Youth Player Generation

[BKarchitect]

So I just spent a week making the entire (well a pared down version with around 80-90 of the best national programs - not all 200) version of the USA Tier 1 Major Midget (18U) and Minor Midget (16U) system as playable leagues. The thought being that the computer would thus generate more players to fill these teams as they are now playable - both at startup with extra players added and in the future to fill out the rosters.

Well, it's 2031 and all the 16U teams are completely empty and the 18U teams have 2-3 players each. Anybody have any clue how the game stocks youth teams and if there is a rhyme or reason to it? I've got a tiny random high school with tiny rep and low player training filled with 12 players and Chicago Mission, Little Caesars and Selects Hockey Academy - with huge reps for junior clubs and 20's for player training and in a playable league with basically no players being developed. Then I was thinking well maybe the reps are too high but then looking at high school programs with lower rep, it's still completely hit or miss in terms of just completely random and non-nonsensical levels of player generation so I really don't think that's the issue.

Ideally I want to "funnel" player generation more concentrated for both America and Canada into the elite youth programs...the aforementioned types, Shattuck, Culver, the top Minnesota high schools and New England prep schools, the CSSHL and GTHL programs in Canada...but no matter what I do, I can't see any sort of pattern or way to do it. I really thought making them playable would be the thing that gets it done but not at all...

I'm almost considering going back to really paring back the number of youth teams and leagues to just a few of the top ones so that hopefully the CPU will stock them well each year of player generation but then I worry the CPU simply won't generate enough youth players at all.

[BKarchitect]

I reduced the number of clubs and it definitely helped make the ones that still exist at the Major Midget/18U level become more stocked with generated youth players. Here's a couple of observations though:

- The 16U/Minor Midget/Bantam level is still barely populated ever...and I think the reason is two-fold:

1) Almost all of the 14 year-old Americans show up being generated in high school/prep leagues.
2) Almost all the young Canadians generated at the bantam level are in the Western Candian bantam leagues - and I think pretty clearly that's because the WHL draft is a bantam level draft (unlike the OHL or Q), so all those prospects are a year younger and thus the simulation attempts to stock up 13/14 year-old Canadians from out West because there is a trigger in the game (the WHL draft) that requires them.

So I'm thinking a couple of things...

- First, having both an 18U and 16U level for a junior/youth organization is totally pointless for the United States. Midget level U16 is still good to have for Canada because that is where the OHL/Q drafts are stocked and Bantam level U14 is still good to have for Western Canada. But having say Chicago Mission 16U and Chicago Mission 18U levels and expecting the 14 year-olds to be generated at the 16U level and graduate to the 18U level...it just doesn't work. Not enough American players that age are generated and the ones that are end up being mostly at high schools. Even when both levels are brought up to fully playable standards with extra players added.

- Second...I may experiment with changing American youth programs to be classified as "high school". I have a feeling they will operate better under that umbrella and you'll get a nice spectrum of 14-18 year players filling out the teams. So instead of "Compuware 18U" and "Compuware 16U" - just having "Compuware" youth program and having it classified as a high school will lead to a team that is filled out better and spans the age spectrum that youth hockey generally covers.

Will see how it works and let people know. My goal is still to get fully playable leagues for:
- High level USA youth hockey programs
- Minnesota High Schools
- New England Prep Schools
- Eventually the high level Canadian bantam/midget leagues like the CSSHL and GTHL (or some sort of regional all-star leagues of the top programs).

And again that may not mean 200 Minnesota high schools at two school size levels - it may mean taking 32 of the traditional powers and putting them into one playable league. But I think it would be cool to start managing at that level and work your way up and I'm kinda interested in seeing how the simulator does with high schools.

[archibalduk]

This is really outstanding. To have a set of playable leagues all the way from high school up to the NHL is something I'd always hoped we would see in EHM but never thought it would actually happen. I love seeing how you (and others) are pushing the boundaries of what the game can do and opening up completely new aspects of hockey in the game.

I'm going to send this all over to Riz today (including the discussion on HFBoards) in case there are any tweaks he can make in order to improve the gameplay. It's probably worth sending a copy of the DB and saved game to him so that he can see for himself.

[nino33]

This is really outstanding. To have a set of playable leagues all the way from high school up to the NHL is something I'd always hoped we would see in EHM but never thought it would actually happen. I love seeing how you (and others) are pushing the boundaries of what the game can do and opening up completely new aspects of hockey in the game.

I totally agree!

I'm going to send this all over to Riz today (including the discussion on HFBoards) in case there are any tweaks he can make in order to improve the gameplay. It's probably worth sending a copy of the DB and saved game to him so that he can see for himself.

Awesome!

[BKarchitect]

I've given up on the high school/youth leagues for now, just not seeding long-term enough to be functional as a playable league.

A few more things I've learned:

- Seeding with extra players on playable and junior teams let's all these H.S. and youth teams be pretty well stocked at the very beginning but over time they become less and less populated by generated players.

- It almost all has to do with the level of hockey in the state that the H.S. or youth program is in - for example, the Minnesota and New England and Michigan programs continue to get well-stocked by local talent but there is not enough youth generated in non-traditional hockey areas. Even places like Missouri and Colorado who now produce lots of talent - I cannot get them computer to seed them, even when their local H.S. and youth clubs are given high reps.

