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It just occurred to me. We’re going to be in Second League in a 500-seat “stadium.” If that’s not enough reason to get our faces punched I’m not sure what is!
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Feb 10, 2023 17:08
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Imagine the shame of whichever poor bastards got relegated from First League last year - actual professional footballers hoping for national glory - who now have to schlep down to our local park and set up their fancy 20-million-euro sponsor's logo next to a portable bratwurst cart
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Feb 10, 2023 17:37
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They learned to fear the teal crab, and now we're bringing that fear to the second league!
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Feb 10, 2023 17:50
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lmao
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Feb 10, 2023 19:51
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Kanthulhu posted:What are the odds we manage to stick around in the second league? Given how wrong we were, myself included, about this year I would say we don't really know. I can say for sure we won't do as well as we did this year; there's only so far you can effectively 'punch up'. But beyond that ... 
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Feb 11, 2023 02:25
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We've got an off-season chock full of more  . So let's have at it! The 'no longer amateurs' bit seems out of place for Third League. Still, we'll take it.  They say Odd Wilson and ShadowedFlame were among the best in the Third League. Offenbach had three players.   Definitely some club records here, at least the goals in a year has to be one.  You might say the President is happy. And against all odds, his goals align with those of ... pretty much anyone with sense. He's not talking promotion again just yet.  Another sizable hike in the rewards available. Making triple-sure that I do it correctly this time, I pull the trigger on Vinchi. This time we're not going with the low one, because District 113 is only paying us to win. Maybe we surpass expectations again. If so, so be it, but I don't expect to be doing much winning next year. Vinchi will pay us for just showing up.  Edit: since I cut off the image, the four numbers are Accuracy - Passing - Defense - Control, just to be sure. We had slightly less than a 10% chance of getting a 3-star player with rivalry on. These are a fantastic couple of players, but now we have a choice to make. A 3-star keeper who is the same age as a current one would create a roster issue to sort out, which is why I didn't pull the trigger automatically for the more gifted player - but a 3-star keeper is a 3-star keeper. On the other hand, a 2-star forward as the other choice is quite a fine alternative. I should also note here that we can still get green unclassed players, but the Academy has now progressed to the point where we'll get amateur classes as shown. Eventually advanced-class players will come through once we upgrade it far enough. Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Feb 11, 2023 |
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Feb 11, 2023 04:35
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Second League The top semi-pro league is here; we're halfway up the domestic ladder! Second League is the hinge, transition point, whatever you want to call it between the lower and upper leagues. It kind of has elements of both in it. We've already seen the sponsor payment increase; tickets now go for 15 euros instead of 10, with a corresponding rise in match experience. We're likely to have a favorable or at least winnable first-round Prestige Cup matchup against a lower-league foe. And of course, there are more clubs to compete with.  We're still a * squad, and other than Wurzburg everyone else is ** or better. Furth, who smashed us in the Prestige Cup, went on to finish second last year and is now in the First League. Most of the clubs here won't be quite as good as they were, but I do think the good matches will be the ones where we scratch and claw for a result; the bad ones will be where we just lose with no chance of winning. Other than our fellow promotees, the only two clubs we've ever played are Cottbus (in '28) and Kaiserslautern (in '23). Both made mincemeat out of us in the Prestige Cup. Running the numbers: Braunschweig - 58 *, 44 skills, 48.0 ave. Bochum - 45 *, 31 skills, 47.6 ave. Aalen - 46 *, 45 skills, 39.5 ave. St. Pauli - 56 *, 51 skills, 43.2 ave. Kaiserslautern - 33 *, 29 skills, 35.8 ave. Osnabruck - 30 *, 24 skills, 33.4 ave. Halle - 26 *, 26 skills, 29.8 ave. Jena - 26 *, 20 skills, 30.0 ave. Muenster - 27 *, 17 skills, 30.9 ave. Karlsruhe - 28 *, 23 skills, 30.6 ave. Cottbus - 24 *, 30 skills, 30.2 ave. Backpfeifengesichter - 19-20 *, 16 skills, 17.4 ave. Aspach - 22 *, 25 skills, 30.1 ave. Wurzburg - 16 *, 18 skills, 22.9 ave. To stay up, we need to find three clubs we can beat. I see one; Wurzburg, and that's mostly because they don't have a keeper. The 2-star clubs that make up a little over half of Second League are all potential targets. It would appear that Aspach, who we were 0-1-1 against last year, is a pretty good model for this group of clubs. I'm less confident in my predictions now - being dead wrong has a way of teaching you humility - but my best guess is that avoiding relegation is possible, though it won't be easy. Anything above mid-table is likely a pipe dream. A few relevant facts compared to last year: - Our average attribute level is up 37%; 17.4 compared to 12.7. We were gaining a little under one level a year previously. That's how much a successful Third League season helped. - This comparison is much worse for us here than the one last year in the Third League. To start off that year we had 16 *, Aspach was the only rival above 17. 17 skills, and the top was 23. I talked about how the attribute gap was the main issue to address; we could already compete in those first two categories and we had the highest value in the Third League going in. - This year? We don't have an attribute gap, we have an almost-everything gap. Squad value is actually better than a number of clubs, but the better ones are pushing eight figures, or nearly 5x ours. Muenster has an amateur keeper, Halle a green-shirt, so those are temporary opportunities. But the top four here are going to crush us, and most of the Second League has more talent, more skill development ... oh and yeah, they have much higher attributes as well. ** players are the norm rather than the exception. We've had an advantage until now in having as good or better players in the pipeline than our opponents, so we just needed to get them enough experience and development ... Braunschweig has 5 *** starters, 5 more coming off the bench, and nobody on their roster is below **. Most of the league isn't that good, but whatever happens this year it will not feel like the Third League.
