The International Ice Hockey League, Preseason 1.

[IIHL]

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The International Ice Hockey League

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Presented and operated by Klaus Devestatorie.

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+ Join + Rules + New Team Manager Guide + Utilities +

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Current Teams and Managers;
17 Spots Available (maximum league size- 32)
(Team Name) - (Team Manager) - (Pip of Team Logo) - (Ready?)

Fort Wayne Warriors - ForSparta - - Ready!
Irlanda Celts - Grahamkeatley - -
Bucks County Stags - CeltSoldierKev - -
Portland Lobsters - Goldie - -
Monroeville Zombies - Dylan Carter - -
Arlansepi Saturns - Arlansepi - -
Chingis Chihuahuas - ChingisOtchigin - - Ready!
Aleisyr Aardvarks - Aleisyr - (Pending) - -
Imperialian Ice Flyers - Klaus Devestatorie - - Ready!
(yet to be named) - IYIyTh - (Pending) -
Ethane Explosives - Ethane - -
Barkly Rovers - Halechem - -
Galturin Axemen - Kaboomlandia - -
Yarmouth Ducks - -Anthor- - -
Toshwan Rockets - Ontorisa - -

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Current Information.

Season Fixture: <LINK>
Size of next Draft Pool: <Yet to be rolled>

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About the IIHL.

The International Ice Hockey League (IIHL) is an commercial ice hockey league simulation game, moving operations over from elsewhere to the NationStates Sports RP forum.

The simulation plays out every pre-season game, regular season game, finals series game, arranges teams by divisional and league-wide ladders, and provides human players with the capacity to manage their team down to the individual player level, all the way from draft, through career progression and to their inevitable retirement, or until they are traded elsewhere. Human players compete against each other as team managers, all trying to push their team to be the very best in the league, and win it all.

The league operates on an excel based scorinator, custom designed from the ground up for the purpose of the operation of this league. It was designed from square one to provide a simulation similar to the experience one might get from playing a browser based game functioning in the same manner. Roleplay is welcome, but not required from any participants, and the simulator does not make any concessions or result changes of any kind to facilitate the roleplay desires of any individual.

The IIHL has been play-tested for 3+ seasons; the simulation has come a very long way, but the league is probably not quite functionally flawless- amendments for the purpose of balance, convenience or fun are made when necessary and are announced well in advance. Players are advised that while the league manager does his best to build a simulation with as much similarity to real world ice hockey as possible, there are limitations to what can be done with spreadsheets and numbers. Some familiar elements of ice hockey, such as injuries, fights, and penalties, are not represented in the simulation. Furthermore, occasionally changes are made away from realism to improve the function of the game itself.

Questions about the IIHL will be responded to by the league manager as soon as practical- ideally, questions should be asked in this thread for the benefit of all readers, but questions by team managers about matters considered sensitive to their ability to compete are welcome to be asked privately. An FAQ will eventually appear below this paragraph.

You can download an example scorinated game here.

[IIHL]

Joining the IIHL.

To join the IIHL, you will require the following.

• A team name.
  Duh. A simple location/mascot name will do, i.e. the "Zurich Knights". A semi official 3 letter code to refer to your team by will also be desirable, for easy short-hand referencing to your team in general discussion.
  
  
• A team logo.
  The IIHL requires a team logo from every participating team. You can naturally have your own logo materials for your own RP stuff, but the league will require one standard logo, of the dimensions 270x329, on either a white or transparent background.
  
  
  
  The league manager will also require a 95x25 dimension pip for each team, but I can make one of these easily enough from the above provided logo.
  
  
  
  If you need assistance finding or editing a logo for use in the IIHL, ask the league manager- he's fairly capable with Paint.NET. Don't worry about the bevel/shine texture- I apply that to the raw pip.
  
  
• A spreadsheet editor.
  The IIHL is based on spreadsheets, and team managers need to be able to edit them. If you don't have excel, you can try these other options;
  
  - OpenOffice
  - LibreOffice
  - Google Sheets
  - Excel Online
  
  
• A designated place to collect rosters from.
  No small number of spreadsheets need to be traded back and forth from the league manager to every individual player. To avoid confusion, we need to do this as efficiently as possible- every single player needs a designated place where I can collect updated rosters from without me needing to be reminded where that is.
  
  Players have three options for these designated places, as follows;
  
  A; a shared dropbox folder,
  B; a shared google sheet,
  C; a shared excel online sheet.
  
  Please specify which service you would prefer to use in your application.

To join the IIHL, please fill out the following form, and post it in this topic- I'll send you a roster. Please don't sign up with puppets, it's not fair on everyone else if you're secretly running more than 1 team.

Code: Select all

[b]Team Name[/b]:
[b]Team Logo[/b]: (you can still apply without one, but you'll need one before the season starts)
[b]Designated roster outbox[/b]: (Dropbox, Google Sheets or Excel Online)

[IIHL]

Rules and Operations of the IIHL.

