Starting Strategy

Yet another universal rule of hattrick: everybody makes mistakes in the begining. And I mean it, everyone. Of course, everyone makes mistakes later on as well, but those newbie errors are far more harmful. In this chapter I'll try to give you guys elementary tips and ideas on what I would do if I was begining now. These tips are meant for a total beginners as well as for those who started a season or two ago and still are losing to hattrick's economy. Believe me, it's not that hard to earn a lot. This chapter does not cover everything that you should know in the begining. More details on a specific subject may/will be found in chapters devoted to those issues. I meant to write a few words on what to do to avoid destroying your team right on the start ;).

Before we start, take my advice: do not do anything with your team for another few days. Don't touch the keybord, stop breathing. The most common mistake is taking action before you know anything about the hattrick reality. Especially when it comes to spending money. You don't have a lot at the start, but you have quite important investments to make. Those investments will let you create a steady income in the future. If you spend all your money on anything that will not generate revenue, you'll find yourself in trouble. There are tens of people on conferences crying about their debt and problems getting out of it.

Now that you've hidden your keybord for safety purposes, we can proceed to... preface :). Yes, couple of issues have to be pointed out. Depending on several factors, such as the country you play in or luck, you might find yourself in a different situations in the begining.
Teams in smaller countries begin in higher leagues, with smaller competition, more money from sponsors and supporters coming to fanclubs in hordes. That should not release you from a duty of maximizing your income, but you just can afford bigger spendings. Also, there's another issue: often there's an open way to the top (when the league is really new) and getting there before others do is a big advantage (sponsors pay a lot more). But still, I'd not rely on short-time strategies too much, as training is far more profitable.
But in this guide I'm assuming that you play in a low league (5th, 6th, 7th or even 8th) in a big country. How in brief does your team look like on the first day? Here what you have:

• weak team with most (not all) of the guys that are practically worthless on the market. You might be lucky though and get few solid players (don't worry if you were unlucky - if you train efficiently, you'll soon laugh at those few extra dollars).
• 300,000 ?
• 500 supporters
• 7k stadium, which doesn't bring much income.
• several tens of thousands ? from sponsors.
• spendings that will exceed your income.

No matter what you'll do, every single week you will have less and less money. For many weeks in a row. So you need to concentrate on investing your 300k ? wisely, on things that will bring income. That's what most (but not all) of this chapter will be about: investing and saving. There will be some boring crap in the begining (youth sqad, staff, etc) and the most important part (buying players and long-term planning) somewhere near the end.
Last, but not least, my ideas are pretty strict and I realize that many people will disagree with me. Surely, I have not heard of anyone playing this way in the begining, although some people I've given advices have partiallyfollowed them and are quite successful. I have not discussed "my way" with anyone experienced (why would I talk a lot with such people about starting strategies?), so if you are a guy who knows a bit, please comment it on our Guide Forum (edit 22.02.2007 - link no longer valid - removed).

So what to do in the begining?

As I've said in the begining, do not take any actions for the next few days, at least until you know what you're doing. Let's get throught the boring stuff at first and leave a true strategy for an end.

1. Reading stage.
Hattrick is not a microwave, you just have to read the manual. Not because it's hard to use the site, but because you need that basic knowledge about game's mechanisms. Read every chapter carefully. The earlier you do it, the better. And I assure you, you'll find something new when you read it next time after few weeks... it's just impossible to remember everything after one day. If something seems unclear or not covered at all in the rules, go ahead and ask someone, preferably on the conferences... and for God's sake, do not ask questions via ht-mail before you read the rules. I get way too many too simple questions to enjoy answering them. So do others.

2. Browsing stage.
Now that you know what's it all about, spend few hours on looking at everything. Tactics that others use, prices that people are willing to pay for certain players (so you don't pay too much few days later...), match reports, etc. You'll learn a lot just by looking at that stuff.

