Alright boyz, here we go!!! The NHL EHM 2005 Discussion

[klayman]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

Has anyone else noticed that injuries seem to come in bunches? I don't know if it's just me, but it seems like if one guy goes down (for more than a few days) at least one to three more will follow. Right now I have had three players go down to multiple week injuries in a few days. Then I will have long stretches of relative good health. It's odd.

I haven't really noticed that, but I have noticed a high number of injuries happening when right after I load the game.

[klayman]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

I have run into a problem with my AHL farm team. The head coach is terrible. He is horrible at developling talent. It seems almost any prospect I bring up to the AHL wallows under his crappy tutelege without ever showing any great progress. In fact, it seems better for me to bring a youngster to the NHL and have him sit on the bench or play limited minutes than it is to leave him in the AHL. I can't fire the guy either. It isn't killing my team (back-to-back-to-back Stanley Cups and all ), but it is a bit frustrating to see some of my once promising prospects never reach their potential. Then again, maybe I am just drafting the wrong dudes.

You can always create a new GM and take over the farm club and handle it the way you want. It would be especially useful to change the practice schedules of the farm club, and make sure your guys are playing regularly.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by klayman

You can always create a new GM and take over the farm club and handle it the way you want. It would be especially useful to change the practice schedules of the farm club, and make sure your guys are playing regularly.

Hmmm... Interesting. Very interesting indeed. I like how you thik, k-man. I may try that. I imagine I could set it up so it wasn't too much of a burden.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by klayman

Under Filters you can adjust the Ability between Any, Potential, and Current. It might be that your scouts are showing you the potential of a player with his skills already close to maxed out, so like HB said he would have very little improvement. For the poorer attribute guys, this is most certainly the case, as the player is probably nowhere near his full potential yet.

Under what filters? I am confused...

Nevermid! Found it.

[klayman]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

Hmmm... Interesting. Very interesting indeed. I like how you thik, k-man. I may try that. I imagine I could set it up so it wasn't too much of a burden.

Sure. You could set it up the way you want, and then place the GM on vacation. There shouldn't be any changes to the roster or practice (if you say no to both of those in the options). Then you can come back and check every once in a while to make sure things are progressing the way you want, and it shouldn't interfer with your game at all.

This is all theory by the way, I haven't actually tried it.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by klayman

Sure. You could set it up the way you want, and then place the GM on vacation. There shouldn't be any changes to the roster or practice (if you say no to both of those in the options). Then you can come back and check every once in a while to make sure things are progressing the way you want, and it shouldn't interfer with your game at all.

This is all theory by the way, I haven't actually tried it.

I am going to give it a shot. If I don't like it I can always have him go into early retirement. I'll report back.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by klayman

Sure. You could set it up the way you want, and then place the GM on vacation. There shouldn't be any changes to the roster or practice (if you say no to both of those in the options). Then you can come back and check every once in a while to make sure things are progressing the way you want, and it shouldn't interfer with your game at all.

This is all theory by the way, I haven't actually tried it.

So I gave this a shot. It worked pretty well. I managed to hire a good head coach and some decent assistants. I then went on Holiday. I did keep getting an "AHL" screen every now and then, but that wasn't that bad. After a few weeks, however, I got a bit tired of it and retired the GM. Portland then went out and hired a really good GM in my place. He's got good stats. He kept 3 of the 5 assistants and my head coach. I think that should be enough to right the ship. All the coaches have good "Young player" skills and coaching skills to see that my guys develop or, at the least, wont waste away to nothing. If things fall apart their staff wise, I may try this again. Perhaps I will name all of my AHL GM's Winston Wolf from now on.

[riz]

Originally Posted by klayman

I haven't really noticed that, but I have noticed a high number of injuries happening when right after I load the game.

For this and other conspiracy theories/urban myths/superstitions about EHM (and FM), please refer to the thread here:

http://community.sigames.com/eve/ubb...5/m/1312006441

There is a link to the FM thread in the first post as well in case you want to check what myths the FM players have come up with

Edit:
P.S. ...and I did mean to say that there are no special cases coded in for injuries on when they should happen and especially nothing coded to treat human teams any different than other teams.

[sovereignstar]

Originally Posted by Karim

It happened for three games #78, #79, #80 and then 'corrected' itself so I didn't bother.

I see you did end up bothering and that your save game upload must've failed. Don't drop the ball, Karim!

