Bygfoot Documentation


Bygfoot Football Manager
http://www.bygfoot.com
AUTHOR: Gyözö Both <gyboth@bygfoot.com>

This documentation is a copy of the one found on the Bygfoot website, so don't
be surpised if you find a hyperlink here and there. If you'd like to view it more
comfortably or if you have a question, a feature request or a bug to report, please
visit us at http://www.bygfoot.com.

This help text is (most probably) read from your home directory. If you've upgraded
Bygfoot to a newer version, the Bygfoot files in your home dir didn't get overwritten,
so the help text shipped with the newer program version might be newer than this one.
If you remove the older version ('rm $HOME/.bygfoot/text_files/help'), Bygfoot should copy
the help file going with the current program version to your home dir automatically next
time you start it.

-------------------------------------
1. Overview
2. Beginner's Guide
  1. Running Bygfoot
  2. The Start-Up Window
  3. Game Interface
  4. Keyboard shortcuts
  5. Saving and loading files
  6. Basic game behaviour
3. Intermediate Guide
  1. Command Line Options
  2. Managing players
  3. Managing the stadium
  4. Buying and selling players
  5. Managing your team's finances
  6. Starting Bygfoot more comfortably
  7. Parts of a "Season"
4. Advanced Guide
  1. Preferences
  2. Keeping your job
  3. Playing a season
  4. Player fitness and injuries
5. Customization Guide
  1. Introduction
  2. Editing teams
  3. Writing country files
  4. Importing and exporting teams
  5. Managing team definitions
6. FAQ

-------------------------------------

  Overview
  ========


Bygfoot is a football (a.k.a. soccer) management game for Linux and 
other UNIX look-alikes. It is an original concept by Gyözö Both and has been 
improved with suggestions by players from all over the world.

Bygfoot allows you to manage a team by training the players, buying and 
selling them, contracting loans, maintaining the stadium, etc. You can be
promoted or relegated, even become a champion. It includes a "team editor" 
which you can use to create your own teams or edit the existing ones. The 
game is deliberately kept simple (though not easy): you only have to keep 
one eye at your players and another at your stadium.

You can customise Bygfoot by writing your own country definitions file 
or by creating your own team definitions files. A lot of files should be
available from our extras (extras.html) section soon. 

Bygfoot is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) and has 
been compiled successfully in several Linux distros. It is a living project 
and has been very active lately and your help is really welcome. If you
are a C programmer, acquainted with GTK+, and would like to get to know 
Bygfoot from the inside, please contact (feedback.html) the
project owner and come in!
-------------------------------------

  Beginner's Guide
  ================



	Running Bygfoot
	===============


There are two possible ways to run Bygfoot.

If you have installed it system-wide, the executable will be in the $PATH environment so you
only need to type bygfoot at a command line to run it.

If you are using locally the compiled binary you will need to use a terminal window to enter
the directory where the executable is and type ./bygfoot.

TIP: Add an alias alias bygfoot='path_to_the_executable/bygfoot -d path_to_the_support_dir'
to your $HOME/.alias file and you'll be able to run Bygfoot from anywhere. Example:
alias bygfoot='/home/john/games/bygfoot/bygfoot -d /home/john/games/bygfoot/support_files'.


	The Start-Up Window
	===================


Upon starting, Bygfoot will show you a window containing the following sections (downwards):

- Team Selection
- League Selection
- Country Selection
- Team Options
- File Options


		Team Selection
		==============


This is a list of 114 teams you can choose from. By default, this list contain English teams (because
England is Bygfoot's default country). To select a team you can either click or scroll down with the
arrow keys. You can also use the scrollbar to navigate through the list.


		League Selection
		================


The second row asks you which League you want to play in. By default the "Current League" option will be
selected. This means that if you choose a team from 5th division it will play 5th but if you choose a team
from Premier League it will play Premier League.

The other options are:

- League 1: You will start in 1st division, regardless of the team you choose.
- League 5 (the hard way): You will start from 5th division, even if you choose a 1st division team.
- CL: Champions' League only.
- CWC/Conm.: You will only play the Cup Winners' Cup.
- UEFA/Sul-Americana: You will only play the UEFA Cup.

Some info on Brazilian leagues (brazil.html)


		Country Selection
		=================


The third row allows you to select which country to play with. The current Bygfoot version is shipped
with 8 country files: England (default), Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Romania, Brazil and Poland.

If none of them pleases you (or if you wish to play a different one) you can select a custom country file by
clicking the "Select a country file" button.


		Team Options
		============


Here are some options affecting the team definitions:

- Don't load team definitions will cause Bygfoot to generate all teams from scratch. All teams will be
composed by randomly generated players.
- Load only names from team definition file will cause Bygfoot to attribute random skills to players.
- Load my team from definitions file will cause only your team to be read from definitions. The others will
be full of "nobodies".

