G__damn, TCY is one heckuva tough game

[MylesKnight]

I'm assuming that TCY related posts still go on this board..

I'm getting back into TCY after my long ago attempt at a UCF Dynasty some years ago...

Going with the Golden Knights again (of course) and my goodness, did this game get even tougher after the last patch that Jim put in? My first season was not as competitive as I had hoped for with a team rated in the 50-60 range before the season started.. We went 3-8, and were blown out in most of the losses.

The second season, I played a lot of young players and, as I thought we would, we struggled mightly.. After starting the year 3-1, against a year weak schedule might I add, we finished up 0'fer the rest of the season, going 3-8 overall.

Now, I thought that the bumps that we took during that season would start to pay off in the third year, but, check this out.... First game of the season against South Florida, we get a much needed W (please keep in mind USF went 0-11 the year before, so not a great win of course), but in this game, 7, count 'em, 7 starters go down, 6 with season ending injuries, including my starting QB, TB, and top WR from a season ago, all Sophomores who started as True Freshmen and guys that I was hoping for big things from beginning this season.. Also, a top LB and both starting CB's are out for the year, and to top things off, my Kicker is listed as out for 9 Weeks, meaning he'll miss at least 4-5 games. And this all happened in ONE GAME!

Add to this the fact that during my Second and now Third Seasons, I've had a total of 3 Players Suspended for Academics, all solid recruits of my own.

Now, I did struggle a bit for a while with my former UCF Dynasty, but over the course of 20+ Seasons in that attempt, I NEVER had this much bad luck.

Let me add that I do play with a few House Rules to toughen the game up even more (No Recruiting of the Top 250 Players Nationally, 60 Scholarship Team Limit, etc..), but man, TCY seems even tougher than it ever did before, now that I have gotten back into it.

What a Great Game though, even with the old Conference Realignments still in place..

[Poli]

I heart TCY.

[MizzouRah]

TCY is the HARDEST text sim I've played. (Although it could be because I've used Missouri once and Sol-8 teams from there on out)

I really hope in TCY 2 Jim makes some of the tedius stuff have global options for "coach does this".

[M GO BLUE!!!]

I still can't play TCY on the toughest setting... I get absolutly killed in recruiting and end up running even great Michigan teams into the ground within a few seasons.

I do think the next toughest setting is a little too easy though...

[st.cronin]

Originally Posted by M GO BLUE!!!

I still can't play TCY on the toughest setting... I get absolutly killed in recruiting and end up running even great Michigan teams into the ground within a few seasons.

I do think the next toughest setting is a little too easy though...

It's not THAT hard, even on the hardest setting.

- recruit smart players
- redshirt everybody
- use a few bribes every year on key recruits - I usually pick out two must haves, and throw two bribes at each of them
- hire good assistants

At the hardest level, you will still have to get very lucky to wina Natl Champ, but once you get your program going you will be close to 10 wins every year.

[MylesKnight]

I do Redshirt as much as possible, but am not usual able to Redshirt everyone, usually somewhere in the range of 50-75% or so. How much of a difference does it make when a program is able to Redshirt darn near everyone, each and every season?

No bribes though, never would do that.. Takes some of the spirit out of the game in my eyes.

Good comments guys... I love this game.

Any other stories of terrible snakebitin' kind of luck in this game?

[st.cronin]

Originally Posted by MylesKnight

I do Redshirt as much as possible, but am not usual able to Redshirt everyone, usually somewhere in the range of 50-75% or so. How much of a difference does it make when a program is able to Redshirt darn near everyone, each and every season?

No bribes though, never would do that.. Takes some of the spirit out of the game in my eyes.

Redshirting can make a HUGE difference. Very few players reach their potential without redshirting. Even a mediocre recruiting class, if you end up with all of them starting as 5th year seniors, that should be a good team. Your down years should be years when you are starting lots of non-seniors.

Your AI opponents are bribing.

[M GO BLUE!!!]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

It's not THAT hard, even on the hardest setting.

- recruit smart players
- redshirt everybody
- use a few bribes every year on key recruits - I usually pick out two must haves, and throw two bribes at each of them
- hire good assistants

At the hardest level, you will still have to get very lucky to wina Natl Champ, but once you get your program going you will be close to 10 wins every year.

