Football Premium leagues have a number of rules or settings that can be customized.
By default, leagues play one full game per day; this can be increased, or decreased by playing only every other day. Higher speed leagues will have higher subscription fees. We do not recommend attempting more than 4 games per day.
The preseason can run on a different schedule from the rest of the season. For example, the preseason can be set to run at two games per day while the rest of the season runs one game per day.
There are four common schedules in use, with quarters three hours apart; a league can choose one of these schedules or a custom schedule.
By default, preseason games will have overtime available; a league can choose to skip OT for the preseason.
The default quarter length is set at 15 minutes. 15 minutes is the maximum quarter length but shorter lengths can be configured.
By default, extra point (PAT) attempts are spotted at the 2 yard line; a league may choose a different line to kick from.
By default, two point conversions are allowed; however, they can be disabled. Leagues may set the line at which two-point conversion attempts are spotted (the default is the 2 yard line) and whether or not the defense may return a failed two-point conversion to score two points.
By default, all new leagues start in the year 1960; however, a new league can be started in any year. No matter which year is selected, the first Sim Bowl will be Sim Bowl I. So if, for example, a new league wanted Sim Bowl numbers to match up with NFL Super Bowl numbers, they could choose a start year of 1966.
There are currently 75 cities/locations available in the game, all of which have had professional football at some point in their history (NFL, USFL, UFL, AFL, Arena Football League, WFL, or the Canadian Football League). However, some leagues may want to restrict city options to cities/locations with more football history. Cities are arranged into "tiers", and a league can select which tier is available to their owners.
Tier 0 consists of the current NFL cities:
Tier 1 includes all the cities from Tier 0 and adds the Los Angeles cities that had NFL football in the recent past:
Tier 2 includes all of the cities above and adds cities from the USFL and the UFL:
Tier 3 includes all of the cities above and adds some locations that were once in the NFL or AFL (prior to 1960), the WFL, and selected locations from Arena Football and Arena Football 2:
Tier 4 includes all of the cities above and adds the current Canadian Football League locations:
A Premium league may choose to hide improvements rather than displaying them.
By default, skills are displayed as grade levels, with + or - to narrow down the ranges. Skills may also be displayed as numbers from 0-100 or as grade levels without + or - modifiers.
By default, owners may trade draft picks up to 3 seasons ahead; this may be adjusted.
The default trade deadline is Week 6; this may be set to any week.
By default, players must spend 1 full week on the waiver wire before they clear waivers; this can be adjusted for higher speed leagues.
The default depth chart minimum rating of 44 can be adjusted; in addition, the positions that are eligible for each depth chart may be customized (for example, if a league wanted to allow RB's to play the offensive line).
There are five name change rules available. The default is rule #0.
Injuries may be adjusted in two ways: in the rate of injuries and the percentage of injuries that are loss-time injuries as opposed to just injuries within a game. The defaults are:
The default salary cap is 128,000; this can be adjusted. The salary cap can be effectively disabled by setting this to a high number like 1,000,000.
The incidence of inclement weather can be increased or decreased.
By default, kickoffs are from the 30 yard line; they can be adjusted from the 20 to the 40.
By default, single season leagues have an offday between the Conference Playoffs and the Sim Bowl; Premium Leagues usually don't have this offday. (Note that the offday always exists in the simulation, i.e. players will rest and heal injuries as if they had an offday. This rule adjusts whether the sim stops for a day for the owners.)
One or more offdays can be added between the draft and the beginning of the preseason, or the length of the preseason can be shortened from 4 games to 3, 2, 1, or no preseason at all. However, these two options cannot be combined.
By default, the Sim Bowl is held at a neutral location within the league with the best weather. The available settings are:
By default, college players declare for the draft in Week 4. (Technically, they don't actually declare until the college season is over, but they make their intentions known by Week 4.) This allows the draft class to be filled in time for owners' Bye weeks so they can evaluate the draft talent on their Bye week. This week can be adjusted.