=head1 ESMS User Manual This document is the official user's manual for the ESMS program. =head2 What is ESMS ESMS is an acronym for Blectronic Boccer Banagement Bimulator. It is a program, or rather a family of programs, that allows people to run fantasy soccer management games. Think of a soccer computer game, like Championship Manager, for example. It allows you to build a team of players and manage them through a soccer league, setting the opening squad, tactics and formations, substituting players etc. You deal with player injuries, suspensions, transfers and all the other aspects of soccer team management. ESMS gives you these abilities, but submits the whole league to your control, and not the PC's. That means that you decide how your league looks like, what teams play (these are often completely made-up, fantasy teams, and not copies of real soccer teams), who are the managers (it can be your friends, or just people from the Internet who want to play), etc. It's really a wholly another concept, which might be difficult to get used to unless you know what you want. The best advice I can give at this point is to look at some existing fantasy leagues online that use ESMS, to get a feel of how these things work (it is as simple as looking for "esms soccer league" or something similar in your favorite web-search engine). =head2 Types of ESMS users The ESMS users can be roughly divided to two camps: =over 4 =item 1. You play, or intend to play, in a ESMS league opened by someone else. Read this document carefully if it's your first experience with ESMS - it teaches all the basics you need to play the game. =item 2. You plan to create a ESMS league of your own. I warmly recommend some prior ESMS experience if you want to do this. There are plenty of active ESMS leagues online - playing in one teaches a lot about creating one. Anyway, you must the Administrator's manual as well, but only after you read and fully understand this document. =back =head2 License and availability Some people believe that the best thing about ESMS is that it's completely free and widely available. B - ESMS is open source software: It is free to use and distribute, and its source code is freely available. ESMS is licensed with the GNU General Public License (GPL) - see GNU's website at http://www.gnu.org for more details. B - As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, ESMS's source code is free. I distribute the binaries (executables) formally only for Windows, because this is where most of its users are. But ESMS easily compiles on all Unix platforms, and many people use it on Linux servers. Additinally, if your native language isn't English, ESMS has special provision for translators that will make it friendly to your native-language users. ESMS was translated to Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Lithuanian, Czech, Polish, Swedish and French by loyal fans, but there may be more translations I'm personally not aware of. =head1 1. Fundamental concepts The main goal of ESMS is to simulate a game of soccer between two teams: given some textual description of the teams - players, tactics, formations and so on, ESMS runs a soccer simulation and produces textual output files that describe the game. =head2 1.1 Anatomy of a soccer game in ESMS A team in ESMS is represented by a B - a text file that lists the team's players with their various abilities/attributes (age, tackling skill, aggression etc.) and league status (injured, suspended, fitness level, etc.) ESMS simulates a soccer game between two teams. Its input for each team is the roster, and a B submitted by the team's manager. The teamsheet specifies which players play in the game in the opening squad, who sits on the bench, what is the tactic/formation, provides the orders for substitutions and tactic/formation changes, etc. Given two rosters and two teamsheets for these rosters, ESMS runs a game and reports the result in a detailed commentary file that looks somewhat like the textual commentary in Championship Manager - all the interesting game events are reported sorted by their time of occurence. The commentary file also summarizes the game, with various team and player statistics for both teams. =head2 1.2 Rosters and players The roster of each team is usually just a text file named xxx.txt where I is the 3 letter abbreviation of a team (team names in ESMS have registered abbreviations, to keep file names short). It isn't necessary to restrict the abbreviation to 3 letters, but it has proved to be the most convenient method. If you look at a roster of a ESMS team (if you have no rosters nearby, see the Administrator's manual for help on generating rosters), you will see a header and a list of players. The header and a line for some player look like this: Name Age Nat Prs St Tk Ps Sh