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And related to that, how common are bot promotions from D4 to D3? I won my conference but won't win the finals, and I was expecting #2 on the other side to promote, if anyone. Do I need to pack my bags?

This season's going to be odd since teams in II that went bot have been replaced by new users, so there are going to be fewer promotions to III available that way. Basically, the number of bot promotions from 4 to 3 will be the number of bots in I and II at the time relegation is processed, plus the number of bots in 3 that don't relegate otherwise. Usually someone goes through in the USA forum and counts those up, but I would expect that this season promotion to III may be pretty difficult to get without winning a title.

teams in II that went bot have been replaced by new users

How could this happen? I thought new teams always start at the lowest level for a given nation, is this incorrect?

teams in II that went bot have been replaced by new users

How could this happen? I thought new teams always start at the lowest level for a given nation, is this incorrect?

That was certainly the case and my reaction was pretty much the same as yours. At some point this season, it changed so new users were given the option to sign up for a higher, medium, or lower level league, though they can't be put into I if a lower option exists. The new users are "encouraged' not to choose the higher level option, though I don't know how precisely that was done since I haven't attempted to sign up for a team recently.

EDIT: Disregard what I wrote bellow, for some reason I was convinced you were talking about Utopia. Maybe because my whole day was full of Utopia related stuff. So, to clarify, we have a new "feature": the ability to choose (loosely) the preferred starting level for new teams. It's no secret, just didn't have a good opportunity to announce it yet. So, new teams in D2 and D3? Yes, from now on a normal thing. And yeah, this will reduce the number of bot promotions, but I doubt those teams will stay up there long. They were warned.

There shouldn't be any new teams in higher divisions, are you sure about this? Any examples?

EDIT: This part is still true:
Also, the relegation playout stays the same, there's no problems with it. Only the finals will be affected.

Last edited by BB-Marin at 04/14/2015 13:09:33

Sorry if I stepped across some line I didn't know was there and revealed something you didn't want revealed.

Edited to say that I wonder how the player who would have been promoted due to his good work, but will now not be promoted because some new player was handed a team fresh out of the egg, will like this change. Is it that important to try to attract new players by handing them teams above the lowest level?

Last edited by Mike Franks at 04/14/2015 13:57:15

I guess that depends on whether or not you consider bot-promoting to being doing good work. Personally, I don't, but I'm sure others think it is a reward for being not quite good enough to actually earn the promotion.

From the threads where this suggestion seems to have come from, I think the original idea was as much, if not more, about allowing teams in micro nations to be able to choose to start in lower leagues rather than being forced to start in D.II or even D.I and be at a considerable handicap. In those cases, it has often been the case that a new user would join, realize they have no hope of competing because they lack everything a team needs at the league level they are placed in, so leave. Now they at least get a partial season of competing against mostly bots before they might end up being bot-promoted up themselves.

As Marin said, you can expect that most of the new users who choose to start in a higher league in the larger countries will be relegating down on their own merits. So a new user joining with a D.II team really isn't going to impact D.III promotion, but it will remove the cascading impact which a bot would have had on D.IV and D.V.