County Fantasy Manager 2014

[ianp1970]

do I need enough types of squad players in order to have to try and put out a realistic team, or could I field a side with 8 bowlers and 3 wicket keepers in it, if I wanted to?

You need enough squad player to put out eleven players for each matchweek. They can be a mixture of Bat, WK, AR or Bwl or all the same - your choice

[ianp1970]

Oh, go on then!

I'll give it a whirl, though I have no real understanding of this. Still....... I'll have no choice but to learn fast.

do I have to try and pick all players now?
do I have to try and spend all money now?

You have to have 30 players for 1.5 million. You pick which players in the first round that you want to bid for and just say how much you are going to pay for them. Average player cost in squad should be 50k I think each. Once the first round is up all bids are posted, and then round two you can try and outbid for any player judged on the value that the first round player bid. If no higher bid comes then you get the player in round two, if a higher bid comes in then the top bidder in round one gets an opportunity then to go higher, as they retain the right to do so by the initial highest bid.

I think that's how it works! I have bid on 35 odd players so just go for the scattergun approach like me....

with one proviso.

As the maximum squad size is 30, then the maximum amount of players you can bid on is 30. Sussex do you want to PM another selection?

[ianp1970]

When do bids need to be in by ???

The deadline for the first round is 8pm Wednesday 2nd April.

[ianp1970]

Oh, go on then!

I'll give it a whirl, though I have no real understanding of this. Still....... I'll have no choice but to learn fast.

do I have to try and pick all players now?
do I have to try and spend all money now?

You don't have to pick all your players now and you don't have to spend all the money now. The auction lasts for 4 rounds. My advice would be if there a few players you really want, then they are the ones to bid higher for now.

Auction/Lottery

Firstly, I’ll explain the logic of the auction and player lottery. I wanted teams to get the vast majority of their players by tactics, rather than just by luck. That’s why we’re doing the opening auction. Players are valued between £10,000 to £100,000, and everyone has £1,500,000 to spend on the players who they would like. If you want to go after the top players that may hinder your ability to get a good squad all round, with a depth of players from a variety of counties. That is your choice of tactics.

The rest of your squad will be decided by a lottery. You will be given a budget post-auction (actual amount TBC) + anything you don’t spend in the auction. This will then decide what players you get. The more money you have for the lottery and the less players you need to buy, the better the players you will get. You have no control over the lottery beyond that though: there is a balance between spending a lot of money on the best players, and getting a team with the talented players more evenly distributed through it.

One difference from last year is that the amount of money managers have for the auction is designed so that the vast majority of squads are bought rather than allocated in the lottery.

[ianp1970]

The way it works is you set your team first of all then Ian P puts a link to a google docs page where you can edit your team for every game week. He has posted the games that correspond to each game week on page 1 of the thread.

If you don't want to manage anything pick the 11 best players and hope they don't get injured, dropped or international called.... I think that team unchanged will simply recycle every week. For more active people they just click on the google docs list and edit the team.

Even if they get injured, dropped or called up (or playing for a county that does not feature in a particular matchweek) it does not matter this year.

The top eleven players in the list (either amended each week or the same from the start) that actually play will be selected.

[ianp1970]

how many players do we bid on in the first round of auction? also can we bid for players below base price and hope to sign someone on the cheap?!

You can bid for as many (or as few) as you like, but the guide price is the minimum bid.

[ianp1970]

Do we all have to sign and name a WK again Ian ??

or can we set a random player as WK, and their catches count ??

You don't have to sign a WK this year, as there are no formations that have to be adhered to. However you can select more than one WK in your matchweek eleven, and catches for each one will count.

[ianp1970]

If I have missed anything out please ask.

I will post the mechanics of the lottery once we have got the auction underway.

[Durhamfootman]

My concern for the lottery stage is being allocated players like Jarvis for Lancs who has a guide price of 60k, yet only played one game for the Lankys last year and isn't even in their squad this year. There are others who don't feature in the squads for their county or are no longer available for FC cricket. Shah and Bird spring to mind, then there is Ben Raine of Leics.... or is he?

If I make the highest bid for a player at the opening auction stage, is he automatically my player?