GENERAL LEAGUE OPERATION

The Game Manager is Klaus Devestatorie, alternatively known as Avakael, posting through the IIHL nation. He is referred to in these rules as the Game Moderator, or League Manager, or League Moderator, or Game Manager (it's too much effort to correct all entries).

The Game Manager, with notice, may add, remove, or edit mechanics of the game league, at will. He will do so keeping in mind entertainment of all team managers, meaning of mechanics, and personal time schedule.

The Game Manager is required to keep track of all teams, players, and played games, and must make all of that information available to access for all team managers. This will take the form of .xlsx files.

PLAYERS AND TEAMS

Upon the entrance of a new team, operated by a team manager, to the league, the Game Moderator will generate the names and statistics of 30 players for that team.

Each player has 5 values- Speed, Accuracy, Intelligence, Skill, and Teamwork. Each value is represented by a number from 12 to 20 (Numbers below 12 indicate the player isn't good enough to play in the league, and so players with a skill below 12 are not considered for entry to the IIHL). No players statistics may be improved above the number 20, even by MVP awards, League awards, Captaincy, player progression or any other method.

All rolls, d12, d20 or otherwise, are calculated using =RANDBETWEEN() functions.

Under no circumstances may a team manager swap or edit the statistics of the players on their team; the Game Moderator will keep their own records of players to ensure this cannot take place and the league remains fair. Players are improved by specified rules at the end of each season. Please also refrain from renaming your players under any circumstances, as players with names that do not match existing records will cause extreme confusion for both other team managers and the league manager.

Players must be sorted into positions upon joining the team (whether that be by the creation of the team or the drafting of the player)- Ring Wing (RW), Center ( C), Left Wing (LW), Left Defence (LD), Right Defence (RD), and Goalie (G). A minimum of 4 players must be selected for RW, C, LW, LD and RD positions, and a minimum of 1 player must be selected to act as goalie (G) The remaining 9 players may be assigned positions at will by the team manager.

Players, once sorted into their position, may not be changed from that position except for during specific circumstances during the off-season. You can still switch players between lines and/or bench them, but a player's position is fixed.

The player must select a team captain, who will be denoted with a ( C ) next to their name. That player will have a 1+ bonus to all 5 of their statistics, but this bonus will not push any of those 5 statistics above 20. Changes to captaincy may be done at will during the off-season, but are discouraged during the regular season and banned during the finals.

The Game Manager will provide a spreadsheet tool to new team managers to help them sort players into positions and enable those team managers to be as competitive as possible. Team managers can also create their own spreadsheet tools for team management. They are not required to share such tools, but if they can assist the league manager with information for decision making or for development of further league functions, cheers.

While teams start with 30 players, they are not required to have exactly 30; they may float between 26 and 36 players as desired. In the event that a team somehow has more than 36 or less than 26 players, every player on the team will play with a -1 penalty to all 5 statistics until the team returns to the 26-36 limit.

GAME ROSTERS

The Team Manager must, before the start of the first game of each season, submit a roster of players that will take part in the first game- 4 LW, 4 C, 4 RW, 4 LD, 4 RD, and 1 G. They must also submit their reserves list, and all reserves must be assigned permanent positions, even if they are expected to remain on the bench for the rest of their career.

The team manager may then submit an amended roster of players after every game, to be played in the next game; if no team is submitted, the same team will be carried over for each game automatically.

Each team manager will designate a location to the GM as to where the GM may collect their official, updated roster; this may be either a shared dropbox folder or a google spreadsheet. The GM will keep a list of all these places so they don't need to be prompted again.

After each round played, the league manager will make a new post in the official IIHL thread with the results, and ask for team managers to announce roster changes. If a team manager makes a roster change, they must announce in that thread that a change has been made, and indicate in private to the league manager where the new roster can be found if the league manager does not already know where it is. They do not need to announce what the specific changes are to all players; merely that changes have been made.

Team managers are entitled to see all of the players on each team, by checking previous round results or preseason games; they are not entitled to see the submitted roster for any games that have yet to occur. Team managers have the right to keep the specific location of where their updated roster is anonymous from other team managers.

GENERAL PLAY OF GAMES.

Each game is generated and run by the Game Manager, who will upload the spreadsheet result of each game to a location that may be accessed by every team manager in the league. These spreadsheets will take the form of .xlsx files.

There are 3 periods per game. I thought about a different number of periods for the sole purpose of irritating other people, but even I'm not quite that cruel.

Each line faces their counterpart line offensively several times per game (1st vs. 1st, and so on)- each time faced representing a potential shot on goal for the LW, C and RW of each line. Thus, each line also faces the other line defensively several times. The number of opportunities for each player varies depending on the line that player is on; 1st line players have 6 opportunities, 2nd line players have 5, 3rd line players have 4 and 4th line players have 3. Each player has at least 1 opportunity per period. Teams have 54 opportunities per game.

