When you first open DDSPB4 you have three options: CREATE NEW GAME, LOAD SAVED GAME, and UPDATE MULTIPLAYER. This section will be concerned with creating a new game. For the purposes of clarity this guide will use the term "league" when referring to an overall game and "game" when referring to an competition between two teams with the league.

Cllcking the CRATE NEW GAME button brings you to the first page of the league creation system.

BASIC INFO:

SAVE NAME: Your preference. Use whatever you want in here but you cannot create a new league with the same save name as one that already exists. The game will not automatically overwrite an existing league.

STARTING YEAR: The choice of the year is irrelevent but MAY come into play later if you also own Wolverine Studios' college basketball simulation. The two can be linked to provide players for the draft. I haven't explored this yet but will ask someone who has to write a section on it for inclusion into this guide under the appropriate section.

ROSTER SOURCE:

USE DEFAULT ROSTERS: Choose this option if you want to run a league based on the NBA's 2014 initial rosters.

IMPORT ROSTERS: Choose this option if you want to use a saved roster file.

GENERATE NEW ROSTERS: Choose this option if want to start the league with all new unknown players.

USE SEASON DISK: Wolverine Studios has season disks available including the players/rosters from as far back as 1984.

RATINGS SCALE: 1-10 or 1-100. Players have their attributes rated. For instance, Anthony Davis has a high rating for shot blocking. You can set the game so that his rating will appear as 8 in this category or 84. Setting it to 1-10 makes it much easier to browse through player ratings when involved in an initial draft or when comparing players whereas 1-100 gives a more exact reflection of the ability.

PLAYER POTENTIAL: Does just what it says. Check it and all prior knowledge is out the window.

EUROPEAN LEAGUES: Enabling European leagues adds a dimension to the game when it comes to contracts, signing players and available free agents. However, under v1.0 I experienced numerous errors and problems advancing the league. Wolverine Studios has realeased v1.1 but as of yet I have not tested it to see if that area is working properly.

FINANCIAL MODEL

Your choice of full or limited financial models will have an immense impact on the league. Under the full financial model the AI general managers WILL spend money. Twenty years into a league and you could easily see teams whose salary is triple the salary cap. Players will tend to stay with their teams because their current team's "bird rights" gives them the ability to not be restricted by the salary cap when offering a contract. Whereas chosing the limited financial model will mean more player movement and you will absolutely lose players you want to keep. Each option comes with its own drawbacks and headaches.

GAME MODE

For the most part you will probably want to choose single player. There is an existing online league but it uses DDSPB 3 instead of 4. A new online league utilizing DDSPB 4 is in the process of being developed but is not yet ready to accept new gm's.

USER CONTROL

Choosing GLOBAL CONTROL gives you the chance to explore every aspect of the game where as LOCAL CONTROL gives a more realistic experience. LOCAL CONTROL also adds another level of difficulty to the game.

ADDITIONAL LEAGUE OPTIONS

TRADE RESTRICTIONS: With this checked, players who have been recently traded cannot be traded again for 30(?) days.

ALLOW HIGH SCHOOL DRAFT ENTRY: Do you want to run a day care?

ALLOW FOREIGN DRAFT ENTRY: Unchecking this doesn't seem to be an option.

INITIAL FANTASY DRAFT: If you check this all teams in the league will go through an initial draft. If you have selected to use the default rosters, import rosters, or a season disk, then those players will all be up for grabs. If you selected to generate new rosters then an entire league's worth of players will be generated to choose from. WARNING: The sorting on players in the initial draft is very limited (you can sort an any single aspect such as free throw shooting or court intelligence but not on a player's overall rating like you can during free agency) so an initial draft can take a VERY long time. If you want to do this, I suggest running through at least 5-10 on a trial basis until you get a good feel for what to look for.

SHOW LIMITED RATINGS: I don't have a clue what this does yet. I'll find out and update this at some point.

ALLOW YOURSELF TO BE FIRED: I haven't been fired yet so I don't know how bad you have to perform to be fired or if it's "game over" if you are.

RANDOMIZE OWNER CHARACTERISTICS: Check this if you think Mark Cuban needs a lobotomy.