[condors]

Playing a new game as the Flyers and making over the roster i dumped Leclair, Amonte, Burke, Ragnarson, and Brasher (clear up some salary and get younger) bring in Josh Green, Tomi Kallio, Alexi Kovalev, Glen Murray, Anson Carter, Corey Stillman, Valeri Bure, and Alexi Zhitnik. Doing very well was 2nd behind the Devils pretty much all season. We lose a few games and Markov is upset and thinks the team is under achieving(along with Kallio) next thing you know 12 guys are upset with the infighting on the squad. I lost 9 straight games and just kept losing. I started just unloading the unhappy players for peanuts. All the free agents i signed were unhappy. I sorta got the team winning but we ended up missing the playoffs. The team dramatically improved playing all the guys from the Phantoms but the talent level was much less. Now i have 23 draft picks(in this years draft) and a ton of salary to spend.

[Karim]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar

I see you did end up bothering and that your save game upload must've failed. Don't drop the ball, Karim!

Yeah, when it happened again I decided to upload it. But FileZilla kept timing out and corrupted the zip. For some reason it didn't see the transfer in progress.

I've downloaded Jim's Solecismic FTP. It seems to have worked; at least I didn't have to fiddle with a multitude of options.

[Honolulu_Blue]

My Capitals team is currently in the hunt for their fourth consecutive Stanley Cup. We're just about to start our first round series against Buffalo. It's not going to be easy. In early March we lost Ovechkin, arguably the best player in the NHL at the moment, to a torn MCL. He's not expected back until around the 3rd round (though luckily we still have Phil Kessell, arguably the second best player in the NHL). At the deadline we ended up trading for an old (36 or 37) Paul Kariya who is in the last year of his current contract to fill the gap, but he promptly went down with a knee injury and wont be available until the second round. We also lost grinder/penalty killing specialist Niklas Hagman.

Even with all these injuries the Capitals still have to be considered the favorites. They finished with 135 points and a deep and talented roster.

[Karim]

I'm in my fourth year with the Flames. We're coming off a year where we were swept by Ottawa in the finals. I loaded up by trading for Nash, Heatley, Horton, Kubina and went out and signed Witt and St. Louis. That's led to 64 wins and 135 points but it won't mean anything if it doesn't lead to a Cup win.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Karim

I'm in my fourth year with the Flames. We're coming off a year where we were swept by Ottawa in the finals. I loaded up by trading for Nash, Heatley, Horton, Kubina and went out and signed Witt and St. Louis. That's led to 64 wins and 135 points but it won't mean anything if it doesn't lead to a Cup win.

Wow. Now that's a stacked line-up! Nash, Heatly, and Horton are all quite young as well. A solid core for the future there...

[klayman]

It looks like I'll win the Crosby sweepstakes in my first year with the Oilers (I own 2 of the top 5 draft picks). Assuming I do get the first pick, has anybody played with Crosby right out of junior? Or should I send him back for another year? I am usually very hesitant to play 18 year olds in the NHL, but of course, he might be a special case.

[JeffR]

Play him right away. Might want to make sure that most of your coaching staff is good with young players, though.

[DaddyTorgo]

i played him right away. and he was the brightest star on my sucking Capitals team. Which doesn't say much. But I have no final sesason report, cuz as I have stated below I've kinda...put the game aside because of frustrations with being unsure as to how come I can't seem to win a damn game with a fairly loaded lineup.

[Karim]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

Wow. Now that's a stacked line-up! Nash, Heatly, and Horton are all quite young as well. A solid core for the future there...

Yeah, then I traded a 29 year old Samsonov (my third line winger!) who wanted too much money for Kenndal McArdle (22).

St. Louis - O'Neill - Iginla
Nash - Horton - Heatley
McArdle - Fisher - Michalek

After I lost to Ottawa in the finals, it turned out the difference was that they had three scoring lines whereas I was trying to have a 3rd line checking line. It didn't work. I added all the firepower and managed to beat the Devils in 5 the following year.

Of course, none of this would be possible if I didn't have a $76 milion budget!


DaddyTorgo,

Have you tried just letting the coach control tactics? I've found that more enjoyable (and successful). I prefer just concentrating on being the GM anyway.

