I realize there is a football manager 2013 thread already, but this is for football manager in general. After this thread, i hope there won't be more fm 14, fm 15, fm 16 or threads like that. I hope this will allow football fans and football manager fans to post more about this game
So what is this game about? It is basically what the title says, a game where you are the manager of a football club. This game is for anyone who's ever wanted to be a football manager, anyone who thought real managers were making mistakes and that they could correct them, and for football fans in general. One important thing about the game is that you cannot play the games. Instead it is simulated for you.
Tactics
There's basically an infinite number of tactics you can use in this game. The tried and true 4-4-2, the now popular 4-2-3-1, or even unorthodox tactics such as marcelo bielsa's 3-3-1-3. Along with formaitons, you can choose the playing style of you team. You can be a counterattacking team, a posession bases one, or something in between. There's also your passing style, fluidity, tactical roles, etc. Tactics are probably the most important thing in the game, and with bad tactics, even a team like bayern munich or barcelona will have bad results.
Training
With the new edition of football manager, the training aspect changed a bit. You can now on the calendar change what tactics you want to focus on for a specific team. There is also player training. If a player needs to be retrained to another position, or needs to learn a new move, or a specific attribute, its all there for you.
Transfers
Probably the most exciting part of the game. You can get players on the transfer market. However, this is harder than it seems. Most new players will probably want to get messi or ronaldo, but even with a lot of money, many talented players will refuse to move because of the stature of your club. But otherwise, its great to find wonderkids and cheap players with good attributes.
What club to choose?
This depends a lot on what you're looking for. When i first started, i just played barcelona because i simply wanted to win. Then eventually i started managing the national team of korea, and after that a few championship teams, ligue 2 teams, etc. For beginners, i'd suggest players try a "big" club first because you know the players and most of the players on the transfer market are available. Kind of hard to start with a club like Wimbledon, and you're like "who the f*** are these guys?"
I'm probably missing a few things, but i could add stuff later.
Anyways, I just hope that this thread will have discussions about the tactics, "brag" saves, and things like that.
Just to start the discussion, i'll ask a few questions.
Do you guys like the new version of the game? tbh, idk if i do. The match engine needed to be changed from the last version because the ball wouldn't move on the ground and barely rolled, but it feels like in this game, everything feels a bit too... slippery. Sometimes it feels like the players are one roller skates.
Also, does this game seem harder than ones past? I really feel like it does. My teams just sometimes can't buy a win even if they're very talented.
And for tactics, I've use the deep 4-2-3-1 with two defensive midfielders, but this tactic just never seems to work and the regular 4-2-3-1 with central midfielders seems to work a lot better. In both of these tactics, i've used one midfielders as a playmaker, and another one as a "destroyer."
Also, if you can read korean, fmkorea.net is an amazing site for football manager. This site is updated nearly everyday with transfer updates and things of that sore
Such an addictive and deep game. I haven't played FM13 because my usual strategy with yearly released sports games is to miss one or two years out...let them get some actually progress in development.
Put 450 hours into FM12 and 300 into FM11. Good times . Transfers is definitely the best stage. But I kind of feel like I am cheating myself if I don't play through the season properly. Which means, when you are playing with many many leagues the seasons go SO slowly!
I haven't played 2013 for the same reason as sc4k. I usually buy this game bi-yearly, so 2014 is the next one but I'm going to start playing 2012 again soon.
FM is too addictive. Currently playing as Bath City, in 2022 right now and just got them promoted to the premier league. Love playing lower league clubs and making something out of them.
On June 26 2013 19:29 Yuljan wrote: I normally play fifa manager instead of fm. What are the advantages fm has to offer? I tried it once and didnt like it much.
Well, i think in general, fm has more depth than fifa. fifa might look better than fm, so it could be better for less hardcore management gamers.
but then again, fm has a new mode that allows you to be a manager without some of the hassles of the traditional mode.
fifa has premier league license too, but idk, fm is still the much better game imo
I think you should have the poster of the first championship manager in the OP tazza. Made in 1992 it was the first of the series, since we won't make this thread an annual thing I think it'd be better this way, also for nostalgia, lol.
Btw, the main reason I don't like playing with a small team through many seasons trying to hit it big, is that I don't enjoy getting the "new" imaginary messi's/falcao's, there is no emotional connection with fantasy players if you know what I mean.
On June 26 2013 20:43 Steveling wrote: I think you should have the poster of the first championship manager in the OP tazza. Made in 1992 it was the first of the series, since we won't make this thread an annual thing I think it'd be better this way, also for nostalgia, lol.
Btw, the main reason I don't like playing with a small team through many seasons trying to hit it big, is that I don't enjoy getting the "new" imaginary messi's/falcao's, there is no emotional connection with fantasy players if you know what I mean.
Good idea Just updated the OP.
But yeah. i agree with the regens later in the game. I read about messi and all the other players on sports sites i visit everyday, and those articles show me weaknesses/strengths of a player, but you can't do that for regens in the game. But i do still enjoy managing small teams and raising them
Regens are my favorite part of the game, but I think they can do a lot better job at making them seem like real players. Letting them talk to press rather than just respond, that sort of thing. Let us maybe even see personal sponsors and image rights, let us even handle it to an extent (I think you should sign with soandso, that sort of thing) you never really feel like they are global superstars.
I really need a new PC for fm14 though, turns take ages on my phenom 4 when I get 10 years in
Focusing on youth development is always something I enjoyed doing, unfortunately there is also this one crap stat in a key area which stops regens from becoming the next Messi/Ronaldo. I hope this changes in future editions.
I should start playing this game more frequently. Just need to stop tinkering with tactics over the course of the season and let the players play, though.
But I still want to use some batshit crazy tactic since I generally try and take a non-league team to the premier league and beyond. And those 100-300 fans that show up each week deserve to be entertained (until I move up the ranks and need to actually be tactically responsible!).
On June 26 2013 21:52 hasuprotoss wrote: I should start playing this game more frequently. Just need to stop tinkering with tactics over the course of the season and let the players play, though.
But I still want to use some batshit crazy tactic since I generally try and take a non-league team to the premier league and beyond. And those 100-300 fans that show up each week deserve to be entertained (until I move up the ranks and need to actually be tactically responsible!).
This might be just on the mobile game, but I used this 4-1-2-1-2 tactic with 4 central midfielders and two strikers. This gave me a crazy amount of posession and was successful with it. Don't think it would be as successful on the real game though since there are no wingers in the tactic except for the wingbacks. Might work in really low leagues though haha
On June 26 2013 22:09 Ysellian wrote: @Tazza, you mean like this?: + Show Spoiler +
It's indeed a great way to control a game.
Yes, but just one thing. The wingbacks should be in line with the defensive mid so that they can add more width in attack. The wingback position is probably the most important position in this formation because they're responsible for a lot of defense and attack.
On June 26 2013 22:09 Ysellian wrote: @Tazza, you mean like this?: + Show Spoiler +
It's indeed a great way to control a game.
Yes, but just one thing. The wingbacks should be in line with the defensive mid so that they can add more width in attack. The wingback position is probably the most important position in this formation because they're responsible for a lot of defense and attack.
You can set your fullbacks to attack and I believe it creates the same effect, I just prefer to keep them on automatic so I can just close matches. I think putting them in line with the defensive mid + attack setting would push them too far up for my taste. I suppose I can give it a try and see how it plays out.
On June 26 2013 22:09 Ysellian wrote: @Tazza, you mean like this?: + Show Spoiler +
It's indeed a great way to control a game.
Yes, but just one thing. The wingbacks should be in line with the defensive mid so that they can add more width in attack. The wingback position is probably the most important position in this formation because they're responsible for a lot of defense and attack.
You can set your fullbacks to attack and I believe it creates the same effect, I just prefer to keep them on automatic so I can just close matches. I think putting them in line with the defensive mid + attack setting would push them too far up for my taste.
Yeah, i actually keep them on automatic too. I've heard somewhere that this leads to more errors by them, but from what I've seen, automatic is better than having them on just defend or attack. I've tried support too, but idk, it was kind of bad defensively
On June 26 2013 22:09 Ysellian wrote: @Tazza, you mean like this?: + Show Spoiler +
It's indeed a great way to control a game.
Yes, but just one thing. The wingbacks should be in line with the defensive mid so that they can add more width in attack. The wingback position is probably the most important position in this formation because they're responsible for a lot of defense and attack.
You can set your fullbacks to attack and I believe it creates the same effect, I just prefer to keep them on automatic so I can just close matches. I think putting them in line with the defensive mid + attack setting would push them too far up for my taste.
Yeah, i actually keep them on automatic too. I've heard somewhere that this leads to more errors by them, but from what I've seen, automatic is better than having them on just defend or attack. I've tried support too, but idk, it was kind of bad defensively
Automatic leaves them on support when your match strategy is counter, standard, or control. Attack for attacking and overload, and Defend for defensive and contain. Same with central midfielders with an automatic duty. I generally leave full backs on automatic, but sometimes set them to attack/defend depending on my strategy.
On June 26 2013 22:09 Ysellian wrote: @Tazza, you mean like this?: + Show Spoiler +
It's indeed a great way to control a game.
Yes, but just one thing. The wingbacks should be in line with the defensive mid so that they can add more width in attack. The wingback position is probably the most important position in this formation because they're responsible for a lot of defense and attack.
You can set your fullbacks to attack and I believe it creates the same effect, I just prefer to keep them on automatic so I can just close matches. I think putting them in line with the defensive mid + attack setting would push them too far up for my taste.
Yeah, i actually keep them on automatic too. I've heard somewhere that this leads to more errors by them, but from what I've seen, automatic is better than having them on just defend or attack. I've tried support too, but idk, it was kind of bad defensively
Automatic leaves them on support when your match strategy is counter, standard, or control. Attack for attacking and overload, and Defend for defensive and contain. Same with central midfielders with an automatic duty. I generally leave full backs on automatic, but sometimes set them to attack/defend depending on my strategy.
Oh really? Well i usually play counter or control depending on the opposition, so it'd pretty much be the same if they were on support.
I like the managing aspects (infrastructure, managing money, buying/selling players, training etc) but would like to skip the trainer/live stuff (live coaching, talking to players). Close to some browsergame but more in depth with focus on the macro part.
Long time since I played a FM, is something like that avaible or do current games have options for that?
On June 27 2013 03:08 mTwRINE wrote: I like the managing aspects (infrastructure, managing money, buying/selling players, training etc) but would like to skip the trainer/live stuff (live coaching, talking to players). Close to some browsergame but more in depth with focus on the macro part.
Long time since I played a FM, is something like that avaible or do current games have options for that?
Well there is the fm classic mode, which is supposed to make things more simple. Never played it though so im not sure
On June 27 2013 02:12 sc4k wrote: You just have to be a little patient, it is full of good stuff, pretty much nothing is clutter when you are used to it.
On June 27 2013 03:08 mTwRINE wrote: I like the managing aspects (infrastructure, managing money, buying/selling players, training etc) but would like to skip the trainer/live stuff (live coaching, talking to players). Close to some browsergame but more in depth with focus on the macro part.
Long time since I played a FM, is something like that avaible or do current games have options for that?
Well there is the fm classic mode, which is supposed to make things more simple. Never played it though so im not sure
Me neither, but a friend of mine said it's pretty much a throw back to the earlier titles. So for anyone that doesn't like the newer mechanics it may be worth a try.
Yay, FM thread! Will not open my game to just make some screens xP
A bit of story: in FM2012 I decided to take a challenge, head on. Wanted to take some poor, very low league team in some prominent country. Decided for England and Wrexham, playing in 5th league. In 6 years I went from there to Premier League, was lucky as hell and managed to find lots of talents, made my team rich and all that good stuff. In last season we won even FA cup and debuted on international stage. Then FM2013 happened.
Already played 4 seasons, went to Championship and... my savegame crushed. Stopped playing for few weeks, trauma. Now playing again, 2 season and so far won Blue Square Bet Premier. My tactic? Risky. Offensive. And even more risky.
Formation: click Yeah, 3-5-2. As I said, it's very risky especially against teams who play ultra offensive wingers style. And of course, level of my players is somewhere between "we're promising youth!" and "we can't pass the ball straight on few meters", which makes for lots of errors. So I had to simplify the tasks for my defenders, they just stay in their own penalty area and kick out every ball that comes there. Of course, problem is also the money: right now I'm around 400k euro and I have hardly any money to get new players. And by that I mean free transfers, absolutely no money to spend on not-free players. Also, UK rules are making me sometimes angry when I see a good player for me, who agrees to join me, but he can't get the job allowance (forgot how it's called :F) because he's from outside of EU.
For this season I want to try to get high in league, currently first, but my team is performing worse and worse, so I guess we're about to get bitch slapped. But hey, challenge :D
Sounds like a great challenge OsaX, keep us posted! I'm going to start my game with Benfica in FM2012 tomorrow. My goal is to reach the finals of the champions league on my third season.
On June 27 2013 04:10 sixfour wrote: still furious that dortmund snap-sacked me last week after losing 5-1 to schalke
Yeah I hate those. Things seem to be going decent enough and one really bad result against a rival team and you're sacked.
Been playing this since CM4. On FM 13 I only managed to start a Man Utd save. I use the arrigo sacchi tactic found on at fmbase. I'm wondering how many people use FMScout.
your formation is very risky against any team. you're effectively playing 3-2-5 because neither your wingers nor your CAM will track back. tbh I could never make a 3-defender strategy work so I don't even try any more. 3 different variations of 4-2-3-1 all the way, hue.
On June 27 2013 06:42 greggy wrote: your formation is very risky against any team. you're effectively playing 3-2-5 because neither your wingers nor your CAM will track back. tbh I could never make a 3-defender strategy work so I don't even try any more. 3 different variations of 4-2-3-1 all the way, hue.
I've been using variations of this tactic since first FM. Always worked. Especially in older games, it was so much win and defending was surprisingly easy and solid. Seriously. But since 2012 they reworked AI and other things and it become even more risky :D My wingers have 1on1 marking, so they have to come back even if they're not much of use. AM have to be around half of the pitch and ready to launch a counter attack, while my ST are spreading out and waiting for opportunity to run for the ball. I could save replays from few matches with top opponents in my league, sometimes it's surprising how much they can't do a thing if my own defenders don't make a crucial mistake.
my game plan 1: solid and defensive - i usually play this on away.
----------- cech a.cole terry cahill ivanovic ----------- d.luiz mata oscar lampard hazard -------- lewandowski
i have 10 draws, 6 wins and 5 lose. i won both super cup and world cup finals i guess? (played against corinthians as far i remember). but still not good enough, i can hardly win match at stamford bridge
game plan 2: smooth and offensive - and i play this on stamford bridge.
