The worst strategy in HD is this... I have never used it but if you want to land a 5 star as a C to B prestige team this is your best shot.

1. Find a player with a "Wants to Play Preference" that isn't being battled for. 1 A- team on the player is great, but 1 A+ team can be fine too. What you cannot do is use this strategy on a player that is actively being battled for. The earlier they sign the better for 2 reasons... (1) this strategy involved using a lot of AP, so its nicer if they sign earlier and (2) a lot of players who sign late end up getting battled for.
2. Put on 10-30 AP per cycle for a while if you have the resources. Less can work too, but you want to maximize your overall AP if there's going to be a roll later. Its best to put on as many as you can afford early (I would personally aim for 20) but don't let going after this recruiting jeopardize your other options.
3. Offer a start and 25 minutes as quickly as possible... if you bounce above very low for a cycle that isn't ideal but it is fine.
4. 80 AP per cycle after you offer the start and minutes is ideal.
5. In one cycle (the first one where the recruit can sign) offer a ship, put 20 HV on, and 1 CV.

This is ingenious (albeit simple) for 3 reasons. First, note you offer the ship AFTER the start and minutes. The extra value you get out of it is ridiculous from both the natural start/minutes multiplier and the wants to play multiplier. Second, because you laid low for so long, they don't know you were putting a bunch of effort on the whole time so they will have let you build this massive AP lead they don't see forming because they have already offered a ship. Third, APs early are the most valuable APs, not only because they build real effort of a recruit but also because you're staking your claim on them and scaring other similar or lower prestige teams off.

I've never used this, nor do I intend to. At A+ DI this strategy is nasty because you will never have to roll for a recruit again. If you see that stud player (probably a PG with massive ATH/SP/DE/LP/BH/PA/STA, low REB/SB and tiny PER) who you think will be awesome and stay for 4 years you just NEED one of, using this strategy should pretty much guarantee you get them. Just don't use it on me or anyone you want to be friends with XD. Is this fair game or do you consider it pretty nasty? like up there with momentarily changing your defense the day before a big game so if they accidentally press the "save" button instead of their "save to all defenses" button their distro doesn't save? Did anyone else even think of that before? I promised I haven't used it but it totally would work right?

God I hope I'm not introducing these ****** 2 strategies to this wonderful community. ;)

What’s the basis of the claim that offering a scholarship after the start and minutes adds value somehow? I don’t think there’s any structural benefit, like added value, apart from how the promise affects the future effort. Timing of the scholarship doesn’t affect value that I’ve seen or heard of. Holding off on a scholarship adds cycles to the process of getting to the promises, and is not the way to do it if the goal is “staking your claim”.

Now it’s absolutely true that if you catch someone off guard who put AP elsewhere because they didn’t see any obvious battles emerging, you can leapfrog them. And if the guy signs right away on the first cycle, they won’t have a chance to respond. I don’t think that’s nasty. That’s just life when you’re trying to go after that second bird in the bush.

This method is actually a pretty bad one for a high prestige team to use, because at A to A+, you are basically guaranteeing a battle by trying to sneak up from behind. And since you can’t know from the start what battles may develop, or who else may challenge, you can waste a ton of AP, when all you really had to do was not f*** around and just clearly prioritize the guy from the get go, and lots of times you don’t even have to use many visits.

This is why I say for as much as losing a guy to a sniper feels sh!tty, watching a sniper shoot for and miss is one of the most satisfying feelings this game offers. Bid what a guy is worth to you, and you’ll never have to worry about a sniper sneaking up on you.

Cub - if you've never used this strategy, how do you know it works so well?

But yeah, that's the standard poaching method for the most part. But it's far from a guarantee. Ask me how I know

It's a great strategy, it's my go to for like all my recruitss

The timing of the ship 100% affects its value when we are discussing multiplier effects. I used this consistently in the Beta world. I had extreme success with it in DII. I beat low prestige DI humans multiple times.