- I thought one thing that might solve this is to add more geographical content to those states...and I added tons of cities with full coordinates and high attraction levels to a lot of states and it has zero effect. There is something in the game that is letting the player generation process "know" to produce lots of Minnesotans and New Englanders but I am not sure what it is - nothing that is editable seems to have an effect. There is no "hockey importance" level for individual states like there are for countries.

- I tried playing with H.S. youth league and team reputations, thinking maybe what was in the DB was too high or too low but again, no real effect that I could see.

I may still leave these leagues in eventually as playable leagues, not so much so people can manage at those levels but so that history is generated and I can also enforce league rules (like limit foreigners so a Dallas youth program doesn't have kids from North Korea and Dubai). It would be more for background simming than to run as a human GM.

[BKarchitect]

I'm going to send this all over to Riz today (including the discussion on HFBoards) in case there are any tweaks he can make in order to improve the gameplay. It's probably worth sending a copy of the DB and saved game to him so that he can see for himself.

Thanks Archi - what we really need to understand is the mechanics of how the game seeds youth players...especially for the US/Canada with States and Provinces...do the number of cities matter, does "attraction" matter, what is causing the game to output so many Minnesota high school kids but a top youth program in Colorado, St. Louis or now even South Florida (where there are some burgeoning top youth academies) only get a very small handful of players generated each off-season...

[alces31]

Hi! I'm new on this forum, but I've followed a few trend and experienced a little bit with the editor. Thanks to everyone who worked on the editor or on the rosters. You do an amazing job and it makes the game so much more fun.

I was wondering if there was new information on this trend. I've tried to make the hockey world more "international", with powerful countries all over the world (ex. Brazil or China) and more complex internation competitions. However, I can't seem to find a way for the game to generate players from these countries. I have tried:

• to increase the reputation of the countries;
  to increase the league standard, the financial power, the game importance or even the development state of the countries;
  to create junior leagues in these countries;
  to create senior leagues in these countries;
  to add cities;
  to add names from these countries;
  to give some countries a high IIHF score to start the game;

None of the above worked. I have simmed several years. The game generates a few prospects from these countries, but almost none, which makes any attempt to make them powerfull impossible.
Does anyone have another idea? If it impossible to edit the prospect generation, anyone have an idea if this will change in future versions of the game?

Thank you very much!

[nino33]

Hi! I'm new on this forum, but I've followed a few trend and experienced a little bit with the editor. Thanks to everyone who worked on the editor or on the rosters. You do an amazing job and it makes the game so much more fun.

I was wondering if there was new information on this trend. I've tried to make the hockey world more "international", with powerful countries all over the world (ex. Brazil or China) and more complex internation competitions. However, I can't seem to find a way for the game to generate players from these countries. I have tried:
to increase the reputation of the countries;
to increase the league standard, the financial power, the game importance or even the development state of the countries;
to create junior leagues in these countries;
to create senior leagues in these countries;
to add cities;
to add names from these countries;
to give some countries a high IIHF score to start the game;
None of the above worked. I have simmed several years. The game generates a few prospects from these countries, but almost none, which makes any attempt to make them powerfull impossible.
Does anyone have another idea? If it impossible to edit the prospect generation, anyone have an idea if this will change in future versions of the game?

Thank you very much!

Looks like you've done a lot!

You can have the game add prospects and players to playable leagues at start-up. If you do this while using the largest possible database size, and it doesn't help enough or at all, you'll need to create players and populate the database yourself


You can create as many or as few players as you'd like for each nation (ex. Brazil or China); ideally you'd populate the junior/senior leagues to start and have some extra players too (so the free agents/fringe player list isn't completely empty).

If you exported players from an existing database, selected some and changed their names/birth country, you could populate your leagues that way and save time (also, either delete the old birth cities or overwrite them with new ones appropriate to their new birth country)


Depending on how good you make the senior/junior rosters, you can determine how quickly a country gets "good" and how good they get

And you can add as many "future players" as you'd like (players not yet age 14 at start-up; they can even have a DOB that's after the game start-up date).....the ECK rosters, as well as retro rosters, have many years of future players

[alces31]

Really interesting! Thank you very much!

I have absolutely no coding knowledge, but I had fun trying stuff with the editor. Maybe I'll try using the prospect generator and changing the players' countries. I think it could work.

Thanks for your help

[ideawithoutamind]

Really interesting! Thank you very much!

I have absolutely no coding knowledge, but I had fun trying stuff with the editor. Maybe I'll try using the prospect generator and changing the players' countries. I think it could work.

Thanks for your help

Didn't catch this thread until now, but I did a lot of International expanding in my DB. I think seeding the DB with players is really the only way to see the non-traditional markets.

On my Global United db, I left all of the Pivot players/prospects but I also added about 27k staff and players over the course of 50 years. I tried to have at any given time about 3 national teams worth of players for over 130 countries.

I haven't done detailed research besides spot checking. But also making sure the reputation of the league/Nation and the teams match players coming up. I don't have an exact equation, but I tried to best mimick US high school, college, and Canadian Juniors for the club and league reps.

I have a heavily modified (less researched) version of a prospect/player generator that I added thousands of names from less traditional hockey countries.

If you've managed to find out any new info from your tests, I'd definitely like to hear too.