----------- cech a.cole cahill d.luiz ivanovic -------- oscar terry mata ---------- hazard lewandowski torres
Goalkeepers: Neri, Leonard, Sinclair Neri is my veteran goalkeeper who replaced De Gea, whom I sold to Barcelona for 30m. With Neri's age, Leonard and Sinclair are fighting to replace him.
Central Defenders: Alijevic, Laabidi, Wochnik, Burton An area that I feels that could be strengthened, Alijevic and Laabidi are gems that I scouted from Bosnia and Tunisia respectively - however Alijevic is getting pretty old now. Fortunately for me, I have a few kids in the U18 squad ready to come up once his time is done. Wochnik is a kid from my youth system and Burton was a recent signing from Southampton only for depth.
Full Backs: Lopez, Adriel, Dawes, Fontana, Korzh The area of my squad I'm most confident in. Lopez and Dawes are studs (Lopez is my captain). Adriel and Fontana are world-class fullbacks that are good for spot duty. Korzh is a personal project, I bought him from Bayern because he wasn't getting much playing time. It will be interesting how he turns out.
Central Midfielders: Breugelmans, Mwasongwe, Groendijk, Jaume, McCallion The second most strongest part of my squad. Groendijk and Mwasongwe make an impeccable combination in the middle with their sheer physicality. They also both have the ability to play full-back in the case of an injury crisis. Breugelmans and McCallion are solid supporters. Jaume was on United before I let him leave on a free transfer around a decade ago - I've decided to let him return after he requested a transfer away from Evian TG to play continental football. He adds a veteran presence to the team.
Attacking Midfielders: Bruno, Cocciarini, Edwards Something that I should try and address. Despite Edwards and Cocciarini getting older, they are still excellent players. Just like my central defender situation though, I have tons of kids in the U18 squad just waiting to be promoted once these guys see the end of the day.
Wingers: Meier, Helder A rough off-season of my previous wingers asking to get out due to a lack of playing time, along with mis-management on my behalf (allowing some decent winger kids to go on loan) has seen my first team go down to a total of what I consider two wingers. Helder is the oldest player on the team, and will be retiring at the end of the season. Along with the recently retired Sunderland (who I'll rag on about in the next part), he has been the core of the team for the past decade. Meier is a striker converted to winger.
Strikers: Yilmaz, Rattigan With Yilmaz requesting a transfer and most likely be going to Barcelona, Rattigan will be the only sole striker on the team. Another youth product poached from Bayern, most likely I will be rotating Rattigan with some of the AM's who can play up front along the course of the season. It's unfortunate that my stud Sunderland decided to hang his boots up at the age of 35. I really could have used his veteran presence for not only this squad, but for my England squad and the upcoming 2034 World Cup.
Formations used: 4-2-3-1 (before my wingers left), now 4-1-2-1-2, maybe 4-2-2 if I get Kurzh to play MR.
year is 2017, went undefeated that year in PL and lost in the CL final to ManU. Barcelona then fired Andre Villa-Boas mid season after going like 1-10-5. Took over and ended up winning the league not losing with the same tactic but with this team
I love this game in bursts of going tons of seasons in a row then I take a long break lol.
I am currently working with Sheffield United and it has been a tough ride. I have been in the EPL for a few seasons now and my best finish was 11th. I just can't beat the loaded teams like City, United, Arsenal, and Tottenham (Chelsea sucks in my game).
Here are three screen shots of my favourite moments so far. My goal for this team is to get Nick Blackman to retire on it so I can unlock having a son on the team. Currently on season 9 and I have him locked down until his mid 30's. + Show Spoiler +
Promotion!
My Jan. transfer window purchase beasting it in the final playoff game to get promoted.
First, there came lots of injuries. Some of these players will rest for months. Let's look at schedule - as you can clearly see, from time of beating the hell outta other teams, my Wrexham is now in trouble. We barely save a 2:2 draw with Cheltenham (22th in league) and didn't score a single goal against Port Vale (around 10th-ish place), when we usually score at least one goal, no matter what opponent we're facing.
So, need to adjust something. Good thing is, I signed Lauri Dalla Vale. It's not shown on screens, but in next matches he went 2 games, 2 goals, 1 assist. Not bad. If only my wingers could play at all, ugh. Also, my defensive is shaking even more than it should.
Main two problems: 1. wingers - should they play wide, near the line? That's how I usually have it. Sometimes I experiment with normal wideness of their play and it doesn't look good. Any ideas? 2. defence - zonal marking vs 1on1 and/or not offside trapes. This is my biggest issue in years probably, I'm shuffling these every few months, it starts to work for some time and then everything falls apart and I need to find a new way to help my defenders. In theory, offside trapes should work - just keep my 3 dudes in line. But in reality, it doesn't work much better than with that option disabled. And my wingers have 1vs1 marking, so they like to chase enemy into our penalty area and then kick them, so we have a penalty against us. And if they don't chase their enemy, the opponent winger likes to score from a volley.
On June 27 2013 17:06 OsaX Nymloth wrote: Main two problems: 1. wingers - should they play wide, near the line? That's how I usually have it. Sometimes I experiment with normal wideness of their play and it doesn't look good. Any ideas? 2. defence - zonal marking vs 1on1 and/or not offside trapes. This is my biggest issue in years probably, I'm shuffling these every few months, it starts to work for some time and then everything falls apart and I need to find a new way to help my defenders. In theory, offside trapes should work - just keep my 3 dudes in line. But in reality, it doesn't work much better than with that option disabled. And my wingers have 1vs1 marking, so they like to chase enemy into our penalty area and then kick them, so we have a penalty against us. And if they don't chase their enemy, the opponent winger likes to score from a volley.
The age old FM question haha. In theory 1vs1 marking should be best in the lower leagues, because the defenders don't have the same concentration and anticipation as in higher leagues and most teams aren't as quick(?) Mixing things around is always a good thing though, keep the AI guessing.
This is what I've been playing for the last couple months. Took Monaco to CL in 2 seasons and we're on our way to winning ligue 1 in my 3rd season, and just won our first elimination leg against Valencia (easy draw, but still) with pretty modest signings. I played with an AP at CAM and CM(S) at mid in Monaco though.
I kind of got bored of France and went back to Germany, and my team has such ridiculous regens I could play anything I think, but it's still an excellent formation. I routinely get over 60% possession, and rarely concede or even allow shots. When they come it's on the counter because I play an extremely high defensive line and press hard and regen keepers are notoriously bad at rushing out.
The DWs are usually retrained wingbacks, I find they are way more effective on the attack as DW, as if WB gets some inherent penalty on that end of the pitch. Corchia and Digne in Monaco, but there's also some natural DWs in the game like Asamoah.
I know I said I was going to play with Benfica, but looking at how incredibly stacked Benfica was I decided against it. I ended up choosing Feyenoord because 2 years ago they were an absolute mess of a team, so it would be cool to try and mimic Ronald Koeman's achievements. So here begins a summary of the team:
No rightback and no cover for leftback. Good wingers and strong midfield, but the best striker works best in a counter-attacking team so no tiki-taka or Chelsea-style for me . I guess I'll be using Leerdam as rightback (or perhaps play with 3 players in the back).
I can't load the game at the moment so I'll just type it out. I normally use an AM instead of treq, I've just been experimenting with it
team: short passing press more zonal marking aggressive tackling crosses - I switch between drill and default depending on my forwards tempo and width are one notch below quick defensive line is all the way up - this is just so there's less space between my DWs and CBs even if it opens me to counters and through balls no set playmaker/target man
I've tweaked everyone individually but nothing too important, like my poacher is even more attack minded than default etc. DWs need to hug the touchline.
PPMs: plays one-twos on every attacking player, but most important is moves into channels for the AM it's what really lets him "boss the midfield" as the performance thing likes to say.
Wish I still had FM12 installed to post some pictures of my immortal team. Starting from the spanish 3rd tier I accumulated 3 Ligas, 3 CLs, 5 Cups, 4 Supercups, 2 Euro Supercups, and 2 Club World Cups in the space of 9 seasons. I only lost 1 game in my last 2 Liga wins (38-0-0 and 34-3-1 season records). Surprisingly it gets pretty boring when you can beat Barca on a saturday, then make 11 changes to your squad and still comfortably beat Real Madrid on wednesday.
Haven't been able to get into FM13 yet as I can't decide which country/club to start with haha.
On June 28 2013 01:30 Steveling wrote: Is there any way/skin to make the font much much bigger other than lowering the resolution?
I swear each version is harder to read in than the previous, lol.
Well I went to fmkorea.net and somehow i got the font to change, bu it changed the language to Korean also. There's probably instructions to change the font online since there definitely is a way to do it
So the patch updated Feyenoord to the 2012-2013 start except the squad is pretty much the same apart from lacking John Guidetti.
Anyway things not going so well unfortunately. Trying to qualify for champions league with a paper thin squad means I had to gamble and ultimately lost that gamble when Udinese scored in final second of the game. A game which took 5 minutes longer than awarded, but that's FM for you. I could really have used the money of qualifying as well, oh well onwards to a respectable finish in the league.
I'm playing as Farnborough in the BSS, i'm working in that area at the moment and I travel a fair bit so my usual FM team is the nearest team in the lower divisions.
First season in the BSS I won it by about 10 points, I think just signing a few players who had good physical stats and playing an attacking 4-4-3 was the key, I conceded a lot but I also scored a lot.
Second season in the BSP I sneaked in through the playoffs beaten Luton over two legs and winning at Wembley against Wrexham 2-0 in a fairly comforatble game. I was actually in automatic promotion spots but my team fell apart towards the end so I ended up playing my fringe players to hopefully buck up the first teamers ideas. It worked!
Plans for League 2 are to sign quality older players and aim for mid table, I want to keep pushing up and signing for the future at this stage is a risk becasuse I might go up again making them fairly useless to me. Hopefully should turn professional this year.
I was playing a tactic revolving around lots of crosses to a tall striker. Might try it again this season.
Oh yeah, and did you guys know that you can get updated rosters( i.e. neymar to barca) from websites? If you guys want, I can post some on the OP so you guys can get updated rosters. These are not patches though.
On June 28 2013 17:28 Ysellian wrote: So the patch updated Feyenoord to the 2012-2013 start except the squad is pretty much the same apart from lacking John Guidetti.
Anyway things not going so well unfortunately. Trying to qualify for champions league with a paper thin squad means I had to gamble and ultimately lost that gamble when Udinese scored in final second of the game. A game which took 5 minutes longer than awarded, but that's FM for you. I could really have used the money of qualifying as well, oh well onwards to a respectable finish in the league.
On June 28 2013 17:28 Ysellian wrote: So the patch updated Feyenoord to the 2012-2013 start except the squad is pretty much the same apart from lacking John Guidetti.
Anyway things not going so well unfortunately. Trying to qualify for champions league with a paper thin squad means I had to gamble and ultimately lost that gamble when Udinese scored in final second of the game. A game which took 5 minutes longer than awarded, but that's FM for you. I could really have used the money of qualifying as well, oh well onwards to a respectable finish in the league.
At least you get to go to the Europa League though, right? Though it might hurt you with how thin your squad is D:
Yeah I got into Europa League. I got drawn into a group with Liverpool, Rubin Kazan and Rudar. I beat Liverpool 2-1 at home and narrowly lost against Kazan, but my campaign ended with a heavy defeat against Ajax. I'm going to have to do a lot of things differently on my next attempt. Although with so little money at the start I'm probably going to have to sell some of my youth and injury prone players and get some loanies in return somewhere.
On June 28 2013 18:38 Tazza wrote: Oh yeah, and did you guys know that you can get updated rosters( i.e. neymar to barca) from websites? If you guys want, I can post some on the OP so you guys can get updated rosters. These are not patches though.
Would be nice to have in the OP for people that want it. I would certainly consider using the updated roster if my next campaign fails as well, because man Feyenoord is a tough challenge for me. The board actually want me to challenge for the title lol.
i always play this game until i finish 10-15 seasons and then it just gets boring. sucks not knowing any of the players cause theyre all regens. also doesnt help that they all look the same with their ugly computer generated faces
Just finished my second season in FM2013. Managed to win League 2, made some good signings, few turned out to be bad or just meh - and now I just hope I will get any money for signings next season or I will be forced to defend with whole team without any reasonable improvements in my squad.
Overall, the league at the end of the season: click
Surprised myself with home much ahead we went, but won't complain. Just bit frustrated that my guy (Hricov) didn't won the top scorer award. He was leading for 90% of the season with few goals more than the second guy and then, at the final two months of the season, he got injured for 1.5 month. And after coming back, he couldn't find himself on the pitch. Well, at least make him proud and look at him (see these attributes? Hell yeah low league :D).
In previous post I showed how many injuries happened to my team - I was like off with most of my offensive players. And I had to desperaly sign someone with about 2.000 euro/week available. And I found a little gem: Gosselin - look at his stats, isn't this impressive? He didn't even care for weird tactic, he just came and started shooting like crazy. That also means few of my other guys are going off after season or I will try to sell them.
Worth mentioning is also one of my biggests talents in whole team, signed just before season, defender of the Swedish youth team - Hedlund. Hope this guy will improve as hi was so far - if so, he may be even able to fight at Championship level in next few years.
In the end, that's my squad right now: (link below). All of the "old" guys are being released after end of their contract, few of others are going to be sold (if I have any opportunity) and hopefully I will manage to get any cash to sign few of the guys I've been observing. Could really use some money.
Oh, realized I can't put more than two links in my post. So instead of linking everything, just made an album on imgur. Screens visible here: http://imgur.com/a/8KyOT#0 (if anyone cares to see, of course )
I'm trying to find a new club to manage. Would like a European club that's around championship/lower first division with a bit of money to spend. Trying to develop some young Korean talents along the way
So Im playing a low league team in England, having read some guides (very high fitness preseason, reducing training in season and playing monstly counter (low-medium speed)), semi professional and my players starting to need rest 10 games into the season.
Being England (FA Cup, FA Trophy and 24 teams in my league) there is a game every 3 days for the next 9 month and even after 2 week break as soon as they play another game rest is needed again. So all I do is resting my whole first team 7 days 24/7 and that clickfest is my main time spending ...
Do I need to rotate (throw) every 2nd game for the first few seasons to build up fitness and is that even possible on lower league, since players mostly decrease due to bad training (obv influenced so far by resting 90% of the season). With a bit of rotation when affordable they are able to play the whole season, but its just unbelievable annoying.
Played a lot since the very first CM. Only FM 2013 has not yet clocked in many hours. Not entirely sure what I feel of FM 2013. Some improvements, but not sold on it - for the first time in 20 years.
On July 04 2013 05:55 mTwRINE wrote: So Im playing a low league team in England, having read some guides (very high fitness preseason, reducing training in season and playing monstly counter (low-medium speed)), semi professional and my players starting to need rest 10 games into the season.
