ENGLAND'S ONE MAN ARMY'S INTERNATIONAL CRICKET CAPTAIN ULTIMATE PLAYERS GUIDE v1.0 September 2004 v1.1 November 2004 - Added to Player Guide, Bits and bobs update v2.0 August 2005 - Added Captaining England guide plus changes to Player Guide v2.1 November 2005 - Added minor details v3.0 January 2006 - New section - Editing Help. Added some more good players. ------------------------------ Notes: > This guide is best viewed in Notepad or a similar program with a 'Word Wrap' function. > This guide is basically a copy of all the tips, cheats, and hints along with the Player's Guide which can be found on The EOMA ICC Website (www.geocities.com/eomaicc) for more informationas of September 2004. > Updates are logged above. ------------------------------ CONTENTS: ------------------------------ 1. Game Details 2. Introduction 3. ICC Players Guide 4. Captaining England 5. ICC Best Players 6. ICC Hints and Cheats 7. Editing Help 8. Miscellaneous Observations 9. Special Thanks and Links ------------------------------ GAME DETAILS ------------------------------ Name: International Cricket Captain By: Empire Interactive Price: £4.99 on the Xplosiv budget release, but I bet you could get it from a boot sale for about £1 Released: 1998 ------------------------------ INTRODUCTION ------------------------------ The International Cricket Captain series started way back in 1998, when programmer Chris Child created a program for a cricket management game. The first of its kind, the idea took inspiration from the highly successful Championship Manager series, which puts the player in the shoes of a football manager. Although there had been attempts cricket games in the recent past, ranging from International Cricket on the Super Nes and Brian Lara Cricket on the PC, Mega Drive and later the Playstation, ICC was groundbreaking in that it was the first cricket based game to move away from the traditional arcade format. As regards to the management format, having played Premier Manager in the past on the Mega Drive, I knew the potential that management games could have in getting the games player to become addicted. Later I moved on to Champ Man 2, before I discovered ICC in about 1999. Being a massive cricket fan, I got hooked on the game straight away. The fact that the game was quite tough didn't matter to me - I found it incredibly addictive. 1999 also saw a sequel to the original ICC. Boasting updated features and statistics, it looked set to be even better. However, being only 13, I could not afford another £25! The next edition of ICC I bought was the 2001 Ashes edition for the PSX. Athough largely an improvement on past editions, I don't necessarily think that the game suits the console format. This is mainly due to speed - there are quite a few loading delays, but also memory, as it takes up a whole memory card! On top of this, the game does not record 50's and 100's. Overall, though, the addictive nature remains. Since then, I've bought the same version of game for the PC. Having read poor reviews in Games Master and Computer and Video Games magazines, I wanted to see if they were correct. So, I snapped it up for £10 from Game in Wigan in 2002. I was pleased to see that the mags were wrong, game was as brilliant as ever. However, all the while I kept going back to the original ICC for the PC. The editor had given the game a new lease of life, and the Internet around that time was booming with ICC mods. Sites such as Cricket Games were, and still veritable goldmines of cool stuff, and prove that loads of people still love the ICC series. -------------------------------------------- INTERNATIONAL CRICKET CAPTAIN PLAYER'S GUIDE -------------------------------------------- > TEAM SELECTION Before you start the game proper, it is firstly worth considering which team would suit you best. If you want to go all out for the best players, then Surrey, Yorkshire and Lancashire are your best bets. However the last of these is probably the best to choose if you don't want to lose players on England duty too often. Of course, if you have an allegiance to a particular county in real life, you'll end up picking them all the time! This is not really a bad thing, as player team skills seem to even out the longer you play through the game. One thing that I have noticed from playing the game is that Glamorgan always seem to do well, so it might be worth a go with them. > PLAYER SELECTION In the end, the quality of the players of your squad will dictate the balance of your team. Whichever team you choose, it is worth first studying your players' career averages. Generally, for a batsman, 40 is a good county and 30 is a good OD average. For bowlers, 25 or below is excellent in both forms of cricket. Of course, these figures should be treated as a rough guide, as quality may only be judged on most recent performances. This is where the recent statistics button is useful. However, since these figures are not available at the beginning of a season, there is a bit of guesswork required. The figures also do not take into account bowlers' economy rates which are especially important in the one-day game. These must also be analysed - below 4 is excellent, 4.5 is good-ish and 5 is quite poor. The figures also vary slightly for International cricket, where quality of opposition is much higher. This means a batsman with an average of 38 in the county game may only be able to achieve an average of 25 in the Test arena. > MATCH CONDITIONS On top of this, you'll have to develop a knowledge of pitch conditions based on past experience. For example, if the pitch is described as in 'good' condition at the start of a match, it's likely to break up as the game wears on. Therefore, it may be wise to play a spinner, or even two. This is particularly important on the sub-continent when touring with England. Otherwise, it would be advisable to play to your strengths - i.e., pick your best players. If you've got four top quality seamers, play them along with an all rounder for one-day games, or even a part time bowler for first class games. Star bowlers such as Darren Gough or Dominic Cork should be the first on the team sheet, and the rest of the attack based around them. Secondly, it is important to consider the state of the outfield. Usually it starts off slow or very slow right at the beginning of the match. This means it's usually slightly harder to score runs until it becomes faster. coupled with the outfield is the weather, which may have the effect of dampening it, slowing it down, or drying it out, which would speed it up. Therefore, if your seam attack is good, and you're confident that the pitch will stay in good condition for a while it may be worth bowling first and attacking like mad in the hope of getting some wickets. Don't worry if you lose the toss, though, because if you manage to bat through the majority of the first day without losing too many wickets, then your batsmen can