International Cricket Captain General Thread of Miscellany

[Shri]

Nice to see Sir Pelham is still going at 155.

What?

 

[jimmy101]

Keenly awaiting the debuts of V & M Corleone.

 

[Dan]

What?

P Warner

 

[Shri]

Oh, I get it now.

 

[TT Boy]

Yeah T20s are just confusing and seem to be based on nothing but luck. Never managed to figure them out.

I haven’t refunded many games on Steam but I had to after my Pretoria team ‘attempted’ chase of 168 against Durban. They, Durban, had Maharaj and a couple guys I’ve never heard of, I had de Kock, Markram, AB, Faf, Klaasen, Albie and Morris and still ended up 30+ runs short with 5 wickets in hand. Previous game scored 237 with Faf and Klaasen putting on 150 runs in 9 overs. I’ll stick to the 2014 version, it’s the same game fundamentally, and 20/20s are just as wretched.

 

[Flem274*]

i skip all t20s in icc. they're terrible

 

[jimmy101]

I haven’t refunded many games on Steam but I had to after my Pretoria team ‘attempted’ chase of 168 against Durban. They, Durban, had Maharaj and a couple guys I’ve never heard of, I had de Kock, Markram, AB, Faf, Klaasen, Albie and Morris and still ended up 30+ runs short with 5 wickets in hand. Previous game scored 237 with Faf and Klaasen putting on 150 runs in 9 overs. I’ll stick to the 2014 version, it’s the same game fundamentally, and 20/20s are just as wretched.

It's pretty much the same game with a new skin. The 2013/2014 versions of the game have better UI in my opinion. I ended up uninstalling the 2018 version from my computer.

 

[jimmy101]

Was having a look on the CC website to see if there was any news re CC 2019. Came across a really good post in one of their threads which highlights some really good points.

Sadly, whatever suggestions are made are likely to be ignored by the powers that be. This game has hardly made any progress since its inception. The first version I played was Cricket Captain 3 (2007) - I thought it was a decent game, with a few flaws, but overall it had great potential. It has hardly changed since that first game I played, which is a great shame, particularly as there is zero competition to this genre of game (seeing as how Cricket Coach died off, or appears to). Speaking bluntly, the following flaws (quite basic ones to remedy) have existed for the last eleven years of games and, often, people on this forum have been crying out for them to be amended. These flaws are:

1) You can't see bowling speeds. A basic thing to add realism.
2) You can't see who the opposition captain is. Haha, a game called Cricket Captain and you don't know who the captain is.
3) The World Ratings system is *still* the old one. This is utterly staggering. In real life cricket, the world rankings system was changed in 2003 - this game still hasn't been updated to reflect that! Realism straight out of the window.
4) The same glitches with the 3d engine (e.g. ball going past the keeper only for said keeper to make a catch). Another finger to realism.
5) No basic news items to update you with happenings in the in-game world, just an interminable list of scores for evermore. This is one thing I liked about Cricket Coach and that Football Manager has implemented successfully.
6) In-game choices are so basic. The choices over batting haven't been touched for...ever? And the fielding interface is clunky and a pain to use. Bowling plans are a big part of real-life cricket, but totally non-existent here.
7) Pitch conditions. Pitches only deteriorate in this game whereas, in real life, some pitches become friendlier to bat on as time wears on - e.g. Lord's is notoriously better to bat on during days two and three, than day one. But in Cricket Captain, pitches only get worse. Oh and you get no choice, internationally speaking, over what type of wicket you want. Still!
8) Ratings! Still no ratings system for players, just guesswork based on averages. No other coaches as well, at whatever club/country you 'captain'. If there were a coaching system that gave you feedback on players/player development, the lack of ratings could be forgiven, but there isn't one!
9) International progression. Let's say you play as the West Indies and you want to restore them to the glory years. You do really well. You get the Windies up to number one in the world in tests...but guess what? You're still forced to play a maximum of two-test and three-test series because the game remains frozen in the state it was at the start of the game, thinking that the Windies are still a lowly nation. This problem is magnified with the recent addition of the Irish and Afghan teams. Again, this has been a common complaint, but seemingly ignored.
10) Tour creator. Yeah, the game randomly creates a itinerary for international sides, rather than allowing the user to develop one. This was something I thought Cricket Coach did well.
11) No one knows what technique training does!
12) Rain doesn't exist for ODIs or T20s which is, of course, unrealistic. And no, DRS, yet.
13) Classic series - this isn't really a complaint, but what's the deal with classic series? Every version, a certain list of classic series pops out (this year, England-Pakistan and England-India from yesteryear, no doubt it'll be England-Australia next year) and then disappears for the next. If there's no holdback on licensing - and there doesn't appear to be considering how the 'all-time greats' mode has made an appearance - then why not make an extensive list of classic test series from the past for the user to play, for continuous versions?
14) Statistics! Cricket is, alongside baseball, the most stat-intensive sport going. Cricket fans adore stats and numbers and decimal points and graphs and whatnot. But Cricket Captain is so stat-lite, a common source of frustration.
15) Very minor. It's always the player who calls heads or tails, never the computer opponent.
16) Player profiles are very light on information. Football Manager handles this near-perfectly, in my opinion. And there's no morale system to speak of, which is a stunning omission.