I never bribe after getting busted the very first time.

[MylesKnight]

St. C., how much bribing do you believe the AI is really doing behind the scenes?

As I mentioned earlier, I do play with House Rules, but I do find that I am able to recruit pretty darn well for players ranked right below my allowed starting point (not allowed to recruit the Top 250 Recruits). I'm sure it has something to do with the location (UCF/Orlando), and the ton of quality recruits in this neck of the woods.

[st.cronin]

Originally Posted by MylesKnight

St. C., how much bribing do you believe the AI is really doing behind the scenes?

I don't think all teams bribe, I think it depends on the coach. It may depend on their needs, as well. I think teams that do bribe bribe about as often as I described.

[JW]

I love the game. Started a new career during the holidays as UL-Monroe in the Sunbelt. My house rules on recruiting are that I recruit first La, Ark, and Ms. After I have maxed out contacts with recruits there (I look for smart players and good players who want to be close to home.) I go to Tx and the second belt of surrounding states. Only after I've maxed out contacts there do I look nationally, for good players who haven't already signed. So most of my players are from La and the surrounding states. I also recruit smart players. After two bad seasons I'm competing for the Sunbelt title every year. The real challenge is getting past the first round of the playoffs (obviously I use a playoff system). I'm running the flexbone this time and having fun with that. It is my favorite TCY offense.

[MylesKnight]

JW, I use similar house rules, only recruiting from the state of Florida unless I absolutely cannot find talent for the particular position I am needing to recruit, and then I check out Georgia and then South Carolina if necessary.

One of these days I will Coach a UCF TCY Team to a Tournament Berth... It may take 100 Seasons, but some day... Best season thus far was a 8-3 year, 6-2 in MAC East Play, in my former UCF Dynasty in about Year #15 or so. Finished up with a Top 40 Ranking, but nowhere near enough for a Playoff Spot.

As for Game Plans, I like to use the I-Formation, with a very balanced Offense, and solid 4-3 Defense.. In my former Dynasty I believe I concentrated on recruiting Offense first, but am slanting more toward the Defensive side of the ball this time around.

[Poli]

My current dynasty I didn't really hammer myself down to a set of house rules.

I want kids "close" to the school. I think of all the ones I'm currently recruiting, none are much further than a 6 hour drive from the U.

I also didn't bother recruiting kids I shouldn't be recruiting. I don't think other SOL-8 schools are trying for that #100 kid, even though he's instate, so I probably shouldn't.

The only time I broke this so far, was some freakish 100ish DE from Alabama that wasn't offered a scholarship by any SEC team, though he'd been contacted by about 10 schools.

I think the best after him are a few in the 500s.

[st.cronin]

A couple of recruiting tips... guys that are high in academic prep, but low in athletic prep (say 80/20) are undervalued by the AI. With a redshirt and then some playing time, those guys can sometimes be impact players their junior and senior years.

Also, players who idolize the top schools - like USC. Those players often don't get recruited by your competition, figuring that USC will snap them up. But sometimes USC ignores them, and you can pick up a quality guy with no fight.

[JW]

Defense question. I run a 4-3 but will switch to a 50 against a team that runs a whole lot. Does that help me at all? It seems to, or at least to not hurt me, but I don't really do much analysis.

I just finsihed a two-year run with a great QB who played four years and led me to a 21-1 regular season record over his last two years and playoff berths both years, and, yes, first-round playoff losses. The 28-24 playoff loss to Michigan State was the high point of my career so far. That was fun. But with his graduation I slipped to 7-4 with no post-season the next year. I am now going to start a red-shirt freshman with great potential this coming season over a QB with much better red ratings. I find that nothing helps a QB develop better than lots of playing time. I am hoping to be back in the playoffs in a couple of years.

Recruiting. I try to recruit like ULM actually recruits, looking hard at local players and getting nearly everyone from inside the region, but finding a few good players from across the country that nobody else signed for some reason. I deviate in going after only smarter players though, lol.

