deano simplifies it a bit.    Spend your first season learning and not making mistakes.   Bad decisions, regardless of what you know, will mire you in .500 land forever. 

Make small mistakes.  I stayed completely out of big time free agency and trading for big contracts for my first 10 seasons. I'm sure that some will follow and tell you what a bad idea that is ans you are just throwing your first 10 seasons away, but I figured why make a mistake in my 5th season of HBD that I will still be living with in my 15th season of HBD.  I knew that I didn't know anything.  Instead, l decided to learn the game and leave myself payroll flexibility so that when I understand how to spend I can. 

Contracts are 5 seasons max.    Signing a big FA isn't a 10 season mistake.

Posted by MikeT23 on 11/29/2011 8:03:00 PM (view original):
Contracts are 5 seasons max.    Signing a big FA isn't a 10 season mistake.

10th season for me in HBD, not 10th with a team.  Sorry, I should have been more clear.

my advice is to sitemail some people who have agreed to be mentors.... find 2-3 that respond in a timely fashion.

ask them everything, don't do much without asking (make trades, release players, sign FA's, etc)...

it took me 2-3 seasons before i felt comfy with how the game works, and even now i feel like a beginner sometimes (and just above a beginner the rest)...

Whenever a thread like this gets posted, I always add this piece of advice:

Read the forums.

Ream 'em again.

Go back and refer to them as you go.

I'm a geek, but I spent two months devouring the forums before ever taking the plunge to play HBD (the only game I play on this site).  That, more than anything else helped me hit the ground running. I know my situation is unique, but I managed to pick a pretty good team and made a couple of trades at the deadline to push me over the top.  Won the WS my first ever season.  Most of that, of course, is luck, but I have zero doubt that going through the forums is extremely valuable.

Even though I made those trades, I'm still a believer in "less is more" in your first season with a franchise - mainly because I know most people learn things by doing, not reading.  I'm a 'book learner' so for me I had to get as much info as I could before starting.

You can learn almost everything about the game by reading this section of the forum & Suggestions.

Then study your world & 2 others (skip worlds with a few super teams). Look at the players with the best & worst stats & note their ratings.

Look at winning teams & losing teams & see what they do. You don't need an all-star at every position to win.

The only thing you can't study in another world is how prospects progress. But there are a lot of forum posts. And in your world you can see the pattern.

If you've done all that, go for it. Your going to make some mistakes. That's how you'll get better. Don't be afraid to ask for help, but don't be afraid to play the game either.

Can change the name and the city of the franchise that I take over if I get into HBD?

yes you can - when you take over a team you can change the city and name

A small handful of private worlds have restrictions about changing cities and changing team names for purposes of historical continuity, so make sure you check with the commish of the world first.

Public worlds have no such restrictions.