3. Looking at your players.
In the begining you get a bunch of relatively bad players. Your best players have their main skill at solid. Just take a look at them, fire those that don't have at least inadequate in any of the main skills (goaltending, defending, playmaking, winger, scoring). Don't do other things yet, we'll talk about it later.
Hattrick allows external programs to download HRF files, which contain current info on your team (such as player stats, stadium size, team spirit, confidence, etc.). There are many programs that do nice things with this data, you can find all of them (I hope) in our HT Web Directory (edit 22.02.2007 - link no longer valid - removed). Some of them are freeware, others can be bought for little money (i.e. my beloved HAM costs 7,50 ? for full functionality... I think Loke deserves that!).

4. Youth squad.
There's one universal rule: you invest the maximum (20k ?), or you won't get to the highest (excellent) level of YS. It's definitely worth that. I don't have any experience with smaller investments (all I know is that you won't get to excellent and when you lower the investment when at excellent, you'll imediately lose a level), but it might be a good idea to save a bit at the begining by investing just 10k ?. Difference might not be that big... let's say until passable (I'm just guessing).
Karotek (Pedzace Marchewki Zielona Gora, 78490) has written down his Youth Squad's levels every single week until reaching excellent. He invested 20k ? all the time. Take a look:

Season 18
• 28.09. - wretched
• 05.10. - poor
• 12.10. - poor
• 19.10. - weak
• 26.10. - inadequate
• 02.11. - inadequate
• 09.11. - inadequate
• 16.11. - passable
• 23.11. - passable
• 30.11. - passable
  Season 19

• 07.12. - passable
• 14.12. - passable
• 21.12. - solid
• 28.12. - solid
• 05.01. - solid
• 12.01. - solid
• 19.01. - solid
• 26.01. - solid
• 02.02. - solid
• 09.02. - solid
• 16.02. - solid
• 23.02. - solid
• 02.03. - solid
• 09.03. - solid
• 16.03. - solid
• 23.03. - solid
  Season 20

• 30.03. - solid
• 06.04. - solid
• 13.04. - excellent

Our friend from Danmark, taalmod (NK's Angels (17849)) (sign his guestbook, people should be rewarded for helping others :) ) invested 20k € in the YS and noted down increase history. Here's how it looks like:

5. Getting a decent coach.
Having a good coach is a very important thing, especially in "our" approach to the game, where we want to train as effectively as possible. I'm not 100% sure about it, but if I were to say how big is the impact of this guy on the speed of training, I'd say it's linear and goes like this: disastrous 5, wretched 15, poor 25, weak 35, inadequate 45, passable 55, solid 65 and excellent 70. So excellent coach would train his youth twice as fast as weak coach.
There are two ways of getting a coach.

• recruiting a brand new one. You pay more for every skill and leadership levels. In general, it's a more expensive option than the next one.
• turning one of your experienced players into one. There are four rules here: the more experience your player has, the cheaper the deal is. Higher skill means more money (obvious, right?). Coach inherits everything, including leadership level (that's why it's cheaper, you don't have to pay extra if you find experienced passable/solid leader). And the last rule: this player must have been in your squad for at least one season (16 weeks).

Unfortunately, you do not have any experienced players in your squad now and you don't want to wait 16 weeks, so we need to stick to the first option. Take a look at s_de_hoog's website, where he listed prices for all kinds of coaches (both options). Seems to me you don't have a great option. Go ahead and recruit a passable coach with poor leadership. It should cost you 79600 ?. You don't want to spend most of your money on him and recruiting a solid coach or a guy with better leadership would simply be too expensive.

A bit later in the game you'll want to get a solid coach... take a look at those prices again and when you have some spare money, buy a passable or solid leader with solid/excellent experience. Try to find a CHEAP player (skills are not important at all). Let him play in as many games as possible. Just don't try to buy a too experienced guy, as you'll have to compete with guys that want to buy an excellent coach. They're saving more on every level of experience, so they're willing to pay more for a an experienced player.