Each opportunity is played through via three equations, referred to as RS-Off, RS-Def, and RS-G (RS is originally a shortened version of "Result", but these acronym names are the easiest to refer to). Each equation is performed by subtracting the sum of the defending numbers from the sum of the attacking numbers. The attacking team wins the equation if the resulting number is 1 or above; the defending team wins the equation if the resulting number is 0 or less. A goal is only recorded if the attacking team wins all three equations.

The RS-Off equation roughly represents the attacking teams offensive players attempting to break out of their own zone through the midfield of the ice. It is represented by the following equation;

Attacking Left Wing Speed +
Attacking Left Wing Accuracy +
Attacking Right Wing Speed +
Attacking Right Wing Accuracy +
Attacking Center Speed +
Attacking Center Accuracy +
(Attacking Left Wing Intelligence + Attacking Right Wing Intelligence + Attacking Center Intelligence) divided by 3, round down to the nearest integer +
Off d20
vs
Defending Left Wing Speed +
Defending Left Wing Skill +
Defending Right Wing Speed +
Defending Right Wing Skill +
Defending Center Speed +
Defending Center Skill +
(Defending Left Wing Intelligence + Defending Right Wing Intelligence + Defending Center Intelligence) divided by 3, round down to the nearest integer +
D-Off d12.

If the attacking team wins, the RS-Def equation is then considered. If the defending team wins, the play is over.

The RS-Def equation roughly represents the attacking teams offensive players attempting to get through the midfield to the vicinity around the defending teams goal. It is represented by the following equation;

Attacking Left Wing Speed +
Attacking Left Wing Accuracy +
Attacking Right Wing Speed +
Attacking Right Wing Accuracy +
Attacking Center Speed +
Attacking Center Accuracy +
(Attacking Left Wing Intelligence + Attacking Right Wing Intelligence + Attacking Center Intelligence) divided by 3, round down to the nearest integer +
Off d20
vs
Defending Left Defence Speed +
Defending Left Defence Skill +
Defending Right Defence Speed +
Defending Right Defence Skill +
Defending Center Speed +
Defending Center Skill +
(Defending Left Defence Intelligence + Defending Right Defence Intelligence + Defending Center Intelligence) divided by 3, round down to the nearest integer +
Def d12.

If the attacking team wins (and has also won the RS-Off equation), a shot on goal is recorded, and the RS-G equation is then considered. If the defending team wins, the play is over.

The RS-G equation roughly represents a shot on goal; not just the actions of the shooter and the goalie, but also the influences of the defencemen and attacking linemates on the shot (i.e. tipping the puck in, screening the goalie from the shot, a defenceman throwing themselves in front of the shot, and so on). It is represented by the following equation;

Attacking Shooter Accuracy +
Attacking Shooter Intelligence +
Attacking Shooter Skill +
Attacking Linesmates (both of them) Teamwork(s) +
(Attacking Left Wing Intelligence + Attacking Right Wing Intelligence + Attacking Center Intelligence) divided by 3, round down to the nearest integer +
Off d20
vs
Defending Goalie Speed +
Defending Goalie Accuracy +
Defending Goalie Skill +
Defending Left Defenceman Teamwork +
Defending Right Defenceman Teamwork +
(Defending Left Defence Intelligence + Defending Right Defence Intelligence + Defending Goalie Intelligence) divided by 3, round down to the nearest integer +
D-Off d12 +
Def d12 +
G d12.

If the attacking team wins (and has also won the RS-Off and RS-Def equations), a goal is recorded. If the defending team wins, the goal is saved. Either way, the play is over, and the equations in the next play are considered. This process is repeated until 3 periods (108 plays) have been calculated. These plays, while slow to manually considered, occur automatically and virtually instantaneously upon the d20 and d12 rolls being placed in the sheet.

The winner is the team with the most goals at the end of 3 periods. In the event of a tie, a penalty shootout begins.

Teams play through LW, C, and RW, from lines 1 til 4 vs. the opposing team goalie. The shooter rolls a d20 and the goalie rolls a d12.

The shooter beats the goalie if (Shooter Speed + Shooter Accuracy + Shooter Intelligence + Shooter Skill + Off d20) is greater than the defending figure of (Goalie Speed + Goalie Accuracy + Goalie Intelligence + Goalie Skill + G d12). If the shooter beats the goalie, a goal is recorded, or not recorded if vice versa.

If a team is in the lead after the end of the third and each successive shootout round, or it is impossible for that to not be the case by the end of the third round, then the leading team is declared the winner of the game. Their final score is increased by 1 to represent this win, and the fact that the victory happened by shootout is recorded in the overall league round results.

LEAGUE LADDER

A win is worth 2 points on the ladder, a shootout loss worth 1 point, and a loss worth 0 points.

If two teams have an equal number of wins, they are split on the ladder based on which team has more shootout losses. If two teams have an equal number of wins and shootout losses, they are split on the ladder based on which team has more total goals over the course of the season.

