My vision of TCY 2

[litangel]

After playing TCY 2 for the last 3 months, I enjoy the game, but my game developer side is dreaming of what could be in TCY 2. Here is my very detailed vision.
I see keeping all the basic systems from TCY and building on them, except for game plans, which would change.

1. In Game Strategy - You could go to being able to call every play, but here is an alternative. Game planning in real football is a chess match between the coaches and this replicates that. You have a catalog of about 200 offensive plays. Ideally they would be represented by simple graphics, like the plays in Football Mogul (the actual play system in FM was bad, there was not enough effect from a good play call, but the cute graphics I loved). Each play is run from a certain formation (or formations), by a specific players and lists the 3 or so player ratings on the offense and the defense that most effect the result. It also lists the Defensive Strategies that this play is Strong and Weak Against.
For example - POWER SWEEP - RB - run from I formation or Pro Formation - RB Power Running RB Breakaway Speed RG Pull and Block -- LDE Run Defense, LOLB Run Defense, LILB Pursuit - Strong against Deep Zones and Weak Side Blitzes, Weak Against Run Contain.
You can run plays from any formations, but you get a bump when you use the OC's Primary Formation.
Each year you choose 10 plays for passing situations, 10 plays for neutral situations, 10 for running situations, and 3 for Short Yardage that are your team's playbook. You can change the playbook slightly before each game, how many plays you can add and drop depends on the new strategy rating of your OC. Then when you play a game, each quarter you choose two plays in each category (1 in Short Yardage) to be your feature plays in each group.
Meanwhile the Defensive Coordinator has chosen 15 defensive strategies for the year from a group of 80 or so. He also can add and drop for each game, how much depends on DC's Strategy Rating. He chooses a primary defensive strategy for each quarter for each situation - Running, Neutral, Passing, and Short Yardage. Each strategy lists the types of offensive plays it is strong and weak against. With certain strategies, the DC will have to choose how often he will blitz, and with whom, or who he will double team.

Once the play and strategies are chosen, the game runs the quarter, using the feature plays 1/2 the time, and the rest of your playbook for the other 50%, against the defensive strategy chosen by the DC. Success is a fairly equal combination of the strength of the key offensive and defensive player's skills and how well that play works against the defensive strategy chosen. You get a report at the end of the quarter of the other teams choices, On offense you see the strategy that the defensive team chose, and how well your feature plays did. On defense you see the feature plays chosen, and again, how well they did against your choices. You can change your choices (or keep them the same) for the next quarter.
Before a game you can see the strategy the other team used in the last game.
Coaches - There are more coaches. In addition to the current coaches, add coaches for each major position group, including special teams, a strength coach, and a trainer/ medical staff.
Recruiting Coaches - Recruiting coaches will be more complex that in TCY. Available coaches will base their decision on several factors, different for each coach (like players in TCY) some will care most about how much you will pay them (more about money later), some about location or conference, some about prestige level, and all coaches will care about how their personality (new coach rating) fits on your team. Coordinators, Trainers, and Strength Coaches look at how their personality fits with yours, and position coaches look a little at how they fit with yours, a lot at how they would fit with their current coordinators. Each coach will have a Loyalty/Ambition rating that represents how likely they are to leave their current position, especially if a better opportunity comes up. Some coaches rather than just leaving, will give you the chance to give them a raise to match what the other team is offering.
Coach Ratings - all coaches, except for the specialists like trainers, will have 3 Recruiting ratings (we'll talk about that more when we get to Player Recruiting), all position coaches will have rating for each skill of the players in their position group, representing how good they are at developing that skill. Strength Coaches will have ratings for how well they help each position group (determines effectiveness of weight training), Trainers will have ratings for how well they treat each type of injury. Your OC and DC will have rating for Management (how well they are able to keep their position coaches happy), Strategy (mentioned above in Game Play), Play Calling - determines how well random plays are called, Teaching - determines how much their players benefit for Football Study, Film Study - determines how detailed the information you get is about an opponent's players before a game, and a Knows Players rating, which determines how well they can determine what style of coaching a particular player needs (again, more later).
Player Recruiting - You could add one more preference for players above the three that already exist, but I am not sure that is necessary. although I would add a small number of negative ratings for Prestige and Academics like you have for Location, representing players who want a small school, or a party school.
I would add a whole hew layer to recruiting. Each player (and this really included their parents and coaches) has a specific personality that responds better to certain types of recruiting strategies and not to others, and also matches up better with some recruiters than others. Each recruiter not only makes a phone call or visit, but has a choice on how to behave on that visit, Do they brag about program or are humble? Do they talk negative about other schools? Are their pushy or low key? Do they focus more on the parents or the athlete? Again, different strategies work with different players. Also some players want as much attention as possible, and you can visit them many times with positive effect, other will get bugged, and you will lose ground by visiting too much.
Rather than you getting a certain amount of visits and phone calls per team per week, each position coach and your coordinators get one visit and one phone call each per week. And you as the head coach get one visit. Each position coach can recruit players in hos position group, coordinators can recruit anyone on their side of the ball, and you can recruit anyone. A visit from the head coach is a positive with any player.
Each coach has 3 recruiting ratings. Charisma (similar to Congeniality), determines how much players in general like you, Intuition, determines how well you can read a player, players with 1-3 ratings might totally misread a players reaction, 4-7 become progressively better at seeing if your current recruiting strategy is working or not, and 8-10 will be able to read clues that once you have some experience, will let you know ahead of time what recruiting style will work with a player. The 3rd rating is Player Evaluation, and determines how accurately a coach can correct the report from your scouts.
Also players will respond best to coaches with personalities similar to theirs.

Players in Season - Players personalities do not stop being significant once recruiting is over. In terms of time allocation, some players need a lot of free time, some want structure, and others will do best if you let them figure out their time (that would be disastrous for other players). The coaches Knows Players rating helps you figure out what a player needs. Also I would add either a type of coaching style that you choose with each player in general or one that you apply when a player hits a crisis of some type. Are you encouraging or critical? distant or act like a friend? again different strategies work with different players.

Player Ratings - Players are related for more skills that better mirror what really affects their play. For instance, Run Blocking might be broken up into Power Blocking, Pulling, and Zone Blocking, and then these will become important in choosing which plays to emphasize.

Money - Each year that your team makes money for the athletic department, you will have a choice of where to spend some of it. You can hire better coaches, you can build facilities (improves prestige long term) you can do a PR blitz (improves prestige short term) you can hire more tutors (more Extra Time hours), you put money in a stadium development fund, at some point the alumni will match you, You cam gift that money back to the university, helps with Academic Prestige, including boosting the long term max.

OK, this is the end of my long brainstorm. Is there anyway to get to Jim to see this? I would love for him to see it.
And if you do see this Jim, I would be willing to help with the TCY 2 Project if you ever take it up, even unpaid.