Eastside Hockey Manager - Part VI

[Smirnov2Chistov]

Either have the proper link for that?I seriously get lost trying to find the links for stuff that I'm trying to find there


And would anyone be able to divulge if the NHL32 is programmed with an actual expansion draft?

So this is the EHM Assistant straight from TBL:

EHM Assistant: A saved game editor/scout - Page 2 - EHM The Blue Line

It’s essentially a saved game editor, and league database editor. I repeat myself only to help others who ask the same question all of the time.

*YES* you CAN change the Salary Cap within the Assistant. I’ve bumped mine to around 80 million, and it helps teams sign their superstar players. Only ‘fringe’ NHLers leave and sign overseas.

Through the Assistant I was able to substitute Portugal in the D3 World Championships and take out Serbia (or whatever the country was). I’m able to edit players nationalities so much easier with the Assistant than the editor. The editor would crash on me if I were to import ‘myself’ into the game.

 

[dellzor]

Yes it's not the easiest thing in the world bit it gets the job done, if you are so inclined. I usually release NHL32 updates with pre-done expansion draft import files (which you can then tweak to your liking) but haven't done it for the last update due to free agency. I'll re-do it for the next update most likely.

Question though, when will your DB be updated? Last I read you were on vacation ^_^

 

[BKarchitect]

I'm messing around with bantam/midget leagues right now trying to find a good balance for the the CHL drafts and having prospects generate on regionally accurate clubs. I know it's not a big issue if you just stick to the NHL but its annoying me so I've gotten a bit side-tracked.

 

[GKJ]

So this is the EHM Assistant straight from TBL:

EHM Assistant: A saved game editor/scout - Page 2 - EHM The Blue Line

It’s essentially a saved game editor, and league database editor. I repeat myself only to help others who ask the same question all of the time.

*YES* you CAN change the Salary Cap within the Assistant. I’ve bumped mine to around 80 million, and it helps teams sign their superstar players. Only ‘fringe’ NHLers leave and sign overseas.

Through the Assistant I was able to substitute Portugal in the D3 World Championships and take out Serbia (or whatever the country was). I’m able to edit players nationalities so much easier with the Assistant than the editor. The editor would crash on me if I were to import ‘myself’ into the game.

Given the title of the thread I suppose that you can change active saves and don’t have to restart apart from a corrupted file (I always save all the time and to multiple files)

 

[Smirnov2Chistov]

Given the title of the thread I suppose that you can change active saves and don’t have to restart apart from a corrupted file (I always save all the time and to multiple files)

I do the same, I always save multiples just in case something happens.

You load up EHM and then you load up the program and load your saved game and then you go from there.

Pretty easy!

 

[dellzor]

I'm messing around with bantam/midget leagues right now trying to find a good balance for the the CHL drafts and having prospects generate on regionally accurate clubs. I know it's not a big issue if you just stick to the NHL but its annoying me so I've gotten a bit side-tracked.

Gotcha. What would be the ETA for this update :O

 

[GKJ]

I do the same, I always save multiples just in case something happens.

You load up EHM and then you load up the program and load your saved game and then you go from there.

Pretty easy!

Sounds like the only thing I will ever need ever again. Both have to be open at once?

 

[Smirnov2Chistov]

Sounds like the only thing I will ever need ever again. Both have to be open at once?

I think they do, I’ve never tried without it.

The only thing you can’t do is edit names, and I think that’s it?

 

[Savi]

Winter Olympics in Vegas?

 

[S E P H]

I see, so you just create it with the database. Makes sense would otherwise be hardcode.

I got the shout from Foppa concerning on making the game more international. When I was creating my database I used Eliteprospect and went through NHL teams and changed some of them to their heritage countries such as Matt Murray to Netherlands and Luongo to Italy. I then went through about 40 or so countries, made some of their players better, and edited some of them into wonderkids for the later drafts from 2020 to 2025 or so*. This part was time consuming, but easy once you get the hang of the editing software. The part which was beyond insane to do was create a legitimate World Cup using the World Cup of Hockey as the editing. Sadly I finally found out that the NHL players I made and edited wasn't hardcoded into the EHM World Cup, so it used entirely European players. Which wasn't all bad since majority of the players I edited and made better were actually in European leagues. However, all the NHLers I changed into international countries did play for the countries I chose in the IIHF events.

