Hattrick winning Strategies

[Soccertes]

Is there a winning strategy to this game? I mean, does anyone have a procedure or methodology that they use for their team that has allowed them to advance to the top 2 divisions in their country? Care to share it?... I'm all ears!

[kuhnscoot]

There is not one strategy that will get you there. The one thing all teams need is money that and luck. People would say you need a midfield to win games because you get possession. One of the HT's is working on that by playing in the US as a D trainer, he is currently in II I believe. There is really no one set procedure or methodology that will get you to into the top 2, it's about finding a lineup yourself that helps you to win games. I mean that game wouldn't be fun if there was one way to get yourself up to the top 2.

[Kermmy803]

Find any and all articles and newbie guides on the web about HT. Good place to start is the Home Page, accessible through the Help menu on the left, and reading the news items on the right. Don't forget to read the rules under Help, also.

Learning about all the nuances and different avenues for improvement in the game would be very beneficial. IMO.

Just remember that this game takes TONS and TONS of patience. You will not jet up to the ML within a year of RL time.

[Soccertes]

What I don't understand is how players train one skill and are successful. I mean let's say I decide to train Playmaking and I start off with a young midfield of age 17. I'll probably get nowhere until my players turn 19 (after several years of PM training) at which point I start kicking some butt and moving up the division. I also purchase some other young players to train as PM during friendlies and sell them for some cash (so as to buy other players- defenders, Forwards, etc) all the while always holding on to my original group of youngsters and watch them grow stronger as they go from 20 to 23 to 26 yrs of age etc... Now at some point my midfielders turn 30 and I realize they're getting older and will soon need to be replaced with younger talent. So now I get myself some young 17yr olds to train as PM to replace my aging midfield. so for the next (let's say) 7 years I can't sell anyone of my midfield players for cash. When my 17yr old midfielders become 24 and my experienced midfielders become 37 I decide to get rid of my old midfielders and sell them or sack them. But now my midfield takes a huge hit. I'm going from experienced 37 yr olds with VERY HIGH PM skills to 24 year olds with high PM skills. That hit in PM could cause me to drop a division. So if I can't consistantly keep a very high PM skill level and improve on that, how can I ever advance into the Div 1 or 2?

Does that make sense (what I just said)? Sorry if it doesn't.

[GROVESHSCOACH]

You would not hold on to trainnes for that long. Lets say you trained your 17 year ols until they were 21. if you sell a 21 Magnificent playmaker for around 2 million you can rplace with a brilliant or outstanding for 1 tyo 1.5 million and make money without losing too much midfield.

[Kermmy803]

After getting started, you want to stagger your trainees. Sell them off one at a time so the hit to that portion of your team isnt that great each time.

Then you have a constant flow of cash from training and can keep your team improving constantly.

[bmalek]

When you first start Hattrick, it is probably better just to buy a bunch of 17 year old trainees. By the time they all reach 21, start to sell them off as they go up in PM skill (if you are training PM). The first three you sell, buy three good PM's for your "A" squad, I would recommend buying maybe two 19 y/o's and a 18 y/o. When your other three 21 year olds go up, sell them and buy two 17 y/o cheap players (you can normally get a 17 y/o inadequate PM with inadequate passing for under $10,000) and a decent 18 y/o as your main backup.

This should give you some money to spend on other players. Once your new "A" team players hit 21 or 22, sell them off and you have 19 or 20 y/o's ready to take their place and start the same process again.

In the beginning it is much more profitable to buy a trainee for a cheaper amount (under 10,000) and train him than buying players that cost a million dollars at age 17. Once you have done this for a little while your team will start looking a lot better.

Of course, there is also a lot of luck involved. Injuries, red cards, youth squad pulls and where you get placed all have a huge impact on how well you do. As others have said, Hattrick is a long, long, long, long term game, do not expect to move up each and every year. Concentrate on your training program, it is the key to your success!