Yes, very satisfying when a poacher falls too short. Even if they are successful, I try to at least get poachers to use up a lot of resources so they can lose other battles. And if i see them parked down the street a couple of days in advance, I'll ask Angel Martin and Dennis at the police station to find out what other players they're "Very High" on... then i park my 1974 Firebird near those guys and throw progressively harder volleys in their direction, and maybe hound them right back.

Also, after a handful of years, the poachers become recognizable and it gets pretty obvious what they're up to.

Posted by cubcub113 on 3/23/2020 12:52:00 PM (view original):
The timing of the ship 100% affects its value when we are discussing multiplier effects. I used this consistently in the Beta world. I had extreme success with it in DII. I beat low prestige DI humans multiple times.

I value a scholarship as roughly 2HVs. Multiplying that is significant.

Posted by Trentonjoe on 3/23/2020 2:10:00 PM (view original):

Posted by cubcub113 on 3/23/2020 12:52:00 PM (view original):
The timing of the ship 100% affects its value when we are discussing multiplier effects. I used this consistently in the Beta world. I had extreme success with it in DII. I beat low prestige DI humans multiple times.

I value a scholarship as roughly 2HVs. Multiplying that is significant.

For sure. But unless I'm mistaken, if sending scholly and promises in the same cycle, you get the multiplier. So dropping the bomb of HVs, promises and scholly all together has the same effect. And if you're planning on poaching, holding back that scholly is a very common strategy or else you tip your hand.

Personally I wouldn't put TOO much stock into strategies used in Beta. Some nuances have changed since then but people have a MUCH better understanding of the recruiting system now.

I do enough AP to get to minutes, then minutes, then heavy AP, then scholarship, HV, CV, and scholarship right before signing period starts. Pretty F'ing nuanced.

Posted by cubcub113 on 3/23/2020 12:52:00 PM (view original):
The timing of the ship 100% affects its value when we are discussing multiplier effects. I used this consistently in the Beta world. I had extreme success with it in DII. I beat low prestige DI humans multiple times.

To be clear, you’re saying that promised minutes have a “multiplier effect” on the scholarship offer, correct? That they make the offer of the scholarship more valuable. Do you have confirmation from seble that it works like this? If true, I think this would surprise a lot of folks.

Success in beating low D1 teams from D2 is not evidence, I beat low D1 teams from D2 all the time, and very rarely hold off on offering a scholarship except in instances when I am keeping a number of avenues open, and don’t want to commit yet.

Posted by Trentonjoe on 3/23/2020 2:10:00 PM (view original):

Posted by cubcub113 on 3/23/2020 12:52:00 PM (view original):
The timing of the ship 100% affects its value when we are discussing multiplier effects. I used this consistently in the Beta world. I had extreme success with it in DII. I beat low prestige DI humans multiple times.

I value a scholarship as roughly 2HVs. Multiplying that is significant.

It would be, if it’s something that gets multiplied. I’d like confirmation on that, though. Just because it has recruiting value doesn’t mean it’s in the category of effort that gets “multiplied”. Promised starts aren’t multiplied, right? Well maybe they are, but we’ve never been given any indication. My understanding was that “effort” was attention and visits, and those were the things potentially affected by the promised minutes for players who wanted to play. I never heard seble talk about scholarships that way.

For a long time, because of a faulty CS answer, many of us were operating on the false notion that all promises were multipliers for all effort, even for players without the playing time preference. For most of us, the “evidence” just lined up with what we thought was true, so very few seriously doubted it.

All effort gets multiplied by preferences.

I agree.

I thought it might work the other way around, do AP receive a multiplier effect once a scholarship has been offered?

Posted by Trentonjoe on 3/23/2020 8:03:00 PM (view original):
All effort gets multiplied by preferences.

i have no evidence to support this position, but i can't see why this would not be true. the simpler option seems like the more logical to me here, i dont think seble would have done extra work to add complexity and confusion in this area, without saying anything about it.