Defensive, normal or offensive? Currently it seems that defensive coaches give your team a more significant boost. Get a defensive minded guy, unless you have a league full of computer-controlled teams and you're not affraid to win and advance. BTW... if you do have the strongest team in your league and you can win, but don't want to advance, it's a great thing to aim at qualification games. That's extra money from supporters and a bonus training.

6. Arena.
Yes, it isn't too big in the begining and it would be good to enlarge it. But if you want to follow my advices, I recommend you to hold on and spend that money on trainees. You won't earn much more anyways, since right now you can't afford a big improvement and you don't have many supporters yet.

7. Specialists.
That's what we have to save money on. Keep in mind that every next hired guy gives less benefits, but costs you just as much money.
Let's take a look at every kind:

• Goaltending Coaches: they improve goalkeepers' training speed and form. Don't hire any now, unless you train keepers. Later on you'll hire one or two. Note that you might not have more than 10 goaltending and assistant coaches altogether.
• Assistant Coaches: they improve outfielders' training speed and form. Ultimately you'll want as many, as possible (10 minus goaltending coaches). How many to hire? That's a tough decision. I think I'd hire 9 (and add one goaltending coach later on).
• Sport Psychologists: improve confidence and (far less) team spirit. Hire 1 or none (we want to save now, right?).
• Spokepersons: improve supporters' and sponsors' mood. Ultimately you'll want 10 of those guys, but get 2 or 3 right now.
• Economists: lower interest rates when you're in debt and bring some income when you have surplus of money. Don't hire any if, unless you're in debt.
• Physiotherapists: reduce chances for an injury. I'd hire 1 at most right now.
• Doctors: speed up healing of your injured players. None. Your trainees are young and heal fast by themselves and your other players are worthless...

8. Training intensity.
This is simple. Higher percentage means faster training, better form and higher injury risk. I have it at 100% and I don't complain.

9. Decide on tactics.
It should be done strictly with connection to training type you choose. For some reasons I'll propose winger training and desired tactics should be either 3-5-2 with two offensive wingers or some kind of defensive tactics with CA (5-4-1, 5-3-2, 4-5-1, 4-4-2 or 4-4-2, all of them with two offensive wingers). 3-5-2 is safer, though, and I will focus on it in this chapter. Read more in the chapter about training.

9. Prepare your players to play.
Three things can be said about your current players: they suck, they have bad form and bad stamina. You can't do anything about the first thing and you don't want to take care of the second thing, simply because it takes time. Time that you don't want to waste. Your players will stabilize their form around passable in a few weeks, just be patient.
But stamina is something you just need to take care of. Every player that influences midfield anyhow makes use of his stamina in every game. It's the most important in the case of inner midfielders. Also all kinds of wingers (especially those that play towards middle), offensive defenders and defensive forwards influence your midfield. Stamina is trained really quickly (rule of a thumb: 1 level per week) up till excellent (might be risen to formidable, but it takes a lot of time and will fall to "low" excellent in a few weeks/months anyway).
That's theory, but what to do? Simply make sure all of your inner midfielders and wingers towards middle have this skill at excellent level. This can be achieved in two different ways: training it for your own players or buying guys that already have it that high. Again, I'd advise you not to lose time on it (unless ALL of your players that could be inners have it close to excellent), sell all of your "I have nice playmaking" guys and buy 3 inners with inadequate/passable playmaking and excellent stamina. It would be nice for them to have either nice passing or defending.
I'll write much more about players and their skills in a separate chapter...

10. The Cream!
That's the main thing I wanted to write about. Earning money! I think there's no option, but to train effectively. Why? You'll either invest in your main squad and financially struggle for the next 5 seasons, or invest in the youth and get A LOT of money in 2 or 3 seasons. Of course, your team won't perform greatly by that time...
How to do it? I assume you've read the chapter on training by now, so I will not repeat all the basic stuff. At first let's see how much can you invest in your youngsters. You had 300k ?, you spent 80k on coach. 220k ?, not much. I'd seriously consider selling your top players (those that have one of main skills at solid level)... it will pay off soon.
First, let's choose a training type. My proposition is cross passes, for some reasons. Why? You don't need many youngsters. Low level wingers are cheap. Winger training weakens your team's performance, but you've already agreed to permorm poorly at the begining, right? We need 3 kinds of players: prospect wingers, one winger to be sold relatively quickly and up to 4 wingbacks. I can't give you specific skills, because I can't tell the prices you'll have to play. They vary a lot, depending on how early in a season you want to buy them.

