Petty cash and inducements

[barrskog]

Hi

After reading the rules for petty cash and inducements Im a little confused..
From the rules it seems as the cash transfered from the stash to petty cash adds to the TV for the game. This means that it is more or less useless to transfer money from the stash to petty cash, as an underdog. Every 10k you move from your stash to spend on inducements will increase your TV by 10k, and therefore at the same time reduce your inducement money by 10k.. The only result is that you spend your own money instead of the inducement money..

Im sure Ive gotten it wrong somewhere, pls enlighten me!

"2. Transfer Gold from Treasury to Petty Cash
Both teams at this point may transfer gold pieces from their team
treasury into petty cash. Petty cash may be used during the
current match to purchase inducements and adds directly to the
team value of the team for this match. The team with the highest
team value must declare how much gold he is transferring into
petty cash first."

[Wylder]

Nope, you've got it right.

Spending cash on inducements is almost completely useless for the underdog. Meanwhile, as the overdog for every 10k they spend, they give the underdog 10k more of inducements.

Spending cash at all this way is generally not hugely productive.

[Gropah]

Spending cash on inducements is almost completely useless for the underdog. Meanwhile, as the overdog for every 10k they spend, they give the underdog 10k more of inducements.

I was actually thinking recently of starting up a topic concerning this, but as the OP is answered I'll just hijack.

As I've never really played in any perpetual league, and consequentially never reached a REALLY high TV and/or amassed a huge treasury I'm at loss to answer my own question:
What would be the consequence/balance issue if money spent by the overdog did NOT count towards TV?

I always thought that idea would be neat, as if you had a bit of treasury when the quarter- or semifinals came around you could splurge to get babes and bribes or whatnot. Would not be allowed for finals though.

Any wisdom from those in the know?

[GalakStarscraper]

As I've never really played in any perpetual league, and consequentially never reached a REALLY high TV and/or amassed a huge treasury I'm at loss to answer my own question:
What would be the consequence/balance issue if money spent by the overdog did NOT count towards TV?

I always thought that idea would be neat, as if you had a bit of treasury when the quarter- or semifinals came around you could splurge to get babes and bribes or whatnot. Would not be allowed for finals though.

Any wisdom from those in the know?

Its against the goals of the PBBL rules to allow you to overly stack a game in your favour.

[Gropah]

Ah of course. The game would be, if not not rigged, at least overly in favour of the overdog with a big treasury. I can see that's a design decision, and it sounds reasonable.

Thanks for the speedy answer Galak! If I may ask one more thing then; is it usual for teams in the TV 200+ range to have a lot of cash lounging in the treasury?

[Setomidor]

It seems a bit strange that if you spend any money on inducements, you'll end up giving away the same amount to your opponent. I understand that getting rid of this limitation entierly means that the overdog can spend money to get a big advantage, but the current solution where money spent by a team is equally beneficial for the opposing team is not a good solution either.

For example, if the underdog is 10k short of affording a starplayer or an inducement card, it seems perfectly reasonable to pitch in those extra 10k from the team treasury. As mentioned before, this is not possible.

Another question is: What should veteran teams spend their money on? Teams like:

http://www.fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=t ... m_id=28061

will have absolutely no use of their money, since it, in effect, cannot be used on inducements.

Just to provide an alternative; what if half of the cash (rounded up to even 10k) spent on inducements count towards team value?

This would make it possible for superior teams to actually spend cash on inducements and still gain some benefit, while inferior teams would also be able to "pitch in" towards a more expensive inducement. Note that the inferior teams would have to spend, e.g., 20k to obtain an extra 10k, since those 20k also counts towards the team value.

[Grumbledook]

that team wouldn't have had as much money available due to the effect spiralling expenses has

I believe it also mentions that inducements can't be used in playoffs or cup competitions at the league's discretion

this then means you have to use your treasury to get any inducements and gives a chance to the wealthier overdogs to use some up

[GalakStarscraper]

I would argue that inducements purchased by an overdog are worth more than the same purchased by the underdog.

The overdog will normally be in a better position with skills to defend stars or utilize a given inducement more fully.

So no ... I don't believe that the effect should be halved or any other such formula.

And that team on FUMBBL wouldn't exist in a normal LRB 5.0 league ... so its a moot question on that.

Galak

[Setomidor]

OK, the fumbbl team is a bit extreme, but the argument on spiralling expenses actually adds to the point that allowing teams to spend some money (without giving away the same amount) might not be too unbalanced, since teams will probably not have huge amounts of money available.

Let's first consider the case where the teams are roughly equal in Team Value (but maybe not in cash). Why would either team spend winnings on, for example, an inducement card? Short answer, noone will.