DISABLE PLAYER INTERACTIONS: I have been so tempted at times to check this while starting a league. There is nothing more frustrating (to me) than to have a player with great ability who keeps getting into fights in the locker room. But I don't check it, I just trade those players away and let some computer controlled GM have the headache. TIP: The D-League makes a good place to stash these players until you can find a trading partner.

INTEGRATE WITH DDSCB 4: DDSCB 4 is not out yet but you can link with DDSCB 3. I have not done this but have been told that it works with some possible odd side-effects that you have to be careful of.

PRO LEAGUE INFO

LEAGUE NAME: Whatever floats your boat.

LEAGUE ABBREVIATION: Probably something suitable.

SALARY CAP: Changing this has a much larger impact in a Limited Financial Model game. Bottom line is that players want money, even those whose "GREED" value is low. Whatever this is set to the player salaries will push the limits.

LUXURY CAP: So far, the only owners who seem to worry about the luxury tax are the ones that employ you. Even so, their AI is limited and there are ways around getting them mad.

LEAGUE SIZE: You have many choices here and the game allows for later expansion but I believe that a league has to be between 22-30 teams in order for the expansion system to work.

LEAGUE LOGO: Haven't played with it.

CHAMPIONSHIP NAME: I prefer "The James K. Polk Memorial Trophy" ... no, not really, but you can put whatever you want here.

DEVELOPMENT/EUROPEAN LEAGUE INFO: You can change these in the same fashion as the Pro League but the European choices will be grayed out if you have disabled the European Leagues.


Click on ADVANCE in the NAVIGATION MENU to go to the next section of setting up your league. Or you can click RESET or CANCEL if you want to throw away all the choices you just made.

PLAYER CREATION (this is YOU, not players in the league)

PHOTO: You can select from some existing pictures or add your own. If you want to add your own you will need to shrink it to be quite small. I suggest experimenting with the size of pictures and once you get it right, copy it into the folder:
...\SteamApps\common\Draft Day Sports Pro Basketball 4\graphics\nonplayers\fac
That is the default folder where the game looks for pictures.

GENERAL INFORMATION: You can put in your name or the name of your alter ego or even "I'm Batman." Set your age to be 5 or 50 or 500. Pick a country, any country. Password will be dealt with in the multiplayer section.

PHILOSOPHIES: Go ahead and play with these if you want. You can change them at any time later and their impact on the game will be discussed in a later section.

RATINGS

SKILL SETTINGS: This is where you set your difficulty level. The lower your skill ratings the harder it will be to accurately scout players, improve the ones you have or impact the outcome of games. If you're playing as a GM, the lower your settings the more you will rely on your coaching staff. Choosing the right coaches is very important for success and will be covered in a later section.

SELECT JOB

SELECT TEAM: WARNING: If you do not select a team to manage/coach the game will progress to the beginning of the season but you will not be able to do anything past that point. I have not tried to manage or coach a D-League or European team at this time so I cannot comment on whether or not those features are working.

SELECT POSITION: Your selection here has the greatest impact if you chose LOCAL CONTROL on the previous screen. If you chose GLOBAL CONTROL you will be able to completely function in both roles but the game will only treat you as one or the other.


Once you have made all your choices (do NOT forget to choose a team) click on the SAVE PLAYER button in the upper right and then the ADVANCE button. If you chose to have an initial draft you will be taken to that screen, otherwise you will be taken to the your main office screen to prepare for the start of a new season.

Once you have created a new league or loaded an existing one you will have access to the main menu which is stretched across the top of whatever page is showing. Here's a quick rundown of what to expect from each item on the menu.

MAIN: Clicking on MAIN (and then confirming) will take you back to the main menu where you can create or load a league. Any actions or choices that you've made in your current league will be lost unless you have saved them.

SAVE: Clicking on SAVE will take you to a save game window that works like any Windows Explorer window. You can create new saves or over-write existing ones.

SOUND: The SOUND option is a toggle to either enable or mute in-game sounds. The game is normally very quiet except for when actively engaged in a competition between teams.

OPTIONS: This selection will open the GAME OPTIONS screen where you can change a few ways in which the game interacts with you. These options will be discussed in the sections of this guide to which they apply.

HELP: Clicking on this will take you, via browser, to Wolverine Studios website.