Being England (FA Cup, FA Trophy and 24 teams in my league) there is a game every 3 days for the next 9 month and even after 2 week break as soon as they play another game rest is needed again. So all I do is resting my whole first team 7 days 24/7 and that clickfest is my main time spending ...
Do I need to rotate (throw) every 2nd game for the first few seasons to build up fitness and is that even possible on lower league, since players mostly decrease due to bad training (obv influenced so far by resting 90% of the season). With a bit of rotation when affordable they are able to play the whole season, but its just unbelievable annoying.
Dont take this as gospel but I believe FM should be left open to interpretation.
I play mostly lower league and right in the depths of Blue Square, I usually have my core of 6-7 good players and then hire lots of really cheap youth players with high determination (15+). They ususally sign for about £5-£50 per week and you can use them to give your core players a rest.
Training in the lower leagues, I usually leave it on middle fitness all season. You have bad facilities, bad coaches, and bad players, training doesnt really have the effect it does in the Premiership. I just stick it on medium fitness and leave it there.
If you can rotate players with your cheap young players, you should be able to start every game with players 100% fully fit, just aim to have 2-3 players for each position so a squad of 22 minimum, I normally have a squad of 25ish in lower leagues.
Yeah in the lower leagues, fitness is probably the best category for training, because fitness and man management/motivation is more important than attributes and tactics.
On July 04 2013 17:47 evilfatsh1t wrote: maybe youre just starting to get sick of the game. i mean, you have been playing it for 20 years
That is 50% of the problem, yes. It is no longer as enticing, as it used to be, though still alluring due to the interest of the sport and the idea of building upon something that exists still works great.
My immediate response is that 2013 is some good ideas, that will get fully fleshed in 2014, while others somewhat scratched . like it feels like a morale manager, rather than FM, and oddly enough with more options in tactics, it seems more restricting to what will succeed to even greater degree than in the past. The menus seem weird, and though it is a matter of getting used to(still think some should be left out, while others more visible) it just shows it is not intuitive. Finding the average age of my squad for instance, feels like looking for a needle in a haystack. They need attention to much better menus in the next.
Sure they had to make it harder, but I have not quite unlocked it yet. It is still addictive and some things work even better - like ratings on individuals in matches. Maybe it is much brighter to newer eyes, so to speak.
The fact that I have to fire my entire staff, because they have stats like shit, feels not so great, though adding to the concept of "I will clean this club up from top to bottom".
On July 04 2013 05:55 mTwRINE wrote: So Im playing a low league team in England, having read some guides (very high fitness preseason, reducing training in season and playing monstly counter (low-medium speed)), semi professional and my players starting to need rest 10 games into the season.
Being England (FA Cup, FA Trophy and 24 teams in my league) there is a game every 3 days for the next 9 month and even after 2 week break as soon as they play another game rest is needed again. So all I do is resting my whole first team 7 days 24/7 and that clickfest is my main time spending ...
Do I need to rotate (throw) every 2nd game for the first few seasons to build up fitness and is that even possible on lower league, since players mostly decrease due to bad training (obv influenced so far by resting 90% of the season). With a bit of rotation when affordable they are able to play the whole season, but its just unbelievable annoying.
generally you need a viable squad of at least 20 when you play in england just because of how many matches you play. the only exception would probably be if you're in premiership but not CL. or you could just throw the cup games at the start and not bother with them at all. it also looks like your training levels are too high, since the players gain hardly any stamina back. generally speaking I tend to rest most players for 1-2 days after every second game, depending on the player natural fitness & position. if <80% then 2 days, if >80% then 1 day.
Filled up with my own horrible youth players and since Im fighting to avoid relegation its okish to only try to win half the games. I could never afford 20 real players but lets see how things develop.
Also just played FA Cup vs Tottenham away and got 670k gateshare. That feels like cheating :D.
So I'm making a save with FC Augsburg in the Bundesliga. The club don't have much money for transfers, and the minimum expectation is only that I avoid relegation. Should be easy enough. My personal goal is to get the team to play possession football, but I don't really have the personnel for it at the moment. I want to make the club into a midtable team then try to qualify for Europe.
As you can see, it's a mess. I have five right backs (someone's getting sold!). Only three center backs, a handful of central midfielders, and hardly any quality on the wings. The striker situation is pretty good though.
I will use Koo Ja-Cheol as an attacking midfielder, even though his natural position is central midfield, because he has very weak defensive attributes.
This is my main tactic. High line, lots of passing, and constant pressing (I will probably change to "press more" when I get better personnel for it). It's nothing revolutionary, though.
This is what I will use when I am against stronger opposition (which will be most games, I'm assuming). I want pacey wingers and will look to counter-attack often.
This is what I will use against stronger opposition that don't have an attacking midfielder. It's kind of a cheese to dominate the center of the pitch
As I said, there will be some sales. I started by selling Gibril Sankoh to Vitesse for $3.2m (2.3m Euros), a club record sale. I also tried selling club captain Paul Verhaegh and Dominik Reinhardt, but no one wanted them. I also tried to sell Sebastian Langkamp since he is entering the last year of his contract, but again, no one wanted him.
I used the money from the Sankoh transfer to buy Alain Wiss from FC Luzern for $1.8m (1.3m Euros). I needed another central midfielder, and he has good attributes, is only 21, and most importantly, was cheap as he was entering the last year of his contract.
To fix the lack of center backs, I acquired Inter's Austrian prospect Lukas Spendlhofer on loan, with an option to buy him for $650k at any point during the loan. I like him because he has decent defensive attributes, and he reads the game incredibly well for a 19 year-old (12 Decisions, 14 Positioning). He is slow (9 Pace, Acceleration, 7 Agility), but if I can get his Pace to 11 or 12, he's going to be a beast.
Could have been better. Had to come from behind to draw the first two games, then scraped out a win in the third game, won the fourth easily, had a player get sent off in the fifth, and nearly choked the last game away. I had another friendly scheduled for August 11, but it got cancelled : /
Halle are no pushovers and I can't take them lightly for my DFB-Pokal tie. And my first league game is away to FC Bayern. Things could get rough in the first month.
I'll probably update when I finish the first month of the season
On July 13 2013 01:13 DusTerr wrote: Been thinking of getting a nice sports sim... football manager 13 is 8,74 on steam, I assume people here would say it's worth it?
worth it if you know what youre doing/youre the type who sticks to one thing. it takes a fair amount of time to learn to use the program since its packed with features and things are pretty hard to find. and then theres the actual playing aspect which requires commitment as well
Hi again! i have won premier league, fa cup, capital one cup plus champions league in one season with Chelsea. Condition was a big problem since i've played in all those tournaments.
It took 1/2 season to build this team. i pretty much sold all original Chelsea players like Mata, David Luiz, Torres, Ba, Ivanovic etc.
i've played solid and attack style. My pass choice was short and serial.
After winning those tournaments with Chelsea, Manchester United gave me offer with +100k transfer budget. I accepted and built a new manu team with selling quite few players. I had around 180k budget after this. I bought Ozil, Bale and Lewandowski.
my manu roster::
-------------------de Gea Alaba - Nkoulou - P.Jones - Rafael
i have played semi finals at FA cup and lost against my old team Chelsea (T_T), finished 2nd at premier league, quarter finals at Capital One cup and i've won champions league. I was quite lucky at CL because i havent met with RMD or Barça until the finals. My r16 opponent was Shaktar, ro8 was PSG, semi final MCity and final was against RMD.
Now im taking a break from fm because it started to get boring. i think i will start with a new team after break. im open to suggestions :3
On July 13 2013 11:01 Mensol wrote: Now im taking a break from fm because it started to get boring. i think i will start with a new team after break. im open to suggestions :3
Guess you got bored because you had it all: superb players, mountains of cash, Champions League etc. Get some team from other country which isn't contender for the title or go for even lower leagues. That's where the real fun starts
If I get around it I will post some details from my new season. Wrexham in my 3rd year is in League 1 now with solid chances of staying there instead of falling down back to League 2. If only I could have some wingers who could do a damn thing with the ball.
start without a club. theres some more adventure to it. if you start at a smaller club and you get offered a position at a bigger one, you get this weird sense of accomplishment
I always play with random players on, makes me much more attached to the players, dunno its weird lol. I have my days where I sink a good 10hours just playing XD
I admit I have never played as a journeyman but it does seem very rewarding. I just spent 2 months not getting employed and it pissed me off. So I chose a club at random with my new Ivorian manager Melville Lusack. Got lumped with Evian TG FC in the french ligue.
Actually it has been an awesome load of fun, I like to imagine my guy has Ivory Coast pride so I bought 2 Ivory Coast players and set Yannick Sagbo, the 3rd string striker, as the new main striker. He rewarded me with a late late goal in a 1-0 league victory over PSG :D. Playing 4-3-3 and 3-5-2 using a LB who has 19 long throw to get some of my good CBs in with a chance of goals, although still haven't scored off a long throw yet.
There is nothing better than the accomplishment of your team beating opponents who are much stronger, especially when you have resolved NOT to save and reload if you get a bad result. It's very scary knowing that you have refused yourself the luxury of 'avoiding' injuries. But it feels much better. One game I played recently I kind of ruined the fun - I was in the final of Champ league and FA Cup, as well as on target to win the league. I lost both finals and a crucial match in the league and I reloaded all 3, winning the second time. I ended up really really regretting it.
the only time I've ever reloaded was to get best possible youth intake on my 2030 chelsea save. not worth it even then in all honesty. reloading after losing a match is juvenile.
in other news, my save file got bugged mid-season or something and I'm not progressing on any achievements. sucks so I think I'll remake. haven't had much chance to play anyway, gotta catch up this weekend.
how do online games work in FM? I've never had the opportunity to play vs/with other people - would anyone like to try?
On July 27 2013 05:46 greggy wrote: the only time I've ever reloaded was to get best possible youth intake on my 2030 chelsea save. not worth it even then in all honesty. reloading after losing a match is juvenile.
in other news, my save file got bugged mid-season or something and I'm not progressing on any achievements. sucks so I think I'll remake. haven't had much chance to play anyway, gotta catch up this weekend.
how do online games work in FM? I've never had the opportunity to play vs/with other people - would anyone like to try?
God damn how do you like the fucking standard 1-2-3 combo of doom that FM does to you in the second half of the season.
Step 1: Injures your best players
Step 2: run of 6 games versus only top opponents, to get their morale low, followed by all the relegation candidates to capitalise on your low morale
Step 3: invalidate all your tactics in the first half of the season by auto-weakening them, despite the fact that they suit your team and in real football teams blast through entire seasons using only 1-2 strategies.
On July 29 2013 02:23 sc4k wrote: God damn how do you like the fucking standard 1-2-3 combo of doom that FM does to you in the second half of the season.
Step 1: Injures your best players
Step 2: run of 6 games versus only top opponents, to get their morale low, followed by all the relegation candidates to capitalise on your low morale
Step 3: invalidate all your tactics in the first half of the season by auto-weakening them, despite the fact that they suit your team and in real football teams blast through entire seasons using only 1-2 strategies.
this has never happened to me before. at least not in this order and not within a short timespan dont think i would mind too much though, its still a game and you need a challenge
Man I had that amazing feeling you get in football manager when you play totally legit - no cheap tactics, no reloading games if you get injuries / losses, no funny business of any sort. My first time playing through without any of these crutches. After being fired after my team Evian from france were relegated, I was thinking I should quit and start again. But lo and behold, the great and prestigious sc Heerenveen offered me a role as manager! I thanked my lucky stars for the opportunity to be in charge of assaidi (this is fm2012 didn't want to pay for the new one), dost (striker) and narsignh. A sick front three! Set up my tactics and also brought in an old wily veteran off the free transfers list called Dmitri Bulykin.
Was a tough season and despite very often being 3:1 in ratio of my shots and SOT to theirs, I very regularly conceded and lost games because my defence kind of sucked. Scored a lot and conceded a lot as you would expect. I weathered the storm and accepted when the game did what I said before - my entire front three injured for 1 month (had to bring in loanees as reinforcements), changed all the tactics because they magically stopped working, and accepted when I faced 3 top 5 opponents in a row and lost every one (against Ajax I was 2-1 ahead on 90 mins and they scored 2...).
Eventually it all boiled down to me being able to retain the 2nd in the league position by beating the 3rd place in the league, Vitesse. I promptly lost 3-1 and went down to 4th place. 5 matches later and I was back in 2nd position and I managed to reach the Dutch Cup final. I really wanted second place because I was media predicted 3rd place.
So then it was the dutch cup final and one final match vs feyenoord. Dutch cup final was against gronigen who already beat me in the league pretty horrifyingly convincingly (3-0). And feyenoord was predicted to be a close match. Actually went DOWN 1-0 in the final until the 81st minute when we got a goal and then scored again in extra time!!! Epic win! And then, in the tense last game of the season, the brutal tension was sliced as my newly created highly imaginative "4-4-2" formation (i know, revolutionary) plouged righteously through them, and I took the game 4-0. A wonderfully successful season for the first season of Ugo Lusack (photo included: )
Also, the purchase of Bulykin proved crucial - the 33 year old scored 20 in the season!!! What a ledge...composure is SUCH an important stat!
As you can see, I had many narrow losses, and most of those were due to tactical blunders by me, or my team playing well, but losing concentration for a moment and giving up a goal. I'm confident that we can improve on this in the second half of the season.
Here's the table. I have no idea what happened to Leverkusen or Hamburg, lol.
My club don't have much money, so I will try to make as many free transfers as I possibly can. My policy is to fill needs first, then depth. My team is very short of quality out wide, and none of my wingers have very good creativity or crossing ability, so I want to sign Eintracht Braunschweig's Raffael Korte:
Next, with Koo Ja-Cheol's loan ending after the season, I need another creative midfielder, so I look to sign 1860 Munich's Sebastian Maier. He has above average technical skills and creativity, and most importantly, he's only 19, so he has plenty of room to grow:
With Sebastian Langkamp's contract expiring at the end of the season, I need another quality center back. Palermo's Milan Milanovic is tall, strong, and already possesses great mental attributes for a 21 year old. And he's already been labelled the next Nemanja Vidic:
Finally, Alexander Manninger and Simon Jentzch are 35 and 36 respectively, and on the last year of their contracts. I need an experienced goalkeeper as I don't trust Mohamed Amsif, so I went all the way down to the fourth tier and scouted Eintract Trier's Stephan Loboue:
Somehow, everything went to plan, and all the players signed for my club! Now I just need to avoid relegation and I will be in a very strong position next season.
what i never understood with fm was how big teams who would definitely get in the top4 of their respective leagues in the real world, drop down to like 10th or something in the game. my first season in fm 2012 saw manchester city and chelsea coming in under 5th for almost the full season. blackburn was top 4 for like 1/2 the season as well.
in my save, a goalkeeper actually scored. the classic "bomb it forwards with such power the bounce beats the opposing keeper". it was Ulrich Rame (former french GK) of all people, too. ha.
