Of the games I've played so far, I've started off at the lowest level and worked my way up, over time. Although I haven't won the top award in the different leagues that I've played, I'm working on it. I've just really played in two different leagues: (1) from South America, the country of Venezuela, I played a team in the second tier (Segunda Division); and (2) from Australia, the Aus_Victoria (aus_victoria) League, I played a team in the seventh tier (Provincial Division 3 NW) which I'm currently playing and finding it rather difficult to be honest, yet interesting. I'm still playing that team from the seventh tier in the Aus_Victoria game and got up to the second tier (Division 1), but whether or not I can get higher, I'll find out as I play more seasons.So from my understanding, when you start a game, the team you have chosen is randomly generated and populated with 17 (?) players whose skills are relative and likely around the 100 bar average for the division that you start in, I'm guessing. The other teams could be higher or lower in average skill for their team, but you would start out around the middle. And from there, your stadiums capacity is determined based on the amount required to pay your players et al, at a value of $25 per ticket. And from that, it is up to you to fill the seats and make money and work your way up to winning and all of that.
So here is my first issue: Stadium attendance. As the stadium attendance is a major source of our income, it is used to determine how much money we'll get, in the course of a season. The other source of income is through sponsorship from a sponsor. When I play games with the CPU Players, I hope to get the best attendance possible to ensure that I get a good income from it. It directly affects us, the Human Players. When I play away games, I like to observe the attendance for the other team. It doesn't always seem to add up. I always wonder, or at least wonder a few times, how the team can afford their players when their attendance is not very good. So, then the question of do the game rules and restrictions apply to the CPU Players comes to mind, because if there is no financial issue with attendance to deal with, then how are they getting the money to pay for all of this?
I guess too, as the default admission cost is $25, I begin to wonder if maybe the CPU Players charge more as the tier levels increase or such? Or does the admission cost only affect the Human Player? I guess one tip I have that might help people starting off is that if you want to get people in the seats and the beginning admission cost is $25, if you lower the cost, say to $20, you might get more bums in the seats but whether it would benefit you or not, you'll have to see for yourself.
I guess my second issue that also relates to cost is the youth academy, but of the CPU Players. At least in my current game, they seem to have some pretty good skilled players there, which makes me wonder how I can get them too. It all relates to bums in the seats (income) and whether or not I can get skilled enough recruits. But I wonder if the CPU Players are playing with a stacked deck or not. And if you're wondering, I do have my youth academy settings to 25 percent of my earnings and the best coach available. It just relates to the attendance I'm getting. Oh well.
I guess you wanted to make the game simple enough for the parameters that we could control. I'm wondering now if the parameters were changed and the CPU Players had to deal with money earned through attendance and sponsorship, might their youth academies be as plentiful? Though they would likely be building more stadium space and such too for sure, to keep up. It surely would be interesting to see how the CPU Players would deal with the same issues we have to deal with and put out a respectable team, if they could.
Some potential downsides of course would be in players on the transfer list...Some players may balk at being traded if the CPU Players don't offer enough money or such. As for now, you don't hear about the players being traded to a CPU Player team balking at the wage being offered, but if you're trading for a player and the wage isn't to their liking, they can balk at it until it is to their satisfaction. That might be an interesting game to play if that happened. Though too, there might be a few more players being fired then if they couldn't be sold via the transfer list.
On a side note about the transfer list, when you are buying a player from the transfer list, the time frame that the contract is for varies from 1 year to 4 years. Honestly, I think a preference for 4 years would be ideal, at least when the player is younger or of a certain age at least and their skill levels will only increase or at least stay the same. When they are older and their skill levels can decrease, you might want to negotiate a lower wage. Is there any way that the time period for a contract can be selected or set, say to the maximum, which could help the Human Players most likely?
So getting back to the original question, do the game rules and restrictions apply to the CPU Players, at least in this perspective? And if they don't apply, is there any chance that they could be made to apply or is that some programming that would totally be too complicated to do? And I wonder what the game play of THAT game would be like.