its been a long time since i cared about the going-ons of sims during recruiting (got a d+ d1 a couple weeks ago), and a lot has changed since then. kinda wondering if folks know how it works? both in general but couple questions -

1) do sims still have primary targets and secondary targets? meaning outside of preferences, will a sim spend a lot more effort on one target compared to another; do you have to spend a lot more (outside prefs for both teams) to beat some sims compared to others? i know sims apply effort over time so its harder later but i don't mean that. i think shoe has talked about... the number of AP they spend per cycle early on, maybe?

for discussion's sake, prior to 3.0, sims had it seemed like 1 priority target per season which they went after substantially harder than the rest (at least double, probably more like triple over most other sim targets). i know sim recruiting changed a lot, curious if a similar concept exists.

2) what is the deal with sims and recruiting locally / regionally? they used to recruit nationally - on a random basis. i know sims are generally speaking supposed to recruiting locally now. anyone able to quantify that at all, do they stay within 500 miles until the end of RS2, etc?

The higher prestige sims seem to spread attention points around early, showing up on lots of players. Don't know if you can tell how they prioritize but they seem to target recruits with preference matches (except for close to home/far from home). They don't make promises so that is an advantage for the human coach. And, apparently, once they get to Moderate or High/Very High, if you drive them back down to Very Low, they give up on that recruit.
As far as distance, I've seen them recruit up to 1000 miles away and they recruit internationals too.

I don’t think they do the 1 primary thing anymore, at least I haven’t noticed it. Just going by what I remember from the times when I’ve taken over for a sim after coaching change, and could look at their recruiting history. As I recall, the AP was always in the 20s, like 21-27 or so per cycle. They seem to shoot around and see what sticks. I don’t think I ever saw a sim do visits in recruiting history, so for a while I wasn’t even convinced they did, but I am now; though I think it’s usually just a visit or maybe two at a time, not a bunch like we do. They will certainly fight for recruits if you let them hang around, so you want to get them to very low ASAP.

As shoe3 noted, they still use AP even if they're at very low, so they never technically "give up". Its not a large amount though so its really only relevant when a D1 sim shows up on a recruit that a D3 human is going after.

I didn't spend a lot of time in D3, but I had a few instances where I was the only school and at moderate. Then a D1 sim showed up at very low and moved up to moderate within a few cycles.

Posted by mlitney on 3/21/2021 6:20:00 PM (view original):
As shoe3 noted, they still use AP even if they're at very low, so they never technically "give up". Its not a large amount though so its really only relevant when a D1 sim shows up on a recruit that a D3 human is going after.

I didn't spend a lot of time in D3, but I had a few instances where I was the only school and at moderate. Then a D1 sim showed up at very low and moved up to moderate within a few cycles.

To be clear, they will give up. But sometimes they *don’t* give up at very low, which I think folks misunderstand sometimes. They will keep going *if they see a path to victory* which is to say, if you are a D3 team and you drop effort early on a D1 recruit because the one sim you were battling went to very low after your scholarship offer, you might occasionally get burned when they resurrect. It doesn’t happen often though, and not usually to higher prestige programs. Certainly not to D1 programs, I wouldn’t think.

Posted by gillispie1 on 3/21/2021 12:55:00 PM (view original):
its been a long time since i cared about the going-ons of sims during recruiting (got a d+ d1 a couple weeks ago), and a lot has changed since then. kinda wondering if folks know how it works? both in general but couple questions -

1) do sims still have primary targets and secondary targets? meaning outside of preferences, will a sim spend a lot more effort on one target compared to another; do you have to spend a lot more (outside prefs for both teams) to beat some sims compared to others? i know sims apply effort over time so its harder later but i don't mean that. i think shoe has talked about... the number of AP they spend per cycle early on, maybe?

for discussion's sake, prior to 3.0, sims had it seemed like 1 priority target per season which they went after substantially harder than the rest (at least double, probably more like triple over most other sim targets). i know sim recruiting changed a lot, curious if a similar concept exists.