FM14 announced. Full Linux support, complete overhaul of the tactics system (should be cool), also:
In addition, a number of new ‘real world’ transfer clauses have been added, such as the facility to loan a player back to the club he’s just been bought from
In addition, a number of new ‘real world’ transfer clauses have been added, such as the facility to loan a player back to the club he’s just been bought from
FINALLY
missed this, but this is fucking big. loaning is such a bitch in fm, either noone's interested or 20 clubs want your player, who doesn't want to go :S
also having sick season as Clermont Foot 63 in Ligue 2, finished first season 16th (predicted 17th) now just won promotion with 2 games to play, with media prediction of 18th, thanks to a ridiculous post-christmas run - unbeaten in 2014 and 10 won on the trot as I switched to 4-2-3-1 and brought in a couple of porto rejects (Kelvin and Jan Oblak)
On September 10 2013 18:56 evilfatsh1t wrote: is there a release date yet? i havent played fm in ages and im wondering whether to wait for 14, get 13 or just play good old 12
there's no set release date yet but late november - early december seems most likely
if money's no issue get both 13 and 14, 13's good. if not, just wait for 14.
In FM12, I spent 20 years with AFC Wimbledon and built such an unstoppable team we won the last 4 seasons without drawing or losing, only conceding 11 times in one. I could play formations with 2 CBs, pack the midfield, and the other team would have no shots and about 15% possession. Yet for all that, I never got offered the Chelsea job, despite declaring interest 4 times (much to the fans' delight), and was thus denied the 'Childhood Dream' achievement.
In FM13, I spent a few weeks with Stalybridge Celtic, failed, had a fight with the board and got sacked. Went to FC Freiburg and led them to be first place in the Bundesliga come January. I was then offered (having turned down the Ajax job), the Chelsea job.
Out of nowhere.
Obviously I took it and proceeded to win the Champions League and FA Cup, Di Matteo style. But still, it seems very strange that I never got it in FM12 despite being the best manager ever.
I'm currently managing FC Oss in the Jupiler League and I've got probably the cheapest board ever. The club has made a profit of more than £700k in the last 4 months and is only giving me a budget of £13k per week (started at £12.5k). Not a whole lot to work with considering my complete lack of any decent defenders. I've even had to retrain a winger to play left back because the only one at the club gets injured every time he steps on the field lmao.
The 1 player I did sign (CB/DM) broke his leg in training 2 months into the season and will miss 7 months ㅠ_ㅠ
Gonna try and use as many players from Holland and Belgium as I can, plus maybe some from Scandinavia. How does this region compare with others in FM13 as far as producing players goes?
I find the best is easily brazil and africa (esp morocco and egypt) has produced for me far more than anywhere else. Holland and Belgium seem to be way better than Scandinavia (though I am talking about FM2012, decided to skip 2013).
south america is good but they have too many players to scout
croatia and mexico produce god tier regens very often though (dinamo and chivas are like wonderkid factories or something) spain are also good but hard to capitalise because they go to RM/barca portugal is very good in lower leagues because they don't have costs on most of their players england are trash, like in real life west africa is worth checking every so often everything else is hit and miss, I find
I always play a journeyman league starting at a 9th level English league. I am hoping that FM will improve the financial system for lower league clubs in FM14.
Seriously, that's what I can say. I just finished first season in Championship, as Wrexham. Years of building up a team. And...we won the promotion. 6th place on the finish and suddenly my team went on rampage. We killed Swansea in semi-finals and absolutely destroyed Leeds 5:2. Replay here: http://www.mediafire.com/?rbpozfkblg2b751
And...I'm loading the game. Why? Am I mad? Well, I just don't believe I have any chance in Premier League So I will try to lose this time. Want to spend season, maybe two in Championship, using the money I'm finally having to build better team, infrastructure etc. Seriously look at this games we had recently: link
Played a couple hours of FM 2014 beta, I really like how they streamlined the interface, you can do press conferences from your inbox page without having to go to a separate screen. I also love how you can negotiate transfer fees like contracts by "suggesting term" and get an instant response, but it only works up to a certain point and vs. clubs that are willing to sell, which is very realistic imo. There's more interaction with the board, you can "leak to press" if you don't get what you want like increased transfer budget, which will piss off the owner. Other than that I've just been going through all the new profiles. Carrick gets a much deserved upgrade, so does Bale, the entire Bayern team, etc. Gonna play around with tactics tomorrow but the game looks great so far.
Oh and reposted from SI forums (the 30% off code worked for me):
Pre Order will get access to the Beta version around two weeks before the game releases. this is the best pre-order I've seen for FM2014.
Update: You'll save 20-30% Off from the retail price
- Click Log In/Register, create an account in "Sign Up" section. Log in. Select Football Manager 2014 from the box at the right.
- Click the "Pre Purchase" button on the right and then click "Checkout". It's full price at first.
- Copy/Paste Voucher Code into the "ADD VOUCHER" box to get 20-30% Off, not every code will work due to expiry.
30% Off Voucher Code: TAREM-DFBU9-RRNUV (only for those who purchased FM there before) 25% Off Voucher Code: GMG25-G3VXY-XZ50F 20% Off Voucher Code: GMG20-7EKXF-UTQXX (expiring 18 October)
- the special discount is only Valid for limited time and for selected PC Download titles only.
On October 23 2013 20:37 Ferrose wrote: My first competitive match in FM14:
Pretty realistic. Maybe telling Flamini to tackle harder was a bad idea...
LOL!! So what do you guys think about the beta so far? Thoughts about Fm13 vs 14? I am a bit bored of FM atm so I wonder if it is actually worth to invest in FM14 when it comes out...
The game is cool obviously. i'm missing the big overhauls though. I think there's things like the training system, player improvements and other things that need fresh wind.
I really like 14 so far. It's true there's no large sweeping changes but the amount of small touch ups to just about everything in 13 makes it feel great to play. There's still a number of bugs, especially match engine related like every new version, but so far it's great.
They just patched it too this morning, I can't check it out until later though but I'm excited to see what's new.
I'm playing as schalke and the scheduling is killing me, they don't have a deep squad at all. But that's changed quite a bit since Mourinho bought Farfan off me for 52m for some reason which bankrolled about 7 buys plus some great frees. Some of the transfer stuff is a bit wonky. I have almost a full wonderkid team now. Draxler, Meyer, Vitinho, Diego Reyes, Papadopoulos, Balanta, Benzia
On October 23 2013 23:20 floor exercise wrote: I really like 14 so far. It's true there's no large sweeping changes but the amount of small touch ups to just about everything in 13 makes it feel great to play. There's still a number of bugs, especially match engine related like every new version, but so far it's great.
They just patched it too this morning, I can't check it out until later though but I'm excited to see what's new.
I'm playing as schalke and the scheduling is killing me, they don't have a deep squad at all. But that's changed quite a bit since Mourinho bought Farfan off me for 52m for some reason which bankrolled about 7 buys plus some great frees. Some of the transfer stuff is a bit wonky. I have almost a full wonderkid team now. Draxler, Meyer, Vitinho, Diego Reyes, Papadopoulos, Balanta, Benzia
I love the new UI in FM14, it's much more clean and functional. I like the live transfer system. It's nice to be able to negotiate and offer for a player instantly, rather than waiting an indefinite amount of time for a response...
I like the current Arsenal squad, so the only transfer I made was buying Freiburg's Matthias Ginter for about £10m, to finally bring some depth to the center of defense.
On October 24 2013 00:03 floor exercise wrote: I don't know how I could have forgotten about him. And I have Digne as well so I'm only missing a RB.
On another note I would kill for a J-League mod so it would be possible to play a complete AFC save
What about Aogo and Uchida? ._.
I'm thinking of doing a Leverkusen save myself, but I want to wait for the editor to come out, so I can activate the Regionalliga and actually have a reserve team : / For the mean time, I'll occupy myself with Arsenal and maybe some random League 2 team or something.
One thing worth noting is you can tutor players as old as 25. I used to buy only youngsters under 22 so they could be tutored, this change adds a lot more freedom in the transfer market. But otherwise yea, no complains so far. Transfer fees have lowered overall I think. Some are still unrealistic but the new patch today fixed a few things like Bayern would sell Alaba for just 24m, now they want 40m+. I like the new tactical system without sliders, much more intuitive.
Oh and there are three -10s, two South American guys and Pogba. Best young LB is Alex Sandro, best young RB is Gino Peruzzi. A less expensive option is Montoya from Barca but not as good. Yes I also paid for beta genie scout, I'm an addict.
The full game is out. PSA: If you bought the game from GreenManGaming (explained here), you'll need to log into their site to get your key to activate the full game.
Real team and competition logos Self-explanatory. Makes the game more immersive since you don't have those generic logos anymore (Note: Not yet updated for FM14).
Player faces I'd recommend getting this as soon as possible, while people are still seeding the torrent (it's 6GB).
So how does everyone like this game. I'm not quite sure myself yet. I've started several games with Clubs of different strength and potential, but none has really made me play them more than half a season yet. My Formations don't seem to be working that well, so i haven't had a lot of success yet and the good talents are so hard to pick up. But i'll definitely give it some more time.
I stopped playing because FM hasn't patched the tutoring bug yet. You can only tutor players once per year, six months after the first session, instead of twice and about 2-4 weeks after, like last year's version. SI admitted this is a bug but didn't patch it with the latest patch. I have huge OCD about FM so this is game breaking for me.
While the bugs are annoying I still find FM14 a lot of fun, the only game breaking thing for me is the penalty shootouts. I'm currently in the midst of trying to take a newly promoted tier 7 (Isthmian Premier, Southern and Northern) team in England, Blythe Spartans to the premiership. Much harder than the San Marino Challenge so far. Managed to win the Skrill North in my first season and I'm fighting to stay up in the second year in the Skrill Premier right now.
On January 14 2014 05:05 Craze wrote: While the bugs are annoying I still find FM14 a lot of fun, the only game breaking thing for me is the penalty shootouts. I'm currently in the midst of trying to take a newly promoted tier 7 (Isthmian Premier, Southern and Northern) team in England, Blythe Spartans to the premiership. Much harder than the San Marino Challenge so far. Managed to win the Skrill North in my first season and I'm fighting to stay up in the second year in the Skrill Premier right now.
That's so brutal. Surely the only way you can do it is by learning how to abuse the game with tactics / tricks and save / reloading?
Okay having read through the thread it seems that these players are just insanely determined and it takes ages, it will be quite a fun thing to do, might have to do it in the new FM version .
It's incredibly hard. I just got sacked by the board at Blyth for getting relegated in my second season . I've found that with these teams I can't force players into my tactics, but have to design tactics around them (not a shocking revelation I know). So I've started up a new try as Ilkeston.
My board wants a top-half finish. My team is poor as hell and my good young players are refusing to negotiate new contracts, which expire at the end of the month. It's a good first day.
It's definitely not hard. Actually its even more easier than FM 2013. Unlike other fm series, you should focus on Instructions on FM 2014.
Here is my first year with Southampton. I've finished 9th :3
Attack-Fluid against teams that on same level with me. Rigid - Counter against stronger teams. ------------------------------------------Boruc -----------------------------Lovren(CD)------Yoshida(BDP)-----Hooiveld(LD)
I havent changed this tactic for single time. Instructions are more important than tactics in this series, You should be careful about where to explode etc.
I sold Ramirez to MCity for 25M and Osvaldo to Liverpool for 12M. Gotta buy Lukaku and a goalkeeper :3
I didn't play FM12, but I have nearly 700 hours logged on FM13, and after about 100 hours in FM14, I definitely prefer FM14.
I mainly prefer it due to the reworked tactic creation. I didn't like the sliders, because they felt unrealistic and unintuitive. Now everything that was previously controlled by sliders is dictated by the formation, mentality, player roles, and shouts. Instead of tweaking with all the sliders and options, you use the shouts to refine your style.
I know that it's a game, but a real manager wouldn't tell his defense to "play two or three notches deeper," he'd just tell them to "drop deeper."
There's a lot of other small changes, I think that the interface is a lot cleaner, and you can negotiate transfers in real time like you do player contracts, players can be tutored up to age 25 now (I think it was 22/23 before), etc. It
I haven't really been bothered by too many bugs, the only one that really caused me any trouble was patching to 14.2.0, which caused my players to lose all familiarity with my tactic's closing down instructions, which was irritating.
I play pretty slowly, so I'm only in the summer of 2014, but here's my tactic from my Leverkusen save. The strategy here is pretty much "give the ball to Kiessling and then good things happen"
They start with about £7.5m pounds for transfers, so I had money to buy players; I just didn't want to buy, I really like the team the way it is. The only player I bought was Daniele Rugani, because the club didn't have any center back prospects. I had never heard of him, but I had to compete with the likes of Barcelona, Man City, Juventus, etc. to sign him, so I think he'll be good.
Edit: I did try to sign Keisuke Honda at the beginning of the game, but he chose Milan instead.
Dortmund won the league with 82 points, and I was second with 73, with Bayern right behind me in third with 72. I lost in the DFB-Pokal semi final to Schalke, and that destroyed my team's morale, as we lost 3 of the last 4 league games. I won my CL group with Atletico, Benfica, and PAOK, but lost in the Ro16 to Porto 3-2 on aggregate.
so i just realised fm14 isnt even available in korea. what the fuck. i cant even find a korean version, let alone an english one seems like i wont be playing fm until fm15 comes out -_-
pirate it or try using steam or green man gaming with a different IP, there has to be ways.
Started a new game with Deportivo de La Coruña since the new patch fixes the tutoring issue. I've never managed a club so broke, can't even afford signing fees and that's after getting promoted to La Liga. Half of the team's contracts expire after the first year, and getting promoted activates everyone's promotion raise clauses. I have to sell regulars just to replace the people who left on a free.
Ended up getting PSG as my parent club and they were able to loan out players (Digne, Chantome, Maxwell) who I couldn't afford otherwise.
Something I found was you can get EU nationality in only 2 years if you loan players out to Croatia. Otherwise South Americans can get Spanish citizenship in 2 years, but all others take 5 years+.
I was in 3rd place and tied on points with Oberneuland going into the 28th matchday and then we just collapsed against 2 shit teams and they clinched the playoff spot in the 2nd last game
Finished with the best defensive record though, 25 conceded in 30 games, and considering the financial disparity 3rd is pretty good. Promotion should be no problem next season.
sometimes i wish the 3d engine was disabled. its impossible not to rage when you watch 10 of your corners do nothing and then lose the cup final to someone when they go 2-2 on corners. disgusting.
On January 15 2014 07:28 zulu_nation8 wrote: pirate it or try using steam or green man gaming with a different IP, there has to be ways.