make hay whilst the outfield becomes good, and hopefully, the sun shines. The best batting conditions are when the pitch is good, the weather's sunny and the outfield is very fast. Bowlers will almost always be made to work hard in these circumstances, and the runs will come at a pace. Conversely, conditions are best for bowling when the pitch is turning, the weather's very cloudy and the outfield is slow. Often, winning the toss can be a huge advantage as the captain winning it can dictate the pace of the match. > BATSMEN AND BATTING The team you have chosen should, ideally be be batting heavy. Otherwise, you'll end up 75 all out with Mike Atherton stranded on 45 not out! In ICC, every player has their own attributes including preferred scoring areas and favourite types of bowling to bat against. These can be useful when playing a more detailed version of the game. As a general skeleton of your batting line up, it may be wise to select two specialist openers at 1 and 2. These are more resilient players who can stick out the new ball bowlers for a bit. A quick note about openers, don't, whatever you do, put a pinch hitter like Glen Chapple or Dominic Cork in first like Lancs do in real life. In ICC, they usually fail, and their form will fall as a consequence. At three, have a bit of a madman like Freddy Flintoff, Graham Thorpe or someone similar who'll knock a quick fifty before getting out. This'll give a good base for numbers four and five to come in and consolidate a bit. Numbers four and five should be your best batsmen, like Fairbrother at Lancashire, Hussain at Essex and Brian Lara at Warwickshire. These are the crucial positions, as they should, ideally, be your major source of runs throughout the season. Numbers 6 to 11 will be made up mainly of your all- rounders and bowlers. Generally, it should be the case that from 6 onwards that players are ordered by their batting average. You may also have to fit your wicket keeper in here as well. The majority of keepers in the game are pretty good batsmen with averages of around 25. Place these at 6 if you're not playing an all-rounder. Of course, if you've got Andy Flower or Simon Willis, then all the better - play them higher up the order. All rounders can be extremely useful. Look out for young ones with ratings of 'Excellent' for both batting and bowling and snap them up at the end of the season. Then you can train them up to be very beneficial to your team. They may be able to dig you out of tough situations and get you a good few wickets. As for bowlers, don't rely on them too much for batting. Anything Darren Gough or Andrew Caddick may get act as bonuses (Note: some bowlers are quite good batsmen - look out for Peter Martin, Stuart Thomas and the like who sometimes achieve first class centuries!). Selection of batsmen may differ according to match conditions, type of match and quality of the opposition. - Match Conditions On a good or very good pitch, it may be worth selecting players with a preference to fast bowling because the computer team is likely to select mainly pace bowlers. Conversely, when pitch conditions are 'good', it may be worth choosing batsmen good against spin, such as John Crawley because the computer team is likely to select a spin attack. - Type of Match In first-class games, it is more suitable to select more slow-scoring, but good quality players such as Mike Atherton as there is more time available. In one day games, the batting line up is much more subject to experimentation. It may be worth including a young player or two to build up their experience levels. - Opposition Before each game, research your opposition's batsmen. Are they much cop, or are they in terrible form? Select your batsmen accordingly - choose appropriate skill and experience in your team. When playing lesser opposition such as Combined Universities or Minor Counties, you may be able to afford to play one or two younger, rawer players to give some of your mainstream players a rest. Watch out, though. Once I saw Scotland, and on another instance Cheshire get through to the Semi finals of the C&G! > BOWLERS AND BOWLING In ICC, bowling is much more complicated than batting. There are many different types of bowler which will suit different situations. However, it's your bowlers' skills which are the first and most important factor in selection. Don't favour a young youth team graduate over a more experienced bowler, unless it is absolutely necessary. It may be a good idea to blood your young bowlers in less crucial games. Remember, experience is an important factor in this game. Usually, a player will not pull out his best performances until he has played a certain proportion of matches, perhaps about ten games. --- A good bowling attack - squad to aim for. --- Three Seam bowlers averaging under 28 for first team play. Two more Seam bowlers averaging around 30. One top quality spinner. (Average around or under 30) One or two all rounders, perhaps a spinner. (Average around or under 30) One or two youth team graduates as back up. ------------------------------------------------- Remember that though subject to much variation, this line-up would give you plenty of options as well as back-up in case of crises. Of course, this is by no means the only way to success - as you get more experienced at the game, you'll develop your own strategies based on the team you have moulded over the seasons. The bowling tips following, however, will be based upon the squad shown above. OK, down to business. Like batsmen, select bowlers on the quality of the pitch, and how you think the pitch may deteriorate. If the pitch is average at the start of day one of a CC game, it may be worth bowling your spinner, as the track is likely to deteriorate fast. On the subcontinent, when touring with England, the pitchbecomes spinning by tea on the first day! Play two or perhaps one and a spinning batsman, such as Mike Atherton, in this situation. If the pitch is good, you may want to play your top spinner and hope you win the toss and bat first, thus giving him the chance to bowl on a worn pitch on the last day. However, it may be worth selecting your spinning all-rounder alongside your seam attack to perform the same task. This will give your team more batting strength in case you lose the toss and have to bat last. If the pitch is very good, it's a bit of a gamble as to whether the pitch will spin, so it's probably better to play a spinning batsman just in case. On the whole, though, your seamers should do the job. Remember to link pitch conditions with the weather. A lot of sun means the pitch will bake and become conducive to spin. Lots of rain slows the outfield down. When it's cloudy, bowl your seamers as they are likely to get some swing. Try to get a bowling attack to gel as soon as possible. If you are winning with a certain line-up, keep to it as much as you can. Obviously, though, there'll be injuries and