The other case is when there is a big difference in team rating. You say that inducements purchased by an overdog is worth more than the same inducement purchased by an underdog - for me it is the other way around.

* If the overdog is a very developed team, Star Players might actually be worse than a standard team player (considering e.g. loner).
* Overdog teams are likely to have more players on the team, making them rely less on Star Players / mercenaries.
* The standard inducements are already biased towards the team with fewer players, or with less abilities to replace players (apotecaries, igor, bloodwiser babes), and the team with less re-rolls (extra training, halfling chef).
* Cards are too random to fully determine if they are better for overdogs or underdogs.

For me, this means that if I am the overdog coach, I would be inclined to reduce any external factors, and avoid spending any money on inducements.

Finally, we have already concluded that underdog teams never benefit from spending money on inducements, since they are unable to spend some team money to afford an expensive Star Player even if they are only 10k short (being able to do this would be a great benefit for an underdog team).

In summary, it means that this concept will be virtually unused regardless of the situation! With that in mind, I argue that this should either be revised, or perhaps dropped to reduce the unnessecary step from the pre-game sequence.

[Grumbledook]

two teams of equal value don't need inducements as the match should be fairly even anyway

given the cost of most star players being 10k short for one will still generally give the underdog a fair amount of other options instead

have you actually played with them? taking a couple of bloodweiser babes and an apoth, or getting an extra reroll for the game is very handy

I think calling it a needless step is somewhat misguided, the inducements are working well in our league

if you are 10k short for a particular star player then perhaps the gaps between the two teams isn't as large in on pitch terms as you are making out

basically all of what you have described was the desired effect from having inducements in the game and it is a good job done imo

[Setomidor]

Just to clarify, I'm not calling the inducement step unessesary, but the petty cash one.

Grumbledook: I have a feeling you're missing the point, inducements are great (and a good way of balancing the teams, especially compared to the previous handicap table), what I'm trying to say is that teams will never spend winnings on them (regardless of being the superior or inferior team).

have you actually played with them? taking a couple of bloodweiser babes and an apoth, or getting an extra reroll for the game is very handy

Very handy indeed, and I'm arguing that this is even more so for the less developed team (fewer total players on the team, and fewer re-rolls to start with).

[Grumbledook]

ah I see its the moving the cash thing you think is pointless

well yer for games where you are giving underdogs the free cash then I agree it doesn't make sense for either team

but should you get through to the playoffs or a cup competition where the rules suggest not doing that, then it makes sense to move money over

it only takes 2 secs for the overdog and under dog to say how much they are spending for league games as it is usually nothing

for the other games the overdog just says how much they are spending and then the other coach says so as well, as there is no free inducement cash this is basically just down to the amount they have in the treasury and how much of that they want to use

no consideration is needed into giving a benefit away to the other team in these cases

the petty cash rule however is needed to stop the cash effecting the team values for games when coaches are saving up for things, this was in line with how skills count towards team value now instead of star player points and also how players missing the game aren't included

[Setomidor]

I agree with what you are saying (and totally agree on the saving up part), but I would like to clarify something further:


Case A:

well yer for games where you are giving underdogs the free cash then I agree it doesn't make sense for either team

Case B:

but should you get through to the playoffs or a cup competition where the rules suggest not doing that, then it makes sense to move money over

So we have a rule saying basically "any cash you plan to spend inducement is going to increase your team value".

In Case A, this rule does nothing, as it doesn't really make sense for either team to spend cash on inducements (in my opinion, at least).

In Case B, this rule does nothing, since the difference in team value does not give the underdogs any free cash.

So why does this rule exist?

The only possibility is that there actually is a scenario where the overdog, in a setting where the underdogs gets free cash, actually benefits from spending money on inducements. I've managed to come up with ONE such scenario (Halflings being overdogs and getting a Halfling Chef for only 50k to deny the underdogs some rerolls), but that really is a stretch in my opinion.

Another thing that I would like to emphasise is that I don't actually care about how this is resolved, but having a mechanism in the pre-game sequence that does not make sense seems unnecessary.

[Grumbledook]

if you don't have this rule then the overdog can spend money from his treasury on inducements and the underdog doesn't get any extra

or you have the treasury counting towards team value in the first place like it used to under the team rating system that went before

so in case A it benefits the underdog as the overdog won't be boosting his team

inducements are overvalued so its better to have games nearer your team value than to be using inducements, so the underdog wouldn't want to get more inducement money from the overdog spending

[Setomidor]

But why do we need the oppurtunity (in effect, the petty cash) at all, since it's highly unlikely that anyone would use it?