New player needs help

[Dan34]

Ive recently got this game and im struggling,ive played cricket most of my life but ive never shown much interest in the pro game.

My first problem is i have no idea who`s good and who isnt except for the obvious players who i cant afford anyway.
I have been trying to find a player stats screen where i can view players batting skill and bowling and also there dosnt seem to be anyway of working out if a youth player is worth putting in the first team unless i actually give him a game and just giving them one game is not the best way to find out if they may be any good or not.

I started my first game as Kent as thats where i live and at the start it asked me if i wanted to buy any players and frankly i had no idea who was who in the domestic game.

I realise i could spend days online researching every potential player but i really dont have the time for that and i dont want to have to use an editor as they tend to break games.

So what i would like is some advice to help me in my first season
Who would be a decent purchase?
What things would i be advised to do at the start of the game?
Who should i be training (first team regulars or youth players)?
Should i take money from training to be able to bring in better players?
How can i sell a player?
Is it worth using player defined field settings?

I have alot more questions but really any advice with this game would be nice,i like sport management games and i dont want this game to start collecting dust on the shelf.

Thanks for reading and i look forward to your replys.

[jamaicacricketfan11]

Players do not have a skills screen.The only way you can find out if a player is good is by playing him.Do you already have an overseas player?

Go through, having a look at player's bowling and batting averages to decide your batting and bowling order.If you don't already have an overseas player, I recommend buying one as they will be one of your better players, If you cannot afford one then just adjust your budgets.

[Dan34]

I seem to have an overseas player W.Parnell* i have no idea who he is or how good he is so i just tried him in a game and well.....hes useless and i cant seem to find a way to sell players.

I seem to be just clicking next over in this game,just set the bowler to bowl in a way that each batsman dosnt like and just keep clicking,i tried micro management and setting user defined fields but with little success,you can probly tell by my reply im more than a little frustrated.
Ive played alot of management games through the years but i really dont get this one,the hardest part is not being able to see a players current and potential skills which is made more difficult by my lack of domestic pro cricket knowledge.

I really need to tips or direction to a decent FAQ as i havent found any webpages for this game.

[Imager36]

Yeah, you need decent domestic knowledge to start well in the game. In terms of an FAQ, I don't know of one, though I might think about doing something along the lines of 'Good youth/potential players' next year to help with who's rated well and who isn't.

Your main problem with Kent is that a lot of the players are dross, and a few of the rest are now past their best, but this is the team I'd suggest, for one dayers at least:-

Key (Good county opener)
Denly (Decent talent, may depend on how your game has randomised)
Northeast (You need to give one real untested batsman a go, and I'd go with Northeast)
van Jaarsveld (A good county pro, but getting on a bit now)
Stevens (See above)
McClaren (When he's back from the IPL. Especially good in OD and T20)
Kemp (Good allrounder)
Jones (A decent keeper, but he won't get too many runs)
Tredwell (He's going to be your main spinner, for the first season at least)
Parnell/Joseph/Cook/Saggers/Mahmood (All not bad, use the in form ones, add another of the 5 in if McClaren's away, or choose Mahmood if batting needs just a little extra.)
Khan (If he's in form, can be destructive. If he isn't, think about replacing with one of above)

The best case scenario would have been if you'd bought a promising youth batsman in the transfer window, to replace Northeast, but it should be okay without. One dayers should be your strength with the large number of allrounders in your squad.

[dontask]

hoping i can answer a few of your questions. i have played this game since around 2000, i do remember though i was quite hopeless to start with. learning from your mistakes will help you become a good player if you have the patience.
1st season you can only sign players if you have spare budget, obviously you can only have 1 overseas player. the same players seem to be available at the start of the game. in the past i have tried klokker and saqlain mushtaq as new signings and they have done fairly well for me, they are certainly good in division 2. sadly the rest of the players who you could sign at the start are generally rubbish.
players can only be released after the end of every season. this is either free if their contract has expired or you have to pay half their contract if they still have 1 year or more left to go. from this stage better players tend to be available to sign and you have more budget to play with if you have released a few players. when u get this far dont sign players aged 35+ unless you are desperate. i will give you some advice on signing an overseas player if you need it.

in the 1st season it is advisable of you generally keep things the way they are team wise but if you do have spare budget invest it in training and youth team. players under 24 benefit from training more than other players, so concentrate on these. dont lower budgets for your team unless you feel the team is very desperate for a player at the start of season 1.

youth players is the biggest problem you face as it is unpredictable how they will play. a decent run is the only way you will find out. if in division 2 though, its worth the risk a lot more especially if you feel your not going to get promoted anyway. if you look at their 2nd team average you get an idea of their ability. if a batsman has a 2nd team average of 50 or more or a bowler averages under 30 then they have a good chance of doing well in the first class game.

try and learn a bit yourself about how to use players. if your not doing very well or need an idea of the side you should be using then i will give you some advice.

