Soccer Gaming Catch-All

maxox wrote:

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!

Just remember, if you pay more than £2.50 for a player and you are in a British league, Michel Platini will accuse you of ruining football.

Prederick wrote:
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..

While we're at it, they're quite sh*tty club at the beggining with 19th media prediction, so I spent half of my first season on holiday, scouting for players and waiting for proper profits to come in. I got promoted in my second season.

And now I'm 11 points clear of Bolton, which spends five times more on wages.
(I'm feel that more and more I sound like I'm compensating for something. Hm... ;))

jowner, what striker partnership worked for you in Premiership? I finally got promoted (more on that another time) and intend to use Robinho-like player as FCd who makes runs with ball and 193cm strong FCa with good finishing my target man. I always used other setup, with TM being FCd and quick Acuna as FCa but I don't think he's up to task anymore, cause he isn't enough technically gifted to do any magic against better sides.

Well I noticed something last night that I felt was worthy of a post.

Blyth has pretty much always been in the red. the highest the bank balance has ever been was about 20k. My average monthly revenue from gate receipts was about 10k.

So I went and had a look at my finance tab and for some unknown reason I had half a mil in hte bank and the months gate receipts were 634k.

So I hunted through my fixtures list and spotted what it was. Turns out losing 11 - 0 at Anfield was great for the club.

Unfortunately the way things are going I may not make it to a playoff spot for promotion, and I DID promise the board promotion this season.

They're getting a little pissy about my league performance, but thankfully that's countered by the strong cup performances and the solid state of the finances.

When I was in lower divisions I forced my team to play pre-season 5-6 fixtures against Premier League teams, that was always worth 700k-1000k. But then, don't forget you need also other, easier games in pre-season, to build confidence up and blend your squad if you've made any signings.

This season, all fresh in Premiership, I've had friendlies with Real Madrid and Milan, both draws I've finished last season top, some 15 points clear of Bolton. And, just like in League One and Championship, I'm clear relegation candidate, with media prediction of 20th place. So be it. But I got my television money, promised board to stay up and got 16mil to spend on transfers. Still, my wage budget is one and a half of what's Chelsea paying to Lampard, but I'm pretty happy anyways. I've rebuilt my squad once again, played a lot of frendlies and crafted new training schedules. I still stick with 442, I am getting my tactics more and more simple.

First lesson I've learned in Premier League: don't be afraid to spend. Having signed everyone else on free transfers for two past years, board must thought I have gone mad:
IMAGE(http://i40.tinypic.com/2qvqbf9.jpg)

Soo... I got my first game away to Man City, fifth last season:
IMAGE(http://i42.tinypic.com/4g69zk.jpg)
IMAGE(http://i40.tinypic.com/ixbjw7.jpg)

I like this already.

UCRC wrote:

jowner, what striker partnership worked for you in Premiership? I finally got promoted (more on that another time) and intend to use Robinho-like player as FCd who makes runs with ball and 193cm strong FCa with good finishing my target man. I always used other setup, with TM being FCd and quick Acuna as FCa but I don't think he's up to task anymore, cause he isn't enough technically gifted to do any magic against better sides.

I don't think I ever set the player as TM but yea a tower to knock it in works well. Not sure how much the actual height of the player matters but Jumping + Heading are key.

nice grab on Marquinhos as he goes from Palmeiras straight to Real in my game.

If I got the year right that your in try to grab Henok Goitom if you can as he was always good in the air for me and I got him for 2.7m in 2010/11.

Alex Teixeira was my version of Marquinhos so maybe grab him next year after a major club comes and poaches Marq off you. Also Victor Irineu. The rest of the guys I used were generated I think.

Actually Calin Anghel might be real according to google. Injury prone but 20 jumping 18 heading 16 finishing 18 first touch 19 composure 17 anticipation 18 off the ball 18 acceleration 17 agility 16 stamina 19 strength. Just a complete beast.

I really can't express how frustrated I am about FM 09 on this piddling little machine. For whatever reason, this thing HATES the match engine (even in 2D classic mode) but feels hunky-dory about FM 08's. Maybe it's because I'm using steam?

Oh well.

Prederick wrote:

I really can't express how frustrated I am about FM 09 on this piddling little machine. For whatever reason, this thing HATES the match engine (even in 2D classic mode) but feels hunky-dory about FM 08's. Maybe it's because I'm using steam?

Oh well.

