Soccer Gaming Catch-All

Hmm I'll have to have a serious re-look at my coaches then as some of them are hold overs when I got promoted and never bothered to fire them as I was getting max stars according to training anyways. I've had the same Asst Manager also so maybe its time for him to go also.

I don't think I'll quit the game but I've hit a serious wall. Cant upgrade the stadium, facilities and my finances are pretty much getting capped out and will get worse once some of my long term 24month transfer sales run out (Barca owed 1.3m every month for 24m on a 40m player I sold and that runs out in 9 months which wont be pretty). If I was turning 1/5 of my prospects into better players maybe I wouldn't be so frustrated but I'm honestly batting like 0/10. The breaking point will be if my current LB a 7 star potential player who's 20 and is already at 5 stars just losses his cap and becomes a 5 star player. Besides tweaking my coaches like you mentioned I can think of 0 other ways to make him reach his potential. Supposedly maxed out star training schedule, facilities and hes playing in the first team regularly.

I don't think I've ever stuck with one game this long so I kinda want to know what happens when the obvious stars of the game are retired. Ronaldo is 31, Torres is 32, Cesc is 29, Gerrard is 36 and cant get a first team game obviously while Terry is 35 and is still getting some games. Spurs and City have turned the top 4 into a top 6 and me at Wolves have turned it into a top 7 even but what is hilarious no one has won the title besides Man U or Arsenal.

2009: Arsenal, Chelsea, Man U
2010: Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal
2011: Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City
2012: Man U, Arsenal, Liverpool
2013: Arsenal, Liverpool, Man City
2014: Arsenal, Liverpool, Man City
2015: Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool
2016: Arsenal, Liverpool, Man U

Hi all - haven't gone through the whole thread, so I apologize if this has already been covered . . . has anybody played either fifa 09 or PES09 on the PSP? I'm looking for a good commute game, and I've played MLB 08 completely to death . . . haven't played any soccer games for a while, on any platform. Anyone?

Absolutely no idea my friend. I wish I could give you some insight, but I haven't even seen a PSP in over a year, so you may as well flip a coin.

I come from the future bearing news!

Its 2017 and the players suck. Once you really start getting to the point where the game is almost entirely generated players the quality of the players really dips it seems. Which is pretty obvious when you think about it as there are players from all around the world that are great when you start but as the game seems only to replace them by how many leagues you have active. In my case I made England (Prem + Champ), Holland, Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, and Italy active. Usually I add in Argentina and Brazil but I never go coach over there so why bother which was probably a bad idea as even they are generating way less good players (the Argentinian team is awful and its just the current crop of young stars but at like 30). Sometimes I throw in Scotland, Turkey and Greece and a few others but I didn't want to over tax my computer. End result theres very very very few 7 star players compared to when I start so all the aging ones are still playing. If you go around checking the top squads and national teams the amount of old names that are around playing is kinda hilarious. I recently played a game vs Chelsea and Terry was playing and hes pushing 36-37.

This also reflects player prices as some pretty mediocre players then replace the prices of good ones (For some dumb reason I just payed 24m for a 2current 7potential 17 year old DM/CM because I just sold Arsenal my 3rd best striker for 35m o_0). So really its somewhat even playing field now as all the superstars of now are over 30 and are really starting to dip in form but at the same time its annoying you can scout all you want and you will never find a guy who will turn into Cesc. Just a bunch of 5-6 potentials you know will never max out and the rare 7 who is teasing you as you really know he will never hit his cap.

Hmm - just been emailed that the league I put down for in Football Manager Live is about to kick off. The question is....can I be arsed playing it ?

Would you care enough to post your impressions when you finally get into it? I'm still considering giving it a try when I find more time, but I have no idea how gameplay and mechanics work. Plus I'm not a big MMO fan.

Sorry UCRC - I decided that I couldn't be bothered with it.

How come no one posts updates on FM? You guys tired of it already? I'm sick and had to stay home for over a week now, so I've been sinking incredible amounts of time into this game. I did like I said I would, dropped my Atletico save which was getting boring, and started a new game with MK Dons. I fancied this, cause they of course have all-new shiny stadium, some money (small, but at least no debt) to spend and low expectations (meaning I'd be given time to reshape whole team).