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Feb 11, 2023 04:39
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Coaches Report: Summer 2031 Resources - Glory: 188 - Money: 150,767 - Fans: 544 I hope you enjoyed those few months when everyone who wanted to buy a ticket was able to. Upon word of our promotion to Second League, 100 bandwagoners joined the previously steady rising number of supporters. We also made back most of the Glory we spent last time. Squad The limit on substitutions in a match is three, standard for all competitions. When we sign our new youth player, we will for the first time actually have enough players to do that. At least temporarily.   AJ_Impy and Odd Wilson will get new skills in soon, but there's an awful lot of players in that 2-year range.  ShadowedFlame is guaranteed an upgrade after his next full match, and PotatoManJack is close to upgrades at two different positions, but frankly most of the squad is a majority of the way to their next boost. They do come in bunches sometimes. Full Experience 'Ceiling' by Giftedness * - 0*: Level 5 - 1*: Level 15 - 2*: Level 30 - 3*: Level 50 - 4*: Level 70 - 5*: Level 90 This is the point at which a player starts getting reduced experience gains. Extensions     Facilities & Personnel  - 3 Academy Coaches available Youth Academy Giftedness *: - Current: 5% 0%, 45% 1*,45% 2*, 5% 3* - Next Upgrade: 29% 1*, 60% 2*, 10.9% 3*, 0.1% 4*  - 1 Training Ground Coach available; additional ones require Training Grounds upgrade  - No Medical Staff is available until the first Medical Centre upgrade Youth Work The price has doubled to 18 Glory, which is actually less than I expected. We have four options: - Request Keeper - Request Defender - Request Midfielder - Youth Rivalry
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Feb 11, 2023 05:07
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Routine Contracts - DF Torrannor; 1 year for 10,562 - PokeyTax; 3 years for 8,831 - LD PotatoManJack; 1 year for 10,240 - LF/RF Dragongem; 1 year for 8,271 37,904 total. These would leave us with 112,863 Money remaining in the account. Critical Contracts None. There aren't any expected in the Winter window either, which as of now would only have three routine contracts up for renewal. We've got a financial lull here. There's always the option of selling players 'early' to invest in club upgrades, but if we don't do that we will see an improvement in squad depth. Playing Time I think we'll stick with the same three options permanently. - Best Feet Forward - Rotation - Adaptive
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Feb 11, 2023 05:08
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Coaches Ballot: Summer 2031 I place the following issues before you: - Stadium Expansion - Youth Signing: G Weimer or F Metzler? - Youth Work - Playing Time - Anything else you want to hold forth on; objections to any routine contracts, investing glory or money in club upgrades, players you wish to sell, whatever. Coaches of Backpfeifengesichter, welcome to Second League! Do something intelligent.
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Feb 11, 2023 05:12
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I'll probably look things over more deeply once others have a chance to chime in as well, but I think we take the youth Keeper, it's hard to pass up 3 stars and BLT is only 1 star, he's already hit his exp slowdown whereas the 3 star can get all the way to level 50 before hitting his drop. Plus the youth keeper has control which is much more useful than passing for a keeper. I'd like a GK coach as well to go along with the new keeper to get him up to speed a bit faster.