One problem I found out while playing my database is that majority of the wonderkids I made decide to want to play for the USNTDP U17 team even though they're not eligible for America. Another problem I found is that the database I originally used had messed up USHL rosters, so half of the teams' have entirely random generated International players (since I also edited with individual countries). What I mean by this is the Omaha Lancers for one example had entirely computer generated grey roster players, while the only real players are ones from countries like Kuwait, Armenia, Mongolia, and Turkestan to name a few. I increased the foreign spots in all the North American junior leagues, but the amount of international players in the USHL just isn't accurate. In the CHL, I increased the import limit from two to (I believe) five, but the CHL draft only goes up to two rounds so some of the wonderkids I made are stuck playing in leagues like WSHL, MJHL, and random Estonia 2nd divisions - even though they're talented enough to be in the CHL. I've also had a pretty big problem with the NCAA route where many players who were committed to college in the game's data simply didn't go to college. I edited some players to international countries and perhaps making them better (enough to get drafted) could've impacted the game. For example, Wahlstrom never went to college and stayed in the USNTDP U18 for his entire junior career; likewise with players like Farabee, Wise, and a lot of the 2018 and 2019 draft classes.

* = I changed some players who were like 38 years old back into 13 to 16 year old players, but I tried to focus on the younger players and decrease their ages by 4 to 7 years instead of messing around with the older ones.

 

[BKarchitect]

I'd echo pretty much all the points SEPH made when it comes to computer generated young prospects and the poor ways which EHM distributes them.

- Top USNTDP/USHL guys who "want to go to college" not actually ever going to college

- Junior/Midget/Bantam leagues where one team gets an influx of like 20 generated prospects in a season while other teams remain completely "blank" with only the grayed out players who aren't actually in the game. This even creeps into the NCAA to some degree if you play long enough.

- Said Junior/Midget/Bantam teams filled with players not of that region or even country...now some of this I've come to realize is if you don't have a proper selection of Bantam/Midget for the CHL to draft from, the CPU will generate the players anyways and stick them on weird teams.

- But more to SEPH's point, sometimes a random team will get loaded with all kinds of generated prospects from an assortment of bizarre countries.

- Game does not seem to be responding to certain rules...for example, requiring the USNTDP to be domestic players only - still getting random generated prospects from other nationalities. Or...requiring Midget league players to be at least 15 so that the 13/14 year-olds get generated in Bantam...but still seeing 13/14 year-olds populate those leagues. Now - my suspicion is if you create a Transfer Rule set for a league but it's not a playable league - then the game just ignores it. So I may attempt to make a few Bantam/Junior leagues playable to test this theory.

As far as the weird nationalities of computer generated prospects infiltrating all manner of North American youth levels - I wonder if you create a "Team Kuwait U20, U18, and U16" league/club team based in Kuwait (as an example...duplicate for all countires) - if that will give the computer a place to put these prospects instead of filling up other countries' leagues?

 

[xECK29x]

BK I wonder if that has to do with countries over time developing hockey programs? I know those scores fluctuate, I wonder if there is a way to keep them suppressed.

 

[BKarchitect]

To be honest I don't mind when random countries develop prospects, I quite enjoy it - I just don't want a random elite Canadian or American youth team filled with North Koreans, Spaniards and Taiwanese players

I mean, there are certain American youth/prep programs that have ties to say Russia and are able to recruit groups of young Russian players but that's not really what the sim engine in EHM is doing.

So in my testing, when I took away say too many western Canadian bantam leagues/teams, the game forced those players to be generated on teams ranging from Quebec to Florida (because EHM has to generate bantam aged Western Canadians for the WHL draft). When I add a bunch of real Bantam leagues back in, all the Western Canadian kids remain in the appropriate leagues but there are now way too many teams for EHM to fill with 13/14 year-olds so it now either leaves a majority of the teams empty or fills them with random nationality young players. So EHM is thinking: "well, it would be neat to generate some North Korean players...problem is there is no North Korean league/team setup...but hey, the elite Notre Dame Hounds Bantam club in Saskatchewan isn't getting filled so I'll stick them there!" That's my theory anyways.