Have you got 'enable 3d cameras' ticked off?

jowner wrote:

I don't think I ever set the player as TM but yea a tower to knock it in works well. Not sure how much the actual height of the player matters but Jumping + Heading are key.

nice grab on Marquinhos as he goes from Palmeiras straight to Real in my game.

If I got the year right that your in try to grab Henok Goitom if you can as he was always good in the air for me and I got him for 2.7m in 2010/11.

Alex Teixeira was my version of Marquinhos so maybe grab him next year after a major club comes and poaches Marq off you. Also Victor Irineu. The rest of the guys I used were generated I think.

Actually Calin Anghel might be real according to google. Injury prone but 20 jumping 18 heading 16 finishing 18 first touch 19 composure 17 anticipation 18 off the ball 18 acceleration 17 agility 16 stamina 19 strength. Just a complete beast.

No tips please, I scout everyone myself
Teixera is always a good player, I tried to buy him in my Atletico game, but he develops much slower than Marquinhos, who is already FC for Brazil. Irineu is on my shortlist already. Other talents, like Goitom or Robert Lewandowski were bought in first season already. There are certain players in FM who instantly draw attention from big clubs, but even if I would have chance to play with big money at start I wouldn't buy them unless my scouts reccomend them, cause I feel that otherwise it would be slightly exploiting game mechanics.

My TM is 193, with 16 Str, 16 Jum and 18 Hea so I predict he will do well. He only needs to feed balls to Marqinhos it seems
Jowner, would you care to get into detail how your first season or two in Premiership went? I would like to know what bank balance did you have, how much did you spend, when did you expand your stadium, what were your players ratings, how did you fare etc. etc. It could be helpful cause I'm smallest club in Premiership with 17k stadium that won't get expanded anytime soon and bookies gave me chance of 1 to 1001 to win Premier League.
EDIT: I read through your old posts so I pretty much know all I wanted. I think that it might be hard to achieve. But I like hard. After all I've won two consecutive promotions spending less than million on players ;]

UCRC wrote:
Prederick wrote:

I really can't express how frustrated I am about FM 09 on this piddling little machine. For whatever reason, this thing HATES the match engine (even in 2D classic mode) but feels hunky-dory about FM 08's. Maybe it's because I'm using steam?

Oh well.

Have you got 'enable 3d cameras' ticked off?

jowner wrote:

I don't think I ever set the player as TM but yea a tower to knock it in works well. Not sure how much the actual height of the player matters but Jumping + Heading are key.

nice grab on Marquinhos as he goes from Palmeiras straight to Real in my game.

If I got the year right that your in try to grab Henok Goitom if you can as he was always good in the air for me and I got him for 2.7m in 2010/11.

Alex Teixeira was my version of Marquinhos so maybe grab him next year after a major club comes and poaches Marq off you. Also Victor Irineu. The rest of the guys I used were generated I think.

Actually Calin Anghel might be real according to google. Injury prone but 20 jumping 18 heading 16 finishing 18 first touch 19 composure 17 anticipation 18 off the ball 18 acceleration 17 agility 16 stamina 19 strength. Just a complete beast.

No tips please, I scout everyone myself
Teixera is always a good player, I tried to buy him in my Atletico game, but he develops much slower than Marquinhos, who is already FC for Brazil. Irineu is on my shortlist already. Other talents, like Goitom or Robert Lewandowski were bought in first season already. There are certain players in FM who instantly draw attention from big clubs, but even if I would have chance to play with big money at start I wouldn't buy them unless my scouts reccomend them, cause I feel that otherwise it would be slightly exploiting game mechanics.

My TM is 193, with 16 Str, 16 Jum and 18 Hea so I predict he will do well. He only needs to feed balls to Marqinhos it seems
Jowner, would you care to get into detail how your first season or two in Premiership went? I would like to know what bank balance did you have, how much did you spend, when did you expand your stadium, what were your players ratings, how did you fare etc. etc. It could be helpful cause I'm smallest club in Premiership with 17k stadium that won't get expanded anytime soon and bookies gave me chance of 1 to 1001 to win Premier League.
EDIT: I read through your old posts so I pretty much know all I wanted. I think that it might be hard to achieve. But I like hard. After all I've won two consecutive promotions spending less than million on players ;]

yea I was about to say I'm not sure if I'll be able to remember the details. Good thing I wrote it down.

