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*Hattrick Quick Start Guide v2.01*
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(c) Jon Thomson 2012. Only GameFAQs is authorised to host this file.

Contents

0 - v2.01 changelog note
1 - Getting Started
2 - So I have my license, what now?
3 - I have my trainees, what else?
4 - A bit on tactics

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*0 - v2.01 changelog note*
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I'm throwing in a quick interim update due to a change made to starting teams
made in the last month, namely that new teams are now allocated a trainer with
passable skill and weak leadership automatically. This is a fairly huge
alteration, as while said coach is not optimal for training, it is certainly
adequate for a brand new team. As such, I will need to rework section 2 of
this guide, as getting a solid coach is no longer the highest priority. While
I think of the best way to exploit this in a full rewrite of that section,
I'll suggest the following:

- do NOT rush out to get a solid coach, stick with your initial coach to start
with
- use the same training plan as before
- you can afford to go out and fill out the rest of your team as suggested in
section 3 more quickly than before, and go more aggressively for solid
leadership targets (although obviously don't blow the whole extra money you
have spare on one player)
- you can go for two assistant coaches from the off
- look to start a youth academy much sooner, probably as soon as you've played
a couple of home games and your fan club size has grown quick enough that you
won't be making automatic losses each week
- the solid coach can wait until you're at the stage where you are looking to
expand your ground

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*1 - Getting Started*
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The first thing to realise is that Hattrick is a long-term game. You will not
be able to win your league overnight. In fact, with each season lasting four
real life months, you won't be able to do anything overnight. Careful planning
and thinking are needed to make a run at the higher divisions, as well as a
fair bit of luck.

The first thing to be aware of is NOT TO SPEND ANY MONEY NOW. You have a very
limited amount of cash to start off with, and wasting any of it at an early
stage is fairly costly.

The next thing to notice is that you have a series of challenges to complete,
known as the Manager License. This involves quite a lot of things that you
would be doing anyway, and it's important to complete this as fast as
possible for a couple of main reasons - firstly, you'll have more money made
available to you as you complete the tasks, secondly, there are some features
that are only available once you have completed the license. As this is about
the only thing that has remained the same in the game since the first edition
of this guide in 2006, I'll leave the information in verbatim from there,
barring some small changes which reference things that are no longer in the
game:

1 - Name your arena - easy enough, go to your club's menu, pick Arena and
change the name.

2 - Promote a youth player - again, easy. From where you are, click on The Club
and you'll see an option to promote a youth player. This player will almost
certainly be rubbish and should immediately be fired. If you get someone who
has inadequate or better talent in a primary outfield skill (scoring, winger,
playmaking, defending), hold on to him, otherwise fire him.

3 - Check economy - visit the economy page. Simple as.

4 - Check your players - visit the players' page. Easy money.

5 - Hire a specialist - go back to The Club and hire one spokesman for now.
You'll need to hire others, but to pass this you just need to hire someone, and
most clubs, even brand new ones, can use a spokesman.

6 - Search for - try out the various search functions.

7 - Book a friendly - go to your challenges page, pick to play at home (as
playing a game overseas will cost you money), then join the friendly pool. You
should get a game fairly quickly.

8 - Match orders - set them for your first game from the Matches link.
Basically, put your best players in their best positions for now - the keeper
needs keeper skill, defenders defending, central midfielders playmaking,
wingers winging and forwards scoring. Put the player with the best set pieces
as the set piece taker, and a player with a lot of experience and leadership
as the captain. If this is confusing, you can use an external tool to find
your best team, but I generally don't recommend them once you know what
you're doing, as the ratings predictor in Hattrick itself is more accurate
than any of them, and using external applications as a replacement for
thinking for yourself is poor form.

9 - Join the newbie conference - go to the conferences, and there should be a
link that's fairly obvious. If not, there's an obvious enough "search for
conferences" link that you can use to find it.

10 - Place a bid on a player - go to the transfer list and bid on someone.
This can be found in the Tools menu. Find someone that's listed for zero, but 
has a high enough skill that he'll sell for more than the minimum bid, then 
place the minimum bid on him.

11 - Check results - go to the matches link, and look at the last result. It 
doesn't need to be the one that you've played, an old club's match should 
suffice.

12 - Transfer list a player - if you were lucky and got a sellable youth pull,
you'd have done this already. If not, look at your side and find a young player
that's got passable skill in something and list him.

13 - Choose training type - go to the training option and pick something.
Switch this to goalkeeping, and if the intensity is not at 100%, change that
while you are there. Also set your stamina share to somewhere between 10% and
15%, leaning higher if your initial set of players is fairly old.

14 - Play a second match - similar to number 8. Change your players about
slightly as you may have to use some different orders.