perhaps international call ups. This is where your backup bowlers can come in handy - make sure you've got one or two top quality bowlers and another two reasonably skilled ones, perhaps youth team graduates. Make as little change to a winning attack as possible, though. Don't ever discard part time bowlers such as Michael Vaughan, Graeme Hick and Mark Butcher. They can be particularly useful at times, picking up wickets when you're in a hole. If you can't break a certain partnership, bring one into the attack and bowl at leg stump on zero aggression. You'll be surprised at how often this actually works! Even terrible bowlers such as Graham Thorpe and Neil Fairbrother can pick up the odd wicket every now and then using this tactic. In fact, in the case of Mark Butcher, you can almost play him as a fourth or fifth seamer alongside your main bowling attack, and with a bit of training, he can be turned into more of an all-rounder and an England regular. See the best players page for more info on Butch and other players worth looking out for. > NEW PLAYERS As the game progresses, the computer generated young graduate players become more and more important as they increase in number in the database. It's hard to judge their potential because the new player ratings can often be vague and variable. You can do some things to find out how good they are - mainly sign them for a season or two to check their performance. However, there are other little hints the computer drops - are they included in the default line-up at the start of the season? Do they go on winter tours with England? Are their wages quite high? (see cheats page) If so, they are likely to turn out as good players. Ensure they constantly have a training point or two when they're on your books. You can also sign young players to save money you would have otherwise used to buy more expensive established players. Remember to sign any players under 25 on three year contracts to gain full economy on them, as their performance is reviewed and a new salary calculated at the end of their contract spell. If you sign someone on a 1-year contract, you'll have to pay them a higher wage if you want to re-sign them next year. Signing them on 3-year deals means their salary stays consistent throughout their spell. > PLAYER FITNESS AND INJURIES In an ideal situation, you'd want to stick to a successful line-up as much as possible. This is, however, not always possible due to players being in poor condition and injuries. Individual player condition is ranked out of 100. In general, the lower the number, the worse condition the player is in. Players over 35 are more likely to sustain injuries, and likewise players under 25 are less likely. You can do a number of things to regulate player condition. The first, and most popular would be to rest a player for a spell once his condition drops below around the 88 mark. A resting player's condition will not drop, only rise in number. There is, however, a problem with this - beside losing one of your squad for a match or two, in-form players can lose their form when not playing (see player form). Bring the player back once they're up above 90. A second method, only applied by the strongest of county sides, is squad rotation. This generally relies on the player having a large squad with a lot of strong players. There's nothing stopping a smaller squad trying it to a certain extent, though - 18 players might be enough if you've got some good players. This method requires some flexibility, as you will need to base team line-ups on players available on a game by game basis. Play almost your strongest squad in the first few games before the league cup qualifiers and England one-dayers come along. This intense period in the season means player condition drops like mad, so keep an eye out so as it does not drop too much, say, under 90. Put in some weaker players against Combined Universities etc, replacing the more tired players in your team, and you should still absolutely batter them. In the second part of the season, after the league cup qualifying stages, you could develop separate strategies and player line-ups for one-day and four day games. Going out of the League Cup early may not be such a bad thing, as those quarter and semi finals later on sap your squad's energy. After all, there is more financial benefit for a good finish in the County Championship than winning the League Cup. > PLAYER FORM AND TRAINING POINTS Like condition, player form is rated out of 100. However, because form can increase or decrease a result of playing in matches, this ranking is set to start out at 40, which can be translated as playing at 40% of the player's maximum potential. The lowest point this can decrease to is one, at which point the player is totally demoralised and completely out of form. I have seen a player's form drop to zero, but I think this is another way of expressing form to be 100% in the game, perhaps a glitch which can come about due to player editing in ICEd. There are two ways to increase player form. These are training and match experience. I think training, from experience, is more effective, especially if the player is given two training points. If a player's form becomes very low, that is, below 25, drop them from the team and their form will gradually increase back up to 40, even if they are not currently assigned any training points, though this will decrease the amount of time it takes. If a player's form climbs above 70, then it is probably a good idea to re-assign their training points to a player in poor form. If you are England captain, make sure that before you leave on international duty you take any training points off your county's England players and re-assign them to non-internationals. This way you can make the most of the training points feature, and county players will perform better whilst you are away. Of course, you'll want to pick the players who have the best form rating. However, you should always bear in mind that a good player will always be better than a bad player in good form. The best way to keep a balance in your team is to take your time, make deliberate, decisive decisions regarding squad selection and constantly check back to the training screen. There'll always be changes to make to your training regime, so review it every week rather than every month when the screen loads up automatically. > END OF SEASON NEGOTIATIONS At the end of every season, you'll get the chance to renew and terminate contracts and buy new players. This, as you could imagine, is as much a part of the game as team selection, training points etc. First up is contract renewals and terminations. Go through each player individually, looking at their career stats, but more importantly their current ones. If you signed someone on a three year deal and they are consistently underperforming (eg average under 20 for batsmen, over 35 for bowlers) and have