[CONN CHRIS]

I have had two requests over the weekend for a set of rules governing my REC universe (reported on in the Glasgow Picayune thread down in 'Between the Ropes'). To me, that's a landslide of interest, so I thought that I would start a thread on the subject before the long, clamoring line adds a third person.

This will not be as detailed as Mike's thread with respect to setting a universe up but will focus more on using the game to administer a large universe. Hopefully, a few people will pick up an idea that they can use. I know that I got lots of ideas from looking at what other folks were doing.

My universe currently has more than 8,000 active fighters broken into 5 geographical areas with a world title, five regional titles and 45 minor titles for each of the 17 weight divisions. I use the scheduler to do most of the work rather than a spreadsheet. The only pieces of paper that I use are the attached excel sheet for regional play months and a ranking sheet for international play months but more on that later.

Here is what I will cover:

1) Initial set up (no where near as detailed as Mike's great thread)
- New database
- Building a base of experienced stiffs
- Regions, countries and venues
- Aging
2) Regional play
- Regional and minor title fight scheduling
- Detailed use of the scheduling filters
3) International play
- World title fights
- Match-ups
4) Introduction of rookies
- Selection
- fighter file export, import and set-up
5) Maintenance issues
- Performance points
- watching for stragglers
6) Other
- Whatever may come to mind or be asked as I go through this.

I hope to hit item one sometime today, perhaps more if time permits.