The button labelled "Start Bygfoot Team Editor" will start Bygfoot in editing mode, allowing you to create
or modify teams.


		File Options
		============


- You can start playing with the selected (or pre-selected) options by clicking "OK".
- You can leave Bygfoot by clicking "Cancel".
- Or you can load a saved game by clicking "Load game".


	Game Interface
	==============


After the Start-Up Window, Bygfoot will generate the game and the playing window will appear, containing the
following elements:

- Menu Bar
- Toolbar
- Status Bar
- Message Bar
- Left Panel
- Right Panel
- Management Bar (appears sometimes below the right panel)


		Menu Bar
		========


Contains only two menus:

- File
  - New
  - Open
  - Save
  - Save As...
  - Preferences
  - Start Bygfoot Team Editor
  - Quit
- Help
  - Information
  - Team Editor Help

Which we hope to be self-explanatory. ;-)


		Tool Bar
		========


From left to right, the toolbar contains the following icons:

- Load Game: Reads a saved game. ;-)
- Save Game to file: Saves current game to a file. ;-)
- Quit (without saving): Quits game, without saving. ;-)
- Preferences: Lets you edit game prefs. ;-)
- Quick Options: You can turn on/off some features, like:
  - Transfer List Notification. Do you want to be notified when players according to your preferences
  are available for hiring?
  - Job Offers. Do you want to receive invitations to work elsewhere if you are succeeding with your current team?
  - Live Game. Do you want to watch a thrilling demo of the game?
  - Overwrite. Do you want Bygfoot to automatically overwrite your saved game when you tell it to save?
- Back to Main Menu: Shows again the main info window.
- Show Transferlist: Shows a list of the players available.
- Finances and Stadium: Shows you info aboutn your finances and stadium. ;-)
- Weekly Info: Shows you a summary of the previous week and your fixtures for the next.
- Extended Information Selector: You can view special info windows containing:
  - Fixtures. Matches played last week. You can browse weeks by clicking on the arrows below the
    right pane.
  - Tables. The leagues in statistics.
  - Best Players. Best field players (more goals scored) and goalies (less goals suffered).
  - History. Which teams won each championship the previous year(s).
- Begin a New Week: Starts a new week. ;-)
- Help: Lets you read the help file. ;-)


		Status Bar
		==========


Right below the tool bar there is the status bar, where you can find static info on the present
state of the game you are playing:

- Season #. How many "years" (in the game) you have been playing.
- Week #. How many "weeks" (in the game) have elapsed in the current season.
- Team name. The name of the team you are currently hired by.
- League name. The name of the league the team is currently in.
- Rank position. Your situation in the league tables.
- Money $$$. How much money you have in your bank account.
- Average Skills. The first figure is the average current skill of the first 11 players
  (which means, the players that would play in the next match). The second 
  one is the average (normal) skill of all players.


		Message Bar
		===========


Where important messages are written for you to read. ;-)


		Left Panel
		==========


The left panel shows a lot of information about your players:

- Name
- Current skill. If he plays in his natural position this will always be
the same as...
- Skill. How good a player is.
- Fitness. They should be always above 90% to prevent bad things from
happening. Cycle them as they get tired so that they can rest.
- Games played.
- Goals scored.
- Status. Usually "OK". Possible other values are "Injured (# of weeks)" or 
"Banned (# of weeks)".
- Age
- Estimated talent. How good he can come to be someday (or was someday).


		Right Panel
		===========


The right panel shows information about your next match:

- "Home" or "Away" indicating whether you'll play home or away (duh! ;-)
- Opponent Name.
- Opponent's rank (and league).
- Average skills and the difference to your average skills ('-' means you're better).
- Playing style.
- Team structure.
- Latest results.
- Goals (for : against)
- Your results this season against the same team.
- Bookmaker's tip.

If you click on one of the rows, the player list of your opponent will be shown.


		Management Bar
		==============


The lower tool bar contains icons that allow you to effectively manage your team:

- Playing Style. Currently Bygfoot supports five playing styles: "All Out Defend", "Defend",
"Balanced", "Attack" and "All Out Attack" (my favourite, jgg).
- Team Structure. You can either enter directly your desired structure, cycle the available 
options, re-order players or undo a swap action.
- Scout. You can choose whether you want a good scout or not. There are four skill levels for 
scouts: "Bad", "Average", "Good" and "Best".
- Physio (since v1.5.0). The quality of your physio.

If you have chosen the Transfer List view, a small  icon with a looking-glass will appear at the right
side: it allows you to browse teams to find the players you wish to buy. WARNING: Players bought
this way are much more expensive and demand much higher wages.

If you have chosen the Finances/Stadium view, some other icons will appear:

- Capacity (CAP). Allows you to increase your stadium capacity by 500 seats.
- Safety (SAF). Allows you increase the security level in your stadium.
- Loan Money.
- Pay Loan.