done for the last couple of seasons, it is probably better to get rid of them. However, bear in mind that good players have bad seasons, and injuries can decrease overall player form. If expensive players are of no benefit to your team, they are not worth keeping. The subject of England internationals is an interesting one. When they do appear in the available players pool, is it worth signing them? Well, it varies from player to player, but my advice is if you have the money to spare, snap them up. In some cases, due to high cost, though, you run the risk of pinning your hopes too much on them being fit all season, and your 13 other squad players will struggle to fill the gap left by them when they are on international duty. On the plus side, the more consistent ones can often win you matches and get you out of sticky situations. Overseas internationals pose a similar dilemma, as some of their asking prices can be ludicrous. Keep away from the really expensive players as they never perform as well as you expect. Take the example of Sachin Tendulkar, his skill does not necessarily live up to his average. Exceptions to this rule are South Africans Kallis and Klusener, who more often than not deliver the goods if not batting, then in bowling. Brian Lara is also the best batsman in the game, but often has an off season or two. In the 2003 database on CricketWeb, Brian Lara lives forever! He's also English, but can play only international cricket after he leaves Warwickshire. In the bowling department, Shaun Pollock, Shane Warne and West Indian pace pairing Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh usually perform well. However, I can't remember if it's possible, but it's worth checking England's opponents for the forthcoming season. Don't, whatever you do, sign an international from this nation. Don't sign Muralitharan after the first season, for example, because you'll pay his wages but he'll be on international duty for all of the English season! This means he's a waste of good money. Instead sign someone from another country. All other nations other than England's opponents play each other during the winter period, so you won't have this problem. --------------------------------------------------------------------- CAPTAINING ENGLAND - Strategies for the International Game --------------------------------------------------------------------- The ultimate test in International Cricket Captain is leading your country in an International season. Here are some useful hints to help you through that gruelling Ashes Test and One day international series. Right. You've got your work cut out to get the 100 points you need to become England captain. It'll take a while to achieve, and quite a lot of work, but follow the Ultimate ICC players guide and your chances will be dramatically improved. Alternatively, become England manager right away by entering your name as Alec. The downside to this is that you have to be called Alec for the rest of the game. Obviously, if your name actually is Alec, then this is no problem at all, really. Also, it's more fun and satisfying to earn your right to become the national captain without cheating. Moral decisions out of the way, becoming number one in the world rankings is no easy task. Once you've got there, however, the hard work is mostly over and it's usually quite easy to stay there. Typical International Season: ----------------------------- Home Away Three One Day Internationals Five Test Matches* Five - Six Test Matches* Five One Day Matches *Exceptions to this guide are Tests against Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, which take the form of a one or three match series. One dayers are unchanged. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Winter Tour Season 1998-1999: The Ashes --------------------------------------- In ICC, the first major international tour for the England boys is against the Old Enemy - the Aussies. Player selection will obviously depend on current form and so on, but following is a rough guide to a fairly successful squad. Batsmen: Selection from: M Atherton (o), M May (o), M Butcher (o) J Crawley, G Hick, A Stewart, E Smith (o) (younger backup opener), G Thorpe, N Hussain Wicket Keepers: One or two from: S Willis, R Russell, M Speight All Rounders: From: I Austin (believe me, he's good), A Hollioake, R Croft (Spinner #1) Bowlers: From: D Brown (first name on sheet) D Cork, A Fraser, A Caddick, P Tufnell (Spinner#2), P Martin, D Gough Further additions to this list would be in-form players who, for example, top the bowling or batting averages for the season, and perhaps some good young players. However, this may be a bit too much of a risk in the first winter tour - wait until new players have had a season or two of county experience before they make the step up to international level. England 1st Choice XI 1 MA Atherton (c) 2 MR May 3 AJ Stewart 4 GA Hick 5 GP Thorpe 6 AJ Hollioake 7 SC Willis (Wk) 8 DR Brown 9 ID Austin 10 D Gough (1) 11 ARC Fraser (2) It's my experience that Atherton never does as well as you expect - his skill level is around an average of 35 rather than 40. However, it's still worth picking him because he's the best opener in England. Michael May does surprisingly well too - but only for a while. He tends to get found out against stronger international sides. Butcher, as is well documented, can become a world class all-rounder. It might be worth giving him the reserve opener slot just in case - don't forget to give him a batting and a bowling training point, though. Finally, Ed Smith is only 20 at the beginning of the game and already has an average of 44. He can, with a bit of nurturing, become a mainstay at the top of the England order. The England middle order can be quite weak, as was seen in the corresponding real life Ashes series. Put Stewart in at three, as a 'safety net' if the openers fail - in the game, he's classed as an opening batsman. The number four slot can fall to Hick or Crawley, the latter being more effective against the spin of Shane Warne. I suggest Hick, however, on the count that he can stick around and make big hundreds, so you need to give him time. Five has to be Thorpe, taking the cake from Hussain, who misses out due to lack of experience. Number six, for tests at least, goes to Adam Hollioake. A top batsman who can bowl a few balls as well ensures you don't go into the first Test with just four bowlers. Seven goes to the wicket keeper who has to be Simon Willis. May not be great all the time, and perhaps needs a bit of experience, but I'd still be inclined to pick him on raw potential alone. Number eight needs to be Dougie Brown, who is a top quality bowler who can wield a bat with some respect. Numbers 8-11 are changeable depending on conditions. Stick Ian Austin in at 9. He's a top wicket to wicket bowler who is very economical. The only thing against him is lack of international experience, but