FINALS

The finals structure will be declared by the Game Moderator at the beginning of each season- after the number of competing teams for that season is confirmed, but before the first Home and Away season game is played. It may be changed mid-season if deemed necessary by the Game Moderator due to unexpected and unusual circumstances, but may not be changed after the finals have begun.

POST SEASON: RETIREMENTS

Each player will have a season counter, which will show how many seasons that player has played thus far. New teams will, as part of their player list, generate ages for each player by the roll of a d6.

At the end of each season, a roll of a d12 will determine whether or not a player retires, as follows;

Players who have played 3 seasons or less will be immune from retirement.
Players who have played 4-6 seasons will retire on the roll of a 1.
Players who have played 7 seasons will retire on the roll of a 2 or below.
Players who have played 8 seasons will retire on the roll of a 3 or below.
Players who have played 9 seasons will retire on the roll of a 4 or below.
Players who have played 10 seasons will retire on the roll of a 5 or below.
Players who have played 11 seasons will retire on the roll of a 6 or below.
Players who have played 12 seasons will automatically retire.

Should less than 4 players retire based on these rolls, the lowest rolling surviving players that have played 4 seasons or more will retire until 4 players have retired. Should a tiebreaker be required (i.e. 3 players retiring, 2 or more eligible players having rolled equally for retirement), a random.org list randomization will be used to break the tie.

For the purposes of calculation, the season counter will tick over before the roll is made.

POST SEASON: SACKINGS

Team managers may sack up to 10 players on their roster at the end of each season after retirements have been rolled.

POST SEASON: PLAYER PROGRESSION

After retirements are confirmed, to represent the growth of player ability, each player may have two chosen statistics improved by one skill point. This improvement may not improve any statistic above 20.

Furthermore, teams that do not reach the finals will receive a wildcard progression point for every outright loss (non shootout/overtime) that season. Like with regular player progression, managers cannot assign more than 2 extra points per player, and when using 2 points on one player, must assign those points to different skills (this does not overlap with regular progression; if regular progression is 1 to speed and 1 to accuracy, wildcard points can also still go to speed and accuracy). Teams also may not assign wildcard points to players that were at sum 90 or above before progression commenced.

POST SEASON: TEAM MOST VALUABLE PLAYER / BEST AND FAIREST / CLUB CHAMPION AWARDS

Each team will also select an Most Valuable Player / Best And Fairest / Club Champion for the season. That player will have all of their statistics improved by one skill point, on top of standard player improvements. No player can win the team MVP more than 1 year in a row. This award cannot improve any statistic above 20. Team managers may also present any other awards they want to, but those awards do not give statistical bonuses.

POST SEASON: LEAGUEWIDE AWARDS

The Game Moderator will award a medal to the best performing player across the league for each position- Offense (LW, C, and RW), Defence (LD, RD) and Goalie (G). Each winner will have all of their statistics improve by one skill point, on top of standard player improvements and team MVP awards. No player can win any of the above awards more than one year in a row.

The names of the league Offense, Defence and Goalie awards will be taken from the last names of the first winner for each award. Each team may pick their own name for their MVP award.

Each team manager does not apply these changes to their player statistics themselves, but declares the desired changes to the Game Moderator, who then changes the statistics.

The league manager may also award any other awards he chooses, but those awards do not carry statistical bonuses with them.

League manager note: I want to change this to award medals based on fixed statistical categories, along the following lines;
Offense- player with the most goals scored in the regular season
Offense- player with the best goals to shots on goal ratio in the regular season
Defence- player allowing the fewest shots on goal in the regular season
Defence- player with the smallest goals to shots on goal ratio in the regular season
Goalie- player allowing the fewest goals in the regular season
Goalie- player with the smallest goals to shots on goal ratio in the regular season
But I don't really have the ability to feasibly collect this information right now. Someone better than me at excel might be able to help me with this.

LEAGUE DRAFT

After awards and progression are confirmed, the Game Moderator will run a league draft.

The league manager generates between 171 and 220 players for the draft (a roll of a d50 is made, plus 170). The exact number of players that will be in the draft pool at the end of the season is made known at the start of the season. The base number (170) should be varied depending on how many teams are in the league, but has been chosen for when 18 teams are present (representing a variation of approximately 120 to 160% of takeable picks). League manager note- expect this to change, unless we somehow wind up with exactly 18 teams in the league.

The draft contains 8 rounds, in which by default, every team in the league has a pick. Pick order is in reverse order of finish on the league ladder (the last placing team picks first). Teams may trade picks during the season, but may not trade picks during the time when the draft is being performed.

The draft is not live; instead, each team submits statistical preferences that enables the league manager to assign those picks (this way it can all be handled in a few hours). The available statistical preferences are made known to the team managers before each draft so that team managers can submit them accordingly.

Players generated in the draft will have statistics between 12 and 18, for a maximum theoretical sum of 90.

