Football Manager Series Catch-All

Blackice wrote:

The early Premier Manager games by Gremlin Interactive had random events. I can't remember details (my favourite, PM2 was out in the early nineties I think) but I do remember my best player being killed after being struck by lightning!

Ha, that's the stuff!

There was an old manager game I loved called On the Ball, it had random events. My favourite was the opportunity to become a player / manager. Sure you were a Sunday Leaguer and you're managing a top flight club and your stats are garbage but I made sure I started every match

Was that the one that was based on a German game, where the graphics were sort of like drawn comic cartoony ? I didn't play it very much, but I think there was a lot of odd things happened in it.

I remember having that in the mid-90s...I also seem to remember that there was a world cup version.

I'm now having some sort of flashback to thinking that game was the basis for EA's FA Premier League manager (which was released in 1998), which for some reason went through a number of iterations. The presentation was FIFA-esque, but the match engine was ludicrous - I went through a full season picking up 3 bookings. I also seem to remember that it was particularly popular in Germany (perhaps because it was based on On the Ball).

Season 2 begins, and Fulham are top!

(For exactly one half of one game.)

But nevertheless! We started off the season with a very nice 3-0 win over just-promoted Aston Villa. We sold off five players in the offseason, brought in six with a net spend of just $18M, including the $2.5M return of Chris Smalling to Craven Cottage, along with La Masia refugee Munir and another former United player, Andreas Pereira, both on a free. (I try not to name players, per Mr. Bismarck's example but with these guys, I figured what the hey, since none of them are LLM signings.)

10 games in we're 4-4-2 (Ha!) and just a point off the European places, so we could dare to dream. The only downside so far was an incredibly disappointing 2-0 surrender at home in the League Cup to Newcastle.

Oh, as a sidenote, for whatever reason, I really like the tactics this year. It might be because the game is a bit easier, or maybe reading all those Jonathan Wilson columns and watching Tifo football videos has finally gotten some theory to sink in, but it feels much more intuitive to set out my team to play a particular way now.

If I do have a gripe, the game is still quite a bit cross-heavy. Or at least, my team doesn't score as many via through-balls and intricate interplay. The AI, on the other hand...

Prederick wrote:

Oh, as a sidenote, for whatever reason, I really like the tactics this year. It might be because the game is a bit easier, or maybe reading all those Jonathan Wilson columns and watching Tifo football videos has finally gotten some theory to sink in, but it feels much more intuitive to set out my team to play a particular way now.

If I do have a gripe, the game is still quite a bit cross-heavy. Or at least, my team doesn't score as many via through-balls and intricate interplay. The AI, on the other hand...

Same here... The tactical screen looks way better in FM2019 though, but I'm going to stick to 2018 for now.

Have they fixed the long shots this time? I think my team scored like 5 goals from outside the box in the entire season, and hit maybe 10 on target. My players have no exceptional skills, but still a few with like 13/14.

My Anderlecht won the championship in the meantime. I figured five out of ten would be enough to clinch it, but four victories in the first four play-off games and my competitors insisting on losing points each week nailed it early.

I kind of drifted away from the game since then, but I'll get back to it and finish the season. It's a perfect opportunity to give some U21 players first team experience, were it not that two/three youngsters are already regulars.

davet010 wrote:

Was that the one that was based on a German game, where the graphics were sort of like drawn comic cartoony ?

Yeah, sounds about right.

The first football manager game I actually owned was...Football Manager on the ZX Spectrum - which necessitated buying extra RAM to boost my machine to a mahoosive 48k.

At this point, it might be easier to list the football manager games that I haven't owned and been rubbish at. The only series that I completely avoided was the Championship Manager series that was made by Eidos.

And before those of you with access to Wikipedia type lists spring this one, yes I DID own the Manchester United management game. Somehow my lack of ability wasn't a particular problem then..

davet010 wrote:

The first football manager game I actually owned was...Football Manager on the ZX Spectrum - which necessitated buying extra RAM to boost my machine to a mahoosive 48k.

At this point, it might be easier to list the football manager games that I haven't owned and been rubbish at. The only series that I completely avoided was the Championship Manager series that was made by Eidos.

