United (game)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

United is the post game simulation of a soccer league. The game was invented by the Englishman Alan Parr in the 1970s and quickly spread to the postal game scene. The game is still very popular today, but it is now often played via a donation via email. There are currently no automatic evaluation programs like Diplomacy , but very well developed programs that support a human game master. In January 2007 there were over 50 different United League systems in Germany with over 1,000 players. Along with Diplomacy and its variants, United is probably the most widely played postal game at the moment (if you mean games that existed as postal games before the spread of e-mail).

Every player is the manager of a soccer team. The team consists of at least 11 players, who are mainly characterized by their playing position (attack, midfield, defense, clean-up, goalkeeper) and strength points. Because it's nicer, the players have names chosen by the manager.

The game is played in rounds, in each round two 'game days' are usually simulated in which the teams play against each other according to certain rules. Since a team can consist of more than 11 players, it is the responsibility of the managers to submit a team line-up for each game day, whereby the home team still receives a few points 'home advantage', which can be divided among the players as required. As in real life, you can also increase the hardness of your players, which in turn increases the risk of yellow or red cards or penalties. Depending on the result of the game, the manager then receives strength points that he can use to train his team and income that he can use to buy players. At the end of each round there is the player market, where players can be bought, sold or traded with one another as desired.

The game is played in seasons, so that within one season, as in 'real' life, each team has played each other twice. Unlike in real football, the leagues usually only consist of 12 teams, so a season ends after 11 rounds. With a four-week cycle, this corresponds to almost a year. Another difference to real football is that the previous rule continues to apply, according to which there are only two points for a win. The reason for this is that the game balance would otherwise be disturbed because the strategy "storming" would have a higher point expected value compared to the other strategies.

It is of course the aim of every manager to be champion at the end of a season or to move up to the next higher league.

United leagues can be found in many PBM zines , depending on the taste of the game master, the individual games are not only presented with their bare result, but there is often a kind of short report of the game.

Since this is a so-called eternal game, you can always find free teams that you can take over.

Web links