I've played this game on and off (mostly the latter) for the past eleven years. It's not a bad game, just a frustrating one. Immense potential not realised. A market of millions waiting to be reached, like Football Manager, but still untapped because of a stymieing lack of progress.

 

[Bots]

Cricket coach has a new version scheduled for 2019, found Cricket Coach more enjoyable myself as limited overs always felt unrealistic in cricket captain

 

[Chubb]

So I have a long history of ICC addiction including taking a 2015 Zimbabwe career in to the 22nd century (we were consistently top 3 in the world for 70+ years). Got rid of 2015 a couple of years ago and lost all my screenshots from that game but still have the memories. Anyway, I am on holiday and downloaded 2018 to play on bus and plane etc. have a Northants game going and am now in 2023 with one year in the first division and four one day trophies since start. Almost completely replaced the squad with only Duckett, Newton and Rossington surviving. Have Ollie Pope, Adil Rashid, Eskinazi and some handy regens. And for some reason James Shannon who barely plays for Ireland IRL averages 50+ in test cricket.

Just took the Zim captaincy but the current crop of players is very weak. Brandon Mavuta has 120 test scalps at 27 but nobody else has better stats than Blessing Muzarabani (80 wkts at 36). The batting is even worse. Just had a three test tour of Aus with Mohammad Elkakh opening with an avg of 18 from 10 tests and Taurai Musakanda (avg 19 from 20 tests) at 3. Peter Moor is the best batsman and Ryan Burl skipper. Had a young opener come in and make a ton on the Aus tour so maybe some hope for the future there, but has anyone taken Zim past 2030? Any decent regens? In my 2015 game I had a consistent group of good players come through quite early which is why I was able to sustain the success as long as I did.

 

[jimmy101]

Suprising to hear you got a three test series playing as Zim. Don't think I've ever had that happen.

 

[Chubb]

Yes it was the first tour I had as Zim captain. Lost the first two by an innings and gave them a decent game in the third with some chances to win. I have plucked a young batsman out of 2nd XI cricket who has just peeled off 3 tons in 3 tests against the Windies - two in a losing cause - this seems to be the way to get decent regens as nobody is averaging more than 33 in domestic cricket. Interestingly this guy hasn’t played any first class games except his tests, ODIs and T20is but he’s definitely the best batsman in Zim. Decent pace bowler regen also come into the side recently and has 50 wickets at 27. Still a very weak side but a bit more solid than the first couple of seasons.

 

[Chubb]

Not bad for a 20-year-old

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Shame he can't bowl.

 

[Flem274*]

...ben lister plays test cricket in this version?

 

[Chubb]

...ben lister plays test cricket in this version?

Yeah. So do Michael Rae and Matt Bacon.

This is an Otago game and sadly Nathan Smith didn’t amount to much. But my Zim team is stronger than the other one I talked about. Not significantly, but Jakachira is the best Zim regen I’ve seen so far.

 

[MrPrez]

Have enjoyed playing ICC 2018 for the past week or so after discovering that the title was still ongoing.

Feels identical to the 2007 version I played back in the day, just with updated players and one or two minor QoL improvements... but still fun.

I still feel like there's a large market waiting for a higher-quality cricket management game, a'la Football Manager, particularly in the sub-continent.

Have felt like everything from Cricket Captain to Battrick and FTP could have really got a lot bigger if they'd made a bigger push in Asia.

 

[Chubb]

An epic career

 

[MrPrez]

Had a save as South Africa where we had a bunch of talented batsmen who showed huge potential and then never lived up to it.

Pretty realistic.

Then again, my best player was a spin bowler who averaged over 7 wickets a match and outperformed the likes of Rabada, so maybe not...

 

[bryce]

An epic career

View attachment 24585

Very impressive! What year are you in and what are you rated in the formats? Have you had any allrounders?