EHM The Blue Line

**NOTE (bleh, accidentally submitted this before finishing: will clean up)

Hey all,

I posted here under the name ionkiller but thought I'd go with my real name from now on since it meshes well with something I've been working on in my spare time. I haven't played EHM in awhile and have been totally busy with school, but I like hockey sims and fantasy hockey doesn't do it. I know there's only a handful of people on here who care and most run their own games, I've been developed a database for my own personal use I thought I'd eventually share on the site.

I thought I'd just throw the thread up here for interests' sake, and when I finish it (likely closer to Christmas) I'll try and post a link up to the .rar or .zip. If anyone actually cares or is interested in any of the features, I've made a nice compiled list here:

- Uses LidasDB as a base with a very few minor alterations.

- Completely altered teams in the NHL, AHL, ECHL, CHL, UHL and all component leagues of the junior CHL (WHL/OHL/QMJHL). Have moved around a bunch of teams, removed quite a few and completely changed the CHL/UHL. All logos have been re-done to make them more equal size-wise (OCD I know), but also removed annoying TMs from them and cleaned a few up.

- Over 10 NHL teams moved around, with new (mostly custom or recolored) logos for the new teams. The DB I made also has an NFL/MLB style 'scrambled' league, with two conferences with (generally) an Eastern/Atlantic, Midwest and Western/Pacific division. I've renamed the divisions: but they only work for one screen unfortunately given set-backs with the editor and hardcoding issues, but they're all named after historically important builders in the NHL. Not a fan of Clarence Campbell, so here I've given the West the Lester Patrick Conference. They don't show up in-game, just in spirit. Here's what I've come up with:

LESTER PATRICK CONFERENCE ([/i]Western Conference[/i])
Kilpatrick Division (Northwest)
Hartford Whalers, Maritime St. Pats, New Jersey Devils, Philadelphia Flyers, Québec Nordiques
Hewitt Division (Central)
Colorado Rockies, Hamilton Wanderers, Milwaukee Millers, Pittsburgh Penguins, Washington Capitals
Turner Division (Pacific)
Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, Saskatchewan Huskies, Victoria Cougars, Winnipeg Jets

PRINCE OF WALES CONFERENCE
O'Brien Division (Northeast)
Boston Bruins, Buffalo Sabres, Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers, Ottawa Senators
Norris Division (Atlantic)
Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, Minnesota North Stars, St. Louis Blues, Toronto Maple Leafs
Leader Division (Southeast)
Los Angeles Kings, Portland Whitetails, San Jose Sharks, Seattle Americans, Vancouver Canucks

I might post some of these teams' logos since for a few of them (Saskatchewan/Seattle) I think they look great. They're not custom made in the sense I built them from scratch, but for the most part I re-colored them or cropped several existing logos onto each other. It's pretty Canadian-centric but yeah, it's never going to be like that in real life so if I want more Canadian teams I have to turn to games (if I could've brought more of the South out I woulda )

- AHL has many of the big American cities not in the NHL (Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, etc.) I've also included a bunch of Western regions that won't probably ever get teams in my lifetime (Alaska, Idaho, Dakota, Montana, Iowa, Omaha).

- ECHL is a mix of smaller cities, existing ECHL teams and teams moved down from the AHL (Rochester, Bridgeport, Hershey, etc.) Had I been able to keep some up I would've, but unfortunately I can't.

- CHL has been completely redesigned. I've turned it into a pan Euro-league, currently set with the following teams:

Northwest
Gaelic Dublin HC
Glasgow United
London Royal HC
Manchester United

Southwest
IHC Amsterdam Ajax
HC Barcelona
CH Brussels Athletica
CH Paris Saint-Germain
Réal Madrid HC

Northeast
EHC Eisbären Berlin
HC Wien Osterreich
Vìkingir HC
Polonia Warszawa

Southeast
HC Slava Praha
HC St. Stephen
HC Slovan Bratislava
HC Intermilan

I'm going to set up the affiliates with teams in various other leagues: with the hopes of encouraging the AI in-game to do transfers that would make sense with team nationalities, since the CHL is American. Even if it fails no big-deal: I plan on, just out of laziness, leaving teams like Bratislava and Praha in their divisions (unless someone suggests I should replace them with some other team). I'm going to buff up the reputation of this league as well so that the three NHL teams without AHL affiliates can play it with a bit more pride.

