Your Office

Your Personal Assistant
Your PA is there to give you important information and to provide warnings on problem areas within your company. You can find the report on the left hand side of the screen. Please be aware that for almost all the reports you can simply click the text to quick jump to the section in question.

Company Info
The Company Info screen is where you can change basic information about your group, such as its name or logo. From here, you can also move your base region. This can only be done once every five years. In most games you will not want to do this as it means your size criteria change and you can cause a loss of size.

Roster
The Roster screen is likely going to be your most used screen in the entire game. From here you can control just about everything to do with your roster.

The key part of this screen is probably the Status box. This displays context-specific information on the worker, such as their perception, momentum, morale, etc. For most of these pieces of text you can click on them to access a pop-up window where you can make changes.

For example, clicking on their perception will take you to the generic alteration screen where you can change their name, manager, division, etc. Click on their disposition, if you're using them, will allow you to set up turns. Clicking their gimmick gives you access to all the various gimmick-related tools.

Note that most of the roster screens are context specific, so the list of buttons (Talk To Worker, Negotiate, etc) will alter depending on whether you are the booker of this company or not.

Product
The Product screen allows you to change your current settings. You will probably not be doing that very often, but the screen does allow you to check the pros and cons of your current set-up, which is very useful information to have.

You can change your product whenever you like, but you should note that it takes a certain amount of time for it to happen (this is to 're-educate' the fan expectations) - the duration of this depends on how great the difference is between your current product and the one you want to move to. If the change is considered significant (this will be shown onscreen) then your popularity growth is hampered until the change completes.

You may also change the Al Booking Style here. This affects how the auto booker will function for you, but is primarily there to be used if you leave the company. It has no bearing on your own booking and you are under no obligation to book in the way it suggests.

Size
The Size screen gives your current popularity and explains how you are doing in terms of meeting the various criteria. This is usually worth glancing at after each show to see how you are doing. You may also limit your size from this screen. This does not stop your popularity growing, it just artifically limits the size you can achieve. This can be useful if you want to stay ata smaller level so as not to incur greater running costs or get sucked into regional or national battles.

The Size screen also shows you when you last visited and were last seen in each region. When you last visited is purely for organisational purposes, it has no other direct impact on the game. When you were last seen is much more important; if you aren't seen in a region (whether by visiting it for a show - including house shows - or being broadcast there) for a lengthy period of time then the fans will forget you and your popularity there will decay. The time before this happens depends on your popularity, ranging from 14 weeks (if you have less than 50 popularity) to 1 month (for 90+ popularity). Once forgotten, you will bleed a small amount of popularity ever day until you are next seen there.

For information on how the company size system actually works, please see the Company Sizes section.

Events & TV
You can manage your schedule from the Events & TV screen. There are a couple of things to note. Firstly, if you remove an event then it is completely removed from the database - this means that you will lose any importance that it has. Generally you would want to simply change its status from active to inactive if you have an event with some importance behind it. Secondly, note that creating a TV show does NOT mean that it goes on air; you're simply creating a concept, you would need to negotiate with a broadcaster to then have it shown.

The Events & TV section of this handbook goes into more detail about how cards and TV shows work.

Titles
The Titles screen allows you to see all the championships and achievements that are attached to this company. Please be sure to note that by default you only see active titles - if you wish to look at inactive titles you must use the Search button to change the search parameters.

Creative
The creative meeting screen is primarily designed to give you a helping hand with identifying the best five members of your roster in each of several categories. A worker appearing in these categories does not gain any special benefit from being on the list. In addition, there is also a Hidden Gems section which looks at potential signings. This list is dependent on your current product and size, and so will change depending on what company you are using and what your current situation is.

In previous versions of TEW the Creative Meeting also had a Time Decline section that explicitly showed which of your workers were declining from the moment they decined. TEW2020's Time Decline works differently, in that instead of skills declining when a worker hits Time Decline, their stat caps decline instead. This makes it harder to spot as workers can still be improving their skills even in the Decline phase of their career and puts the power in the player's hands to spot when workers are no longer performing at their peak.

Tournaments
The user can make an unlimited number of elimination or round robin tournaments. These are purely for organisational purposes, there is no specific bonuses for winning (outside of the gains you'd get for a series of victories in any context), nor do the workers consider that they're in a tournament when it comes to agreeing to lose to other people.

Medical
The Medical part of the office lists all the employees who are currently absent (this includes non-medical reasons too, for ease of use).

Depending on how the injury has been set up in the database, the user may have the option to authorise surgery. The risk of this depends on the injury in question and is shown on screen. If surgery is successful the duration of the injury is reduced (by up to 75%!) and the lasting damage is also reduced. If surgery fails, the opposite happens.

Surgery cannot be performed if there are less than three weeks remaining until the injury naturally heals.

Promises
The Promises section of the office keeps track of all active promises that workers have made to you. Promises will occur either as a result of the user talking to a worker directly or because the worker came forward and volunteered.

Production Levels
The Production screen tracks your levels in the four key areas - Production Values, Live Event Experience, Broadcast Quality, and Music - as well as that of your rivals. There's no need to visit this screen very often as if your rivals do start to cause you problems then your Personal Assistant will be sure to warn you.