[ZeekLTK]

What I don't understand is how players train one skill and are successful. I mean let's say I decide to train Playmaking and I start off with a young midfield of age 17. I'll probably get nowhere until my players turn 19 (after several years of PM training) at which point I start kicking some butt and moving up the division. I also purchase some other young players to train as PM during friendlies and sell them for some cash (so as to buy other players- defenders, Forwards, etc) all the while always holding on to my original group of youngsters and watch them grow stronger as they go from 20 to 23 to 26 yrs of age etc... Now at some point my midfielders turn 30 and I realize they're getting older and will soon need to be replaced with younger talent. So now I get myself some young 17yr olds to train as PM to replace my aging midfield. so for the next (let's say) 7 years I can't sell anyone of my midfield players for cash. When my 17yr old midfielders become 24 and my experienced midfielders become 37 I decide to get rid of my old midfielders and sell them or sack them. But now my midfield takes a huge hit. I'm going from experienced 37 yr olds with VERY HIGH PM skills to 24 year olds with high PM skills. That hit in PM could cause me to drop a division. So if I can't consistantly keep a very high PM skill level and improve on that, how can I ever advance into the Div 1 or 2?

Does that make sense (what I just said)? Sorry if it doesn't.


You can't train them after they are over 21. Well, you can, but it takes so long that it's not worth it. For the time it would take a 24 year old to advance one level you could have an 18 year old advance 2-3 levels.

Most people either sell their trainees after they reach 21 or change training and keep the guy(s) they have.

For example I used to be a keeper trainer. I bought an 18 year old inadequate and trained him until he was a 21 year old titanic. Along the way I also trained other keepers up from inadequate/passable to ~formidable and sold them to get money to upgrade other positions, like midfield where I now have three outstanding midfielders.

Now I train strikers, I currently hav 2 guys in their 20s at brilliant and I just recently picked up a 17 year old passable (last week). I am going to try to get a few more 17 year olds to train for the long haul and eventually sell the guys who are brilliant (after they pop a few more times... and my guys who are solid/excellent pop a few times so it's not a huge drop off). When this year's 17 year olds get up to 21 then they should be very good and I'll keep them and switch training to defense or midfield. Then I have a titanic keeper that I paid $9,000 for, a few magical strikers that I paid less than $2 million for total, and will be training up my next batch of guys.

Also there is no point to keep the guys until they get to 37. Usuaully when players are around 30-33 is when you want to get rid of them. You can still get some money back, despite the old age, if they are really good. So if you have a 30 year old titanic player or something, you are still going to be able to get a few million for him, just because of how good he still is.

[Pints]

Invest in your youth squad, it's free money.

I train PM and have done so for 5 seasons, I am now at the point where the majority of my midfiled is 20 or younger and at least excellent. Once they hit 22 and are at least outstanding I sell them and buy players I don't train like Central Defenders and Forwards. I pull an amazing kid out of the youth squad about once a season (tons of crap for firing but every now and then you get a good one) now I get a 17 year old who is a Central Defender and is already soild in his skill. I don't train defense and have already purchased a formidable Central Defender so I sell the 17 year old Central Defender for bookoo bucks, and THAT's when I buy the better coach.

It's all about training and selling, the winning comes after some time.



:D That being said I am still in the bottom division I started in 5 seasons ago so yes patience is definitely a virtue in the game. I have yet to see a team get promoted and actually stay up.

[Dan Loney]

A bunch of good players is better than one great player. I tried to win with a utopian midfielder, and didn't promote. Huge waste of money, which I'm trying to recover from this year.

The exception is goalkeeper, I think, which probably still does more for defense than anything else. If you have a choice between a great keeper to buy, and a bunch of good defenders, I'd honestly go for the keeper. They've tried to toy with the game engine so that isn't as extreme as it used to be, and they may tinker with the game engine yet again - but I still think this is true. On the other hand, I finished third last year and will do so again this year, so caveat lector.