If you have chosen the Week Summary, Fixtures or Tables view, these icons will be available:

- Fixtures. Shows you the full list of matches that have been played last week. You can browse
fixtures too, checking past and future weeks.
- Tables. Shows you the current table of classification. You can browse tables, checking other 
leagues as well (though I don't know what use this feature has...)
- Fixtures by League. You can browse the fixtures of other leagues as well, though (once again)
it is hard to understand why one would wish to do so...
- Show my league results. Shows your results against league opponents.

Most views also add "next" and "previous" arrows so that you can navigate around.


	Keyboard Shortcuts
	==================


These are always shown as tooltips, too.

Generally, when an 'OK' button can be clicked, 'Return' will do just
that; when a 'Cancel' or 'Close' button can be clicked or a popup window
can be closed, 'Escape' will do it.


		File Operations
		===============


 | L or Ctrl-O | Load game |
 | S or Ctrl-S | Save game |
 | Ctrl-N | New game |
 | Q or Ctrl-Q | Quit |
 | H | Show this help screen |


		Game Operations
		===============


 | Space | Begin new week |
 | O | Options (Preferences) |
 | Escape | Back to main |
 | T | Show transferlist |
 | F | Show finances and stadium info |
 | P or F1 | Show preview |
 | F4 | Show fixtures |
 | F5 | Show tables |
 | 1 and 2 | Previous / Next page (e.g. when looking at fixtures) |


These last two will be replaced by "Q" and "W" in versions > 1.4.2 and
> 1.5.1. 


		Management Operations
		=====================


 | C | Change team structure |
 | R | Rearrange team |
 | Y or Ctrl-Z | Undo last swap-action |



	Saving and Loading Files
	========================


Bygfoot uses the following types of files to store information it will use:

1. "Country File" -- where team and league names are stored. This is a UTF-8 plain text file.
2. "Player Names" -- where the names that will be randomly attributed to "nobodies" are stored.
3. "Teams" -- where team definitions are stored.
4. "Savegames" -- encoded files in which information about a game is stored.

A Country File must be written using a UTF-8 enabled text editor like yudit (www.yudit.org) and
must follow some rules so that it won't crash Bygfoot. We'll learn more about them later.

You can edit the Player Names file and add or remove any names you wish to appear in the game.
But please keep it big so that players with repeated names don't appear quite often. This file
is always loaded by Bygfoot during startup.

The Teams file stores the team definitions you have written or imported. It is also automatically
loaded during startup (unless you forbid Bygfoot from doing so), but it contains definitions
of only a couple of teams yet.

Savegames are stored under $HOME/.bygfoot/saves and can be loaded in three ways:

- As a short command-line switch: bygfoot savegame where "savegame" is the name of a file located
in $HOME/.bygfoot/saves.
- As a long command-line switch: bygfoot [full path]/savegame where "full path" is the full address
of the file "savegame" in your system. This option is mandatory if your savegames are saved in another
directory but $HOME/.bygfoot/saves (why would you do that?).
- From the game interface selecting "Load Game".


	The Game Behaviour (Basic)
	==========================


In startup Bygfoot will read team definitions and generate all teams that are not defined. After the
process is complete (may take some time in slow systems) you will see the game interface.
If you want to continue a previously saved game, you can let Bygfoot skip the team generation
by calling it with the savegame file as an argument: "bygfoot my_save_game". See also
command line options (intermediate.html#toc1).

To play, you must make some choices:

- Select the players you want to be playing by clicking on their names with the left mouse button. If you
click on a player name and then on another, they'll swap positions.
- Select the desired team structure and playing strategy.
- Click on the "Begin a new week" button. Bygfoot will hang for a short while an then the "Live Game"
window will pop up. 
- After the game "ends", click the "Close" button to go back to the main window.

TIP 1 - Don't let your players get too tired or they can be injured more easily. If a player goes
below 90% of his fitness, let him rest for a week by putting another one in his place.

TIP 2 - Pay attention to the size and the security of your stadium. The stadium is your
main source of money.

-------------------------------------

  Intermediate Guide
  ==================



	Command Line Options
	====================


- You can specify a directory with the pixmaps and the text-files
needed by adding -d your_pixmap_dir at the command line.

bygfoot -d ~/.pixmaps  

- You can specify a custom country-file by adding -f your_country_file 
at the command line.

bygfoot -f ~/country_uzb

- You can load a saved game directly by giving Bygfoot its name
on the command line. If it's located in the "$HOME/.bygfoot/saves" dir,
you can omit the path to the file.

bygfoot michal-1


	Managing players
	================


- Right clicking on a player will write extended information about him
into the right window, except when you're in transfer mode.

- Young players get gradually better (skill-wise); older players get
worse; the age at which a player reaches his peak ability differs
with each player. Goalies decay more slowly.