- UHL has been turned into an Australian league, because I like Australia. Same deal with the CHL.

- WHL has a few teams moved around (Victoria, Winnipeg given teams). OHL has more teams in the U.S. (one in Mass. and in New York) and have re-named a few (likely to annoy some people- I dunno, I like playing as junior teams with names the same as the NHL). QMJHL has more Maritime teams, and I brought back the Sherbrooke Castors.

- Game is sort of set-up to play with a fantasy draft but you're free to do as you please. I like that stuff so that's what I did with it.

Not really intending this to supplant Lidas (it won't) or compete with any other dbs, it's my own personal thing that I thought I'd share... though had I not accidentally pressed submit I would've copied this, saved it and posted it when I actually had things to show. My actual name is Midas and I always thought it was cool someone here posted as Lidas, so that's another reason why I brought the account out and used it in the DB title haha. I have all the logos done ('cept the CHL leagues) and am in the process of completing other things. I'll get to it as I please basically, not a huge priority atm. but it's slowly getting done and it'll give me something to do on long bus rides to school.

Sorry for some of the formatting errors, I can only edit posts within the first 15 minutes apparently soo yeah.

Ive never played anything non traditional(EHM/Lidas/79-80) but I must say your DB looks interesting. I will certainly be following this thread with interest.

I used Lidas' latest DB set as a base for creating the db, so really it's just going to be Lidas with a fairly large movement of teams. However, when I get time I plan on doing a re-rate of many of the players to test reducing the PA inflation that I know some people have experienced on here .

I'm making this primarily for myself and thought I'd just share it for kicks, but it's also pretty well built to customize at least at the NHL/AHL levels. I guess if you hate what I've done with teams, it'd be pretty easy to move stuff around so you could revenge me with an all-American NHL (relegate all Canadian teams to the AHL ) or just have a few alterations team-wise to the NHL as opposed to the massive and blatently pro-Canadian overhaul I've done to it.

Here's a few of the logos I've made (or recolored) though:

Saskatchewan Huskies (NHL)


Maritime St. Pats (NHL)


Portland Whitetails (NHL)


Seattle Americans (NHL)


Washington Capitals (NHL)


Victoria Cougars (NHL)


Alaska Kodiaks (AHL)


Baltimore Clippers (AHL)


Dakota Sitting Bulls (AHL)


Kentucky Colonels (AHL)


HC Barcelona (CHL)


HC St. Stephen (AHL)


EHC Eisbären Berlin (CHL)


Gaelic Dublin HC (AHL)


As you can see, most of them are just mash-ups of existing logos (St. Pats, Gaelic, Barcelona), re-colors (Kodiaks, Sitting Bulls) or using semi-obscure college logos (Colonels). A few I took from Puckdrawn (Whitetails- might rename the Stags, Clippers and Berlin). I made one myself I didn't post (Indianapolis Racers) though it is also my least favorite logo. Unfortunately, because of the scarcity of Euro-logos to use, most of my CHL logos are going to look as if they'd be better as national team logos- but whatever! The Americans logo is by far the ugliest on here, but because the Americans use either a white or dark-blue color background in-game the fuzziness around the edge doesn't show up- so it actually looks pretty decent.

Again while it's not my original intent, the db can easily accomidate team-changes via. the editor (if you don't mind inaccurate history to start) so that if you dislike a certain time, you can edit in your own without worrying about getting an error message. If you hate the Cougars but like the Clippers, you could easily throw them in, etc.

Interesting idea! I look forward to seeing how it turns out. I like the modified logos quite a bit!

darn you! I really like your version of Wild logo, actually I like the colours more than the original >_<

Haha, I'll try post them in a general logo pack for people to use at will once I've touched them up and have them complete.

foxlockbox wrote:darn you! I really like your version of Wild logo, actually I like the colours more than the original >_<

Here's a few more:

Ottawa Senators (NHL)


Winnipeg Jets (NHL); I recolored it using Bombers colors: just I thing I have for yellow/blue, underused in sports .


Los Angeles Kings (NHL); of all the ones I customized this is my probably my personal favorite.