And before those of you with access to Wikipedia type lists spring this one, yes I DID own the Manchester United management game. Somehow my lack of ability wasn't a particular problem then..

Do you mean Championship Manager post-SI, when they started football manager? I think I had one of those, it was incredibly broken. Goes to show over the years Sports Interactive just get it, as pretty much all other sims haven’t took off.

Clusks wrote:
davet010 wrote:

The first football manager game I actually owned was...Football Manager on the ZX Spectrum - which necessitated buying extra RAM to boost my machine to a mahoosive 48k.

At this point, it might be easier to list the football manager games that I haven't owned and been rubbish at. The only series that I completely avoided was the Championship Manager series that was made by Eidos.

And before those of you with access to Wikipedia type lists spring this one, yes I DID own the Manchester United management game. Somehow my lack of ability wasn't a particular problem then..

Do you mean Championship Manager post-SI, when they started football manager? I think I had one of those, it was incredibly broken. Goes to show over the years Sports Interactive just get it, as pretty much all other sims haven’t took off.

And still... though I admire and respect the efforts of SI and their humongous database. I somehow lost track of being able to FM step after step since fm 2012....

I think it is the almost undoable task to take a club from of the lowest league to Champions league glory - which was feasable in the earlier versions. I know there are hardcore players who still pull this off, but that's the same as players play civilization on Deity level.

I do believe SI has absolutely earned their share in FM... but somehow I would love to see some other sims taking off for the wee players like me who would like to have a blast.

You can still buy that Football Manager - as there's a certain other Football Manager this one is now strictly called "Kevin Tom's Football Manager."

It's probably better on mobile.

Football Manager was my introduction to computer piracy as I'd never heard of the game until one day in the early 80s a friend showed up and handed me a TDK tape with "Football Manger" (sic) written on it.

I played that thing so much I would sometimes leave the computer on overnight so I could start again the next morning without having to load from the tape again.

Then one day in 1985 I randomly pressed ESC with the game running and it just dropped me straight into the code. So I rewrote the game's scoring code entirely to semi-randomly assign 2, 3, 6 or 7 points and turned the whole thing into a World American Football league with promotion and relegation.

Watching a little pixel dude fire the ball past the keeper into the goal and then seeing "Touchdown!" flash on the screen was a little weird, but other than that it really worked well.

You should have had a word with Kevin Toms, Mr Bismarck - I seem to remember that your version would have been more like American Football than the one he produced for the Spectrum, which I'm pretty sure didn't have four downs.

And leaving things on overnight - that reminds me of the first Championship Manager for the Amiga, where I was convinced that the game was crashing when it loaded, because nothing happened. I set it going for one last try, then a friend came round while it was loading, and by the time he left I went back to my machine and it was on the team select screen. I wouldn't mind, but the original CM had made up names (which might have been the issue) and only had the 4 divisions of the English league. Didn't stop me playing it for hours, mind you.

And Clusks, yeah - these things

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Peoj Snamreh wrote:

I do believe SI has absolutely earned their share in FM... but somehow I would love to see some other sims taking off for the wee players like me who would like to have a blast.

I know what you mean, Peoj. A lot of the games that people have mentioned above, like Premier Manager and On the Ball, were not attempting to correctly model the Norwegian 3rd division or the intricacies of the gegenpress, but just a lighter faster model of football management. At the moment, that lighter version doesn't really exist - it's like the full Michelin 3 star dining or nothing. I suppose the problem is that recent attempts at the lighter version, such as the FA Premier Manager series or the career mode in FIFA, have been too far to the other end of the spectrum - they've been like a trip to the kebab van after a skinful.

I can't speak for FM Touch, as I've never really tried it. Would that fit this bill ?

davet010 wrote:

I can't speak for FM Touch, as I've never really tried it. Would that fit this bill?

It didn't for me, at least. The game felt like it asked the same realism and dedication, but with only half the toolbox available. Especially the post-game feedback felt seriously lacking. Seeing "Lack of steel in the midfield" over and over again, whatever tactic or starting 11 I picked wasn't really helpful.

I totally agree that there is room for "something less" with a football sim, and sims in general. And perhaps games in general, for that matter?