CREDITS: See Gary Gorski's name! Gary is the designer/coder of this fine game. I hope he makes enough money to compensate for all the effort he puts into it.

To the right of CREDITS you'll see three orange rectangles.

The first should have your GM's name showing between an envelope and a pencil and notepad. Clicking on the pencil and notepad will open a notepad window. In a single player game, clicking on the envelope does nothing. Multiplayer games will be discussed later in this guide. Clicking on your name will allow you to select the "Commissioner's Office" option. Switching to the Commissioner mode will also be discussed later in this guide.

The second orange rectangle has nine possible selections but only eight of them will be active at any given time. The two left-most icons, a double arrow and a basketball will not both be active at the same time. The double arrows is used to advance the date one day. This icon will be grayed out during the playing of the season or summer league games. The basketball is used to enter simulated play and will be grayed out at all other times. The SEASON STATE message area will tell you what part of the simulated season you are actively engaged in. At times this state will be highlighted and must be clicked on to advance the season. Each of these special times will be discussed in this guide. Each of the remaining six icons will have their own section in the guide but I will also give a brief descriptoin here as well.

The house icon will open the HOME page which is a page where you can quickly see general information, read emails, check injury reports, transactions, etc. This is an important page and you will probably spend much of your game time on it.

The podium icon will open the current league standings. If it is the off-season the results of the previous season will be shown.

I think the next icon in line is a person with a couple of others behind him but on quick glance it might also look like a butterfly. This icon will take you to the league leaders page where you can see how your people stack up against everyone else in the league. It has many sorting options and if you like stats you can spend a lot of time on the page.

The next icon looks like a bar graph and will take you to the team statistics page. Here you can check to see how your team compares with the others in the league.

The dollar sign icon will take you to the league finances page where you can see who's spending the most money. This can be a quick way to find a possible trading partner when moving a high salary player.

The filiing cabinet icon will take you to the league almanac where you can look up records and history.

The almanac will only show league records and history that have happened in this simulated league. Even if you begin a league with existing NBA teams and players the NBA history is not included.

The magnifying glass icon is a search tool with a LOT of search options to help you find a player to meet whatever criteria you are looking for.

The right-hand orange rectangle has six icons, most of which relate directly to your team. Each of the pages opened by these icons will be discussed in detail later in the guide as well as a quick description here.

The whistle will take you to the team staff page where you can review/fire/hire coaches.

The icon of a jersey on a hanger will open the team roster. This is a page you will visit very often. This is where you make trades, sign free agents, deal with contracts, define player rotations, etc.

The basketball court icon will open the team strategy page. Here you can change the entire dynamic of how your team plays the game.

I think that the next icon is supposed to be a calendar or maybe a flip file but to me it looks like a car battery. Regardless of what it is, it opens the team schedule screen.

The information icon opens the team information screen where you can see and change some things regarding your team or even review retired numbers.

The open book icon takes you to your team's history page. This works much like the cabinet icon did for the league history. The very neat exception is that under your team's draft history you WILL see all of the old NBA draft history as far back at 1947... very cool. Did you know that the Sixers' first draft pick (when they were the Syracuse Nationals) back in 1947 was Jim Kaeding? I didn't. However, it does not have draft picks after 2011.

The final icon across the top is the binoculars which takes you to the future prospects screen. Here you will see a list of the college and foreign players who will likely be available for the next draft.

With the exception of the inaugural season, every season will run through the same sequence of events.

> Each season opens with a call from the owner to either fire you or see if you're interested in working for another year. Two days later he will call back to talk about the team's outlook and the salary cap. NOTE: This is also the ONLY day in which you can expand your league. For information on expanding your league see the section on the "Commissioner's Office."

> Coach hiring phase. This is an important phase of the game and it lasts for several days. You will be able to hire new coaches if you have an opening. You will have an opening if a coach's contract expires or if you fire them. Hiring of coaches is discussed in detail in the "Staff Screen" section of this guide but this is usually the best time to hire a new coach. NOTE: The new Rookie Guilde and rookie scouting will generate once all pro league teams have filled their coaching staff. D-League teams will then go through coach hiring.

> Workouts. Immediately at the end of the coach hiring phase the SEASON sTAGE are will highlight with the word WORKOUT. Click this word to go to the rookie workout screen. The rookie workout screen is discussed in detail in the "Workout Screen" section of this guide.

