A true beginners guide for ambitious players!

[Al Svanberg]

GUIDE LEVEL 2 -- A NEW SEASON

Introduction

Hi guys! In this guide I will cover all aspects and issues that I've recognized that arise when your team is promoted one division.

What is new?

-Champions league

-Your first new Cup-draw

-Changes to your players -- the loss [sic] of a star, loss of value etc.

-Contract re-negotiations

-Better players on the transfermarket

-New financial and token-ary conditions

Champions league
The CL is a very fun feature. Its a regular 4 team group like in the real think and you play a game every other day, so it definitely gives you more action in season 2. The competition for me at least has been weak at the ground stage, no team over 60%. A 120k win-bonus is also helpful.

With more games, its useful to have a bit better bench in the 2nd season -- if -- you play with an association. You will have 4 games per day on Saturdays and Sundays, and even if the 2 association games will not take conditioning off your players (your players condition remains the same after an association game), you will want your players rested for those games and that can be tricky unless you have a few reserves to use in easy league/cup games those days.

Your first new Cup-draw

The Cup draw is obviously a bit of an issue that needs to be recognized as a fresh player in this game. I've seen a lot of talk about it at these forums, so now when I experienced my first real draw my self I noticed what the talk was about. My better account Al FC, basically only faces level 4 players. Even if I think it has a chance to win the Cup, its a really strong account, it of course will not be easy. If one opponent shapes up and gets his team in order he will have 2 free-bee stars on me. My other account that is a bit weaker got mostly lvl 3 players.

Anyway, so what is this draw about? As I have understand it (and I might base this on old info), the Cup draw is based on a team's best 14 players. If someone keeps like his 4-5 best players late one season and sells the rest while picking up 1-2 star players, that player will get a easy draw while having a huge budget to build a strong team early the next season.

You can read more about it in this thread:
http://forum.topeleven.com/top-eleve...up-draw-2.html

Changes to your players -- the loss [sic] of a star, loss of value etc.

The star and percentage ranking in TE is based on a players ability in relation to a target value per division. In Div 1 that target value is 25. So a player that has the avg. ability of 25 will have 6 stars and 100% in ability. In Div 2, that target value is raised to 30. So your 6 star "100%" will drop to 5 stars and 25/30 percent. So a player actually does not loose any ability from one year to the other (unless he is old), but relative to the avg of your new division his ratings will drop.

Since all players get older, they also loose value in TE. The value loss was a bit more substantial than I imagined. The value of my most expensive player, Khalid Kannibalouz, dropped from app. 4.24m to 3.42m over night when he went from being 18 to 19 y/o. I haven't spent time mapping how much each players looses in value from one year to the other and to what extent this differs between age groups, but the one conclusion I draw is that its better to sell a player late in a season instead of early in the upcoming season. If you have that choice.

Contract re-negotiations

In short, this is a non-issue in the game. I spent some time in my first season locking up my best players that had short contracts. But there is no need to do that even before the season ends if a players contract runs out. You get a number of days to resign any player without a contract in the new season even if his new contract has run out.

Better players on the transfer-market
It seems like you at any level will be able to find 18 y/o players with a 5 star 99% ability. IE, for every level you go up you will be able to find players that are a star better on the transfer market. The 99% 18 y/os at lvl 1 was worth around 2.7m, at lvl 2 they go north of 4.2m:

This is a dump from 5.45 AM of Day 1 of the new season:


I have slept a little longer since then, but the transfer market has significantly cooled down, and most of the time it looks more or less like this:


My recommendations are hence:
- Have at least 5m in capital at hand early on in Season 2. If its worth it is up to you to decide, but you will find gems if you go up early Day 1 of a season. These 99% 18 y/o are definitely worth getting. They can easily be trained to 7-8 stars in their first season.

-Jump on a young player that is good, north of 3.3m maybe if you are looking for one, you won't get many chances. I've seen two 18 y/o 99% players so far, and I check the transfer market a lot. Albeit not that early the last week.

New financial and "token-ary" conditions

I've read that in later divisions having money at hand is not a problem, only token limits players. At lvl 2, money still seem to limit a lot of players. It is important to manage your value by training young players, selling them for a good profit at the right time (6-10 PM European time), and getting cheaper vets to fill out your roster.

Also, I said this in the original guide, do not neglect to farm tokens!! I think many ambitious players are neglecting that a bit. Spend 15 minutes a day on token offers. I know, it sucks. You will not get all tokens you are entitled too. A bit too often a token offer takes 10 minutes of your time before you end up at a dead end and your time was wasted etc. BUT, getting 3-4 extra tokens per day is just very valuable. That is 35 tokens (from the game) and 90-120 tokens per season from offers. Those tokens affords you to win most auction battles, the recommended scout players, players from youth academy and so forth. If you put in those 15 minutes per day, I definitely think you will be very dominant your first 3-4 seasons at least.

As usual, any input, questions, comments etc is greatly appreciated!