 

[Darkauron]

Well it is pretty natural for kids from other countries to come to north america and play youth hockey to give themselves a chance. I dont have a problem with that. But yeah having foreign in the USNDP team is dumb. It make perfect sense too for the family to say move to canada if they want to support their kid to play hockey...even if that is the Notre Dame Hounds bantam or wherever imo. I think it is pretty cool to think of it that way.

Also my favorite part of EHM is trying to find kids like that from smaller hockey nations.

 

[BKarchitect]

Yeah this conversation is pretty granular, I don't think it really takes away from the big picture if you are playing at mostly the NHL level...it's like this little scab I've been picking at. About to give up and just proceed with the bigger picture updates to NHL36 & NHL32.

 

[xECK29x]

Next update for my DB won't be until this weekend. Will get caught up on transactions across the AHL/ECHL as well as touch up all the NHL RFAs, would be nice to have last years stats which might help you determine who is worth keeping around! Also will have the AHL schedule added as well as a bunch of things many folks have been helping me with such as adding 2018 drafted junior players and filling out career histories.

I'm also debating making the Eastern Hockey League (EHL) a playable league, any interest there? Their schedule isn't cross-league like the USPHL so it should be doable.

 

[BKarchitect]

Did you already do the NCDC (top of the USHL...I believe only 10 teams so should be straightforward)? Technically, it's a Tier II Junior league like the NAHL, although not sanctioned by USA Hockey. I'd put that on top if you haven't done it already...otherwise the Tier III leagues like the EHL, maybe a simplified USPHL Elite and NA3HL would be next. To me though they are not high priority since Tier III mostly feeds NCAA Division III.

Somebody at TBL was working on the entire Canada Junior Hockey League (BCHL, AJHL, OJHL, etc) - do you know if that was every completed or have you implemented anything like that? I imagine it would need to work similar to the CHL with the Memorial Cup or the NCAA with the Frozen Four where you can have a tournament across leagues at the end of the season. With 10 leagues though, it's a pretty monumental task. I've been meaning to tackle it at some point - just haven't had the time.

 

[Holden Caulfield]

Somebody at TBL was working on the entire Canada Junior Hockey League (BCHL, AJHL, OJHL, etc) - do you know if that was every completed or have you implemented anything like that? I imagine it would need to work similar to the CHL with the Memorial Cup or the NCAA with the Frozen Four where you can have a tournament across leagues at the end of the season. With 10 leagues though, it's a pretty monumental task. I've been meaning to tackle it at some point - just haven't had the time.

In Canada the CJHL has an end of year tournament. It's called the RBC Cup. It's a 5 team tournament in a similiar vein to the Memorial Cup. One of the confusing things is how to get there as you say there are 10 leagues.

1. Host
2. Pacific: The AJHL and BCHL Champions play a 7 game series against each other for this spot.
3. Western: The SJHL and MJHL Champions play a 7 game series against each other for this spot.
4. Ontario: The NOJHL, OJHL, SIJHL Champions and a Host team from one of these 3 leagues play a memorial cup style tournament for this spot.
5. Eastern: The MHL, CCHL, QJHL Champions and a Host team from one of these 3 leagues play a memorial cup style tournament for this spot.

So yeah that's alot of tournaments haha.

 

[S E P H]

BK I wonder if that has to do with countries over time developing hockey programs? I know those scores fluctuate, I wonder if there is a way to keep them suppressed.

As I said in my post, I actually edited indiviudal countries to make their passion levels and domestic league levels greater than in actuality. However, I didn't edit too many of them and majority that I did were the middle-tier IIHF nations like Netherlands, Mexico, Spain, and Turkey along with others. However, as Foppa said above, you get some weird ass nations either entirely from the Middle East or remote Southeastern Asian countries or ex-Soviet Union districts.

In addition, there was a weird situation which happened to one of my wonderkids who was a goaltender from Japan. I put him for the 2021 draft in one of the British Columbia's youth leagues - the really good one which has Burnaby Winter Club, Delta, Pacific Coast, and Pursuit of Excellence programs. Well, he posted ridiculous numbers and joined the Wenatchee Wild somewhere in the season just to get drafted in the top 8 of the WHL bantam draft. Instead of joining Tri-City Americans who I believe he was drafted by, he decided to go to the USNTDP U17 team for a season just to head back to the Burnaby Winter Club and split time with Wenatchee Wild for the current season I am on. And no the import limit was not reach since I increased it.