Started a new game with Deportivo de La Coruña since the new patch fixes the tutoring issue. I've never managed a club so broke, can't even afford signing fees and that's after getting promoted to La Liga. Half of the team's contracts expire after the first year, and getting promoted activates everyone's promotion raise clauses. I have to sell regulars just to replace the people who left on a free.
Ended up getting PSG as my parent club and they were able to loan out players (Digne, Chantome, Maxwell) who I couldn't afford otherwise.
you can try the reverse of that and go work for Anji Mahatchkala. 500 million wage budget, 200 million transfer budget. hilariously broken, the only thing that keeps you from outright buying everything is the requirement in the Russian league to field 8 russians.
On October 29 2013 05:14 Ferrose wrote: There's a patch available with a new version of the match engine. The demo for FM14 is also out now.
I still haven't decided who I want to play as for my long term save. I'm thinking of Milan, Leverkusen, or Aston Villa.
Try south american teams. In my longest save (which was in FM 2005), I started out with Chacarita Juniors, ended up winning Copa Sudamericana twice consecutively, then the players started hating me. That time, Flamengo sacked their current head coach and was at 12th place after first half of the league. I resigned, applied for Flamengo, got accepted, proceeded to win the title of that particular season, earned Copa Libertadores and league title, resigned again because players hated me (WTF). My next stop was some colombian team that was facing relegation after first half. Got that team into league playoffs (By that, I mean championship playoffs), ended up at 4th place, won the title next season, faced Chacarita Juniors in Copa Libertadores QFs and Flamengo in SFs, eliminated both, won the Copa Libertadores over Boca, players hated me again.
On January 27 2014 18:54 Sub40APM wrote: sometimes i wish the 3d engine was disabled. its impossible not to rage when you watch 10 of your corners do nothing and then lose the cup final to someone when they go 2-2 on corners. disgusting.
You can play with the 2D match engine. Though the scenario you described isn't really that unrealistic.
On January 22 2014 17:39 ZeroChrome wrote: Finished my first season in FM14 just now
I was in 3rd place and tied on points with Oberneuland going into the 28th matchday and then we just collapsed against 2 shit teams and they clinched the playoff spot in the 2nd last game
Finished with the best defensive record though, 25 conceded in 30 games, and considering the financial disparity 3rd is pretty good. Promotion should be no problem next season.
On January 27 2014 18:54 Sub40APM wrote: sometimes i wish the 3d engine was disabled. its impossible not to rage when you watch 10 of your corners do nothing and then lose the cup final to someone when they go 2-2 on corners. disgusting.
You can play with the 2D match engine. Though the scenario you described isn't really that unrealistic.
I was in 3rd place and tied on points with Oberneuland going into the 28th matchday and then we just collapsed against 2 shit teams and they clinched the playoff spot in the 2nd last game
Finished with the best defensive record though, 25 conceded in 30 games, and considering the financial disparity 3rd is pretty good. Promotion should be no problem next season.
Yeah, the lowest tier I'd managed in before was the 3rd tier in Spain so I wanted to see what was even lower than that haha. Not gonna go for one of those English 11th tier games though.
This transfer window is being a bitch to me so far. I signed 1 good DM, and then went for an awesome CM. His demands were €95 per week and my remaining budget was €126 per week. I was like fuck it, offered him €110 per week and he agrees. Next week he signs for OSC Bremerhaven (same division as me and currently rock bottom with 0 points) for €290 per week ffs. Same thing happened 4 times during the window so far, and now my good keeper is getting poached from me for €190 per week I did manage to sign a striker with 10 finishing+ 11 heading which is ridiculous for a 5th tier player imo. He's fucking ruthless in front of goal haha.
The scouting system seems somewhat broken at this level, perhaps because these leagues aren't standard in the game? Every single player I scout gets a 5 star ability rating from my staff when in reality 99.9% of the time they aren't even half as good as my backups. Makes it pretty difficult to find good players when there are more than 1,500 in my database all with the same rating. I basically have to individually compare any potential signing with a player currently in my squad, and there are way too many players to check every one. I thought that the star rating was relative to the quality of players in your squad but it seems like it's based on the reputation of my club.
Yeah the lowest I've ever done was the third tier in Germany, but I used the editor to activate the Regionalliga so that I could have access to my B team when I play as a team in that nation. I think that's the lowest I could ever go, I prefer to stick with professional teams
I think the star rating is based mainly on your squad, in your case I think the ratings are the way that they are because your coaches probably aren't very good, though it could be a glitch as you said.
I'd try to get some players on loan, since it seems you don't really have the budget to sign a lot of players. Loans are the best way to get out of the lower leagues in FM imo.
On January 28 2014 08:25 Ferrose wrote: Yeah the lowest I've ever done was the third tier in Germany, but I used the editor to activate the Regionalliga so that I could have access to my B team when I play as a team in that nation. I think that's the lowest I could ever go, I prefer to stick with professional teams
I think the star rating is based mainly on your squad, in your case I think the ratings are the way that they are because your coaches probably aren't very good, though it could be a glitch as you said.
I'd try to get some players on loan, since it seems you don't really have the budget to sign a lot of players. Loans are the best way to get out of the lower leagues in FM imo.
The chairman rejected my proposal to get a parent club :/ I'll try asking again once we're in the Regionalliga because with an annual budget of €30k we will probably get stomped.
Despite my bitching I am top of the league and undefeated 10 games into the season anyways.
The scouting system is relative to your team, as you get better players, scouts will be tougher with their ratings.
Currently in my 6th season as La Coruna, going for a three-peat in La Liga, Xavi/Iniesta retiring made Barca beatable. I have a team of awesome regens and a new owner who didn't really change the finances. I keep asking for a new stadium every few months but the board always says they don't see the fanbase increasing despite the team having worldwide reputation now. I spent most of my profits upgrading the facilities. Selling a couple of world class players (Stanciu) netted me 100m+. I haven't gotten past semifinals of CL yet but did win Europa league in my 3rd year. Will post some ss when I can.
i promoted to Premier League with Milwall in my second season. Some rich guy bought club and gave me 19m budget lol.
Now im playing the gayest football possible in PL. 5 defenders, 1 anchorman, 1 regista, 2 wingers whose dribbing is good and a target man with 2.02m height lolol. It's really fun.
Play Wider Pump ball into box Pass into space Hit Early crosses
if you get a rich enough team the game starts to be broken/boring. My schalke 04 has now won three Champions Leagues back to back and every year another 5 star youth is pumped out of my system while my wage budget is enough to keep anyone I want. The interesting thing is how unsubtle the game imitates you, the German league automatically has become the best league and everyone plays the same 4-3-3 I play except for Dortumund.
Well, that's why I prefer getting teams from poor leagues or very low ones. Polish league or 5th English league. And so I bought FM2014, so far I find the new tactic system quite interesting - but maybe lacking a bit of depth of the old one? Guess I need to get used to it. So far only played 4 games as Wrexham, so a lot ahead of me.
On February 02 2014 08:00 Sub40APM wrote: if you get a rich enough team the game starts to be broken/boring. My schalke 04 has now won three Champions Leagues back to back and every year another 5 star youth is pumped out of my system while my wage budget is enough to keep anyone I want. The interesting thing is how unsubtle the game imitates you, the German league automatically has become the best league and everyone plays the same 4-3-3 I play except for Dortumund.
Try something different. Instead of your 4-3-3, try a new tactic, like a 3-5-2 or something. Sell your best players and try to make a new squad. Try the youth academy challenge. Hell, leave Schalke and try to make another club into a powerhouse (and watch as the AI crashes and burns your carefully crafted squad ;__;)
I always try to freshen things up, because I get bored of using the same players and tactics season after season.
The January transfer update is now out (276mb). Now you can start a new save in the summer of 2013, with squads updated to include all of the players that they signed in January. I prefer to play without it because I feel that it kinda destroys the realism of the game.
- Fixed rare crash related to city inhabitants in edited save - Fixed rare crash when holidaying to next fixture - Fixed rare transfer deadline day crash - Fixed crash related to Turkish player names - Fixed rare crash when histories have been corrupted - Fixed rare crash when recalling players from loan
COMPETITIONS
- Fixed State leagues not being scheduled when adding Brazilian leagues - Fixed past Winners screen for the Polish Ekstraklasa using positions from the Regular Season and not the positions from after the Split - Bulgarian and Romanian Players no longer need a Work Permit for British Clubs from January 2014 - Fixed user not given opportunity to Postpone Premier Division match due to International Callups - Improved scheduling of domestic fixtures before/after European matches - Fixed user not being asked to set length of End of Season Break after last match of season - Fixed MLS teams being unable to register players for Club World Championship - Improved the selection of players in the MLS Draft pool - CFA League Schedule now correctly matching other French Leagues - Improved A-League AI teams' signing of Marquee players
TRANSFERS & CONTRACTS
- Relaxed some German transfer preferences to allow users to sign more players from outside of Germany - Prevented AI managers from leaving jobs before playoff finals - Increased amount of international management sackings - Prevented the AI from signing a player on loan when the player has already played for two teams in the current season - Prevented players loans getting extended automatically when being loaned to South American sides - Tweaks to transfers made by the AI for users players - Prevented recently relegated side from the lowest playable league from entering a loop of hiring and firing managers on a daily basis
INTERACTION
- Fixed backroom advice not appearing for some clients online - Fixed Youth Setup Category not upgrading despite request being accepted - Fixed player wanting to discuss failure to qualify for Champions Cup despite having qualified - Fixed irrational response to player being congratulated on first international cap - Fixed a few issues of strange/contradictory responses in team meetings
MEDIA & NEWS
- Fixed transfer records being incorrectly broken with lower fee when using South Korean Won - Fixed manager to go odds displaying already sacked manager - Fixed backroom advice link allowing user to repeat private chat - Fixed remove Offer from Backroom Advice not functioning correctly - Fixed Champions League top goalscorer record broken shows previous record as -1 - Fixed code displayed in news item when international team changes national captain without a current manager - Fixed incorrect calculation for number of players signed in transfer window press conference question - Fixed sextuple news item not generating - Fixed press conference question considering league to be a close run contest incorrectly - Fixed press Conference question incorrectly referring to non-striker as striker - Fixed missing headline on AWOL news item - Fixed duplicated information in player debut news - Fixed league specific question being asked in post-match press conference
USER INTERFACE
- Fixed user's ability to select different player roles on the Player Coach Report screen - Prevented Nations duplicating when user changes Match Detail on Detail Level screen - Fixed sorting of club scouting assignments - Fixed filters resetting on the Team Selection Overview screen - Fixed Opposition Instructions clearing when user uses the Set Piece Wizard in Match - Fixed Match widgets staying faded out after highlight has played out - Fixed Home and Away Team stats switching in Match Overview - Fixed Assistant Manager Advice automatically updating in Match Overview - Fixed Important Attributes panel in Player Tactics not updating - Fixed Scout Report Training Development & Happiness displaying blank bars for player out on loan - Fixed Cup tied players not appearing on Fixture Details panel
FMC SPECIFIC
- News Item priority improvements to Manager News Website - Assistant Training will correctly update the training pie chart - Stopped players learning new positions when subbed into that position for very short periods of time - Improved player training when user changes tactics frequently
MISC
- Fixed double prize money payout in Norway - Fixed rounding issue in Sponsorship news item - Fixed issue with illogical stadium completion date - Fixed issue with £0 Sponsorship - Improved newgen creation in View-only leagues - Fixed issue where proposed plans to improve a stadium had fallen through and weren't explained to the user - Fixed issue where a board only increased a transfer budget from -£2k to £0 - Adjusted the creation of African and Albainian newgens created in Italy
PRE-GAME EDITOR
- Fixed a number of unique crashes when verifying files in Advanced Rules - Restored a number of verification warnings that were previously not generating - Fixed an issue where fixture rules were removed when adding lower divisions to existing structures and converting to Advanced Riles - Fixed an issue where certain leagues' default rules appeared with no dates or promotion/relegation information - Improved the functionality of average points tables in custom nation rules - Fixed a rare issue where a player would be given a positional rating of 20 and it would not extract into the game properly
IN-GAME EDITOR
- Fixed an issue where a player's unhappiness was removed, only for it to return the next day - Enabled the editing of nations
MATCH ENGINE v1454
- Increased dribbling speed at higher end - Improved pass and shot accuracy slightly at higher end - Improved goalkeeper save AI - Fixed keeper trying to pick up ball at feet but not being able to hold it - Fixed some instances of unrealistically dreadful poor touch - Fixed some full backs going forward too quickly off the ball - Increased likelihood of certain attacking roles dropping deeper to look for ball - Improved destination height of headed clearances - Fixed up "Mark six yard area" at corners to mean zonal marking of the edge of the six yard box - Fixed headed clearance trajectory bug - Slight reduction in overhit passes - Fixed potential own goal bug when player tries to stand still with ball near own goal line - Prevented midfield players going too deep when defending own area - Increased speed defenders will push up out of box when ball won back or cleared in deep areas - Reduced instances of defenders turning back on ball and retreating too quickly when team is generally well positioned defensively - Fixed error causing defenders to mark opponents and drop too deep into own area - Tweaked pace and target point of some short passes to feet when receiving player is under pressure - Slightly encouraged some more passes in behind opposition d-line - Reduced some further instances of overly long first touches - Reduced premature pot shots from distance when placed to take ball closer to opposition goal - Encouraged taking on of opponents by players likely to run with ball more - Some small dribbling AI tweaks - Encouraged ball forward to target man a bit more - Tweaked pass AI slightly - Tweaked cross AI slightly - Increased fouls slightly at lower levels - Reduced mentality choice slightly for low directness AI teams - Increased use of direct play strategy for smaller teams - Potential fix for odd throw ins - Fixed an issue when the subbed player doesn't drop the ball - Tweaked pass choice AI - Tweaked run with ball AI - Tweaked when to cross AI - Tweaked when to shoot long AI - Tweaked shot choice AI for top players - Tweaked header accuracy slightly - Tweaked when to clear ball AI - Fixed error causing many corners to go too close to goal line - Tweaked off ball movement around ball player - Fixes and tweaks to passing AI - Fixed some issues causing poor dribbling and first touch decisions - Some tweaks re when to shoot or not - Increased urgency of off ball movement in some situations - Fixed offsides being called after player has moved back onside before pass - Fixed bug where dive by attacker could result in penalty regardless of where it occurred - Improved keeper reactions in some situations - Made keepers sweep up balls more aggressively when needed - Improved keeper positioning when narrowing angle - Fixed a pass being reported as 550 yards in distance - Fixed unrealistic examples of keepers holding shots - Fixed keeper making unnecessary save attempt when already letting ball run out - Fixed keepers making buggy attempts to save ball when they have it under control already - Improved goalkeeper distribution - Fixed buggy offsides being given when player fouled - Fixed some instances of players continuing with pointless attempts to intercept balls that are destined for opponent - Made players quicker to move to slow moving ball when under pressure - Fixed some instances of buggy poor first touches - Less risky passes around own danger area - Some minor general passing AI tweaks - Tweaked long shot AI slightly - Reduced instances of silly passes when player in goalscoring opportunity - Made players less gung ho about drifting offside - Fixed buggy kick offs where the 2 players get in each other’s' way - Fixed some keeper clearances being given insufficient elevation - Fix for some crosses not being attempted - Reduction in dangerous and long back passes - Reduced DFK conversion slightly - Further fixes for keeper handling and judgement of ball issues - Removed illogical zonal marking on free kicks around corner of penalty area - Reduced unnaturally looped kicks from ground - More minor tweaks to on ball decision making AI - Fixed rare occurrence of player "teleporting" randomly on ball - Reduced unrealistic instances of long shots - Fixed bug causing some shot velocities to be reduced - Fine-tuned shot and pass accuracy - Fine-tuned player ratings - Fixed underhit long kicks - Fix occasional penalty awards when offence nowhere near area - Fixed rare occurrence of match not kicking off after goal
Hi guys, I had a quick question for you all as I've been eyeing FM13 and 14 for a while and wondering whether it's a game for me. At the current 17$ price point on steam that question has been renewed.