[bmalek]

A bunch of good players is better than one great player. I tried to win with a utopian midfielder, and didn't promote. Huge waste of money, which I'm trying to recover from this year.

The exception is goalkeeper, I think, which probably still does more for defense than anything else. If you have a choice between a great keeper to buy, and a bunch of good defenders, I'd honestly go for the keeper. They've tried to toy with the game engine so that isn't as extreme as it used to be, and they may tinker with the game engine yet again - but I still think this is true. On the other hand, I finished third last year and will do so again this year, so caveat lector.

Yea, one of these days I should really upgrade my solid keeper :(

I think he was one of the first players I bought after trainees! Keeper is a good way to upgrade because there is only one player to buy and it does help your defense. One quick piece of advice though, I would shoot for a keeper that isn't fiery and dishonest... red cards on a keeper would not be good if you do not have a decent backup!

[Craig P]

Invest in your youth squad, it's free money.That's not true at all -- the YS is a lottery; on average it should pay for itself, but there's never a guarantee. For some squads, it's just a black hole that they dump $20k into week after week with minimal return.

[ZeekLTK]

:D That being said I am still in the bottom division I started in 5 seasons ago so yes patience is definitely a virtue in the game. I have yet to see a team get promoted and actually stay up.

I promoted out of VI after only 2 seasons and haven't gone back since. This will be my 6th division in V.233 though... I need to win the V.233 Cup before I leave though. Two semifinals and a quarterfinal appearance aren't enough. Gotta bring the cup home at least once before I leave!! I thought last season was my season, but the damn Dutch team came out of nowhere to beat me. :(

[bmalek]

:D That being said I am still in the bottom division I started in 5 seasons ago so yes patience is definitely a virtue in the game. I have yet to see a team get promoted and actually stay up.

I started in VI half way through the season with a bunch of new teams (we all got teams the same day). I won the first season (the bot team I replaced was in first, so I ended up in first at the end) but lost my qualifier.

The next season, I basically kicked butt and took names (65 - 9 goals, 39 pts) and promoted to DV. That was season 23, we just completed season 28, and I am still in V.210. The second season I was there I ended up in 6th, that is the only time I have had a qualification match. Every other season I have finished in the top 4.

So it is definitely possible, but I had a lot of advice when I started the game, so it definitely helped.

[Soccertes]

Based on the information I got from this board which of the 2 strategies is better:

1) Pick a training type (like Defending, Scoring, Playmaking, etc..) and just stick with it. When your young trainees grow up from 17yrs old to 20,21,or 22 sell that player and use him to buy better players in other positions. Keeping this in mind, this means that if I train Defending and I train a player from 17 to 20 maybe he will only have a defense of let's say brilliant. So I would then have to sell 2 defenders like that to purchase 1 defender who has Titanic or Divine defending skills. Is this what other people do I guess?

2) Pick 3 training types a cycle through them. Example, train Forward, Playmaking, and Passing. Start with young guys (17yrs) and train each skill for 3 seasons (like Forward for 3 seasons). Then get some new young guys and move on to the next skill for 3 seasons (like Playmaking). In this example I will strengthen my forward and midfield. Then start again get a new set of youngsters and start training forward again. Except this time you will have the new youngsters and experienced veterens from before that are gaining scoring skill. All along you are saving money from Attendance figures and maybe selling 1 or 2 veterens to get money to buy your defenders and keepers.

Soory if this is confusing or doesn't make sense... now you know how I feel when I play hattrick... dazed and confused!

[kuhnscoot]

With 1, that's not what you do, you pick one training regiment and stick with it. Let's use your example of defending. When you sell off a defender, you won't buy a better defender, you'll use the money to buy a midfielder or a forward. And you can train the defenders as far as you want. I trained a mid from 17 up to 22 before selling him. You use the money from your sells to upgrae your non-training positions. When you sell off a player the backup takes his place in the lineup and then you buy a new trainee to take the place on your B team til he is trained up and gets onto the A team.