- A player's peak ability is his talent value, which is only
indirectly accessible for you through your scout. You only have your
scout's estimation about a player's talent.

- Getting better or worse means also an update of the player's value
and sometimes his estimated talent. If a player improves, his wage
increases. If he gets worse, his wage stays the same (nasty, isn't it?).

- If a young player never plays, his improvement is slower; if he's
injured, his development is retarded (so a player who seldom plays
and always gets injured when he does may never reach his talent
value). Conversely, if an older player gets injured, his "decay"
speeds up a bit.

- Skill is rather more important than fitness (if you have a 8.0 / 90%
and a 7.5 / 95% player, i'd let the first one play -- at least in
important games), BUT: the worse the fitness value of a player, the
more likely the occurance of an injury.

- The accuracy of the estimated talent depends on your scout's ability.

- Goalies only count in the "Best players" statistic if they have
participated in at least half of the league games.

- Goalies lose their ability more slowly as they pass their peak age
(which is also later).


	Managing the stadium
	====================


- The safer your stadium is, the more people will come to watch your
matches.

- The attendance depends not only on the safety but also on the type
of game: in a Nationwide Conference game there won't be more than a
couple of thousand spectators no matter how safe your stadium is;
whereas a UEFA Cup final will guarantee a full stadium.

- In stadiums with bad safety, fires can break out or riots can happen.

- Your home games are (except for transfers and prize money) your only
source of money, so keep an eye on your stadium (safety decreases
with time).


	Buying and selling players
	==========================


- When in transfer mode (the Transfer List displayed in the right
  window), you can put players from your team on the list by
  right-clicking on them in the left window and remove them by
  right- or left- or middle- or whatever-clicking on them in
  the right window.

- You can temporarily sort the transfer list by clicking on one of the column
  headers, e.g. Skill. If you go back to main menu, the sorting is
  undone. You can sort the list permanently by switching it on in the
  options menu.

- You can have Bygfoot warn you with a popup window whenever an
  interesting player appears on the transfer list by specifying some
  conditions in the options menu.

- When in transfer mode, there's a small, inconspicuous button (the Browse teams button)
  with a search symbol on it in the lower right corner of the main window. Clicking on it will
  show a list of all teams in the game except your own team. If you click on a team name, the player list
  of the team is displayed (the attributes shown depend on the quality of your scout). Now you can try
  to buy a player by clicking on the row he's in. In most cases the team owner will refuse to sell the
  player because there's no adequate replacement. But if you're lucky, they have a replacement and you receive
  an offer. But don't be surprised: you'll have to pay a lot more for the player than for players on the
  transfer list; and the player will demand a very high wage.

- The scout is the most important factor when buying or selling
  players. A better scout will:

 - have more information about players in other teams (such as status
 or age)

 - be more precise when estimating the player's talent, value and
 wage

 - find a buyer for your player faster

 - get more money for the player you sell


	Managing your team's finances
	=============================


Money usually comes in by three ways:

1. Ticket sales. They only bring you money when you play at 
home (this means: take good care of your stadium and extend it as you can). 
2. Player sales. This one is seldom used (you won't want to disband your 
team, do you?). 
3. Prizes. If you finish a season as first, second or third, you get some 
prize money (you also get some money for being the winner of the promotion 
games or 4th in league 1).

If you desperately need money (e.g. to buy an outstanding player
from the transferlist), you can get a loan from the bank. The amount
of money you can be granted at most depends on the value of your
players and your stadium. You'll have to pay back your loan within
15 weeks, but if you pay it back partly before that, the time limit
might be extended. There's a variable interest rate per week which
depends on the amount you owe (7,5% at most). If you fail to pay 
back your loan in time, you'll get fired.

There's also a "drawing credit" feature, which allows you to draw more
money from you bank account than your current position. Your drawing credit
depends -- just like the maximum loan -- on your stadium and your players.


	Starting Bygfoot more comfortably
	=================================


This tip is intended for those who are using the 'bin' package of
Bygfoot:

1. copy the directory 'support_files' to your home directory and rename
  it to .bygfoot.
2. copy the executable to a dir in your PATH (e.g. the directory you store
  the bash scripts you've written).

Now you should be able to start Bygfoot from any directory.


	Parts of a "Season"
	===================


NOTE -- Cup and League names in this section refer to the English
country file (which is also the template country file... ;-)

- You can browse the fixtures by clicking on "Figures -> Fixtures". Of
  course you won't see all fixtures, but only of those leagues you
  participate in and only of those rounds (in the cups) which have
  been played or for which lots have already been drawn.

