An Introduction
First of all, when registering, give Hitwicket your birthday. If you do this, you get a free Musketeer trial for one week every year for your birthday. More information on Musketeers will be discussed on the Musketeers page. But for now, all you need to know is that Musketeer is another one of those membership kind of things, where you buy features with real money.
Now, on with the actual game. Hitwicket is broken down into 7 Divisions of teams. Each of these divisions has a specific number of leagues, each containing 10 teams.Division 1, also known as the 'Hitwicket Premier,' has only one league. The team who wins this league is crowned the 'Hitwicket Premier Champions.' So, your ultimate goal is to win the 'Hitwicket Premier'The teams at the last four positions (7-10) are demoted to Division 2, which has 1*4=4 leagues. The winner of each of these Div 2 leagues is promoted to Div 1 to replace the demoted teams. Similarly, Div 3 has 16 leagues, Div 4 has 64 teams, Div 5 has 256 teams, Div 6 has 1024 teams, and Div 7 has 2048 teams (not 4096). Don't worry, your team always starts out in either the 6th or 7th Div. Also, their are enough computer controlled teams, which are pretty easy to defeat, so don't worry about there being no spaces available for registration.
When you start off, you have a pretty average team of players, with some exceptional ones. Players are 'measured' by their Skill index, or SI. The higher the SI, the better the player. So, a player with an SI of 20,000+ is usually pretty good, especially if he's less than about 22 years old. This is because players improve in skill faster when they are young. Players usually start losing fitness rapidly when they start ageing 27-30 years old. But if you can manage to give them enough fitness training, they will still perform pretty well. But this itself is a problem, as you can only train on one category every week. So, you might not be able train in Fielding & Wicket keeping, Batting or Bowling if you focus on fitness. More on training will be explained later. But, if you do not like a player because of his inability to perform, then you can either fire him, or sell him. If you ask me, first try to sell the player before firing him, just for that little amount of money you'll get. Hitwicket gives you a recommended selling price, which you can choose not to obey, but I'd recommend you open the player's auction with an asking price of about 50%-100% of the asking price. For example, if the player's skill index is 10,000, the asking price should be about 60% of the recommended price, but if the player has a skill index of about 40,000, ask for a price which is about 110% of the recommended price. (Don't worry, you'll get more than that.) But don't let the asking price go too high above the recommended price, or no one will bid on the player.
Training is an essential part of you team. It will help improve a player in his skills. Unfortunately, Hitwicket only lets you train in one field every week, so plan your training carefully according to the type of pitch you have and the type of players you have. It's always good to keep at least 6 batsmen, including a keeper, 1-2 all rounders and 5-6 players who can bowl in each match. If you have too many batsmen, a collapse in your lineup will mean that the game is over for you, as you have no good bowlers. On the other hand, if you have too many bowlers, especially if you play on a flat wicket, they may take the day off, and lose you the match. Even if you are able to restrict the opposition to a low total, they can rip apart you batting lineup, causing a loss for you.
Teams must set their lineup atleast 1 hour before the scheduled start of the match. At the scheduled time of the match, the Match Engine algorithm starts simulating the match based on the batting and bowling orders submitted by the teams. For a particular delivery, the Batsman's Ability (determined by his batting skills, experience, form and fitness) is compared with the Bowler's Ability (determined by his bowling skills, experience, form, fitness and pitch factor). Based on these two values the outcome of the delivery (0,1,2,3,4,6 or Out) is determined by the match engine using probability. This process is repeated for each delivery of the match.
In Hitwicket, you also have something called a fan club for your team. This plays a very important role in you revenue. The more you have fans, the more match attendance you get to your matches. To increase you fan club size, keep winning matches, promote to a higher Div for a higher weekly fan joining rate and invite your friends (you get 100 fans for first 5 users who start playing via your invite, and 10 fans for every Facebook friend who starts playing Hitwicket).
Ticket sales during your home matches make up for a large percentage of your weekly income. Match attendance at your stadium depends on your and your opponent's fan club size, and your team's recent performance (only for that season). So , at the beginning of the season, crowd turnout is low, and picks up throughout the season if your team plays well enough.
Yet another feature to Hitwicket is the Youth Scout. This is basically a scout which hunts around for young players, who you can develop to into a star for your team, sell, or include in the seasonal U20 cup.
The more your team progresses, the higher you gain in Manger Reputation Points (MRP). The various levels of managers in Hitwicket are Mediocre, Average, Reliable, Accomplished, Remarkable, Brilliant, Exemplary, Prodigious, Fantastic, Magnificent, Masterful, Supreme, Magical, Legendary, Wonderous, Demigod, and Titan, in that order. That means that you always start off as a Mediocre manager if you complete the initial setup phase (including the tutorial). To increase in MRP:
· Invites: As the 'mentor', you receive points every time your invitee jumps in manager level.
