1. General idea
2. Site navigation
3. Your players.
4. The match.
5. Training.
6. The coach.
7. Coaches transfer market.
8. Transfer market.
9. Stadium
10. Sponsors
11. Economy
12. League
13. National cup
14. International cup
15. Forum
16. National teams
17. Under 21 years national teams
18. Premium users
19. Users behaviour
20. The game staff
21. Friendly games
22. Premium features - bookmarks
23. Premium features - Friends
24. Premium features - Scout
1
General idea
Nivdal is an online football team manager game, where anyone can create his own virtual football team, manage and develop it, participate in competitions and talk to other users in the forum. You can log in to the site anytime from anywhere - all you need is a connection to the internet. There is no minimal time that is needed to manage your team - you can do it very easily in only several minutes a week. You even do not have to be there during games - just do not forget to tell your players what to do. And all this is absolutely free! Nivdal game has three most important parts. One is the game engine - here you decide what your lineup is, how your players are located on the game field, what their attitude and aggressiveness will be, what substitutions or position changes should be done according to the game development, etc.
The second part is economy. You buy and sell players, build stadium, sign contracts with sponsors and also pay salaries. The better your economical balance is, the quicker your team will develop.
The last, but definitely not least part, is the forum and the community. Nivdal forum is a steadily growing community where you can ask questions, talk to other managers about the game, and about any other topic you wish. We just urge you to be polite there - detailed forum rules will follow in one of the next sections.
The first advise that we give you about managing your team is not to rush in the beginning. Do not do anything with your team until you finish reading the rules. Seek first to understand what are you doing, and only then do it.
The next chapters are telling you the rules in details. However, you will not find every tiny detail there. There are many things that you will need to discover by yourself - by playing the game.
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2
Site navigation
Navigating the site is simple. On the Left side, you will find our main menu, where all the links that you need are stored.
In the manager office menu, you will manage your team - there you will find your team overview, your secretary notes, matches, training instructions, financial reports, sponsors page, stadium management, and bids summary.
In the "Squad" menu - you will find your players and training instructions page.
In the National menu, you will find everything that is related to your country - some statistics about the country, links to current national cup competition and its history, and also to the list of site news.
In the International menu - there are links to the world statistics summary pages, International cup competition home page and to the transfer market.
Help menu will take you to the game rules, terms of use and our privacy policy.
Forum menu, naturally will take you to the forum. You can enter through the forum home page, or through the page that lists all the conversations that you already started.
Premium features menu will take you to the premium pages - see details below in premium features related chapters.
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3
Your players.
Your players have attributes that affect their performance on the game field. All these attributes are measured as numbers from 0 to 100.
• Stamina is an attribute that everybody needs. Every player will eventually get tired. When he gets tired, his abilities will start dropping. The better the stamina is - the later it will happen.
• Instincts used by goalkeepers to stop penalties and headers. It is also used by all players to receive passes well and to gain possession of lost balls.
• Goalkeeping is used by the goalkeepers to stop opponent player`s shots on goal.
• Positioning will help all your players to gain control of lost balls and receive long passes. It also helps your keeper to stop long shots and free kicks.
• Power is used by almost all players (only goalkeeper does not really need it) when fighting for lost balls. Defenders use it to stop dribble attempts of the attacking team. Also powerful players tend to get injured less than others.
• Tackling is used by all players to stop opponent`s players dribbles, passes and shots. However it is much tougher to stop opponent`s player in his half of the field than at your own, so the defenders need tackling more than others.
• Heading used by forwards to score goals from short distance, and by defenders to prevent them from scoring.
• Quickness Used by the attacking team players when dribbling, and by the defenders when stopping dribbles. Has more affect on the flangs than in the middle of the pitch.
• Technique is used to make good passes and dribbles. It is one of the main attributes for midfielders, but also other players can benefit from it. A player with good technique will usually be a good penalty and free kick shooter.
• Short passing is, naturally, used to make good short passes. However the defenders will need it less than midfielders and forwards, as it is much easier to make passes near your own goal than in the opposition half of the field.
• Long passing the same idea as short passes, but these passes are longer, so it is much quicker to get to opponent`s goal with a long pass. As compensation, it is much harder to make a good long pass than a short pass.
• Shooting is used by the attacking players to score goals - both from distance and from short range.