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Feb 11, 2023 05:14
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Punchable Ex-Faces In which I keep track of our former players and how they are doing. CD Jossar has now spent three years at Rostock, the same amount of time he played here. The last two years were in the Third League, but they've been relegated to the Amateurs again for this season. In those three years, Jossar has appeared in 54 matches with 39 tackles ... and 3 red cards. In general he's been a mainstay of their defensive line and continued roughly the level of productivity he had for us. AM ally_1986 has appeared in only 3 matches for Potsdam with a single assist in what I think has been a year and a half? No appearances at all last year; he was a reserve for a while, now he's listed as a middling substitute. 217k is a lot to spend on a guy you're just going to sit on the bench. CM Average Lettuce had 2 assists in 10 matches for Zwickau in the Amateur League. He also had a bad injury for almost 6 months, explaining why he didn't play more. He's listed as a starter going into the year. GK NiftyBottle had 11 saves and 2 tackles in 7 matches for Potsdam (Amateur League). He even claimed his 6th career MoM award in the process. They paid a lot for him, but he's really made a difference there.
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Feb 11, 2023 05:36
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Upgrade Training Grounds No Stadium Upgrade No Medical Centre Hire 2 Midfielder Coaches Youth Rivalry Sign G Weimer Rotation No Stadium Upgrade Doesn’t seem like a stadium upgrade will make sense for a long time. At the very least I think we need to be above 750 fans which is a real long shot for now. Everything else we spend money on helps build the club which ultimately leads to more money, glory, fans. The stadium is just spending money to make it back and more... eventually. Also, it’s core to club morale for our home turf to look hideous. BraveLittleToaster posted:its a very potent [field] for psychologically attacking our rivals More Coaches I’m still holding out for more Midfielder Coaches and will until they’re maxed, but there’s a decent case for First Youth Coaches or other position coaches. Having a rookie 3-star goalie immediately changes the math on who needs the most care and feeding. While coaches of the same type do stack for greater benefit, it’s more to avoid diminishing returns than to accelerate; the advantage is that we can juggle our roster a bit to capitalize on it. Youth Rivalry The math on this is still favorable IMO. One way to look at it is that we’re basically renting a Youth Academy level for 18 + 18 Glory a year. Not cheap but neither is €525000. Also we gotta do Quackles a solid if we’re having Coward cut in line this window. Sign a Goalkeeper I’m concerned about the new guy’s Defense but that’s fixable with hard work and Dedication. Same deal with throwing some of our hard-earned position depth in the garbage. We can’t afford to look a gifted horse in the mouth. No reason to sell BLT immediately but maybe we can give his player special dispensation to queue up again for a new recruit? He kind of got a rough deal, merely serving as the primary keeper during the greatest title run in Rotation Now that we’ve accomplished the funniest possible thing, there’s no reason we need to sweat being relegated. Getting our faces punched in up here is not much more lucrative than clowning on the entire Third League so let’s get everyone playtime and rest on our laurels a bit. When we’re undefeated at winter break we can revisit this. There’s not much we can do to win regardless besides rest our best players when we have winnable games coming. Pokeytax fucked around with this message at 13:51 on Feb 12, 2023 |
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Feb 11, 2023 08:54
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My take: Don't Upgrade The Stadium We don't need another upgrade just now. And if we get kicked out of the Second League after this year, our current "stadium" will be fine. Get the Goalkeeper Historically, we've succeeded by a strong defensive strategy, just like our namesake (crabs). So this'll feed right into it - and such an opportunity might not come around again for a while. Buy a Defender Coach We'll have a good goalkeeper. And we already have a bunch of XP going to midfielders. Let's shore up the missing bit. I'd also be in favor of upgrading the Training Grounds, if you think we can afford it and have enough cash on hand for next year. Maybe Buy a Youth Coach of Some Kind I'm not sure about this, but more stats going in feels good. And we have a bunch of slots here. Youth Rivalry It's cheap and it's served us well so far, let's keep it up. Rotation We just want to build up our club as much as possible. If we somehow go on another rampage, this'll change, but I want to see the evidence before I say anything.
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Feb 12, 2023 00:15
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I like all of these
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Feb 12, 2023 00:30
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Can I sign up for a new player since mine got sold? Or do I wait till mine retires or whatever?
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Feb 12, 2023 02:22
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Yep, you can sign up again any time once they have left the club. I can put it down as NiftyBottle2 and any position, or you can choose a different name/position preference if you like.
