staying interested for 10+ seasons

[pw_1016]

I noticed that there are several of you who run the same dynasty for 10+ seasons in the How's your dynasty going thread. How do you stay interested for so long? I don't think I can make it past 5 seasons with the same team. Do you switch teams often within a dynasty? Are there points during a dynasty that you become bored and you just stick it out or do you stay interested the entire time? May seem silly to ask but I would like to know how to stick with a dynasty for a while. I use mediocre teams that take several years to build up so I would like to stay with one until I can manage to get to the national championship which takes more than 5 years for me.

[Skulletor]

Re: staying interested for 10+ seasons

switch teams a lot, switch coaches. I'll get a coach to a destination school , and then go make a new one. Sometimes it's fun to go play in a small school for a bit, and let the big boys do their thing. Sometimes it's fun to take a coach from OC of USA and take him up to Alabama after a decade of toiling, and then just run the country for a while

fwiw I've done this to run my dynasty for 104 years nows

[KnightTime]

Re: staying interested for 10+ seasons

fwiw I've done this to run my dynasty for 104 years nows

Hey my longest is almost 1/21st of that far. You must teach me your ways.

[StoneCalf]

Re: staying interested for 10+ seasons

Thinking back to all my earlier dynasties, I seldom switched teams. I'm in my 41st season now. I hung with Bama for 21 seasons, then I finally got the itch to try another team. I'm really glad I did, but I found that even though I put a lot of thought before taking a new HC position, some panned out better than others in how much I enjoyed my tenure at each.

Current dynasty:
Alabama: 21 years, default team I start a dynasty with. (Roll Tide)
Oregon State: 5 years, very good decision, loved it there, nice change in scenery
UAB: 5 years, really enjoyed building up a cellar-dweller
Northwestern: 4 years, it was okay.
(returned to Bama for one year lol)
Boston College: Stayed just one year, never felt it, had to move on....
Southern Miss: In my fourth year with the Golden Eagles. Very good so far. Taking longer to build up.

So, here's some bullet points on what I've found keeps me interested to continue a dynasty:

• Go where your heart is. (sounds cheesy, but I need to have a genuine interest in a particular team)
• This may sound weird, but it is of paramount importance that I rename (last names only) every player I recruit. It's a bit time consuming, but I must have unique names and found that it sometimes endears me to certain players.
• Consider some house rules to introduce some variables, so every season won't be the same grind. I use a dice-roll system to determine/limit how many 4*/5* players I can sign. If a get a sucky roll, I'm stuck with going after 3* max and must stay within conference states. (for example)
• Not too picky on if a team's uniforms are accurate, but if a team's uniforms and school colors are appealing to me, it helps.
• Last but not least, develop some parameters to keep things challenging. If I'm winning almost every game, and not feeling challenged, I can become disinterested quickly. I play on AA, but in addition to sliders that favor the CPU, I heavily limit my quality of talent I can sign and found that this is a very effective method to not become overpowered. The vast majority of my roster is comprised of 3 star players. If I have a player hit 90 over as a senior, it's a rare event.

To answer your question, I do have seasons where I get bored, but I push through to the offseason and see if there's a HC opening that catches my eye.

[whughes]

Re: staying interested for 10+ seasons

StoneCalf, if you could pm me or post here some of your restrictions that you mentioned in your third bullet point I'd appreciate it. I've already implemented a system of recruiting restrictions based on prestige, but a random dice roll system is even better.

[StoneCalf]

Re: staying interested for 10+ seasons

No prob, I'm been running this recruiting dice roll system for about 15 seasons. What I like most about it is that it simulates rough patches as well as occasional great runs, where I might get a few seasons in a row with good rolls, and then I can possibly peak with talent in a few more years and make a conference or NC run.

1 = 3* max, no players permitted outside of conference states
2 = 3* max, 2 players permitted outside of conference states
3 = 4* (x1), rest of recruits 3* max, 2 players permitted outside of conference states
4 = 5* (x1), rest of recruits 3* max, 2 players permitted outside of conference states
5 = 5* (x1), 4* (x1), rest of recruits 3* max, 2 players permitted outside of conference states
6 = 5* (x2), 4* (x1), rest of recruits 3* max, 2 players permitted outside of conference states

Sometimes I tweak to allow an extra player to be signed from a conference state that I have coached in the past.

Of course you can tailor to your needs, but this is my basic framework.

[pw_1016]

Re: staying interested for 10+ seasons

Thinking back to all my earlier dynasties, I seldom switched teams. I'm in my 41st season now. I hung with Bama for 21 seasons, then I finally got the itch to try another team. I'm really glad I did, but I found that even though I put a lot of thought before taking a new HC position, some panned out better than others in how much I enjoyed my tenure at each.

Current dynasty:
Alabama: 21 years, default team I start a dynasty with. (Roll Tide)
Oregon State: 5 years, very good decision, loved it there, nice change in scenery
UAB: 5 years, really enjoyed building up a cellar-dweller
Northwestern: 4 years, it was okay.
(returned to Bama for one year lol)
Boston College: Stayed just one year, never felt it, had to move on....
Southern Miss: In my fourth year with the Golden Eagles. Very good so far. Taking longer to build up.