[DaddyTorgo]

yeah i've tried just letting the coach control tactics, and lines and everything. here, just so we have some frame of reference i'll go in and post my lineups and my current record and what-not.

record: 8 - 25- 5 - 1

GF: 100 GA: 155

my tactics are currently set on default (with me in control of them) but that has yet to make a difference from what i can see in all of the trials i've done


lines:

Crosby - Peca - Zubris - Salo - Boumedienne
Carter - Halpern - Rosa - Boughner - Korolev
Orszagh - Perrault - Pettinger - Whitney - Boucher
Semin - ? - ? - Cairns - Hutchinson

okay, so it's not a "loaded" lineup, but with Crosby, Peca, Zubris, Carter, Halpern and Pavel Rosa, I feel like I should have more than 8 wins. My defense isn't great, but it's not THAT bad.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Karim

Yeah, then I traded a 29 year old Samsonov (my third line winger!) who wanted too much money for Kenndal McArdle (22).

St. Louis - O'Neill - Iginla
Nash - Horton - Heatley
McArdle - Fisher - Michalek

After I lost to Ottawa in the finals, it turned out the difference was that they had three scoring lines whereas I was trying to have a 3rd line checking line. It didn't work. I added all the firepower and managed to beat the Devils in 5 the following year.

Of course, none of this would be possible if I didn't have a $76 milion budget!


DaddyTorgo,

Have you tried just letting the coach control tactics? I've found that more enjoyable (and successful). I prefer just concentrating on being the GM anyway.

Very nice. Very nice indeed...

I just swept Vancouver to win my 4th straight Stanley Cup.

Here is the line-up (* indicates a fictional player)

Ovechkin - Horton - Kessel
Andrew Ladd - Tomas Pospisil - Zetterberg
Benoit Pouliot - Weiss - Ryan Stoa
Niklas Hagman - Frazee* - Michael Blunden

Jack Johnson - Derek Morris
Phanuef - MacDonald*
Carl Gunnarson - Steve Eminger

Henrik Lundqvist

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

okay, so it's not a "loaded" lineup, but with Crosby, Peca, Zubris, Carter, Halpern and Pavel Rosa, I feel like I should have more than 8 wins. My defense isn't great, but it's not THAT bad.

If you've got Sami Salo as your #1 guy, it's that bad.

Peca's not really a scorer; you'd probably be better off with Carter on the first line and Peca together with Halpern on a checking line. Rosa's pretty one-dimensional, so he wouldn't fit well with them. Semin and Whitney should be higher up on the depth chart; there's not much point in putting guys who'll never rise above being average NHLers (which is most of the team) ahead of them.

Bottom line, you're expecting a little too much from a team that's heavy on guys with very limited upsides. You're probably better off moving guys like Orszagh, Perreault, Boucher, and Boughner for draft picks and giving your better prospects a chance to develop. It'll be at least another season before you're not awful, but if you use that time to get your young guys experience rather than trying to scrape out as many wins as possible, you'll be in much better shape a year or two down the road.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by JeffR

If you've got Sami Salo as your #1 guy, it's that bad.

Peca's not really a scorer; you'd probably be better off with Carter on the first line and Peca together with Halpern on a checking line. Rosa's pretty one-dimensional, so he wouldn't fit well with them. Semin and Whitney should be higher up on the depth chart; there's not much point in putting guys who'll never rise above being average NHLers (which is most of the team) ahead of them.

Bottom line, you're expecting a little too much from a team that's heavy on guys with very limited upsides. You're probably better off moving guys like Orszagh, Perreault, Boucher, and Boughner for draft picks and giving your better prospects a chance to develop. It'll be at least another season before you're not awful, but if you use that time to get your young guys experience rather than trying to scrape out as many wins as possible, you'll be in much better shape a year or two down the road.

fair enough...fair enough. Yeah my defense is weak, as I acknowledge. That's a major focus for the future for me. I'm not a total hockey dingdong, I do know something about the game, but I definately would say I fit more in the "casual fan" mold. My idea was sorta to have blended lines, lines with a mixture of talent (peca and halpern as the grit and the setup men for crosby and carter respectively, both set to pass really). besides, this is the way that the "ask coach" feature assigns them. Which tells me that maybe that doesn't work as well as it should?