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Feb 12, 2023 02:28
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Play a Rotation. As much as I'm open to being proven wrong... again... I don't think we have a snowball's chance in hell of showing anything better than not being relegated, and even that will be hard. Let's use the opportunity to build up for the future. No on Stadium Expansion. We're only 44 fans above the limit and that number is going to drop precipitously. Besides, we literally cannot afford it after signing the contracts. Sign the keeper. Sucks for BLT, but going from 1 to 3 stars is a big upgrade, and we've already got a glut of forwards (unless we sell Dragongem now, which I think we shouldn't). Request Defender. We have no substitutes for the back line, and that is an area where substitutes are very useful if someone gets booked one time too many. Sign a GK coach. Do not expand Training Grounds, we are already sinking a ton of Glory into coaches for one-star players who are already slowing down their XP acquisition. We don't need to sink 70% of our cash on hand into it as well. Build the Medical Center, hire a Head Physio. We have only half a bench, a run of injuries can absolutely ruin our day. Let's pre-empt that while we still have the Glory to spend.
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Feb 12, 2023 03:12
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Quackles posted:Maybe Buy a Youth Coach of Some Kind I feel like I'm singling out Quackles' posts a lot lately. I don't mean to be doing that, but I do need to point out that I can't count this as a vote. Examples of valid votes would be 'Buy One of Each Youth Coach' or 'Buy a Second Youth Coach' or 'Buy Two First Youth Coaches' 'Maybe' and 'of Some Kind' are - I'll put this as nicely as I can - not decisions. I'm ok with you making a bad choice; in fact I encourage it in a way, this thread is specifically set up to allow that. But I do need to ask that you actually make a choice in your votes. Stand for something! Quackles posted:I'd also be in favor of upgrading the Training Grounds, if you think we can afford it and have enough cash on hand for next year. Your job to decide if we can afford it. As written, this would be taken as a vote in favor of the upgrade. The other four items you voted for are all great. Decisive, and even going above to add reasons given for the choices.
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Feb 12, 2023 03:22
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Wow, the medical center is super cheap. I didn't notice that.
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Feb 12, 2023 03:22
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I'm in favor of Rotation play. We should pick the goalkeeper. Right now I think the best training coach would be 1 Goalkeeper coach, since it will improve our 3-star faster, and also be a bonus for BLT. I'm in favor of upgrading the Medical Centre and hiring Chief Physician. Head Physio at this level is an almost-insignificant bonus, but the recovery boost seems like it might get a hurt player back an extra game or more early.
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Feb 12, 2023 03:50
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Strategic Sage posted:'Maybe' and 'of Some Kind' are - I'll put this as nicely as I can - not decisions. I'm ok with you making a bad choice; in fact I encourage it in a way, this thread is specifically set up to allow that. But I do need to ask that you actually make a choice in your votes. Stand for something! The problem is, I don't understand enough to say which is better - a first or second youth coach - and as is, their numbers appear pretty small but I believe we should build them to get them over the hump. So I was trying to punt* to you. Strategic Sage posted:Your job to decide if we can afford it. As written, this would be taken as a vote in favor of the upgrade. That's good, because I am in favor. *Yes, I know, wrong kind of football.
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Feb 12, 2023 04:45
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I feel like I'm just repeating myself, but I don't know what else to do: punting to me equals a non-vote. The entire voting idea is based on me not being the one who decides. The two youth coaches have different impacts; one changes where the starting attribute points for a player goes. The other gives them more experience until they turn 21. I would suggest just picking which you think is best. If you really can't decide on the merits, flip a coin. If you don't have a physical coin, a random number generator will do. As annoying as it may be in some situations, I just plain am not going to choose for you. To my mind that defeats the point of the exercise.
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Feb 12, 2023 05:27
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[sigh] O-kaaaaaaay. In that case, I would say to hire a Second Youth Coach.
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Feb 12, 2023 05:50
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Noted and recorded. I will make one correction on the votes rendered so far:Tevery Best posted:Request Defender. We have no substitutes for the back line, and that is an area where substitutes are very useful if someone gets booked one time too many. We actually do have one back-line sub, but one only: PokeyTax.
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Feb 12, 2023 05:59
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- Stadium Expansion: No. As documented by others, we’re not going to be above cap for long. What we have is just fine. - Youth Signing: G Weimer. Thou shalt not look a 3* gift in the mouth. - Youth Work: Rivalry is good, especially if it’s still cheap and 16 is cheap at this rate. - Playing Time: Rotation. In Sage I trust, but even I don’t think Sage can wring another miracle from these guys. We’re going to be fighting off relegation all season and will likely need draws at least to survive. So spread the XP around to give us a fighting chance no matter who is on the pitch. - Assorted business: Invest in Medical Center. It’s time we started doing something besides using whatever the equivalent of the Boy Scouts looking for a First Aid badge are to get some medical advice. One upgrade to Goalkeeper Coach, One upgrade to Chief Physician. These two plus Youth Rivalry should take the majority of our Glory and still leave enough for a Rivalry in the winter. Plus if we’re signing the fancy new keeper we can build his levels up faster, which (arguably) means more Def in goal. ShadowedFlames fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Feb 12, 2023 |
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Feb 12, 2023 06:08
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ShadowedFlames posted:- Stadium Expansion: No. As documented by others, we’re not going to be above cap for long. What we have is just fine.
