I'd actually given up on ever finding a GOOD rugby management game, but I'm actually really enjoying this. Basically it's not Football Manager but it's a fantastic first effort, assuming it is a first effort because it basically Pro Rugby Manager remade to a large degree, but it's simply vastly improved in most areas.
The game seems pretty basic though:
1) Buy a 5 star agent!
2) sack all your coaches / staff and replace them with 5 star coaches - burns up your £2m budget! Then get a coaching set up similar to this:
With regards to the Dev Pot coaches, try and get their positions, to have 2 of them forwards and 2 of them as backs. Lock, Flankers and Wingers are very useful as you have 2 of each type on a 15 man team so it gives you a better spread.
3) stick all the players in your squad below national level on the transfer list, and all your foreign players.
4) buy the final Stadium improvement on the facilities screen to increase revenue by 15% (it pays for itself).
5) dump all the colts below national standard and scout for new ones.
6) pick your pre-season friendlies, had Zebre / Treviso / Bath and Toulon at home this season =)
I am enjoying the sound effects from Star Trek Birth of the Federation though, nice to hear them again.
Lots of things to fix on the game, but still it's a fantastic first effort by any standards.
There are some huge problems that occur though as you progress further into the game, firstly you have far too many players bearing in mind you don't need to rotate anyone, and injuries and suspensions are rare so at most you need 25 players in a squad. International periods are also not really a problem, because at that point I simply sign the weakest players I can, with stars or personality traits, and stick them on the bench, then sell them again as soon as the internationals come back.
As a result of this if you simply sell off the excess players you have millions in the bank. Using this money you can easily upgrade your facilities, if you have a successful first season then your facilities are basically fully upgraded going into the early part of the second season. I'm not sure if this is a part of the game or not, but maybe in future versions of the game, each season technology could advance in a certain area, so everyone loses one star of a random facility area, meaning that once your fully upgraded that part of the game still requires investment.
Secondly a glaring problem, is if you hire 4 x Dev Pot (developing potential) coaches, as this gives you 100% training quality at the bottom of the Training / players screen.
The players stay in the Colts for between 1 and 2 years, depending on weather their aged 17 or 18. As they train over the course of the season the Grey bar on the Contracts / Colts contracts screen increases, as the player trains and plays. I also found it seems to help if a particular Dev Pot coach specialises in a position that any players also in that position seem to get a boost in their education.
Going back to what I about facilities, the problem is once you upgrade everything and hire better coaches you churn out Colt level players that are vastly better than whats in your team.
I think you can see what basically happens by the second season, you pushing through 12 young players a season that are better than whats in your squad. So you end up like this (basically 7 of my first 15 are now kids and 2 of my subs are also kids, bearing in mind this does not include World Class level players as their still in the academy!):
Looking at my team half of them are 18/19 years old and have already superseded my original squad, they have been sold off, hence why I have so much money by season three. Not only that but I just wiped the floor with Toulon at home by 30-0, which really shouldn't be happening considering it's the worlds most expensive team against a load of Swansea lads who are aged between 18/20!
Like I said a fantastic first effort for the game, but nationalities need to be sorted out and also the junior sections, because at the moment, anyone with half a brain by the third season has an invincible team.