In 2008/09 I was supposed to stay clear of relegation. Pretty strange, given that in real world Dons are second in League One right now - someone did poor research by giving them such poor players. But hey, that was exactly what I was looking for. I went on a transfer spree and started to do some research on abroad markets. My manager is always French, so most players I've signed on one year deals were Ligue 1 veterans. I didn't spent any money, relied only on free transfers, cause club profile was too low to attract any bigger names anyways.

In my first season I just let the game flow, took all the heavy beatings from superior teams like Leeds, offered deals to all players I wanted to sign on free transfer in January and went on holiday till the end of season. As an effect, I've finished 19th, just one place clear of relegation, but with 1.1mil profit and no tag-along players I wouldn't want for next season.

For my second season I've started all-new first XI, bringing in something like 13 players in 2009 transfer window. I've started playing a lot of friendlies with Premier League teams (each one was worth >100k) to let my team blend in well, and I guess that's why it clicked. With board expectation to 'fight against relegation', 400k transfer budget at the start season I'm right now sitting second in League One after 18 games, promotion looks very real right now.

The best signing in this game, probably the best one I've made in FM since Niculae in Cardiff last year, is Javier Acuna from Paraguay. I've found out that in real world he's been just bought by Real Madrid Castilla. In game I've paid 6 000 pounds for him. He's a tip-of-the-spear striker and he's on fire:

IMAGE(http://i40.tinypic.com/2hejbx4.jpg)
IMAGE(http://i40.tinypic.com/oan4w5.jpg)

I haven't posted any updates because my primary PC went kaput, and I don't think my work lappy can handle the demands.

And believe you me, I WANT to be playing FM. SO FREAKING BADLY.

Also, the version I got was downloaded from Steam, meaning it's more work than i'm willing to put in to get the game back.

My manager is always French...

You betray Eastern Europe with your wussy Mediterranean Southern European bias.

Glad to see others are finding the fun of starting low though. On a one-off, i'll take a team like West Ham or Palermo and just cheat my ass off for, like six months, but then that gets boring and I head back to Nottingham County.

Prederick wrote:

I haven't posted any updates because my primary PC went kaput, and I don't think my work lappy can handle the demands.

Depends on how many leagues you've running in background. My MSI netbook which has something like 1,4GHz runs it pretty well.

Prederick wrote:

Also, the version I got was downloaded from Steam, meaning it's more work than i'm willing to put in to get the game back.

Meaning... downloading it?

Prederick wrote:

You betray Eastern Europe with your wussy Mediterranean Southern European bias.

IMAGE(http://i39.tinypic.com/359wuti.jpg)
YOU HAPPY NOW?

Prederick wrote:

Glad to see others are finding the fun of starting low though. On a one-off, i'll take a team like West Ham or Palermo and just cheat my ass off for, like six months, but then that gets boring and I head back to Nottingham County.

I thought about starting in League Two or Blue Square but eventually I found out that if I ever want to reach any higher level football I will need something like three seasons per division at least. And with sufficient amount of time I have for this game, with Blue Square team I'd be deemed to play in League One tops.

I don't know why, but for some reason this year's doesn't grab me. I've had it crash numerous times, which hasn't happened before, and I don't really like the 3d that much.

To be honest, I spent more time playing New Star Soccer 4, and I'm bobbins at that

I'm playing my annual LLM game with Blyth Spartans, Blue Square North. For some reason though I haven't had much time for FM, I've been playing too much Dwarf Fortress and Mount and Blade.

UCRC - A potential reason MK Dons are gimped goes back to history. MK Dons were Wimbeldon before the move to Milton Keyes, a lot of SIGames guys operate out of Wimbledon, and now actually play for AFC Wimbeldon, and SIGames is/were, (I'm not sure now) the kit sponsor for AFC Wimbledon. For a few years now MK Dons seem to have been gimped in game, while AFC Wimbledon are usually guarenteed in game success.

Prozac wrote:

UCRC - A potential reason MK Dons are gimped goes back to history. MK Dons were Wimbeldon before the move to Milton Keyes, a lot of SIGames guys operate out of Wimbledon, and now actually play for AFC Wimbeldon, and SIGames is/were, (I'm not sure now) the kit sponsor for AFC Wimbledon. For a few years now MK Dons seem to have been gimped in game, while AFC Wimbledon are usually guarenteed in game success.

