Ongoing teams

Punkpogoer · Post by **Punkpogoer** » Wed Aug 01, 2007 11:40 pm

I am starting a league with a few friends of mine. We are all new to the game. I have played the old 2nd edition a few times back in the day with one of the guys that will be playing but that is our only experiance with the game. It appears to me by reading different league forums that each new season you start a new team, but we would like to have ongoing teams that would just carry over to the next season. Is this not a good idea?

Digger Goreman · Post by **Digger Goreman** » Wed Aug 01, 2007 11:59 pm

Your league is done your way.... Personally I love Dynasties... but I'm not the whole of our league and, being Commish at that, it's up to me to find a blend that works....

Talk with the rest of the coaches and reach a workable consensus....

Cramy · Post by **Cramy** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 1:26 am

You can do one or the other. In theory, you can play a team forever. So a league could have the same teams that never reset for however long you wish. One issue here is if some teams do very badly and some do very well, you could end-up with teams that are much better than others, and the others can't catch-up, hence end-up losing most of the time. I have never played such a long league, so I really don't know how often this happens.

We play the same teams for two seasons. Then we want to try new teams, so we reset and start again. Playing rookie teams and experienced teams is quite different, so we like to build-up our teams to be pretty good, then restart.

So whatever your league fancies is really the answer.

Pakulkan · Post by **Pakulkan** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 7:24 am

We play a league that have 13 matches plus the Cup and Play-offs. And at the end of the league, most of the coaches don't want to continue the next season with the same team. It's just a question of variety. Some of them decide to use the same race, but restarting the team.

You can play your first league, and the, at the end, decide what want to do. Some coaches will love their overpowered teams, and others hate his 6-elf-team. Talk about that.

Anycase, the new inducements equilibrate the game a lot fort the low TR teams.

Duke Jan · Post by **Duke Jan** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 8:10 am

Waaaay back we introduced a lower division for season 2. This was 3rd edition, so coaches had reason to be scared of strong teams. The stronger, older teams were in the top division and since players wanted new teams next season as well they were in the lower division with a chance of survival. I don't really think such a structure is nescessary anymore though, but it avoids the dilemma of people having to play against themselves while still allowing for some variety.

MadLordAnarchy · Post by **MadLordAnarchy** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 11:09 am

I had to go way off the beaten track to successfully make an ongoing league work but apparently the point of the latest rules changes are to encourage perpetual leagues. Dynasties and ongoing teams are far, far better in my view.

ekwatts · Post by **ekwatts** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 4:09 pm

Having ongoing teams sounds like alot of fun if done right. It adds a certain RPG element to the whole thing. Still, I can see how difficult it might be to run it fairly for newer teams.

Digger Goreman · Post by **Digger Goreman** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 5:46 pm

It's interesting how few (reported) leagues (none I've heard of) use the challenge system in the book....

Anyway, our first league was a fresh start with all teams having 3 or less warm-up games.... We were kinda playing by ear and might have been going for 12-16 games (random choice of opponents then rotate through the list so you play each coach before playing another with the same coach).... One team was runaway undefeated after six and folks wanted to reset, so we did....

Instantly the discussion began of established (Dynasty, as I like to call them) and new teams... centering, iirc, around variety.... First we started to have two leagues running simultaneously, then some wanted to play each other... so I told everyone to bring what they wanted and that any amount of pre-games would count....

Not knowing it at the time, but we ran into the intrinsic <33% win ratio for induced underdogs and the seemingly necessary need to ramp up 1 mil teams to face established teams.... Nevertheless the league was closer with no runaways... (coaches becoming experienced?)....

So, for the third season, we ran whatever you wanted to bring but match-ups are determined by setting the lowest TV teams against each other (as long as you haven't played them yet).... Has worked reasonably well so far through half a season....

The trend I've noticed is that a team should be able to handle anything after 16 games.... So my intent is to have a fresh start league of 16 games (we'll do it random, I guess, for the first game and then by TVs).... After the "Rookie" season we'll have a short (8 game) Dynasty season (bring whoever you like, previous rookies/established teams/ etc.) and then back to a rookie season.... That is... short of new info and opinions being brought forth....

You just gotta flex around your league members and past experience....

Meradanis · Post by **Meradanis** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 9:53 pm

Since our league is nearly done with season 4 and will finish the Blood Bowl soon, we're going to restart with fresh teams. This time, it will be 10 teams (each coach 2 teams) with 9 games every season + Cup and Lucky Losers. Yes, you have to play against your own team, too (controlled by another player for this game). Since we're all mature players, no problem so far with playing against your own team.

So we're going to have about 40 games from season 1 to season 4, but we do allow to retire your teams and start with fresh ones every season. It does work pretty well for us, there's room for late game developement (like playing a Chaos team), but many teams are played for 1 or 2 seasons only. Those teams that rock from start on (Amazons, Norse etc.) have a high propability of winning the Spike! Magazine Cup, while a Chaos team might be ready for the Chaos Cup, which suits us just fine. Inducements make it possible for late starters to catch up.

Kheldar · Post by **Kheldar** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 12:56 pm

In our leage you can have up too two teams. These teams will be carried onwards from season to season. If someone wants a new team he just starts a new one in the same division, after the actual cup is finished (every half year).

We have no fixed shedule, so you may choose whom you play. The best 5 matches get counted, so everybode has a chance to come into the playoffs.

Since most people are going to start a new team, there are enough fresh teams to play against. Even if not, the inducement system works quite well.