- Each season there are:

  1. League games (5 national leagues),
  2. FA Cup games (featuring all English teams, though some teams from
    the first two leagues have a wildcard for the first round),
  3. League Cup games (Nationwide Conference teams aren't participating
    here)
  4. International Cups:
    1. Champions' League games (you'll participate if you win the
    Premiership),
    2. Cup Winner's Cup games (you'll participate if you win the
    FA Cup and don't win the Premiership) and
    3. UEFA Cup games (you'll participate if you finish 2nd to 4th in
    Premier Division and don't  win the FA Cup)
  5. Additionally there's the 
    1. Charity Shield between the Premiership champion (or runner-up if
    there's a double winner) and the FA Cup winner and the
    2. UEFA Supercup between the CL winner and the UEFA Cup winner.
-------------------------------------
=Advanced Guide=

==Preferences==

The "Preferences" window that pops-up when you select "File > Preferences" or
click the "Preferences" tool bar button allows you to change quite a while
the behaviour and appearance of the game. From the top to the bottom, these
are the available options:

===Confirmations===

Whether Bygfoot should ask you every time you tell it to start a new week,
start a new week with injured or banned players in your team or quit without
having saved.

===Look & Feel===

What windows should Bygfoot show you at startup, the duration factor of the
"Live Game", the font to be used in the main windows, the behaviour of the
message bar, etc.

===Player Attributes===

Which information to show about your players. You can uncheck any of those that
are shown by default or check others that are not. Extra information tabs 
not displayed by default are "yellow cards", "wage" and "value".

===Miscellaneous===

Options concering the general behaviour of the game. Among others, you can specify
here whether Bygfoot should warn you when an interesting player appears on
the transfer list.

=== Saving your settings ===

This feature applies to versions >= 1.5.0.

If you click on OK, your settings will be saved for your current
game. If you'd like to save them for future games, too, you can check
the Save to file box on the left of the OK button. Clicking on OK
will save your settings to $HOME/.bygfoot/text_files/bygfoot.conf, and
each time you start Bygfoot, they get loaded automatically.


	Keeping your job
	================


There is one reason for other teams to try and hire you: your team's
success. So if you're first in a league for 20 consecutive weeks
don't be surprised if they try to contract you. If it gets on your
nerves, you can switch it off in the options window or via the quick
options menu.

If you get promoted, you'll count as quite successful. If you get relegated 
(or your team's last for 20 consecutive weeks or so), you'll count as 
rather unsuccessful and your team owners might consider firing you.

There are two additional reasons why you could get fired. First, if
you fail to pay back a loan. Second, if you're financial management
is bad and you're bank account gets below your drawing credit three
times in a season. Each time you'll get some weeks to get positive,
but each time the limit will be shorter.

If you finish in a league among the last 4 teams, you get relegated
(except, of course, the last division).

If you finish in a league among the first three, you get promoted
(except, of course, the first Division).

If you finish in a league (except the Premier Division) from 4th to
7th, you will play promotion games: one round of home/away games, and
if you win, another round against the other winner. If you win this
one, you're promoted.


	Playing a Season
	================


Parts of a season's fixtures are generated while playing (e.g. FA
Cup from round 2 upwards) because they depend on previous results.

At the end of each season a history page will be written. It
contains your result at the end of the season (rank, team and
league), all champions and cup winners and the best players of each
league.


	Player fitness and injuries
	===========================


One of the most frequently asked questions about Bygfoot is, How does
the fitness value influence the probability of a player getting injured? 
(see FAQ (manager-faq.html)) The answer is short and simple: the probability
is inversely proportional to the fitness value. If your player has only
fitness 50%, the probability is twice as high as the probability with
fitness 99%. This sounds very dangerous, but in fact the normal probability
(i.e. with maximum fitness) is only 1,5% for a field player and 0,75% for
a goalie. So a 50%-player is still unlikely (3% probability) to get injured.
-------------------------------------

  Customization Guide
  ===================



	Introduction
	============


All Bygfoot text files are UTF-8-encoded. If you edit one, take
care that your editor doesn"t mess up the encoding. As a workaround,
you can change the coding of the file first with recode (e.g. 
recode UTF-8..ISO-8859-1 country_eng), edit, and recode again.

A text editor that doesn"t mix up the UTF-encoding is 
yudit (http://www.yudit.org). Unfortunately is not meant to be a
programmer"s tool. You can also try GEdit (which comes bundled with
any Gnome2 installation) or KATE (from KDE).

The reason why I work with UTF-8 files only is that this way almost
any special character can be loaded and displayed correctly. If you 
are not used to international characters, you can expect to see 
uncanny symbols.

This chapter teaches you how to customize the game.


	Editing Teams
	=============


You can start the Team Editor from the team selection window at startup
or by calling Bygfoot with one of the "-e" or "--editor" command-line switches.

At startup, the game looks only for teams with names that are in the
list of the league teams (i.e. among the first 114 in the country
file, in other words those you can choose from at the beginning) in
the definitions file. Because of this it doesn"t make sense to specify
a team with a name that's not in one of the country files.

If you'd like to edit the definitions file directly, see the comments
in the file. And take care that you don"t mix up the encoding.

