ok, we had a discussion with myhandisonfire. we tried to fix the main ideas, but we still haven't finalised this. have a look at
http://wiki.warlight.net/index.php/Manager_League, or read it below.
Manager League
Outline of Idea for a Manager League.
This is a quick outline of what we intend to do. refer to myhandisonfire who's original idea this is, or to unknownsoldier who is typing this. THIS IS NOT FINAL, we are making it up as we go along!
We want to try an initial 'beta' league to see if the idea works. The outline is below:
(1) 6 managers exist. they control squads of players whom they select. the squads play games in leagues.
(2) there are eg 2 leagues. a 1v1 and a 3v3 (other combinations are ok also, but we keep it small for now). every squad plays every other squad, via 3-team tourneys. there are thus 10 tourneys for each league. in a tourney, a team plays 2 games. thus a player who does a full season will play *20 games*. the tourneys take place in rounds - another round does not start until all games in the previous round have ended. games will usually be light fog or no fog, to allow other people to view the games.
(3) CASH. managers start with a pool of cash, eg $1000. they get cash as prizes for league finishing position, eg 1st=$1000 2nd=$800, 3rd=$700, 4th=$600, 5th=$500, 6th=$400. they pay their player's salaries (SALARIES could be either based on player's category, or as 10% or player's price, NOT YET DECIDED). they buy players at the start of the game, in an auction. they buy/sell players to each other during the league season, BETWEEN tourneys (during tourneys, players are of course fixed in a game, and so cannot change teams). players are sold IFF the 2 managers agree to the trade.
(4) at the end of the season, all players return to the pool of players (ie the manager no longer owns them).
(5) winning. there are several measures of success. for a manager: (1) final league positions in the 2 leagues. (2) how much money you have at the end of the season. for a player: (1) how many games did you win during the season. (2) how much was your price and your salary.
THE FOLLOWING WE HAVE NOT YET DECIDED ON. we dont want teams to consist only of the best WL players - we want to force managers to 'make do' with a mix of better and weaker players, and to strike a balance between buying star players, solid players, and weaker players. how do we do this?
myhandisonfire will assign a category to every candidate player, category 1-6. idea 1: managers will be restricted to 1 player from each category in their squad. idea 2: the pool of players will be reduced. 6 players from each category will be selected at random, and put into a pool. managers can buy any of these players.
(6) starting auction. managers submit a list of players they wish to buy, with the price they wish to pay. the organiser (who is the only person to see the lists) then assigns each player to their highest bidder, assuming that manager still has enough cash. this is done in rounds. we auction eg 12 players at a time, making for 2-3 auction rounds. the auction is likely to be very important to the game - bidding too much for players may cripple a manager, bidding too little may mean you get none of the good players. any unsold players at the end of the auction may be be picked up for free.
(7) wages. wages are either set by player category (eg $16 for cat1, $10 for cat2, etc). OR they are set at 10% of a player's price (with a minimum wage of eg $1). TO BE DECIDED. wages are paid at the start of every round, for every player on a manager's books.
POINTS OF DEBATE:
the method of limiting the number of top players in a squad.
the salary method, based on points or % of price.
the exact details of the starting auction - how many rounds to have.
the sizes of the cash prizes - we want to balance: (1) rewarding winners. (2) if cash carries over to next season, we don't want 1 team to get too rich, and always stay top of the pile).
other things that i haven't thought of.
THINGS TO BEAR IN MIND:
we want to limit the amount of work for organisers. communication methods will be wl chat, tourney creation, plus this wiki. calculations will be done by hand on a spreadsheet.
players and managers might quit WL whilst the tourney is in progress etc. we'd like to limit the candidates to 'reliable' people. also,we want to make the game reasonably fast (5-10 weeks :/) so that people stay involved.