[jamaicacricketfan11]

I seem to have an overseas player W.Parnell* i have no idea who he is or how good he is so i just tried him in a game and well.....hes useless and i cant seem to find a way to sell players.

I seem to be just clicking next over in this game,just set the bowler to bowl in a way that each batsman dosnt like and just keep clicking,i tried micro management and setting user defined fields but with little success,you can probly tell by my reply im more than a little frustrated.
Ive played alot of management games through the years but i really dont get this one,the hardest part is not being able to see a players current and potential skills which is made more difficult by my lack of domestic pro cricket knowledge.

I really need to tips or direction to a decent FAQ as i havent found any webpages for this game.

W Parnell is a young South African Fast Bowler, he's probably only playing badly because he's in bad form.And anyway some overseas players just don't work out.As I said; CHECK YOUR PLAYERS' BOWLING AND BATTING AVERAGES!to find out whether they're good or not. I have got Shakib Al Hasan as my overseas at Northamptonshire and though he's a fantastic player he seems to be struggling. To be honest, the game might need work on the line and length when bowling and the fielding settings but that will probably be fixed in icc2010. I love not having skills shown because it's like real life, you won't know how good someone is just by looking at them; but maybe it good be like fog of war in football manager, so only well-known players have their skills shown.

[Dan34]

Well after playing 5 games and losing 2 ( 1-day games) and drawing 3 i decided id just pick and skip some games and we won the following 6 games easily.

I really must be doing something wrong but i just dont see what,when i play we do alright but the other team seem to be on fire especially the batsman.
I set a field thats fairly defensive and bowl to the batsman weaknesses and still they smear the ball all over the park.

Thanks to everyone thats taken the time to offer some help but i think my time with this game is up as i just cant see how i can improve my approach with the limited information i have to hand offered by the game and i dont want to just click trough a season watching my team get stuffed over and over just so i can maybe get a few different players next year and watch the same thing.

I think maybe in future releases they may want to look at fielding and bowling so that the player feels as if his decisions make a difference.

I`ll maybe have a look at the next release and see what changes have been made but for now im going to walk off into the sunset

[dontask]

when i tried bowling to batsmans weaknesses i found i also got slaughtered all over the park. so i just now stick to default settings when bowling unless i need quick wickets when i notch it up to 5 bars.
i wouldn't give up. with some advice on how to play in the match i think you will be fine. i know its frustrating but learning 1st season with an average team is the way to play. with more experience and a better side from the 2nd season you would be fine

[Sureshot]

I've not found any county team that, in the 1st season, has a squad that's "mine". It takes some time to build your own team, which is a big part of the experience of the game for me, and I think for many others.

Personally, I don't like the skip match feature, I want to play every game, even the T20's, which although I don't really enjoy in the same way I do with the 4-day games, I can work on my team and players in those games.

Stick with it, the first season is always the hardest, because it isn't really your team.

Is it worth using player defined field settings?

I find moving my fielders about to be the most effective method of taking wickets, I've got quite a few of my own edited fields saved for varying scenarios. For One Day games, think defensive, but always keep a slip and short/square leg in.

Who would be a decent purchase?

Get a good overseas bowler, at the end of the season find a bowler in the overseas tab with an average below 25.

What things would i be advised to do at the start of the game?

Get to know your players, look at their averages and look at their form throughout the season.

Who should i be training (first team regulars or youth players)?

In your squad I'd focus on training Denly, NOrtheast, Khan, McLaren and Joseph.

Should i take money from training to be able to bring in better players?

For the first few seasons I often focus money on training sessions, you can still get decent youth players through on a low youth budget.

How can i sell a player?

You can terminate a players contract during the transfer screen after the end of the season.

[gooch]

Grin and bear it! Or not? Trials & tribulations of new players.

I can't say I blame Dan for giving up on the game, if he has, although I think he'll be missing out on a lot of fun. The game is not really designed to encourage new players and I wonder whether this is one of the reasons why it has not always been a commercial success.

