Ok, I finally have everything loaded and all add-ons installed.

I know the NHL is marked 'enhanced', but how do you have the rest of the leagues setup?

I'm thinking AHL should be 'enhanced' since they are affiliated with the NHL teams and then maybe standard for the rest? or is that too many leagues for a normal 2.0 Ghz PC to run?


Oh btw, great job on the team specific skins Minstrel!!


Todd

Okay, do share. What stuff have you downloaded?

In my first career I'm probably gonna take control of a crappy ECHL team and move up the ladder. My setup will have the NHL and ECHL enhanced with the AHL, UHL, CHL, and three Canadian major juniors set at standard. That's all.

FWIW, my comp is 1.5Ghz with 1G of RAM.

Oh shoot, where do I start?

Every player card facepack
MinstrelMetal skin 2.0
STL Custom Color - for use with minstrel's metal skin makes it a STL Blues skin
Large News Logos
meters commentary v2
NHL schedule logos
NHL rinks
TWStaffpack 1.0


I think I'm going to go with:

Enhanced
NHL
AHL
ECHL
AAL3
AAL4
Canada CHL (OHL, QMJHL, WHL)

The rest will be set to Standard.

From the manual: Throught the course of your managerial career it is possible to switch leagues between enhanced and standard, using the process outlined above. However, only leagues selected into the save game at the start are able to do this. Meaning - I would think you would at least want all the leagues set to standard or enhanced at the beginning or else you'll never be able to get them back.

I'll see how this setup runs on a P4 2.0 Ghz pc with 512 mb.


Todd

True, but do you really have aspirations for taking control of a team over in Europe?

Todd

for first career.

just do nhl, ECHL, AHL


if your going to play NHL

You never know. If this setup runs fine on my pc, which from what I've read should.. then I'm fine. If not, I'll change it around. I just like having them all there in some compacity. I'm goofy like that.

Here's a link to what some add ons look like I've put into the game:
http://img243.echo.cx/my.php?image=stlblues7de.jpg
http://img297.echo.cx/my.php?image=untitled0bz.jpg

Here's where you can get them: http://ehm.sortitoutsi.net/

I'm doing the setup posted above.. I want all the leagues active in some shape or form.

:)

JeffR, if you happen to see this, the link to your CHL facepack isn't working as there seems to have been some sort of mixup. I'd love to get this as I'm still pondering what minor league to start off with.

http://www.sortitoutsi.net/index.php...le&fileid=4083

thegades AT gmail_com (if you have the chance ;))

But if he's tearing up the league (and presumably doing better than Sullivan in the process), wouldn't that be a sign that "ask coach" was working pretty well?

the scouting is great in this game.

wow they scout alot of players for you.

one thing is when they return and you assign them to go scout a different place. there prior list of players they scouted and liked is gone.

its too hard to memorize what players they like. why does the list go away when you assign them to go scout again?

You can save these lists. It should prompt you to do so whenever you re-assign a scout.

For example, if your scout Joe Blow scouts the 2005 NHL Draft prospects and you want to re-assign him, you can save those scouting results under "Joe Blow 2005 NHL Draft" or some such.

thanks. that awesome.

i didnt remember seeing a prompt. i must of miss it

You can do two other things besides saving your scout's recommendations in order to keep track of those players.

You can add any players that he has recommended and that you want to keep further tabs on to your shortlist. (Like all the 5 star rated players that interest you, for example.)

Do this by clicking on a player's name, then clicking action (top left of screen), and then selecting add to shortlist. Any player added to your shortlist will generate a news report when something happens to them like an injury or transfer to a new team.

Also, you could write a comment (note) and attach it to a player like "My scout really likes this guy." Do this by clicking on a player's name, then clicking action, and then selecting create note.

Sounds like a great game...

twothree

thanks


karim

its an awesome game. its so deep and fun.

It didn't get to you this week? Sorry, man. I hope it arrives Monday.