Yeah, I've thought about it couple of days ago. I haven't heard any rumours but made assumption about seeing all those FM promos with Wimbledon players ;]
btw: It was nice talking to you about FM on Steam recently, how's your game?

UCRC wrote:
Prederick wrote:

You betray Eastern Europe with your wussy Mediterranean Southern European bias.

IMAGE(http://i39.tinypic.com/359wuti.jpg)
YOU HAPPY NOW?

Laughing out loud, disturbing the neighbors.

I guess i'll suck it up and download Steam again, and try and get it back. I'm getting the shakes from withdrawal, and FIFA 09 is the crappiest substitute on earth.

I haven't played in like 2-3 weeks. I couldn't even remember what year I was in without checking this thread. So yea getting to 2017 really burnt me out and I really cant justify pouring more time into that save right now. I know if I start a new one thats more hours then I want to spend playing also.

I think the way the game plays once its dominated by generated players really turned me off. Something about playing in some bleak future where there are no superstars anymore.

Somebody kill me. I can't stop playing this. I can't remember sinking so much time into single game over course of a week in past few years. I finished second season in almost one sitting. I've won League One with 114 points in spite of media prediction of 23th place. I've gone on 35 games unbeaten run. I'm under impression that my girlfriend would kill me if she'd only find out why I'm not returning most of calls.
Still, the only thing that comes to my mind is OH ITS HAEVEN!

UCRC wrote:

Somebody kill me. I can't stop playing this. I can't remember sinking so much time into single game over course of a week in past few years. I finished second season in almost one sitting. I've won League One with 114 points in spite of media prediction of 23th place. I've gone on 35 games unbeaten run. I'm under impression that my girlfriend would kill me if she'd only find out why I'm not returning most of calls.
Still, the only thing that comes to my mind is OH ITS HAEVEN!

Sure, sure - everything's fun and games when you're on a 35 game winning streak. But we've contacted your gf, and she has expressed her profound disappointment.....that you have chosen to take a franchise club up, rather than to consider staying loyal to football as it is meant to be.

Just finished my first season of LLM with Blyth in the Blue Square North. media predicted dead last, finished 9th. in the off season I've managed to pick up 3 players dropped by Premier league teams, a striker from Man City and a goalie and full back from Reading. I've now got six 7 star players in the squad, so I'm looking for promotion this season (09/10)

Welcome to family of overachievers I won League One, media predicted 20th. In Championship I was supposed to be candidate for relegation, after 14 games I'm first. It could be my best career in Football Manager. It took a lot of hard work to get right players, but I'm pretty happy cause unlike many other managers I've found them all by myself, painstakingly searching through and scounting hundreds of potential gems, then worked to craft invidual training regimes for them.

Right now in my first XI I have five 8 star ("Good player for Premier Division") and seven 7 star players ("Leading star for Championship"). I've paid 50K, 6K, 20K, 28K for four of them, seven are free transfers. That gives me 104 000 pounds and with cumulative wages of 1 972 000 pounds/annum for my first eleven. For comparison, wages for Bolton's first eleven, second in league right now, are at 9 125 000 pounds/annum.

I'm still not able to send scouts outside Europe, so right now I rely on Spanish and Portugese young talents, most of players I brought to club for this season are generated. Clubs from La Liga got really lot generated players who are in their early twenties and transfer-listed, willing to leave for England. Since I employ 8 scouts now (instead of two last season), I've been able to find some real talents on Iberian Coast and in Holland. Still...

UCRC wrote:

The best signing in this game, probably the best one I've made in FM since Niculae in Cardiff last year, is Javier Acuna from Paraguay. I've found out that in real world he's been just bought by Real Madrid Castilla. In game I've paid 6 000 pounds for him. He's a tip-of-the-spear striker and he's on fire

Right now he's the best striker in Championship, with 13 goals in 14 games and he's gone from 6 000 to 2 500 000 price tag.

My biggest problem is the club is 80k in the red, and because of my division even if I managed to sell off my best players to consolidate the highest priced player I have (the leagues top goalscorer for last season) is valued at 14k.

I have to walk the tightrope between building the team and administration. thankfully the board uppd my wage budget this year even though they're in so much debt. Bringing in the Premier league rejects just about broke the budget though.

