Your First Retro Bowl Season: Takeover, Settings and Year One

You arrive in a season that is already going badly

A new Retro Bowl career does not start in week one. After the short tutorial, the game tells you that you have taken charge of your team near the end of a difficult season, with just enough games left to learn the controls before the next one begins. Treat those games as practice. The record they leave behind is not what the owner or the fans will judge you on; the next full season is.

Before you pick a team, the game itself gives a piece of advice worth reading twice: you can start with your favorite franchise, but the story of your career will be a simple one. Its suggestion is to start at a low-ranked team and earn the offer from your favorite team later. Job offers from other teams can arrive after year 2, so this is a real plan, not just flavour text.

Settings to check before your first snap

A few options change how the whole career plays, and they are easier to set now than to change halfway through:

• Difficulty. The choices are Dynamic, Easy, Medium, Hard and Extreme. Dynamic gets harder when you win and easier when you lose. Extreme makes every opponent play with a 5-star rating, whatever its real rating is.
• Quarters. Quarter length is an option. It also decides whether you get 2 or 3 time outs per half.
• Drive direction. If you aim passes with your right hand, the game suggests setting the drive direction to Left so your hand does not cover the field. Left-handed players should pick Right.
• Star players. By default you can have up to 10 key players under the salary cap. The options let you raise the limit to 12 key players with a $200m salary cap.

The calendar of year one

The league has 32 teams split into two conferences, each with East, West, North and South divisions. The regular season runs 18 weeks: 17 games plus one bye week. A few dates on that calendar matter more than the rest:

When	What happens
Before the season	The rookie draft: 3 rounds, 1 pick per round, with a limited number of players you can scout.
Week 8	The trade deadline. After it you can only cut players, not trade them, until next season. Free agents can still be signed.
Bye week	A choice of where to spend the week: the team, the media, the owner or your coaching staff.
Season end	Playoffs for the division leaders and wild cards, then a fan poll rates your team's season.

What to watch week to week

When the tutorial opens your roster, it says you do not need to manage the entire squad, only the key players. On each profile, watch two numbers. Morale matters because poor morale can lead to game penalties and trouble off the field. Condition matters because low condition can lead to injury and fumbles. Players tire more as the season goes on, older players lose more energy during a game, and resting a tired player boosts his morale. If you rotate a starter out for one game around midseason, that often matters more than any upgrade.

Coaching credits are not cash. The game describes them as kudos: the respect you have from the owner, the team and the fans. You spend them on facilities, staff, meetings and boosts. A facility can be upgraded only once a week, and facilities slowly decline, so plan to spend steadily across the season rather than all in the first week.