I love management games and love football (yes stupid fellow americans... it IS football, not that sport that should be called "handegg"), but I'm wondering just how much of the management and player value/progression is mirrored off of real world production. My ideal football sim would be managing and discovering worth in made-up players in a league that wasn't necessarily based in reality. As I'm on the other side of the pond, I don't have access to much league play and am not really that interested in following it. How are the management, research, scouting, character progression aspects of the game handled? I remember vaguely reading people saying on some forum (not here) "go buy such and such a player for value in lower leagues" and that level of meta involvement doesn't appeal to me.
There are thread here and there about 'talents that are cheap to buy from from lower league clubs", but that's only an option for first few months or years. If you don't follow such threads and just play, you can create a scout network to search for players you need (talented youngster, solid addition to first team and so on): depending on your club, you can search only your own country, the region or the whole continent. And of course you can always try to persuade to the board that building better training grounds and youth academy is the way to go and hope that one day you'll have your own Messi
So, buy it. 17$ is quite good price I would say. FM 2014 is a bit different in terms of tactics, but it's actually a bit more... human friendly? No more sliders to tell your players how wide they have to play etc.
And of course I recommend to NOT pick top teams. Too easy and boring. Personally lower leagues is the way to go and creating something from nothing, including hunting for young talents and creating a strong academy.
Kronen, they are all pretty good but obvs not realistic. This game gets really fun when you are in 2030 and your entire team is made up of generated characters. You actually have to use the in-game resources to work out who is the best for you. It's pretty fun I would say. You have to bear in mind that there are hidden stats in football manager so you have to pay attention to information you might not consider to be important to build a picture of someone's mental fortitude and desire to improve.
I have a young guy who started off as a prospect named Martin Spooner, he had 3.5 stars projected ability and 1 star current (bearing in mind the stars system is relative and my team is basically a team of superstars; 4 being the rating of like 3 players in the world lol); brought him in from Man City's youth system which has been rich in talent (I am Real Madrid with a stupid, stupid amount of money but our youth system still sucks for some reason). I allowed him on the field very occasionally and I noticed that the he had done well for himself and he got a couple of goals. Despite the fact that they seemed basically lucky goals and my players played him in, I decided to give him a couple of more shots; and put him with a tutor. In the next season, I decided to loan him out to get some experience. Followed him with a scout who said that he was impressed with various attributes he displayed. Bear in mind that I was doing this with another 5-10 guys at any one season (too much money lol). The next season, I put him on for a few games and my assistant was always saying that he was impressive. He actually scored like 3 hat tricks against really bad, low teams (low cup games, friendlies).
So he happened to squeeze into the England squad because of some key injuries to the team and then the first game he played for England he scored a hat trick. I was like 'o.O' and then the news article said 'King Martin!'. Turns out that this kid apparently has some awesome stones; despite the average stats he clearly had mental fortitude so I played him a bit more in my team as my 5th ranked striker. He carried on producing the goods every time he was subbed in and he also scored for England in some friendlies. The next season his stats continued to improve drastically and he basically went from a guy I purchased for like 2 million to being someone whose raw value is 20.5 million at age 22; meaning obviously that I could probably sell him for close to 60-80 million. He is so good that I have loaned out my 80 million pound striker dario medjimorec for 3 seasons in a row because I simply didn't need him lol.
It's been really fun following King Martin's rise in fame and ability; I have other footballers who have failed to impress and others who are following the same path as Martin...it's a real attractive feature of Football Manager that they have hidden stats and if you pay attention you can sometimes spot where someone has some real intangible qualities that mean they can become the best.
Also, even though as other people have said the competition is a bit less than you might hope; I have too much attachment to my manager (who went through some tough, tough times and some close scrapes) and the game is still fun because the world number 1 player point blank refuses to sign for me as do a lot of the other top world players. So I still have plenty of competition.
Also, I appreciate how people like the whole challenge of going with one club up to the top but I find it jarring and weird to have morecambe town winning the treble. So I like to float upwards in clubs and just generally experience new settings. The journey of my manager, Ugo Lusack, Ivory Coast ex-international DM goes:
Evian TG - fired after relegation SC Herenveen - won dutch cup, took them to 4th, quit for: FC Twente - wonder eredivisie, left club at end of season (was hoping I would interest other clubs but no T_T) 18 months of unemployment, considered quitting Leeds - got the chance halfway through season, previous manager sacked, in relegation zone (squeezed into playoffs, won promotion, then 10th in the prem the next season) Sunderland - won the league second season with them, but quit due to no money being available to restock aging squad Leverkusen - established something of a legacy with the club and set a nice groundwork. Stayed for 3 seasons and won the league once and got to the final of the CL, won the German Cup too. Offered the big job at RM. RM - was not going to take the job because I very much enjoyed Leverkusen; but Bayer were offering me 20 million a year to work with; Real Madrid offered me a budget of 230 million o.O. So I have been at Real Madrid for something like 6 seasons. Probably going to stay at Real Madrid until they fire me LOL
Doing the San Marino Challenge, now in Serie B after my second season but I'm under a lot of financial duress. Urgh. National team is still doing shit though, but at least I managed to salvage a 1-1 draw against Israel in the Euro qualifiers.
After finally winning the Bundesliga with Leverkusen in 2016, I finished fourth in 2017, but I got to the final of the Champions League, taking down Man United, Liverpool, and Bayern, only to lose on penalties to Spurs
After the latest patch the defending is so crazy for me. Like, game decides what session I will do fine and what session will go awful.
Examples? Plenty.
Session few days ago: I tweaked my 3-5-2 formation a bit, trying to find a way to strenghten the defending. We're scoring every damn game, but defenders to so much stupid things it's mindblowing, basically we almost score own goals too, that's how bad it it. After some changes, my Wrexham (which is now in League 1) went on rampage against top teams of the league, 3:0 or 1:0 heavy favourites.
Next day, new session, we're losing 4 or even 5 goals to teams from the very bottom of the league. Like, dafuq? I didn't change a damn thing, but my team plays totally different.
Well, I play FM since 2005 so it's not like I have no idea what I'm doing. I always used 3-5-2 and in every edition I was able to create a well working tactic. Not in 2014.
Especially the defense. I tried many things: - 3 defenders just 'defence", offside traps on, slightly forward so the enemy wingers are catch offside - middle "stopper" or "cover" and two "side" defenders being the opposite. Works sometimes, sometimes not, can't find a pattern.
What is the problem is the incostistency. I know I don't have superb players - not even close. But they're quite ok for this level of play I would say. I don't understand, how one session I have score many goals and concede non against top level oposition from my league and in other day the same players with same strat would lose 5 goals or so to bottom teams. Mind blowing.
Yeah I'd appreciate if you could switch to the English version. I'm partially of Polish descent, but I unfortunately don't speak Polish lol
But just looking at your formation, it looks way too attacking. If you're going to play with only one wide player, it's best to put them in the wing back position. I'm assuming your wide players are Wingers with a Support duty, but they won't track back enough (and with a support duty they won't attack as much as Wingers with Attack duties, meaning you have little threat down the flanks), leaving your center backs on their own. Wing backs will still attack and put in dangerous crosses, but they'll also drop back to defend, leaving with you a back five off the ball (the beauty of a 3-5-2 formation). If you don't have natural full backs/wing backs in your squad, put your wingers into the wide midfield slots, instead of the wide attacking midfield slots.
The midfield also doesn't look very balanced. I'm assuming WPP is a Ball-Winning Midfielder? Even with a Defend duty, I'd recommend against using a BWM as a holding midfielder, because they lack positional discipline. One of the main jobs of any midfield is to protect the back line from attacks. But a BWM's job is literally to run around, closing down whoever has the ball, he won't cover the defense as much as other roles. For someone in the Central Midfielder slot, the only role I'd select for a holding midfielder would be Central Midfielder (Defend).
Plus, with both having Defend duties, they are going to be playing very deep, which will drag the #10 back with them, isolating the two Strikers (I can't tell which role they have).
You have 2 Central Midfielders and 1 Attacking Midfielder. But most 3 at the back tactics I've seen have one guy in the DM slot, with 2 Central Midfielders. I think the reasoning for this is the roles available to a DM. An Anchor Man will sit between the defense and the rest of the midfield, forming a near-impenetrable triangle with your center backs (think like Barcelona, with Busquets and Puyol/Pique), while also covering for the wing backs who get forward. Defensive Midfielder is similar but with more creative freedom, Anchor Man won't do much in possession outside of simply laying the ball off to a more creative player. Half-Back will play like a normal DM in possession, but will drop back between the center backs when defending. Deep Lying Playmaker and Regista are aggressive like the BWM, but more focused on creating chances.
I'd recommend reading this guide on how to balance the midfield.
To sum it up, you neither attack nor defend enough down the flanks, have no one covering the center backs and breaking up counter-attacks, and the strikers are (probably) isolated from the rest of the team. I'll also need to see the team instructions (in English, please).
If you don't believe me, go back to a recent match and watch the first 10 or 20 minutes. Not the highlights, watch the full 10-20 minutes uninterrupted and keep a close eye out for what's happening in the match.
Thanks for long post - this season is finishing, but I will surely revisit some of my ideas for preparations for next one. Surely want to advance to Championship next year. Or we will go bankrupt before that, I have no idea if I can get any money without selling out the best players.
New screens, english this time. Not sure how the UK and US versions differ tho
Team orders Was experimenting with them a bit, seems a bit better than it was few games earlier. But again, it could be just a day disposition.
Squad We're scoring awful lot of goals. And conceding too. And we're were just this season promoted to L1, so not bad for a new guys I guess
Finanses My biggest issue for now - I wonder how much money I will get after the season. Already sold one of the most interesting youngsters for 1mln € that saved us for half a year.
I use the UK version too. The US version annoys me because it calls the game soccer and refers to me as a "head coach" instead of a manager. I also use pounds as the currency because that's what I'm used to seeing in news articles and stuff.
You seem to have a few conflicting team instructions. You have two Complete Forwards with Attack duties, meaning they are attacking the box, and a #10, with your wingers only having Support duties, yet your team is supposed to exploit the flanks. Either choose Exploit the Middle or nothing. The wingers will focus on getting in crosses and through balls to feed the strikers this way.
I'd also give one of the strikers a Support duty, just to encourage better link-up play and movement between the lines.
I think one of the biggest reasons for your inconsistency is the average age of your squad. You have literally only two players above the age of 26. There's a lot of young and inexperienced players in that squad.
Pay close attention to the goals and chances that you concede. Are opponents creating many chances with through balls? Crosses? Where is it coming from? Right? Left? Middle?
They may seem conflicting, but they actually...work. My forwards are linking quite well getting lots of assists and goals as seen on the screens. Surely I will want to experiment with them a bit when we hit Championship, but for now it seems like their pure quality is enough. I don't like when my wingers are full on attack - they will either run too far and passes from my middlefielders will be too risky/hard, they will get caught offside and of course, they will track back way less. With "support" duty they're actually attacking well, going in when they have space or just creating another opportunity for pass as they link with the action. #10 is the main guy keeping the ball, dictating the tempo of the play and serving passes left, right and center. Even with players not really too good for this level of play, this particular position is always providing some good play. BUT, sometimes the number of key passes is not too high, might as well look into that. Or it could be I don't have very good players for that position.
And about the age - yup. I just love this part of the game, searching for talents everywhere, picking up gems and "polishing" them. That's why I have such young squad - I don't even search for players older than 21 years, It's just a bit of pain in the ass when the players outside of EU can't get the work pass in UK when I know they would rock everybody.
As for defense: I've seen many people wondering about it, the long long passes. They seem to be weird, like a looooong ball is coming, my central defenders goes ahead to "head" the ball away, miscalculates horribly and the ball goes behind him. It's not once, twice, or lots of times during a season. And that looks buggy, not player depending.
That happens to me too. I think it's just a bug in the match engine. I also get crosses or corners that hit the woodwork, or they are about to go in the goal, meaning the keeper has to knock the ball away. That happens every game.
I used to play a lot of football manager games in the past, but haven't played any since 2011. They get more and more complex and I find myself not wanting to manage every little aspect of the whole team, scouting, stadium, merchandise sales etc.
Is there an appealing, lightweight manager game (official licenses would be great, but not neccessary) out there that is mostly just about team management? Also would be nice if the matches are in some form of 3D-engine, I usually like to lean back and watch the actual game.
If it just has team management, simple training settings, transfer market and maybe some stadium management (like ticket prices or improving the stadium etc.) it would be perfect for me.
On July 16 2014 20:04 PandaCore wrote: I used to play a lot of football manager games in the past, but haven't played any since 2011. They get more and more complex and I find myself not wanting to manage every little aspect of the whole team, scouting, stadium, merchandise sales etc.
Is there an appealing, lightweight manager game (official licenses would be great, but not neccessary) out there that is mostly just about team management? Also would be nice if the matches are in some form of 3D-engine, I usually like to lean back and watch the actual game.
If it just has team management, simple training settings, transfer market and maybe some stadium management (like ticket prices or improving the stadium etc.) it would be perfect for me.
In FM you can leave most of aspects of your team to your staff, training in recent versions is very simplified, really only thing you need to do is setup tactics and choose training regime. You can even pass responsibilty for transfers to someone else. There is also Classic game mode which is rather lightweight.