One obvious weakness is the fact that you can't change your team much in the first season - in football management games you can usually buy and sell players at the start of the season and that gives the player a chance to start to shape the team the way they want to from the outset - going for youth or experience, building a strong defence or splashing out on a top striker, for example. As Sureshot says, in ICC it's not your team in the first season and, frankly, you are restricted to the number of changes you can make at the end of the first season without incurring financial penalties. The other problem with this is that it takes a long time to play a cricket season and I can well understand how someone would get fed up losing all the time - I do!

The second problem which Dan touches on is that you don't really know how good players are, especially youth players, without playing them for a fairly lengthy period in the first team. This, I'm afraid, does not reflect real life where coaches can look at the attributes of players and make judgements on their potential - I'm not fully convinced that 2nd team averages do this in the game. In football management games you can view some of the attributes players have so that you have something to work on, while others remain hidden, as they should be, since in real life it is true that some players who are great at club or 2nd team cricket can't step up a level.

I wouldn't personally want to use an editor but I think all the posts on these forums about unofficial editors and cheating arise because there is a conflict between players who want to play against others online and people like me who just want to play a cricket game at home. While I like the idea of building up a team over time and I accept that in the process I'm going to lose a lot of games and face a lot of challenges I can understand why some people want to win more games and if they want to cheat themselves or experiment with teams and players why shouldn't they - I have certainly done this myself with football games and where's the harm? From what I read in these forums people use edited teams online anyway so I can't see the point of not providing those who want an editor with an official one.

Another frustration Dan mentions is the feeling that he has no control over events on the field and I do feel that the game is often too quirky in this respect. I think the consequences of aggression settings for batsmen and bowlers need to be explained more clearly for new players - for example, if I'm bowling defensively it should at least restrict the batsmens' ability to score runs quickly a little - too often, it results in getting smashed all over the park. You can't expect everyone to be expert at setting a field - yet new players are told it's an advantage to have user-defined fields. I've not been tempted to experiment much and I hope I'm not at too much of a disadvantage because I think people should be able to play the game without having to fiddle about with field settings if they don't want to. To sum up this part, I think new players often get frustrated because they think they're doing something wrong and they don't know what it is - in fact, I still feel this way myself, sometimes, and I've been playing various versions of the game for a number of years.

I think ICC is a brilliant game - I love it - and I make the points above because if it is to continue successfully it must win new fans who will continue to play and buy the game. How many more Dans are there out there who want to hang up their boots before they've really got into the game? It isn't about making it too easy, it's about demystifying some aspects of the game and making it more accessible and giving new players a sense that they've got some control and are heading in the right direction even if things don't always work out.

Now I'm going back to playing my first season of losing with Derbyshire and wondering how my international opener is doing - half-way through the season, haven't seen him yet, on international duty (presumably with Australia A as he's not in the Australia squad), 80k a year, what a waste, and I can't do anything about it!

[Chasjs]

A few tips:

In First Class cricket you need a bowling attack capable of taking 20 wickets. If you have 4 bowlers who you feel confident in taking 5 each then player them, a keeper and your best 6 batsmen. Hopefully one or two of your batsmen are capable bowlers so they can chip in a few overs here and their if your frontline bowlers need a rest.

In England you need 3 pace bowlers so you can make effective use of the new ball. If the pitch is spinning then it's 3 pace bowlers + 2 spinners.

As far as limited overs goes you need at least 4 frontline bowlers and then a tha few players to make up the other 10. This gives you good batting strength. In T20s though, it can be worth it to only go in with 3 frontline bowlers but be prepared to use more more than 6 bowlers if your part-timers are getting smashed.

On ICC09 a fielder at Short-Leg is a necessity in almost all situations. He takes a huge proportion of your catches.

[IndiaWarrior]

Start with youth players in career,get bettter field setup and you are ready to fly high.

[TheDevil666]

Yeah this game is a bit unfriendly to newbies. First version I played was ICC 3. I hated it but bit by bit I grew a fondness for the game. Plus the fact that you need to know County Cricket well to succeed in this game also makes it difficult to learn. I mean you either hear about CC on cricinfo or the last few minutes of SSN.

[ab5ides1]

Yeah, when I first played it I played ICC 08 and I started a county game and didn't know any of the county teams. I started with Hampshire and looked at the squad. Who the hell are most of these players was my reaction. I only knew a couple like Pieterson. I don't know how this could be changed though.

[IndiaWarrior]

I first started to play that was ICC 2005 which was great.Slowly learnt tactics of this game.