2) what is the deal with sims and recruiting locally / regionally? they used to recruit nationally - on a random basis. i know sims are generally speaking supposed to recruiting locally now. anyone able to quantify that at all, do they stay within 500 miles until the end of RS2, etc?

All sim targets are equal focus, although they start spending money in battles at a pretty rapid pace (often you'll come onto someone late and have to go 17 HVs on or something to knock sims to Moderate at D+ D1)

I just took over Baylor in Iba. Baylor had only two open scholarships (so 60 APs total), and SIM only pursued two recruits, signing them both in RS1. 30 APs on each every cycle, offering a scholarship to each as soon as it was unlocked (I assume). 420 APs total on the first recruit, 450 APs on the second (he signed one cycle later than the first one).

Now, after the first recruit signed, SIM would have had 40 APs left to play with. But he only offered 30 to that second guy for that next cycle, so what he did with the other 10, who knows.

I assume that after he filled the second scholarship, he stopped recruiting.

My recent battle with a SIM makes me feel they have a primary and go all in. I was A prestige against a C+ SIM, it took ~160 AP to unlock scholly for a D2 recruit (D2 schools) There were 2 very bad preferences so I know that impacted heavy. 15 early HVs and 1 CV + minutes for very good preference and the SIM matched the entire time and kept the AP up as said. They had 3 schollies I believe so no way they spread it around

Do D1 sims quit after a D2 offers a scholarship? For example, if I beat a D1 Sim to a scholly offer in session one will they back off or continue to pursue?

It's not an issue of offering a scholarship first, necessarily. You have to be far enough ahead to have them at VL

My experience across all 3 divisions is that if you've unlocked everything for a recruit AND get the SIM to VL, they don't come back. That might not be exact but it's been my experience 100% of the time

I agree with jweatherman. I've never had one come back from Very Low.
I have heard that it has happened before in very rare circumstances, which suggests the Sims still do put minimal effort in once they're pushed down to VL. But not enough to be concerned with, especially if they've been at VL for at least 2 cycles.

Posted by CPA_ROD on 1/20/2023 6:34:00 PM (view original):
I agree with jweatherman. I've never had one come back from Very Low.
I have heard that it has happened before in very rare circumstances, which suggests the Sims still do put minimal effort in once they're pushed down to VL. But not enough to be concerned with, especially if they've been at VL for at least 2 cycles.

Same .. get them (SIMAI) to Very Low and you are usually good to go. You do need to do it quicky if you are a D2 team on a D1 player that has a D1 SIMAI on them. If you do it slowly, the SIMAI will put back in effort. IF you knock them down to very low in one turn, I've never had them come back.

CPA ROD- " I've never had one come back from Very Low"

Same.

i dont think it was in this thread but it was some other sim discussion... what seems to be the situation is, it seems like basically sims will spend their first maybe 3 cycles after they engage, but then if very low, will bail. so if a sim shows up as very low, they might spend again the next cycle or two, just a little bit, so if they are on the cusp of very low / low they quite possibly will get up to low and then keep spending on account of being very low.

basically we were all saying 'so in summary once very low its over?' and a couple folks said, not quite, they'd seen a sim go up from very low, but only right after the sim appeared or in the first couple cycles of recruiting overall (which is also right after the sim appeared).

Well, there's a first time for everything. I had a sim come back from Very Low for the first time. There was one sim on the player that I pushed down to Very Low at the start of RS1 by getting the scholly offered early. And then another Sim jumped on him later in RS1 (but also at Very Low). And on day 5 of RS1, one of them jumped up to Low. I was putting 5 AP on him every cycle while they were at Very Low. Unfortunately, I wasn't paying close enough attention to see if it was the sim on him at the beginning or the one that came in later on (but I suspect based on Gil's post above, it was within the first several cycles after the 2nd school jumped in--so probably them). I offered promises and they're both back at Very Low now, so no big deal. I just figured I would share.