I'd overlook this. Darren Gough gets my vote at number 10 and Angus Fraser completes the line-up. These two highly experienced, top class pace bowlers open the attack with some force. On wearing pitches, you may want to consider replacing Austin with Croft or Tufnell to give a spin option, otherwise, give Atherton one or two overs if the pitch starts to turn. MATCH TACTICS However, it's not a cake-walk against the Aussies. From 1-11, every player is high quality, backed up by the team averages: Test Averages Player Name Bat 50 100 Bowl wkts 5w Matthew Elliott (o) 48.11 4 2 - - - Michael Slater (o) 47.41 10 7 4.00 1 - Mark Waugh 41.33 28 11 36.32 41 1 Steve Waugh 49.67 34 14 36.17 80 3 Mark Taylor (o) 41.89 34 15 26.00 1 - Ricky Ponting 38.07 3 1 4.00 2 - Dean Jones 46.55 14 11 64.00 1 - Ian Healy (wk) 26.98 18 3 - - - Michael Bevan 29.73 6 0 23.30 27 1 Greg Blewett 40.60 7 4 69.25 4 - Glenn McGrath 3.93 0 0 23.46 155 8 Shane Warne 14.46 2 0 23.95 264 11 Paul Reiffel 22.34 3 0 26.38 91 5 Jason Gillespie 12.29 0 0 22.20 32 2 Michael Kasprowicz 8.00 0 0 31.14 14 1 It's best to take your time and formulate plans to each batsman or bowler by looking at their averages, strengths and weaknesses, then assessing how successful you have been by looking at their match stats. For example, you might assess how good an attacking off stump line is to Matty Elliott by looking at how many plays and misses were made. Check wagon wheels to see where runs are being scored and set fields in accordance. In short, be careful and use all resources at your expense. What makes a good player great is the ability to make the right decisions in accordance to the situation. BOWLING A bit of good luck always helps. Hope that you win the toss more often than not on very good pitches, but try not to panic if you don't - make good use of the new ball by giving all your pace bowlers a go with it. Remember to vary your attack, especially if you're struggling with Waugh and Slater in a 200+ partnership. Check batters' preferences as you would in county matches and keep your eye on bowlers' stamina levels - you don't want to injure Darren Gough by bowling him into the ground. Use session breaks to recuperate then come back fully fit and ready to attack for a few overs with your quicks. The batsman settled rating decreases during breaks, and resets to nought at the end of the day. Use this to your bowlers' advantage. There are less overs per session in test matches so bowlers, if rotated sufficiently, should be fresher than in county games. Constantly change from level five attack to level zero defence, from pace to spin, and occasionally from full-timers to part timers. Don't discount the value of part-time bowlers - they can be very useful as something different at the end of a session or a day, and the better ones can snaffle some wickets for you. Mike Atherton in the skeleton team above would be a good spinner to bring on when things are getting tight. He can also, as first choice spinners can, rush through a few overs leading up to the new ball. Remember to be moderately defensive in your field settings though, preferably in proportion to the skill of your spinner. BATTING Batting is hard. In many ways, it's tougher than bowling against the hostile Aussie attack - Glenn McGrath is the ultimate miser and Warney can turn the ball on any wicket. You ideally want to win the toss and bat, bat bat in the Australia because the weather is superb and the wickets are great Test match pitches. Even if it's a bit cloudy, still bat and get the runs on the board. The only exception is very cloudy weather where you may want to bowl first and really attack with your new ball bowlers and take advantage of overcast conditions. In Tests, defend on batting levels zero (Atherton) or one (May, Butcher etc.) for the first hour or so to see the shine off the new ball. Pick up the pace in the hour leading up to lunch by moving up to two batting marks. Move one batter (Athers) back down to one mark just after lunch and gradually raise to two when fully settled and three for half an hour before tea. If you've still only lost one wicket, attack after tea on two marks at first and three when settled. If a part timer comes on, consider pushing up to three or four marks and make use of the locking aggression feature. Ideal situation at the close of play on a good wicket would be 260-3. Of course, this is assuming everything goes smoothly. Losing wickets changes everything - look to defend on two marks until fully settled then raise to three. Bat in partnerships with one man attacking on three marks and one going steadily on two (preferably a less attacking batsman). When you get down to the all rounders with an established batsman, go as normal but look to start attacking when numbers 10 and 11, or perhaps when 9's in if you have an extended tail. This means three or four marks. If a rabbit's in at 11, give your established batter five attacking marks. The ultimate first innings score is 500+ which gives you loads of runs to attack like mad for a bit. This doesn't happen often against Australia, though - perhaps once a series if you're lucky. In my experience, 375 puts you in a good position providing you deliver in a solid bowling performance. Don't worry too much if you only get 300, but definitely worry at 200 or less. Batting first means you can apply the pressure bowling on the final day if the match goes that far. Same principle applies batting in the second innings - but be careful not to collapse as often happens when playing quality test sides. If you lose a couple of quick wickets, consolidate for a while defending and increase aggression only when settled. Treat your tailenders as the rabbits they are and keep them at oneor two aggression marks - never go up to three unless you want to perish! A good second innings score is hard to judge - remember not to be rash and don't be too disheartened with a second innings lead of just 200. Don't forget your opponents will have to bat on a 4th or 5th day pitch which is usually spinning. INJURIES Injuries can be killers with regards to your team performance. When on tour with England, it's not too bad, with reasonable breaks in between Tests. Usually all players are at 100% fitness level for every game due to week long rests. However, thoughtless over-bowling and long batting stints mean injuries can, and often do, occur though with a lot less frequency than in county games. Maximum injuries at any one time usually limit to two, but this can still be greatly detrimental to your team. Try to replace like for like if you can - opener for opener, batsman for batsman, keeper for keeper etc. to attempt to achieve some sort of consistency. This means it's all the more important to select the right men in your touring squad. Ian Austin can be replaced with Cork and vice versa, Willis for Russell, Gough for Caddick etc. However, the occasion may warrant