On July 17 2014 06:51 Ferrose wrote: Play classic mode. It's watered down and more flashy like the career mode in FIFA
On July 16 2014 20:04 PandaCore wrote: I used to play a lot of football manager games in the past, but haven't played any since 2011. They get more and more complex and I find myself not wanting to manage every little aspect of the whole team, scouting, stadium, merchandise sales etc.
Is there an appealing, lightweight manager game (official licenses would be great, but not neccessary) out there that is mostly just about team management? Also would be nice if the matches are in some form of 3D-engine, I usually like to lean back and watch the actual game.
If it just has team management, simple training settings, transfer market and maybe some stadium management (like ticket prices or improving the stadium etc.) it would be perfect for me.
Why would anyone play a watered down version? It's like playing Starcraft II in Starter Edition.
One of the things you can do to get a lot of great young players on the cheap is to scout areas like Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, and other nations with really high youth ratings and by the 3rd or 4th season, there will be a lot of amazing regens. Especially the ones in South America because the good players will not want to sign new contracts and so a lot of them are on expiring/expired deals. My entire is basically made of them at Hamburg SV(bundesliga doesn't have foreigner limits) I've signed like 6 players for under 5 mil each and they're all worth over 15 mil now and all are under 24.
Another must have is good coaches, preferably at least 4 star. And make sure not to give coaches too much workload in training. This has made a lot of difference as my youth players are constantly getting better now and rarely stagnate
Thanks, I'll check out FM. Though they have licensing problems in Germany and the game is a little harder to get here, but I guess I can just order in the UK. Is it still worth to get 2014 or wait for the new installment?
On July 17 2014 07:01 AXygnus wrote: Why would anyone play a watered down version? It's like playing Starcraft II in Starter Edition.
Just personal preference. I always liked those games just to relax, lean back and watch, but in the newer ones you spend more time analysing statistics and wading through countless menus, screens and options, than just watching the games and your tactics unfold. Of course they're not as deep anymore, but puts me more at ease.
If I were to start playing Football Manager, which version would you guys recommend? I've seen some complains about 2014 vs 2013. When is 2015 coming? Any mods or patches needed?
On July 17 2014 17:25 PandaCore wrote: Thanks, I'll check out FM. Though they have licensing problems in Germany and the game is a little harder to get here, but I guess I can just order in the UK. Is it still worth to get 2014 or wait for the new installment?
On July 17 2014 07:01 AXygnus wrote: Why would anyone play a watered down version? It's like playing Starcraft II in Starter Edition.
Just personal preference. I always liked those games just to relax, lean back and watch, but in the newer ones you spend more time analysing statistics and wading through countless menus, screens and options, than just watching the games and your tactics unfold. Of course they're not as deep anymore, but puts me more at ease.
Can always check things like /r/steamgameswap - the lowest price was 75% off at 12.49$. For that price I'd still buy 2014, the new version will take at least a month or so until after the current transfer window is closed.
On July 16 2014 20:04 PandaCore wrote: I used to play a lot of football manager games in the past, but haven't played any since 2011. They get more and more complex and I find myself not wanting to manage every little aspect of the whole team, scouting, stadium, merchandise sales etc.
Is there an appealing, lightweight manager game (official licenses would be great, but not neccessary) out there that is mostly just about team management? Also would be nice if the matches are in some form of 3D-engine, I usually like to lean back and watch the actual game.
If it just has team management, simple training settings, transfer market and maybe some stadium management (like ticket prices or improving the stadium etc.) it would be perfect for me.
Why would anyone play a watered down version? It's like playing Starcraft II in Starter Edition.
On July 16 2014 20:04 PandaCore wrote: I used to play a lot of football manager games in the past, but haven't played any since 2011. They get more and more complex and I find myself not wanting to manage every little aspect of the whole team, scouting, stadium, merchandise sales etc.
Is there an appealing, lightweight manager game (official licenses would be great, but not neccessary) out there that is mostly just about team management? Also would be nice if the matches are in some form of 3D-engine, I usually like to lean back and watch the actual game.
If it just has team management, simple training settings, transfer market and maybe some stadium management (like ticket prices or improving the stadium etc.) it would be perfect for me.
Why would anyone play a watered down version? It's like playing Starcraft II in Starter Edition.
On July 19 2014 16:10 evilfatsh1t wrote: what role did u use him for? guy would have made a godly winger. how are u supposed to get the best out of him in the striker role
Gotta agree, he'd be best as an Inside Forward.
Anyways, here's mine:
Old screenshot too, followed me to every club ever since I picked him up 5 years ago
On July 19 2014 16:10 evilfatsh1t wrote: what role did u use him for? guy would have made a godly winger. how are u supposed to get the best out of him in the striker role
Developed him as a poacher because he could outrun everyone... but I think he was able to play both wide positions comfortably in case my other wingers were tired.
Man playing Atheltic Bilbao after someone else ran it into the ground for 3 years with the racial restrictions is so frustrating. On one hand you have all this money. On the other hand not enough good players of Basque background to fill all positions.
I'm in my fifth season, and this is the farthest I've ever gotten (FM13 was the first one I played). This guy isn't my player, but he's by far the best newgen I've ever seen in one of my saves:
FM 15 screenshots. Looks like you have to level up your manager now, they made scouting more ambiguous and harder (you won't know everything about a player after scouting him once), and they replaced Creativity with Vision.
In terms of the interface, there's a sidebar now, which should make navigating around the menus easier and faster. Shame they didn't show more about the tactics screen.
Thanks for sharing. I have to say, I like what I see. The UI should be easy to modify colors and seems quite nice, more visible informations about players and not-so-easy scouting also seems great.
FM 15 screenshots. Looks like you have to level up your manager now, they made scouting more ambiguous and harder (you won't know everything about a player after scouting him once), and they replaced Creativity with Vision.
In terms of the interface, there's a sidebar now, which should make navigating around the menus easier and faster. Shame they didn't show more about the tactics screen.
At least the sidebar is back after disappearing for three/four editions now. I missed out on these screenshots but remember them being posted on /r/footballmanagergames.
I love the improved scouting and that you can select languages from a menu. It's really annoying that I can only speak English and Spanish if I set my nationality to American (and I don't even speak Spanish). Of course I can pick a second nationality, but I'm not American and Swiss, or American and Swedish, or whatever. It's petty but it's immersion-breaking for me.
I also don't like how a "tactical manager" isn't part of the coaching staff for training. That makes no sense. If I'm a tactical manager do I just not show up to training or something?
But overall I'm impressed with the new features. I was saying that I was going to stick with FM14 for a while, but after that video I'm finding it hard to resist FM15.
they made scouting more ambiguous and harder (you won't know everything about a player after scouting him once)
Finally :D This has been needed for a long time. Should force people to have more faith in scouting reports.
My current FM14 save is going pretty well. I just managed to get Hednesford into the Football League from Skrill North. It took me more seasons than I would've liked but it's difficult when your club has half the wage budget of everyone else in the league you're in! I got promoted from Skrill North in my first season with some decent loan signings, but it took 4 seasons to get out of the Skrill Premier (although we did win the double in that season; League and FA Trophy). Hopefully we can stay up but it's gonna be a difficult campaign with the squad only just turning pro...
I won the CL with my Leverkusen side in 2018, then in April 2019 my save file got corrupted. I took a break for a couple weeks and decided to try something different. So the other day I loaded up a save with Eintract Trier in the German Regionalliga Suedwest (the fourth tier), with all fake players. It's hard work but it's fun and refreshing. I can't just buy whatever players I want anymore I have to make do with what limited resources I have.
2020 year in my Wrexham, 3rd season in Championship and so far we're in the top after almost half of season. I've build this team from 5th league and... i have no idea what to do. As you can see, my finances are crap. Last season avarage sponsorship for teams in Championship was about 3 mln € - mine was about 700k. I need to sell at least one of the best players on my team every season to stay barely alive and the projections looks awful.
I wonder if I make it into Premier League will this help? Surely will get awful lot of money just for being there, buy man... I hope they do something about finances of lower leagues, it's absolutely demoralizing you can't do anything and it's not realistic at all.
woot, woot! didn't play the last one that much, but thought it was so cool that it was on linux so i bought it anyway. this will be a bit tougher sell. and the time that would have to be spent adjusting the everton players stats, and especially coaches / scouts, etc for realism (cough cough) will have to be taken into account.
i wonder what the advantage of being a tactical manager is. tracksuit manager allows you to give yourself pretty much a 5 star rating for any training attribute. why would anyone give that up and play tactical when it gives you nothing
On October 14 2014 09:36 evilfatsh1t wrote: i wonder what the advantage of being a tactical manager is. tracksuit manager allows you to give yourself pretty much a 5 star rating for any training attribute. why would anyone give that up and play tactical when it gives you nothing
Because they don't really like tweaking training schedules. I usually let my assistant/coaches deal with it, and pick my assistant/coaches based on the fact that it's going to be a large part of what they're used for.
My current FM14 save is going pretty well. I just managed to get Hednesford into the Football League from Skrill North. It took me more seasons than I would've liked but it's difficult when your club has half the wage budget of everyone else in the league you're in! I got promoted from Skrill North in my first season with some decent loan signings, but it took 4 seasons to get out of the Skrill Premier (although we did win the double in that season; League and FA Trophy). Hopefully we can stay up but it's gonna be a difficult campaign with the squad only just turning pro...
In my Hednesford save, we managed to survive our first season in League Two with a mid-table finish. Very respectable given our circumstances. During the transfer window before our second League Two season I was able to sign veteran journeymen Danny Graham (Sunderland IRL) and Steve Sidwell (Stoke IRL) as well as a not-so-young-anymore Tyler Blackett (Man Utd IRL). Along with some good loan signings, we've had a great start to the season and are currently 2nd in the league =P
training schedules have nothing to do with the quality of your coaches though. your assistant manager isnt going to find 4.5+ star coaches for you, so why would you be a tactical manager and let someone else train your players when you can be a free 5 star coach yourself.
On October 14 2014 09:36 evilfatsh1t wrote: i wonder what the advantage of being a tactical manager is. tracksuit manager allows you to give yourself pretty much a 5 star rating for any training attribute. why would anyone give that up and play tactical when it gives you nothing
Because they don't really like tweaking training schedules. I usually let my assistant/coaches deal with it, and pick my assistant/coaches based on the fact that it's going to be a large part of what they're used for.
My current FM14 save is going pretty well. I just managed to get Hednesford into the Football League from Skrill North. It took me more seasons than I would've liked but it's difficult when your club has half the wage budget of everyone else in the league you're in! I got promoted from Skrill North in my first season with some decent loan signings, but it took 4 seasons to get out of the Skrill Premier (although we did win the double in that season; League and FA Trophy). Hopefully we can stay up but it's gonna be a difficult campaign with the squad only just turning pro...
In my Hednesford save, we managed to survive our first season in League Two with a mid-table finish. Very respectable given our circumstances. During the transfer window before our second League Two season I was able to sign veteran journeymen Danny Graham (Sunderland IRL) and Steve Sidwell (Stoke IRL) as well as a not-so-young-anymore Tyler Blackett (Man Utd IRL). Along with some good loan signings, we've had a great start to the season and are currently 2nd in the league =P
I'm still in my 1st season in the German 4th tier, but we somehow got to the last 16 of the DFB-Pokal! We beat FSV Frankfurt 2-0 and came from behind against Cologne three times to win on penalties. Then in the third round we played well and lost just 1-0 to Hertha Berlin, a 1.Bundesliga side.
We got to play all the matches at home, and all the matches got televised, so that alone gave the club 1.5m pounds in revenue. Gate receipts+prize money put the total revenue from the cup near 2.5 million. Now in the winter break, we have 13 games left and I'm in 4th, 3 points off 1st. If we don't get promoted this season we'll definitely get promoted next season when I can actually get some players that don't suck.
I don't mind how they changed creativity to vision, but I'm really bothered by how they're still listing the stat alphabetically so that vision is now in between teamwork and workrate. It's one of those little things that screws up your first impressions of a player. I was looking at some of the new attributes and they seem pretty similar to last year's for the most part.
I'm reliving my youth staying up till 6:30am playing on Football Manager again. Its glorious.
For me, they have put so many little improvements in this game that the whole thing just comes together beautifully, whereas the last few years it's seemed really disjointed. I can now watch whole games at normal speed without getting frustrated at the unrealistic graphics, thanks to the new animations.
Obviously there's some bugs and stuff but this game is brilliant.
I recently moved to Germany so I can't buy it right now, but I will try to have my brother gift it to me from France. Anyone here from Germany knows if that works?
On November 07 2014 19:30 OceanLab wrote: I recently moved to Germany so I can't buy it right now, but I will try to have my brother gift it to me from France. Anyone here from Germany knows if that works?
No idea about getting it as a gift sorry. I bought a FM14 code last year and activating that is no problem so I guess the gift would work as the buyer of the game is located elsewhere.
On November 07 2014 19:30 OceanLab wrote: I recently moved to Germany so I can't buy it right now, but I will try to have my brother gift it to me from France. Anyone here from Germany knows if that works?
No idea about getting it as a gift sorry. I bought a FM14 code last year and activating that is no problem so I guess the gift would work as the buyer of the game is located elsewhere.
So where do you usually buy this code? is it like a steam code? sorry if I sound like a noob, I never had to do anything like this haha
I got FM15 but I feel lost without knowing all the wonderkids to buy
Memphis Depay seems like a sure buy on any save though. Also, it seems wingers in general have better stats now from my first impression, which is good because often retraining AMCs to wingers was the superior approach in FM14.
I played the demo and while the interface feels nicer, the match engine just feels like the one from FM14. I actually found that it was killing my immersion a bit, because while Miles said that they used the motion capture technology to make the players less robotic, the players feel even more robotic to me...
I hope someone makes a mod to put Vision in between Concentration and Decisions again. Having it where it is now is really messing me up, and I always thought Positioning, Teamwork, and Work Rate being together really complimented each other really well. A mod to have the player roles and duties back on the little pitch graphic, instead of on the sidebar would be nice too, but I'll get used to it I guess.
I don't think the game is amazing enough to warrant me buying it right now. I'm going to watch until it goes on sale for the Steam holiday sale.
On November 07 2014 21:26 Crushinator wrote: I got FM15 but I feel lost without knowing all the wonderkids to buy
Memphis Depay seems like a sure buy on any save though. Also, it seems wingers in general have better stats now from my first impression, which is good because often retraining AMCs to wingers was the superior approach in FM14.
Looking up stuff like that on the internet makes me feel like I'm not playing the game. I rely on my scouts etc. and I'm glad they've made the scouting a lot more realistic. I actually read the PC Gamer review and they were complaining about scouting being more realistic because people will just look it up anyway; people who were going to look up anyway don't even need scouting in the game so let the people who play properly get on with it =/
(I am very angry with that review. Trash review written by someone who sounds like they're both bad at the game and don't get what it is about...)