15 - Fill in your details - fill in the things in the link given. This may take
a few days to clear as they have to be looked at manually.

16 - Visit About Supporter - go to it from the help menu.

17 - Buy credits - go to the shop. You don't actually need to buy anything.

18 - Reposition players - use a different formation other than 4-4-2. You can't
do this until you've done challenge 15. Just place a centre back as an extra
inner midfielder or something similar.

19-24 - Quiz questions - they're easy enough, and it's all in the rules.

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*2 - So I have my license, what now?*
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The primary way to make the money which you'll need to progress in the game is
through training players, and then selling them once they have improved in
skill level for a profit. This is a fairly long process, with the quickest
primary skills taking around four weeks, and slower ones can take much more,
particularly at higher levels as training slows down the better a player gets,
both as an in-built limit to how high they can go, and partly because older
players naturally train more slowly.

To best capitalise on this, you want the best coach you can afford to start
with, which is a coach with solid training skill and poor leadership. When
starting out you don't need leadership skill at all, so don't waste money on
it. There is a very good argument to starting off with a coach with just
passable training skill, as the solid will use up a large percentage of your
initial money, but with the startup I recommend, you don't need to spend as
much on new players.

Once you have this coach in place, you need what are known as trainees. These
are players, usually very young, who you will gradually develop. Now those of
you that followed what I said in the manager license section carefully will
have worked out that I recommend that you train goalkeepers. There's a few
reasons for this - for starters, you only need to buy two players. Secondly,
it's much easier to get the correct players, and not stumble and buy the wrong
one. Thirdly, you can play whatever formation you choose and still maximise
training, which isn't the case in other primary training schemes.

The first player you want to buy is a player who fits the following criteria:

- 17 years old (the younger, the better)
- inadequate goalkeeping skill
- costs less than 10,000 euros

This type of player is plentiful and is ideal for your first trainee. You
should be able to get him for close to a minimum bid. If possible, look to buy
one with a total skill index (TSI) score of over 1,000, but don't worry if you
can't. Just don't spend more than 10k or you're overpaying quite a bit.

The second player you want to buy is the following:

- 17 years old (the younger, the better)
- passable defending skill
- costs less than 10,000 euros
- if possible, some level of set piece skill (inadequate or better)

This will be our second goalkeeping trainee. This guy is the one we'll be
keeping hold of for a while. Don't look for any other skills other than the
level of defending, and maybe some set pieces - he won't be using them and if
he has some other skills, he may attract interest from outfield trainers and
push the price out of our range. The idea behind this is that once he gets to
a very high level (say titanic or higher), the defending skill will provide a
good increase in ratings without a huge increase in wages, which is desirable
to high level teams. After about 4 seasons, he'll be at the level of titanic
or higher, and worth a fortune.

You want to keep the first player until his goalkeeping skill is brilliant,
perhaps higher, then sell him. By that stage, the other guy will be very close
to him in performance, and the income from him will allow you to upgrade the
rest of your side, as well as buy an even better goalkeeper trainee, say with
excellent or better defending who'd be worth even more money upon resale. Or,
if you want to eventually try something different, just get a standard
backup trainee.

This system should set you up solidly and allow you to experiment tactically
while you start up, and get you to a level where you can be competitive in
your series quickly.

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*3 - I have my trainees, what else?*
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You shouldn't have too much money left over, so fortunately you won't be able
to get into a position where you can make too many mistakes financially.

Here's some other things you will need to address at some point:

a) the rest of your team. To put it bluntly, the players you'll start out
with are rubbish. Fortunately, you can get together a team that won't be
completely awful quite quickly. Older players who have a passable main skill
can be had for a minimum bid. Don't go older than 28 though, as you are then
getting to the stage where your new players will be suffering from age-based
skill degredation much quicker than you'd like.

If possible, look for players with a high level of leadership - ideally
passable, solid is better, and also with at least weak experience, ideally
more. The reasoning behind this is that you, or other players, will be able to
use them as a coach in the future once they have gained enough experience to
be converted. A player with solid leadership and experience, even with no
other skills, typically goes for around 400,000 euros or more at the moment,
so if you can push someone up to passable or solid experience, you can make a
bit of cash on minimal investment.

It may be best to wait until after your first home game, as you'll have some
gate receipts which you can add to the money you saved after getting your
training sorted. It won't make a huge difference to the quality of player you
can get, but it can give you a little bit more firepower if needed.

b) your arena. You start off with quite a small ground - albeit one that is
adequate in size initially. That said, once your fan club increases in size,
which will happen fairly quickly, so will demand, and you will start to sell
out. Worse, you'll sell out certain areas faster, as your initial ground is
not set up anywhere near what are perceived to be the optimal proportions.