the selection of inexperience as the most preferable option. Don't worry too much about this but try and protect them a bit because you're not sure of their potential. --------------------------------------------- BEST PLAYERS IN INTERNATIONAL CRICKET CAPTAIN --------------------------------------------- Who is THE best player in International Cricket Captain? Well, the answer is that it doesn't really matter. The point is that you should have a whole team of good players in order to achieve. After all, it's no good having Brian Lara when all of your other batsmen average under 25. Following is a list of the best players in ICC using the default database which I have experienced. Also available on the EOMA ICC Site - examples of career stats taken from games I have played. Mark Butcher (Opening Bat). Usually available at start of 2nd Season. Will become consistent performer for your team if trained. Can bowl also. Quite cheap Alex Tudor (Bowl). Another one available early. Good young player - can be trained up to be a good strike bowler. Dimitri Mascarenhas (Bowl). Similarly to Tudor, a good young player who can be trained to average about 25. Ashley Giles (Bowl). Good bowling all-rounder. Available 3rd-4th season if at all. Never gets picked for England. Scott Willis (Keeper). Snap this guy up when you can! Best English Keeper - have two back-ups though - often called up. Paul Nixon (Keeper). Good keeper, still quite young. Becomes available quite late on, though. Owais Shah (Bat). Can be used as a decent back-up batsman when players are called up. Quite cheap, too. Ben Hollioake (All-rounder). The younger of the Hollioake brothers, and the better bowler of the two. Good young acquisition. RIP, mate. Adam Hollioake (All-rounder). Tougher to get, the batting Hollioake usually becomes an England regular. One of best batsmen in England. Scott Ellis (Bowl). Ah yes, now down to the business! Ellis becomes a quality player - get 'im as soon as you can! John Crawley (Bat). Hard to get unless you're Lancs. Quality player. Be warned, though, may become an England regular! Jimmy Ormond (Bowl). Any bowler who can achieve more than 1000 wickets in a career could certainly be classed as successful. Buy him ASAP John Lewis (Bowl). Similar to the bowlers mentioned above, Lewis often becomes one of England's best bowlers. Dougie Brown (Bowl). Has potential to be England regular. Bats as well, getting you out of some tough situations. Ed Smith (Opening Bat). Begins the game with an average of 40. Best opener in England? Averages 35ish over his career. >OVERSEAS PLAYERS Brian Lara (bat). The best batsman in the game. A bit expensive, but worth it. Warning: tends to have one or two off seasons. Matthew Elliott (Opening Bat). Best overseas opener in the game. Consistent. Quite reasonable wage. Ricky Ponting (Bat) The second best batsman in the game? Along with Bevan. Doesn't come along often, though. Andy Flower (Keeper). Brilliant batsman and keeper. Excellent addition in at number six in the order. Dale Benkenstein (All-Rounder). Becomes available quite early. Use mainly as batsman who bowls a little bit for best results. Jacques Kallis (All-Rounder). If he doesn't perform with the bat, he'll have a good match with the ball. Very useful, but a bit expensive. Lance Klusener (All Rounder). Like his countryman Kallis, useful with both bat and ball. Gives you extra batting strength and a world class bowler. Sean Pollock (All Rounder). Very good bowler who can get you a few runs also. Shane Warne (Bowl). Leg spinners have an advantage in ICC. Warne can get you wickets on any track, not just turning ones Other good players to look out for: Kevin Dean Bwl Will Kendall Bat Zachary Morris Bwl Phil Weston Bat Melvyn Betts Bwl Alamgir Sheriyar Bwl Ian Sutcliffe Bat J Hewitt Bwl Glen Chapple Bwl Vikram Solanki A/R S Stubbings Bat Kevin Dean Bwl Chris Silverwood Bwl Dougie Brown Bwl Mal Loye Bat Ronnie Irani A/R Robert Croft A/R Ian Austin A/R Worst Players in International Cricket Captain There's a number of players in ICC that are simply not worth bothering with - don't even try to train these guys up! Often they'll only achieve moderate averages, so only use them as backup if totally necessary. AM Dobson Bwl MJ Hoggard Bwl Depesh Patel Bwl Floyd Reifer Bat/Wk Jamie Grove Bwl James Averis Bwl Martin Saggers Bwl Andy Flintoff Bat -------------------------------------------------- HINTS AND CHEATS FOR INTERNATIONAL CRICKET CAPTAIN -------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS: Win the toss every time Be England Captain from start Go 'keeperless Super Players The ICC Editor When All else fails... Judging Player Ability Make them declare Judging Player Ability No.2 Judging Player Ability No.3 --------------------------------------- Win the Toss Every Time This is probably a bug in the game which was unnoticed in testing. You can choose whether you want to bat or bowl at the toss screen by pressing [Enter] or [Escape] respectively. Be England Captain From Start Not really a cheat, cos it's in the manual, but anyway, you can take on the England captaincy immediately by starting a new game and entering 'Alec' as your name. Go 'Keeperless Try this out. In a one-day game, play a specialist batsman as a wicket keeper. It may sound strange, but it kind of works - they never concede byes or drop catches! This is particularly useful later on in the game when there is a distinct lack of wicket keepers around. Note: this doesn't work in first class games, you just get smacked about. Update: I have since discovered that this only works in Auto-played one day matches. At the time of writing this cheat I was assessing the effectiveness of the auto-play option. Super Players A bug in the game has lead to a rather strange phenomenon commonly known as 'Super Players'. These dudes rock, because they never get out except for run outs. Almost always taking the form of a wicket keeper, they can be distinguished by their stupidly high batting averages and not out rates. Personally, I don't like them, because it takes the fun out of building up a player's skill level. However, it is worth keeping an eye out on the new players screen for wicket keepers. You never know... Alternatively, you could simply download a game with a super player from www.cricketweb.com, or create one using the ICC Editor! The ICC Editor It's a cheater's paradise! ICEd allows you to change in game details such as player names and dates of birth, career stats and base ability. Transfers can be made and player nationalities changed. You can even create super players! Download The ICC Editor now from the EOMA ICC Site. When All Else Fails... In the close season, you may not be happy with the outcome of some of the contract negotiations. It is possible to go through this process again by switching the computer off before the 'saving game state' box appears prior to the playing of the winter matches. This is