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Feb 12, 2023 11:40
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Strategic Sage posted:Noted and recorded. I will make one correction on the votes rendered so far: Well, he's a starter in the default formation as per last post, no? Either way, I'm about to hit the soft XP cap and past that point there is increasingly little reason to keep me around, so we may as well prepare with that in mind. ShadowedFlames posted:One upgrade to Goalkeeper Coach, One upgrade to Chief Physio. Do you mean Chief Physician or Head Physio?
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Feb 12, 2023 13:42
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No stadium upgrade Sign the stud 3 star Gk stars matter Get said stud 3 star a Gk coach Buy medical center and hire a chief physician Play a rotation because we’re probably going down and that XP can be powerful, but also because selfishly I want my dude to get clowned on by Second League guys for experience purposes. Youth rivalry has always done well for us so lets rival
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Feb 12, 2023 14:28
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Tevery Best posted:he's a starter in the default formation as per last post, no? I can see how it would look that way, but that's not the default formation; it's just who started the last match because Odd Wilson was tired.
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Feb 12, 2023 15:09
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My votes: Stadium Expansion: No. Youth Signing: G Weimer. Youth Work: Rivalry Playing Time: Rotation. Invest in Medical Center. Upgrade Training Grounds One upgrade to midfield coach, one upgrade to Chief Physician.
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Feb 12, 2023 15:11
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Tevery Best posted:Do you mean Chief Physician or Head Physio? An excellent question for ShadowedFlame and Kanthulhu. Lots of activity, thanks all for taking the time. I'll leave this open until tomorrow night.
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Feb 12, 2023 15:24
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Chief Physician. Add me to the future footballers list.
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Feb 12, 2023 16:02
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Tevery Best posted:
gently caress. This is why I should not be allowed near the forums when I first wake up or right as I’m falling asleep. Chief Physician. 2% prevention isn’t worth it yet. I’ve edited my actual vote post to reflect this. ShadowedFlames fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Feb 12, 2023 |
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Feb 12, 2023 17:09
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I will call one vote early so they can get in and start thinking about their choices. The vote for G Weimer as our new youth player is unanimous: 10-0 so far. That's obviously not going to be reversed. He's worth 16.6k the moment he joins the squad.   No class decision to make, but we do need to consider skills:  A couple of good defensive abilities and also Long Pass as a counter-attacking option. We will need: Skill - Train Playing Out, Long Pass, or Reaction Attribute Focus - Accuracy, Passing, Defense, or Control We had a couple of household objects in NiftyBottle and BraveLittlToaster ... now we have a Coward joining the list of Punchable Goalkeepers. Time to decide what kind you will be.
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Feb 13, 2023 03:57
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Well I'd punch my face. I presume I should be focusing Defence as a Keeper, bit not sure on the skill. Is Playing Out useful right now? Coward fucked around with this message at 10:51 on Feb 13, 2023 |
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Feb 13, 2023 10:48
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That dude has the face of a 80 year old man. Incredible stuff.
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Feb 13, 2023 14:35
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Coward posted:Well I'd punch my face. quote:Olympic Kick is used on corners, an attempt to make a curved kick into the goals. Defenders with heading talent can try to intercept it, and it is also directly countered by the Playing Out talent, which is also useful in intercepting crossing attempts. 
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Feb 13, 2023 17:22
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BTW, I changed my mind. If I do get a punchable, I'd like to control them directly as per everyone else.
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Feb 13, 2023 18:04
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| # ? Jun 5, 2024 20:43 |
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Coward posted:I presume I should be focusing Defence as a Keeper, bit not sure on the skill. Is Playing Out useful right now? All three skills are useful. It's a question of what you want to be good at, at the expense of which other aspects. DTurtle covered the Playing Out skill pretty well with that quote; I'll just add that it works by adding to your Control attribute. Long Pass is an effective counterattacking ability as mentioned but won't help prevent goals in the first place, and Reaction counters Rainbow Feint. The choice is basically whether you want to max your goal-prevention abilities, in which case Playing Out/Reaction in some order gives you two of the three defensive skills that goalkeepers have access to, or if you want to have that counter-attacking ability in there in place of one of them, which would mean combining Long Pass with one of the other two.
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Feb 13, 2023 18:34
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