Price change: on 5 November Cricket Club President goes from US$9.99 to US$14.99. If you've been meaning to pick it up, now's the time. Thanks to everyone who's bought it, reviewed it and sent in bugs. It's helped shape every update since launch.
Hi all,
This is the biggest update since launch. Selection night has been rebuilt, and three new parts of the world have joined the game.
The selection meeting
Selection night used to be a set of panels. Now it plays out as a conversation. The committee goes first, then your captains, the Chairman of Selectors and your coaches talk it through, and they don't always agree. Nobody holds the floor for long: a captain's mate backs him, his rival has a dig, and the chairman isn't shy about a case for a player he didn't pick.
- The 2nds captain wants his best batter promoted. The chairman wants a 17-year-old in instead. The coach says the kid has been to the nets twice this month and wants someone else.
- When they disagree you get each man's pick side by side, with a button for each: Captain's pick, Chairman's pick or Coach's pick. Or ignore all of them and pick your own.
- Your coaches tell you who turned up to training and who didn't. The player who has missed three weeks running with "work" gets noticed, and so does the one who stopped coming after he was dropped.
- Your batting, bowling and other specialist coaches chip in when it's their area. If you have no head coach, the senior one sits in for him.
- Captains bring up the umpires from last round and the ones coming up next, complaints they want lodged, suspensions, where the side sits on the ladder and what the club has been posting.
- Sometimes someone tells you a player is thinking of leaving. What they recommend depends on who's talking: his mate tells you to give him a game, his rival tells you to let him go.
- Your captain asks your advice before a game, whether to bat or bowl or when to declare, and tells you the next week how it went. New to cricket? The "?" beside the question says what declaring means.
- The U19s have no captain in the room. The youth coach speaks for them, or the head coach, or the chairman.
- The Chairman of Selectors has mates in the squad, and the Dynamics box shows who they are and why. He pushes for them at selection and minds when one is dropped. Unhappy, he sides with a clique one of them is in; happy, he talks it down.
- When the coach says a young player isn't ready, he tells you why: his age, his rating against the rest of the side, and which grade he'd rather see him in.
- Everything said ends up in a summary, split into last week (results, how your advice went, the umpires you had) and this week (the moves, the next game and its umpires). Every player the selectors want dropped comes with the man to bring in, and one button does both. You can skip the chat entirely. Tick "Skip the chat every week" if you'd rather go straight to it.
The Middle East, Asia and Canada
Three new regions, 12 new countries, each with its own problems.
- The Middle East (UAE, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia): most of your players are expats on work permits, and when the job goes, so does the player. You hire a ground until you build your own, watering the grass costs you, heatwaves hit at both ends of the season, T20 franchises come for your best residents, and a World Cup year brings a grant.
- Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Nepal, Papua New Guinea): players on postings with an end date, a bonus from the association for every local who plays 1st XI, government grounds hired every home round in Hong Kong, storms in Singapore and Malaysia, big crowds in Nepal, and PNG clubs built around families of brothers. Your players can also be picked for the Pearl River Sixes in Hong Kong.
- Canada (Toronto, Peel, Ontario, Montreal, the Prairies, Alberta, British Columbia): flights to away games outside your part of the country, a long winter that makes an early pre-season cost more, study and work permits, and T20 franchises.
- Overseas players in the Gulf, Hong Kong and Singapore come mostly from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Nepal, with the odd Scot or Irishman. Nobody flies in to play in Papua New Guinea, Nepal or Malaysia.
- 200 new player faces for these leagues.
Coaches
- Your head coach has moods, mates in the squad, a project for the season, and requests that land in your Inbox. Leave him unhappy for weeks and turn him down when he asks, and he walks out.
- Coaches have faces in the Staff tab, on the hiring shortlist and on their own cards.
- Each cup tie arrives as a letter from the Chairman of Selectors, with the head coach's view.
- When a specialist coach wants to work with one player for the season, it comes to your Inbox with that player's rating, ceiling and figures. Agree, give him someone else, or tell him to coach everyone the same.
The cricket
- A captain who wins the toss in a two-day game bats first more often, because that's usually the better call.
- A one-day chase goes harder when the target is big.
- A side that hasn't been bowled out bats its full overs.
- A day-one washout tells you why, and the margin.
- The pitch shows in the match viewer's score bar.
- In the USA, Canada, continental Europe, the Middle East and Asia, some grounds are matting or artificial pitches: true bounce, the same every week, nothing to ask the groundsman for. Once your ground is good enough you can lay a turf square, and your rivals do the same. Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa and the West Indies stay all turf.
- The Chairman of Selectors gives his view on the pitch in the meeting, and you can ask the groundsman for a green or a dry pitch, or leave it, right there.
- Your second ground can't be built up past your main one.
Around the club
- Umpires have faces now.
- Pick your own club colours when you start a new career.
- Start a career higher up and the club has what a club of that size has: nets and a club house, and from Division 4 up a gym and a physio room, as well as its grounds.
- Click any club on the Home tab's ladder to open its card.
- Committee cards show each member's mood as a number next to their relationship with you. The mood is what decides their AGM vote.
- At the AGM, when a committee member answers someone from the floor, their bubble quotes what they're answering.
- A player who may miss a grade's finals for lack of games says so on his card, not just on the Squad tab.
- Junior clubs only sign with clubs from your own region.
- Every name in a disciplinary case opens that person's card.
- The Treasurer's registration fee advice starts from last season's fee and stays put while you change yours.
- The honours board is gold leaf whatever colours your club plays in.
- Active sponsor deals say how each sponsor found you.
- When the Secretary brings you a player's report, she says when it happened and quotes the offence. For a wrong-coloured shirt she asks you to have a word with him; for a thrown bat she wants him stood down.
- When a player is up before the disciplinary committee for something he posted, the post is on the Media tab, marked as reported, and his teammates' comments fit what he did.
- A bequest left to the juniors pays for coaching, and the colts who walk in that winter come in better.
- Your captain names who should make way, and you can take it in one click.
- A school can ask for scholarship places in partnership talks.
- When you sign an overseas player you can ask him to coach the juniors. He counts like a teacher in the squad, and with two of those the colts who walk in each winter have more in them.
- A suspended player isn't counted as dropped, and a player coming back from standing down isn't counted as promoted.
- Committee seats go to the man who suits the job.
- New players in Europe and the new leagues get surnames from their own country.
- Plenty of smaller fixes from your bug reports.
Found a bug? Post it in the Bug Reports forum. I read every one.
If you've been enjoying the game, a Steam review helps a small game more than anything else.
Cheers,
Jay