also useful in that any players who retired at theend of the season will be back in your team, and may not retire this time round! Judging Player Ability Aside from averages, it is possible to see how good a player is by looking at a player's expected wages. Over £40,000 is Good, £50,000 is very good and £60,000 or more is awesome. In new graduate players, £22,000 is very good, £24,000 is excellent whilst £15,000 is utter garbage. Make them declare Got this one from the PC Gamer tips section of the Cricket Games site. Works quite well, too - can turn a certain draw into a win. If you're bowling on the final day of any first class match, bring on a crap bowler. It might sound a bit contrived, but usually the computer will declare after carting them around a bit! This can be to your advantage - do it when the opposition's about 100 runs ahead for a chance to win. Judging Player Ability No. 2 Following on from the looking at player wages tip, check at the beginning of a new season the default line up suggested by the computer. I don't know if this is always your best team line up, but if a new player is included in the squad, then it's worth developing him. I once discovered a 21-year old batsman who went on to make a double century and an average of about 42 in his first season using this tip. Judging Player Ability No. 3 The 'Excellent' new player rating seems to be subject to much variation. It seems to me from playing the game that the better a squad is performing as a team, the higher quality young graduates are likely to be. Whilst it's not possible to check which county people in the new players pool come from, you can be pretty sure that if you completely dominate a season winning most things, you're going to produce one, or even two excellent rated graduates. -------------------------------------------------------- Editing Help -------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------- EOMA INTERNATIONAL CRICKET CAPTAIN -------------------------------------------------------- EDITING TIPS v 1.0 January 2006 -------------------------------------------------------- - When altering data in files, remember to back them up first. If this fails, you can always reinstall or copy original files back from the ICC installation disk. - All of these editable files can be found in the directory where you installed ICC, most probably: C:\Program Files\Empire Interactive\ International Cricket Captain. -------------------------------------------------------- PLAYER PHOTOS -------------------------------------------------------- - Remember to save in the appropriate format, that is, 256 colour bitmap. Other formats cause the game to crash or the image to be scrambled. - There are, in general, two ways to edit player photos: i}You can use an image editor to create a new one or replace or edit existing ones. Image Size: 60 x 70 pixels, 256 colour bitmap. Save to the Photos file within the ICC directory in the format: PLAYER SURNAME (SPACE) PLAYER INITIALS eg. Read CMW.bmp ii)Use the ICC Editor to select a new photograph for a particular player. Choose from the database the player you wish to change the default photo for then select [Photo...]. Select the new photo using the browser. - For player photos, you can generally get a better quality of image if you sacrifice colour and go for greyscale. You can achieve this through way of an image editor such as Photoshop. (Image>Mode>Greyscale) - Note: it is also possible to edit the default new player photo. This can be found in the gfx folder of the ICC directory. -------------------------------------------------------- GROUNDS -------------------------------------------------------- - It might be a good idea to darken the desired image so that the white text shows up better on top of it in the game. - To change the default international venues, select the new international ground photo from the Ground folder in the ICC directory, download a new one from a website or choose one you have made yourself and replace the files named 'England1', 'England2' etc. You can also do this for any of the other international grounds (West Indies, Australia etc.) - I think that the number following the country name indicates the order in which the grounds are used. For example, If Old Trafford is 'England1', then the first Test match in a home series is always played there. Not 100% sure on this though. - You can also add new grounds for teams not already represented in the grounds folder. It is possible to create a new ground photo, for example, for Holland and name it Holland.bmp within the Grounds folder. This background will now show up when you play Holland away in the cup. Try not to put too many images in your Grounds directory, however. -------------------------------------------------------- EMBLEMS/BACKDROPS -------------------------------------------------------- - Pretty much the same principle as with editing player photos and grounds, be wary to save the emblems as 256 colour bitmaps when you're done, however. - It is possible to edit in-game backdrops, opening up a wide range of possibilies for new game design. These do, however, take a little more time to design well. -------------------------------------------------------- NAMES -------------------------------------------------------- - It is possible to edit the default names files within the game. These are the files used when the game generates names for new players, and are listed as follows: = Name = = Description = > f_eng.lst First names for new English, Australian, West Indian Players. > n_eng.lst Surnames for new English, Australian, West Indian, New Zealand and Zimbabwean players. > n_ind.lst Surnames for Indian Players. > n_pak.lst Surnames for Pakistani Players. > n_sa.lst Surnames for South African Players. > n_sl.lst Surnames for Sri Lankan Players. > n_wi.lst Surnames for West Indian Players. - To edit, simply open the desired file in a text editor, Notepad is probably best. Replace existing names with new ones. - The number at the head of the file is the number of names listed within it. The game will probably crash or irregularities may occur if these don't correspond, but I don't know because I haven't tried it. --------------------------------------------------------- ICED - The ICC Editor --------------------------------------------------------- - ICEd allows you to change many aspects of the game. Here are some tips to help you out. - Seriously think about using the 'Copy From...' button when assigning skill levels to players as the pre- defined skill levels (Good, Excellent etc.) are very unreliable. They keep making players super batsmen, which is not what you want when making serious databases. - When creating a new database, do not change any county names. This will cause the game to crash at the team selection screen. You will need to edit the eng98 file in order to do this. You also cannot create databases from saved