I really like the scouting changes as well. Much more realistic and interesting now
So, anyone knows if they fixed the finances? Like, the huuuuge gap between English Championship and Premier League that was so annoying in previous games?
I'm playing it, but I'm just halfway through my first season. Wrexham, fifth league, so far I'm second with few points missing to the top team and a shittone of injuries. Liking it so far obviously.
Nice! Grats on that save. Somehow I always leave my saves just when I dug up my low league club into premier league because that's usually when new FM is coming out.
As for FM2015, somehow I can't get into it. Played one full season, advanced to League 2 with Wrexham and... I just can't find a way for my 3-5-2 to work defensive-wise. Disheartening to continue if your team concedes the most stupid goals possible and/or your enemy fires super shots from half the pitch and scores.
Is this just my imagination or does this actually happen to anyone else: Start a game with a tactic that seems successful, suddenly it turns into shit. Forget to save upon exit so come back the next day, load game, after the period when successful tactic is getting destroyed by relegation level teams, but this time you are blowing through everyone 5-0 and so forth...Is there some kind of internal check that resets itself or just random luck. Like nothing else changed, I just literally reloaded and went from 5-10 games that were rage-inducing -- you know the ones I am talking about, 3 corner goals against you or the perfect pass from far flank over 4 defender and a goalie to some striker with all attributes below 13 to score a hatty -- to blowing through teams that on paper much better -- winning Euro Cup against stacked teams like its nothing, 6-0 score lines and such.
Oh damn I was just thinking of looking for this thread to see if it had one.
In FM 2015 I would recommend never going for 3 CB's but rather go for a half back in the DM spot. In defence an HB will slow down the counter before acting as that third CB. as well as giveing your defensive shape some depth instead of having that gap between your midfield and your centerback line. Having a sweeper keeper also boosts a 2-3-3-2 giveing you a very strong defensive triangle. when you get possession your wing backs will push up the pitch while the half back will tell the CB's to spread more to the flanks to act the same as a third CB.
The game learns your tactic over time and teams will develop against it if you're really successful. you need more then one tactic trained and you'll need to adjust it over the season just like in real live.
On January 15 2015 08:09 Sermokala wrote: Oh damn I was just thinking of looking for this thread to see if it had one.
In FM 2015 I would recommend never going for 3 CB's but rather go for a half back in the DM spot. In defence an HB will slow down the counter before acting as that third CB. as well as giveing your defensive shape some depth instead of having that gap between your midfield and your centerback line. Having a sweeper keeper also boosts a 2-3-3-2 giveing you a very strong defensive triangle. when you get possession your wing backs will push up the pitch while the half back will tell the CB's to spread more to the flanks to act the same as a third CB.
The game learns your tactic over time and teams will develop against it if you're really successful. you need more then one tactic trained and you'll need to adjust it over the season just like in real live.
I don't have FM15, but I've tried using a half back in FM14, and every time I'd win possession back deep in my own half, the half back would sit behind the center backs, but in front of the keeper, like a sweeper would. Meanwhile my two CMs (I play a 4-3-3) would stay pushed up in their normal positions, neither one coming deep to get the ball.
So there'd be a huge gap between the defense and the midfield, resulting in the center backs either passing backwards to the half back, or punting the ball forward. : /
On January 15 2015 07:54 Sub40APM wrote: Is this just my imagination or does this actually happen to anyone else: Start a game with a tactic that seems successful, suddenly it turns into shit. Forget to save upon exit so come back the next day, load game, after the period when successful tactic is getting destroyed by relegation level teams, but this time you are blowing through everyone 5-0 and so forth...Is there some kind of internal check that resets itself or just random luck. Like nothing else changed, I just literally reloaded and went from 5-10 games that were rage-inducing -- you know the ones I am talking about, 3 corner goals against you or the perfect pass from far flank over 4 defender and a goalie to some striker with all attributes below 13 to score a hatty -- to blowing through teams that on paper much better -- winning Euro Cup against stacked teams like its nothing, 6-0 score lines and such.
Yup, happened to me too. Sometimes it doesn't make sense and really seems like game is randomizing the chance to "screw you" for no apparent reason.
@Sermokala I'm experimenting as hell and of course it's not like my 3 defenders are the only ones with defensive tasks. I also have 2 DM that are supposed to be the shield for my defensive trio, but they either are running amok or are too deep when we try to attack, which also isn't good. Still trying to make it work tho.
I've been using 3-5-2 since FM2005 and in every damn edition I made it work. This one seems the most tricky from them all.
I've found that 3-5-2 works well if you use 3 CMs, with two BTB on the sides (and probably an AP or RP in the middle). They will cover for the wing backs and drop deep when needed, they are not very impactful through the middle offensively, but your middle CM, strikers and wing backs (especially them, exploit flanks play wider) should get enough things done. If you want your midfielders to do more offensively you should put play narrower and exploit the middle. In this case the wing backs will be far less impactful.
Also I have the side centre backs on stopper duty with hte middle one covering. Atleast 1 of your strikers should be set as f9, possibly both, because that shit is OP. And obviously you need to set drop deeper against teams that play the long ball, very important with 3-5-2.
On January 15 2015 19:07 evilfatsh1t wrote: so verdict on fm 15 vs fm 14? better or worse?
It is worse right now I think. 4-3-3 (attacking) possesion tactics are strictly superior to all other tactics (it seems). But it will be better after a few more patches, maybe. There are more press conferences, but i let my assistant do those so it doesn't bother me. The scouting and player development system is slightly better. You still dont get richer quick as a small club but your reputation does go up really quick, adn your board will be very generous if you are doing better than expected. So i would say small club management is more fun now.
If you pick appropriate coaching qualifications, players are real bastards, constantly demanding more money and demanding transfers and will get pissed off at you for denying them anything. If you go for the max points you can just tell them to fuck off and they will totally respect you for it, so I just do that till its no longer so infuriating.
They already fixed lots of problems though, like unstoppable crosses, crazy comebacks due to teamtalks, injury frequency etc. But many things you can do as a player are overpowered, like short corners, and just putting 3-4 F9s up front. In general defensive and direct tactics do not work well no matter what team you play. If you want to play fast football it is actually better to put possesion instructions + overload. If you want to play defensively it is actually better to drop deep with a possesion tactic. The rigid shape just seems worthless, strictly worse than standard/fluid. If you like to design diverse tactics then you are better off with FM14 right now.
How do the two wide midfielders do as the lone widemen? I've been thinking of trying something like that in my save, since I have three strikers this season. I tried a diamond, but my wingers are probably my two best players, so I want to try and keep them in the lineup.
I'm having a tough time leaving my 4-3-3 comfort zone.
Hmm, maybe I could try that out with my full backs playing that role. My current wingers are Viktor Fischer and Mohamed Salah; it'd be a massive waste of their talents to play them in that kind of role.
It'd be hilarious if something like your save happened IRL. I can just imagine everyone on TL making fun of Real Madrid if they sold a bunch of Castilla players to Hednesford Town and then lost to them in the CL.
If you want to get cancer, just play with mid/bottom table teams in PL.
ive already lost half of my hairs and im likely to become bald like Baldiola very soon. Even if im playing with full defensive strats, most of teams scoring like i dont have a fucking defence. This is probably the worst fm ive ever experienced.
If you want to get striker for reasonable price, get Enes Unal. +20 goals per season ezpz.
so guys. im arsenal. won the PL last season. board generally happy. but one guy wanted to be sold. too many promises broken. so whole team got unhappy. and now the board sacked me. reloaded but save was just 3 games before. now I sold him but team still unhappy. will probably be fired again... can I salvage it? dont want to take the team with new manager..
You can reload the game and terminate his contract before the general mutiny. It will be costly but at least he won't bitch about broken promise, saving you a lot of trouble.
You could also try talking to the guy or the captain about the situation, though I'm not sure there are apropriate dialogue options available.
ViperPL so reloading before mutiny would be way back. dont think I have a save before that. Also tried to talk to captain, and there was no proper option I feel the game is a bit broken here. I mean I won the PL, im in first place in PL, still in CL, and overall doing really good. I sold the player that was unhappy. Still the team is unhappy...
according to steam i've spent 419 hours on it (obviously inflated due to simming overnight etc) feels way harder to win than past fm's, that's for sure. gotta actually pay attention to the players you bring in rather than plugging and playing. fatigue and match fitness actually matter.
for example the yanited save i'm on at the moment - in 2021 and i've only won the pl once (cl and ul once too - one CL final was stupid though, lost 6-7 to barcelona in extra time).
bernardo silva, paulo dybala and lincoln (some brazilian wonderkid) have been saving my ass through this save (especially bernardo silva, with a minimum release clause of 21.5mil there's no reason to not snap him up in any save you play)
WTF? 1 pl win in ~6 seasons? is it harder to win because the match engine is stupid and doesnt follow your tactics, or is the ai just that much better suddenly. because the former makes for a stressful rage inducing game whereas the latter makes for a good challenge
well i've actually bothered to train/scout players to fit in the roles as set in my tactics now and i'm starting to see proper results so probably the latter
On December 09 2015 22:16 GTR wrote: well i've actually bothered to train/scout players to fit in the roles as set in my tactics now and i'm starting to see proper results so probably the latter
This sounds interesting. I buy FM about every other year and didn't buy last year so its nice to see 2 years worth of improvements on each purchase.
Alex kimyowa is again a hugely underrated Dimond in the rough. He tends to be released after a few loan spells and goes off to poor teams that can't get him to his potential. He has 19 pace and 19 aceleration with middling to low otherwise stats at the start of the game but he has a ton of potential and is 19-20ish. You can't train 19 19 stats and with a few years of a good program he's a lightning fast winger that always gets behind the defenders on a counter. Him Depay and martial are making my yanited save easy mode.
On December 10 2015 02:55 Sermokala wrote: can't find many good fullbacks though
keep on to luke shaw for sure. has been giving me consistant 7.5's each season although he gets banged up quite a bit.
in terms of right back is a bit more of a challenge until you can mold regens. maybe target someone like dani carvajal around the time he renegotiates with real madrid. alessandro florenzi is another decent option. if you want someone who can play both right back and centre back and are willing to splash a bit of cash jesus vallejo is really good.
Got it finally and have been putting the hours in. I was initially put off by the reviews but having played every version since CM 03/04, I agree that this is a significant upgrade over FM15. There are lot of small improvements that game reviewers probably don't appreciate but have made the game more enjoyable. They fixed a lot of annoyances with the interface and mechanics. The tactics and game engine is great, forces you to adapt instead of plug n play. Game runs a lot faster than FM15, the CA/PAs make more sense now. No more handing out free 180s to random prospects, 150PA defenders are perfectly serviceable for world-class teams, etc. Head of Youth Development can influence youth intake, squad personality can improve hidden attributes, game is more flexible and streamlined.
omg the processing power of a new desktop compared to a 4 year old laptop is insane... my save file is going a million miles more than it did before and its a life saver.
wow we havent had a single post or thread on fm in over 3 years. fm 2020 came out and i was wondering if anyones tried it? thinking of getting back into fm again but im wondering if its worth playing
I used to play FM14 with a friend and voice chat and it was a nice way to socialize in the middle of all adult life responsibilities and all that.. Then they wrecked the multiplayer with all kinds of lock-up bugs and such and didn't manage to fix it in years.
Now there's some promise of a functional multiplayer again, so I might consider it at some point. Not in a hurry though, it feels like I'm paying 50 euros for a bug fix that should've been around for years.
On December 22 2019 13:18 evilfatsh1t wrote: wow we havent had a single post or thread on fm in over 3 years. fm 2020 came out and i was wondering if anyones tried it? thinking of getting back into fm again but im wondering if its worth playing
Well I only buy the game every 3 editions so the comparison I have is with FM17, keep that in mind.
FM20 has a lot of improvements in the way you manage your youth and the interactions with your squad. It also has a lot of nice touches in respect of the relationship with the board with the club vision system.
Training has suffered a significant revamp since 2017 and you have a lot more options for specific training of the team (day by day basis and even 3 time slots per day that you can allocate to one of the several training options, ranging from simple ons like attacking play to more out of the box ones like community outreach programs for team bonding).
Outside the ME, the game has a lot more detail and things to do than it had in 17. I like the improvements a lot.
Then comes the ME.……………………..
There are two (almost) game breaking issues in this ME. First of all, the aerial passes to the back of the CB's will 90% of the time lead to a 1on1 with the GK, since the defense is always slower to react to those. Then, 90% of the time, the strikers will either shot wide or hit the GK dead center. It is beyond frustrating seeing Messi, Ronaldo, whatever having 10 1on1's per game and see them incapable of hitting the ball properly or even hitting the net. This issue is being looked at.
The second one are side netting shots...your wingers and WB/FB will find a lot of space (or even create it) with lovely football that you will be proud to see your team display. But then, when they get past their marker, they will, (a lot) more often then not, opt to shoot and those will end up in the side netting regardless (a lot of times instead of the simple pass to the middle of the box for a tap in). This is also being looked at.
There are other matters like long shots being too effective, or 50 shot games but I reckon those might be more related to tactics and user bias than actual bugs. There is also the PK issue that to me seems like a bug but people say it averages out correctly throughout the season (as in I play with more than one team in each save, and my main strikers in each team have roughly 10 PK attempts so far. Meaning they would end up the season with approx 15/20 goals just from PK alone).
FM20 is a very fun game outside the 90mins and a passable game within the pitch. If you haven't bought it for a long time I would say go for it if you can handle the frustration of the 1on1's and side net shots during a lot of your games.
Very incredible project as they've said they're going to try and develop it to the point where they can get every nation in the game to have their own facegens.
thispersondoesnotexist.com This site that the ai comes from is pretty crazy.
basically a group of people were able to use neural networking to create realistic looking faces for newgens. what an incredible project.
Specially since in FM20 the newgen faces and looks are beyond ridiculous.
Havent checked out FM21 but following last year's bad game, all the corona limitations SI mentioned during development and my usual policy of only buying FM every 3 years....i dont regret it.
Anyone has feedback on this year's game? Have major ME improvements been introduced?
The ME is a lot better but if you were skeptical about the financial effects of covid and are on a 3 year cycle this one is okay to skip. The shift to a more TV style presentation is.. rough I want to say and the game tells you stuff a lot less explicitly. but by a mile the football is a lot prettier.
Like in fm 20 you'd be calibrating your fitness and condition down to the percents while in fm 21 you're working on general reads of the players that might have to do with your stats for how accurate it is.
The marking rework was huge for fm 20 but it make defense really easy to be compact and not give up goals. fm 21 breaks down a lot of defenses to where you can score from inside the box instead of having to rely on long shots. Its for some reason a lot easier to work with cynical counter attacking ball and double AMC's are still borderline game breaking. LLM especially in south America and Mexico is just wild with how much talent is let go on free's/ the talent that is just out on the street.