[st.cronin]

Originally Posted by JW

Defense question. I run a 4-3 but will switch to a 50 against a team that runs a whole lot. Does that help me at all? It seems to, or at least to not hurt me, but I don't really do much analysis.

I think it does help.

[MylesKnight]

Update on the crazy injury situation...

Now 5 Games into the season, and I now have no other choice than to use QB #4 on the Depth Chart, a Walk On Junior who has never taken a snap.. My top two QB's are out for the season, and #3 is listed as injured for 9 Weeks and Doubtful.. Geez.

My Injury List is no approaching the size of a full recruiting class, and check this out... I've looked through every other roster, and my team has 5 more injured players than the second most injured squad. Thing is, my coaches are listed as decent and good when it comes to injury avoidance...

Weird stuff.

[JW]

Injuries seem to occur in clusters. I ran into something similar last season, losing my top three running backs in about three weeks. And my coordinator has a good injury avoidance rating. A couple of seasons before that, I lost four defensive linemen in about four weeks. And another season I lost my top three wideouts. All in the last two or three days, so it is fresh in my mind.

The other thing that bugs me about TCY is that one game every season where you are heavily favored against some 1-6 or so team, but you lose, or nearly lose. That is simply too much like real college football.

[MylesKnight]

I'm now in the early stages of Season Four, and have noticed that the University of Wyoming Football Program has yet to win a game in Three-Plus Seasons. I've seen the occasional 0-11 season in TCY, but never such a streak of futility as this one. 0-for-36 now for the Cowboys.

With the location of the state and lack of recruits in not only Wyo, but also nearly all other surrounding states, I can see why they struggle in TCY, but this is awful.

Anyone else seen a similar kind of streak in TCY?

[BishopMVP]

I think I've seen Missouri get losing streaks in the 60+ range when I'm doing some fairly quick-simming.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

I think I've seen Missouri get losing streaks in the 60+ range when I'm doing some fairly quick-simming.

[the_meanstrosity]

I've been playing TCY lately as well (the college bowl bug got me) and I'm having a great time with it. I went back in the archives and scrounged up all of the TCY strategies I could so if anyone wants to share I'll be more than happy to cut and paste what I've got from various posters in the past.

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by MylesKnight

I'm now in the early stages of Season Four, and have noticed that the University of Wyoming Football Program has yet to win a game in Three-Plus Seasons. I've seen the occasional 0-11 season in TCY, but never such a streak of futility as this one. 0-for-36 now for the Cowboys.

With the location of the state and lack of recruits in not only Wyo, but also nearly all other surrounding states, I can see why they struggle in TCY, but this is awful.

Anyone else seen a similar kind of streak in TCY?

Very sad indeed, but for some reason I can't stop smiling about this


Actually in my Sims Wyoming has usually been a 3 to 5 win team with an occasional 6 or 7 year thrown in. Of all the MWC teams New Mexico is typically the weakest, with UNLV a close second.

[-Mojo Jojo-]

I've found TCY to be a challenging game for the first 4-5 seasons, but usually pull through using tactics similar to St. Cronin (minus the bribes). After targeting recruits, I lay on heavy early on (to the extent that I get the "further contacts won't help" message on every guy I want by week 5 of the recruiting season). Also I make heavy use of the FOFC tactics thread on player development and time allocation (which is a part of the game I don't care for and so am happy put on autopilot using the recommendations there). Usually this puts me over the top in four to six seasons (sooner if I had a good team to start with). Sometimes recruiting doesn't pan out well and it takes seven or eight.

But after the initial phases of a TCY game it becomes ridiculously easy, due, IMHO, to imbalances in how the prestige system works. You won't win the championship every year, but as Cronin said, you'll win 10 games and go to a quality bowl year in and year out. Prestige just snowballs way too much. You keep seeing the same teams (your own included) at the top of rankings year after year, including podunk schools who build up massive prestige by beating up their podunk conferences each year. It would have been nice to have game options related to that; say a slider that divided prestige between individual schools and a conference as a whole (on one end, the prestige of schools in a conference is entirely dependent on their own play, on the other end school prestige is largely a function of conference prestige).