I liked MLB Manager as a simplified version of OOTP Baseball when I played it a few years ago. I really got into a Kansas City Royals career and played several seasons in the time it'd take to play one with the full version.

Related to this, one crazy "game making" idea I've had bouncing around in my head is a World Cup simulator, where you play the role of a nation's national team director, and are in charge of promoting the sport, hiring a manager, and working to develop your nation's capacity to develop and recruit talent to win the World Cup. Impacting this would be the country's political, economic, and cultural climate. I'd imagine it running at a 10-15 minutes per year pace, where you could play a nation for 100 years in about 10-15 hours.

Been a long time since I've seen an international-only sim...and never with the sort of ideas that you have put forward, Gorilla Blitz. I seem to remember an international On the Ball version, and before that I am talking Spectrum games - Tracksuit Manager and there was one called Mexico '86 which had two parts. In the first you started with a squad and tried to qualify for Mexico '86, then you saved that and loaded it into a game where you were playing the tournament. I don't think it carried on after the tournament, and my best performance was QF with England.

I think the reason that there are so few is that ordinarily an international only sim lacks the strategic aspect - there's no transfers, so you're stuck with what you've got. I've never played FM as an international manager only, either.

A lot of GB's ideas would fill in those missing blanks, but the timescale looks a little off unless you are not going for a full simulation model of the qualification/tournament processes. The described game almost sounds like a sort of CivSoccer (dibs on the name).

davet010 wrote:

A lot of GB's ideas would fill in those missing blanks, but the timescale looks a little off unless you are not going for a full simulation model of the qualification/tournament processes. The described game almost sounds like a sort of CivSoccer (dibs on the name).

Yeah, I'm thinking of a "game I could make in my lifetime" kind of thing, and a simulation model would be out. I don't think it would fit with the timescale either? If the goal is about 10-15 minutes per year, I'd envision just pushing a button to get a game result instantly. And as national director, you'd have little to no influence on the in-game action. Perhaps only limited to some sort of a "speak with coach at halftime" interaction.

Perhaps in the World Cup you'd want to create at least some sense of drama with some sort of pseudo text simulation, like there used to be in older versions of FM/CM. And you'd need a tournament modeling set up, for sure.

I'd still pre-order it, mind you.

Maybe pitch it to Paradox, as the sports version of CK2. Let's face it, it's got everything apart from the pitched battles, and would lend a whole new dimension to 'besieging the opposition area'. And you could try to breed the correct traits into your squad...

And the events..

"Your mistress spills all to the tabloid press, -1 morale for next match".

"Your 5 yr old love child gains 'showboating' trait."

"Your unreliable striker suffers a mysterious brake failure.."

Could be a winner, and just imagine it when the base game only comes with the tournaments up to 2024 and succeeding ones are DLC...as is the African Cup of Nations. And the Copa America.

davet010 wrote:

I'd still pre-order it, mind you.

Maybe pitch it to Paradox, as the sports version of CK2. Let's face it, it's got everything apart from the pitched battles, and would lend a whole new dimension to 'besieging the opposition area'. And you could try to breed the correct traits into your squad...

And the events..

"Your mistress spills all to the tabloid press, -1 morale for next match".

"Your 5 yr old love child gains 'showboating' trait."

"Your unreliable striker suffers a mysterious brake failure.."

Could be a winner, and just imagine it when the base game only comes with the tournaments up to 2024 and succeeding ones are DLC...as is the African Cup of Nations. And the Copa America.

Oh, now that's an idea! CK2 types of relationships and personality traits among the director of soccer, the country's president, FIFA executives, players, etc. That in turn could trigger all sorts of random events like you mention, making your job harder or easier. Think of all the corruption, graft, and behind the scenes deals! Brilliant! It'd almost be like FIFA in real life!

You could send agents to seduce and eventually marry top players from other countries, then bribe your Director of Immigration to grant them citizenship. Spend money on tobacco campaigns targeting the youth of other nations, reducing their likelihood to play sports, etc. The potential is ... unlimited! Muhaha!

And just wait to see FIFA's reaction when your devil-worshipping horse takes over your country's FA and decides that child sacrifice will help your nation's progress in the Copa America.

"Meh, Blatter and that Argentinian bloke were doing that years ago".