My Devils are running into all kinds of problems this season. About halfway through the year, we're sitting 9th in the East, two points behind Buffalo. Our power play is the worst in the East and second-worst in the NHL (much like the real-life Devils). We're tied for last in the conference in goals scored. Brodeur hasn't been terrible in goal for me with his 2.33 GAA and 0.914 save percentage, but the media has been blasting him. It's not his fault! :(

The board is getting upset with me, and I think I'm going to have to start trading prospects away in order to make a big run in the second half of the season. I hate having to do that, but I'm getting desperate.

have you try in practice to give more % for powerplay practice? that might help

No, I don't handle the practice. My coach does that.

Time to get a riot going against the head coach!

be careful with lettign you head coach do practice.

by default it will never change the % for practice area. General, powerplay, and powerplay kill. its always set to 60%,20%,20% in that order.

also the head coach by default assign you coaches to more than 3 categories. they assign 7 categories by default. you will see 7 check mark.

to get the best out of a practice, a coach assign to practice should have 3 max categories only to get the best out of the players.

Coach's should be assigned to practice based on their strengths, never to more then 3 categories.

I see your point, but I really don't want to have to handle practice. It's not supposed to be my job. It's supposed to be the coach's job. I'll fool with it a little bit, but I'm not going to try to out-think myself here.

So, I am in the middle of my 4th and first successful season with the Caps. With 54 games played, I am second place in the East leading the third place team by around 10 points and leading my next closest divisional rival by 20.

A news article entitled "Zetterberg may be headed to the Blues" comes up and says: "With the Washington Capitals on the outside looking in at the playoff picture, Henrik Zetterberg is generating interest around the league." Now, I like the wording of the piece and, if the I was indeed outside looking in, it would make perfect sense (dumping some vet talent with a decent price tag for picks/prospects), but we're completely inside the playoff picture.

It's called foreshadowing. It's a literary device used to give insight into future events. :p

Given that I have gone on to lose the last 5 out of 6 games, you're not wrong.

That's okay. I just finished my 3rd season with the Kamloops Blazers, finishing on top of the WHL by almost 20 points. As I started my playoff run, several players became unhappy, "thinking the team should be topping the table" and were "willing to help the club improve it's league position." Yeah, good luck with that.

Uggh. . . that's frustrating. My Avalanche team had the same trouble on the PP and I didn't know what was happening. Training is the thing I hate in FM and now EHM. Thankfully in FM there are training modules you can switch through that don't take up more than a few minutes in a season. Hopefully the same happens in EHM soon.

That said, great game. A lot of fun. I love the scouting features. It doesn't grip me as much as FM, but it's early in my playing time, so I'm sure that'll change.

Speaking of that, I think it's time to start another game of FM.

Perhaps all the EHM beta testers sucked, no?
:)

Yup, the guys at sortitoutsi let me know already, and there's another link (the NHL G-P pack) that's pointing to the wrong thing, as well. I re-sent them the CHL pack this morning, as well as an updated version of the WHL and a new OHL one, so those should all be up shortly.

As for what league to start off with, I'd suggest one of the three junior ones - player salaries aren't an issue there, so you can learn without worrying too much about finances. And it's a pretty good challenge, since you're ultimately competing against two other leagues in addition to your own (55 other teams total) for the national championship. There's a guide I wrote to the WHL last year that should be available from a couple of the EHM fan sites, and the
OHL Arena and Travel Guide is a great place to get a feel for that league.

Good to hear about the the extra goodies. I suppose I could start off with a junior league. The idea of a bantam draft does intrigue me. It'd have to be the WHL though, because the west is always best!
;)

Edit: I did run into your WHL guide before and you did a very good job on it; I'm very thankful for that.

Uh-oh, that's not good. I'll ask Riz and or Graeme what triggers that, it obviously shouldn't be happening in the middle of the playoffs.

And that's where the Minnesota kids get drafted to if they play junior. ;) One semi-exploit you can use is spending your last two or three picks on top prospects that say they want to play college hockey instead of junior - the AI teams will avoid them, since that choice won't change, but if they get drafted by an NHL team and sign a pro contract before their junior eligibility is up, there's a good chance they'll get sent back to you for a season or two. Same with top European prospects that have no interest in major junior, but you don't get a lot of import picks to waste on those.

