EHM The Blue Line

Challenge 7 will be with the Los Angeles Kings
The Challenge will have a couple of new rules this time
Rule 1.
All teams will follow a restricted budget set by the TBL admin team, the figure for Challenge 7.1 is $36mil with the penalty points for going over this budget the same as before. This initially will be a bit of a trial, if people are finding it too hard in their first season we may change it, however these are challenges and are meant to be challenging! The 2nd season budget may or may not be different to this figure we haven't decided 100% on this yet and we will require your feedback on this.
Rule 2.
All managers will have to watch their own matches. This means that you are not allowed to set your head coach to take control of games, what speed you run your matches at is up to you. This means your success will truely be your success not your head coach's ability to change tactics during the match.
If you do not adhere to these rules you will be penalised when calculating the points, pleading ignorance is not a defence it is up to you to read this thread and any other rules threads.

I have also changed the challenge recording excel sheet to reflect the changes to the way the stats are now recorded, whenever the server problems are fixed I will upload it

Interesting changes.

Rule 1 : I see no problem here. I was playing around to get a feel for the Kings and decided to clean house. After all was said and done I ended up with a payroll of less than $30 M. The one problem is can see with keeping a budget of $36 M for a second season is that some people might have a hard time getting their payroll down that far and then find it even more difficult to resign their players for another season and stay under that budget. It seems that the vast majority of NHL players in the game have their contracts come up after the first season, unless they're overpaid. But like you said, this would have to be a trial to see how it goes. I'm all for giving it a shot.

Rule 2 : I really hate this one to be honest with you. I have to desire to sit and watch each game, even on the fastest speed. The long processing times due to all the leagues we have selected as "Enhanced" makes each day take a long time for me as it is. I don't know if I have the patience to stretch this out even further. I set all my tactics, lines, training, and everything else myself. I leave nothing up to the coach to decide. I even set tactics for each individual player. I just choose to skip watching the game. Does that really yield such different results? I don't know about this one. Sure, I'll give it a try because I enjoy the challenges but I make no guarantees that I'll finish the season. I'm likely to get bored before that. Like I said, I really don't like this rule.

I think the changes are great! It will allow people to learn a whole lot more about the game of hockey. Not just EHM. Although some of the stuff in the game is pure crazy..I have rarely seen an NHL team without Brett Hull line up in "drop pass" face off formation. The coaching aspect, although time consuming and difficult makes for a very interesting challenge I think.
I understand that some do not like to do both coach/GM, and I have done it both ways. For me, I have had much more success coaching as well as being GM, and it has drastically cut down on injuries, and lineup stupidity.
Dressing Jody Shelley as first line penalty killer? Christ, no wonder CBJ's penalty killing sucked during the first season of the CBJ challenge.

I do go through the game alot more deliberately than others do for sure, and I understand where you are coming from Bruins72. However, I like the idea to put everyone on an even more level playing field.

bruins72 wrote:Interesting changes.

Rule 1 : I see no problem here. I was playing around to get a feel for the Kings and decided to clean house. After all was said and done I ended up with a payroll of less than $30 M. The one problem is can see with keeping a budget of $36 M for a second season is that some people might have a hard time getting their payroll down that far and then find it even more difficult to resign their players for another season and stay under that budget. It seems that the vast majority of NHL players in the game have their contracts come up after the first season, unless they're overpaid. But like you said, this would have to be a trial to see how it goes. I'm all for giving it a shot.

Rule 2 : I really hate this one to be honest with you. I have to desire to sit and watch each game, even on the fastest speed. The long processing times due to all the leagues we have selected as "Enhanced" makes each day take a long time for me as it is. I don't know if I have the patience to stretch this out even further. I set all my tactics, lines, training, and everything else myself. I leave nothing up to the coach to decide. I even set tactics for each individual player. I just choose to skip watching the game. Does that really yield such different results? I don't know about this one. Sure, I'll give it a try because I enjoy the challenges but I make no guarantees that I'll finish the season. I'm likely to get bored before that. Like I said, I really don't like this rule.