You have to specify three things to be able to edit a team:

- the team definitions file already edited from which teams are read from 
and newly edited ones get written to,
- the country file the team is in,
- the team name.

The default team definitions file is $HOME.bygfoot/text_files/teams. 
If you don't want to touch it, you can specify another one or create a new one;
you have to keep in mind, though, that Bygfoot only reads team definitions 
from $HOME/.bygfoot/text_files/teams or support_files/text_files/teams
directory (located in /usr/share/bygfoot or so).

Writing all teams to a definitions file with a different name can be useful if 
you'd like to exchange definitions files with someone else (see Export/Import 
section).

You can't edit a team that's not in a country file because all team names in 
the game get read from country files. But of course you can change a team 
name to anything you like with the editor.

Attention: Before choosing a another team after editing a team, you have 
to save the changes you've made with the Save button. Otherwise they are 
lost.


			The structures
			==============


The first structure value specifies the number of defenders, midfielders and forwards among the first 11 players.
The first and 12th players are always goalies. Accordingly, the second value specifies the positions of the
players 13 to 20.

To change the position of a player, you either have to swap him with another player using the Swap button,
or you change the team structure. Example: you want player 18 to be a forward, additionally to players 19 and 20.
Solution: you set the second structure to 233 or 323. 


			The average skill
			=================


The average skill spinbutton shows you the average skill of all players (except the '# NOBODY's). If you'd like to
increase or decrease the skills of all players simultaneously, you can use this button.


			Editing a player...
			===================


...is quite straightforward. You select a player by clicking on his row; now you can edit his name, skill, talent
and birth date.

You can also move him up or down in the list and swap him with another player.

Note that you have to click on the Update player information button for the changes to take effect.


		Save / Export / Import
		======================


When you're done with editing, you have a couple of possibilities:

- discard the changes you've made and play the game,
- save the changes and play,
- save the changes and quit,
- export the edited team.

Additionally, if you'd like to add all teams in an existing definitions file 
to you definitions file, you can use the Import feature.
Importing a file basically means that all team definitions found in the 
specified file are appended to your definitions file.

If you'd like to export the currently edited team to a file, click on the 
Export button and select a filename.


		Exchanging team definitions with others
		=======================================


This is really simple. If you've edited a team you're proud of, and you'd 
like to share it with other Bygfoot users, export the team to a new file, 
say ManchesterUnited.John. All your friend Paul has to do now is start the 
Editor, click on Import, select the file he received from you, and 
John's Manchester United is added to Paul's definitions file.

An even simpler possibility (for the technically-minded) to import a file 
would be to cat it to the  definitions file:

cat ManchesterUnited.John >> /home/paul/.bygfoot/text_files/teams

NOTE: If there's a team with the same name (in this case, Manchester 
United) in Paul's definitions file, importing John's file kind of overrides 
Paul's definition of ManU, because the last definition in the file counts.


	Writing country files
	=====================


Country files contain team names, league names and cup names. Each
time you select another flag when you"re asked to choose a team at the
beginning of the game, a new country file is loaded. 

The simplest way to make a new country file would be to copy one of
the existing ones and edit it.

The default country files contain a lot of comments, so you don"t
really have to read the description below.

The structure of a country file is as follows (see also the comments
in "country_eng"):

- comment lines (beginning with "#") and blank lines are ignored
- the first part consists of 114 newline-separated team names;
these will take part in the 5 leagues in Bygfoot.
- the second part consists of 16 blocks of team names, each preceded by a number
(1 to 16) on a single line. From these blocks the teams
participating in the international cups (Champions' League etc.)
are loaded
- the third part contains the league and cup names (e.g. "Premier
Division" for England, "Primera División" for Spain)
- the second and third parts MUST be separated by a "1000" on a
single line

If you write a country file, please be gentle enough to translate the comments
in the file to that country's language -- if you can. If you come across a country
file which is not yet translated to the country's language, please do the translation
and send the file back to us.

When writing country files, be careful to use a sensible naming convention.
We, the Bygfoot development team, would like you all to use this scheme:

country_XXX_year_contributor_version.gz

Which means:

- country: the word "country".
- XXX: the three-letter ISO code for a given country ("arg", "usa", "jpn").
- year: the year that country file corresponds to.
- contributor: a nickname by which we should call you.
- version: if you are updating a previous contribution, use letters to indicate 
this.

An example:

country_ita_2004_vicenzototti_a.gz


	Importing and exporting teams
	=============================


From inside the Team Editor you can import or export team definitions into standalone
text files. This feature is intended to allow users to exchange team definitions,
which is a quicker way to extend the game than expecting someone to write all team
definitions.

However, the Team Editor was not intended to be THE tool to manage the teams file.
You can also use UTF-8 enabled text editors to do so.

