Dolphinsim--A great online multiplayer college basketball league

[isherdish]

My first text sim experience was with Andy Dolphin sports games. He did it all: football, baseball, basketball and hockey. I must have played over 1000 seasons combined back in the day on my trusty Gateway desktop. Then I moved on because games got prettier and better. Or so I thought. The games definitely got prettier, but I am not so much sure about better. One of my wife's friends actually works with Andy Dolphin at Raytheon and I thought you know what, this dude is really smart. I should check out his games again.

And guess what? His website is still around. Except instead of selling DOS games, his website has multiplayer leagues for every major sport. And the games still play true to the sport. Ratings matter. Strategy matters.

I decided to revisit one of my favorites: college basketball and am having a lot of fun with both. The college basketball league has around 50 active owners.
Here are some of the pros of the games:

College basketball:

1. Recruiting is a quick and transparent process. There are only three rounds and most of the recruiting gets taken care of the first round. Teams with high prestige have more points. Teams with low prestige have less points. How can teams with less prestige still recruit well? By prioritizing midlevel talent. High prestige teams will give higher priority to better players and will only give a certain amount of points and attention to lower ranked players. If you are able to get the right midrange talent and can mold that midrange talent into a winning group year after year, your team's prestige goes up which gives you more recruiting points and a better chance to compete against the big boys.

2. Game to game adjustments are encouraged, easy to make and effective. Notice your opponent is post centric? Run a 2-3 zone. Is your next opponent running a three guard offense? Go to a 3-2 to try to neutralize them. Facing a team with one superstar? Go to the box and one.

The same adjustments are there for offense as well. Is your hot shot point guard going up against a lead foot defender? Tell ,him to drive more and he will. If you notice the team you are facing is low on stamina, quicken the pace on offense and wear them down. Minor and major adjustments on both offense and defense are allowed and encouraged for true coaching aficionados.

Everything from pace, to motion, to who shoots from where can be adjusted on a game to game basis. On defense, everything from basic defensive philosophy (including individual man-to man matchups) to pressure and trapping can be adjusted on a game to game basis.

3. Multiple viable winning strategies- Purdue (led by 40 season veteran Coach Hitch) is leading the league in 3 point attempts with 997 attempts in 32 games. That is over 30 attempts a game. They are 23-9 and the 4 seed in the NCAA tournament. On the end of the spectrum is Iowa, also run by a human coach. They are near the bottom of the league at 3 point attempts with just 375 attempts in 30 games (12/g). Yet they are still 18-12 and are the 12th seed in the tournament. The game has incredible flexibility when it comes to coaching strategy. There is no one way to win. It is a matter of matching strategy to talent.


4. As a quad four school, in just my second year, I improved my team from 15-15 to 22-7 and qualified for the NIT. Quick turnarounds can happen!

5. Everything is automated! Games are played at 11:30 every day on the dot! Gives me something to look forward to each day. In fact here is the schedule for the upcoming weeks.

Date/Time Event
Mon Mar 22 11:30 (tier I finals) played
Mon Mar 22 11:30 coach moves announced
Mon Mar 22 11:30 coaches poll ballots mailed
Mon Mar 22 11:30 all-star ballots mailed
Tue Mar 23 11:30 tournament bracket announced
Fri Mar 26 11:30 coaches poll calculated
Fri Mar 26 11:30 tournament day 1 played
Mon Mar 29 11:30 tournament day 2 played
Tue Mar 30 11:30 tournament day 3 played
Wed Mar 31 11:30 tournament day 4 played
Thu Apr 1 11:30 tournament day 5 played
Fri Apr 2 11:30 tournament day 6 played
Sat Apr 3 11:30 tournament day 7 played
Sat Apr 3 11:30 coaches poll ballots mailed
Sat Apr 3 11:30 season ends
Mon Apr 5 11:30 coaches poll calculated
Fri Apr 9 11:30 season initialization
Thu Apr 15 11:30 inviting round round 1 run

The website can be intimidating to navigate so if people have questions, let me know in here. It is definitely a worthwhile to play and fun to compete against others online.

There is a demo season and then after that it is 5.95 a season. A season takes about three months to get through so it is a pretty good deal.

[isherdish]

If people are on the fence...
Now is the perfect time to join because you can set up your schedule for next season and add all the cupcakes you want to help boost that win total! First season is free. Then I think each additional season is 5 bucks and the seasons take 3 months. Pretty good value!

Also, recruiting will start soon. The battle between human coaches over the top recruits is real. Lots of game theory expertise being put to the test.

One of the strengths of the game is its elegant and concise rating system. There is a clear connection between the rating and the performance of the players. To get a feel for the game lets look at 3 different types of players.

Ratings/Stats

NAME

Position

Year

Passing/Handling

Def

Aggression

Intelligence

Scoring

Shooting

Stamina

Height

Pts

Asts

Stls

TO

Hunt

PG

SR

11

5

4

6

2

2

1

6'10"

4

9.8

2.2

1.5

Hunt is close to the perfect game manager type. His passing and handling are incredible, and the intelligence modifier helps him out as well. He is not going to shoot a lot because of his low aggression modifier. Arizona State, the team he is on, doesn't have a ton of talent, but they had a winning record because of Hunt's ability to control the game.

Let's look at Walton next

Ratings/Stats

NAME

Position

Year

Passing/Handling

Def

Aggression

Intelligence

Scoring

Shooting

Stamina

Height

Pts

Asts

FG Pct

3’s Pct

Walton

SG

SR

4

1

4

3

1

10

11

6'1"

19

1.2

35%

39%

Walton is a catch and shoot specialist. He can knock down the open 3 . What the 1 on scoring combined with the 4 on ball handling tells us is he can't score in any other way other than catch and shoot 3's. This is backed up by the fact he actually shoots worse from 2 than 3. He is the type of player who would definitely benefit from a high motion offense.

Finally, let's look at Reed.

Ratings/Stats

NAME

Position

Year

Passing/Handling

Def

Aggression

Intelligence

Scoring

Shooting

Stamina

Height

Pts

FG Pct

FTA

Reed

SF

JR

6

2

5

6

10

3

5

6'6"

23

50.1

6.8

Reed is a slashing type with an excellent nose for the bucket. He puts his head down and gets to the basket and draws fouls. He will still shoot the occasional 3, but this is the type of scorer that benefits from iso ball.

As you can see, with a quick glance, you can easily scout and categorize players.

It's simple but has a lot of depth and nuance.