So, here's some bullet points on what I've found keeps me interested to continue a dynasty:

• Go where your heart is. (sounds cheesy, but I need to have a genuine interest in a particular team)
• This may sound weird, but it is of paramount importance that I rename (last names only) every player I recruit. It's a bit time consuming, but I must have unique names and found that it sometimes endears me to certain players.
• Consider some house rules to introduce some variables, so every season won't be the same grind. I use a dice-roll system to determine/limit how many 4*/5* players I can sign. If a get a sucky roll, I'm stuck with going after 3* max and must stay within conference states. (for example)
• Not too picky on if a team's uniforms are accurate, but if a team's uniforms and school colors are appealing to me, it helps.
• Last but not least, develop some parameters to keep things challenging. If I'm winning almost every game, and not feeling challenged, I can become disinterested quickly. I play on AA, but in addition to sliders that favor the CPU, I heavily limit my quality of talent I can sign and found that this is a very effective method to not become overpowered. The vast majority of my roster is comprised of 3 star players. If I have a player hit 90 over as a senior, it's a rare event.

To answer your question, I do have seasons where I get bored, but I push through to the offseason and see if there's a HC opening that catches my eye.

Do you play every single game or do you sim some games? If you sim, how many games do you sim each season?

[Raider510]

Re: staying interested for 10+ seasons

Good thread, I've recently redone a dynasty where I started with Ohio St and stayed for 4 years, then left and took over UCLA. My teams/recruiting are pretty good, so I need to figure out a more strategic way of keeping the game fresh.

I like the idea of limiting myself on what caliber recruits and from where.

[StoneCalf]

Re: staying interested for 10+ seasons

Do you play every single game or do you sim some games? If you sim, how many games do you sim each season?

I play every game.

[jello1717]

Re: staying interested for 10+ seasons

I've played several 20+ year dynasties, but I've never gotten bored so I might not be of much help.

I personally LOVE the recruiting/building a program aspect of the game and the gameplay is a very distant second. Because of that, I actually get most interested in my team 3-5 years after I've been there. That's because by them I'm playing with "my guys." If it s a school that's interesting I wouldn't leave until I've been there at least 5 years and by then it's really tough for me to leave as I don't want to abandon my kids.

I keep a VERY detailed spreadsheet for my dynasties and this helps a lot with interest. I love going back and seeing which of my guys have rushed for the most TDs in a game/season/career, etc. without my spreadsheet I could see myself not being as interested because in the game, after a guy graduates he's gone for good. In my spreadsheet he lives on forever. (Yes I know how stupid that sounds)

I use tough sliders, house rules, and the slowest speed coach progression. These all make the game more difficult as I'd get bored if I won every time.

It's always better (IMO) to play somewhere that you like. In my coach progression dynasty I went from ODU (who?) to UMass (they have a football team?) to ECU (pretty cool place) to 6 years @ UNC (my 3rd favorite team) to the rest of my career @ Michigan (my dream job obviously). Scoring a winning TD as time expires as ECU beats UCF is all fine and dandy, but there's no way in hell that it could possibly compare to getting that winning TD as Michigan to beat the Hairless Nuts and hearing Hail To The Victors bellowing out in The Shoe. It's not even remotely close.

[ZN30]

Re: staying interested for 10+ seasons

switch teams a lot, switch coaches. I'll get a coach to a destination school , and then go make a new one. Sometimes it's fun to go play in a small school for a bit, and let the big boys do their thing. Sometimes it's fun to take a coach from OC of USA and take him up to Alabama after a decade of toiling, and then just run the country for a while

fwiw I've done this to run my dynasty for 104 years nows

Isn't there a 60 year limit to dynasties?

[jello1717]

Re: staying interested for 10+ seasons

Isn't there a 60 year limit to dynasties?

You can get around this with the editor.

Skulletor knows how to do this. (I think he basically exported the dynasty at year 60 and then started a "new" dynasty based on this).

[whughes]

Re: staying interested for 10+ seasons

1 = 3* max, no players permitted outside of conference states
2 = 3* max, 2 players permitted outside of conference states
3 = 4* (x1), rest of recruits 3* max, 2 players permitted outside of conference states
4 = 5* (x1), rest of recruits 3* max, 2 players permitted outside of conference states
5 = 5* (x1), 4* (x1), rest of recruits 3* max, 2 players permitted outside of conference states
6 = 5* (x2), 4* (x1), rest of recruits 3* max, 2 players permitted outside of conference states

Are these the max amount you can have on your board? Or just the max you can recruit? I know some guys limit themselves to only 1 5* a season, but they can only have the one guy on their board all season. And if they can't recruit them they miss out on a 5* recruit that season

[Skulletor]

Re: staying interested for 10+ seasons

You can get around this with the editor.

Skulletor knows how to do this. (I think he basically exported the dynasty at year 60 and then started a "new" dynasty based on this).

i copied the player roster over to a game roster file
started a new dynasty and setup conferences
then i copied all the team ratings/records and coaches to the new dynasty file
(somewhere i may have even documented everything , at least i hope i did)

i also made it so that the web page creator understands there's been a conversion by way of a "continuation" file, so the creator just knows

the only thing i don't get is the in game years are off, but i rarely use the ingame UI for exploration since the web page gives me better data anyway

[StoneCalf]

Re: staying interested for 10+ seasons

Are these the max amount you can have on your board? Or just the max you can recruit? I know some guys limit themselves to only 1 5* a season, but they can only have the one guy on their board all season. And if they can't recruit them they miss out on a 5* recruit that season

Max amount I can recruit. I used to oversign, but for quite a while now I've limited myself to players leaving plus 2.

If I feel I need to restrict further, I may do what many others do here, which includes no scouting and/or only going after interested players (or at least mostly going after interested players)