Omaha Mastodons (AHL); actually an NLL logo, but it is very nice!


Réal Madrid HC (CHL)


I also went about changing arena names yesterday to de-corporatize them. Not that I'm a communist or anything I just liked some of the older arena names or their nicknames: Boston Gardens, Montreal Forum, The Shark Tank, etc.

So I finished the db mostly, still have some touch-ups and needa add the junior logos.

I played NBA 2k11 at my friend's house a couple days ago though and was wowed at the game mode where you can draft MJ onto your team. I wanna try something like this with some older great hockey-stars, so I'll probably mix-up the dbs when I get around to releasing it (paper season coming up and can't focus on this tooooo much till December). One will be released first: just a straight Lidas rip with these teams.

The other will come fairly long after that. I'm going to include a lot of older players from the '80s, '90s and not too long ago be in their prime for the game- and this version will basically be meant to fantasy draft out of. I'll do my mass PA reduction and I'll also include a bunch of former super-stars in their rookie years: Lemieux, Gretzky, Orr, etc. just for kicks. It will take longer but I think that'd be pretty cool, but the other one will prolly get released before Christmas.

Btw. Maritime St. Pats and Saskatchewan Huskies logos look a bit too similar to my eye, I know you made then for your play experience mostly, but maybe you could come with something different?

Midas wrote: The other will come fairly long after that. I'm going to include a lot of older players from the '80s, '90s and not too long ago be in their prime for the game- and this version will basically be meant to fantasy draft out of. I'll do my mass PA reduction and I'll also include a bunch of former super-stars in their rookie years: Lemieux, Gretzky, Orr, etc. just for kicks. It will take longer but I think that'd be pretty cool, but the other one will prolly get released before Christmas.

Sorry to say but I find that really un-cool. Either do a retro db or have the present players or fake ones. Not a mix

I'll make sure to release a normal Lidas version first and the other one will take a long time anyway, my priority is just to get a working version of this one out. I realize a mixed one is definitely not everyone's cup of tea and it'll take a fairly large re-rate anyway so it's not something I'm going to attempt until the rest of this is finished and working. But I thought I'd just bring it up for kicks.

I'll also make sure to try and update some of the transfers done for the 2010 season- even though my db is probably best built to do a fantasy draft. Perhaps if I get time I'll do a minor re-rate after the Lidas clone release, since some players (Stamkos etc.) can probably do with more stable PA and I could scramble the teams up a bit similar to what you guys did with the Winnipeg challenge- only to make them based on difficulty. Teams like Saskatchewan, Maritimes etc. are meant to be harder to play anyway, with smaller budgets, lower market sizes, lower reputation but unlike southern teams in-game high attendance. Would be fun to mix the players up so the difficulty is also reflected in who's playing on your team etc.

Manimal wrote:Sorry to say but I find that really un-cool. Either do a retro db or have the present players or fake ones. Not a mix

I can try- if you any suggestions that'd be best. The Huskies logo is actually a Coyotes rip- if you look up sportslogos you can find the original logo (alternate Coyotes logo). In my opinion it should be their main it's wonderful but yeah. The St. Pats one is actually just a cropped Celtics shamrock in a generic sports circle. If I could I'd write in text in them each but I don't have the time to go doing that it takes forever to make it look proper. I'll try and spice up the St. Pats circle a bit if I can and perhaps incorporate some orange in (nice and Celtic).

Btw. Maritime St. Pats and Saskatchewan Huskies logos look a bit too similar to my eye, I know you made then for your play experience mostly, but maybe you could come with something different? Dunno

Been real busy with school, but I thought I might try my hand at a completely fictional database to start the game.

