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Three, players from smaller countries point to the big guns of larger countries and saying they will never be as good as them the way the game is structured. The players from larger countries instead point out that these smaller countries will continue to thrive as they don't have to stay competitive, hence can afford to win even with weaker players while saving up more cash to spend. This increased monetary capability will then result in them becoming insanely strong, see point Two for elaboration.

sorry if i focus on a little phrase of your long thread, but just look at the current BBB for evidence of the fact this is alreay becoming reality
of the 16 teams remaining, only 3 come from 500+ user countries

Dear CrazyEye,

Inside strategies being weaker because of their higher wage doesn't hold true because the same wages for inside players also apply to the defender. To counteract an inside strategy, you need to invest in inside players of your own. It swings both ways, and should be a non-issue.


Dear Kukoc,

It also adds an additional tactical dimension to the game. Do I spend more of my salaries on the inside, or do I invest in Guards? Maybe I should balance them both up? Do I keep 5 insane starters or level things out with the subs? You decide what you work with, and what you do with it. You might see entire teams with their own special setups instead of the current player specialization.

This is an excerp from my lengthy post. It will hardly be clone vs clone as it will be much more dynamic than what is available now. You come up and win it all not through the division, but through the national tournament which is a level field for all teams. To fully grasp the effect of cash hoarding on the game, I'll recommend looking up Hattrick. Some players here might be familiar with it.


Dear mark_lenders,

Yes it is. One season hardly constitutes hard proof, but the trend is beginning to show.

Could just create a seasonal profit tax..

This works well in FML... you have to invest in stadium or on a player or pay taxes.... competitiion tax as well (not that the money is high enough to tax yet!)

Both these would ensure that the hoarding of money would be much slower and encourage a constant flow of money circulating around the game.

Ah, but you could still work wonders with a hoard of money. What it would be slowing is the process. So I've gone over the possible taxes and it doesn't seem to have the desired effect.

But by implementing a team salary cap, you limit the amount of 'instant success' money can buy while still giving teams leeway to play the money hoarding game if they really want to.

Point taken. But then again this is a subjective matter which is relative to interpretation. I do agree on your expansion on it being a managerial game, the initial direction I wanted to point out was that BB is based on a sport, and not an economic simulator like a real time Wallstreet simulation. Any thoughts on the idea though?

The problem here is when top teams start to run at a deficit instead of zero profit, it becomes an indicator where having the best players means running as far in the red as possible. Who could possibly run in the deep red for an extended period of time? Hoarders.

A salary cap doesn't affect new teams at all, they can take their own time to improve their team as it will be several seasons before they can get enough good players to even come near the cap. This cap affects only the teams at the top approaching a deficit economy, and promotes tactical play at the top level instead of who has the bigger bank balance.

Yes, this is basically what I said -- you an always get better by adding more salary. Therefore the incentive is to plan

You said teams get better by adding more salary, which is the process. I said the problem starts when teams need to run on a deficit budget to remain competitive, which is a point in time.

Wrong. Teams that have money. Hoarders have money, but this is a separate story.

Having a different point of view to you does not necessarily mean I am wrong. Make no mistake, in the long term if things remain as they are, you will have to hoard to be competitive in the top levels. All top divisions will be running on an insanely negative economy which you cannot realistically support. The ones at 2nd, maybe 3rd level, you can be competitive and still turn a profit.

What happens is, to have a shot at the top division title, you will have to hoard up a warchest in these lower divisions. Once your warchest gets big enough, you buy those monster players and run on a big deficit every week and promote yourself. Every week will be a hit on your bank balance, so you will have a limited time to nail that trophy depending on how big your bank account is. Once your cash reserves approaches zero, you sell your big players to put yourself back into the black. Your team will get demoted, of course. Wash and repeat.

I will point to the online football management game Hattrick which is quite similar to BB in certain aspects as an excellent case study. Do you know about it? Have you played it?

Sure it does. If you're ready for promotion, that means your players have to be close in skill to the players in the division above in order to be able to compete. Except that the teams above have significantly more fans by design -- that's how division levels work. This puts promoting teams at an obvious disadvantage.

New teams will not have that cash to improve their rosters that much. You STH will have to remain more or less where it is for a couple of seasons for you to approach the cap. Even when I was a new team, the cap was always beyond reach and every season when I made 1-2 purchases, the STH would have moved as well.

It is only for the top teams that have hit the STH soft cap that will be affected as their STH doesn't improve that much. It's basically stuck somewhere near the 4000 mark.

Anyway, this is only a side idea to reinforce the main one. If you have an idea on what a team salary cap should be hinged on so that it doesn't affect small and new teams but only the top teams in BB, I would like to hear it. I know there are more creative people here in BB, so there may be a way I haven't though of.

I used to play Hattrick so I know what you're going on about. It's a big problem there, which is why I don't play it anymore.

For what it's worth, I think you have a great idea there and hope a BB sees this. It would be great to hear their take on this.