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 5 seasons in to a trainer only jumps game.... advice needed 
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Selling plater

Joined: Fri Mar 03, 2017 10:09 pm
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Post 5 seasons in to a trainer only jumps game.... advice needed
Hey guys... new player of the game and generally a very big fan but I have hit a bit of a brick wall and I thought I might see if anyone else has experienced the same.

I am only a fan of National Hunt racing, flat racing doesn't really do much for me so I bought the game in order to play the national hunt season as a trainer. I don't really want to own the horses, I am not that interested in breeding, none of that is what interests me - what interests me is simulating the trainer experience of preparing the horses and planning their career progression finding races they can win and campaigning them well and seeing them improve.

My first couple of games I struggled with money (can't breed or sell so you have to rely on training fees and prize money). I didn't really want to get into the betting side of it either but I realised it was the only way to make ends meet so when I was confident I had a horse well ahead of the handicapper I went in on it and made money.

So now I have a game that I have just completed 5 seasons on. Over 5 years I am running at a 20% win rate (have never had a season with less than 10 winners) which is pretty good considering I have had only one properly good graded race quality horse in that time. In season 3 I had a 16 horse stable and was growing and going along quite nicely. At the end of seasons 1 and 2 you get training enquiries to take on new horses which I did. However, as some of the older horses I started with began to retire my stable shrunk to 9 and at the end of seasons 3, 4 and 5 I got no training enquiries from owners about taking on new horses. I have picked up a couple through holding open days in-season but they are generally at the upper age bracket. In order to keep winning I need some fresh blood and I can't see where it is going to come from? Has anyone else come across this? How do I get owners to offer me their best 3 and 4 year olds? All my current owners like me I just don't know what more to try to get young horses into the stable.

Grateful for advice.


Sat Mar 04, 2017 9:01 pm
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Post Re: 5 seasons in to a trainer only jumps game.... advice nee
Hard to advise on this as it is an approach I have never taken, too into breeding the bloodlines, as I guess are many others. However from just playing the game I have noticed a reduction in the number of horses in others yards as the game progresses, especially when on the default schedule and the standard game pool of 3500 horses. You could try increasing this, but it would require you to start again.

Interesting approach by the way.

Josh


Sun Mar 05, 2017 8:30 pm
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Post Re: 5 seasons in to a trainer only jumps game.... advice nee
I agree with Josh increase your pool size then the owners will have more horses to give to trainers I unlike Josh I have played this mode for about 2 years and move on you will find your pool in your Schedule data file here is mine this is my UK Schedule has you can see I have a pool size of 14000

[pool]14000
natSpread:0,5,5,5,5,5,3,1,1,3,2
start=1
end=364


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Sun Mar 05, 2017 9:32 pm
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Post Re: 5 seasons in to a trainer only jumps game.... advice nee
Thanks simpleminds. That sounds good advice but you might need to talk me through exactly how I do that...... would really appreciate the help.

I will plug on with this game for a bit but try next time with an increased pool.


Sun Mar 05, 2017 9:49 pm
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Post Re: 5 seasons in to a trainer only jumps game.... advice nee
GunnerBill wrote:
Thanks simpleminds. That sounds good advice but you might need to talk me through exactly how I do that...... would really appreciate the help.

I will plug on with this game for a bit but try next time with an increased pool.


you will need to become administrator for any changes or the changes wont be saved

Then Click your This PC then double click your local disk (c:) Drive this will open some files down the list you will see a folder called Program Files (x86) Double click into that find the folder called starters orders 6 and double click to open you are now in your game files double click the data Folder then if your playing UK double click folder 1 you will now see files if your playing the flat game look for the file _sched_f Click it and you will see the pool size you can change it.


Gray

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Sun Mar 05, 2017 11:17 pm
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Post Re: 5 seasons in to a trainer only jumps game.... advice nee
You can also change directly from the in game schedule editor but you can only up it to 9999 via this method. It is one of the buttons on your menu screen. It will auto create a schedule of your changes you simply need to select that schedule over the default when you start a game.


Mon Mar 06, 2017 8:52 am
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Joined: Fri Mar 03, 2017 10:09 pm
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Post Re: 5 seasons in to a trainer only jumps game.... advice nee
I thought I'd post an update here mainly for the archive in case others hit the same buffer. So season 6 was pretty awful in terms of wins. I started that year with 11 horses: one 7 year old, one 8 year old and the others all 9 or over. I only won 5 races all season by far my worst year. Horses were still running well and I still won reasonable prize money but we had a lot of 2nds, 3rds and 4ths because the older horses are all short of graded company (even my former runner-up in the Champion Chase is now out of his depth in graded races) and are all so exposed to the handicapper over both hurdles and fences that they always found one or two better weighted in every race.

However, the good news was that I ran two open days in the second half of the season which netted me 7 new horses!! One trainer brought 3 over and the other brought 4 over. There were a couple of old over-exposed horses in there but there was also two unraced 5 year olds with very good potential. I just ran one in a bumper at the end of the year and he hosed up. Think he is a potential Supreme Novices Hurdle contender next season.

So the message is if anyone else is playing the game a similar way - stay patient, keep plugging on with the horses you have and keep running open days - 2 or 3 a season and eventually your patience will be rewarded.

I do still intend when I start a new game to do the increased pool size that you guys kindly recommended above, but I thought worth getting this update on record because I did search before I started this thread and couldn't find anything.


Tue Mar 07, 2017 12:53 pm
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Post Re: 5 seasons in to a trainer only jumps game.... advice nee
That is good to know!

I read that a lot of the more experienced players, in the owner/breeder/trainer games, feels the challenge leaves after they have the breeding pumping out masses of G1 winners. I am not there yet!

But, I think if i do get there, trying this game mode might be a way to bring back the challenge.


Tue Mar 07, 2017 6:04 pm
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