> Draft. The draft will take place immediately after workout selections. Do NOT advance the game unless you have selected all of your potential draft picks for workout. It is STRONGLY advised that you also save before advancing to the draft because there is no main banner menu available during the draft phase making the game unsavable while drafting. There is no way to undo any mistakes you made during the draft except to exit the game, reload and restart the draft. Therefore it is also strongly advised that you do not rush through the draft and make sure you exactly which player you are selecting and which button you are clicking. Drafting will be discussed in detail in another section of this guide.

> Contracts. You now take one day to decide on whether or not release any free agents to free up salary. This is only available in leagues running the full financial model. Under the limited financial model all free agents are considered released and bird rights do not apply.

> League schedule. You will now receive an email informing you that you have to set the schedule for the coming season. There are three option boxes within the content of the email to choose from. The most common choice is DEFAULT in which the program generates the schedule. NOTE: as of v1.1, the default schedule for a 32 team league is little out of balance. There may be as much as a 12 game differnce in number of games played by different teams and some teams may play as 5 days in a row.

> Summer league. You will now receive an email telling you that the Summer League is starting and the SEASON STAGE will now show "Invite players." BEFORE you can invite players to participate in the summer league you MUST assign your own eligible players. As of v1.1, you CAN advance the day without assigning your own players but the program will make all of your summer league selections and you will be advanced past the invitation stage. Personally, the summer league holds little interest for me unless I KNOW that there's a roster spot that I'm going to want to fill with an inexperienced free agent.

> Summer league season. This works just like the regular season which is covered in detail in the "Running the season" section of this guide.

> Free agency. The players and coaches may compete on the court but this is where the GM's compete, this is the trenches. I guarantee that you WILL lose players that you want to sign if you are running the limited financial model that uses a hard cap. Signing free agents is covered in the "Free Agents" section of this guide. The last day of free agency is August 4.

> Rookie options. After free agency ends you are taken ahead on the calendar and almost ready for the season to begin. First, you have one more chance to extend contracts and exercise rookie options. These can actually be done at any time until the end of the season.

> Training Camp. Traning camp is a vital part of increasing or maintaining your players' performance. There is a noticable difference in the performance level of rookies who have been through training camp and those that have been signed after the camp has run. Training camp is covered in detail in the appropriate section of this guide.

NOTE: The inaugural season skips to this point in the season bypassing all the above steps.

> Creating next rookie class. You should now receive an email with option boxes for generating next season's rookie class. Unless you have DDSCB 3 or DDSCB 4 or have received or purchased a file, you will select the DEFAULT box and allow the program to generate the rookie class. Refer to the FUTURE DRAFTEES section for more information.

> Playing the season. From this point until mid-April you will play the regular season games. These can be simulated individually or an entire season in one click (not recommended). The All-Star break is mid-February and last 3 or 4 days depending on the size of your league. A week later is the trading deadline. NOTE: This is a complete trading moritorium imposed by the game and cannot be over-ridden by the commissioner. It even prohibits trading of draft picks. Be sure to get all your trading done by this time. Personally, I use the All-Star game as a reminder to check to see if there are any draft pick trades I want to make or to move any D-League players that I don't want to keep.

> Playoffs. The playoff schedule is fixed and never changes. If all series within a round are completed within 4 games the schedule does not adjust and you will have to simulate several empty days to get to the next round. Once a champion is crowned (it's actually sort of anti-climactic as there are no bells, whistles or fireworks) you will have to leave the DAILY SCHEDULE screen and then return (don't ask me why). I usually go to the HOME screen and back.

> Draft Lottery. Simulating the final day of the playoff will cause the SEASON STAGE are of the menu to highlight. Clicking on the highlighted area will take you to the draft lottery. You can run the lottery one draw at a time or the entire lottery at once. Neither way is really faster than the other.

> Awards. Advancing from the draft lottery takes you to the awards screen where you can use a drop-down box to choose which awards you want to see. Advancing from this screen ends the season and begins the whole thing over again. NOTE: Do not be alarmed if you get an error when the next season begins. Just "continue" and the game will advance as it should.

