Manual
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Glossary

Glossary

Playbook

The playbook adds special tactics to your game play. If you like to pass on 3rd and long, but want to rush on 3rd and short - this is your interface.

At your careers start the playbook function is disabled, and a basic playbook is active for both offense and defense. At this point you could enable the experts playbook by clicking "Yes" at the Playbook-page. This cannot be undone, so please think twice before you enable the Playbook, it is quite an amount for work to setup a proper Playbook.

The playbooks are a little bit different for Offense and Defense. For every situation in a game the playbook is checked to see if there is a matching entry or not. If there is more than a single entry for the situation available, the first entry is the only entry used. You can change the order in your playbook by dragging and dropping entries.

The offensive playbook allows you to set up your preferred plays by down and distance as well as quarter. On the other side of the ball the defensive playbook allows you to react to an offensive formation with a defensive formation call and blitz package. It is important to note that the playbook settings will overwrite the standard match tactics given in match settings! In overtime the clock settings in the offensive playbook are ignored! Settings for formation and direction don't matter on Punts and Field goals!

Warning 1: Be careful when adding rules utilizing ANY. Any Down means the 4th down too. So if you add a rule "Any Quarter, Any Down, Pass medium" - your squad will go for the 4th and long.

Warning 2:Please notice the playbook checker on top of the playbook. It is possible to enter a certain situation on the field here, and the check will show you the entry that would become active during the game.

Warning 3:The order of the entries is important. The check for active playbook rules goes from top to bottom. The first matching rule becomes active. Having "Any quarter any down"-rules on top of the playbook makes all following rules useless.

Example Offensive Playbook:
downloads/playbook_example_offense_v2.txt
The offered playbook contains rules for many situations. From top to bottom:

1. Try a Field goal when in Overtime and less than 40 yards away from goal line
2. and 3. Last minute Field goal when behind 1-3, more risky on less clock left
4. and 5. Last minute Field goal at the end of the second quarter
6. and 7. Try Field goal if less than 40 yards away from goal line on 4th down. One rule here is in to give you an easier way to switch for run/pass, just adapt the 1 yard to go line
8. Go for the 4th down by rushing if only 1 yard to go
9.-13. Punt on 4th down if more than 1 yard to go. Please note, this overrides the Game settings!
14. and 15. 3rd down and short: rush!
16. - 18. Rush if leading during 4th quarter, some basic clock management

Just download the sample file using the "Save as" function, and import it into an empty new slot of your playbook, then try to understand the way those rules were built. Use the Checker to confirm your findings.

Example Defensive Playbook:
downloads/playbook_example_defense_v2.txt
The offered playbook contains rules for many situations. It contains one rule per offensive formation, and reacts differently on pass and rush (assumptions). There is a special rule set when within your own red zone, the formations are then a bit more compact.

A last bit of advice...
Don't start with a playbook containing hundreds of rules, you will go crazy when looking for mistakes. Start with some easy to understand rules - like the example playbooks - and enhance your playbook once you understood fully what to do.

From season 10 on there is a so called "lopsided tactics" penalty active. Read more about in Lopsided tactics.

From Season 22 day 5 there is an indicator for the coverage of your playbook in the general match-stats. The more plays are covered by your playbook, the higher the factor is.