Cricket Coach 2012

[Dutch]

Well it wont be long now before Cricket Coach 2012 is released, firstly as a pre-order beta and then hopefully after a short while the full version of the game. Use this thread to give feedback and expereinces as the game is released. At the website there is a list of all the new features and the improvements on the game. This is going to be one very special game. It has so much depth and possibilities. U19 and A teams are availabe and what is most exciting for me the possibility to output every singele possible statistic into an Almanac type production spanning a whole era of seasons. I will be doing a full in-depth review on the game as soon as I get my copy. Will be interesting to see what others think of the game.

 

[puddleduck]

Interesting cheers dude. The almanac feature sounds like it could make or break it

Is it similar in layout the last game. I'll be honest, I tried the demo and I found the screens too inefficient with their use of space. It felt cluttered without necessarily giving me information. Too many clicks to set up plans etc... I liked it for a while, but it just lacked in interface design to really suck me in.

 

[Dutch]

As I haven't played this version yet I am not sure but I think Oli has worked on the whole fielding and bowling setup side of things to make that much more user friendly. To be honest the graphics are not its main selling point and have never been so. I am really looking forward to this Almanac thingy. Apparantly you can save up to 5000 pages of information detailing every cough and tickle of every season of every single ball that has been bowled anywhere in the Cricket Coach World. Of course you have to be a bit of an anorak to like gleaning through that kind of stuff but they dont call be Daddy Dufflecoat for nowt! (Whatever happend to toggles?)

I have highlighted the part about the fielding side of things....

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Grabbed this from the website showing the key new features for 2012

• CC Almanack - have the game produce a 5000+ page HTML cricketers almanac based on your saved game.
• U19 cricket - Run a youth team and select the best players each year for a full contract.
• 2nd XIs - Keep your reserves in form with a full schedule of fixtures.
• Assistant Coach Delegation - delegate various parts of your job (such as managing the youth/2nd XIs) to your assistant.
• Friendly matches - need a warm-up before a big game? Schedule a friendly in any format to get your players back into form.
• Day-by-day Calendar View - View your season in the format of a calendar.
• Enhanced World Challenge Mode - Play a one-off World T20 or Champs Trophy in addition to a one-off World Cup.
• Quick Search - search directly from any screen for easier access to data.
• Revamped Search Screen - search teams, competitions, series and matches in addition to players.
• Live games widget - A side bar widget giving you a shortcut to games currently in progress.
• Enhanced Home Screen - an easier to use layout.
• Australian T20 franchise league - complete with player auction.
• Staged retirements - players now often retire from one format of the game before another.
• Enhanced match engine - fixing issue with spin bowlers and adding extra depth to weather simulation.
• Vastly enhanced HTML output options

Key Features

• Statistics for over 4900 players correct to the 2012 season
• Updated international tours for the 2012 season
• Future Tours Program - hand made future tours schedule that sees everyone play everyone in a four year window
• Database selection: Choose what 'cricket world' database to play with, the game ships with 2012, but using the editors you can create your own.
• All new tour negotiator feature. Manipulate the tours program to suit your country, need extra practice games before facing Australia? Not a problem!
• Arrange extra tours on top of the FTP.
• All new captaincy role. Appoint a player to be your captain and rely on him to lead by example. Appoint separate captains for each format if you like.
• T20 tours - now separate from ODIs - also appoint a specialist T20 captain
• Competition editor. Adjust domestic competitions to suit your liking.
• Enhanced news system, with more in depth news articles on your world of cricket

Additional Features

• The most detailed database of world cricketers available in any computer game. Far larger and more in depth than any of the console games, more detailed than that other cricket management game for the PC.
• Unlike any other major cricket title our live player database is accessible 24/7 through our website. Update your game at any time.
• Unlike that other cricket title we have a player editor that ships with the game. Add yourself to the game, improve your favourite player, weaken those players who you don't rate in real life. The possibilities are endless.
• Great new game engine that is lightening quick compared to all previous games in the series. Runs far more comfortably alongside other programs on a Windows system.
• Detailed batting and bowling tactics allow you to control your team on the field. Use your cricketing knowledge to guide your team to victory.
• Opt to play ball by ball, or over by over. Or even let the game play automatically and sit back in your seat and enjoy the action.
• Realistic domestic schedule for each season. Lead your team in their division of the County Championship, have a blast in the T20 cup, show off your one day skills in the 40 over league. Or perhaps you fancy a challenge from somewhere outside England and Wales. Choose to lead a state side in Australia, or a franchise in South Africa. Or perhaps you love the new Indian T20 league with its huge array of foreign talent. It's all there and unique to Cricket Coach 2012.
• Control minor nations such as Ireland, Scotland, Netherlands, Afghanistan, Kenya and Namibia. Lead them through a full World Cricket League campaign with promotion and relegation. Play the Intercontinental Cup and Intercontinental Shield. Attempt to earn full Test Match status. Do well in the World Cricket League and qualify for the World Cup and World T20 Cup.
• Easy to use field editor allowing customised fields. Also tell your bowlers what line and length to bowl, plus type of delivery (e.g. Yorker/Short Ball/In swinger etc)
• Exciting new full screen highlights view with animated umpire. Easy to customise graphics allow you to tailor your own experience.
• As always more domestic competitions than any other cricket game in history. Full domestic schedule from Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Zimbabwe. Over 120 domestic teams to manage gives years of varied gameplay.
• Brand new Champions League competition. Lead your team to victory in the local T20 competition and find yourself in India playing the Champions League. Never before seen in a cricket game.
• Improved match engine provides realistic cricket action all the way from long five day test matches to rain reduced T20 slogs. Includes DL rain rule.
• From day one of the game all players have career statistics saved. Look back at any time at any players performance each format of the game.
• Updated team selection AI. Smart computer managers pick different sides depending on the format of the game. They are likely to choose aggressive cricketers for T20, leaving out those slow paced batsmen. Whereas in the longer form of the game they will look for players more suitable for the game.
• Fully simulated Indian T20 franchise league. Also includes exciting player auction reflecting real life.
• Each to use interface allows you to view detailed of any match played during the season. Look through scorecards, manhatten graphs, worm charts. Also click on any player and view their recent form.
• World rankings for batsmen and bowlers. Generated for each format of the game.
• Team editor lets you to edit the names of teams. Perhaps add in full names for those T20 franchises.
• Ground editor lets you to adjust the default conditions at each grounds. Perhaps you know more about local conditions than us?