According to these attributes, the system assigns best positions to the players. This is only a suggestion - it is possible that the player that is marked as a defender will be also rather useful as a forward. The suggestion only helps you, but in deeper analisys of your players attributes, you can find more positions where they can play.
Every player, in each attribute, has a current value that you see, and a potential that you can only guess. If the current value is far from the potential, it will slowly increase even without training. However if you want your player to play close to his potential, you will need a coach and a training plan - this is discussed later.
Every player also has experience and charisma attributes. Experience will help him making better decisions on the field when it comes to deciding what to do with the ball. Also experienced players hold their nerves better when shooting penalties. Charisma will affect his performance in matches. The higher the charisma is, the better will he play in the important games. But they will perform porer in less important games. Also players with high charisma will tend to will do more fouls, and thus, receive more warnings and injure opponent players more often.
The youngest players in Nivdal are 16 years old. When the player reaches 40 years old he will usually retire. But even before, his abilities will diminish slowly, and maybe he will be useless even before that. Players can be injured during matches and training sessions. They can also sometimes get sick. In rare cases the player will need surgery to recover. The surgery will cost you some money - depending on the injury type. A player with a slight injury can sometimes play, but he will be more tired after the game, and he will usually not perform at his usual level. Recovery time from injury is slightly different from one player to another - the time to recover that is shown to you is only an approximation.
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4
The match.
Every team plays one or more matches during the week. Before the match you will need to tell your players what to do. There are 16 available positions on the field - one is for the goalkeeper, 5 for defenders, 5 for midfielders, and for the forwards. Additionally a player can play more offensively or more defensively - this practically repositions him a little forwards or a little backwards on the field. You will need to put your 11 players in these positions, with the restriction that two players cannot play in the same position.
Aggressiveness will help the player to fight better for lost balls, but he will also commit more fouls.
Attitude - if you tell your player to play easy, he will not perform at his usual level. However he will be less tired after the match. If he plays the best he can - he will play may be even better than he usually does (that also depends on his potential), but he will be really tired after the game, and will probably underperform in the next games. Fitness will slowly recover during the week, but if a player plays 2-3 matches a week, even if he does not play with his full capacity, he will be really tired.
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5
Training.
It is very important to train your players properly. It helps you to improve your team, and it can also help you financially - by buying players, training them and then selling them for more money.
There are two training types - team training and individual training. Your coach works maximum 40 hours a week. According to the football association rules, at least 10 hours are for team training, the other 30 can be distributed between team and individual training as you wish. Team training includes three training types - Stamina, Team synergy and Set pieces.
Stamina team training increases stamina for all players.
Team synergy training increases the ability of the players to play together. It is especially useful when new players arrive to the team, or old players leave.
Set pieces improves the ability of your team to score from free kicks and corners, and also to defend from them.
Individual training improves the attribute that the player trains. The training speed depends on three factors - player`s age, coach level and how far the player is from his potential.
Generally, young players train quicker than old boys, but it takes some time to learn how to train well, so 16-17 year old players usually train slower than others.
The better your coach is, the better the players will train. Also the closer the player is to his potential, the slower he will train.
When the player is in the thirties, his potential will start decreasing. When his potential becomes lower than the actual values, the actual value will decrease too.
Around the age of 40 the player will usually be exhausted and if you did not fire him before - he will retire.
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6
The coach.
To train your players, you will need a coach. The coaches defer by level. Levels vary from 5 to 20. The higher coach`s level is, the better he will train your team. However the coach also receives salary. You will need to consider this when you buy a new coach. Coaches are not working forever. There will be time when the coach will decide to retire. The retirement happens by the end of the season - you get a notice about his intentions some time in advance. But if the coach decides to retire, you will not be able to sell him any more. If you release him - he will retire immediately. The coach also has charisma attribute. The higher coach`s charisma is, the higher the influence of team attitude and aggressiveness parameters during the match will be. Coach with very high charisma can bring your team to perform very well in a single match, but expect your players to be very tired after that.
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7
Coaches transfer market.
Initially, your team will not have a coach. You can find one on the coach transfer market. A free coach will go to the team that will pay more. Also the coach`s salary will depend on the transfer sum. You cannot have two coaches simultaneously. This means that once you buy a new coach, the old one will be released immediately.