I found this in a thread elsewhere:

200 - Generational (Gretzky)
190 - Superstar (Ovie)
180 - Franchise (Gaborik)
170 - 1st liner
160 - 1st/2nd liner
150 - 2nd liner
140 - 2nd/3rd liner
130 - 3rd liner
120 - 3rd/4th liner
110 - 4th liner
100 - 4th liner/AHLer
90 - AHL
80 - AHL/ECHL

Goalies
200-190 - Generational (Roy)
180-170 - #1 Goalie
160-150 - 1A Goalie
140-130 - 1B Goalie
120-110 - Backup
100-90 - AHL
80 - ECHL

Defense
200 - Generational (Orr)
190 - Superstar (Lidstrom)
180 - #1 D
170 - #2 D
160 - #3 D
150 - #4 D
140 - #5 D
130 - #6 D
120 - Reserve D-man
110 - AHLer
100 - ECHLer

Is this roughly accurate? Having played a few times with the older database I know players at 200 do pretty well but I've also seen 130s-140s have amazing streaks within the seasons. If anyone could help me out, in your playing experience (especially people who've done 10-15+ year sims) how did people with roughly 160/170/180 pan out relative to Crosby/Ovechkin etc.? Wondering because as it's fantasy, I'll be doing a rerate and looking to see if there's any point of inserting as many 180+ players as there is now.

Honestly, I don't think there should be any 200 players in the DB right now. There should be 1 or 2 in the 190's, and very few in the 180s. A player doesn't have to have a high CA to perform well. A lot of their performance has to do with specific attributes and how the player is used. You can also get better than expected performance out of a player due to his linemates.

Agreed.

I was actually wondering if anyone knew, just from their experience, where and abouts the cut-off is for say a PPG/just-under PPG player getting 1st/2nd line minutes vs. a player getting the same minutes who isn't going to get about roughly the same amount of points. I wanted to try deflating the CA to the majority of players being in and around 140-160. Regardless of what it's like in real life, this is mostly to make the actual game more fun insofar that it becomes even more about development than drafting top-end talent (when as I take it, that line is already fairly ambiguous). However, I am wondering whether or not in that case players with 170+ will excel greatly compared to their slightly under-CA's counterparts, or whether it will make much of a difference at all. I realize players who have very high attributes in certain areas are obviously going to excel in those areas relative to a more average, higher CA counter-part (if all things regarding coaching, development and luck are held miraculously constant). I'm not speaking to those situations: more as a broad generalization to get to know what I should work with when I sit down this December and hammer out the db.

bruins72 wrote:Honestly, I don't think there should be any 200 players in the DB right now. There should be 1 or 2 in the 190's, and very few in the 180s. A player doesn't have to have a high CA to perform well. A lot of their performance has to do with specific attributes and how the player is used. You can also get better than expected performance out of a player due to his linemates.

Bit of an update.

I turned it into a long-term project set in a fantasy universe. I dabbled in OOTP during the break. I loved the sim- it's really deep and makes me wonder what EHM could've been had SI used a marketing department, but I came back to play this because I just love hockey too much and care too little for baseball. However, looking through their forums the custom options in OOTP are just so expansive. I decided to emulate them and transform my DB from merely a redistribution of league teams to a semi-fictional/pulpy league in addition. Again, it's all for me and I'm just putting it up in-case one or two people end up interested, so just ignore it if it's not your taste (it's fun to write this stuff up as well).

DB Setting

The DB is set in an alternate universe with a very different WWII (without Nazis or a super-militaristic Japan). This leads to a sort of four/five-way Cold War between the Soviet Union, an earlier fascist European Union (one that doesn't go around exterminating minorities), Japan-led Greater Co-East Asian Prosperity Sphere (one where Japan is like the U.S. an economically dominates but doesn't literally subjugate and ruin the other nations around them), a U.K. with its imperial dominions far more integrated and an isolationist America. Woo. So much history for a freakin EHM db. All that matters is a few flags have been altered (different German flag, Russia's flag is the Soviet Union's flag for Russia, Canada's flag is more U.K.-inspired) and some cities redistributed (Japan has territory in Sakhalin and Kamchatka, so there's Japanese cities there; former German territories in the '30s that are now Polish are German in-game, as are former Polish territories that are now Ukranian and Lithuanian are Polish in-game, etc.)

Let me make it clear that this is just something creative and I mean no offense to other people. I use all nations in the DB (and have to), I have no ideological or political intentions behind this db other than to add some fantasy-flavor to it. I will include regular flags for all nations and if you do not like it you don't have no obligation to play or download it. There's still Israel, Poland has plenty of cities (and I hope, a playable league!), I'm not secretly a Nazi apologist or something, just so it's said. It's fantasy: a couple dated flags (I like the Soviet flag so I'm sticking it in there) and a few city re-distributions.