Selecting the house icon on the main banner menu opens the HOME screen. This screen is divided into six parts, some of which are informational only while others have actions associated with them.

ABOUT

The ABOUT section is informational only and lists general information about the player including basic current general manager and coaching stats. The most important piece of information is the JOB SECURITY status. Spending too much on team salary with poor results will decrease your job security. This can affect some aspects of the game such as the hiring/firing of coaches.

PHILOSOPHIES

These eight settings should look familiar as you had the ability to adjust them when creating your league. However, as of v1.1, the settings you put in at the creation do NOT carry over into the game. These settings can affect how your team performs within a competition and will be discussed in the TEAM STRATEGY section of this guide.

LEAGUE MEDIA

Click on any of the six magazine icons to open one or more screens of information.

> ROOKIE GUIDE: This magazine contains the current season's draft suggestions. This is NOT next season's rookies. It is a list of the current season's rookies and only shows their projected draft positon not the actual draft position. This guide is generated during the coach hiring phase of a new season and is only useful for the few game days leading up to the draft. It displays first round projections and rates potiential picks vs others in the position.

> FANTASY GUIDE: This magazine can be interesting but has little to no strategic value. It is a list of the top 50 rated players in the league and the top 15 at each position.

> SEASON PREVIEW: Double click any team logo to see a projection of who their starting 5 will be on opening night along with stats and a list of reserves. This is only generated at the beginning of the SEASON phase and is NOT updated as rosters or lineups change.

> LEAGUE METRICS: A sortable selection of some current advanced player stats selectable by team and league.

> TEAM STATISTICS: A sortable synopsis of current team statistics selectable by league.

> OVERSEAS GUIDE: A version of the FANTASY GUIDE for the European League. I suspect but have not yet confirmed that playing as GM/coach of a European team may cause these two magazines to swap.

LEAGUE NEWS

This section can display five areas of information, selectable by league:

> MAIN is a fun way to keep track of what happened in the league for each simulated day. Every player who played at least 10(?) minutes has a quick news item describing their contribution. Other items such as D-League assignment, free agent signing, player/team disputes and more can be found here. NOTE: Only news from the LATEST simulated day is available.

> AWARDS lists Player of the Week/Month winners along with the Rookie of the Month recipients.

> INJURIES is a report that I check every simulated day. An injured player is not necessarily taken out of the lineup. Injuries show up in red on the status line of the player's card and show at what percentage they are able to perform. A broken bone may take a player out for 60 or more days and have them at 0% but that percentage will slowly rise. Some injuries may result in a player being at 60% capacity. If you do not specifically switch them in the lineup you may end up losing a game that your bench might have salvaged.

> TRANSACTIONS displays a list, by date, of all transactions (trades, signings, assignments) that have taken place during the current season. NOTE: As of v1.1 there is no way to read the part of the text that does not wrap at the edge of the section.

> RANKINGS is a useful list of the teams relative raw strength. It does not take into account the effectiveness of the coaching staff. Using this list can be a good way to plan when trading for draft picks. The team's ratings, show in parentheses, will go down as the season progresses. Each loss will generally lower the rating. An extended winning streak can result in a small gain for low rated teams.

PHONE

I do not like this section. You will normally interact with this section for two possible reasons. First, to speak with the team owner, which you will do twice at the start of each new season. And second, when there's an issue with a player.

> Speaking with the owner: Each new season (excepting the inaugural) will begin with a phone conversation with the owner. NOTE: As of v1.1 an error message usually pops up preceding this. Simply continue through the error. During the first contact the owner just wants to know if you participate in another season. The second contact comes after the new salary cap is set and the owner wants to know how the team is shaping up and how much it will cost. Feel free to lie to him because as of v1.1 he never seems to bother to check. I believe that your job security is currently tied ONLY to these responses not the actual team salary or performance.

> Player issues: Personally, I hate player issues and as soon as one pops up I start looking for a trading partner. I have identified three areas that cause players to have issues: personality, desire to win, and work ethic. These three areas will be discussed in greater detail in the PLAYER CARD section. To initiate a phone call simply click on the large orange circle (sometimes you have to click in the upper portion of the circle) and a drop-down of your players will show. Select who you want to talk to and click dial. You can then tell them to do something suck as take more 3 point shots instead of jumpers for the next two weeks, or you can scold them for fighting in the locker room. Rule of thumb is that if you have to scold them once you will have to do again every one to two weeks. CAUTION: Your reaction to player issues can have as much impact on the team/player as the issue itself. As of v1.1 I do not know of any way to improve a player's personality or work ethic.

