Ideas for TCY "challenge" career?

QuikSand · 03-02-2005, 03:31 PM

I have something of an itch to play a game again... and don't have an immediate lead. I was thinking I might fire up TCY for another go (it always appeals to me, at least until I have played a few seasons and get bored again) -- abd realized that I have never really explored any sets of truly restrictive house ruls in TCY before. I have played all sorts of FOF challenge careers, and usually have enjoyed them, but really haven't done much with TCY other that play all-out or use sensible rules.

Anyone out there have any ideas for an interesting TCY career concept? I generally like playing in the MAC, so I'll be going with a fairly small school almost certainly. But past that, I'm fairly open. I don't like limits that make the game all about luck -- like the "one state" challenge in FOF, which makes the game hard, but your successes come mostly from the happenstance of the players who happen to come along whom you can pursue.

Any thoughts?

QuikSand · 03-02-2005, 03:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WSUCougar

This is a simplistic one that I've never tried but always sounds kind of fun. Pick a handful of majors and limit yourself to those recruits. Rename your school to something appropriate.

Possible. But I fear that this woudl turn out to put too much into the hands of pure fortune... if a few star players who are amendable to my school come along in the right majors, I'm golden, otherwise, I'm screwed.

Of course, I have never really played TCY with a lousy roster... so maybe it would be interesting anyway. *shurg*

WSUCougar · 03-02-2005, 03:47 PM

This is a simplistic one that I've never tried but always sounds kind of fun. Pick a handful of majors and limit yourself to those recruits. Rename your school to something appropriate.

dawgfan · 03-02-2005, 03:55 PM

Well, you've said you enjoy playing as a MAC team, so maybe this won't do it for you (or maybe you've already tackled these challenges) but I've always figured that playing as the U of Hawaii, especially if you put the Sol-8 in some other state, would be particularly difficult due to the distance factor. Without the Sol-8 in-state, Hawaii generates very few 50+ rated recruits and not very many recruits period, and it doesn't seem like the visit cost break you get within your "region" helps much for Hawaii - yeah, you can focus on Calfornia, but that first visit is going to be expensive.

I suppose another limit you could impose would be some restriction on the total number of visits and/or phone calls you can make to a particular recruit.

You could also impose a scholarship restriction on yourself and manually limit yourself to a certain number of scholarship players.

Buzzbee · 03-02-2005, 03:58 PM

What about a Red and Blue states challenge?

It's been a while since I fired up TCY, but if I recall correctly you have four colors of recruits. Green, Blue, Red and Black. I'm not sure if anyone has ever tried this, but what about limiting yourself to Red and Blue recruits only. Starting out as a small school, there should be plenty to choose from, but as you build a successful program, the pool of players seems like it would shrink, as more players would be willing to come to your school.

Not sure if this would be challenging enough, or if it would be too tough. Just tossing out an idea.

Buzzbee · 03-02-2005, 04:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dawgfan

Well, you've said you enjoy playing as a MAC team, so maybe this won't do it for you (or maybe you've already tackled these challenges) but I've always figured that playing as the U of Hawaii, especially if you put the Sol-8 in some other state, would be particularly difficult due to the distance factor. Without the Sol-8 in-state, Hawaii generates very few 50+ rated recruits and not very many recruits period, and it doesn't seem like the visit cost break you get within your "region" helps much for Hawaii - yeah, you can focus on Calfornia, but that first visit is going to be expensive.

I suppose another limit you could impose would be some restriction on the total number of visits and/or phone calls you can make to a particular recruit.

You could also impose a scholarship restriction on yourself and manually limit yourself to a certain number of scholarship players.

The problem is that many top players want to get as far away from home as possible. With Hawaii's huge distance factor, this makes them easy pickin's and results in not much of a challenge.

Klinglerware · 03-02-2005, 04:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Buzzbee

The problem is that many top players want to get as far away from home as possible. With Hawaii's huge distance factor, this makes them easy pickin's and results in not much of a challenge.