TRADES

Teams may freely trade players and end of season draft picks (specifying the round) at any time, except when specified otherwise; each trade must be formally proposed by one team, accepted by the other team, and then approved by the League Moderator (the point being to make sure team managers can't just trade all their good players away for nothing because they like the other team manager or are throwing a tantrum). A specified area or topic for trading players will be appointed, where all trades should take place.

Teams may only trade draft picks for the next occurring league draft (within one game year), and may not trade draft picks further ahead (because that's too hard to keep track of).

Teams participating in the finals may not undertake trades. This no trade period lasts from the locking of rosters for the final round of regular season games to the point of time that the team in question is knocked out of the finals (or wins everything).

[IIHL]

Guide to team building.

Welcome! You've just been handed control of a brand new franchise. Perhaps you're just taking control of an existing one- in that case, this section will be slightly less interesting to you, but should still be informative.

Make sure you read the rules section back to front before the season starts, so you don't make any mistakes. If you have any questions about those rules, make sure to ask the league manager.

After opening your roster, you'll see a few things. Firstly, you'll spot this grid;

>>Picture Link>>

This is the active playing roster. It's currently empty because the team is brand new. In this tutorial, we'll be filling it up with players to try and make a competitive team. You should start by putting your team name in the top row. Today, I'm building the Imperialian Angels.

Secondly, you'll spot this other grid;

>>Picture Link>>

This is generally referred to as the lines calculator. The game uses combinations of player statistics for each part of the game (refer to the rules section to see exactly what). This is here to tell you exactly what numbers the scorinator itself will use.

Finally, scroll down and you'll see something that looks like this;

>>Picture Link>>

This is your player management list. You will have different players to what I have here, and those players will all have their own statistics and ages. Let's quickly go over which is which.

Each player has 5 base statistics- Speed, Accuracy, Intelligence, Skill, and Teamwork. They are all very loose concepts; obviously in the real world, you require all 5 things in abundance in every single situation on the ice. But here, we use them more generally.

Speed is the first statistic. It loosely refers to how quickly a player can skate, but may also refer to reaction times. Speed is used in Off, D-Off and Def. It is also used by the goalie when saving shots on goal.

Accuracy is the second statistic. It loosely refers to the ability of players to move the puck to each other, or to shoot it at the net. Accuracy is used in Off, and is used by the shooting player in Sh. It is also used by the goalie when saving shots on goal.

Intelligence is the third statistic. It loosely refers to the ability of the player to read the play; what one might call "hockey sense". The average intelligence of the participating players is used in all 5 equations- Off, D-Off, Def, G, and Sh. It is also used outright by the shooting player in Sh.

Skill is the fourth statistic. It loosely refers to the ability of players to perform actions such as poke checks or block passes, but is also used in the broader sense near the net for both the goalie and someone attempting to take a shot on goal. Skill is used in D-Off, Def, and is used by the shooting player in Sh. It is also used by the goalie when saving shots on goal.

Teamwork is the fifth and final base statistic. It loosely refers to the ability of players to work together to achieve an objective. Teamwork appears in the fewest equations, but is still very important; firstly, the teamwork of the linemates of the shooting player are added to Sh (to represent actions such as screening the goalie, set up passes or tipping the puck in), and secondly, the teamwork of the defencemen assisting the goalie are added to G (to represent actions such as blocking shots or impeding passing lanes).

There are then numerous other statistics listed, and are explained as follows.

Sum is simply the combined values of all 5 base statistics. It is never used in the game scorination itself, but is of relevance to other things such as player progression restrictions. It is also useful as a drafting preference statistic.

GR stands for Goalie Rating, or the ability of a player to play as goalie. It is the combined value of a players Speed, Accuracy and Skill.

D-Off/Def refers to the ability of a player to play a defensive role as part of those values in the lines calculator. It is the combined value of a players Speed and Skill.

Off refers to the ability of a player to play an offensive role as part of that value in the lines calculator. It is the combined value of a players Speed and Accuracy.

Sh refers to the ability of a player to take shots on goal, as per the Sh number in the lines calculator. It is the combined value of a players Accuracy, Intelligence and Skill.

The previous four values generally deliberately exclude either intelligence or teamwork, even though they may appear as per the relevant values in the lines calculator; this is because it's not worth extrapolating the average intelligence figure, and teamwork influences equations by itself in its own way. You should independently take account of those values when making decisions.

Age refers to the number of seasons a player has played thus far. Refer to the rules section on player retirements for more detailed information on player ages and retirements, and thus what to look out for.

Retire? is a clerical category used by the league manager when making retirement rolls. When the league manager gives you information on who in your team has retired, he will leave the rolled numbers in that column, but otherwise, it will normally remain empty.

So now that these numbers are explained, let's start making decisions on who should go where in your team. I've started on this team by going down and highlighting particularly high values in Intelligence, Teamwork, GR, D-Off/Def, Off, and Sh.