Sm Ag KAb TAb PAb SAb Gam Sav Ktk Kps Sht Gls Ass DP Inj Sus Fit ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ A_Santiago 20 arg C 3 15 9 8 35 24 300 320 556 108 11 0 29 9 6 0 1 8 0 0 85 The structure of a player's description is as follows: B: The player's name. It is advised not to give players names longer than 12 characters. The name must consist of contiguous non-whitespace characters - spaces in names are forbidden ('_' is frequently used instead). B: The player's age. B: The player's nationality - a 3 letter abbreviation. (In our example, 'arg' represents Argentina). B: Preferred side - one or more of R (Right), L (Left) and C (Center) that specify where on the field the player is most effective. Combinations of these 3 letters signify players who are good on more than one side: RC, RL, LC and RLC. B: Shot stopping skill - how well the player performs between the posts (how good a Goalkeeper he is). B: Tackling skill - how well the player tackles, important for defensive players. B: Passing skill - how well the player passes, important for midfield players. B: Shooting skill - how well the player shoots to goal, important for offensive players. B: Stamina - how enduring the player is. Players with high stamina get tired less quickly. B: Aggression - how aggressive the player is. B: Shot stopping, Tackling, Passing, ShootingAbilities - the player's ability in each of the 4 main skills. Read on for more details. The following are "statistics" - they may be reset for each new league season, and in general represent some "state" of the player in the league, opposed to the attributes that stick with the player. B: Games - how many games the player played so far in the league. B: Saves - the amount of saves the player has made while playing as a Goalkeeper. B: Key tackles - how many important (goal saving) tackles the player has made. B: Key passes - how many important (leading to a scoring opportunity) passes the player has made. B: Shots - how many shots at the opponent's goal the player has made. B: Goals - how many goals the player has scored. B: Assisted - how many goals the player has assisted. B: Disciplinary Points - how many disciplinary points has the player accumulated. Read on for more info. B: Injury - for how many games/weeks is the player currently injured. B: Suspension - for how many games/weeks is the player currently suspended. B: Fitness - on a scale of 1 - 100, how fit the player is to play in the next game. Note the delicate games/weeks issue in injuries and suspensions. ESMS fantasy leagues usually try to mimic real-world soccer leagues by playing one game per week. However, sometimes cup games are played in the middle of the week. Injuries are, naturally, specified in time units like weeks, but suspensions are usually specified in an amount of games. =head2 1.3 Player positions and sides Unlike in other games, a player in ESMS doesn't have a pre-defined position. A player has a set of skills which makes him more suitable on some positions than on others - it is up to his manager to decide on which position to play him. The positions in ESMS are: =over 4 =item * GK - goalkeeper. The solitary guardian-angel of your team's goal. Players with high St (Shot stopping) skills are good GKs. =item * DF - defender. DFs are the major line of defense of your team. They usually tackle most of the opponent's attacks. Players play best as DFs when their Tk (Tackling) skill is high. =item * DM - defensive midfielder. DMs balance between defense and midfield. They help protect your goal, but they also take their chances in advancing and feeding the attackers with vital passes. Players play best as DMs when they have good Tk and Ps (Passing) skills. =item * MF - midfielder. MFs are the main link between your defense and offense. Players with a high Ps skill are good midfielders. =item * AM - attacking midfielder. AMs are up there in the offense, trying to score goals and support the forwards. Players play best as AMs when they have good Ps and Sh (Shooting) skills. =item * FW - forward. The major fire-power of your team. FW are fed with passes from your midfield and score goals. Players function best as FWs when their Sh skill is high. =back Players also play on different sides of the field. The sides, as you have already seen are Right, Left and Center. Any player in ESMS can play on any side (just like he can play on any position) but players will perform much better when playing on their preferred side. When you specify how a player will play in your teamsheet (see the explanation of teamsheets for more info), you must combine the positions with the side (except for the goalkeeper). For example, DML means that the player plays as a left defensive midfielder; FWC means a central forward, etc. GK is the only player for which the side