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Most countries have a division that is mostly active in the lowest numbered leagues and almost all bots in the upper numbered leagues. For example, in the USA Division IV, series up to III.29 are mostly full of active teams, and from III.30 to III.64 their are only 7 active teams.

This happens when active teams are relegated. An active team in this position will face 3 months of BB solitaire, and may get bored and quit.

This can be reduced by directing relegating bots toward the higher numbered series. So for example, in the USA there will be 64 champions of D.IV leagues and 64 teams relegating from D.III, some will be bots and some will be active. Sort the relegating teams into two groups: bots and active teams, and sort the promoting teams by league number with the highest first, regardless of whether a team is a bot or not. The actual pro/rel is done by swapping teams, so in this case bot teams from the lower division will tend to be sent up to the higher-numbered leagues.

The same procedure can be used for both regular pro/rel and for the secondary bot cleanup.

A more thorough procedure would be to avoid (if possible) promotion of bots. Currently, if a bot wins its league playoffs it promotes, and then is immediately relegated as part of the secondary bot cleanup. But instead, bot playoff winners could be replaced by active teams that didn't win their playoffs but had good regular season records. These teams will promote as part of the secondary bot cleanup - but if they are part of the regular pro/rel, all the bots in the higher numbered leagues will simply stay in place.

This problem will be solved in off-season time... Cause bots`ll be moved to lower leagues and best performed active teams to upper divs... Like it happen on last off-season...

Did you even read what he wrote?

So what I wanna say that no bot teams will promote... any way those teams will be relegated and replaced by active ones...

(All bot teams last season were replaced by active ones, doesn`t matter what bot team won or reached....) So because of this I think this suggestion is already implemented into the game... Maybe I misunderstood something... So if I done that I apologies him...

Take a look at Lithuania. Currently there are 669 active teams which is enough to fill 42 leagues, all of D.I, D.II, D.III, and 21 leagues in D.IV.

If you look a the high numbered leagues in D.IV, they are almost entirely bot-filled. They will nonetheless have a playoff winner, that will be promoted to D.III. A team that is being relegated from D.III may be an active team, in which case that team will face 11 weeks of playing against bots.

It doesn't matter that the bot that promotes will be instantly relegated as part of the bot cleanup. The active team has already been placed into isolation in IV.52 or a similar league.

Promotion/relegation is divided into 3 steps: (1) Determine which teams promote/relegate; (2) Determine which leagues they are moved to; (3) Swap the promoting and relegating teams.

In the simple version, step 1 would remain unchanged, 4 teams relegate from each division, and 1 team promotes. The 2nd step would be changed. If there are any bots being relegated, they will be sent to higher numbered leagues. Active teams being relegated to the lower numbered leagues in D.IV.

In the more complex version, an attempt would be made to not promote bots in the first place, since they are going to be relegated immediately. So you initially determine the 64 champions of the 64 leagues in D.IV. If any are bots, you pick another active team, which would be promoted anyhow as part of the bot cleanup. You have to make sure that there are 64 active teams in D.IV, in the rare cases where this is not true, you can simply relegate fewer teams from the higher division. And after you determined which teams promote and relegate, you would still try to relegate bots to the higher numbered leagues.

I just could say you that in LTU Div.III after clean-up wont be left any bot teams... So for me this is clear... Cause anyway if bot wins league and there is active team in that league so that team will promote and bot wont... cause they will swap them during clean-up...


(Maybe I wrong, I can`t ensure you cause I`m not BB)

Yeah, this is a bug we noticed a couple weeks too late.

Our current thoughts are that we're going to fix it so that the promotion works just like last year, with one change -- if a player is demoted into an all-bot league, he will re-promote with the highest priority.

Again, this is only a draft of our plan, so don't hold me to it; my point is only that we know about this and are planning on fixing it for next season.

Cheers!

The problem isn't Lithuania division III after the cleanup. The problem is the active teams that were relegated into D.IV leagues where they were the only active team with 15 bots.

Imagine that you were a replacement team in D.III, you start out in 8th place with a 4-14 record, and as you try to figure out the game, you manage to win two games and finish 6-16. You then get relegated in IV.46 and will face a season of games against bots. You are going to get bored. You might only log in once a week, and then skip a week, and you might quit. Or maybe you stick through a wasted season, and get promoted back to D.III. But since you weren't challenged, your team might not be that good.

I'm simply saying that it is better to relegate teams into leagues where they have to compete against other active owners.

The current pro/rel system is a compromise. You need to use a 1:4 pyramid, or you could end up with a huge number of divisons. If you used a 1:2 pyramid, you would right now be adding teams into a Spanish 9th division.

But you don't want to make it too risky to relegate. For example, if you had two teams promoting from each league, you would have to have 8 teams relegating from each league, which could mean that some 5th place teams with a 14-8 record might be relegated. So having 1 in 16 chance of promoting is on the low side, but may be necessary if you don't want to have too many teams relegating.

When you add a new division, you quadruple the capacity of a country. So you can easily go from 100% filled to 25% filled. You want to have lots of room for new owners - because you never want to make someone wait until the start of the season to begin playing.

So most of the time you will have lots and lots of space, just in case. But most of the time these bots should just be used as a reserve, or perhaps to fill out the field for the early rounds of the cup.

The USA has enough owners for around 47 leagues, or 3 divisions plus 26 of 64 D.IV leagues. So instead of a 1:4:16:64 pyramid, you could have a 1:4:16:26 pyramid. You should take advantage of this, and provide additional opportunities for promotion from D.IV. Because of the dynamic nature of new owners, you can't base pro/rel on a fixed 26 league in D.IV, but you can base it on providing 64 promoting teams to match the number of teams being relegated from D.III. You of course would include league champions that are active, and then additional active teams based on their regular season record (just as you now use for the secondary bot cleanup).

Because you are limiting promotion to active teams, any relegated teams will go into leagues with active teams (as long as you maintain a footprint of leagues with active teams).

Last edited by jimrtex at 4/5/2008 5:31:37 AM