SuDoku AFC

A week in the life of VM Support Crew member

Written 25 February 2014, 15:28

One day last week; as a result of a "Supporter Query"; I found the need to better understand how the game creates and allocates "Bot" teams - and then, out of interest, how many new managers are joining the game daily and into which Leagues?
I also wanted to ascertain whether the game count of "New clubs today" is the number of newly created Bots per day? - or the total number of new managers per day? (or neither smiley

)

I started my investigation by checking through the Vifa #rankings list to find the highest #ranked Bot clubs in each country - thinking that they would then be allocated in order to the next new manager joining the country they are playing in.

I commenced a list - see below - in order of each club I found, according to their #rank - and quickly realised that for some reason they were not being allocated to new managers in that order.

I then ascertained that the system creates (around 200) new Bot clubs at 01:30hrs each day - and places them into Leagues in batches shortly afterwards. Each new Bot is given the next consecutive club number (- starting 10 yrs ago at Club number 1 - which of course belongs to the creator of our game Rasmus Nielsen) - to currently over 1142000. (Clubs that are "inactive" for a period of 3 years are "de-actviated" and removed from visibility.)

Upon closer inspection I found that the Bots are actually being allocated in order of the "club number" - ie the lowest numbers (- oldest) being allocated first.

I reslised that in order to continue with the project I would have to therefore find the oldest Bots still in existence in each country - meaning I would have to search on - going much further down the Vifa rankings to make sure I found them all. - A HUGE task!

I got so far through that job - checking manually every club I found for the ones either side - & keeping an eye on how many of the clubs I had found were being allocated - and realised that even with a then substantial list, I had:

1. Gaps in the list - where I was obviously short of the next batch of oldest Bots - because none of the clubs on my list were being allocated during a full day...

& 2. No highly #ranked clubs from England or the USA on the list.

The next problem was: there is no way of "sorting" clubs within the game by their "club number" smiley

I realised that in order to do the job properly, I was going to have to visit each country; then check ALL THE GROUPS! in the lower Divisions of each country, to find the oldest Bots, to complete the list; before I could accurately see how they were being allocated. Again; as you would expect; this turned out to be a MAMMOTH effort smiley

In order to complete a full list I stopped "copying and pasting" individual lines per club from the Vifa #rankings page - and began to manually type in groups of clubs, checking either side of those I had already found to confirm the boundries of that particular batch - which were sometimes only 2 clubs! - but could on the other hand be over 100 (the most popular countries getting bigger daily blocks...).

By doing this, I did eventually compile the complete current list of the next Bots in each country due to be allocated to the next new managers (- although I did have to "crop" that list into groups of clubs myself because I ran over the "character limit" for this page! smiley

), - and I starting counting the allocations each day.

RESULTS:

I have found that the game total of "New clubs today" - is in fact the total of new managers smiley

(-as expected) - not new Bots.

The most popular Leagues that new managers are joining are; by far England; then the USA.
(So; it turned out that beacuse England and the USA are currently more popular; the older Bots have all been taken; and the current new managers are taking over relatively recently created Bots which haven't had time to climb the leagues yet - explaining why there are none in positions of strength in the #rankings.)

The effect of allocating Bots to new managers by their club identifier rather than their ranking, is that 2 (or more) new users (friends? etc), joining a less popular League at exactly the same moment on the same day, may take over Bots which are currently placed potentially 3 Divisions apart rather than joining at the same level.

The length of this Press Statement in no way reflects the length of time it has taken to complete this project... & you may well ask: why on earth did I bother? smiley

But it's done now; and if it helps explain anything to anyone; then it was worthwhile smiley

RESULTS:

(both totals counted to resets at 23:00hrs GMT)

190214: 202 Bot clubs were created <01:30 - 01:37>hrs.
Game total of "New clubs today" = 175.
Total of new managers for today = (202?)
(- unsure of Sweden & not positive full count for Italy... + NO Spain!)

200214: 84 Bot clubs were created <01:33 - 01:36>hrs.
Game total of "New clubs today" = 180.
Total of new managers today = at least 173
(may be gaps in list for Scotland & Turkey + more Spain?)

210214: 174 Bot clubs created <01:30 - 01:36>hrs.
Game total of "New clubs today" = 208.
Total of new managers today = 207.

220214: 189 Bot clubs created <01:30 - 01:38>hrs.
Game total of "New clubs today" = 189.
Total of new managers today = 187.

230214: 195 Bot clubs created <01:30 - 01:38>hrs.
Game total of "new clubs today" = 201.
Total of new managers today = 179 (- may still have been some gaps in my list...?)

240214: 193 Bot clubs created <01:30 - 01:37>hrs.
Game total of "new clubs today" = 154.
Total of new managers today = 154! = Result! smiley

https://www.virtualmanager.com/employees/11745929
https://www.virtualmanager.com/employees/11745930
https://www.virtualmanager.com/employees/11745932
https://www.virtualmanager.com/employees/11745934 = Hired smiley

Comments

25 February 2014, 15:58

Jeez you have too much time on your hands Columbo but well researched smiley

25 February 2014, 16:08

Why?

17 April 2014, 21:20

You could just create a new club, and see what club ID that club had! smiley

17 April 2014, 21:24

O dear, you poor thing. I wish I knew what you were doing, I could have helped. I have a web based routine that does that automatically for you. I could have produced this set of results in about 5 minutes.

Never mind, if I know you, you had fun compiling them.

17 April 2014, 21:32

But i liked this, thanks for sharing. Always been wondering if it was new bots, or new ACTUAL people. smiley