Hattrick: The Basics
Here are the basics to the Hattrick game. I am explaining this, so it is easier for non-Hattrickers to follow along with this dynasty, as well as others.
1. The Youth Squad
The youth squad is one of the most important elements in Hattrick. Every week, a team can promote one player from the youth squad that their team supports, and this activity costs a team $2,000. This is how new players are introduced into the game. Each week, a team can invest either $5,000, $10,000, or $20,000 into their youth squad. The more money a team puts into its youth squad, the better the quality of the squad, and therefore the better quality (generally) of young players that will be promoted. There is still a large amount of luck involved in the youth pull, but one good 17-year-old player can make the entire investment worthwhile. There is a serious premium placed on good young players (I will get more into the reasons for this later), and this is the best way to get those players on one's team.
2. Specialists (the staff)
There are seven different type of staff members that you can have supporting your Hattrick team. Each of these specialists costs a team $1,500 per week.
Goaltending Coach: Improves the 'form' (more on this term later) and skill level of your goaltenders.
Assistant Coach: Assists your head coach in training players other than goalkeepers.
Sports Psychologist: Increases team confidence and team spirit.
Spokesperson: Improves the attitude of your team's sponsors and supporters.
Economist: If your team has a large debt or a large amount of cash on hand, economists can reduce your interest payments, or invest your surplus.
Physiotherapist: Reduces the chance of player injuries.
Doctor: Rehabilitates injured players more rapidly.
3. Supporters and Sponsors
Supporters are those hardcore fans that buy season tickets, adorn their domiciles with team paraphernalia, get arrested for stalking your team's star forward, name their firstborn children after your goalkeeper (even if the baby is the wrong gender), that sort of thing. The size of your team's supporter club gives a good indication of your team's general popularity, and also give the manager an indication of the number of seats they can expect to sell for a home game.
Sponsors are another significant source of income for a club. If your team succeeds and you keep your sponsors happy, you can expect to see healthy rises in the amount of sponsorship money you receive from week to week. However, if you go on a losing streak or fail to provide adequate "entertainment" for these fat-cats, you can soon find yourself in financial hardships.
4. Economy
A team's income and expenses are handled on a weekly basis, and come from a number of sources.
Income
Crowd: Home league and cup matches are the single best source of income for a club. This includes ticket prices, concessions, parking, etc.
Sponsors: The money you receive for having gawdy endorsements blanketing your stadium and your players' jerseys.
Financial: Any interest you are earning on your current cash holdings, courtesy of economists.
Temporary: A catch-all for other sources of income, including annual dues from new supporters (they pay $30 each per season), and the sale of players on the transfer market (more on this later).
Expenses
Arena: The bigger your arena, the more you have to spend on upkeep for the thing every week.
Wages: Players get a paycheck every week, whether they play or not. Big-name talent can command some serious moolah, especially for a newer team (like mine).
Interest: Go into debt, and the creditors will be looking for interest payments every week. If you go over $500,000 into debt, you lose your team.
Temporary: Temporary expenses include stadium improvements, money spent on new players, and the $2,000 it costs to promote a player from the youth squad.
Staff: The weekly salary of your specialists.
Youth Squad: The weekly investment your team makes in its youth squad.
Sponsors hand out prize money at the end of each season for teams finishing in 1st-4th place in each series. Also, teams earn bonus money for earning the possibility of promotion to a higher division (more on this later).
5. Formations and Positions
The basic formation in Hattrick is a 4-4-2 formation. There are always three 'layers' of players in front of the goalkeeper. 4-4-2 means that there are 4 defensemen (layer 1), 4 midfielders (layer 2) and 2 forwards (layer 3). Hattrick concerns itself with six basic player positions.
Goalkeeper: The guy who sits in front of the net. Duh!
Central Defender: Defenders who try to control the area of the pitch (field) in front of the net.
Wingback: Defenders that play to the sides of the net.
Inner Midfielder: A very important position. Concentrate on controlling the middle of the field, and are key to maintaining ball possession.
Winger: Play to the sides of the inner midfielders. This is the most versatile position on the field. They can play offensively, defensively, or in towards the middle to assist with ball possession.
Forwards: Strikers. These guys get a lot of the goals (along with a lot of the glory, and a lot of the chicks).
6. Players
There are 8 basic skills that, when combined with other factors, determine how well a player performs at a given position.
Stamina: General endurance. Important for midfielders, because they run all over the pitch.
Playmaking: The key skill for inner midfielders. The biggest determining factor in ball possession.
Winger: The ability to create scoring chances by advancing down the sides. Important for Wingbacks and especially Wingers.
Scoring: Putting the ball into the net. Duh! Only important for forwards.
Goaltending: I hope I don't need to explain this.