[Durhamfootman]

The top eleven players in the list (either amended each week or the same from the start) that actually play will be selected.

will you explain this bit to me, ian. does this mean that the top performing XI plyaers in my squad in a particular round of matches are automatically selected on my behalf, and the points they accrued awarded to me?

[st_brendy]

sorry for asking so many questions.... I really am that dim!

I presume that my squad needs to contain players from lots of counties in order to be able to select a full XI each matchweek from the teams that are actually playing

or is that not as important as it seems

probably isn't, now I think about it, because plenty of teams will be playing in each round to not have to worry about any teams (and players) who aren't playing.

My one piece of advice from last season would be to have players from as many counties as possible (talking of which Ian, please say that loans between managers wont be allowed again this season!! Frustrated the hell out of me that people were doing that last year, just because they didn't pre-plan and pick from a range of different counties).

That said, a 30 man squad this season should help every cope somewhat better when they have a lot of players missing due to certain counties not playing.

[ianp1970]

My concern for the lottery stage is being allocated players like Jarvis for Lancs who has a guide price of 60k, yet only played one game for the Lankys last year and isn't even in their squad this year. There are others who don't feature in the squads for their county or are no longer available for FC cricket. Shah and Bird spring to mind, then there is Ben Raine of Leics.... or is he?

If I make the highest bid for a player at the opening auction stage, is he automatically my player?

The lottery stage is a "lottery" but I am planning to allocate first those players that are listed in counties squads on the cricinfo website, and managers bidding for many players in the auction would expect the number of allocated players to be quite small.

If you make the highest bid in round one, then you are guaranteed the chance the win the player in round three:

Auction

Okay. This is how the auction is going to work:

£1,500,000 to spend in an auction that will have a maximum of 4 rounds. The minimum differential level between bids will be £10,000: i.e. you could bid £10,000, £50,000 or £250,000 for a player, but not £25,000 or £30,001.

Round 1

The highest bidder for a player in round 1 is guaranteed the final bid. They cannot be outbidded without having a chance to counter. This will give a big advantage to people bidding high in round 1 for the top players. It gives them control.

Round 2

In this round people have the chance to outbid the leading bidder. If nobody outbids the leading bidder, that player is won.

Players can also bid for anyone who wasn't bidded for in round 1. If they are the only one, they will win that player. (it would be logical for people to only bid list price for the players who didn't receive a bid in round 1.)

Round 3

In this round the leading bidder from Round 1 can respond to the Round 2 bids by bidding £10,000 more than the highest Round 2 bid, if they choose to, and will automatically win the player.

Any player who didn't receive a bid in round 1, but multiple managers bidded for in round 2, can be bidded on again by anyone who bidded in round 2. The highest bidder will win that player.

Anyone who hadn't been bidded on at this point will go to the highest bidder after this round.

Round 4

This round will just be for anyone who hasn't spent all their money, to pick up any players that are still available. This round will be a blind auction, with the team bidding the most for each player being allocated them.

[ianp1970]

The top eleven players in the list (either amended each week or the same from the start) that actually play will be selected.

will you explain this bit to me, ian. does this mean that the top performing XI plyaers in my squad in a particular round of matches are automatically selected on my behalf, and the points they accrued awarded to me?

You will have the option to list your squad in preferred order for each matchweek. The spreadsheet will then take from your list the first eleven players that actually play in that week. These may or may not be the highest scorers.

[ianp1970]

sorry for asking so many questions.... I really am that dim!

I presume that my squad needs to contain players from lots of counties in order to be able to select a full XI each matchweek from the teams that are actually playing

or is that not as important as it seems

probably isn't, now I think about it, because plenty of teams will be playing in each round to not have to worry about any teams (and players) who aren't playing.

My one piece of advice from last season would be to have players from as many counties as possible (talking of which Ian, please say that loans between managers wont be allowed again this season!! Frustrated the hell out of me that people were doing that last year, just because they didn't pre-plan and pick from a range of different counties).

That said, a 30 man squad this season should help every cope somewhat better when they have a lot of players missing due to certain counties not playing.

There will be no loans between managers this season.

[sussexpob]

I'll resubmit Ian.. I may have gotten excited.

Can we say any players who are not on the list have a base value of 50k?