I don't mess with it much either, but I do always bump up the conditioning part of the goalie training a bit (the default seems to be too low), drop the penalty killing percentage to 15 and raise one of the other two 5% (doesn't seem to really hurt my PK), and pick which coaches I want assigned to which roles (leaving them all at the default of coaching everything is a waste.)

Thanks for the tip. Careful though, cos' I'm more of a North Dakotan. And if you don't live in Grand Forks or go to UND you don't know much about hockey. Up until just recently I was mainly a bandwagon North Stars/Wild fan, but then moved to Duluth where they take hockey very seriously and put the UMD Bulldogs' games on broadcast TV (good for me since I never have cable).

Now I'm back in the Fargo-Moorhead area. It's funny because Moorhead has one of the top youth hockey programs in the nation, yet just across the ND-MN border in Fargo most people could care less about hockey.

It's really a shame that the NHL has been a no-go during the time where hockey has started to grow on me. Enough of my biography though...

That WHL league guide can be found here for anyone interested. Good stuff.

Jeff, is it safe to assume that you had a lot to do with the WHL research?

Last year yes, this year not much. This time around I was mainly working on the Junior A and lower leagues in Ontario and the west (and then, at the last minute, the OHL.)

Must stop playing and visit with family...

Quick question re: the major juniors..

I realize that guys can play through the season in the year of their 19th birthday, BUT I'm noticing two different things listed as their eligibility sometimes. Is there any difference between 'no junior eligibility left after the current season' and '1 year of junior eligibility left'? Now I'm seeing this for guys that are born in the same month and year.

Edit: Take Braydon Coburn and Brian Woolger of the Winter Hawks for example.

This may or may not answer your question, but just to throw something else your way in terms of eligability. It's not just age that matters, it's how many years a player has played in junior hockey. I think a player can only play for 4 years at that level. Some start their first year later than others. So that will effect eligability for players born in the same month and year (some start at 14 or 15, others later).

Hmm, might be a glitch in the way that indicator is set. I just look at the birth year myself - 3 guys born 20 years before the start of the current season, and the rest have to be younger. Whatever the cause is, the in-game roster age restrictions are working fine, so the eligibility listing strangeness is just cosmetic.

I wish this was available for download right now.. I have a strong impulse to buy (but also to play right now.)

Fair enough. Though, riz, you may want to check that out. It can be a little confusing.
;)

I did the next-best thing on Thursday. GoGamer.com with overnight shipping. Got here a couple of hours after I woke up.
:)

JeffR

i wish if you let head coach, coach the game. and let head coach handle practice in the options setting that it should do the whole practice and not just part of it.

there a lot of people who assume that if you let head coach handle practice, that it handles everything in the practice screen. from general, powerplay, powerkill % to assigning coaches to three categories roles based on there strength instead leaving it as default.

any chance it can be done on next patch?

thanks

great game so far. lots of fun

Thansk for the feedback guys
 

I'll try to take a look at the practice time percentages under head coach control for the next patch. I've already done a little tweaking with the connection between this practice setup and the results of it in games but I'll still need to check if I can make the head coach analyse your game results and change the general/powerplay/penaltykill accordingly if needed (in case you have him take charge of the practice)

riz thanks so much.

what about the head coach assigning the coaches you have on your team for the categories too in the practice screen. as of now it picking all 7 categories as default.

and i tought the recommendation is 3 categories.

it will be nice if the head coach see what coaches you have and there strength when assigning them to practice and picking the categories.

hopefully that can be look at too if you let head coach handle practice in option setting

thanks

Thanks Jeff. Just to help you out a little, it went away when we advanced to the next round.

I've noticed the overage issue in the WHL as well. I play as the Everett Silvertips, and I've noticed as I go through scouting other teams that there are the players that are tagged OVR as the overage players and others that are not that have the "No junior eligibilty left after current season" note. I too just look at the year they were born.

I have a question re: the UHL

I currently took over Elmira which is over the cap. I proceeded to trade a guy making 22,000 for a guy making 7,000 to help get under the cap, and nothing has changed in my finances. Do finances only change after the end of the month?

Thanks