Running Your Company

Hiring Workers
To hire workers, view the person in question (whether from their profile or the main workers screen) and click Negotiate. If they are unavailable, unable, or unwilling to negotiate they will tell you so at this point to save you wasting your time on offers that can't possible succeed.

Generally speaking, you will want to hire workers that fit your company's product. For example, if you are a company that is based around strong in-ring performances then you're unlikely to get much value out of a deathmatch wrestler with poor basics and psychology.

When making an offer you will wee the worker's estimated value at the top of the screen. This is based on their stats and is universal (i.e. it doesn't differ from company to company). Workers may end up wanting more money than their estimated value; this could be because they are simply greedy, aren't keen on your company, are responding to a booming economy, or just feel like they can gouge you for a few extra dollars. Once you make an offer the worker will remember it, so you can't simply find an acceptable figure and then 'work backwards' to the cheapest option.

Note that you will not be expected to make a downside offer on a 'pay per appearance' contract if you are a Medium or smaller company. Big companies will generally be expected to offer three times the contract amount, Large four times, and Titanic four and a half times.

Once you have made an offer the worker will go away to think about it. The time it takes for them to get back to you depends on the importance of the worker in regard to the size of your company and whether or not he or she has other offers to consider.

Workers And Contract Offers
A worker will review all contract offers that they receive in the same way (whether it came from a human or AI controlled company does not make any difference to the calculation). This involves them first rejecting any that are not attractive enough, then calculating the value of all the remaining offers and accepting the one that rates highest.

When we talk of the value of the contract, that does not mean that it's simply a financial rating (although obviously the amount they're likely to make is very important!). Workers will take into account many different factors, including the security that the offer represents (workers will tend to prefer guaranteed money and long-term security), the size and prestige of the company, their relationship with the owner, booker, and locker room, the broadcasting capabilities of the company, etc.

If the worker is rating a contract offer from a company they already work for (i.e. a contract extension offer) then they will also take into account their current situation: this includes their morale and how they've been used recently.

If you wish to see how your offer stacks up to others, simply click Negotiate again and you can see how the worker is currently feeling.

Firing Workers
To fire / release a worker (both terms mean the same thing in TEW) you need to go to your company's Roster screen and select the person in question. To the right you will see the popularity quick view section - click the arrows on either side of the heading and you will be taken to the contract quick view. A button marked Release will be visible underneath the contract text.

Whether you have to pay a fee or not depends entirely on the worker's current contract terms. If they're under a written contract then you'll need to pay off up to a maximum of six months of their remaining contracted time. Note that you can always release someone for free if they have chosen to sit out their contract as they are breaching the terms. Note that your company's owner can block you from releasing anyone who is protected by a specific owner goal.

You should note that releasing someone can impact the morale of other people on the roster, both for good (if they were unpopular) or bad (friends and family). Whether someone cares enough to change their morale depends on their personality and relationship to the person being released. You will usually get a message from workers who feel strongly about the proposed release via a pop-up when you press the Release button (but before you confirm the action).

Releasing a worker usually means that they will not be willing to return to the company for one year (whereas if they leave because of contract expiry they will not take it personally and will usually be perfectly willing to come back again).

The Perception System
Each worker on every roster, regardless of what role(s) they play, is given a Perception rating. This is updated at the start of every show the company runs (new signings do not get a perception rating until their first show due to the fans not having seen them yet). The Perception rating is a measure of how the fans see them in terms of their importance within the company. It is important as the workers take it into consideration in many calculation, such as who they are willing to lose to, how often they can be left off shows, etc.

Perception is calculated as follows. First the worker's popularity rating is created; this is the average of their popularity in the company's home region and any other region in which the company has 5r or more popularity AND is not more than 6 points of popularity less than that of the home region (in other words, it's basically all the regions of current importance to the company). This score is then modified by their current momentum - high momentum increases it (up to 20% for White Hot), low momentum lowers it (by up to 25% for Ice Cold).

Secondly, the company popularity rating is created; this uses the exact same calculation method as the worker's version.If the worker's rating is greater than the company's rating + 6 then they are considered a Major Star; greater or equal to 90% of the company's rating and they are a Star; greater or equal to 75% and they are Well Known; greater or equal to 50% and they are Recognisable; if they achieve none of those then they are Unknown.

You don't need to worry about remembering any of these figures - as this is all automated you have no reason to know the exact figures, you can simply book as normal and know that people will end up in the category that their popularity dictates.

The Momentum System
Each worker has a momentum score within any company that they are employed by. This is a measure of how they're currently doing in terms of booking. It affects many things, such as their Perception rating, the level of popularity growth or decline that they're eligible for when taking part in segments, morale, etc. In general terms it goes up through wins, impressive performances, and successes in angles, and goes down with losses, poor performances, and reversals in angles.

There are actually two systems at work here, long term and short term momentum. Long term momentum is the value you can see when you look at the character in your roster or on the booking screens. Short term momentum is hidden and is much more volatile - it does not take much to make it jump up or down quite dramatically.