I think Minty mentioned something to me about the 2d sim engine being slightly different than the engine that runs the games when you're not watching them, but don't quote me on that.

If that is the case, then I think it's only fair that we have all Challenege participants doing it one way or the other, not both. Personally, I watch every game anyway. I've seen way to many points slip away due to poor AI decisions to let my head coach handle anything more than getting me my coffee.

Ok, I'm fairly new to this site (great website btw!), but I'm pretty good with EHM, and since I'm a lifelong Kings fan, this has especially peaked my interest.

Since it will be my first challenge, I've got a few questions that I couldn't find answers to in other threads. If they are posted somewhere, my apologies, and please post links...

1) When starting a challenge, when you create your GM and select your team, what "experience level" do you select? "Automatic"? "All Star", etc?

2) I saw a 2 year old answer to this question, and then recent posts seem to contradict it. Are we allowed to use the current unfaking database? I'd much rather my Kings have Jack Johnson then whatever the fake name the SI database gives him.

3) Just to clarify further the bit about "watching" the games. You can watch the games by turning "coach games yourself" off and just viewing the games live as they're played. I don't think this is what you're meaning though, right? You want us to "coach" the games.....set the tactics, arrange the lines, pull the goalie when needed, etc... right?

I'll probably have other questions, but will continue to try and find the answers on my own. Thanks, and I'm really looking forward to this!

1)We've not actually set any rules for this one Go for automatic
2)We allowed the use of unfaking for the EHM 05 challenges but not for 07 ones
3)Yeah coach the games yourself :Thup:

Calv wrote:1)We've not actually set any rules for this one Go for automatic
2)We allowed the use of unfaking for the EHM 05 challenges but not for 07 ones
3)Yeah coach the games yourself :Thup:

Thanks for the quick response. Regarding question 1, you should set a rule. The players all rate out differently depending on what level you select.

As for the unfaking db, guess it's a good thing I saved a backup of the original SI db.

gollum65 wrote:

Calv wrote:1)We've not actually set any rules for this one Go for automatic
2)We allowed the use of unfaking for the EHM 05 challenges but not for 07 ones
3)Yeah coach the games yourself :Thup:

Thanks for the quick response. Regarding question 1, you should set a rule. The players all rate out differently depending on what level you select.

As for the unfaking db, guess it's a good thing I saved a backup of the original SI db.

Good call gollum, I set my experinece to Automatic anyway...but it's a good idea for everyone in the challenge to do it I think.

Welcome to TBL! I'm going through a bit of an avatar making craze at the moment, so check my gallery for an av for yourself! Cheers mate.

Yes, I think all players should be at the same experience level, no matter what level that is.

And thanks for the avatar! It's very cool!

gollum65 wrote:Yes, I think all players should be at the same experience level, no matter what level that is.

And thanks for the avatar! It's very cool!

Anytime gollum, glad you like it!

So I started this challenge last night, and I'm not going to tell you players involved but let's just say some of the Kings that you might think are untradable are surprisingly VERY tradable. 1 week before my first regular season game and I have 9 new players, most on the top 2 lines.

And just to clarify...I do have until game #20 to get under the 36 million cap right?

Cheers mates and best of luck with the Kings! I love Challenges!

yep first salary check is at the 20 game mark.
Setting your experience to automatic will be a rule from now on as well

Thanks for the clarifications. And I agree, almost any current King would be available for the right deals. I can only think of a couple I wouldn't be willing to trade.

And since I'm new at this challenge thing, I'm waiting until the spreadsheet is available before I start so I can try and figure out how to do all of this stuff that's required.

There are a couple guys on the team that can be quite difficult to trade because of the salary cap. You're really got to work some magic to unload them (if you want to).

The spreadsheet should be available. Look at the stuff at the top of the challenge forum. It should be there somewhere (can't remember exactly where). Maybe in the stat recording section?

The link is in the downloads section, but I guess it's not fixed yet with the new website change they did recently.

Can I use spreadsheet 1.1 or is there a new one?

You can use the old spreadsheet it's only a minor edit to it, nothing major. You're still recording the same stats