Passing: Nice for forwards and midfielders, but not critical.
Defending: Stopping opponent attacks. Key for central defenders and wingbacks.
Set Pieces: Free kicks, penalty kicks, corner kicks. Having a player on the pitch who is good at set pieces can make a huge difference.
Each of these skills is rated from Disastrous (level 1) to Divine (level 20). I will list all of these level ratings here, but note that it will be a LONG time before you see a Divine player playing for the Screamin' Seamen.
1 - Disastrous
2 - Wretched
3 - Poor
4 - Weak
5 - Inadequate
6 - Passable
7 - Solid
8 - Excellent
9 - Formidable
10 - Outstanding
11 - Brilliant
12 - Magnificent
13 - World Class
14 - Supernatural
15 - Titanic
16 - Extra-Terrestrial
17 - Mythical
18 - Magical
19 - Utopian
20 - Divine
Players are also rated in something called 'form,' which gives an indication of how the player is performing at the moment. Like all athletes, players in hattrick have good streaks and bad streaks. A player on a good streak, or in good 'form,' might be rated as excellent (the maximum for form), while a player on a cold streak may be rated as poor (or worse).
7. Training
Each week, the team owner decides what sort of training the team will perform. Each of the eight skills mentioned earlier can be trained, as well as General training, which helps out player form as well as providing minimal goalkeeper training. There are two things to keep in mind when deciding the sort of training to conduct.
First, young players learn considerably faster than older players. This is why a premium is placed on good, young players. A 17-year-old Excellent defender has the possibility of becoming Divine someday. However, a 25-year-old Excellent defender will never reach that level of expertise. Also, player skills begin to degrade at age 30, so a 17-year-old will be on your team for a lot longer.
Second, a player has to play at a position that uses the skill you are training, in order to receive the benefits of training for that week. If you are training defending, and a player plays as a forward that week, he will receive no training.
8. The Transfer Market
Aside from youth pulls, the only way to get a new player for your team is to use the transfer market. This is an open bidding system, similar to E-Bay and that sort of thing. When a player is placed on the transfer market, a minimum bid can be placed by the team selling the player. The player then remains on the transfer market for exactly 72 hours. Players are assessed 'values,' depending on their age and their skills, but this may or may not have much to do with what that player can fetch on the transfer market. Again, player age is the key factor here. A 17-year-old will fetch a lot more than a 25-year old with the same skill level, for the reasons discussed earlier.
9. The Series System
Each series, or 'conference,' in Hattrick contains 8 teams. These are the teams that you compete directly with during each season. The season is 14 weeks long, so your team plays against each other team in your series twice, once at home and once on the road. League matches are always played on Sundays. You get three points for a win, and one point for a draw. The team with the most points at the end of the season wins the series, and has a chance at promotion.
The top Division in the U.S. is Major League, and has only one series in it. Each division beneath Major League has four times as many series' as the one above it. So, beneath Major League there is Division 2, which has 4 series in it (II.1 through II.4). Beneath that, there are 16 series in Division 3 (III.1 through III.16), then Division 4 (IV.1 through IV.64), and finally Division 5 (V.1 through V.256).
This part gets complicated, so I won't get into too much detail. The top team in each series may or may not move up, depending on how well they did. The 2nd through 4th place teams in each series are safe, and will be in the same series next season. The 5th and 6th place teams have to play a qualification match against series winners from the division below them, in order to keep their spot. The 7th and 8th place teams are automatically relegated to the division below them. They obviously suck and have no business in their current division. :P
10. The Cup and Friendly Matches
Each season, countries have their national cups. Most of the teams in a given country are able to participate in what amounts to a giant, single elimination tournament. These cup matches are played on Wednesdays, and are re-seeded after each round.
So, if there are 64 teams in a cup, then the #1 team plays #64, #2 plays #63, and so on. If #63 should happen to beat #2, they are rewarded by getting to play #1 the following week. Needless to say, these cups are definitely geared towards the top teams, but can be a nice source of additional revenue from ticket sales for the smaller teams involved.
Once a team has been eliminated from their national cup, they can then arrange 'friendly' matches with any other team that is also available. These matches don't mean anything as far as standings and statistics go. They are simply a way to provide training for additional players, generating a little extra income from those willing to pay to see a friendly match, and the like.
OK, this turned out a little more long-winded than I had originally intended, but as you can tell, this game can prove to be rather complex. There are several other facets that I have chosen not to get into, but I think this should give the casual reader a general idea of how things work.
If any of you are confused by any of this, or have questions not covered by what I have detailed here, please feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer them.
Up Next: An overview of the Screamin' Seamen Football Club as it stood at the beginning of Season 18, prepared to begin its assault on Division 4. Stay tuned!