What I added

I'm currently working through playable league teams and logos. The main points of the db are a complete fantasy universe, so the names are "hidden". Some attributes will be altered. The biggest and most notable change is there will be more players from outside the traditional hockey countries. Some countries that aren't really hockey notables have more players and stronger leagues in game, such as Great Britain, France, Italy, Hungary, Germany (on par with Soviets in-game), Poland, former Yugoslav republics (Serbia, Croatia, etc.), Israel, Chile, Peru, Japan, South Korea, the Republic of China (Chinese Taipei in-game), the PRC (China in game), North Korea and India.

I am converting several leagues in-game into leagues for other countries. This will be a trial-and-error process; some may be done others not. Thanks to the breakaway.net forums I've learned how to hex-edit some of the roster files in the database, so I should be able to re-allocate some rules to different leagues- but I make no promises to myself (I'm content with just dealing with it too). I plan on corrupting a language file (likely French or Swedish) so I can change the names of leagues, trophies, etc. and won't have to go through strenuous hex editing. Over the past while I've finished four leagues:

~ NHL
Still the same, and the db is based around making this experience more fun (sorry to others who enjoy the Euro leagues...)

The big changes to the league are the removal of the salary cap, putting an emphasis on team budgets. More Canadian teams were added, perhaps I'll provide a list later (it's almost the same as mentioned earlier in the thread). In the long-term I'd like to make some teams purposefully harder to start with than others (bad contracts, lower budget) but for now I just want to finish it and play it and will likely rely on a computer generated fantasy draft for that.

~ AHL
Still the NHL's farm-league. Each NHL team now shares two affiliates, with 9 skaters/1 goalie placeable on an AHL team. AHL teams have been moved around and are filled with teams I cut from the NHL. There are 12 independent teams as a challenge (I actually enjoy managing the AHL).

~ IHL
Unplayable league, 27 teams. Uses the old IHL. Filled with teams cut from the AHL and ECHL. There are 27 in total, each affiliated to an AHL franchise. 15 of them are affiliated with NHL franchises. Basically this db's ECHL answer to the AHL, done because (1) not a ton of people play the ECHL and (2) its roster rules make it practically useless in-game to assign players to (they never have any room except before and after the season).

~ ECHL
If I can I'll change its name to "East Asian Hockey League". It has teams from Japan (who have a few cities in Sakhalin and Kamchatka), South Korea and Chinese Taipei (who's in-game territory in cities has been greatly expanded to include parts of coastal China [Shanghai, Hangzhou, Qingdao, Dalian] and Hainan). I'll post pics later of some of the teams, but I'm impressed with how they turned out. The divisions are split between the "International Conference" (National Conf. in ECHL), which has a Chinese and Korean division and the Japanese Conference, which incidentally has 3 non-Japanese teams.

It's meant to be a semi-humorous league (Asian teams have some wack names in other sports...) and some of the logos reflect that, but it's also meant to be playable. I'm going to fiddle with the rules in the ECHL and hopefully find a way to open up the number of players available and I have yet to test whether in the long-term teams will sign players from East Asia, but at the moment at least it's a fun twist on the ECHL. If everything works out, it will be a feeder league to the NHL similar to how the DEL is in-game, with some higher-reputation teams stealing a few older/washed-up players but still being a fun alternative experience (and a challenge) for those who want to play it.

~ UHL
If I can this'll be the "Australian Hockey League". It's got 10 teams from across Australia and some of my favourite logos that I've been able to put together (such as the Perth Fightin' Kangaoos or the Melbourne Emus). They're not amazing but considering my lack of artistic talent, it's fun. Again if I can change the roster rules I hope to make this a more playable league and a feeder into the NHL with lots of Aussie players, but at worst it'll just be a more fun-themed UHL (which Lidas changed to the LNAH anyway).

Future leagues I have planned are to merge the Norweigan/Danish leagues into the SEL/Allsvenskan as a super-Scandanavian league (totally dependent on whether in-game Swedish foreigner roster-rules apply to Norweigans and Danes as well), adding teams from the Balkans into the Finnish league (depends on roster rules as well), more powerful DEL with completely different teams, converting the Slovenian league into a Yugoslav league (roster-rules dependent as well), converting the Austrian league into a Hungarian league (Austria not being an in-game nation; roster-rules dependent as well) and altering the British league to make it more reputable.