• 3 prospect wingers. These are your main trainees. I'd say passable-solid winger, 17-18 years old. Try not to buy guys with playmaking lower than weak. Passing concerns you too. Defending ain't that important since you want to "build" offensive wingers, who do not use defending too much.
• 1 short-term trainee. Go for solid, 18-19 years old. You'll train him shortly, just to get money to survive. Same rules apply.
• 4 wingbacks. They train at a lower pace (2x slower). Go for players with inadequate defending and passable winger. If you don't have enough money, buy inadequate/inadequate players, they're worthless. Even though wingbacks do not utilise playmaking and in most cases do not use passing (unless you play new tactics), those skills will count when you'll be selling your player (they will be sold as offensive wingers).

Try not to buy second hand youth, especially if their last transfer price suggests that they were at a lower level. If you do buy him, there's a huge chance that he's just jumped into a new level and it will take a lot of time before he advances again.
How will it look like in a long term? You will play half of your trainees on sunday and another half on wednesday. The first flow of cash will come when you sell that short-term trainee. When to sell him? As late as possible... you will be tempted to sell him earlier, but wait as long as your finances can handle. Certainly do not sell him before he reaches formidable. Let's say you've bought a solid 19 years old solid who's in half way to excellent (~3 weeks). Then he'll most likely advance to brilliant (+3 levels) in the next full season (16 weeks). You'll sell him for around 3M ?. That's enough to buy a new, better youngster (17 years old solid), enlarge arena, finally strenghten your squad and change coach to solid. You'll keep on training your players, selling them rather late (try not to sell before world class). In less than 20 weeks you will have a steady team that generates a lot of revenue. This would not be possible if you wouldn't invest in training.

11. Alternative solution.
We've talked over everything. Now you should know what you can expect if you choose my way. There's another thing you could do. Read few words: keepers are the only players that we can estimate their main skill's real level (i.e. that he's high solid level). You can exploit it. Do all things as described above, only don't buy winger trainees and hire goaltending coaches instead of assistant coaches. Now run our HT Keeper's Skill tool (take a look at the menu on the left, it's there). It does exactly what I said above... checks the real level of a goalkeeper. You can now buy players that are very high in their current level, train them for one week and sell back.

Why is it a good idea? At first, it's quick. You buy passable guy and sell him few days later as a solid. You could potentially train as many players as you want. Just make sure that they have played in their original team either on sunday or wednesday and will be sold before training occurs in your country.
Why is it a bad idea? I bet you have better things to do then sitting on transfer page all week. Also, in a long run, regular training should bring you more money (unless you train many keepers every week :) ).

One last thing that beginners would probably like to know. How should your player list and line-up look like?
Players:

• main keeper: inadequate-passable goaltending. If you have any solids, sell them and get better youngsters.
• sub keeper: inadequate keeper, but weak would also be ok.
• defenders: just one inadequate-passable defender. If you have any solids, sell them and get better youngsters.
• sub defenders: your wingbacks can sit there. If they will play instead of your main central def, you're unlucky... but wingbacks are not that important.
• wingbacks: described before.
• inner midfielders: three inadequate-solid. I've described the way you should handle your midfielders earlier.
• wingers: described before.
• forwards: inadequate-passable scorers, passing helps, too (I'd say it's 2-3 levels of passing per one level of scoring). If you have any solids, sell them and get better youngsters.
• sub forwards: weak-inadequate.

Line-up:

Of course it's very simplified, you'll play around with it a lot. I'll write more about it in specific chapters.

That's all for today. Once more: I just wanted to tell you how to start... I know you want to know more, but it's all going to be written in more specific chapters.