I honestly cant give you much tips on the tactic sides because I don't put enough work into it. Hard to get motivated to tweak your formations when your playing in 2D mode unless you like reading match reports. I honestly mostly played the game as transfer/development manager. Pretty much why I got frustrated as I cant seem to develop any players and by 2018 the transfer market starts to get fairly barren.

Only two pieces advice I can think of are if your playing in 3D once your team hits a wall try to tweak your tactics to take your team further. My problem was my tactics were fairly static and my team was only getting better by the guys I signed and how deep my squad was. Which becomes a problem when you pretty much have the best squad you can get with the players left in the game.

Also you might hit a financial wall depending what the potential fan base of your club is. For me at Wolves it wasn't that bad since the stadium maxes out at 42k and the season tickets would sell up to 32k. Not sure how well the Dons will fair once they upgrade from a 17k stadium. Who knows there might not be any fans after 17k

LLM style of play is fast shooting up my list of amazing single player gaming experiences.

After a rocky start to the 2009/10 season my Portstewart team is starting to gel. I don't have much salary left to work with, but I'm looking forward to the January transfer window opening and signing a striker that has a double digit number for finishing. My current top striker is a 17 year old with an 8 in finishing. My team's top scorer from last season had a 5 in finishing and he led the league with 12 goals?

I love LLM, I haven't playd a game of FM starting as a top flight team for 3 or 4 iterations now. If LLM wasn't an option I wouldn't be playing anymore because I just got bored with the top flight game. It still makes me cry when my friend who religiosly plays as Manyoo sends me screenshots of his latest hot under 18 who's being paid more than my wage budget.

I feel bad about not playing LLM again. Honestly, I thought I was going to rot in League One or get relegated (as I was tipped for) with Dons and it looked that way for the first season, when I've finished two points clear of relegation, but ever since I'm winning everything and Man Utd wanted to replace Fergie with me. I think I will try LLM when I'm finally done with Dons (which won't be anytime soon).

So far Premier League is a blast, won 5 in 5, with 14-2 goals, won away to Chelsea and Man City. It's all due to hard work, lot of reading and watching games in full, tinkering with all smallest settings. Not to mention massive luck
Honeymoon might soon be over though, cause might next five fixtures are four teams right below me: Tottenham, Arsenal, Aston Villa and Liverpool, plus Everton.
Meanwhile, Marquinhos is topping the charts with 8 scored and three assists in five games. Meaning that when he gets injured, it's going to be worse than Stoke without Rory Delap.

Seriously UC, go check the rules sometime, and give LLMing a shot. Taking the career path that can give you (an example at one of my games was hired in Sweden, promotoed, fired, hired in Portugal, fired, hired in England, promoted, promoted, finally won a trophy, although it was the LDV trohpy) is just so much fun.

Prederick wrote:

Seriously UC, go check the rules sometime

I know 'em already, just never got enough time to give it a shot.
I really like LLM rules though, especially about scouting. In all my FM games I always follow set of own rules to make sure I don't exploit game anyhow: I don't go scouting for players I have heard outside game world, I don't use any preset tactics or training, but rather work everything out by myself. It's much harder to overachieve without any help from 'outside', but I think that's the only way to play fair.

Totally true. I really don't see the appeal of the game for people who take over at Arsenal, and then go to forums looking for the same 2-4 players to make their team unbeatable. Literally tripping across a diamond in the rough, or managing to coax a 25-goal season out of a 33-year old journeyman striker always appealed to me much more.

But then again, i'm the kind of person who has had just as much fun in a relegation dogfight as challenging for promotion (although the former involved much, much, MUCH more screaming).

Well. I love that feeling of my MK Dons game, cause I never had big success in that game. I have made top teams of good teams before (with money). But this time I've discovered that hard work really pays off. Watching games in full, making 10-20 tweaks to tactics per game is really what FM became to me. Way I'm really hyped this year is because unlike previous years this isn't *game*, it's *simulation* - I get involved to the extent that real manager would take. In fact, I take it a bit further, cause scouting sometimes 100+ players a week isn't normal, I think.
I didn't took the post with my eyes on promotion, it just kind of happend. And then I really got into it, breaking system and beating all those clubs that are ten times bigger. I HAD TO. And even though I can't beat the goddamn Arsenal, I sit on top of premiership after 8 games

My latest win is 5-0 (sic!) home to Liverpool. Rafa will feel bad about giving Stevo and Torres a rest (my first XI consisted of 8 free transfer players, one bought for 6k (Acuna), one for 50k (Mascio, who's apparently one of biggest stars in game) and one for over 10 million pounds :D)

btw: It's sick with Arsenal. 0-2 at Emirates was all I could manage, and that was with my team in its top form, between wins with Tottenham and L'pool.