Once you release your coach, he will become free, and will be available for other teams. The availability time depends on coach's level - the better the coach is, the longer is his auction. If nobody wants him - he will retire. Free coaches also come to the free coaches market directly from coach academy. Coaches with higher levels are very rare. The best teams will, many times, fight for them on the public sale, and, thus, pay him very high salary after that.
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8
Transfer market.
One of the most important ways to earn money in Nivdal is to buy and sell players. The transfer market in Nivdal is auction-like. When you want to sell a player, you will set the auction length, and release him to the market. Auction length varies from 2 days up to 3.5 days. Once you decided to release a player, you have no option to undo this decision. The player will be sold by the end of the auction to the team that will pay the highest sum. When bidding on a player, you can only bid the next possible sum. You cannot bid more on a player that you are already bidding on. You cannot bid on your own player. Your team cannot have more than 40 players. So once the sum of number of players and the number of your active bids is more than 40 - you will not be able to bid on another player If a bid is done during the last 3 minutes of the auction, the deadline will be prolonged so that other users will be able to react. In any case the player will be sold only when the deadline passes and during the last 3 minutes of the auction there were no bids. Additionally, your financial balance will be checked when you bid on a player. If you do not have enough money, you will not be able to place the next bid.
After the auction ends, the player is transferred to the team that buys him. If nobody placed a bid on a player, he will retire.
When a transfer happens, the team synergy of both selling team and buying team will drop. The size of the drop will depend on the player`s charisma - the higher the charisma is, the more the team depends on a player, and so the more team synergy will drop.
Coaches are also sold by the same way. The difference are:
- A coach leaves the team immediately when he is transferlisted.
- The auction length depends on coach level, and not on seller's decision.
The player's salary in the first season after the transfer depends on the transfer sum. After that - he will automatically sign a new contract, and his salary will be determined by salaries of similar players.
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9
Stadium
When your team only starts the game, you will not have your own stadium. Until you have one, you need to play your home games on public stadiums. You will have a choice whether to play on the local school stadium - where you do not have any income from spectators, but also there are no expenses - or to rent one of the several other public stadiums, with different sizes, where you will have income from spectators, but also will need to pay the rent. You will pay the rent once you assign this stadium to your match. But the spectators are paying money for this game, and so if you choose the correct stadium, you will earn money for this game.
One of the most important steps in your team development is building your own stadium. This is an expensive move, so it needs to be considered well. A beginner team will not be economically able to do this move. Usually building your own stadium is worthy after you promote to higher division than the bottom one. Stadiums consist of three sit types. Basic sits are the cheapest sits. Most of your crowd will want to sit there. Sits under roof are a bit more expensive. About a quarter of the crowd would like to sit there. When the weather is not at its best - if it is raining or snowing - some of the people who usually want to sit at the basic sitting area will decide to sit under roof, or not to come at all. VIP boxes are for your rich supporters. The tickets there are usually very expensive but only a very small part of your supporters will be able to afford it.
Another benefit of having you own stadium is that you have the option to set ticket costs. On the public stadiums the costs are set by the municipal authority. They are changed from time to time, but municipal comity does not have to think about your needs, and may change the costs exactly when you do not need it.
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10
Sponsors
Every team has a sponsor. When you start the game, you will have some random sponsor, but very soon after that you will have an option to change your sponsor. You will receive money from your sponsors. The higher your league is - the more the sponsors will pay. Your sponsor`s picture will be dispayed on your team`s home page. A contact with sponor will end by the end of the season - you will need to choose a new sponsor in order to continue receiving the support money.
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11
Economy
Nivdal economy is rather simple. There is only one currency - Atuks.
Other than sponsors, income from match tickets, transfer market sales and purchases, there are some more small expenses and incomes. Sometimes payers will get injured so badly then they will need a surgery to recover. Surgery costs some money - depends on its type.
From time to time there will be some random events in your team. Some of these random events can bring with them (usually small) income or loss.
Teams must be economically healthy, otherwise they have trouble to survive. The rule is simple. If during weekly economic update your team will have negative balance - you will receive a warning. If your overdraft will be too high (the exact sum depends on your league level) - you will have other problems, like inability to buy and sell players and coaches. Third economic warning in a row will cause all your players will be transferlisted. If one week later you will still have negative balance - you will lose your team.