[Johnny93g]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

yeah i've tried just letting the coach control tactics, and lines and everything. here, just so we have some frame of reference i'll go in and post my lineups and my current record and what-not.

record: 8 - 25- 5 - 1

GF: 100 GA: 155

my tactics are currently set on default (with me in control of them) but that has yet to make a difference from what i can see in all of the trials i've done


lines:

Crosby - Peca - Zubris - Salo - Boumedienne
Carter - Halpern - Rosa - Boughner - Korolev
Orszagh - Perrault - Pettinger - Whitney - Boucher
Semin - ? - ? - Cairns - Hutchinson

okay, so it's not a "loaded" lineup, but with Crosby, Peca, Zubris, Carter, Halpern and Pavel Rosa, I feel like I should have more than 8 wins. My defense isn't great, but it's not THAT bad.

I think its pretty obvious why your losing, that team sucks!!!
I wouldnt expect them to be much better then 8-25

[DaddyTorgo]

hey i hadta suck pretty bad to win the Crosby-sweepstakes, which I wanted to do. i've dumped off a lot of bad-salary to this point and i'm going to die out the rest of this year and then see if i can't get some quality FA defensemen to go with my young forward prospects. I just didn't want to go the "quick fix" route and sign all the top FA's, i wanted to try more of a "rebuilding" game

edit: heyyy...don't knock my "upside" guys. in a couple years they'll be great

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Karim

Of course, none of this would be possible if I didn't have a $76 milion budget!

My budget was reduced for the first time in a few years. I had a max of $80 million (though I never quite reached that number). After bringing home my foruth consecutive Cup my budget was reduced to US $71 million. We were losing money every year. I was able to trim my roster down to US $68 million, but had to ship Derek Morris off to do so. With Jack Johnson and Morris I had the #1 and #2 d-men in the NHL. I think I should be able to survive sans-Morris. I shipped him off to Buffalo for Braydon Couburn. He's younger and cheaper and will certainly do. Phaneuf really came into his own last year, leading all my d-men in points and leading the league in +/-. I think we will be ok.

[Karim]

I never max out either. I'm usually between $60-$65 million and that gets me what I want. I try and avoid having >$3 million players on the third line. One place I don't sacrifice is defensive depth; my 7th defenceman makes $2 million.

[DaddyTorgo]

60-65 million? No wonder you guys can field these kinda teams! I'm looking at 40 million as my budget with the Caps in year 2!

[ice4277]

I hope you guys enjoy all that money while you still can. Your free-spending ways are almost over.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

60-65 million? No wonder you guys can field these kinda teams! I'm looking at 40 million as my budget with the Caps in year 2!

I play the Caps. I was hovering around $40 million for the first few years. Then it went up to $60 million. I was stunned. I had budgeted for a $40 million roster and all of a sudden had a free run at free agents. Then in a year or to it increased to $70. Finally, it reached $80 million. It's now back down to $71. I tended to keep the pay-roll in the mid-to-high $60s.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by ice4277

I hope you guys enjoy all that money while you still can. Your free-spending ways are almost over.

Yes. We have lived off the fat for too long.

Once SI releases the patch I think I will scrap my career and start back over with the Wings. I've always wanted to play the Wings but felt like their big budget made it a little too easy. I have played two extended careers in both EHMs. In each career the Red Wings were just horrible. Awful. Perenial doormats of the West who made bone-head move after bone-head move. No more!

[JeffR]

Yeah, the player budgets tend to get a little crazy after a few years - I'm looking through an 06-07 game to give Riz an idea of what needs to change with the NHL finances for the North American release, and the payrolls range from $35 to $90 million. When I combine those with adjustments to take the other expenses to a realistic level (they're too low now) and match them up with similar adjustments to revenues (also too low, but not as much), 90% of the teams in the league lose money and the total is something like a half-billion in losses (for comparison, the Levitt Report said the teams lost $273 million in 02-03.)

Then again, maybe that's where we really were headed without a cap.

[ice4277]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

I have played two extended careers in both EHMs. In each career the Red Wings were just horrible. Awful. Perenial doormats of the West who made bone-head move after bone-head move.

Its almost like an alternate reality in which the lockout never happens and a 47-year old Chris Chelios is leading the team in scoring.

[ice4277]

dola

While earning 17mil a year.

[DaddyTorgo]

alright. well i'll look forward to my budget jumping up then, so I can sign some marquee free agents to go with my youth.

oh yeah and I've been through another offseason, my team now looks like this, and seems to have had more success in exhibition games.