A quick word of warning here. Certain people on the forums are overreliant on
external tools, which claim to be able to tell you everything, but are almost
universally a waste of time, because they are either inaccurate, in many
cases wildly inaccurate, or offer you more information than you need, which
can easily be misleading. One typical thing linked to is an "arena optimiser",
which basically spews out lots of figures, all of which are basically the same
except in the most extreme of situations which are rarely if ever experienced.

The simple figures you need are 57-22-19-2, which is the ratio of terraces,
basic seats, seats under roof and VIP seats that you want. You will never be
a significant amount off the "optimal" level if you expand to those
proportions. As for the actual size, anywhere between 20 and 25 times your
fan club size is generally good.

Don't do anything until you are getting close to selling out. Then make your
initial expansion to 20,000 as follows:

Terrace: 3,400 extra (to 11,400 total)
Seats: 1,400 extra (to 4,400 total)
Under cover seats: 2,800 extra (to 3,800 total)
VIP seats: 400 extra (to 400 total)

This costs quite a bit, over 600,000 euros, but waiting until you have that
amount is fine, by the time you hit the point where you need to expand you will
likely be getting enough money in to afford it. If not, you can consider a
smaller increase, by going for an increase to 16,000 instead, going up by 1120,
520, 2040 and 320 instead, which is about a third less in initial outlay.

c) start up a youth academy. There's two youth systems available - one is
basically a lottery, and is the original system. It's also fairly outdated and
generally seen as inferior to the new system, where you run an actual youth
team. This is better primarily because you have more control of how you
develop the players, and will be able to promote younger players to the senior
side, which carry a decent premium if they're any good.

A word of warning - don't start this up straight away, it costs a minimum of
10,000 euros a week, and you won't see any return for a season, due to a player
having to be a member of your academy for a season before you can promote them.
If you want a full complement of three scouts, the price goes up to 20,000
euros a week, which is a fair chunk for a new team.

If you do start one, bear in mind that the whole point of it is to raise
players to sell. Results are irrelevant. Concentrate solely on training your
best prospect(s). As for which players to choose when you have more than one
scout to call, I generally reject all 17 year olds unless I get a notice that
he is passable in a primary already (and hence he might sell without any
further work), and even then I'll often pass, and reject most 16 year olds
unless I get word that they're all round passable or can hit solid in
something. The money is in selling 17 year 0 day players with skill, so you
need to look to 15 year olds for that to even be possible, and you probably
shouldn't pass on most 15 year olds unless they look terrible (although be
aware if you get a notice that they look truly awful, e.g. they are wretched in
one skill and can hit wretched in another, they might actually be a goalkeeper
and should be selected).

d) configure your staff. Again, this is something to be done carefully, as
each additional staff member costs wages per week. Also, there is a limit of 30
total assistants, and each additional assistant has a diminishing return on the
previous one. A quick rundown on each option:

Assistant coach - these improve the speed of training, as well as have a
positive effect on form. Each one is about half as useful as the previous, so
I wouldn't get more than 1 initially, and I don't run on the maximum.

Physio - reduces the risk of injuries. Until you have players that are
actually worth protecting I wouldn't bother, and wouldn't get too many when
you have players that are decent.

Spokesmen - hugely important, as their primary use is to increase sponsorship
income, and also fan mood. Get 1 for every 250 fans in your fan club. Some
people will say that's an outdated measure, but it's still good enough.

Doctors - get injured players fit faster. You don't need any unless you have an
injured player, although when you are eventually running at the staff limit you
may want to always have a couple, to avoid any issues with hiring and firing.

Psychologists - useful to increase confidence, which mostly helps attack
ratings. You can easily wait to get some.

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* 4 - A bit on tactics *
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Of course, the whole game of Hattrick revolves around the matches themselves.
There's a whole multitude of options which you can use to tweak your side and
best try to win each match.

Your formation choice is dependent on the players you have, the form they are
in, what your opponent is likely to do, and in many cases, your training type.
Part of why I suggest goalkeeping to start with is that you have complete
flexibility as to what you use. While you do with other training schemes, if
you play 5-5-0 and train scoring you're not going to improve anybody.

The most commonly used formations have five in the middle. 3-5-2 offers a solid
balance between attack and defence and is probably the most popular formation,
as well as one of the best. 2-5-3 offers more in attack and less in defence,
but if you win midfield and attack well enough, which is the point of 2-5-3,
your defence will not need to be that good in the first place. 4-5-1 and 5-5-0
add more defence, but you will almost be giving up central attack completely,
possibly necessitating an AOW, or are often used when pressing (more later).