· Social Connections: Connect your Facebook and Twitter account to Hitwicket.
· Twitter Shares: Share your Team, Player or Match on Twitter.
· Welcome your Invitee: Tag your invitee in their league talk and welcome them to Hitwicket! (only once per invite)
· Upgrade Training Facilities: Must be the priority of every manager!
· Youth Recruitment: Recruit a Youth every week!
· Forum Post likes: Contribute to the community by posting quality content and receive points for 'likes'.
· Transfers: Buy players from the Transfer Market.
· Player Improvement: Train your players and get points every time they increase in skill level (except Fitness and Fielding). You get points based on the skill they 'pop' to.
· Match Wins: Self explanatory!
· Stadium Upgrade: Construct seats at your stadium.
· Frequent Visitor: Continous login to Hitwicket for 15 days.
· Game Manual Feedback: Vote on whether the content in the Game manual is useful to you and help us improve it.
· Teams who top their respective leagues are distributed with prize money according to their division tier.
o Division 1 - Rs. 2,000,000
o Division 2 - Rs. 1,500,000
o Division 3 - Rs. 1,200,000
o Division 4 - Rs. 1,000,000
o Division 5 - Rs. 800,000
o Division 6 - Rs. 600,000
o Division 7 - Rs. 600,000
· Every week each team is granted a sponsor income according to their division tier.
o Division 1 - Rs. 700,000
o Division 2 - Rs. 550,000
o Division 3 - Rs. 400,000
o Division 4 - Rs. 300,000
o Division 5 - Rs. 250,000
o Division 6 - Rs. 200,000
o Division 7 - Rs. 200,000
· The U20 Cup is an optional competition of Hitwicket.Teams with atleast 11 youth players i.e. players who will be no older than 19yrs 69 days on the registration deadline can register for the U20 Cup. Maximum of 16 players of a team can participate in U20 Cup. Players participating in U20 cup cannot be fired/sold until their respective team gets knocked out of the cup. There will be NO ticket sales for the match (crowd will have free entry, just like friendlies). The Hitwicket Council will pay both teams a fixed fee of Rs. 200,000 per match as sponsorship. Manager Reputation Points: 20 points per match win; 200 pts for semifinalists; 500 pts for Runner-up and 1000 points for the winner. Match Win money - Rs 250k prize for each match win. U20 matches don't effect Training or Fitness. Players gain experience with every match they play, the captain receives 30% boost in exp gain as well.
Now, on with the actual game. Hitwicket is broken down into 7 Divisions of teams. Each of these divisions has a specific number of leagues, each containing 10 teams.Division 1, also known as the 'Hitwicket Premier,' has only one league. The team who wins this league is crowned the 'Hitwicket Premier Champions.' So, your ultimate goal is to win the 'Hitwicket Premier'The teams at the last four positions (7-10) are demoted to Division 2, which has 1*4=4 leagues. The winner of each of these Div 2 leagues is promoted to Div 1 to replace the demoted teams. Similarly, Div 3 has 16 leagues, Div 4 has 64 teams, Div 5 has 256 teams, Div 6 has 1024 teams, and Div 7 has 2048 teams (not 4096). Don't worry, your team always starts out in either the 6th or 7th Div. Also, their are enough computer controlled teams, which are pretty easy to defeat, so don't worry about there being no spaces available for registration.
When you start off, you have a pretty average team of players, with some exceptional ones. Players are 'measured' by their Skill index, or SI. The higher the SI, the better the player. So, a player with an SI of 20,000+ is usually pretty good, especially if he's less than about 22 years old. This is because players improve in skill faster when they are young. Players usually start losing fitness rapidly when they start ageing 27-30 years old. But if you can manage to give them enough fitness training, they will still perform pretty well. But this itself is a problem, as you can only train on one category every week. So, you might not be able train in Fielding & Wicket keeping, Batting or Bowling if you focus on fitness. More on training will be explained later. But, if you do not like a player because of his inability to perform, then you can either fire him, or sell him. If you ask me, first try to sell the player before firing him, just for that little amount of money you'll get. Hitwicket gives you a recommended selling price, which you can choose not to obey, but I'd recommend you open the player's auction with an asking price of about 50%-100% of the asking price. For example, if the player's skill index is 10,000, the asking price should be about 60% of the recommended price, but if the player has a skill index of about 40,000, ask for a price which is about 110% of the recommended price. (Don't worry, you'll get more than that.) But don't let the asking price go too high above the recommended price, or no one will bid on the player.
