In Naismith, UConn recruited Nathaniel Smith for the entire 1st session. Smith wanted to play (UConn VG with 25 minutes), wanted success (VG), strong defense (good), triangle offense (neutral), strong conference (good). The only competition in the first session was Providence, a C prestige team who went all in early. Neither UConn nor Providence plays triangle, so that's a wash. Providence was held at moderate, presumably offering all the visits (clearly heavy AP early on, as they offered a scholarship early). The Providence coach left the world after the season.

Fast forward to the second session, and after 2 recruiting cycles, SIM AI jumped to high on the considering list. This didn't look right at all. I knew the previous coach had exhausted all the visits. A+ to C prestige meant that even if the SIM AI was dumping 80 AP/cycle against my 40, it really shouldn't be gaining ground when I had a preference advantage as well (defense and now playing time, as I'd made PT promises). I had over 1000 AP, it's not like I had skimped on AP here, and was floating by trying to get other guys. So I sent a ticket. That probably sealed my fate - Smith signed with Providence on the next cycle, though UConn was up on the considering list 75-25.

According to CS, this is all explained by SIM just using a "hefty" amount of AP. No extra visits.

This looks like an obvious lie to me.

Here's what I assume happened. We know they finally fixed the longstanding mistake from the 3.0 rollout, where a new coach taking over is unable to offer visits done by the last coach. But the thing is, when a coach left and SIM AI took over, the previous coach's effort was never erased, SIM always got to keep that effort. I think probably they didn't account for that, and now SIM AI is able to do extra visits on top of what they kept from RS1 in those cases. I really don't see another explanation for how a C prestige team with preference disadvantages made up ground against me in 3 cycles in RS2.

But if others have another interpretation of what might have happened, or something I might have missed, I'd love to hear it.

Not an answer to your question, but since you brought up that 40 ap at a+ is equal to 80 at c: has anyone published a grid of equivalent effort requirements at different letter grades?

Just based on what I've unscientifically observed, I think it's possible that you're right. A+ vs C, esp when the A+ has the Wants Success and (presumably) defense advantage in preferences, is usually enough to keep the C prestige from getting to High given what you shared in terms of your recruiting effort.

The counter to that is there may be some slim chance the C could close the gap enough to barely make it to High if they dropped full AP every cycle. If I'm doing the math right, there were 24-25 cycles in play, so it would be possible for Prov to have dropped 1900-2000 AP if they did 80 every cycle. If they did do that (vs your 1000ish AP), it's possible it was just barely enough to get them in the roll.

The counter to that counter is that if Prov was Moderate during first cycle of session 2, then popped up to High during second cycle, it does seem unlikely that their 80 AP would be worth more than your 40 AP and propel them into the roll.

I'd bet cs has no idea how things really work. And certainly, how any changes made effect other things.

Posted by manonde01 on 9/27/2023 3:42:00 PM (view original):
Just based on what I've unscientifically observed, I think it's possible that you're right. A+ vs C, esp when the A+ has the Wants Success and (presumably) defense advantage in preferences, is usually enough to keep the C prestige from getting to High given what you shared in terms of your recruiting effort.

The counter to that is there may be some slim chance the C could close the gap enough to barely make it to High if they dropped full AP every cycle. If I'm doing the math right, there were 24-25 cycles in play, so it would be possible for Prov to have dropped 1900-2000 AP if they did 80 every cycle. If they did do that (vs your 1000ish AP), it's possible it was just barely enough to get them in the roll.

The counter to that counter is that if Prov was Moderate during first cycle of session 2, then popped up to High during second cycle, it does seem unlikely that their 80 AP would be worth more than your 40 AP and propel them into the roll.

CS's story is that it was 60 AP (apparently carried over from what the human coach was doing). And they claim that Providence started gaining on me at 60-39 as soon as we were only doing AP, despite the preference difference.

They did clarify that a sim will keep the wants to play preference when a previous coach made promises, and will honor promises, which I suppose I should have suspected since they aren't dropping effort credit; but I assumed since they didn't use promises, that they wouldn't honor them. UConn still has the overall preference advantage (success, defense) and large prestige advantage. Gaining on 60-39 just isn't what I've ever experienced in that situation. I was spending 80 AP at C Richmond on a recruit where I had overall preference advantages (rebuild and distance, though mitigated by offensive set), and could hardly get any traction - I don't know for sure, but I don't see the teams I was battling spending more than 40 AP on this guy.

I don't know if the sim was doing visits - I guess it's possible it was, and they have now quietly fixed that part and just don't want to admit it to me because I'm a pain in the ***, lol - but I do think definitely there's something to the equation that is wonky, something that they're either missing or not sharing; whether it was related to a change, or what, I have no idea. I do know that this kind of thing is not something a human coach can pull off. And CS would know that if they ever actually played this game.

i sort of only half-read the whole thread before i was gonna post, but then i re-read your OP and basically i was thinking the same thing - that maybe the recent change allowed the sims to do stuff at the start of 3.0. or else, perhaps the other coach didn't fully exhaust visits, maybe there were just a couple/few left? might be worth shooting them a sitemail and seeing what they say?

the ap explanation kinda makes no sense, how would the guy go from 0% to 25% from a creeping small AP advantage, in just like 2 cycles right?

i'm not sure i totally follow this bit -

A+ to C prestige meant that even if the SIM AI was dumping 80 AP/cycle against my 40, it really shouldn't be gaining ground when I had a preference advantage as well (defense and now playing time, as I'd made PT promises).

what makes your PT an advantage, isn't it sort of a disadvantage overall if the other guy did them early, before all his effort? and then its a wash on a going-forward basis, once you put yours on? when did you do the PT?

doubt it matters, but did prov prestige change from RS1 to RS2?