[MylesKnight]

I've gotten more into this game with the College Football Season in full swing.

And I can also say that for the first time in ever in my long history of playing TCY, I've made the Playoffs. In the seventh season of my second UCF Dynasty (the first one went 20+ seasons without one postseason berth), the Knights went 10-1 in the Regular Season, 7-1 in the MAC (I know they are in CUSA now in real life), won the MAC Championship Game and advanced to the Second Round of the National Championship Tournament before getting thumped by the eventual National Champions, California.

I'm actually somewhat surprised to see that we've done so well while maintaining the built-in house rules of no recruiting of the Top 250 Ranked Players Nationally and keeping with the self-imposed limit of 60 scholarships at all times. I used these same rules in my previous UCF Dynasty and was only able to accomplish at best a 8-3 season.

Here is the year-by-year for this Dynasty, record-wise.

2004 3-8 (3-5 MAC East)
2005 3-8 (2-6)
2006 8-3 (6-2)
2007 8-3 (6-2)
2008 7-4 (5-3)
2009 7-4 (5-3)
2010 12-2 (7-1 - MAC Champions and 2nd Round Playoff Appearance)
2011 11-3 (8-0 - MAC Champions and 2nd Round Playoff Appearance)


I will say that I believe it to be nearly impossible to do much better than this with the recruiting restrictions I've implemented. The top teams in TCY truly dominate the recruiting scene.

Heck, when one of those top notch programs decides to go after a guy that I'm looking at (namely Florida and Miami, as I focus almost entirely on recruiting in the Sunshine State), they get him. No matter how loaded they may be at that position already, or no matter how long I've been on the recruit, once they jump in it's game over.

I do love this game though. TCY Rocks!

By the way, Wyoming went nearly the first four seasons without a win, losing 41 straight before somehow beating what was at the time a 7-1 and Top 25 Ranked UNLV team. Since the 0-41 start, the Pokes have been much more successful, winning 7 of their next 47. They're now almost up to that one win a year average for the game thus far.

How about this for a tough challenge. Taking Wyoming in TCY, with a self implemented recruiting rule of only being able to recruit the home state and the three nearby states without a Division I-A Program (Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota). How well do you think you could do with this setup?

[Doug5984]

Reading this thread really made me miss TCY- so I went and pulled out the case, go to install it on the new computer and the CD is missing

Probably better off though since I should be studying accounting instead of playing football.

[dawgfan]

I'd love to see another TCY. In the meantime, I've been using NCAA '08 as my college football sim fix. I don't much care for the changes to the gameplay for the games themselves, but the changes to the dynasty mode (primarily recruiting) are interesting, though much longer to play through than before.

Too bad Jim doesn't have a console - there are some very interesting directions EA has taken with regard to representing recruiting in this series. I'm not sure he ought to implement all of them, but I think there are some wrinkles they've added to the process that might act to keep the runaway prestige issue in TCY from reappearing as badly in TCY2.

One thing I'd like to see both of them add is simulating coaches retiring - that's often one of the major reasons traditional powers drop off some, plus it opens up coaching vacancies that you (as the player) might qualify for.

[GoDukes]

The amount of injuries is an absolute game killer for me

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by GoDukes

The amount of injuries is an absolute game killer for me

Without any detailed study, it seems as though injuries happen at something similar to a realistic rate; the problem of course is that in TCY, you don't have 85 man rosters, so there's less depth to withstand those injuries.

[st.cronin]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

the runaway prestige issue in TCY from reappearing as badly in TCY2

A couple of lessons which could be learned from BBCF and FBCB:

- include a conference prestige rating, the worst Big 10 team should be at least as appealing a destination for a prospect as the best MAC team

- Tie prestige to strength of schedule. I don't think this is a factor in tcy at all, at least if it is its not much. Going 6-5 in the Sun Belt should not make your prestige jump up.

And on a different note, allow us to edit things like prestige and schedules, even bowl matchups. One of the things that drives me nuts about TCY is that, for example, Wisconsin plays Oregon every year, and Notre Dame plays Connecticut every year. In BBCF I can set Notre Dame's schedule each and every year however I want to.