isn't explicitly specified. =head2 1.4 Team formation A team formation is simply a summary of what positions its players play on. It should be familiar from the real soccer world and computer games. For example 4-4-2 is commonly used to specify that the team plays with 4 defenders, 4 midfielders and 2 attackers. In ESMS the formation is implicitly inferred from the positions assigned to all players. You don't specify a formation in the teamsheet - you specify the positions your players play in. Formation can be useful on the league-level, however, to impose certain restrictions on teamsheets. For example, some leagues forbid to play with more than 5 defenders, or with more than 3 attackers. ESMS doesn't mind how you play your players - as long as they're 11 and there's one goalkeeper. You can in theory put a team of a GK + 10 left midfielders (MFL), ESMS won't mind, but don't be surprised if your team won't shine - a healthy balance of defense and offense is required to play well. ESMS was built to mimic reality - what works in reality will work in ESMS as well. Common real-world formations like 4-4-2, 5-2-3, 3-1-5-2 etc proved to be effective. Special care has to be given to sides of players. Playing with 4 players in the defense may be solid, but not quite so if they are all assigned to the Right. Balanced formations perform better than unbalanced - for example when you play with 4 players in defense, the balanced formations are LCCR (Left, two Centers and one Right) and LLRR (two Lefts, two Rights), and so on. The multitude of formations and side assignments makes it rather tricky to build a really strong team - you will need a good mix of players with various skills for each position. An injury of a key player can be quite a challenge to the manager, that may be forced to change his game-style while this player can't play. =head2 1.5 Team tactics Another issue a manager has to consider is the tactic his team will use in the game. ESMS supports a variety of tactics - in fact, tactics are fully customizable and can be set by each league for its own needs. I'll describe the default tactics that come with ESMS - they have been tested by time and provide an interesting variety. =over 4 =item * Normal (B) - The most basic tactics in ESMS (don't be folled by "basic" - in some cases N is the most effective way to play). It provides no special benefits, but also has almost no vulnerabilities. A team playing N will enjoy a stable mix of defense and offense. =item * Defensive (B) - A team playing D focuses a lot on defense. If you want to keep the score down, giving a strong fight in the defense, but also not taking much opportunities in the offense, D is the tactic for you. With this tactic your midfielders, and even attackers to some extent focus more on the defense, hence your opponent will have a hard time scoring, but so will you. =item * Attacking (B) - The most offensive tactic. Your team is eager to score - the attackers stick near to the opponent's goal, the midfielders take a lot of chances and even the defenders join to help. This all gives good offense, but your defense will suffer greatly. =item * Passing (B

) - Your team will push for offense, driving slow but efficient attacks. Naturally, when a team focuses on attack, the defense is weaker. This tactic is more offensive than N but less than A. =item * Counter Attack (B) - The defenders concentrate on defense, but seek opportunities to drive the midfielders and attackers to stinging counter-attacks. This tactic is more offensive than D but less than N. =item * Long Ball (B) - The most unusual tactic, which can sometimes be a winner and sometimes fail, depending on the opponent. With L, your attack is driven by long balls right from the defense, and midfielders play a minor role. This tactic is usually used by teams with relatively weak midfielders. =back In addition, certain tactics have bonuses agains other tactics. This is summarized in the following table: Tactic Against Bonus type --------------------------- N - - D L Defense A - - P L Defense & Offense C A & P Midfield & Offense L C Defense & Midfield As you can see, the bonuses are quite convoluted. Bonuses are not a provision for victory, of course, but they make tactic-picking more interesting. Just like in real life, it may help if you have a general idea of what tactic your opponent is going to use. =head2 1.6 Skills and Abilities As you have already learned, there are four major skills in ESMS - St (Shot stopping), Tk (Tackling), Ps (Passing) and Sh (Shooting). These skills have the biggest effect on how players play, and on which positions they perform best. It would be boring, however, if the skills of players were constant throughout their career and it wouldn't reflect what happens in real soccer. For this reason, ESMS has