Training is an essential part of you team. It will help improve a player in his skills. Unfortunately, Hitwicket only lets you train in one field every week, so plan your training carefully according to the type of pitch you have and the type of players you have. It's always good to keep at least 6 batsmen, including a keeper, 1-2 all rounders and 5-6 players who can bowl in each match. If you have too many batsmen, a collapse in your lineup will mean that the game is over for you, as you have no good bowlers. On the other hand, if you have too many bowlers, especially if you play on a flat wicket, they may take the day off, and lose you the match. Even if you are able to restrict the opposition to a low total, they can rip apart you batting lineup, causing a loss for you.
Teams must set their lineup atleast 1 hour before the scheduled start of the match. At the scheduled time of the match, the Match Engine algorithm starts simulating the match based on the batting and bowling orders submitted by the teams. For a particular delivery, the Batsman's Ability (determined by his batting skills, experience, form and fitness) is compared with the Bowler's Ability (determined by his bowling skills, experience, form, fitness and pitch factor). Based on these two values the outcome of the delivery (0,1,2,3,4,6 or Out) is determined by the match engine using probability. This process is repeated for each delivery of the match.
In Hitwicket, you also have something called a fan club for your team. This plays a very important role in you revenue. The more you have fans, the more match attendance you get to your matches. To increase you fan club size, keep winning matches, promote to a higher Div for a higher weekly fan joining rate and invite your friends (you get 100 fans for first 5 users who start playing via your invite, and 10 fans for every Facebook friend who starts playing Hitwicket).
Ticket sales during your home matches make up for a large percentage of your weekly income. Match attendance at your stadium depends on your and your opponent's fan club size, and your team's recent performance (only for that season). So , at the beginning of the season, crowd turnout is low, and picks up throughout the season if your team plays well enough.
Yet another feature to Hitwicket is the Youth Scout. This is basically a scout which hunts around for young players, who you can develop to into a star for your team, sell, or include in the seasonal U20 cup.
The more your team progresses, the higher you gain in Manger Reputation Points (MRP). The various levels of managers in Hitwicket are Mediocre, Average, Reliable, Accomplished, Remarkable, Brilliant, Exemplary, Prodigious, Fantastic, Magnificent, Masterful, Supreme, Magical, Legendary, Wonderous, Demigod, and Titan, in that order. That means that you always start off as a Mediocre manager if you complete the initial setup phase (including the tutorial). To increase in MRP:
· Invites: As the 'mentor', you receive points every time your invitee jumps in manager level.
· Social Connections: Connect your Facebook and Twitter account to Hitwicket.
· Twitter Shares: Share your Team, Player or Match on Twitter.
· Welcome your Invitee: Tag your invitee in their league talk and welcome them to Hitwicket! (only once per invite)
· Upgrade Training Facilities: Must be the priority of every manager!
· Youth Recruitment: Recruit a Youth every week!
· Forum Post likes: Contribute to the community by posting quality content and receive points for 'likes'.
· Transfers: Buy players from the Transfer Market.
· Player Improvement: Train your players and get points every time they increase in skill level (except Fitness and Fielding). You get points based on the skill they 'pop' to.
· Match Wins: Self explanatory!
· Stadium Upgrade: Construct seats at your stadium.
· Frequent Visitor: Continous login to Hitwicket for 15 days.
· Game Manual Feedback: Vote on whether the content in the Game manual is useful to you and help us improve it.
· Teams who top their respective leagues are distributed with prize money according to their division tier.
o Division 1 - Rs. 2,000,000
o Division 2 - Rs. 1,500,000
o Division 3 - Rs. 1,200,000
o Division 4 - Rs. 1,000,000
o Division 5 - Rs. 800,000
o Division 6 - Rs. 600,000
o Division 7 - Rs. 600,000
· Every week each team is granted a sponsor income according to their division tier.
o Division 1 - Rs. 700,000
o Division 2 - Rs. 550,000
o Division 3 - Rs. 400,000
o Division 4 - Rs. 300,000
o Division 5 - Rs. 250,000
o Division 6 - Rs. 200,000
o Division 7 - Rs. 200,000
· The U20 Cup is an optional competition of Hitwicket.Teams with atleast 11 youth players i.e. players who will be no older than 19yrs 69 days on the registration deadline can register for the U20 Cup. Maximum of 16 players of a team can participate in U20 Cup. Players participating in U20 cup cannot be fired/sold until their respective team gets knocked out of the cup. There will be NO ticket sales for the match (crowd will have free entry, just like friendlies). The Hitwicket Council will pay both teams a fixed fee of Rs. 200,000 per match as sponsorship. Manager Reputation Points: 20 points per match win; 200 pts for semifinalists; 500 pts for Runner-up and 1000 points for the winner. Match Win money - Rs 250k prize for each match win. U20 matches don't effect Training or Fitness. Players gain experience with every match they play, the captain receives 30% boost in exp gain as well.