Instead of Papal Influence, you'd have FIFA Influence, helping direct streams of largesse into your nation's (and your..) bank accounts. Bid for hosting rights for major tournaments. Take bungs and look the other way when Infantino's complicity in Blatter's thefts is revealed. Blockade other countries and prevent them getting to WC 2022, initiate nuclear war to...

("nurse, the screens please").

Still, I think there's definitely somethings there. Somethings that would get a publisher sued, granted, but there are seeds of greatness.

I love that the ACTUAL interpersonal game mechanics of CK2 could be directly ported over to this game and no-one would say a thing.

This sort of game would be an instant buy for me. I would also see certain strengths and weaknesses for specific countries.

Netherlands: extra points on bringing forth a talented striker, -10 on all possible points when matches go to penalties.

Germany: 75% extra chance of scoring a winning or even-goal in the last three minutes of the match.

Italy: opposition has 50% extra chance getting yellow or red card , vice versa if VAR is available.

England: 5% chance per year of a goalkeeper with a weight problem (who ate all the pies)

Apart from being the team director - I would love to have some - just a little - influence on the line up.

Say, tactics and selecting the players.

I think that rather than picking players, your choice is governed by picking the manager - as it is in most NFL simulations that I've seen. So each manager candidate has their preferred formation and style listed, and your role is to select the one whose philosophy best fits the current squad. They could have other ratings, such as ability to bring forward players from the u-21s or to maintain squad harmony.

And remember, Sports Interactive and Paradox, the name 'Tournament Kings 2' is copyrighted by me.

I guess the inclusion of English, Dutch and Russian fans would allow for the retention of the sacking and pillaging mechanics.

Afaik know, in lower leagues the sugar daddy does have a (big) influence on the line-up. Put the players where the money is: e.g. if they bring in a expensive striker - this striker will play the first 20 matches wether he scores or not.

I can imagine that this could be a mechanic in our beloved 'Tournament Kings 2' when you are the team director of certain feudal / dictatorial / peoples republic countries. Obliged to line up the nephew of the General Secretary

Man... I did some course- and rules-regelations-design in the past.
I could do some proces-mapping on the game. Are there no programmers here?

davet010 wrote:

I guess the inclusion of English, Dutch and Russian fans would allow for the retention of the sacking and pillaging mechanics.

Haha! This one cracked me up!

Godzilla Blitz wrote:
davet010 wrote:

I guess the inclusion of English, Dutch and Russian fans would allow for the retention of the sacking and pillaging mechanics.

Haha! This one cracked me up!

Every away match these countries have a 5% chance of rioting and getting a fine (less money to hire a trainer) or loose point in the qualification (e.g. you loose a match wether you won or not). This, coupled with the taxes on alcohol and prices in general per country.

E.g. an away match in Scandinavia 1% (expensive). Spain 5% (cheap alcohol). Poland (15%)

Note to regular contributors.

Those responsible for the diversion into Tournament Kings 2 have been heavily sedated. Or have sedated themselves.

Normal service can now be resumed.

4-0 league win over Chelsea!

4-0 league win over Chelsea!

4-0 league win over Chelsea!

Was I afraid I woke the neighbors screaming "F**K YOU CHELSEA" when Mitro put in #4? I was! And Sessegnon hit an absolute thunderbolt from 25 yards too for #3.

It was DESERVED as well. We outshot them 20-11, and had SEVEN clear-cut chances. If not for f**king Kepa, we'd have absolutely obliterated them.

EDIT: And then Arsenal and Real Madrid came in with January bids for Mitro. Nice knowing ya dude!

4-0 over Chelsea ? I had to check the BBC to make sure you weren't posting actual football scores

A quick question though, Prederick. I assume this is season one, but even so - how have you held on to Sessegnon for this long ? Or was that goal by the other Sessegnon ?

I am currently in January of Season 2 and oddly, while there were continuous rumors that someone was going to come in for Sessegnon (the good one), no-one has actually made a bid, and young Ryan's been professional enough that he's never let it turn his head.

So I'd see something about Tottenham coming in with a bid for him or see like three teams listed next to his name as "Wnt", but nothing has ever actually come of it, which is fine by me, because he's maturing into a solid player.