>>Picture Link>>

Now, here's the difficult bit. You have 6 different types of position- LW, C, RW, LD, RD, and G. The catch is that once a player is assigned to one of those 6 positions, you can't change them. That includes changing them between LD and RD, or LW and RW. This rule is deliberate- even being able to switch sides of defencemen or wingmen at will was found very early on to make things too easy. You can fiddle things around as much as you like during this building process, but as soon as you've made your decisions and submitted your team to the league manager, those positions are locked. You can still switch players between lines and/or bench them, but once they are declared an LW or whatever, they're an LW for life. At the end of each season when progression happens, you can change the positions of up to 2 players, but doing so costs 1 point from all 5 of that player's statistics.

I've built more than a few teams from the ground up under this simulation, and I've found that the best thing to do is to pick the goalie first. A good goalie can make or break a team; a goalie that isn't so great tends to do more of the latter. You don't have to start with a goalie first, of course; I'm just a cautious kinda guy.

We haven't had very good luck here- we have three options at GR54 (almost everyone getting a new roster is going to have a better option than that), but that's still serviceable and if our choice of goalie truly isn't up to snuff, we can try and draft a better one at the end of the season, or try and trade for a better one. Or if it turns out the rest of the team isn't quite great yet either, we can simply give him the time he needs to develop.

I decide to rule out Tad Loftin as goalie first. I will sorely miss either the Sh 56 or Sh 58 from the other options, but Tad Loftin's intelligence statistic isn't that great, and goalies never use teamwork in the scorinator- which means his maximized teamwork statistic would be wasted. He would do well, or at least okay, in every other spot on the team, so we'll save him for later.

I then decide that I'll be picking Errol Nix as my goalie over Stefan Esparza. Esparza has the slightly better Sh score (and in fact the best Sh score on my team), and will do well as a top line forward player, but more importantly in my mind, Esparza is much older than Nix; Esparza at age 5 could retire at the end of only 1 season and leave me in an even stickier bind for a goalie, but Nix will play for a minimum of 3 seasons before we start rolling for his retirement at the end of each year. That means Nix will have more time to develop. It also means that if I wind up doing badly this season, I could trade Esparza for a first round draft pick to someone who needs another star forward to shore up their premiership chances.

If I didn't have much choice but to pick an older goalie at this stage, I would also consider identifying a backup before proceeding elsewhere. They wouldn't have to quite be as good as the current goalie- it's assumed that there would be at least one round of player progression before they needed to play. But the backup should definitely be a couple of years younger.

I simply copy and paste Errol Nix and his 5 base statistics into the goalie slot on the roster (use destination formatting for cleanliness). I also decide that Esparza will be my top line Center, so I copy him into the 1st C slot.

>>Picture Link>>

To make sure I don't accidentally reuse either player, I'll go down and highlight their rows with another colour.

>>Picture Link>>

At this point, you should also notice that numbers have started appearing in the lines calculator.

>>Picture Link>>

I'll take the opportunity to explain what they mean at this point.

Esparza is a 1st line Center, and thus contributes to the Off, D-Off, Def, and line Sh values of his team. The Off number shown is 42; Esparza has a Speed of 16, and an Accuracy of 20, making 36. The remaining 6 comes from the average intelligence of his line; his intelligence is 20, but excel counts the empty cells as zero. 20 divided by 3 is 6.666 reoccurring, but the lines calculator rounds the number down to the nearest integer of 6, giving a combined number of 42 there.

The same occurs in D-Off, except the Lines calculator uses Esparza's skill (18) instead of his accuracy; Def is the same as D-Off, except the other players in the equation are his left and right defencemen, not his left and right wingmen. The "average" intelligence of 6 is also included in those numbers.

You can see Esparza's personal C-Sh of 64; it includes his Accuracy, Intelligence and Skill, plus the "average" intelligence yet again; in the cells of the Sh values of his LW and RW linemates, you see his teamwork of 17, plus the "average" intelligence yet again.

In the case of goalie Errol Nix, he contributes only to the G values; his contribution is the same regardless of what line is on the ice at the time, of Speed 18, Accuracy 20, and Skill 16. His intelligence is also averaged with the left and right defencemen on the ice at each point of time, but there are no defencemen on the roster at this time, so we are simply seeing the same number (his intelligence is the same as that of Esparza) added to all 4 cells.

As we add players to the team roster, we'll start to see the lines calculator take further shape. Rodrigo Trapp, in my opinion, is a perfect fit as a top line defenceman (great stats in everything other than Accuracy, which defencemen don't use), so I slot him in the roster accordingly. I also select Gayle Houghton to be one of the wingmen for Esparza- he's not an amazing shot himself, but his high intelligence and teamwork, plus Off value of 34, will provide Esparza with excellent support to give our superstar center the best opportunities he can get.