Falling below a rival's level in any of the four areas is bad as you will get penalised per show (the penalty is applied to your final show grade) for looking worse in comparison. The greater the disparity, the greater the penalty. For both Production Values and Broadcast Quality, the penalty would range from 3% (for being one level less) up to 7% (for being 3 or more levels worse). For both Live Event Experience and Music, the range is 2% to 6%. Irrespective of how many levels worse you are in how many areas, the total penalty can never exceed 1% of your final show grade. For Insignificant companies, rivals are companies of the same sze in the same region. Tiny companies are rivals with companies the same size or smaller in the same region. Small, Medium, and Big companies are rivals with companies of the same size or one size smaller in the same game area. Large and Titanic companies are rivals with all companies above Medium anywhere in the world.

The Al can adopt one of four strategies when it comes to competing with you (and others) on production levels: doing the bare minimum, matching their rivals, trying to outmuscle their rivals, or doing cost-cutting measures. The strategy they adopt depends on their owner's financial settings, their current size, their current finances, and whether they have lost money for a number of consecutive months..

Production Values Levels
The following is a list of the levels and costs associated with Production Values. They are primarily to aid database makers but can also act as a useful reference point for regular players.

Live Event Experience Levels
The following is a list of the levels and costs associated with Live Event Experience. They are primarily to aid database makers but can also act as a useful reference point for regular players.

Broadcast Quality Levels
The following is a list of the levels and costs associated with Broadcast Quality. They are primarily to aid database makers but can also act as a useful reference point for regular players.

Music Levels
The following is a list of the levels and costs associated with Music. They are primarily to aid database makers but can also act as a useful reference point for regular players.

Merchandising
Each company has a merchandising level from 1 to 10; the higher the level, the more money the company can make off its fans. You can access your company's level via the Merchandising section of the office. Here you will find the various income and expenditure values.

Merchandising falls into two categories, live event and mail order. Live event is selling directly to the people who attend a show. For example, Level 5 gives you around $3 per fan, so if your attendance is 100 then you can expect to make $300 that night. Mail order is selling to your wider fan base and is done on your popularity points in each region. For example, level 5 gives you $10 per popularity point, so if you have 30 popularity in London then you can expect to make E300 each month regardless of whether you hold a show there (or anywhere) that month. Values are approximate because the economy can affect revenue (both for good and bad) and so can audience boredom.

Upgrading from one level to the next requires a certain amount of time and money, with both increasing as the level gets higher. It intentionally takes a long time to go from level 1 to 10 to simulate having to put together a complex infrastructure.

It should be noted that, for ease of use, your merchandise profit is net, not gross; i.e. the costs are taken into consideration. Your merchandise expenditure each month is therefore limited just to the running costs (if any) described in the Merchandise section. Also, merchandising automatically includes the distribution of events via home video, DVD, and VOD - this was formerly a separate section in previous games. The type of distribution will depend on the time you are playing in, so you will not see DVDs if you're playing in 1975, for example.

Merchandising Levels
The following is a list of the levels, costs and revenues associated with Merchandising. They are primarily to aid database makers but can also act as a useful reference point for regular players.

Drug Testing
From the Drug Testing screen you can set your current level and also order specific Standard (the weaker kind) or Comprehensive (the more accurate kind) tests. The advantage of drug testing is to catch potential troubling issues before they grow into something worse. The disadvantage is that it costs money to run tests.

Please note that drug testing does not apply to house shows or Touring shows (otherwise the cost would be astronomical).

Developmental
The Developmental screen lists all the workers who your company currently has under a developmental contract. You may recall them (whether immediately or delayed) from this screen, after which they'll return to your main roster.

Child Companies
If you have one or more child companies then you can deal with them directly from the Child Companies screen. If you don't have any but wish to have them, you can either use the Investments screen to create one or you can try and takeover an existing company (by going to that company's profile and choosing Contact).

You may appoint a new CEO (i.e. the or head booker from this screen too. The CEO is generally just a figurehead as they have no real power given that you own the company. However, they will influence hiring decisions. The head booker is more important, as their booking skill will impact the child company's shows. Therefore you should look to appoint someone who is, at the very least, competent.

Alliances
From the Alliances part of the Office you can found a new alliance, attempt to join an existing one, or manage your membership if you already are a member.

Please see the Alliances section for a detailed look at what alliances are and how they work.

Talent Trades
As the name suggests, you can propose talent trades here. However, this will only be active if you have at least one eligible partner.

An eligible partner is a company who you have either agreed a talent trading agreement with or who is a fellow member of an alliance which allows talent trading.

If you wish to create a new talent trading agreement with a company then you should access the Relationships section of the Office to contact them and propose the idea.

Investments
From the Investments screen you can spend your company's cash on useful (and not so useful) purchases. Investing in new companies allows you to create a child company without the hassle of taking over an existing company, while making a training facility gives you access to cheap talent on a regular basis (as well as contributing to the health of the game world). Launching or upgrading your own broadcaster means that you're not at the mercy of other broadcasters and can air whatever you want, when you want.

Purchasing a retired title belt is generally only for vanity or storyline purposes, you won't be getting any return on that particular investment.

Creating your own venue helps keep costs down if you're intending to run a specific region on a regular basis, because the usual hiring cost for choosing that location is reduced by 4% from normal.