Posted by pallas on 10/1/2019 5:36:00 PM (view original):
Posted by p6453 on 10/1/2019 4:14:00 PM (view original):
Posted by gillispie1 on 10/1/2019 4:08:00 PM (view original):
Posted by p6453 on 10/1/2019 4:00:00 PM (view original):
Why I LOVE this game...
My D3 team in Phelan is ranked #1 and I'm in my first Final Four in 7 real-life years.
Meanwhile in Knight my #10 ranked King's College team loses to a 1-6 squad by 10...as a 62-point favorite.
my first season back was a co-coaching one and we pulled the #1 seed starting a bunch of freshman. our real team coasts through the CT and then loses the 1v64 game. meanwhile i picked up a solo team about a week or two after the first one, but it was 2/day so basically the tournaments happen at the same time - and despite going into session 2 with 5 openings, no idea how to recruit, and low expectations - we get lucky on some dice rolls, get to 10 players, and end up winning the title.
just the way it goes sometimes!
I wouldn't have this game any other way, though. I feel I'm a bit in over my head in the Final Four but we're riding it as far as we can.
Interesting matchup in the F4, as I play the Coach that took over for me when I took a break from Phelan...I'm playing with several of his recruits and beat him in non-conference play.
It's funny that you guys mention this. My dad and I have been having recent conversations about this very topic, about not getting as upset about losses, in general. I don't know if it's because I'm at two of my destination jobs (Oklahoma State, Indiana) and the pressure to get every single win is lessened, or if it's just me coming to understand the nature of the game and the engine the longer I play.
But just like you said, Paul, ridiculous upsets are going to happen. Losing to that bad Sim when you're a heavy favorite will happen. But if you're focusing on the journey and the process of improving, I think it makes it easier for "randomness" to roll off your back. Like, my Rupp team lost badly to a decent Sim last night. I got blasted on rebounds. But I know it's a bad rebounding team, and a zone team on top of that. So okay, that sucks. I need to focus on plugging that hole during recruiting.
I have fallen in love with the process of improving, and it has made me enjoy the game even more.
that's cool - the hours spent 'optimizing' aren't for everybody, i think that sort of ruins the game for some people (including me, but that's just bc i am incapable of middle ground, i take it too far or do nothing). but if you are into 'the process of improving', its super fun! (at least it was for me)
the #1 thing to work on is team building. its the most important part of the game for higher end teams and coaches. its tempting to try to get more and more talented players, but once you have pretty much talent, its really more about arranging that talent optimally. team building and team setup kind of go hand in hand, to me the meta game here is basically to come up with some vision for your team (what kind of players you want where, or really, what collections of abilities you want, there's usually multiple ways to get there), then to execute on it during recruiting, and finally to test out your vision (when you have teams that approximate it fairly well) by working your team setup hard throughout the year. i guess that basically sounds like what HD is... but if you make it about refining your vision rather than the season itself, its significantly different.
basically, once you have some data back and your team is imperfect, which virtually all teams are, you have to figure out if it was your team setup or the vision that was wrong (or i suppose how well you executed on that vision). then you come up with a new plan to incorporate your new ideas and repeat. because the two play off each other, and you really can't evaluate your performance on team building or team setup unless you are doing well at both. thus, i think its helpful to pick 1 vision to focus on at a time. its fine to play multiple schemes but its best to pick 1 to really focus on, so you can make sure you are focusing on both the team building and setup parts so you can get the best possible feedback on how you did. plus, the game is so complicated, reducing the variables in scope is a big help.
on a read, this sounds pretty wishy washy, so one example. if your vision is your priority, then when you are recruiting you are projecting every recruit to their role on the team every year of their career - and evaluating the resulting team. what your team would look like with your existing players and the new guy (and potentially other recruits), in each of the next 4 seasons? if you aren't doing that, how are you possibly knowing if your team 3 seasons from now is going to be a good approximation of your vision?
one of the toughest things about vision building, if you will, is that you don't really start to get feedback on the current model of your vision (the one you are recruiting under, which is where team building primarily happens) until 2-3 seasons later! so you have to be thinking 2-3 seasons ahead. THAT is the difference between regular game play and vision building game play, in the former you are mostly focused on the current situation (with a goal of winning), in the latter you are constantly looking to the future (with a goal of gaining understanding). by the time you are playing your current team, they should almost be obsolete :)