Porter Fong's low speed makes him slightly problematic to place- his excellent teamwork will assist with Sh chances, but his speed is poor and that hurts the line he plays on. As a result, I'll avoid making him a center. His intelligence would be an asset regardless of whether I told him to play with the top line forwards or with my top line defender, but despite his excellent Sh (the best I have remaining), I'll instead put Tad Loftin as the other top line wingman- his Sh will still require years of improvement, but his Off numbers are still some of my best. Also, I've gotten lucky with the average intelligence- Porter Fong would have combined with the other two for 20+20+19=59, 59/3=19.666 reoccurring, rounded down to an average intelligence of 19, which is excellent and could even become 20 later down the line, but 20+20+14=54, 54/3=18, which means that Loftin's less than lofty intelligence score still scrapes the line in at only 1 less for the average intelligence than if I'd parked Porter Fong there instead.

For the other top line defenceman, I decide I have a tossup between Dwain Cooley and Porter Fong- Cooley will be 1 less G, but 2 more Def. Cooley instead strikes me as a decent candidate to be, say, my second line center, and so I put Fong in the final top line spot, and Cooley as my second line center, and the roster continues to grow based on who's best for the team.

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Eventually, you'll fill up your top 21 positions. I won't discuss how I chose the rest, you can probably extrapolate if you really want. Here's the roster, lines calculator and player management table yet again at the end of those 21.

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One random point to make while I think of it- when deciding on what players to put where, you may want to think about the ability of the player to progress in that manner. In the offseason, each player increases two of their statistics by one. But unless you have wildcard points available, no statistic can go up by more than one point. A situation where this might be worth taking into account is where you are trying to choose between two players of the same value- for example, let's say two players with the same goalkeeping ability. Player A has 15 speed, 20 accuracy, 20 intelligence, and 20 skill; Player B has 18 speed, 20 accuracy, 20 intelligence and 17 skill. Both players are GR55, but player B would be able to progress faster, because player A can only increase 1 of the statistics that he actually uses; the other statistic is wasted on his teamwork. The availability of wildcard points doesn't change the size of this theoretical gap. It's not that likely you'll stumble into this issue at the teams foundation, but keep it in mind.

We have to put the remaining 9 players in our reserves, but before we do that, I'm going to appoint a team captain. Holding the team captaincy gives a +1 bonus to all 5 statistics of that player. However, it can't push any statistic above 20, and they lose the bonus should the captaincy pass to someone else. After thinking about it for a while, I decided to give the team captaincy to Dwain Cooley, my second line center. I then place a ( C) next to his name, and increase all of his statistics by 1, bar his teamwork, which was already 20. I suggest that you only change the statistics of your captain on the roster itself, not in the player management table, so you always know his real, base statistics.

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Finally, we have the 9 players left on your roster that were not lucky enough to get a spot amongst the active players on your team. These are your reserves- copy and paste them all into your reserves section.

These players, while not actively playing, still need to be assigned positions before your roster is legal. This can be easier than building the rest of the roster- you're probably not trying to fit these players into the existing jigsaw, so you're best off just assigning them the position they'd be best at if there were no other factors influencing them.

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And on that note, we're done! This roster is 100% compliant and ready to roll. In the end, the Imperialian Angels are actually a pretty decent squad, with both strong offensive and defensive depth. Don't worry if your first attempt isn't this good- this list was stronger than I suspected it would be, I had some good luck with line-mates complementing each other well, and I've done this dozens of times for playtesting. The purpose of this guide is to help you try and see what I see when I'm building a list from scratch.


Some general tips

-Actively follow your team and try to understand the way the simulation works- all the maths are openly viewable. Work out its strengths and weaknesses, who's scoring your goals, who isn't scoring your goals, who's keeping goals out and who isn't keeping goals out. It'll help you make better informed decisions down the line.

-Similarly, keep an eye on the games ahead; make sure you know exactly which team you're about to play. Once you're comfortable with what you're doing, you can start to consider roster adjustments intended to better prepare your team for your specific opponent.

-Trades are naturally tempting. While the idea of trading one good player for two or three not so good players seems good, in general, the manager getting the one good player is getting the better deal. Make sure you're getting something good back for your part of any bargain.

-When the draft happens, it's important to try to get players to fill your specific needs, but getting too specific on your preferences can hurt you. In all 3 drafts we did for the competitive playtesting, the teams that selected players by highest sum alone did fine, and furthermore, almost always better than teams that were only really selecting by 2 or 3 individual statistics all up.

-If your team sucks, it's not the end of the world. Make a plan to be good again in a few seasons, to have all the pieces together at some specified point in the future. Trade away old stars that you don't expect to have at that time, and get high draft picks or quality young players back. There's no rule against tanking.

-Teams that simply coast along, draft as best they can and try to quietly improve without doing anything unusual will probably find themselves in the middle of the ladder every season, struggling to reach or make an impact in the finals. Every team has player progression, not just yours, so alone it won't impact your place on the ladder much. Either trade up for a proper run at the championship, or start rebuilding. Proactive team managers aren't always doing well, but they're much more likely to reach the top.

