controlling all 32 teams I make all the important decisions while allowing the CPU to handle some of the minor things. The biggest annoyance that comes with this is when the CPU tells me such and such Coach needs to sign someone instead of telling me the team name. I'm really bad with names.

When it comes to Free Agency I look at the top 15 Free Agents and use a random number generator to simulate their interests in a variety of things such as Salary vs Winning. I then look at which teams are interested in the player and assign a score as to where he should sign. It's really time consuming, but I find it kind of fun.

For the Draft I generally do go through each round, though I can't say my decisions are always the best. I do keep it fair and all my trades are based off of trades that have been made IRL. This is generally my least favorite thing as the scouting system in Madden 12 is poor, in my opinion.

For Gameplay I utilize All-madden sliders that I customize to ensure that the game remains fair and competitive. Pending the occasional upset, teams that are favored generally win the game as they should. I never simulate any plays, but when it comes to field goals on defense I set the controller down as blocking field goals is a little on the easy side. I never choose the same play twice on any drive, and I never utilize any "money plays".

[Legionnaire]

Re: What is your Franchise style?

The fun thing for me in any sports franchise mode is building my team up with my own hand-picked players and following their careers. Outside of only a few original players who I like enough to keep, I imagine I'll have turned the entire roster over after 5 years or so. To hurry the process, I find myself making lots of trades to hoard draft picks (made 14 picks in my last draft). Though, to be fair, unless I'm dealing really good players, I try not to take picks that are too high, mostly just stockpiling 5th, 6th and 7th rounders. (Though when I deal my star QB or perennial Pro Bowl receiver or whoever, I take the high picks and don't feel bad about it.)

Even though CPU logic is a mess, I can't control all 32 teams. It'd just take away too much of the fun factor knowing computer teams can no longer say no to me in trades (or trade amongst themselves). And I'd feel like I had to micromanage all their roster minutiae, which would take way too long. So I'm rolling with one-team control.

In the preseason in Year 1, I left CPU teams along and let them make their cuts (and saw how dumb it was and realized I can't let them do that anymore). I briefly tried correcting stupidity, by signing guys who shouldn't have been cut and trading them back to their original team. But then the teams would cut them the next time around, and I realized it was pointless so I stopped bothering.

So in year 2, I went team-by-team editing their fake generated undrafted rookies (not guys who were in the draft but went undrafted, I mean the garbage players who got randomly generated to pad rosters) to punters so they'd cut them instead of draft picks or real players. The problem is teams went into the year still keeping a handful of backup fake punters, because they had more of them than they needed to cut, so they didn't cut them all and replace them with legit players like I imagined they would. Also, IT. TOOK. FOR. EVER. Such a pain to make all those edit, every position, every team. So I decided I can't edit away ALL of the undrafted players anymore. It's just insane how long and boring it was.

So in year 3, I took a slightly different approach. I used a combo of editing away guys at about half the positions (edited away QB/RB/REC/DB, leaving OL/DL/LB alone for the most part).... and signing/trading useful free agents to help pad CPU rosters with more journeyman veteran types to compete for roster spots (usually trading 1 free agent for 3 of those fake undrafted guys, so I was killing 3 birds with 1 stone each time I made a trade). It got rid of a lot of undrafted guys, it bolstered a lot of CPU rosters by giving them better backup players, and it still left them with a little free will to make some roster decisions. So now sometimes they'd cut draft picks (more than Year 2 when they never cut them, and less than in Year 1 when they cut way too many).

In Year 4, I might do the same as I did in Year 3, but reverse the positions I edit (so edit the FB/OL/DL/LB and leave the QB/HB/WR/DB alone). Or, God forbid, maybe a patch will be out that fixes some of the stupidity so I don't have to do this anymore.

[illwill10]

Re: What is your Franchise style?