the concept of Abilities. An ability is means for a player to improve his skill over time. Each player has an ability rating (a number between 1 and 1000) for each of the major skills (KAb, TAb, PAb, SAb). The ability is affected by the player's performance in each game. If you want to see exactly how the abilities change for each event, see the Administrator's manual. Eventually, abilities cause skill increases or decreases. For example, once a certain player's PAb (Passing ability) reaches 1000, it is reset and his Ps skill raises by one point. The same happens with decreases. This makes players in ESMS dynamic - they usually improve over time, especially if they perform well - just like real players do. =head2 1.7 Stamina and Fitness =over 4 =item * Fitness - while playing, a player gets tired. For each minute he plays, a small amount of fatigue adds up, and this makes a player generally less effective over time. The difference is not great, but it is certainly advantageous to substitute players to bring some fresh wind into your team's sails. The players' fitness rating is a number between 1 and 100 (100 means the player is 100% fit, etc) that tells the fitness level the player will start his next game with. On each minute he plays, the player's fitness goes down a little bit, and he ends the game less fit. Between games, some amount of fitness is added to each player. =item * Stamina - stamina is a rating between 1 and 100 denoting how endurant a player is. It is a constant rating that affects how quickly a player loses fitness while playing. A player with stamina 80 will be generally more fit after a full game than a player with stamina 60. =back The meaning of Fitness and Stamina in ESMS is quite simple - players get tired and should get some rest from time to time. Your league can set its own rules about fitness recovery (see the Administrator's manual), but generally it is desired to keep an eye on your players' fitness. Sometimes it is better to play a lower-skilled player with fitness 100 than a higher-skilled player who is very tired and has fitness 50. =head2 1.8 Aggression Each player in ESMS plays aggressively to a certain degree. Aggression is a constant rating between 1 and 100. A more aggressive player will sometimes perform better (because he's so eager and has a lot of motivation to win balls), but will usually commit more fouls. =head2 1.9 Fouls, Cards and DPs Players in ESMS commit fouls, that may lead to them getting (yellow or red) cards, and sometimes causes penalties. ESMS doesn't keep count of all the fouls - only of the most serious ones, which at least deserve a warning from the referee. The amount of disciplinary points of each player accumulates and for a certain amount of points he will be suspended for one game or more. For the exact workings of this mechanism, consult the Administrator's manual. =head2 1.10 Substitutions ESMS supports a configurable amount of players on the bench and of the amount of substitutions allowed. The default is what currently seems to be the norm in European soccer leagues - 7 players listed on the bench, and 3 substitutions allowed per game. The game engine itself performs automatic substitutions in certain occasions - when someone gets injured for instance - to replace the injured player with a substitute player from the bench. Additionally, if the team's Goalkeeper gets injured or suspended (by a red card), ESMS will look for a way to substitute him for another GK, or (if your team has done all 3 substitutions) move another player to play as a GK. =head2 1.11 Home bonus Just like in real life, teams playing at their home stadium have a little advantage over the guests. They know the field better, the crowd is supportive, etc. ESMS takes this into account and a certain bonus is given to home teams, that is, everything else being equal (equal skills of players, formations and tactics) a home team has a slightly higher chance to win. The exact amount of the bonus, like most of the things in ESMS is configurable, and each league can decide on its favorite bonus. =head1 2. Teamsheets Teamsheets are a way for the manager to control the game of his team. This section explains in detail what one should write in the teamsheet and how the teamsheet file should be structured. =head2 2.1 Structure of a teamsheet A manager submits a teamsheet for his team before each game - where he lists the players that will play and various orders for his team to execute during the game. Here is a good place to emphasize that games in ESMS are off-line, the manager gives all his commands I the game and sees the results after it ends. There's no way to intervene during a game. This aspect is essential to the nature of ESMS - administrators usually run all the games at once, without intervention from the managers (otherwise it would just be a logistic mess). Below is a template teamsheet, with explanations of what each field means. Lines starting with "//" are comments for clarification, and should not appear in real teamsheets. [Team name] [Tactic] // Opening squad - a mandatory goalkeeper and 10 other players GK [Name] [Pos] [Name] [Pos] [Name] [Pos] [Name] [Pos] [Name] [Pos] [Name] [Pos] [Name] [Pos] [Name] [Pos] [Name] [Pos] [Name] [Pos] [Name] // The substitutes (here I use the default amount 7) [Pos] [Name] [Pos] [Name] [Pos] [Name] [Pos] [Name] [Pos] [Name] [Pos] [Name] [Pos] [Name] PK: [Name] // Orders... [Action] IF [Condition] [Action] IF [Condition] ... ... =head2 2.2 Team name The 3 letter abbreviation of your team. This tells ESMS what roster represents your team. =head2 2.3 Tactic The tactic your team starts the game with. You can give orders to change the tactic later in the game. =head2 2.4 Opening squad List of the 11 players that start the game and their positions. The first player must be the team goalkeeper, and there can only be one goalkeeper. [Name] is simply the player's name from the roster, and [POS] is his 3 letter position - for example DFL, AMC... =head2 2.5 Substitutes The players on the bench (I use here the ESMS default of 7 subs). Position should also be specified for these players, as it will help ESMS in its automatic substitutions. If your defender gets injured, you'd want ESMS to substitute another defender for it, rather than a forward. =head2 2.6 Penalty kick taker The primary penalty shooter of your team. If this player gets injured/suspended/substituted, ESMS will find another player to take the shots. =head2 2.7 Player numbering After you've specified all your team's players for the game, you can refer to them in the orders by their numbers. The numbers start with 1 for the goalkeeper and up to the last sub. For example, 11 is the last player in the opening squad, 12 is the first sub, and so on. =head2 2.8 Orders This is, by far, the trickiest part of the teamsheet. Orders are given in a mini-language that tells ESMS what to do and when. Each order consists of an action (what to do) and a group of conditions (when to do it). ESMS will execute an order if all the conditions for it are satisfied. The actions in ESMS are: =over 4 =item * TACTIC [new tactic] Orders ESMS to change your team's tactic to [new tactic]. =item * CHANGEPOS [name/number/position] [new position] Tells ESMS to change the position of a certain player. You can refer to a player by his name, number or by a position. If a position is specified, ESMS finds the worst player on this position (worst - meaning with the lowest relevant skill, for example Ps for midfielders). =item * SUB [name/number/position out] [name/number in] [new position] Substitutes a player. Takes a name, number or a position of a player to take out, just like CHANGEPOS. Additionally, takes the name or number of a player to bring in, and the position he'll play. =back The actions are still not full order lines, which should also include at least one condition. In general, several conditions can be given, separated by commas. The conditions in ESMS are: =over 4 =item * IF MIN [sign] [minute] If the game is now before, at, or after a certain minute. The allowed signs are =, <, >, <= and >= with their usual mathematical meanings. =item * IF SCORE [sign] [score] Specifies the goal difference between your team and the opponent's team. A positive goal difference means you lead, a negative means the opponent leads. For example 2 means you lead by 2 goals (e.g. the score is 2-0, 3-1, 4-2 and so on). Similarly, -2 means that you lose by 2 goals. The sign has the same meaning as in the MIN condition. =item * IF YELLOW [position/name/number] If the player got a yellow card. If a position is given, any player on this position counts. That is, for MFC - if any central midfielder got a yellow card. =item * IF RED [position/name/number] Similar to the previous condition, but with a red and not a yellow card. =item * IF INJ [position/name/number] Similar to the previous condition, but with an injury instead of a card. =back To make things clearer, here are some sample orders with explanations: TACTIC A IF MIN >= 45, SCORE =< -1 Tells the program to change the tactic to attacking if it is later than the 45th minute and your team is losing by one or more goals. TACTIC A IF MIN => 45, SCORE =< -1, SCORE > -4 Tells the program to change the tactic to attacking if it is later than the 45th minute and your team is losing by one or more, but less than 4 goals. CHANGEPOS J_Doe MFC IF MIN <= 20, SCORE >= 1 Changes the position of J_Doe to MFC if it's earlier than the 20th minute and your team leads by one goal or more. SUB MFC 12 DFC IF MIN = 60, SCORE => 1 Substitutes the worst MFC of your team for player 