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12
League
Every team belongs to some league. League competition is considered by most of the manages to be the most important one. There are 10 teams in every league. The season is played in two rounds - every team will play every other team twice - one game at home, and another one away. This means that there are 18 league games every season. Nivdal league system is like a pyramid. There is only one league on the top level. Each level is three times larger than the level above. By the end of league season, the top team will promote to upper league and the bottom three teams will relegate to lower division. The winner of the top level league will be awarded national championship title. Bottom teams of the divisions in bottom level will not relegate, of course. Some more options to promote are described below
League games are played once a week. This means that, including one week break between seasons Nivdal season takes 19 weeks.
The competition rules are simple. You receive 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a loss. If the two teams have the same number of points, the tie break order is:
1. Goal difference
2. Goals scored
3. Number of wins
4. Newer team in Nivdal.
Some special awards will be awarded by the end of the season. The top scorer, the team with the least number of warnings and the teams on the first 5 places will receive special awards. The award size will depend on your league level.
At the end of each season, teams that were declared a bankrupt will lose their owners and will be demoted to the bottom leagues. This will open several places for bonus promotions. Teams that did not finish in the first places will have chance to promote after promotion tournament. The rules of this tournament are the following:
The first priority is given to teams that finished on the second place, then to teams that finished on 8-th place and demoted, then 9-th place, then 10-th place, and then 3-rd, 4-th etc.
Number of teams that will promote will depend on the number of teams that will demote automatically. If this number is low - the number of teams that participate in promotion tournament is low. If it is high - teams will potentially be automatically promoted, without promotion games.
Promotion games will be played during season break. There will be up to 3 promotion games (could be less). They will be played with cup rules, the paring and ranking will be based on league ranking by the end of the season.
The participation in bonus promotion tournament is not automatic. You will need to register in order to participate. The registration is simple, and it opens 2 weeks before the season ends. Registration does not assure that you will participate - this will also depend on your ranking at the end of the season. Even if you finish first - it is advised to register, as in corner cases when there are many teams that are going to become robots, and few teams that wish to participate in promotion games, there can be an option to promote even higher.
During the season, approximate promotion numbers are updated in the promotion information pages - the link to them can be found at league and country pages.
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13
National cup
National cup games are played once a week. You will play in the cup till you lose. In the beginning of the season, all teams will have cup rank assigned according to their league position by the end of previous season. The draws are done according to the ranks - team that is ranked first will play team that is ranked last. If lower ranked team wins, it will receive the rank of the team that it defeated. This makes national cup system tennis like - once the draw is made, you can see what expects you till the end of the tournament.
As you would expect, cup games cannot end with a draw - if by the end of 90 minutes there will be no winner, an 30-minute extra time will be played. If there will be no winner by the end of the extra time, penalties shoot out will decide the winner.
By the end of the season, national cup winners and finalists receive trophies. Starting 1/8 final stage, there will be prizes for winning matches.
For winning the Title the winner will receive 500,000 Atuks.
Finalist receives 250,000 Atuks.
For every win, starting 1/8 final stage, the prize is 200,000 Atuks.
Only teams that are owned by human managers by the time of the cup draw will participate in the cup.
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14
International cup
International cup is a competition where all the human teams in the world participate. This is played by cup rules - i.e. draws are not acceptable - in case of a draw, the usual 30 minutes overtime and then, if needed, penalty shootout will decide the match result.
International cup is also played once a week, the draw in this competition is totally random. So to be successful in this cup you will need not only to have a very good team, but to be also a little lucky to get more comfortable opponents. By the end of the season, financial awards and trophies will be distributed to winner, runner up and also to all the teams that reached at least the round of last 8.
The Awards are 500,000 Atuks for winning each game starting from 1/8 stage. The winner will receive 1,000,000 Atuks.
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15
Forum
The forum is a place where you can talk to other users, get help from the game staff from more experienced users, and... well, there probably no need to explain what the forum is for. There are two types of forums - public and private. Every user can join public forums. The public forums are the official part of the community. Each country and each league will have its official public forum. Private forums are created by the users, and to become a user in a certain private forum you will need to get the forum creator approval. Private forums are places where friends can create places for private conversations that will not be heard by others.