The two systems are interlinked in that the long term momentum always (slowly) head towards the short term value. This means that the long term momentum, being less volatile, gives a good idea of how the worker has been treated over many shows, but is influenced by what has happened recently.

Note that poor momentum can get reset to neutral by a particularly good gimmick change, simulating a 'reboot' of the character.

Turning Workers
To turn a worker from babyface /tecnico to heel /rudo (or the reverse) view the worker in the Roster screen and click the line of text in their status box that tells you their current disposition (if your company does not use dispositions then, naturally, you cannot prepare a turn) and click Prepare Turn.

This screen will give you warnings if you are trying to turn a wrestler too soon since their last turn. You should always try and avoid turning a worker too soon as the turn will be heavily penalized otherwise. The amount of time that you need to wait between turns will differ from worker to worker and depends on how many shows that company has run since the original turn (chronological time passed does not matter).

Once you've prepared a turn then every time the worker appears on-screen they will be considered to be foreshadowing / hinting at their upcoming turn. You will receive occasional on-screen messages telling you how this is going. If you do little or no foreshadowing (e.g. less than three segments) before trigger a turn then it is considered a 'shock turn'; if you do too many shock turns within a short period of time then the fans will get bored of them and each further shock turn will get penalized.

To actually turn the worker fully, simply book them in a segment where they appear on-screen and give them the Turn road agent note and you will be able to trigger the change via the buttons at the bottom of the screen when that segment plays. There is no special skill or randomness to a successful turn - as long as you avoid any penalties (i.e. for it being too soon, too many shock turns in short period of time, etc) then it will automatically be a success.

Why turn workers? Mainly it is to open up a new set of opponents to work with an / or to coincide with a gimmick change. However, there is never a requirement to turn someone - there are no penalties for being a specific disposition long-term, and a worker could happily spend their entire career just as one disposition or the other.

The Gimmick System
You can see a worker's current gimmick and rating by looking at them in the roster screen and viewing the status box; clicking this line of text generates a pop-up where you can see the information in more detail, including any associated pros and cons that the gimmick has created. The gimmick rating is important as if it is high then the worker can get bonuses in any segment they are in, while if it is low then they get penalties.

To prepare a gimmick change go to the pop-up screen mentioned above and click the Prepare button (you can also adjust and cancel prepared gimmick changes from here). The on-screen notes describe how the different elements affect the gimmick change. Note that when you sign a new worker they will automatically prepare their default gimmick for use (if they have one).

If a worker is debuting, going from having no gimmick to possessing one, or has an unrated gimmick then their prepared gimmick change will automatically happen the next time they are on-screen. For everybody else (i.e. people changing from one gimmick to another), you will be able to manually trigger the prepared gimmick change the next time they appear on-screen by using the buttons at the bottom of the screen when viewing the segment.

When a gimmick change happens the gimmick gets an initial rating, pros and cons (these depend on the gimmick basis and have an element of randomness - not every gimmick change will generate them), and some hidden information, namely the lifespan of the gimmick, how often you can tweak it, and its maximum and minimum rating. Over time, the gimmick rating will rise until it reaches the maximum level, then pause for a while, then descend down to the minimum. This is the life cycle of all gimmicks. You will get on-screen hints during shows as to where in the life cycle the gimmick is.

Every gimmick has a random number (between 1 and 10) of potential tweaks. To tweak a gimmick, visit the pop-up gimmick screen again and use the Tweak button at the bottom. Tweaking a gimmick means that you're slightly changing it - this refreshes its life span slightly so that it lasts longer and mildly adjusts the rating and hidden maximum and minimum values by a random amount. This allows you to effectively 'refresh' the gimmick, meaning you can keep the current rating and pros and cons for longer than normal without needing to do a whole new gimmick. Choosing when to tweak a gimmick is down to your judgement - do it too soon and you waste a tweak, do it too late and the gimmick may already be in steep decline.

The Morale System
A worker's morale is calculated by looking at all the existing morale incidents that are currently active and involve them. Each of these incidents is considered either positive or negative and has a (hidden) duration. As the duration decreases over time the incident becomes less and less powerful, eventually disappearing. Generally speaking, they work in order of severity - so a really severe negative outweighs multiple minor positives.

The severity of a morale incident and its duration depends entirely on the type of incident and the context of when it happened and to whom. The same incident may affect two different workers in two different ways. All workers, if given enough time, will return to neutral.

To view the incidents currently affecting a worker's morale, view them in the Roster screen and click the line of text describing their current morale level; the incidents are listed to the right of the pop-up screen that follows.

If a worker has negative morale there are several ways to try and address this. For example, you could give them bonuses or time off (you can do this from the same pop-up screen mentioned above), hire friends or family, or book them particularly strongly.