Importing and exporting can also be done by the cat command (see man cat to learn
how) or by the command less a_team >> teams.

There will be a collection of standalone teams here (../extras.html) that you will
be able to play with.


	Managing team definitions
	=========================


As all team definitions are stored to a single text file, it can happen that this
file will someday become too big. The Team Editor does not currently include any
facility to manage this so,  if it happens, you will have to open the "team definitions
file" in a text editor and remove those teams you don't want any more.

It can happen also that a same team will be defined there two or more times. In this
case Bygfoot will always used the one that appears last in the teams file so,
if you accidentally import a team that you don't like, open the teams file and delete
it.

It is always a good idea to keep backup copies of the teams you like most somewhere
safe. Whenever something goes wrong -- or if you need to delete your ~/.bygfoot dir --
you will be able to recover them.

When exporting teams to standalone files, be careful to use a sensible naming convention.
We, the Bygfoot development team, would like you all to use this scheme:

XXX_teamname_year_contributor_version.btd.gz

Which means:

- XXX the country the team plays in, in iso three-letter format (eng, bra, esp, ita, etc.).
- teamname: a name by which your team will be easily recognised, say "realmadrid".
- year: the year you wrote the file definition, so that people know whether your definition
is still valid.
- contributor: a nickname by which you want us to refer to you (we may want to group
definitions by contributors).
- version: if you update the file within the same year. Initial version is optional. Further
versions should be indicated by "a", "b", "c", etc.
- btd: is the file extension you should use so that you know what is the content of
your team definition -- this is useful because they are, after all, only plain text
files.
- gz: is because you might want to compress the files to save space or bandwidth (you
are supposed to send us team definitions tarred, if more than one, or at least gzipped,
if alone).

An example:

bra_atleticomineiro_2004_jggouvea_b.btd.gz
-------------------------------------

  Frequently Asked Questions
  ==========================



  Football Manager FAQ
  ====================


1. Do new players ever appear in the game?

Yes. Each week a handful of players 
in CPU teams are replaced by new ones.

2. Do the players with numbers 12-20 influence the outcome of a game?

No. Only 
the field players.

3. What happens if a player gets sent off in the first (cup) game of a week?

In
 the first game, players never get sent off or injured. I might change this 
 some day, if I implement substitutions after game 1.

4. Do players get yellow cards in cup games?

No. Otherwise it could happen
that they get their 5th yellow card, which would automatically lead to a red 
card.

5. Do players have a real talent value, or only this 'estimated talent' thing?

They
have a real talent value which never changes. Their development when they're 
young depends on their talent value, as well as their peak skill. But of 
course you only see your scout's estimate of this value.

6. How precisely do scouts estimate the talent value of a player?

The best scout's estimate has an error up to 1.0 points, i.e. he might 
think a player with 7.0 talent has talent 8 (or 6). But this is the maximum 
error, he'll estimate better normally. The other scouts' errors are 2, 3 
and 4 points.

7. What is the second value after team skill average?

The first value is the average current skill of the first 11 players 
(i.e. those who'll count when you play a match). The second value is 
the average cskill value of all your players.

8. How does playing style and team structure influence the playing 
strength of my team?

Each team has an attacking and defending value. If you have 
structure 532, i.e. five defenders but only two forwards, your defending value 
is rather high, because the defenders cskill is weighted much more 
for defense than the cskill of your forwards. Accordingly your attacking 
value is rather low because the cskill of your defenders has only a small 
weight for your offense. Midfielders' cskills are weighted equally for 
defense and offense. Now if you have playing style 'Attack', the defending 
value is diminished, and the attacking value is increased (symmetrically,
e.g. -5% and +5%). If you have 'All Out Attack', the defending value
is diminished even more and the attacking value is increased even
more.

9. How do players improve? When does their skill reach their top talent value?

Young players improve best if they play often and stay healthy. 
If they play approximately every 3 weeks and stay healthy, they improve
about every 14-15 weeks. Old players' skill gets worse no matter if
they play or not; it gets worse even faster if they're injured.
It might happen that a player never reaches his talent value if he's
injured often. But on average field players reach their highest skill
approx. at the age of 31-32. Goalies 1 or 2 years later.

10. Does switching live game on or off influence the performance of my team?

In short: no. The 'live game' isn't really live, the result's already 
computed before the game is shown.

11. How can a team score twice within a fraction of a second in a live game?

The live game shows 90+ minutes within 20 or 30 seconds, so 1 match
minute means only 0.3 seconds in reality. If a team scores twice
within a match minute, this leads to two goals in the live game within
less than a second; and the tendency bar simply doesn't have time to
move to center position.

12. Is there any advantage of having a scout after the transfer deadline?

No. 
If you're short on money, fire him. 

13. Why are there sometimes two matches a week?

There are simply too many 
matches to have each week only one. But perhaps I'll implement substituting 
players after the first one, at least.