The forum rules are simple: Do not use dirty language, do not insult each other, and do not spam too much. If you feel that one of these rules was broken, you can use the "report" button. There is a system that allows forum moderators to expel the user from using forums for some time. We really do not like using this system, but sometimes we absolutely have to, because we want everybody else to have fun in our forums.
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16
National teams
Nivdal development team is working hard to develop National teams’ competitions. This is not ready yet, and will be introduced later.
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17
Under 21 years national teams
The same story is about youth national teams.
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18
Premium users
This part of the game is not introduced yet. The idea is that our basic account comes for free, but if you agree to pay some small amount of money, your user experience in the site will be significantly upgraded. Currently all the users are defined as Premium users. More about this in the near future.
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19
Users behaviour
There is a simple set of user behaviour rules that has one single purpose - make the usage of Nivdal comfortable and fair for all the users. First, and may be the most important rule is that you are not allowed to have more than one team. We are very good in finding situations where one user illegally uses two teams. We will not be compassionate to these situations. If we see this - both teams will be closed without the ability to recover. So please do not try that. In cases when two different users are using the same computer, it is better to notify us about that using the contact pages, and then it is strictly forbidden to transfer players from one such team to another, and doing bid wars for the same players. Please understand these limitations - they are designed for the users - we all want to have a fair game, and do not want to deal with cheaters.
Users are not allowed to use offensive or dirty language in the forums or in private mails. We do not allow any type of advertizing other than the official one. So please avoid promoting your site or product in our forums or mails. If you would like to advertize at our site - please use the contact pages.
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20
The game staff
Nivdal is a growing community, and there are users that doing a holy work of helping us maintain the site. Forum moderators are looking after correct forum usage. Game masters will help you through the initial stage - they will create a team for you, and will be mentors when you do your first steps in Nivdal. Language translators help us translating Nivdal to other languages. This work is ongoing now. Game creators are the site developers. Please respect our staff - they are working solely for you, and they are the ones who making all this possible.
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21
Friendly games
Once you are out of one of the cup competitions - National or international cups - you will be able to schedule friendly games agaist other teams. To invite a team to a friendly match - go to its home page, and choose one of the date options available You will be able to schedule friendlies 4 weeks forwards, until the next cups are starting. Once a friendly game is scheduled - you can cancel it if your opponent agrees. If you wish to cancel it - go to Manager office >> Friendlies and suggest cancellation of the game.
Also, there is an option to ask the system to find an opponent for you. Manager office >> Friendlies page, you can define what kind of opponent do you want, and the system will try to find one for you.
Friendly games help improving your team synergy, so it is a good idea to play friendlies when your team has one or more new players, or when a coach was changed. However, risk of injuries still exists in friendlies.Spectators like friendlies much less then competitive games, but still some of them may come to watch. Income is split evenly between the playing teams.
Once you were invited to play a friendly game - you will need to respond to this invitation, at the friendlies page (Manager office >> friendlies)
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22
Premium features - bookmarks
Only premium users can see this option. You can bookmark players, teams, coaches, countries, leagues and users. Once an item was bookmarked - it will appear on your premium features >> bookmarks page. So you will not have to search for it again
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23
Premium features - Friends
Only premium users can see this option. You can make friends in Nivdal. Being a friend of somebody means that it will be easier for you to follow his actions and compare your team achievments with his team.
You can suggest friendship to upto 4 users. This number increaases by 1 every season.
If a friendship is accepted - you will become friends. If it is not - you will receive a notification about that. If somebody sent you a suggestion to be friends - you will receive a notification, and then you will be able to respond at Premium >> friends page. If you decline a suggestion, the declined user will not be able to suggest you friendship again for some time. For some corner cases, a black list was created - blacklisted users will not be able to suggest you friendship again till actively removed from the black list.
On the friends page, you will also be able to see your friends statistics, and compare between them Every time you friend has a new event in his team - you will be notified.
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24
Premium features - Scout
Only premium users can see this option. The scout helps looking for players and coaches on the transfer market. The idea is to shorten considerably the time that the user spends on the transfer market. When the scout is activated - he receives criteria to look for. At the same time he will check whether there are players or coaches on the transfer market at that time that fit the critera. Later - every time a new player or coach is found on the transfer market - he will send you a note about it.
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