[IIHL]

League Utilities.

Competitive Analysis Data



The league manager can provide a colour coded report card (based on the lines calculator) on a team by team basis, displaying exactly how good each aspect of the team is compared to the rest of the league. The colour scale is simply structured around the highest and lowest values in the league for each cell. All Sh values are ranked on a row by row basis (so all 1st line Sh values are compared against all other 1st line Sh values, not just 1st line LW Sh values, and so on). This extends to the totals and averages rows.

The league manager will privately provide this report when requested at any time during the regular season- the data is useless in the offseason due to the gap between retirements and submission of preseason rosters, so don't bother asking for it then.

Scorinator.

I can easily supply the sheets required for the operation of the game scorinator (I need to set up the file to link here). I'd prefer not to pass around copies of the full league documents.

[IIHL]

Signups to run a team in the first season will last 10 days (I want to wrap up the final season in the old forum first). People will need to return their finished rosters, so I'll give a few more days beyond then to get teams finalized, but beyond then, it's go time.

[Arlansepi]

Team Name: Arlansepi Saturns
Team Logo:
Designated roster outbox: Google Sheets

[IIHL]

Team Name: Arlansepi Saturns
Team Logo:
Designated roster outbox: Google Sheets

Sending you a roster now, posted some logo ideas where you asked for assistance.

[ChingisOtchigin]

Team Name: Chingis Chihuahuas
Team Logo: Coming Soon
Excel Plz

'

[Aleisyr]

Team Name: Aleisyr Aardvarks.
Team Logo: On its way.
Designated roster outbox: Google Sheet

[Arlansepi]

Please use this:

Thanks for the options.

[IIHL]

Team Name: Chingis Chihuahuas
Team Logo: Coming Soon
Excel Plz

Team Name: Aleisyr Aardvarks.
Team Logo: On its way.
Designated roster outbox: Google Sheet

Rosters sent to the pair of you.

Chingis, I need a service to receive the excel files from you. Excel doesn't do that

[ChingisOtchigin]

I'll use dropbox, same as you

[FiftyLionz]

Just for the record, I am ForSparta. We come from another game, so we may refer to each other, by accident, by different names.

Glad to see people signing up.

[Nova Pictlandia]

I am definitely in.

And, like ForSparta, I am originally from another game.

CeltSoldierKev, here.

[Ethane]

Team Name: The Ethane Explosive's
Logo: Can you do it? I'm trying my hand at creating my own logos, but I'm not good enough at the moment. If possible, could you make the main colour violet/ purple?
I'll use google documents as a 'storage area' to swap rosters
Oh, and also, along with libreoffice and stuff, you can also use excel online for free with an outlook account at https://office.live.com/start/Excel.aspx

[IIHL]

Team Name: The Ethane Explosive's
Logo: Can you do it? I'm trying my hand at creating my own logos, but I'm not good enough at the moment. If possible, could you make the main colour violet/ purple?
I'll use google documents as a 'storage area' to swap rosters
Oh, and also, along with libreoffice and stuff, you can also use excel online for free with an outlook account at https://office.live.com/start/Excel.aspx

You're in, gonna send you a roster in a second. I'll add that link to the relevant posts.

[IIHL]

Team Name: The Ethane Explosive's
Logo: Can you do it? I'm trying my hand at creating my own logos, but I'm not good enough at the moment. If possible, could you make the main colour violet/ purple?
I'll use google documents as a 'storage area' to swap rosters
Oh, and also, along with libreoffice and stuff, you can also use excel online for free with an outlook account at https://office.live.com/start/Excel.aspx

How does http://i.imgur.com/Je1e5vN.png work for a logo?

[Ethane]

Team Name: The Ethane Explosive's
Logo: Can you do it? I'm trying my hand at creating my own logos, but I'm not good enough at the moment. If possible, could you make the main colour violet/ purple?
I'll use google documents as a 'storage area' to swap rosters
Oh, and also, along with libreoffice and stuff, you can also use excel online for free with an outlook account at https://office.live.com/start/Excel.aspx

How does http://i.imgur.com/Je1e5vN.png work for a logo?

Very nice. That's just right.

[Ontorisa]

Colour me interested.

[FiftyLionz]

Colour me interested.

What is your team name/location? Do you need help coming up with or finding a logo?

[Halechem]

Team Name: Barkly Rovers
Team Logo:

Designated roster outbox: Google Drive

[FiftyLionz]

Explosives and Rovers pips will be uploaded tonight

[IIHL]

Team Name: Barkly Rovers
Team Logo:

(Image)

Designated roster outbox: Google Drive

Good to have Barkly back.

[Kaboomlandia]

Team Name: Galturin Axemen
Team Logo:

Designated roster outbox: Google Sheets

IIHL, can you resize this logo to the proper size and do the small one, please?