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Hey all,

I’m looking for some input on how to organize one’s team efficiently.

Playing Highlander, I spent way more time organizing than actually playing the games. I used Doodle (http://www.doodle.com) to check out when every player could play. Also, I used Google Spreadsheet editable by everyone to have an overview of who can play which class, also to show the players and their classes for each game. To inform each one, I posted announcements in our Steam group. That last one was the weakest tool, IMHO. When posting an announcement, there is a popup for the people online for a few seconds, after that you only see them in the Community section. And this section is spammed by everything people do, so they are hard to see.

And let’s be honest, most people are like sheep: You have to force them to have some fun (sorry team, I still like you ;-) ). Only a small percentage can be bothered enough to actively check for the information they need.

Frankly, I’m at a point right now where I would like to keep leading the team, but asking every single person everytime something new is up and reminding them of an announcement personally is too bothersome and takes too much of my time and thus thinking about not continuing my leadership.

So, a long story, short question(s): How do you organize your team with up to 20 players? How do you make sure everyone knows everything necessary without having to chase every single one?

well how about dont have 20 players ? redicilous.
what i do:
open notepad
write down all the info that needs to be said
copy+paste to everyone.
Telling players to view some steam groups or what not is way to much to ask. At least i havnt encountered players who are willing to do anything like it.
Just leave a short msg to everyone on steam chat and its done.
Also- NEVER EVER tell players about stuff that you have planned like 2 or even more weeks ahead!! They ALL gonna forget about it. Drop the msg of the day and its fine. If its a match then 1/2 days before max

Quoted from Selek

And let’s be honest, most people are like sheep

wtf, i’m the only sheep around here

A calendar is very useful if everybody checks/use it http://www.keepandshare.com/htm/calendars/online_calendar/best_free_online_calendar.php

I used a Google Spreadsheet for availability – everyone edits their own page with 1 for the times they can play and 0 for the times they can’t. Then one of the other pages provides the total number of players who can play in each timeslot, so we can see which times we can field 9 players and which times we can’t, as well as which times we can have substitutes available (if you have a choice between two times, always pick the time where you have more available players).

Then for assigning the actual team and picking classes, one of the other members wrote a Python program which took everyone’s preferred classes and drafted a team for any given timeslot.

Since it’s a community team and all our players are regular forum members, I used a thread on the forum to announce details like arranged match times and selected team lineups, as well as prompt people to do things like fill out their spreadsheets (yes, loads of them consistently forgot to do this in time even with reminders, but that’s always going to happen :P at least reminding people wasn’t too difficult since I just had to post in the thread).

So, an example organisation: Everyone has filled out their spreadsheets saying when they personally are free to play.
My War Arranger and I look at the total time and see that we can field 10 players on Monday at 7pm, or 12 players on Tuesday at 8pm. So we try to arrange the match for Tuesday 8pm.
The other team agree, so the Python programmer runs Tuesday 8pm through his program. It reads the spreadsheet, checks which 12 players are free, consults its list of each players’ class preference, and spits out a list of who is playing each of the 9 classes, as well as the other 3 players as subs.
I tweak the team based on who has played more games, giving precedence to players who have played fewer matches, and then post the final team for match day on the forum.

This way has a few obvious flaws:
– depending on how flexible your team are in class selection, you might be able to field 9 players but be missing some classes
– if your team members don’t regularly check the forum, or you don’t have a forum, it’s hard to keep everyone informed
– if you can’t write spreadsheet code or don’t know a programming language, the class selection phase can quickly become a nightmare

But this method worked fairly well for us, and I have few complaints or plans to change it much for Season 2.
Hope some of that helped :P

Coming on a European forum and seeing organise spelled with a ‘z’.

:(

You blame and English teacher in Oxford? Where is this person, I must burn him/her.

Quoted from Trane

You blame and English teacher in Oxford? Where is this person, I must burn him/her.

:)