Mana Games

[Ibarrategui]

Hello

1/ Wimbledon, in men's double, is played in three winning sets, not in two, unlike the three other grand slams.

2/ The women masters final was in 5 sets max in the past, it plays in 3 today

3/ A lot of women players of 2000's are playing on the tour when I begin a game in the beginning of the 90's. It's strange. (?)

4/ What about the Nations cup of Düsseldorf in may?Is it possible to create?

5/ Is this possible to have the real calendar of each year since 1990? Tournaments have changed for this time...

6/ When I edit the players.ini, can I put a 1999 ranking - #4 - for Steffi Graf (for example), without changing the ranking of all the players? Does the game accept two "number 4" in the same year in this file?



And now some fantasy questions
7/ can I create a tournament, which access is limited to the the players of a sole country?
8/ can I create a tournament which access is permitted to the players of only some countries?
9/ can I create a team cup during one or two weeks (as the fed cup of the 70's and the 80's), with 8 or 16 nations.
10/ If your answer to my ninth question is yes, can I select the countries of this team cup?
11/ can I create a masters cup style tournament with 4 or 8 groups of 4 players?

(my idea is to create a winter circuit with national championships, continental championships, world championships, etc...)

12/ An editor for the files .ini (with an exe) will be very useful for the "modders"...

[Curtis]

Hello Ibarrategui,

Excuse me for piggybacking on your thread, but your points 7 and 8 reminded me of a request I intended to make for the next version of TEM.

I would like to see computer players make an effort to appear in tournaments held in their home countries, trying to get in through qualifiers when they might only have a slim chance of winning.

Maybe I am too patriotic, but I always play as French with French players, and I have my players sign up for any French tournament they are not obviously too good for. I also have all my players sign up for the Federation Cup, even if they seem to have no chance. (Twice I have been surprised to have players ranked in the 80s selected to play in the Cup, so it's actually a good policy.) It would just be more fun to play in a Strasbourg Open if half of the players were French.

To me it seems odd to have American players in a tournament halfway around the world when there's a roughly equivalent American tournament being held the same week. Don't they get homesick?

[manutoo]

Hello,

3) bad ranked players' names are used twice. But it shouldn't happen to any well ranked players (better than 60 for WTA, and than 120 for ATP)

4) it's not possible to easily create it

5) it'd be quite hard & a lot of work to do it

6) yes, u can have as many #4 players as you wish, but if you put a lot, the game will be harder to play, coz u'll have more though opponents

7) add this line to a tournament to get only players from France (for example) :
CountryPlayer = Fr

8) nope... & it won't be too easy to add, but if you want, I could easily add a RegionPlayer, which would lead to have players only from one of the 8 regions already defined in the game (which are Europe, Asia, North America, Central America, South America, Oceania, Afriaca, Middle East)

9) & 11) no, it's not possible

12) That would be a lot of work for something that is (almost) easily editable with a text editor...


Curtis, players already have a noticeable higher chance to enter a tournament from their country, but they still prefer higher paid tournament, and the preference is really not systematic; if it was, maybe it'd lead to many tournaments full of fellow patriotic players

[Ibarrategui]

OK.

I hope you noticed my remarks 1/ and 2/

3/The bad ranked players are used twice, OK. But... Marin Cilic is not really a bad ranked player . I wonder if you noticed that Jane Chi, Sara Gomer and A.Kanellopolou play in the mid 90's (I simulate a 90-05 tour) on the 20th rank... But I do not remember of these female players... I understand that you put some players twice in the 300th rank... but in the 20th? Is that a bug?
OK, they never won a slam or a tier I, but I saw them in quarter or semi final of big events sometimes.

4/OK, no problem, I supposed that the form, the number of teams and the calendar of team cup (in 4 weeks all along the year) is hardcoded.

5/ I know that calendar is difficult to remake. My question was theoretical : is it possible to make some different calendars per years without changing the programmation of the game? Can I create a 1990 calendar, then a 1991, then a 1992... etcetera? (I think 'no' is the answer at these questions)

6/ Ok fine : I made some changes on the WTA tour (i've juste finish a third handsoff simulation) => I lowed Davenport rankings in the mid 00's (she win only 4 slams... in the precedent handsoff, she won 12 slams...), I put Graf in activity in 1999 (#4 => Wimbledon final), I change the 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 rankings
2003 : 1 Henin, 2 S.Williams, 3. Clijsters, 4. Mauresmo, 5. V.Williams
2004 : 1 Myskina, 1. Henin, 1. Sharapova, 2. Mauresmo, 3. Kuznetsova, 4. Dementieva
2005 : 1. Henin, 2. Clijsters, 3. Mauresmo, 4. Pierce, 5. S.Williams
2006 : 1. Mauresmo, 1. Henin, 3. Sharapova
Results are more realistic : it's difficult to make a ranking of top 3 players in 2004 for example, I prefer make 3 number one!

6b/ Can you tell me what does the ranking "1.03" or "1.02" mean in players.ini (I see that on atp files)?