Four in the middle of the park isn't bad either. 3-4-3 is a common choice
among scoring trainers, offering good defence, a solid midfield and two attack
sectors. 4-4-2 is underrated and can be used in numerous ways, as a CA option,
keeping a good defence, good wing and good central attack, or as a midfield
heavy AIM. 5-4-1 is basically the worst formation in the game and offers very
little that can't be better achieved by other formations.

Three midfielders is usually either too weak to compete in midfield, or will
limit your attack options too much. There's still places for it - 4-3-3 can
work effectively either on an AIM or a CA, and 5-3-2 isn't uncommon for
defence trainers.

5-2-3 leaves you weaker in midfield, but is often used by teams (myself
included) that have optimised CA teams, who will give up possession totally,
knowing that they will block close to all chances and convert them to their
own attacks with a high likelihood of scoring with them.

Play about with putting players in different spots and looking at the ratings
predictor and see what will work best for you. Also try to see what sort of
games you like to see - this can influence which sort of training you might
want to switch to at some point (or start with, if you don't want to go
keepers straight away).

You have other tactical options available. You can instruct your team to play
in various different ways. The first choice is whether to play it cool, play
normally or go for match of the season. This is closely linked to your team
spirit (TS) - the higher your TS, the better your midfield rating will be.
Choosing to play it cool (PIC) will increase your TS but will lower your
midfield rating for the current game. Match of the season (MOTS) does the
exact opposite. Typically PIC in games where you cannot win or lose, and save
a MOTS for when you really need the extra midfield, bearing in mind it will
cripple your ratings for future games (although it is always correct to MOTS
the final game of the season, as TS resets before a new season).

Your second option is choosing a certain playstyle. These typically aim to
promote or surpress chances in one area to get them somewhere else, but come
with a corresponding cost in another area.

Normal does exactly what it says - nothing, just leaving things as they are.
Most of the time this is actually your best option.

Attack in the middle and attack on the wings (AIM/AOW) are similar in
operation, they will try to divert attacks away from the wings to the centre,
or vice versa. This comes at the expense of wing defence ratings for AIM, and
central defence ratings for AOW. Whether this is worth the payoff depends on
ratings across the park for both sides, and is best used when you are
committing to one attack sector yourself, or think your opponent will be
committing to one defence sector that you need to avoid.

Pressing looks to reduce chances on both sides. Typically only used when trying
to keep a scoreline respectable or nick a point, to be effective you need good
defence and stamina, as it will drain your team stamina faster than other
strategies. If using this, you probably ought to cut down on attackers and add
as much midfield and defence as you can, as there's little point in getting
good attack ratings which you can't convert through pressing away your own
chances.

Counter-attacking will take away your opponent's chances and convert them to
your own. Tricky to do effectively, you not only MUST lose midfield, you need
enough defence to block his chances, and enough attack to score on the other
end - if you can't do both in more than one sector, if not all, you probably
should look to try something else.

Playing creatively is a bit of a wildcard, losing defence to try to gain
chances through special events. You need more specialties than your opponent,
otherwise you just help him more, although it could be considered if you see
no other way to score other than through a special event.

Long shots is useless unless you have a very highly optimised team and is
beyond the scope of a guide for a new user.

You can also give players individual instructions. This allows them to use more
of one (or more) skills to affect one area at the expense of another.
Probably the best example is to play a winger offensive - a pure winger will
only want to use his winger skill to increase attack ratings, and not use any
playmaking to help in midfield. All the options are fairly intuitive as to
what they do - have a play in the ratings predictor to see what happens.

You can also make substitutions and change individual orders by setting them
pre-match. You can have these happen automatically, or conditionally (say by
taking off an attacker for a defender late in a game when winning).

Scouting what your opponent does is important. In a lot of cases, your
opponent will not care what anyone else does and just play the same way in
every game. This is hugely exploitable and if you're on a similar level of
quality and can't beat someone playing the same way all the time, I'd give up.
If he changes things up, then you need to be a bit more careful. If you're
hugely superior, it probably doesn't matter what you do. If you're about even,
then you need to look at his most likely options, and try to come up with
something that counters much of what he does. If he comes up with something
that you hadn't considered, or does something that you thought he might do but
couldn't cover, then that's unfortunate but you gave yourself the best chance
you could. If you're inferior, you need to either turtle up for a point, or
try to work out how to counter one thing he could do and commit to it. Better
to pick something to counter, counter it heavily and hope it comes off if that
is what they try, rather than try to stop everything badly and end up
stopping nothing at all.

I hope that covers most of what a new player would want to know, and wish you
all good luck with the game. Unless you play me, then I hope you lose
horribly :)