12 (that will play DFC) if you are leading by one goal or more on the 60th minute. CHANGEPOS FWC MFC IF RED MFC, MIN >= 50 Changes the position of the worst FWC of your team to MFC if some MFC got a red card after the 50th minute. =head2 2.9 A complete sample teamsheet To help you get started with writing teamsheets, here is a complete teamsheet with comments (these // comments should not appear in a real teamsheet - they're here just to explain): // The team's 3 letter abbreviation is aft - meaning its roster is aft.txt aft // Start the game playing P - passing P // The opening squad: the formation is 4-3-1-2, note the side balance // of players GK T_Edua DFL J_Balboa DFC B_Ekse DFC X_Solatti DFR PJ_Plant MFL I_Gustavson MFR M_Fowler MFC Morinho AMC F_Longfellow FWL M_Ecuarti FWR I_Edo // The subs GK W_Pfarcec DFC T_Vittorio MFC D_Rombart DFL M_May FWL F_Iksandr MFR C_Radulovic AMC R_Berski // Primary penalty taker PK: I_Edo // Orders // Change tired for fresh players on the 70th minute SUB B_Ekse T_Vittorio DFC IF MIN = 70 SUB M_Fowler C_Radulovic MFR IF MIN = 70 // Change the worst DFC to play as MFC if we're not winning after the 50th minute CHANGEPOS DFC MFC IF MIN >= 50, SCORE <= 0 // The following 3 orders happen if the team is losing somewhere after the 65th minute. // It's an obviously offensive scenario: the tactic will change to Attacking, we'll move // a player up front from AMC to FWC and bring in another AMC instead of a MFC TACTIC A IF MIN >= 65, SCORE < 0 CHANGEPOS F_Longfellow FWC IF MIN >= 65, SCORE < 0 SUB Morinho R_Berski AMC IF MIN >= 65, SCORE < 0 =head1 3. Epilogue =head2 3.1 What's next This document teaches you the basics of ESMS. But it won't make you an ESMS expert - that takes some time an experience. You are cordially invited to read the Administrator's manual, that will give you knowledge of how to actually run ESMS leagues, and will teach you about certain ESMS concepts in depth. The best way to get acquainted with the program and get a feel for how it works is to experiment. Each user, even a manager who only participates in games, is encouraged to run some test matches with ESMS. It is very easy, if you read the Administrator's manual, and can add greatly to your understanding of ESMS. Besides, it's usually a lot of fun to make up teams and teamsheets and see them clash ! =head2 3.2 Contact This document, as is ESMS itself, was written and is maintained by Eli Bendersky. My email address is eliben@gmail.com. Feel free to send me comments, feedback and questions. I usually answer emails very regularly and will be glad to help. ESMS also has a low-volume, but important mailing list at Yahoo Groups. In the list new features are usually discussed, and people often ask questions and request ideas for their ESMS leagues. To sign to the mailing list, visit http://groups.yahoo.com and look for C. =head2 3.3 Some history ESMS was initially created by myself (Eli Bendersky) and Igor Oks. We started our soccer play-by-email journey in 1998, as managers in a fantasy league called WWISL, which used spreadsheets to 'run' games. This was extremely cumbersome and time consuming, and the league fell apart shorty after starting. However, the people who participated in WWISL were left with the feeling that this kind of a game may be successful. Shortly after the WWISL fell apart, together with David Austin (another ex-WWISL player) we teamed up to create a new play-by-email league, calling it the Global Internet Soccer League (GISL). The GISL used a program named MSWL, which was created by Allan Sellers, to run its games and had 30 participants (team managers). GISL went through all the difficult phases of a start-up league, but managed to survive, and ran very successfully for 3 full seasons (a bit longer than a calendar year) with MSWL. Over that time, the league developed some unique needs and features that weren't covered by MSWL, and were handled manually. This is about the time when we decided to create a program of our own, which will both answer the unique needs developed in GISL and be an improvement of MSWL. We took our time during a break we had in our University studies and in about a month created the basic skeleton of ESMS. It then took a couple of months of much less intensive work to create the final form of the main (game running) program and the other components, and ESMS was released in early 1999. For the record, the first official ESMS game was run on April 10th, 1999, in a test league we arranged with some friends to test the program. The GISL started to use it almost immediately after release, and it didn't take much time for other leagues to pop-up using this program. Today, ESMS is widely used in dozens of leagues, by thousands of managers from all over the world. =for html

Eli Bendersky (eliben@gmail.com)