14. How does fitness influence the performance of players in matches?

Not very much. An 8.0 player with fitness 80% still performs a
little bit better than a 7.5 player with fitness 99%. 

15. How does fitness influence the probability to get injured?

The injury 
probability is inversely proportional to the fitness value. 
A player with fitness 50% has twice the probability of getting injured 
compared to a 99% player. However, if you take just one player, the
probability's still small, about 3% (with fitness 50%). But if all of
your players have low fitness, one of them will probably get injured.

----------------------------------------------

 | Back to FAQ (faq.html) |


  Team Editor FAQ
  ===============


1. I'd like to edit a team from a Spanish league but I only see English
teams to choose from.

You have to select a different country file, in this case 'country_es'.

2. Why is the background of three substitute players grey?

The human player always starts with 17 players; mainly, because this 
way he has room for transfered players from the beginning. So each time 
you start a new game and your team is loaded from the definitions file, 
players with numbers 13, 16 and 19 are omitted. Practically this means: 
don't put important players on the positions with grey background.

3. I have edited a team and would like to play with it. But each time I
start the game and choose the edited team, some players don't appear in
the player list.

See previous question.

4. Why should I edit those grey-backgrounded players if they don't get
loaded anyway?

CPU-teams have 20 players, so if you choose a different
team from the one you edited, the CPU-team that goes with the edited
team will contain all 20 players, even the grey-backgrounded ones.

5. No matter which team I choose, they always contain 20 "nobodies".

I have specified only a few teams in the default definitions file until
now Real Madrid (Spain), Bayern München, Werder Bremen, Borussia Dortmund
(Germany) and Arsenal (England). So all other teams are blank (as yet). I
hope that a lot of people add their favourite teams to the definitions
file and send it to me, so that I can extend the default file somewhat
in subsequent versions.

6. I'd like player number X to be a goalie, but he's always a defender.

The position of a player is determined by the two structure values above
the right upper corner of the player list. If the first is 442, it means
that players with numbers 2 to 5 are defenders, 6 to 9 midfielders and
10 and 11 forwards. Players 1 and 12 are always goalies. The positions
of the rest of the substitutes, players 13 to 20 are determined by the
second structure value, e.g. 332. If you'd like to change the position
of a player, you either have to change the structure accordingly or swap
the player with another one.

7. Can I enter special characters like Ü or Ô and the like?

Definitely. They should even get displayed correctly in the game. 
Special characters are the reason why I switched to UTF-8 encoding.

8. Can I delete a player completely?

You can't in the sense that you don't see him in the list afterwards, but 
if you specify a name with a "#" as first character, the player won't be 
loaded at startup.

9. I've got a player who'll turn 30 in two months. In the list, however,
he's 30 already!

The ages are stored as floating-point numbers, and in the list they're 
rounded to integer numbers. So a player between 29 years and 6 months and 
30 years and 5 month is shown as a 30-year-old.

10. What does this "Average skill" part of the window mean?
It shows the average skill of the team you currently edit. Its purpose is 
mainly to help you create a team that's not very out-of-place compared to 
the other teams in the game. In your first season, teams in League 1 have
average skills of around 8.0; very good teams perhaps 8.7 or 8.8, bad
teams 7.0 or 7.2.  UEFA-Cup teams are on average as good as League 1
teams, CWC and CL teams about 0.2 and 0.4 better, respectively.

11. I appreciate the whole definitions stuff, but in my opinion it makes the
game more predictable and unbalanced. Can't I turn it off?

Of course. Simply check the "Don't load team definitions" checkbutton in 
the team selection window and loading definitions is switched off completely.
If you'd still like to have the names of the players, but random skill
values etc., check the 'Load only names' checkbutton. If you'd like
to load your team only, check the "Load my team" and "Don't load team
definitions" buttons.

12. I've edited a team. Where can I find the definitions file the editor
stored it in?

The first time you start the Bygfoot Team Editor, it
tries to create a directory called .bygfoot in your home directory and
the subdirectories text_files and saves. It then tries to copy the
customizable text files to the former subdirectory (the saves subdir
is meant for your savegames). Your edited teams should be in the file
~/.bygfoot/text_files/teams.

13. I have edited a team which isn't in one of the five leagues, but takes
part in a European cup. The names get loaded correctly, but when I look
at the team in transfer browse mode, the skill and talent and age values
are all wrong!

For international cup teams only the names get loaded.
This is because they have to have a certain average skill level (otherwise
it'd be too easy or too hard to win a cup), and I don't want to have
this level all messed up.

14. I have written definitions of 2.450.320 teams from different
countries. Would you like to have them?
 YES! Send them to Gyözö Both
<gyboth_at_bygfoot_dot_com> so that I can include them in the default
definitions file of the next Bygfoot version. But try to be truthful,
don't put only 9.9 players into your favourite team.





