I fiddled around with Draft Day 20 but never had any time to devote to it, but have just got Draft Day 21 and want to give it a real go. There are loads of settings that you can change and was looking for some advice on what might be good changes to make. At the moment I have it on default, but reading around I know that some experienced players do change them.

The settings I am most interested in are the Financial ones - Salary Cap, Exceed cap, Drop penalty, Force Strict cap, max contracts, contract amounts etc. My goal would be to make it as realistic as I can for myself without making problems for the AI, as I am playing solo. For example, I saw a recent post by Peterk1 where he had changed the contract amounts which seemed a good change (viewtopic.php?f=325&t=33269#p226431). I have put in a drop penalty of 5% and force strict cap but am now wondering if that was a mistake i.e. will have some negative impact on AI teams.

Also, I was wondering about the Custom overall settings - does changing these impact the AI badly, or does it just impact the overall rating for you, the player? Not figuring on changing them, as definitely don't have enough knowledge to so intelligently, and I presume they are set pretty well in figuring importance of the ratings for positions, given they are set by the developer. However, still interested in how others might set them.

Anyway, any advice would be fantastic!

Iorwerth wrote: I have put in a drop penalty of 5% and force strict cap but am now wondering if that was a mistake i.e. will have some negative impact on AI teams.

I'm not an expert, but I would leave Force Cap Off while you yourself are on an honor system not to be over the cap during the season. It helps the AI out a little bit I imagine. It also creates some nice puzzles for you when trading with AI teams. Usually teams over the cap cannot trade so you have to find clever ways to get them under the cap if you really want their player or want to unload yours on them.

peterk1 wrote:

Iorwerth wrote: I have put in a drop penalty of 5% and force strict cap but am now wondering if that was a mistake i.e. will have some negative impact on AI teams.

I'm not an expert, but I would leave Force Cap Off while you yourself are on an honor system not to be over the cap during the season. It helps the AI out a little bit I imagine. It also creates some nice puzzles for you when trading with AI teams. Usually teams over the cap cannot trade so you have to find clever ways to get them under the cap if you really want their player or want to unload yours on them.

Thanks for the info. What financial settings do you use? I am thinking of using your contract amounts for overall you posted in the other thread, but wondered abut your other settings.

Do you need to police yourself a lot with the financial system if playing solo? I am wondering if you don't have a drop penalty, could you negotiate contracts that are back loaded for older players, and then drop them after a year or two before the wages get high i.e. get them cheaper for a year or two. Does the AI recognise such sneaky tactics, or are back loaded contracts harder to pull off?

No, I don't have to police myself or hold back from doing anything sneaky. It's been challenging to field a decent team every year. I don't intentionally work hard to try to screw the computer either.

Back loading trick would probably work. I've been keeping my contracts balanced just because it makes my own book-keeping and calculations easier to manage.

I'm using a 0% cancellation cap penalty right now, but you could bump that up if you wanted.

Thanks for the info. I am going to keep with balanced as well I think. So apart from the changes you made to contract demands based on overall rating, you have left the rest of the financial system as default?

Yup.