 

[Themer]

Tried it last year and the match engine was highly highly unrealistic. I'll give the demo a go when it comes out but I suspect it'll be much the same. It always seems to have many features poorly implemented rather than ICC which has a brilliant match engine done really well but lacks much besides.

I'll end up getting ICC just because I prefer to feel, isn't as Puddle's alluded to cluttered and the match engine is spot on. That's not to say I wouldn't give CC a chance I just know what's going to happen.

 

[Dutch]

Tried it last year and the match engine was highly highly unrealistic. I'll give the demo a go when it comes out but I suspect it'll be much the same. It always seems to have many features poorly implemented rather than ICC which has a brilliant match engine done really well but lacks much besides.

I'll end up getting ICC just because I prefer to feel, isn't as Puddle's alluded to cluttered and the match engine is spot on. That's not to say I wouldn't give CC a chance I just know what's going to happen.

Yeah I agree on the match engine comment: it swings from very predictable to Mad Cows Disease. I have both ICC and CC and personally prefer CC because of its statistical depth. I am eager to see whether Oli has managed to make the gameplay more interesting and more dependent on my actual input as a player. The utter editability of the game is a real winner for me as well.

 

[puddleduck]

I just know what's going to happen.

Can I get the winner for the 3.20 @ Aintree on Tuesday please?

Yeah I actually think CC has a good chance of overtaking ICC, if only because ICC have progressed relatively nowhere in the almost 10 years since its release whilst CC has been around for a shorter timeframe and come quite far. Still, the match engine was definitely not quite there, but the statistical depth and the management side is far superior.

Don't suppose they fancy working together

 

[Aswin8]

Sorry to ask,but its a 3D game?

 

[Dutch]

Sorry to ask,but its a 3D game?

No it is a cricket management game. If you go to www.cricketcoachgame.com you will see plenty of screenshots.

And here is a link to a review I did for the 2011 version:

http://www.planetcricket.org/wordpr...et-coach-2011-full-version-review-by-dutchad/

 

[timchrist984]

Actually looks epic, the last management cricket game I owned was ICC2005, love the list of new features. Managing a team in the Aussie Bash League sounds awesome. This virtual almanac thing also looks decent.

 

[Dutch]

Actually looks epic, the last management cricket game I owned was ICC2005, love the list of new features. Managing a team in the Aussie Bash League sounds awesome. This virtual almanac thing also looks decent.

If it contains everything it is promising and it works reasonably well then this game could be a landmark moment for people who like this type of game. I hope to have m hands on the Beta very soon to see how it shapes up.

 

[6ry4nj]

• The most detailed database of world cricketers available in any computer game. Far larger and more in depth than any of the console games, more detailed than that other cricket management game for the PC.

I wish to comment on this. A great deal of diligent and praiseworthy work has gone into ensuring that players' ability stats are about right. However, no effort has gone into correcting their career stats. Hemal Watekar is the captain of Andhra (Indian Ranji side) and is an all-rounder. However, according to CC11, he has bowled something like 9 overs in his career for 9 wickets and 330 runs! I don't have the actual figures in front of me, but they were that order of magnitude of wrong. And of course this is just one example. If they get such a major domestic player so wrong, you can only imagine what the rest of the squad must be like.

When I raised this on the Cricket Coach forum, the database guy (BrownBear) took it personally, and rudely indicated that he only cared about ability stats. Since no-one else seems to have the time or inclination to correct this, I can have no confidence that anything has been done about it. I like the sound of the almanac feature too, but if all your players start with garbage career stats, they will always have garbage career stats, and your almanac will be utterly invalidated.

 

[Dutch]

I wish to comment on this. A great deal of diligent and praiseworthy work has gone into ensuring that players' ability stats are about right. However, no effort has gone into correcting their career stats. Hemal Watekar is the captain of Andhra (Indian Ranji side) and is an all-rounder. However, according to CC11, he has bowled something like 9 overs in his career for 9 wickets and 330 runs! I don't have the actual figures in front of me, but they were that order of magnitude of wrong. And of course this is just one example. If they get such a major domestic player so wrong, you can only imagine what the rest of the squad must be like.

When I raised this on the Cricket Coach forum, the database guy (BrownBear) took it personally, and rudely indicated that he only cared about ability stats. Since no-one else seems to have the time or inclination to correct this, I can have no confidence that anything has been done about it. I like the sound of the almanac feature too, but if all your players start with garbage career stats, they will always have garbage career stats, and your almanac will be utterly invalidated.

Mmm, I didn't realise this to be honest as I am not really a datbase knower but it will be interesting to see what they have done this time around and whether it has been fixed. Is that different in ICC?

 

[namituniyalgame]

I like everything except the simulation ..
Big targets are chased easily .. IPL auction has some errors to .. otherwise the game is perfect

 

[harrisb]

Well hopefully those problems will have been fixed ahead of CC12's release

 

[Dutch]

Beta process is underway as we speak and hopefully we can iron out as many of the bugs as possible.