Actually, if you play at the most difficult level, those preferences are masked. There are enough players who want to get away from home to put together a great team. Finding them (playing at the hardest level and without using TCY helper) is really really hard...

WSUCougar · 03-02-2005, 04:14 PM

How about a "Civil War" challenge? Stick yourself in a Union hotbed school (like Boston College, Temple, or *cough* Army), then limit yourself to recruiting/raiding former Confederate states. Or vice-versa (you could use one of those hideously bad Louisiana-Podunk schools).

Buzzbee · 03-02-2005, 04:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Klinglerware

Actually, if you play at the most difficult level, those preferences are masked. There are enough players who want to get away from home to put together a great team. Finding them (playing at the hardest level and without using TCY helper) is really really hard...

Valid point. I had forgotten the Fog of War at the hardest level.

dawgfan · 03-02-2005, 04:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Klinglerware

Actually, if you play at the most difficult level, those preferences are masked. There are enough players who want to get away from home to put together a great team. Finding them (playing at the hardest level and without using TCY helper) is really really hard...

Not only that, even if you did know their preferences, the cost of visiting them is awfully high.

Klinglerware · 03-02-2005, 04:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dawgfan

Not only that, even if you did know their preferences, the cost of visiting them is awfully high.

Yeah, I would play as Hawaii a lot. I would usually offer without visiting--something I would never do playing as another school. If you're playing as Hawaii, you really can't recruit otherwise...

Buzzbee · 03-02-2005, 04:28 PM

Or you could go with an Athletics vs. Academics theme. Instead of focusing on smart players early on to build your academic prestige, only go after players in a certain academic range - maybe 700-900 or 800-1000. If a player flunks out, you lose a scholly. If a player graduates with straight A's, you get to recruit a player up to 100 points higher than your upper academic limit.

Again, just tossing out ideas in case one might stick.

dawgfan · 03-02-2005, 04:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Klinglerware

Yeah, I would play as Hawaii a lot. I would usually offer without visiting--something I would never do playing as another school. If you're playing as Hawaii, you really can't recruit otherwise...

I can imagine. Given the costs of doing business there, I would think this would be necessary.

As a side note, I almost never recruited players from Hawaii in my TCY careers, simply becuase the cost of going there (even if I was in the same region, or was recruiting players in the same region) was so high as to make it hardly worth the effort.

I'd be willing to bet that the actual per-capita output of Div 1-A football recruits from Hawaii is among the highest in the nation - Hawaii has a hard time keeping all their good players home what with the recruiting attention the state gets from mainland programs.

I don't know if Jim modeled in per-capita info like this in figuring the algorithms for how many prospects to create per state (I kind of doubt he did) but if he didn't, that would be an interesting addition to the next TCY. He should also reduce the distance penalty for recruiting Hawaii, to make it better reflect the attention the state actually gets in recruiting vs. the expected behavior of users in TCY due to the travel costs.

Klinglerware · 03-02-2005, 04:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dawgfan

I don't know if Jim modeled in per-capita info like this in figuring the algorithms for how many prospects to create per state (I kind of doubt he did) but if he didn't, that would be an interesting addition to the next TCY. He should also reduce the distance penalty for recruiting Hawaii, to make it better reflect the attention the state actually gets in recruiting vs. the expected behavior of users in TCY due to the travel costs.

I would think that he probably didn't use per-capita production. State population was probably used, since it seems that you see a lot of good players from New York and New England (which aren't great producers of 1-a football talent in real life). It also doesn't seem like the number of available Florida recruits in the game can support the three top Florida schools. I agree that a per-capita model for allocating recruits per state would be more true to life...

Swaggs · 03-02-2005, 05:24 PM

I did a UNLV career once, where I had to bribe at least 10 players a season. It was pretty fun. I played for about 4 seasons and had built a pretty solid team for my conference, but not a national power. My file got corrupted before I could go beyond that, though.

