EHM The Blue Line

In case you don't know, Riz, the originator of EHM, seems to have recently become more active with EHM again.

He's asking for help with AI trade exploitation "I'd be interested in hearing a bit more about the trade AI exploitations.".

Go to http://community.sigames.com/showthread ... 5-Ehm-2011

You can post examples in this thread as well if you have them. I've been poking around the old code lately on a few weekends and figured I might as well look into some issues while I'm at it. You never know, the old code might come in handy one day in one form or another so no harm in some minor maintenance

riz_si wrote:You can post examples in this thread as well if you have them. I've been poking around the old code lately on a few weekends and figured I might as well look into some issues while I'm at it. You never know, the old code might come in handy one day in one form or another so no harm in some minor maintenance

Excellent to hear Riz! If you ever want some suggestions on the online part of the game - feel free to drop me a line!

Good to hear. Could this lead to another EHM 2007 Patch? (sorry cant access the link at work)

No. There will definitely be no further patches for the past versions of NHL EHM, simply because of licensing issues (licenses no longer valid) if nothing else.

I'm just interested in these issues for personal reasons.

TBH right now there aretn specific issues that come to my mind because i havent played EHM for some time. I think its just a general weakness of the AI it can only value parts of a trade against each other and puts too little effort on developing a tactic. I mean its just too easy to trade for awesome firsts by moving out an overpaid veteran you just brought in. Also you can always "cheat" the AI by trading rather mediocre quantity for quality. I think you will not be able to change a lot of that by just tweaking the code a little, things like that could only be changed by an whole overhaul of the trading systems. So sorry if i couldnt really help. Will keep your request in mind when Lidas/manimal rosters ar eout and take a look again.

And now get back to that work on the secret project you dont want to call EHM because it will be awesome but not be called EHm due to licensing and we will also have to put in our own real data... ohh my wet dream haha

I think the way the AI handles there finances is a mess too, they always seem to let key players go become FA, and lots of players remain UFAs at the start of the season.

I would also like to point out the frustation of playing in the major junior ranks as key players get picked up by NHL teams right before the playoffs.

Overall the AI just needs an overhaul.

Javs wrote:I think the way the AI handles there finances is a mess too, they always seem to let key players go become FA, and lots of players remain UFAs at the start of the season.

I would also like to point out the frustation of playing in the major junior ranks as key players get picked up by NHL teams right before the playoffs.

Overall the AI just needs an overhaul.

qft... do people still say that? Anyway...

This is a bigger deal than the whole trade system. Not trying to put the creators down, cause hell without you guys I probably would be forced to get some sort of a social life JK... but the AI has some major holes.

I would MUCH rather the team management fixed rather than trade AI. I can choose not to trade, or set my own trade rules. Its a whole different story when the AI lets Alex Ovechkin walk cause he wants 6.5 million. When he does walk there should be 28 teams lined up for him. Also if a team is 750K over, they shouldn't waive Sidney Crosby. I noticed the team management get worse with altered Db's but regardless.

Anyway, the point here is "I don't mind being able to rip off the AI cause I can just decide not to. I can't run all 30 teams to ensure that they don't let the best player in the league walk"

Again for future reference.

I hate it when a team from NHL makes a contract with your player and he plays in the AHL fore 1-3 seasons and and after that he is back in the Free Agency... And as soon as you sign him NHL teams appear

Saapas wrote:I hate it when a team from NHL makes a contract with your player and he plays in the AHL fore 1-3 seasons and and after that he is back in the Free Agency... And as soon as you sign him NHL teams appear

Is this when playing with a european team ? I've seen the same trend often myself and it was one of the things I wanted to have a look at as I thought the NHL teams were too often signing older players into fringe/backup roles when those players should have really stayed back in Europe playing big minutes and earning better money.

Yes and this player has now put up quite good points for Espoon Blues GP 136 G 93 A 105 and his reputation is good and Ass Man says he is the 5th center of the team and still he is target for NHL teams But this is EHM 2005

I agree with Drew i think the trading problem is more one of that AI just cant manage their teams properly and value their needs etc.

When a CPU team needs 2 or 3 payers to really fill out a roster (usually in the minors), they instead go out and sign 1 really expensive player and then just play shorthanded.

That's a big problem for those of us who play in the minors a lot.

As for trade AI, Riz... I don't see the problems with it hat some apparently do. It's more the roster management AI.

Yeah, I've been writing down some of the roster management issues myself as well (the signing of old, past their peak ex-NHLers as backups/depth players instead of young and up-coming players is one example).