If I can I'll add more junior leagues and filler players to increase the numbers of Japanese/British/French players etc. but I don't plan on making them overwhelm the NHL, just make up part of its "foreigner" demographic. I have not yet decided what to do with the CHL, I'm looking at potentially other Euro options or turning it into an Indian or South African league .

Like I've said many times the db is made for my own enjoyment, and if it so happens that anyone else can enjoy it.. that's the reason why I'm posting it up here. I'll get some pics up later so it's not all just walls of text and a few people can admire some of my naff art .

Wow, turning into quite the project. I'm certainly interested in playing it when it's ready.

Yeah no kidding. It's a fun distraction though when I get the time to work on it.

I uploaded some pictures of the updated NHL, ECHL (East Asian Hockey League) and UHL (Australia Ice Hockey League) team screens. Showcases the logos and updated flags, but the players have yet to be faked and there may be some slight cosmetic tweaks in the future (making the Asian team names less properly spelt i.e. Chiba Red Pandas > Chiba Red Panda, altering colors here and there, etc.) Not all of them are beautiful- but honestly I'm trying to focus more on the teams then making the logos perfect. There's a few perhaps in the future once this gets more off the ground I'll alter, and certainly there are some I'm disappointed with, but overall I think I did a good job of inserting some filler. My custom logo skills blow, most are just scrapped together from other sources but I had fun putting it together.

Uh, I'm using filickr, but let me know if it's not visible and I guess I can post them somewhere else. When I have more free time I'll throw in pics of the standings screen and the AHL/GBR/GER as I finish them . Here's the NHL, the East Asian Hockey League (ECHL) and the Australian Ice Hockey League (UHL) (sorry the NHL is alphabetically backwards but w.e. lol)

This seems even more interesting. Its like a complete modification I too like to think about alternative outcomes, so the alternative world is prett cool idea. Especially when you made Hockey a global sport

edit: Sapphoro Shuriken sounds better to my ear than "Paper Cranes" just throwing the idea out Would be an easy logo to make.

Yeah, I'll toss in a logo version of it. For the most part, I purposefully picked some stupid names for the asian teams (Big Apples... an Apple with a tincap on its head, come on..) because they come up with weird Adam Oates in other sports in real life anyway (one of the most famous teams in Japanese baseball is called the "Ham Fighters"). Wanted to give it that facepalm authentic feel .

foxlockbox wrote:This seems even more interesting. Its like a complete modification I too like to think about alternative outcomes, so the alternative world is prett cool idea. Especially when you made Hockey a global sport

edit: Sapphoro Shuriken sounds better to my ear than "Paper Cranes" just throwing the idea out Would be an easy logo to make.

I don't use roster mods, but I have to admit, I'm pretty excited to see how this turns out. I don't think we've had many fictional databases in the EHM community.

Midas wrote:Yeah, I'll toss in a logo version of it. For the most part, I purposefully picked some stupid names for the asian teams (Big Apples... an Apple with a tincap on its head, come on..) because they come up with weird pants in other sports in real life anyway (one of the most famous teams in Japanese baseball is called the "Ham Fighters"). Wanted to give it that facepalm authentic feel .

foxlockbox wrote:This seems even more interesting. Its like a complete modification I too like to think about alternative outcomes, so the alternative world is prett cool idea. Especially when you made Hockey a global sport

edit: Sapphoro Shuriken sounds better to my ear than "Paper Cranes" just throwing the idea out Would be an easy logo to make.

Yeah I figured you went with the funny name there, but c'moon you put in Samurai's already theres gotta be some love for the ninjas too!

That's totally true. I'll work on that.

Another update:

I finished most of the British leagues today. I converted the CHL into a 17 team "English National League" with teams from across England (mostly inspired by football names/logos). I used the Elite League as a pan-Celtic league, with 4 teams from Scotland (Glasgow/Edinburgh/Aberdeen), 4 from Ireland (the four provinces) and 2 from Wales (Cardiff/Swansea).

