Academy

Overview
Your Academy allows you to train and mold a prospect to get them ready to become a part of your main squad. The process has a few stages to it:

Stage 1 - Invest in Scouting Network
You choose how much money you wish to invest in your academy’s scouting network per day. For every $1,000 of daily investment your scouting network will produce 1 scouting star.

Stage 2 – Scout a Prospect
A prospect is a youth that you want to turn into a player for your club’s squad. You scout a prospect by choosing a Scouting Assignment level. Each assignment level costs a certain number of scouting stars to run, so you will need to collect enough stars to use the assignment. In addition, to access the different scouting assignment levels you will need to invest in scouting assignment tech in the Academy building.

Once you have chosen the scouting assignment you can then scout a prospect, which will cost you 3 tokens. Once you have done this you will see the prospect’s beginning skill levels and the amount of attribute points you will have to spend on them, as well as their name, nationality, weight and height and so on. If you are not happy with the prospect scouted you can choose to scout again and another prospect will be created for you using the same assignment level (i.e. you don’t have to pay additional stars for a new assignment when you choose to scout again). The first time you do this in a day it is free, but it will cost you 3 tokens for another re-scout that day, with the token price increasing +1 token per additional re-scout that day. To make clear, the first time you scout a prospect that counts as your zero token scout of the day, so if you wanted to re-scout immediately it was cost you 3 tokens. If you waited until the following day to re-scout, then the first re-scout would be free. When you are happy with the prospect then you can choose to begin their development.

Stage 3 – Develop Your Prospect
Once you have begun development you can shape how they are going to develop. First off, each prospect will have a number of attribute points you can spend on raising their attributes. You are free to spend these points how you like to boost the attributes, on a 1 point for +1 attribute ratio. However, there is a soft cap at which every +1 attribute will cost you 2 points. This soft cap can be raised by buying Physical Coaching tech in the Academy.

Secondly, you play Academy cards onto your prospect to train up their skills. Every time you play an Academy card on a prospect a new slot to play another one will open up, until you have seven slots in total. However, you cannot play more than one card in a single day. Academy cards have a positional focus on them which determines which skills will get trained by that card, and the card’s energy value will determine the raw skill points the card will apply to each skill. If the card’s focus matches the best position for the prospect (best position will change as you spend attribute points and play Academy cards) then you get a synergy bonus on the card and the skill points it provides for the main skill on the card will be multiplied by x1.5.

New cards and card energy are provided as soon as you begin player development (at any time of day). Card energy for each subsequent day during development is provided at the start of each new day.

Stage 4 – Promote To Main Squad
Once you have finished developing your prospect you can then promote them to the main squad, presuming your main squad has room (currently a squad can have a maximum of 30 players, though at some point the ability to increase this number will come into the game). A prospect will be 18 years old when they enter your main squad, and their birthday will be the day that you promoted them.

Scouting Assignments
There are 7 possible scouting assignment levels that can be used, and you have to invest in scouting network tech in the Academy to access them. The assignment level determines a number of aspects about the prospect generate:

Attribute Points
The number of attribute points the prospect has to spend on improving their attributes. Each assignment level has a range of possible attribute points that can be generated. You are free to spend these points how you like to boost the attributes of the prospect from their starting levels, on a 1 attribute point for +1 attribute ratio. However, there is a soft cap after which every +1 attribute will cost you 2 attribute points. This soft cap can be raised by buying Physical Coaching tech in the Academy.

If the prospect is a star player then they receive an additional +22 attribute points to spend.

Skill Levels
Each assignment level determines the number of skill points that will be randomly distributed between the prospect’s skills when the prospect is first generated — there are 12 skills in total, so every point that is assigned has a 1 in 12 twelve chance of being assigned to one of those skills up until the soft cap is reached, at which time chances are halved (i.e. becomes 1 in 24 chance of being assigned to that skill).

If the prospect is a star player then they receive an additional +6 levels to each skill after the skill points have been randomly assigned.

Star Player Chance
Each assignment level determines the percentage chance that a prospect generated is a star player. This chance is checked every time a prospect is generated e.g. if you started a scouting assignment and the first player generated was a star player but you chose to scout again, the next player may not be a star player, as the chance of the prospect being a star player is checked every time a new prospect is generated.

Spending Attribute Points
Every attribute begins at level 5, including star players (though star players get +22 more attribute points than normal). Your prospect will receive a number of attribute points based upon the assignment level used to generate the prospect. You then spend these attribute points on increasing your prospect’s attribute levels. Every attribute point buys +1 level, until the attribute reaches its soft cap, at which point each +1 attribute level costs 2 attribute points. The starting soft cap begins at 22 and raises by +1 every time you invest in the Physical Coaching tech in the Academy.

As you spend attribute points you will see your prospects best position change to reflect the attribute changes.

Academy Cards and Improving Skills
You improve a prospect’s skill levels by playing Academy cards to improve them. Every slot allows you to play Academy cards, and a new slot will open up once you have played a card, until seven cards have been played, though you cannot play more than one card a day. At that point you can promote your prospect from the Academy and into your main squad, as long as your main squad is not a full capacity, which is 30 players at start, but can be raised by investing in Max Squad Size tech in the Office Building.

Every Academy card has a positional focus (e.g. Prop, Scrum-half, Lock, Wing and so on) attached to it, and this focus determines which skills the card will improve (see further below for a list of the different possible focuses and the skills they provide).

Academy cards improve skills by adding raw skill points to the skills that the card effects. Once a skill has gained enough raw skill points to get to the next level, the skill will rise to that level. The amount of raw skill points needed to gain a level rises the higher the skill level e.g. the raw skill point needed to get from level 9 (980 points) to level 10 (1130) is 150 raw skill points, but to get from level 20 (3230) to level 21 (3510) is 280 raw skill points (see further below for a list of levels and raw skill points needed).

Each positional focus will provide raw skill points to six skills, and those skills are divided up in categories — each focus will have a single category 1 skill, to which it will give the most amount of raw skill points. It will then have two category 2 skills which it gives a reduced amount of raw skill points to, and lastly will have three category 3 skills which it will give its fewest raw skill points to (see table below for more detailed information).

If the card focus matches the prospect’s current best position then the card provides a synergy bonus, which means that the category 1 skill of the card will receive x1.5 of the raw skill points the card normally provides.

Lastly, there is a tech that you can invest in in the Academy tech tree called Skill Coaching. Every time you gain this tech it provides +50 raw skill points to a random skill of your prospect whenever an Academy card is played into a slot.