It's conventional forum wisdom that SimAI puts forth all its recruiting effort at the beginning, and then no more thereafter. Has this ever been explicitly confirmed by WhatIf?

I ask because I was trying to fill my final scholarship at DIII (signings end tonight at 11:59) on the cheap and so was going after someone who had fallen to me and had no suitors. Somewhere in the last 6 hours though, a DII SimAI team comes out of nowhere (from my perspective) and now has the guy considering him instead. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to wrestle him away from the DII school given my remaining money, but I'd like to avoid putting myself in this situation in the future. Are SimAI teams always a threat to steal guys late in the game?

i know at some point sims do a second recruiting effort...i assume so that the ones who lost their initial targets to human coaches don't end up with 10 walkons.  i always thought they went after players that had nobody recruiting them, but i'm unsure from your post if you had gotten the player to consider you first or not...

Sim puts in a 2nd round of recruiting efforts on undecided guys the day after signing starts.

I am convinced they put in a third round near the end of the recruiting period.  I don't think they will target anyone who is considering another school.  I think this last burst is to help prevent them from taking walk-ons.

Got it, thanks. I just hadn't come across this circumstance before. Thanks for the feedback.

there's also the possibility that the recruit lowers his requirements and will start considering a sim after the initial signings begin.

the same thing can happen for a human coach.  try dropping X amount of effort into a recruit in the first cycle and perhaps it not enough to get you on his consider list.  then two days later, without additional recruiting, he starts considering you when no other schools have shown equivilent effort.

Posted by _hannibal_ on 8/16/2011 8:45:00 AM (view original):
I am convinced they put in a third round near the end of the recruiting period.  I don't think they will target anyone who is considering another school.  I think this last burst is to help prevent them from taking walk-ons.

If you count each 3h cycle as a wave, then I guess there's a 4th wave and a 5th wave as well. One day after signing, Simai can possibly recruit one additional player per cycle until recruiting period is over. I was waiting for a dropdown in Naismith 2 seasons and on the last day, my list of potential dropdown targets shrank 1 per cycle until recruiting ended, with me getting none of the potential dropdowns.