Growing Your Company
The first step in growing your company is to check the Size section of the Office; this will tell you the criteria for moving to the next level. Your popularity in the various regions is all that matters with regard to company size, there are no requirements for having a certain amount of money or specific production values - although, of course, if you have no money or are poorly set up then you'll naturally struggle to rise anyway.

You gain popularity through running shows and achieving a strong final rating. Generally speaking, if the show's final rating was 5 or more above the company's popularity in a region in which it was held or shown then the company will gain popularity in that region. Getting more than 7.5, 10, or 12.5 points higher can bring even greater gains. Note that companies with 90 or greater popularity are a special case and they only need to match or exceed the region's popularity to achieve gains.

The amount of gain on offer depends on the size of the broadcast coverage being used in each region (the region hosting the show is automatically considered to have a minimum level), with additional bonuses or penalties depending on the current level of the wrestling industry in that area. Note that a company has a maximum amount of popularity gain per region per month, with the limit based on their current size, and is also restricted by the audience size (the audience being the people in attendance plus those watching a broadcast) so that you cannot gain popularity past a certain point if the audience is too small to warrant a gain (see Natural Growth Limits in the Options section for more details).

Low show ratings can cause popularity drops. If the wrestling industry is particularly low then you can lose popularity if the show rating was less than the popularity in the region, otherwise you will lose increasing amounts of popularity only if your final rating is more than 5, 7.5, or 10 points lower. The amount of loss, like the amount of gain, depends on the broadcast coverage level of the show in each region.

It is important to remember that if you are running a show whose intent is different from Normal then this impacts your popularity gain / loss abilities. This works by applying a modifier to your final show rating for the purposes of the above calculations. For example, a Throwaway show alters the final rating by 36 each way (i.e. if you got a final rating of 50 then it's considered to be 14 for the gain calculations and 86 for the loss calculations, meaning it'd be very difficult for you to gain or lose anything). Lesser shows use 12 as the figure, Tour shows use 24.

Utilizing Merchandising
You can view your company's current merchandising level via the Merchandise section of the office. For more detail on how this section works, please see the Merchandising part of the Companies section of this handbook.

For larger companies in particular, selling merchandise can be a very important revenue stream as it's effectively guaranteed money each month. For the company-specific merchandise, your revenue is directly proportional to your popularity and the amount of fans you can bring to live shows, so the bigger you are and the better attended your shows, the more money you make.

For the worker-specific merchandise there are several factors at play. First and foremost there is the worker's popularity (either worldwide or in the company's home area depending on the quality of the merchandise operation), this is used to calculate a 'base' rate. This is then modified by whether they are a face or heel (if the company uses them; heels sell much less merch than faces), their Charisma and Star Quality, their current momentum, whether they are the company's figurehead, whether they are an active wrestler or not, whether they've been seen recently (i.e. if they're out injured or aren't being used they sell less), their gimmick effects (if any), and their attributes (if any apply).

Finding a worker who can sell a lot of merchandise can be a real benefit to the company, particularly when you're at the level of major companies and superstars as the figures can be very high. It can often be financially very beneficial to keep a big merchandise seller babyface, with high momentum and strongly booked, in order to maximize the income you receive from them.

Where To Hold Shows
There are three main factors in deciding where to hold shows: your company's growth, when you were last seen in each region, and being eligible for certain area or regional battles.

For your company growth, you would need to consult the Size section of your office. This will tell you what regions you need to build up to reach the next level (or not lose popularity in to avoid dropping a level!).

The Size screen also tells you when you were last seen in each region. If you are not seen for a lengthy period of time (ranging from 14 weeks if you have less than 50 popularity to 1 month for 90 or greater) then your popularity there will start decaying. Therefore you should try and be seen (whether in person with an event, tv show, or house show, or by being broadcast there) in regions that are important to you fairly often to avoid losing hard-earned popularity. If you are Medium or above, you will receive penalties to your event attendances if you run too many shows in the same region within a short space of time (twenty eight days), to simulate the fans getting burned out.

Sometimes you may wish to avoid certain regions to avoid being sucked into battles. Normally this only applies to regional battles. For example, if there is a powerful rival in another region who you know would beat you in a regional battle then you may wish to avoid holding shows there, thus avoiding going head-to-head with them.

Minimum Roster Size
Ever company has a minimum roster size. This is the number of active in-ring wrestlers (not including occasional wrestlers) it must have on its roster to avoid looking amateurish in the eyes of the fans. You can see the current number via your assistant's notes in the office screen.

If you run a show where you fail to meet the minimum roster size then you will receive a small penalty to your popularity levels.

The minimum number is initially based on the company's size (Insignificant companies have no minimum) but this can be altered by the size and make-up of any brand split the company has.

Wrestlers count towards the total if they are under contract and are using the Wrestler role (Occasional Wrestler does not count). It does not matter what type of contract they are under, their current status (i.e. injured workers still count), or whether they are actually used on a show.

Please be sure to note that the figures used for this are NOT the same as the minimums shows in the Estimated Roster Size in the editor - the figures used there are only about the number of wrestlers to hire and fire.