games (.cap files). - Replacing a player's photo overwrites the existing one saved the photos file, so remember to back up first. - For some reason, the default database has missed out some player nationalities, resulting in them not being present in the game. They are all overseas players, found in the other section and are listed as follows. = Name = = Nation = > GB Hogg Australia > AM Stuart Australia > DN Erasmus Zimbabwe? > TR Gripper Zimbabwe > DJR Campbell Don't Know > ACI Lock Don't Know > S Kip Don't Know (Sweden?) > SH Armstrong Don't Know > Theo Blake West Indies? - Some players have no assigned Nation, but play for a county. These are: = Name = = Nation = > TH Hansen Sweden > JAR Blain Scotland (already assigned) > AP Van Troost Holland - These players disappear from the database after their county contracts expire. To keep them in the game, assign them a Test Nation nationality (eg England). - Assigning a player to play for a minor county does not mean they go to play for them. In fact, they disappear from the database. If you want to create a player for say, Scotland, first sign a Scotland player to a county using the club information window. Next, assign the player the desired attributes. The player is not eligible to play for England unless you set his country to this now. You don't have to, but deleting him from the database now (set club and country to nothing) means he still plays for Scotland. - Some photographs, from my experience, are not backwards compatible. This means photos made for ICC 2002 will become scrambled when used in earlier versions. Correct me if I'm wrong. - Set a player's county contract to 20 and they will never leave a club, that is, unless you terminate their contract in the game. ------------------------------------------------------------ USING ICED TO CHEAT ------------------------------------------------------------ - To sign an overseas player for more than a year, first sign the player you want in the negotiations. Play the winter matches. Now exit and load up the saved file in ICEd. You can now change the player's contract length to be as long as you like. - Leg spinners are rare in ICC. This is because they have a slight knack of being more successful than 'regular' bowlers. With the editor, you can assign as many as you want. -------------------------------------------------- Miscellaneous Observations -------------------------------------------------- ICC is a very detailed game. There's hundreds of different calculations taking place all the time, and lots of things to say about the game. Here's just a few of the things I noticed whilst playing ICC... Overseas players figures - have you ever noticed how some overseas bowlers have really high bowling averages later on in the game? Personal bests are mad as well - Olonga 9-342, Vorster 9-369 etc etc etc. Must be some sort of bug in the random score generation. Why oh why oh why is there a serious shortage of wicket keepers in this game? It's not just in England but abroad as well. In the end, keepers are a rarity and scores seem to skyrocket with byes. To solve this problem, I have created an EOMA Wicket Keeper Database, which is available now from the EOMA ICC Site. (www.geocities.com/eomaicc) Since I first wrote the above comment, I came across a situation on one of my saved games where in about the season 2015 ten new wicket keepers became available in one year. And they were all rated 'excellent'! This is probably a script written into the game's code which regulates the number of English Wicket Keepers. found this strange because this had never happened to me before in the game. As it turns out, none of the keepers were super batsmen (see below), but they were actually pretty competent. Whilst playing ICC, I have never come across a 'super batsman' which occurs 'naturally' during the course of a game in an English season. However, they definitely do exist. When you get to about 2015, check out the list of players' averages, looking out especially for West Indian wicket keepers. You may find some with stupidly high averages and 15 hundreds in 20 innings. At the start of the game, you'll notice that the minor counties teams, Ireland, Scotland and Holland never win in the cup games, at all. Well, this tends to change as the game wears on. As I mentioned in the player's guide, I have seen Scotland and Cheshire advance as far as the semi finals of the league cup. That's just mad! The cause of this, however, can be easily predicted - in most cases it is due to major county teams becoming worse. Teams which consistently fail to win anything will be left with little cash, and so are unable to buy any players of substance. As a result, their rubbishy youth team graduates are no match for the experience of the Combined Universities! ------------------------------ SPECIAL THANKS AND LINKS ------------------------------ Thanks to Stejinz for his help and support of the EOMA ICC site. Thanks to Cricket Games and Cricket Web for reference points to check the hints and tips. www.cricketweb.com - Cricket Web - all things to do with cricket, including scorecards, photos and cricket related games. http://forum.cricketweb.net/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=30&f=21 - ICC Forum page at CricketWeb www.cricketgames.com - Cricket Games - Hints, tips, reviews and downloads for cricket related games. www.cricinfo.com - Wisden Cricinfo - Ultimate cricket site with archives, news and tons of other stuff. www.cricket-online.org - Live scores, stats, news and more www.ECB.co.uk - Official site of the English Cricket Board. www.howstat.com - Superb source of cricket related statistics. www.news.bbc.co.uk/sport BBC Sport - Latest news, plus hundreds of photos. http://cec.wustl.edu/~rhl1/accc/ - Armchair cricket championship! Cool game. www.sportinglife.com/cricket - Latest news and scores. www.cricketarchive.co.uk - Cricket based statfest! www.canadacricket.com - Cricket in the maple leaf country. www.channel4.com/cricket - Get jargon busting with Simon Hughes. www.cricketeurope.org - Cricket news from all around Europe. www.cricnet.com Sky Sports Cricket Site. Other Sites designed by Kej Products: www.geocities.com/stejinz - Kej's Games Hell - Cool games to download. http://lightningseeds.batcave.net - Guitar chords for Lightning Seeds Songs (Note: above site is still available at this address, but for a better version visit: www.geocities.com/seedschords) www.totallyhonest.batcave.net - Stejinz's mad comedy sketch show site. www.geocities.com/lowrystudy - A College Art Project. -------------------------------------------------- ENGLAND'S ONE MAN ARMY'S INTERNATIONAL CRICKET CAPTAIN ULTIMATE PLAYERS GUIDE v2.1 November 2005 ------------------------------ Written By Dan Farrimond ------------------------------ E-Mail Dan, England's One Man Army at eomaicc@yahoo.com www.geocities.com/eomaicc for more information ------------------------------