So I decided to change the Finnish SM (one of the most well designed and customizable leagues in the game) into a giant Scandinavian-Baltic league, with teams from the Nordic and Baltic Countries. I divided up the number of teams in the 46 team three-tiered league (14/12/20) roughly by population, so that Sweden ends up with 13, Finland 9, Norway and Denmark 8, Lithuania 3, Latvia 3, Estonia 2 and for kicks Iceland at 1. The divisions however have been weighted towards Swedish/Finnish representation in the top divisions and Baltic in the lower. However I plan on increasing the financial strength and reputation of each time as well as the SM-Liiga's reputation to make it an even more 'fun' league to play. Taking one of the Baltic teams from a lower division all the way to the championship would be cool .

For the SEL, I plan on using it to create a big German league. I originally looked into whether the DEL had relegation and it does not so phooie. Unfortunately, there's not much I can do about the Russian league. It seems in-game it also reduces its playable team numbers from 19 to 18 and creates a weird goalie rule with regards to foreigners. In the future I'll look into these things but at the moment . I plan on heavily reducing the number of teams in the Vysshaya League however (to around 20) so that there'll be a more "regular" pool of promotions within the Superleague. I'm tempted to turn my "pan-Asian" league into a super Russian league but I'm also lazy so =P

As to the now 3-4 extra playable leagues, I plan on making playable Hungarian (Austria) and Polish leagues. With the 14-team DEL (largest league now left available for play) I may convert it into a Yugoslav-type league, but we'll see. The other possibility is to use the DEL as a French (or French-Italian) league but I have yet to decide.

Regarding CA/PA....

I don't have specifics...
But I remember being able to achieve some kind of success with such guys.

- A 110 CA/PA D-Men, which happened to be slow and to have bad hockey sense, but was otherwise really strong, had good vision (for a 110 guy... think it was 12 or 13) and was a great pokechecker. It led to a bottom-pairing D-Men, playing on the 2nd waves of PP/PK, getting routinely 40 points a year (with 1 or 2 goals) with awesome +/- (think +40) and ratings above 7.6.

- Another guy with similar CA/PA. Physicals were okay, average, and mental attributes were pretty much the same, except for aggression, which was high. The guy turned into a PP machine : his best technical attributes were SlapShot and Hitting : 15. The rest was pretty much 12 or 13. Played him with a fast defensive D-Men... and it worked. He even scored 20 goals one season.

- Both these guys had low offensive roles (lower than 10 for sure).

- However, the said partner was a 160 PA guy, who stalled in the 150'ies. Never did much offensively (even though he had better playmaking stats and similar role), though. Kept him because he was useful, but otherwise, he could have been gone.

- That game was with the 1979/80 DB... I had a 125 CA/PA forward who was scoring roughly at the same pace than Phil Esposito's regen (and posting better ratings) -- but being fast (and Espo's regen was slowwwwww) and having good marks in pokecheck and hitting will always do this.

- Dave Brown also turned in a 50 goals scorer in my game, but he was playing on a line with Michel Goulet and Paul Stastny... I can't remember what Brown's PA was, and while it was high (for Brown...), it wasn't ridiculously high either.

- Bottom-line : I don't think it's necessary to tweak CA and PA. Some guys are overrated and got a CA/PA way to high, but I just don't think a massive "scale-down" is necessary.

As for the modding... How can you get rid of the cap?

Yeah there's no need for a massive "retoning" of PA. Having played more EHM to understand the modding a bit better I realized that PA just sort of mediates the "randomness" of player stats. I will still include some changes to PA (I'm going to shave off some of the higher bits) in a test game to see the effects but for the most part the game has it set pretty well. I too had a game where I drafted a guy out of Colombia (Jean Cruz!) who had plenty of stats in the green and was a PPG right-winger. I decided to just check his PA in game and it was a 132. I remember reading from one of the devs though that as the game goes on you get a bit of PA "inflation", but afaik Lidas and now Manimal have done a good job of reducing that trend. This is just because retired players on average are given pretty high PAs and just over-time you end up with more players on-top. Since my db is based on their work though I don't really need to do too much with it .

The salary cap I think is removable if you just put "0" in that file in the db. If not I'll just max it out as high as it can go.