Managing the rosters can be a bit tricky for the AI, especially in the leagues with a salary cap. Heck, we've seen enough examples of roster mis-management in the last few years in the NHL to prove that even professional people involved in hockey can get it horribly wrong (yeah, looking at you Mr. Sather and Mr. Lamoriello for some examples)

not sure if this is the kind of loophole you were looking for but it seems that if you make a player "Available" it can create hard feelings and such but using "offer to all" has no effect whatsoever. Also it seems in EHM 2005 teams were reluctant to trade for a player you had recently signed but in 2007 that was lifted.

riz_si wrote:Yeah, I've been writing down some of the roster management issues myself as well (the signing of old, past their peak ex-NHLers as backups/depth players instead of young and up-coming players is one example).

Managing the rosters can be a bit tricky for the AI, especially in the leagues with a salary cap. Heck, we've seen enough examples of roster mis-management in the last few years in the NHL to prove that even professional people involved in hockey can get it horribly wrong (yeah, looking at you Mr. Sather and Mr. Lamoriello for some examples)

I doubt they would waive Ovechkin for salary reasons though. Uhh ohh eeaaasy Slats , no waiving Lundy isnt a good idea..

My beef would be that when you shop a player, even a really good one the AI almost always offers up a huge quantity instead of any quality. Would be nice at least some of the time to get a somewhat fair and realistic offer, even a challenge type trade. My star for yours kind of offer.

- The AI takes salary too easy when trading, overpayed players are too easy to move.

- It overvalues the "two-three depth for you star or prospect" too much. Well, Sutter does it too.

- The AI needs not only to check the CA, a player with 3 in speed shouldn't be as sought after as a guy with good key atts.

- Trades for picks are just broken. At the deadline a boarder-line third liner could be worth a good 2nd pick.

- Players and prospects can sometimes be acquired for a bargain when they just came to a team. They often get a value of just three stars for the first days.

- A major problem is the lack of declining atts and reputation for older players who should get retired waaay earlier or go to lower leagues.

Just a few points

Just to add to Visual's post the AI places too much value on guys with low work rate. I have a couple teams listing players with a work rate of 7 as their star players and neglecting players that produce much more.

In my eyes, the thing that's broken the most in terms of trading is on Draft Day. After the AI picks the players, they're way to easy to acquire with other picks on Draft Day. For example, Team A picks a player 5th overall. You can package a player you picked in the 5th round along with something small (average prospect, 6th rounder) and have it accepted. Theoretically, you can stock up on late round picks, then trade 4th and 5th round selections for all the players that went in the top 10.

The next day, that trade will be impossible to pull off. It seems like the AI doesn't assign correct value to the player until the day after the draft.

The funny thing is, if you try to trade for the pick itself before they make a selection, it's very difficult and you have to give up a lot. The moment they make the pick, you can then pick up the player they picked for peanuts.

One more problem is that the AI utilize players to the grade that an human Gm does. A three time 50 goalscorer (product of tactics) can bring you a, for you, 70 goalscorer without any problem.

The AI is mostly going with pretty balanced tactics and it's been proven many times that the over the top offensive ones are way better. So if the punishment for going too offensive was higher the AI would be able to utilize the players better and therefor make better trades. Very offensive should be risky and should risk resulting in less goals for and many against.

Also people stated the team management is broken. When I trade players I simply try to fill their needs as well as my own (the AI can't do it as of now). The problem is like when I trade a goalie or another position that team is lacking it's almost a 25-50% chance that they waive or trade him for scrap.

I more have a question for riz than anything. I'm having an issue where my is ending the process as soon as I open the application. I'm using Comodo for my firewall, though I've had the same issue for Zone alarm. I have already set the application as allowed. I'm wondering if there's anything else I am missing. I am really missing playing EHM.

I play quite a bit of Junoir, adn often I see junoir teams sign an overager and then release right after he signs with them becuase they don't need him/have too many overagers. Most often it is goalies this happens with.

1st round picks are also a little too easy to acquire in the beginning of the season. Before the season starts, you can tell that some teams will be bad but you can easily trade their first round picks by grouping in a couple of lower picks.

i.e.

four 6th round picks for a 1st round pick (with a high probability picking in top 10).

it is too easy to acquire lower round picks as you can just go and sign young UFA prospects who are still exempt from waivers and trade them to any team for a lower round pick then group these together and trade for a couple 1st round picks.

riz_si wrote:can get it horribly wrong (yeah, looking at you Mr. Sather and Mr. Lamoriello for some examples)

Ehh, give the guy a break, this is just one of those years