7/ COOL!
I think that I will create some national championships at the end of the season. How many players do you think these championships can have without crashing the game? 16?
(I don't want to create 40 national championships => i know that is impossible to make more than 10 tournaments per week)

7b/Where do I put this "countryplayer"?
In tour ATP.ini or in tourcatergoryATP.ini?

8/ It would be very fine to add this "regionplayer"!


9-11-12/ OK

13/ Can I put 256 players in a "super slam tournament", or is 128 the max?

[manutoo]

Hello,

yup, I noticed both 1 & 2, so :
1) I'll try to set it right in the future, but i cannot change it now, coz it'd invalidate the current saved games

2) as the number of sets is same for all years, I prefer to let best of 5 sets, as it brings a bit of variation

3) I looked all Jane Chi, Sara Gomer and A.Kanellopolou and they all appear only once in the Player base... Maybe u're playing with an outdated version ?

4) The number of teams & the calendar isn't hardcoded, but you have a max of 6 rounds per year (so up to 64 teams), + a max of 1 round per week

5) you can only change the name & country of a tournament from one year to another, any other change (especially draw size & week) will lead to the game refusing to load your previously saved games (coz the data saved won't be of the same type)

6) It's interesting to put 3 #1, I'll think about it for next update

6b) Be #1 give an average strength of 85% . The decimal part gives a bonus to this strength; example : 1.03 gives 85 + 3 = 88% of strength. I did that so when there's a #1 really above the other players, I can easily raise his strength. It works also for any other ranking, so u can do it for #2 if needed as well.

7) u can have up to 30 tournaments per week (but don't forget that qualies for tournament of next week count as well..!)

7b) in Tour.*.Ini

8) I'll do it for next update (hopefully coming before the end of the year)

13) no, the limit is 128 players / tournament

[Ibarrategui]

Hello

1/ OK, I think it's a good improvement

2/ OK, it's a choice, I can edit my files to have two winning sets

3/ Even if Sara Gomer appear once, she was #46 in 1988, never in the top 20 . And I think that Jane Chi did not play in 90's. I know, I can change this, but it was just to let you know this little error
(I've bought this game three weeks ago, I think I have a good version)

4 & 5/ OK, thanks!

6/ Thank you to noticing it. I think the game can be more realistic if a year where the hierarchy is not clear (as this year for women) have 3 #1. (or 3#2, or 3#3)
In my opinion, some seasons could be in this case. Especially 2004... And Lindsay Davenport won't win slam each year in 00's.
I think that ATP or WTA ranking is an accurate method to the game below #11. But for the 10 best players, some changes will increase level of realism. For example Hewitt and Agassi in 2001, Lendl and Edberg in 1990, Sampras, Safin and Kuerten in 2000, Roddick, Federer and Ferrero in 2003 => all these years have no clear hierarchy in the top 3/top 2.

6b/ Really interesting, I think that I will make some more realistic rankings.

6c/ a amazing thing : Patty Schnyder and Katerina Maleeva are really high in my handsoff simulations, oftently they win one or two slams! One time, in my first handsoff K.Maleeva has made the Grand Slam in 91! But her rankings are not very high, with a max of #6?
Schnyder and K.maleeava have a good cold blood indicator => is this the reason of these impressive results.

At the opposite, Novotna never win a big event...

7/ 30!!! Ok, a good news!

8/ I've tried to create a French Championship => it runs!



14/ In the tour category.ini, categories have a "type" (for example grand slam) : Is it possible to create new type of tournament? or just access the file where the details of type are indicated?

Thanks a lot for your answers!

[manutoo]

6) I will very likely update the database with some of the changes u posted in another topic

6c) cold blood & concentration & constancy are the most important skills to have constant result over the years

Also, the game engine is very open, and normally, many cases could occur, from one game to another, so if you just run 4 or 5 simulations, it may be too early to be very sure of the average results...

14) it might be a bit dubious to add a new "Type" ; you can try to have a look under "//===NewGame" in the file "Menu\lang_English.Txt" (contained in "Data\Pak01.Pak") to see all types within the game. It's only used for display (if I didn't forget anything )
It'd be harder to add a TypeRank, which is used for the game engine to determine some stuff...

[Curtis]

13) no, the limit is 128 players / tournament

But you can have 128 players in the qualifying tournament as well. Is there a limit to the number of rounds in a qualifying tournament? If you made it seven rounds (so only one qualifier made it into the main tournament), you would in effect have created a 255 player tournament.

[manutoo]

Yup, u can have to 128 players in the qualies.
In Grand Slam, with 16 qualified, that's 112 + 128 = 240 players involved..!

[Ibarrategui]

6) oh! Thanks. I'm trying the changes I made (I put singles rankings of Sanchez and Novotna too, because I found them too weak). I have lowered K.Maleeva and Patty Schnyder mental qualities.Now, Maleeva does not reach slams finals. She made a honnest career like her in real history. I'have not yet simulated 00's years with my changes.

6c) With 3 simulations, I had always seen K.Maleeva win slams... but Sabatini or Novotna never won. With my changes, it appears a little bit more realistic.

14) ok