I'm with Foppa, I have no problem having random generated players filling in NA leagues, especially in the midget programmes and whatnot. I do have big problems when random generated players somehow fill majority of the league or team making other players have zero playing time. As I said about that Japanese goaler, I would say that at least 65-75% of the USNTDP U17 was filled with players from Mexico, Spain, Turkestan, Armenia, Mongolia, North Korea, and Ukraine. I even tried to put the Japanese goaler in WHL from the beginning with also increasing his age, but he always finds himself back on that stupid USA U17 team. The other example where I commented about zero playing time happened to one of my players that I drafted. His real name is Jack Randl, but I made him Slovakian and good enough to grab in the second round. He played for the Lancers during his draft year and was supposed to commit to Michigan University, but a year went by and he was still stuck in the USHL. Sadly this time, other international players came on the team and due to the import limit that the league has (and which I increased to like 8) he didn't get a single minute of playing time during his D+1 year (even with injuries). It would've been better if I signed him and just sent him to the ECHL in all honesty, which isn't as realistic.

E: For the junior league discussion above, I would label the USAH leagues as (in terms of talent)..

I: USHL
IIA: NAHL
IIB: NCHC
III: EHL
IV: Rest is random like WSHL, NA3PHL, whatever.

I do have a lot of faith in the NCHC league as it grows, I think it will eventually surpass the NAHL (which is too unstable for my liking) and could give the USHL a run for it's money.

 

[xECK29x]

I do have a lot of faith in the NCHC league as it grows, I think it will eventually surpass the NAHL (which is too unstable for my liking) and could give the USHL a run for it's money.

Oh for sure, it looks really interesting. I already made the entire USPHL stack (NCDC included), just none are playable so maybe I will start with the USPHL NCDC if the schedule isn't wacky.

 

[xECK29x]

In Canada the CJHL has an end of year tournament. It's called the RBC Cup. It's a 5 team tournament in a similiar vein to the Memorial Cup. One of the confusing things is how to get there as you say there are 10 leagues.

1. Host
2. Pacific: The AJHL and BCHL Champions play a 7 game series against each other for this spot.
3. Western: The SJHL and MJHL Champions play a 7 game series against each other for this spot.
4. Ontario: The NOJHL, OJHL, SIJHL Champions and a Host team from one of these 3 leagues play a memorial cup style tournament for this spot.
5. Eastern: The MHL, CCHL, QJHL Champions and a Host team from one of these 3 leagues play a memorial cup style tournament for this spot.

So yeah that's alot of tournaments haha.

It's similar to the Champions League (which I know the TBL guys are working hard to make stable) and the Memorial Cup. I have never created a playable league structure before so this would be a little above my paygrade .

 

[BKarchitect]

The RBC Cup would have to be some sort of simplified tournament like we did for the NCAA Frozen Four. Not totally accurate but enough to make it interesting to follow and to generate some history.

The Champions League is totally forked until some hardcoded stuff gets changed, I don’t think any amount of editing is going to fix it for now.

 

[Holden Caulfield]

The RBC Cup would have to be some sort of simplified tournament like we did for the NCAA Frozen Four. Not totally accurate but enough to make it interesting to follow and to generate some history.

The Champions League is totally forked until some hardcoded stuff gets changed, I don’t think any amount of editing is going to fix it for now.

I think you could "cheat" it a little bit for CJHL.

Make BCHL+AJHL two "conferences" of the same league with a schedule matrix that doesn't play each other. Then the "league" final would be like the cross league final in real life. Same for SJHL+MJHL. Then combine the NOJHL+SIJHL. CCHL+OJHL. MHL+QJHL. Then you'd have 5 champions you could make into a tournament. That'd make it a bit easier no? At least that'd be my suggestion. It work perfectly for the west, it'd just be fudging it a bit in the east.

 

[GBHockey]

Having an issue with the NHL36 database, I cannot get past January 1st 2029. No error messages or long processing time, the game just closes immediately when hitting continue. I've tried it maybe 10+ times, tried advancing past that date by going on Holiday and by loading a backed up save from a few in game months before, but the same result.

 

[LT]

Does the EHM Assistant work on Mac (through POM) yet? I remember trying this with one of the old devs, but we never got it to work.