Intermediate Guide

• Command Line Options
• Managing players
• Managing the stadium
• Buying, selling and firing players
• Scout and physio
• Managing your team's finances
• Starting Bygfoot more comfortably
• Parts of a "Season"

Command Line Options

• You can specify a directory with the pixmaps and the text-files needed by adding -d your_pixmap_dir at the command line.

  bygfoot -d ~/.pixmaps

• You can specify a custom country-file by adding -f your_country_file at the command line.

  bygfoot -f ~/country_uzb

• You can load a saved game directly by giving Bygfoot its name on the command line. If it's located in the "$HOME/.bygfoot/saves" dir, you can omit the path to the file.

  bygfoot michal-1

• You can start the Bygfoot Online Update Frontend by calling

  bygfoot -u or bygfoot --update.

  This will work only for those using the Bygfoot source package and a version higher than 1.7.1 rev2. Those who use a source package of an older version (but higher than 1.6.1) can use the bygfoot-update bash script located in the package directory.

Managing players

• Right clicking on a player will write extended information about him into the right window, except when you're in transfer mode. You can also select the player and click on the Player button and Show info to achieve the same.

• Young players get gradually better (skill-wise); older players get worse; the age at which a player reaches his peak ability differs with each player. Goalies' skill decays more slowly.

• A player's peak ability is his talent value, which is only indirectly accessible for you through your scout. You only have your scout's estimation about a player's talent.

• Getting better or worse means also an update of the player's value and sometimes his estimated talent. If a player improves, his wage increases. If he gets worse, his wage stays the same (nasty, isn't it?).

• If a young player never plays, his improvement is slower; if he's injured, his development is retarded (so a player who seldom plays and always gets injured when he does may never reach his talent value). Conversely, if an older player gets injured, his "decay" speeds up a bit.

• Skill is rather more important than fitness (if you have a 8.0 / 90% and a 7.5 / 95% player, i'd let the first one play -- at least in important games), BUT: the worse the fitness value of a player, the more likely the occurance of an injury.

• The accuracy of the estimated talent depends on your scout's ability.

• Goalies only count in the "Best players" statistic if they have participated in at least half of the league games.

• Goalies lose their ability more slowly as they pass their peak age (which is also later).

Managing the stadium

• The safer your stadium is, the more people will come to watch your matches.

• The attendance depends not only on the safety but also on the type of game: in a Nationwide Conference game there won't be more than a couple of thousand spectators no matter how safe your stadium is; whereas a UEFA Cup final will guarantee a full stadium.

• In stadiums with bad safety, fires can break out or riots can happen.

• Your home games are (except for transfers and prize money) your only source of money, so keep an eye on your stadium (safety decreases with time).

Buying, selling and firing players

• When in transfer mode (the Transfer List displayed in the right window), you can put players from your team on the list by right-clicking on them in the left window and remove them by right- or left- or middle- or whatever-clicking on them in the right window. You can also use the Player button to do these things.

• You can temporarily sort the transfer list by clicking on one of the column headers, e.g. Skill. If you go back to main menu, the sorting is undone. You can sort the list permanently by switching it on in the options menu (see Preferences).

• You can have Bygfoot warn you with a popup window whenever an interesting player appears on the transfer list by specifying some conditions in the options menu (see Preferences).

• When in transfer mode, there's a small, inconspicuous button (the Browse teams button) with a search symbol on it in the lower right corner of the main window. Clicking on it will show a list of all teams in the game except your own team. If you click on a team name, the player list of the team is displayed (the attributes shown depend on the quality of your scout). Now you can try to buy a player by clicking on the row he's in. In most cases the team owner will refuse to sell the player because there's no adequate replacement. But if you're lucky, they have a replacement and you receive an offer. But don't be surprised: you'll have to pay a lot more for the player than for players on the transfer list; and the player will demand a very high wage.

• (Versions >= 1.7.0) Instead of using the Browse teams button, you can also click on a team name in the tables or click on a fixture in the fixtures display (in the latter case, left and right clicking will show you the home and away team, respectively) to see the player list of the team.

Scout and physio

• The scout is the most important factor when buying or selling players. A better scout will:

  • have more information about players in other teams (such as status or age)

  • be more precise when estimating the player's talent, value and wage

  • find a buyer for your player faster

  • get more money for the player you sell

• The physio is important when your players are injured. A better physio will heal the players faster, but his wage depends on his quality. If no player is injured, you don't have to pay your physio.

Managing your team's finances

Money usually comes in by three ways:

1. Ticket sales. They only bring you money when you play at home (this means: take good care of your stadium and extend it as you can).
2. Player sales. This one is seldom used (you won't want to disband your team, do you?).
3. Prizes. If you finish a season as first, second or third, you get some prize money. You also get some money for being the winner of the promotion games or 4th in league 1, and if one of your players finishes in the top 3 of the goalies or goal scorers statistics, or if he's voted best player.

There's also a "drawing credit" feature, which allows you to draw more money from you bank account than your current position. Your drawing credit depends -- just like the maximum loan -- on your stadium and your players.

Starting Bygfoot more comfortably

This tip is intended for those who are using the binary package of Bygfoot:

1. copy the directory support_files to your home directory and rename it to .bygfoot.
2. copy the executable to a dir in your PATH (e.g. the directory you store the bash scripts you've written).

Parts of a "Season"

NOTE -- Cup and League names in this section refer to the English country file (which is also the template country file... ;-)

• You can browse the fixtures by clicking on "Figures -> Fixtures". Of course you won't see all fixtures, but only of those leagues you participate in and only of those rounds (in the cups) which have been played or for which lots have already been drawn.

• Each season there are:

  1. League games (5 national leagues),
  2. FA Cup games (featuring all English teams, though some teams from the first two leagues have a wildcard for the first round),
  3. League Cup games (Nationwide Conference teams aren't participating here)
  4. International Cups:
     1. Champions' League games (you'll participate if you win the Premiership),
     2. Cup Winner's Cup games (you'll participate if you win the FA Cup and don't win the Premiership) and
     3. UEFA Cup games (you'll participate if you finish 2nd to 4th in Premier Division and don't win the FA Cup)
  5. Additionally there's the
     1. Charity Shield between the Premiership champion (or runner-up if there's a double winner) and the FA Cup winner and the
     2. UEFA Supercup between the CL winner and the UEFA Cup winner.
  6. In leagues 2 to 5, the teams ranked 4th to 7th play promotion games (a pair of home/away and a final on neutral ground). The winner gets promoted along with the first 3 teams in the table.