QuikSand · 10-16-2005, 05:27 PM

Another thought (and a bump)... maybe limit your team to one scholarship offer per week? It would be *very* tough to exp[ect to land all of them, so I'd expect you'd probably end up filling most years with non-scholarship players at many positions - would be tough to put together a solid roster everywhere, so game planning would probably be more important.

Schmidty · 10-16-2005, 05:59 PM

The best house rules? Playing blindfolded.

03-02-2005, 03:47 PM	#3
WSUCougar Rider Of Rohan Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Port Angeles, WA or Helm's Deep	This is a simplistic one that I've never tried but always sounds kind of fun. Pick a handful of majors and limit yourself to those recruits. Rename your school to something appropriate. __________________ It's not the years...it's the mileage.

03-02-2005, 03:58 PM	#5
Buzzbee College Starter Join Date: Jun 2002	What about a Red and Blue states challenge? It's been a while since I fired up TCY, but if I recall correctly you have four colors of recruits. Green, Blue, Red and Black. I'm not sure if anyone has ever tried this, but what about limiting yourself to Red and Blue recruits only. Starting out as a small school, there should be plenty to choose from, but as you build a successful program, the pool of players seems like it would shrink, as more players would be willing to come to your school. Not sure if this would be challenging enough, or if it would be too tough. Just tossing out an idea. __________________ Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it. - Lou Holtz

03-02-2005, 04:14 PM	#8
WSUCougar Rider Of Rohan Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Port Angeles, WA or Helm's Deep	How about a "Civil War" challenge? Stick yourself in a Union hotbed school (like Boston College, Temple, or cough Army), then limit yourself to recruiting/raiding former Confederate states. Or vice-versa (you could use one of those hideously bad Louisiana-Podunk schools). __________________ It's not the years...it's the mileage.

03-02-2005, 04:28 PM	#12
Buzzbee College Starter Join Date: Jun 2002	Or you could go with an Athletics vs. Academics theme. Instead of focusing on smart players early on to build your academic prestige, only go after players in a certain academic range - maybe 700-900 or 800-1000. If a player flunks out, you lose a scholly. If a player graduates with straight A's, you get to recruit a player up to 100 points higher than your upper academic limit. Again, just tossing out ideas in case one might stick. __________________ Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it. - Lou Holtz

03-02-2005, 05:24 PM	#15
Swaggs Coordinator Join Date: Oct 2000	I did a UNLV career once, where I had to bribe at least 10 players a season. It was pretty fun. I played for about 4 seasons and had built a pretty solid team for my conference, but not a national power. My file got corrupted before I could go beyond that, though. __________________ DOWN WITH HATTRICK!!! The RWBL Are you reading In The Bleachers?

03-02-2005, 03:55 PM	#4
dawgfan Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Seattle	Well, you've said you enjoy playing as a MAC team, so maybe this won't do it for you (or maybe you've already tackled these challenges) but I've always figured that playing as the U of Hawaii, especially if you put the Sol-8 in some other state, would be particularly difficult due to the distance factor. Without the Sol-8 in-state, Hawaii generates very few 50+ rated recruits and not very many recruits period, and it doesn't seem like the visit cost break you get within your "region" helps much for Hawaii - yeah, you can focus on Calfornia, but that first visit is going to be expensive. I suppose another limit you could impose would be some restriction on the total number of visits and/or phone calls you can make to a particular recruit. You could also impose a scholarship restriction on yourself and manually limit yourself to a certain number of scholarship players.

10-16-2005, 05:27 PM	#16
QuikSand lolzcat Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Annapolis, Md	Another thought (and a bump)... maybe limit your team to one scholarship offer per week? It would be very tough to exp[ect to land all of them, so I'd expect you'd probably end up filling most years with non-scholarship players at many positions - would be tough to put together a solid roster everywhere, so game planning would probably be more important.

10-16-2005, 05:59 PM	#17
Schmidty Coordinator Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Early, TX	The best house rules? Playing blindfolded. __________________ Just beat the devil out of it!!! - Bob Ross

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