How to book and succeed as a small promotion? Any good guides?

[Vocalite]

I'm playing as UEW in a new game, and I am having a terrible time. The game started fine, as I was booking at my best and making the ranks go up. But then, the numbers went down for everything. The "Wrestling Industry" plummeted to about 3/100 and economy to 25/100. Despite all my best efforts, I kept hemorrhaging money on every show, knocking me down from 250k to about 50k now. No sponsors, no progress. I dropped from 24th in the rankings and now I am at 36th with no hope of getting past 30th. To top it all off, any main eventers that I build up get hoovered up by any company with space, by ludicrous amounts like 7,200$ Written deals with 20% bonus for people who are worth 4,000$. So, my show numbers stay down and I am locked into place firmly in a cycle of building people up and losing them. It's an awful process and I have no idea how to beat it.

 

So TL;DR this game is ****ing railroading me. Does anyone know of some beginner's guides or general ones to follow so this is a bit easier?

[Matt_Black]

I'm playing as UEW in a new game, and I am having a terrible time. The game started fine, as I was booking at my best and making the ranks go up. But then, the numbers went down for everything. The "Wrestling Industry" plummeted to about 3/100 and economy to 25/100. Despite all my best efforts, I kept hemorrhaging money on every show, knocking me down from 250k to about 50k now. No sponsors, no progress. I dropped from 24th in the rankings and now I am at 36th with no hope of getting past 30th. To top it all off, any main eventers that I build up get hoovered up by any company with space, by ludicrous amounts like 7,200$ Written deals with 20% bonus for people who are worth 4,000$. So, my show numbers stay down and I am locked into place firmly in a cycle of building people up and losing them. It's an awful process and I have no idea how to beat it.

 

So TL;DR this game is ****ing railroading me. Does anyone know of some beginner's guides or general ones to follow so this is a bit easier?

 

First off, regarding finances, what are your production values set at? What are you spending, if anything, on backstage perks?

[Vocalite]

First off, regarding finances, what are your production values set at? What are you spending, if anything, on backstage perks?

 

No backstage perks at all, Just have no drugs or smoking allowed. Production is at Semi-Pro/Volunteers/Amateur/Generic and I am still behind VWA by 1 for broadcast quality. I am being very reasonable for my expenses, I just have fans dropping like flies and my popularity dipping throughout the whole europe to F- levels. I already failed my goal to not drop below 26th. That wrestling industry meter really kills you if you are super small.

[spiffyone]

Just as in real life (or what passes for it), you're going to be locked in that "build up stars, see them poached, build up stars, rinse, lather, repeat" cycle for a while. The length of time "stuck" there depends on what the starting finances are and which area you're in (I had an easier time growing IPW to regional than I did FREEDOM) and if you're product matches the trends found in the base area of the promotion.

 

Looking things over, UEW matches the European market's desire for realism and pure wrestling, but not mainstream. That's an issue right there that you were able to overcome in a hotter market, but once the area's economy and market for wrestling plummeted that issue was bound to rear it's ugly head. And it looks like you hit a bad roll in terms of the random market crash.

 

You either have to slog through it, weathering the aforementioned cycle until better days come around...or just start over and hope for a better bit of luck.

Maybe if your early booking success raised your value, you can quit and get hired by another company. Or start your own.

[RatedRKO16]

I can't remember the exact terms so I apologize. But there is a wrestling industry rating and an "economy" rating. If both of those are bad and/or falling, this could be why you're having issues. If you want to turn this off, I believe its under industry effects. They can be killer for small companies.