The last player I wanted to bring in was a D/M L from the Phillipines, that was much better than anyone I currently had for those roles, he wanted 45 pounds a week but the board decided to restrict me to 25 pounds. after soe negotiations with the board I got them to swing the extra 20 pounds a week for the Phillipines full capped international.

Prozac wrote:

My biggest problem is the club is 80k in the red, and because of my division even if I managed to sell off my best players to consolidate the highest priced player I have (the leagues top goalscorer for last season) is valued at 14k.

Yeah, I've got the same problem. Only way to bring some more money to club (with current board) would be to sell few talents I have in my second squad. Normally those players would be worth hundreds of thousands or even more than million. But coming from lower division, and having them all signed from abroad on free transfers, seven star players ("Leading star for any Championship side") are worth 20-100K. Crap. It's really stupid, cause my best striker is worth 2.5mil, while next best player is valued at 150K, while he's even more gifted and has something like 7.5 rating this season.
Here's for hoping that stadium gets expanded (but Milton K. isn't such big city and I can't hope for Old Trafford-like attendance anyway) or takeover happens if I get Dons into Premiership. It should be natural that team reaching top flight attracts big money... But I'm happy anyways cause I've got all players I want and some (four or five) great prospects of players who could be real stars in few years, all signed for free or bought for less than 30-40 thousand. It turns out that scouting and inviting proper players for trials could be essential in lower leagues.

Prozac wrote:

The last player I wanted to bring in was a D/M L from the Phillipines, that was much better than anyone I currently had for those roles, he wanted 45 pounds a week but the board decided to restrict me to 25 pounds. after soe negotiations with the board I got them to swing the extra 20 pounds a week for the Phillipines full capped international.

You use board requests with any effect? I never tried it cause I thought that it wouldn't work anyway

Grrrr, I wish I could go to the board and ask them to stop being so stingy and get them to let me hire more than one coach!

Prozac wrote:

Grrrr, I wish I could go to the board and ask them to stop being so stingy and get them to let me hire more than one coach!

I guess it depends on division you play in rather than finances. In League One I had three or four coaches and two scouts, in Championship I've been able to hire ten and eight respectively. btw: My assistant manager is Massimo Neri, contracted to English national team. Capello's staff are really great picks, they were willing to sign for League One side tipped for relegation and have amazing stats.

btw: 9.3 patch should be out sometime between 14 and 21 Feb.

Well I've just about cleared my debts. I've had a series of really soft draws and have made it through to the 3rd round of the FA cup, I've yet to play anyone from a higher division than mine. I've totalled about 60k in prize money, I'm only 13k in debt now.

EDIT: Hmmm.... Well I support Liverpool IRL, and now it looks like they'll be knocking me out in the third round.

Sigh... my lappy just can't handle FM. You get in-match, and it chugs like a steam engine. Sad Panda.

Meanwhile... First in Championship after 30 games, haven't lost in 21

Well... As predicted Liverpool knocked me out of the FA cup... They beat me 11 - 0. The board and the fans are SOOOO mad. which I don't feel is very fair since I went about 3 rounds further in the competition than the board was asking for AND I had to play the fixture at Anfield. You can't expect much from a team five divisions lower than their opponents. My highest valued player is worth 14k, the lowest valued player on the pitch against me was Sami Hypia and he had an 8.0 rating and scored a goal.

So this thread made me breakdown and revisit what was my pre-WoW addicting gaming habit (I played CM4, a lot).

Anyway I started a LLM game in FM WSM2009 as an unemployed American manager with every league playable in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and Northern Ireland. I went on vacation then told the game to apply me for any jobs and stop the vacation when I get an offer. So I went to bed sometime in August 2008. When I woke up it was April 14th 2009 and I had an offer from Portstewart in Northern Ireland Division 2. $210/week salary, a transfer budget of $0 and a payroll budget of $900 p/w. I can't wait!

Now you made me feel bad about my freshly-promoted League One side start ;]

UCRC wrote:

Now you made me feel bad about my freshly-promoted League One side start ;]

Well, you have to start with a crap club and work them up, not start with a club well-prepared to get promoted first year with a strong infrastructure. You drag Avrion Bayonnais up, that'll test your mettle. Alternatively, start domestically and try and win the UEFA Cup or something with Wisla Plock (or whatever your hometown/closest team is).

Anyways, good news, while FM 09 may not work well, FM 08 still works. Add in one data update, and i'll have some fun.