EMAIL

Most of your communications here (if you're lucky) will be from the League Commissioner. Some of these will simply be informative, such as telling you what the salary cap and luxury tax for the coming season will be, while others will require an action. Those requiring an action will either have a few boxes to choose from or will cause the SEASON STAGE section of the main banner menu to be highlighted. Other sources of emails will be players, staff and the media.

This screen is pretty much self-explanatory. You can view the league standings of any of the active leagues.

The pro league can be viewed by division or conference rank. Each conference is viewed individually. NOTE: As of v1.1, a league expanded to 32 teams does not display the correct "games behind" values when viewing the conference standings.

The D-League is viewed by division only.

The European Leagues are viewed by division only with each league individually displayed.

This screen is where you can view the individual stat leaders in each of the leagues. You can pare down the selection by position or experience and either list all players or just the top 50 in each category.

This page is simply informational but is a fun way to see how your players are stacking up against the rest of the league when it comes to individual statistics.

As a general rule, the player with the highest "efficiency per game" at the end of the season will be the league MVP and the rookie with the highest rating in this category will be the league ROY.

As in the real world, these stats are often more a result of minutes than talent. A player who may be mid-level but is the best player on his team and plays 40+ minutes/game will have a higher rating than a high-level player who only plays 30 minutes and is surrounded by other high-level players.

This is an informational screen showing the current payroll, cap space and luxury tax for all teams for the pro league. It also shows next season's contractual payroll and estimated cap space.and game attendance.

The D-League and European Leagues use different financial models and this screen shows the comparable information for those leagues.

This can be a useful screen when looking for a potential trading partner because the game will not allow teams over the salary cap to engage in trading. The limited financial model only allows trades that result in both teams being under the salary cap, this includes draft picks. The full financial model is a little less rigid but it's usually a good rule of thumb that the teams with the most cap space make the best trading partners. They are also more likely to have better draft picks but team salary has only a moderate relation to team performance and there is no guarantee that a low salary will result in lottery pick.

This can be a very fun screen to visit.

> RECORDS: Here you can view a lot of league records such as scoring, assists, rebounding, and many more. These include all individual game records as well as season and career records.

> PLAYER HISTORY: You can pull up the history of any player, active or retired, who has ever played in the league. Enter their name in the search box and select which player you want from the search results.

> LEAGUE HISTORY: You can check out the final standings from any completed season as well as all awards and playoff results. NOTE: The game does NOT show the full playoff results, just the championship finals.

> DRAFT / HALL OF FAME: By selecting this tab you can review all of the draft history from your league. NOTE: Historical NBA/D-League/European draft records are NOT available on this screen.
You can also check out if any of the retired players have been inducted into the Hall of Fame. Again, NBA historical data is not addressed so if you are playing a league that began with existing NBA players, those who retire within the first few years will not be inducted even if they have had long successful NBA careers. (I'm looking at you Tim Ducan.)

NOTE: as of v1.1, Attemping to view the Almanac screen once the playoffs have begun will usually cause an error and the screen will not display properly. If this happens it will not clear up until at least a few phases into the next pre-seasor or possibly not until the beginning of the next season's regular season play.

Selecting the magnifying glass icon will open the PLAYER SEARCH window. Here you can search for any player or players by almost any available criteria. This can be useful when trying to find possible free agents to fit specific roles on your team and is often easier than digging through the long lists of available players. For instance, if you decide that you want to find a good defensive center with good shot blocking but who also has decent scoring and passing skills you can put those selections in the search and now you only have to look at a very few players rather an a free agent list of 50 centers.

Double clicking on any one of the players listed will open their player card.

DON'T READ THIS... JUST NOTES ATM

sort by various criteria: evaluating offense, eval def, eval pot, plyr dev, strategy, personality, greed, contract

job pref: hc, 1st, 2nd, 3rd

drop down box for offer, enter amount, contract length make offer, only one at a time

advance day