[astrosfan64]

It was a great game. But, I wouldn't call it hard. The polls were a bit wacked.

Overall though, I played this game a ton. I've moved onto Bowl Bound for my college fix now.

I would love to see a TCY 2 though. After all these years, I can only imagine how good it would be if Jim would just make it!

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

A couple of lessons which could be learned from BBCF and FBCB:

- include a conference prestige rating, the worst Big 10 team should be at least as appealing a destination for a prospect as the best MAC team

- Tie prestige to strength of schedule. I don't think this is a factor in tcy at all, at least if it is its not much. Going 6-5 in the Sun Belt should not make your prestige jump up.

And on a different note, allow us to edit things like prestige and schedules, even bowl matchups. One of the things that drives me nuts about TCY is that, for example, Wisconsin plays Oregon every year, and Notre Dame plays Connecticut every year. In BBCF I can set Notre Dame's schedule each and every year however I want to.

Yep - conference prestige is one of the possible recruiting appeals in NCAA '08. Also included are facilities, early playing time, program stability, coach prestige, pro factory and other factors that appeal in real life to recruits. They also add in a "promises" stage near the end with various promises you can make to recruits - make a promise and it boosts their interest in you, but if you don't consistently follow through on your promises, then those promises lose credibility as your integrity rating takes a beating.

And the ability to customize schedules is also in there. I suspect that Jim would be able to undo the permanent rivalries at this point given the much higher average home computer specs. One thing that TCY touched on that NCAA doesn't have is a more realistic scheduling of non-conference teams. Besides just trying to bid for non-conference games as was the case in TCY (big schools wouldn't do home and aways with small schools), I'd also like to see financial incentives for scheduling the big schools - in NCAA '08 there's little incentive to schedule tough away games, outside of whatever boost you might get in BCS ratings. In reality, smaller programs have to schedule away games to the big boys in order to bring in enough revenue to their programs. Maybe work out a financial model and include a budget for hiring assistant coaches and how much scouting and/or visiting you can do of recruits (I believe BBCF had something along these lines).

I've outlined a ton of other improvements I'd like to see in a TCY2 in past threads, but these are some immediate things that jump to mind from playing NCAA '08.

[GoDukes]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

Without any detailed study, it seems as though injuries happen at something similar to a realistic rate; the problem of course is that in TCY, you don't have 85 man rosters, so there's less depth to withstand those injuries.

I think that happen at a very unrealistic rate. How many times would I be playing a 3rd or 4th string QB? That's not realistic, IMO.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by GoDukes

I think that happen at a very unrealistic rate. How many times would I be playing a 3rd or 4th string QB? That's not realistic, IMO.

How often are you reduced to a 3rd or 4th string QB? If you look at all 119 Division 1 schools during a season, I'm sure there are schools that at some point during the season are down to their 3rd or 4th QB.

Knowing how Jim researches his games, I'd be extremely surprised if he wasn't using actual injury data to guide this portion of the game. As I mentioned though, it may be that he didn't scale back the rate of injuries to match the reduced roster size limitation he put in for TCY (as compared to NCAA limitations).

[MylesKnight]

Originally Posted by MylesKnight

I'm actually somewhat surprised to see that we've done so well while maintaining the built-in house rules of no recruiting of the Top 250 Ranked Players Nationally and keeping with the self-imposed limit of 60 scholarships at all times. I used these same rules in my previous UCF Dynasty and was only able to accomplish at best a 8-3 season.

Here is the year-by-year for this Dynasty, record-wise.

2004 3-8 (3-5 MAC East)
2005 3-8 (2-6)
2006 8-3 (6-2)
2007 8-3 (6-2)
2008 7-4 (5-3)
2009 7-4 (5-3)
2010 12-2 (7-1 - MAC Champions and 2nd Round Playoff Appearance)
2011 11-3 (8-0 - MAC Champions and 2nd Round Playoff Appearance)


By the way, Wyoming went nearly the first four seasons without a win, losing 41 straight before somehow beating what was at the time a 7-1 and Top 25 Ranked UNLV team. Since the 0-41 start, the Pokes have been much more successful, winning 7 of their next 47. They're now almost up to that one win a year average for the game thus far.