Go to a team with needs at almost everywhere. I usually sim the 1st season or two until I get a Franchise QB, and rebuild my offense. I trade vets for picks. I like to trade pick, I rarely move up. I usually reach for players, If I really want.But, mostly trade to the future or down.
When I fully rebuilt my team and they have a year or two of experience/progression under the belt and I win a superbowl, I will switch to a another team(not restart) in need of rebuilding. I rebuilt Skins and on pace for a SB, I will switch teams in the offseason.

[TheJustPull]

I totally forgot about importing classes from NCAA. I'm already into year 2 W the browns. I usually add peices where I think they need and try and win all the games I can. For some reason on pro Thats nearly every game but when I bump it up to all pro it gets tricky. Not sure why I have that much more of a hard time on all pro.

[iamwubbie]

Re: What is your Franchise style?

Do you have any house rules?

I run a 32 team franchise (let the CPU run most everything for the other 31 teams) and I make sure to hand pick the first round and do a few deals for the CPU teams to improve them. I like to take a few franchises under my wing in the off-season to improve them.

Draft: When drafting I can't pick a player more than 1 round removed from the current round. Ex: If it's the 2nd round I can only pick a guy proejected to go in the 2nd or 3rd round.

I too am running a 32 team franchise, controlling only one team primarily. I've noticed a glitch where you can't simulate a game, and it just gets stuck in a loop where you can't simulate the other team's games. I THINK it has something to do with a problem with injuries and the CPU can't fill the roster appropriately.

I don't know if controlling the teams manually fixes it, but I have a theory it does. I also turn off injuries every 2 weeks, because I find injuries are really high in franchise mode.

As far as drafting, it's really hard to tell what players will go in what round. It'd be nice in future editions if we could get some inkling as to what teams are targeting what players. But it's not impossible to get the players you're targeting. I was targeting two cornerbacks in the first round with B and A potential, and traded back (hoping to land one). I ended up drafting them both because they both dropped into the second round.

It's possible, but given the current system, you have to either be really lucky, or EXTREMELY in-tune with what the other 31 team needs are and what the first round looks like.

[Franchise408]

Re: What is your Franchise style?

I do the same thing with all sports games franchise modes:

I select my favorite team (in this case, San Francisco), and I act as the GM of that team, making signings and roster moves to build the team in my vision. I don't worry about what the real 49ers would do, because in my franchise, I'm in charge. So if I wanna trade Patrick Willis, I'll do it (that's just an example, I wouldn't trade Patrick Willis )

I'm mostly of an offensive philosophy, so I focus on building my offense in my vision. At the end of my first season, my big time free agency acquisitions were Vince Young and Reggie Bush, and I drafted a 99 speed wide receiver, so that should give you an idea of how I team build I'm a mix between Al Davis and Matt Millen, lol.

I play starting with season 1, and go until I get bored or fed up of the game.

[Obnoxious]

Re: What is your Franchise style?

I play the Saints. I only sim Pre Season.

I use custom sliders for realism. I usually draft something I need.

Like for the first year draft, I got a C, DT, and a better back up for Jonathan Vilma.

Second year draft, I got a back up QB, 2 CB, and a Kicker.

Third year I got a SS, OLB, ILB, and 2 WR.


I'm starting over though. I made a few mistakes and don't feel like going through with them. Playing the packers now. Almost half time with us leading 10-3.

[bigbob]

Re: What is your Franchise style?

Usually, I'll pick my favorite team (the Vikings) or a random team in the AFC and simulate the first season. I always like to start out at free agency and move to the draft.

[lisinas]

Re: What is your Franchise style?

I always choose medium/bad teams which are fun to play cause they have some decent players (Bills,Cards and such) and i play for a season to see how it goes , after first season i know where are my teams biggest problems , where i need to upgrade , which players i should keep , which players i shouldnt keep , but still even after first season i dont go into heavy trading mode like some of you guys , i dont trade for 20 players in pre season and so , i get few pieces to help me improve .

[asterisk]

Re: What is your Franchise style?

I like to pretend that I am a psychic GM who can consistently and accurately predict who the good players will be in the upcoming draft. All the other GMs are mystified by my ability to draft 83A ROLBs in the 5th Round and 79B LGs in the 7th Round every year.