Ovechkin - Crosby - Guerin
Carter - Skille - Kessell
Semin - Petr (not Peter) Sykora - Lupul
Sejna - Rosa - Bret Hull

Fisher - Mezei
Salo - Ward
Salei - Boumedienne

Ouellett in goal

disclaimer: this is just how the coach setup my lines, I havn't gone through and fixed them up myself, but that's basically my roster. hoping to have more success this coming year

[henry296]

I was wondering what everyone's thoughts about the trade AI. About every dynasty or team report seems to have at least 2 of the top prospeects (Ovechkin, Crosby, Kessel). How are you able to acquire such talent. I agree starting with Washington helps.

Has anyone seen one of these players become a marginal talent like other #1 overalls like a Daigle or Redden.

[DaddyTorgo]

well let me answer for me at least. I of course had Ovechkin when the game started, and then tanked season 1 to get Crosby, and then tried to win but ended up tanking season 2 (hadn't even brought Ovechkin over so i guess tanking was to be expected) so I won the draft again and was able to draft Kessell (although he was projected to go #3 overall I liked his mix of talent more than the guy who was projected #1). So that's how I did it.

[henry296]

Does the game incorporate a draft lottery to prevent tanking?

[jbmagic]

Originally Posted by henry296

Does the game incorporate a draft lottery to prevent tanking?

yes

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

Is there an NHL 06 in the planning or is this it for the next few.

[jbmagic]

Originally Posted by CHEMICAL SOLDIER

Is there an NHL 06 in the planning or is this it for the next few.

Sept 2006 wil be the release of EHM 2006

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by henry296

Has anyone seen one of these players become a marginal talent like other #1 overalls like a Daigle or Redden.

The last 10 #1 picks from a save game that's in 2019 (it's also from a few patches back, so that may have changed things):

2007 - big star, 875 career points in 11 seasons
2008 - took a while to develop, eventually became a #1-2 defenseman in his mid-20's, never been an all-star or won an award
2009 - star, has hit 100 points twice
2010 - goalie, was terrible his first few seasons but improved after getting traded, probably in the top 5-10 in the league now
2011 - huge rookie year, was an all-star and ROY, hasn't quite made it back to that level since but still a good #1-2 guy
2012 - steady 50-60 point guy
2013 - 20-30 points his first four years, then had a breakout year with 75
2014 - another dependable 50-60 point forward
2015 - goalie, starter in Columbus for two years but hasn't been spectacular and spent a little time in the AHL last year
2016 - goalie, starter on a very bad Colorado team so his numbers aren't great, but seems to be doing well given the circumstances
2017 - 65+ points his first two years, looks like a potential star

No total failures, but no guarantee of getting a franchise player with the #1, either. And the second-overall picks were a lot worse. The 2013 #2, a forward, set a personal best for goals in a season last year: 3.

[Pumpy Tudors]

So when's the next patch coming out?

[JeffR]

I'm pretty happy with the beta patch I'm using right now, but I don't get to make the decision.

[riz]

Originally Posted by henry296

Does the game incorporate a draft lottery to prevent tanking?

Yes, every season features the normal draft lottery. So tanking does not guarantee you the top pick.

[DaddyTorgo]

first real success!! beat the Pens 5-1 in the second game of the year!

man that feels damn good

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

first real success!! beat the Pens 5-1 in the second game of the year!

man that feels damn good

Congrats!! It does feel good, doesn't it? It's great thrashing a team like that.

[DaddyTorgo]

5-3 win in my 4th game (after a second loss, now 2-2). Looks like my offense is coming alive.

edit: mired around .500, but hopefully a 2-1 win over last year's Stanley Cup Champion NJ Devils will be a catalyst!

[JeffR]

The 2.02 patch is now released. Download link is http://www.sigames.com/downloads.php?type=view&id=352 (be careful to select the correct version, i.e. the boxed one or the downloadable try-and-buy), list of changes at http://community.sigames.com/groupee...5/m/7602097741.

Savegames should work fine with it - I've played a season and a half in it with a game started with the last patch version with no problems. This'll (barring the discovery of serious issues) be the last patch before the North American release updates the game to the 2005-06 season - at that point there'll be a free patch that'll do the same for current owners of the game.

[sachmo71]

whooT!

[jbmagic]

Jeffr

thanks