How about this for a tough challenge. Taking Wyoming in TCY, with a self implemented recruiting rule of only being able to recruit the home state and the three nearby states without a Division I-A Program (Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota). How well do you think you could do with this setup?

Well, it has been a while since that Dynasty ended due to that always Blue Screen/Hard Drive Going Ape $hit scenario that always seems to pop it's dirty Commie head up at the worst time humanly possible.

Anyway, time for a TCY Dynasty once again.. Coaching Wyoming at the toughest level of TCY with massive recruiting restrictions?? Thoughts?? Any other ideas along these lines?

[Izulde]

Wyoming is brutal enough vanilla. I can't imagine what it'd be like with those hosing rules.

[kingnebwsu]

Hosing rules? Freudian slip?

[Vegas Vic]

This will never happen, but if Jim and Arlie ever did a collaborative effort to combine the best features of TCY and BBCF, I would happily pay good money for it, and I'll bet a lot of other people would too.

[DanGarion]

I've won 6 of the last Pac-10 titles and a couple National Championships...

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by Vegas Vic

This will never happen, but if Jim and Arlie ever did a collaborative effort to combine the best features of TCY and BBCF, I would happily pay good money for it, and I'll bet a lot of other people would too.

+1

I would pay good money for a new version of either game at this point

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by Vegas Vic

This will never happen, but if Jim and Arlie ever did a collaborative effort to combine the best features of TCY and BBCF, I would happily pay good money for it, and I'll bet a lot of other people would too.

That's the same suggestion I made with Baseball, Shaun, Marcus, and Clay would make a killer game together!

[st.cronin]

An SI style football sim, with college and pro football integrated, with Solecismic's engine and the ability to edit schedules and conferences ... I think I would be willing to pay 200 dollars for that.

[TCY Junkie]

I play with the hardest settings and with a team from sol 8. I usually kill everyone until playoff time and then the tables usually turn. I like the challenge. Sometimes I win a game or two though in the playoffs. Oh, I put the sol 8 in Alaska.

Jim, I love you. I probably would have knocked up some girl and have child support payments now if it weren't for you. I really couldn't ask for a better game, plus you updated a couple times for free. Although I would like another version, I could never get frustrated with someone who created such a brilliant game.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by GoDukes

I think that happen at a very unrealistic rate. How many times would I be playing a 3rd or 4th string QB? That's not realistic, IMO.

Funny this thread got bumped this season, because as it so happens, the Pac-10 has had a rash of injuries to QB's in 2008. To review:

Arizona - Tuitama was the #1 going in to the season and has stayed healthy
ASU - Carpenter was the #1 going in to the season and while he's now playing with a broken bone in his ankle, has been the starter
Cal - Longshore and Riley have swapped the #1 spot all season, mostly on performance but also minor injuries
Oregon - Lost their #1 QB Costa in Fall Camp; lost their #2 QB Roper in game 2; their #3 QB Masoli has been the main guy since, but also has had minor injury issues that have put #4 & #5 QB's Harper and Thomas on the field
OSU - Moevao has been the #1 QB all season, but is now injured and #2 QB Canfield may have to go instead
Stanford - Pritchard has been the #1 QB but has been sat down periodically due to ineffectiveness
UCLA - The #1 (Cowan) and #2 (Olsen) QB's both went down in Spring, leaving #3 QB Craft to be the guy all season
USC - Sanchez has been the #1 all season, but minor injuries have given #2 Mustain some playing time
Washington - Locker was the #1 QB until going down with an injury in game 4, pushing #2 QB Fouch into the lineup
WSU - #1 QB Rogers was pulled due to ineffectiveness, then was lost to injury; #2 QB Lopina took over, but was lost to injury for a few games, but is now back; #3 QB Lobbestael took over when Lopina got hurt, but is now hurt himself and out, forcing them to burn the redshirt of #4 QB Levenseller

So in one season, that's 3 of the 10 Pac-10 schools that have been reduced to playing their #3 QB's due to injury, and 2 of them have had to reach down to their #4 QB's. And the season isn't done yet...