IMAGE(http://i44.tinypic.com/9pvui9.jpg)
Could this thing last? All hard fixtures ('cept Man U) behind me, I could expect to gain few more points over Arsenal, before my thin first XI start to feel season in their legs (it certainly helps I don't have to play in Europe).
My Brazilian wonderkid scored 12 in 10, atop of striker charts. What I like the most is rock solid defence cause outside game with Arsenal I've only conceded two goals in nine games.

IMAGE(http://i40.tinypic.com/2envw9f.jpg)

So you've gotten MK Dons into the Prem by 2011/12 and now you are top ? Crikey - most of my journeys are the other way round.

I'm going to try an Argentinian League game and hope that the 3 year average for relegation gives me some breathing space.

If you're whipping the EPL that badly in your first season up, i'd say give yourself a challenge and try to win it with Dean Windass at striker.

Odd aside, I finally did get FM 09 working on the lappy, although it's a bit slow. With a small database, and only running four leagues (all in England) my youth team, which is normally crap in the games I play with more leagues and more databases, is suddenly a great deal better. Go fig.

davet010 wrote:

So you've gotten MK Dons into the Prem by 2011/12 and now you are top ?

Yep

Predo, can't be done cause Dead Windass became... a Manager now (it looks delightful with his profile photo). Still, I could always do this:
IMAGE(http://i40.tinypic.com/29bbihf.jpg)

Prederick wrote:

Odd aside, I finally did get FM 09 working on the lappy, although it's a bit slow. With a small database, and only running four leagues (all in England) my youth team, which is normally crap in the games I play with more leagues and more databases, is suddenly a great deal better. Go fig.

Huh? I wonder why. I never was fan of big saves and slow loading so in this save I'm playing only French and English leagues. If I only knew I will go top of EPL, I'd tick more of them ;]

That don't look like any Dean Windass I ever seen

Le sigh. FM 09 just doesn't want to work with the lappy. So back to FM 08.

Thankfully, Frank is alive and is still all-knowing and all powerful. His choice for me?

Akçaabat Sebatspor.

Turkey here I come!

It's official. MK Dons 2011/12 Premier League champions.
I'm a bit unhappy cause I've only won two in something like last six games, but I think it's all due to the fact that my first XI got extra think with injuries and I had no options to rotate players, even though we had to play on three-day basis, hence losses to West Brom, Derby and West Ham in two weeks time. Shame, cause I could have easily got 100+ points in my first season
IMAGE(http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/6942/46396982jh8.jpg)

Just out of interest, is Mark Hughes still manager of MCX in your game ?

Yeah, they fare pretty well.
Their spending on transfers in four seasons is 330mil now.
EDIT: And your long time favourite, Harry, just won CL with Tottenham.

So much for realism....now if you'd said "is currently in Pentonville, doing 5 years", that'd be different.

On another footy-related topic, I hear that the Italian Supreme Court is currently investigating Berlusconi's legal immunity from prosecution, on the basis that the English lawyer who he bribed to fib on his behalf in tax cases does not have such immunity, and will be spending 4.5 years in an Italian nick. Apparently, he can still be tried once his stint as PM is over, so long as the cases are within the statute of limitations.

[crosses fingers, and toes]

Damn it. Reading this thread has got me itching to play some FM. Of course I get the itch every few weeks anyway, but I haven't played since 2006. The addiction was too great. Maybe I can handle it this time. I may need to pick up 09 sometime soon...

thanks!
mark

9.3.0 is out. Some interesting fixes:

Adjusted assistant manager comments on the gaps between defense/midfield/attack when using defensive midfielders or attacking midfielders
Improved physio assessment of a player's likely return date, dependant upon physio's ability.
Players now start learning the language of future transfer teams as soon as the deal is signed.
Fixed game slowdown whilst processing January to March.
(...)
- Finetuned kit sponsorship value calculations
- Adjusted chances for starting new stadium planning
- Adjusted transfer budget calculations for promoted teams
- Adjusted board ambition effects on transfer budgets
- Adjusted board limitations on how much excess wage budget is allowed to be moved towards transfers
(...)
- More managers now being sacked/moving.
- Stopped AI negotiating to fee much less than amount offered.
- Made it harder to sign top regen talent due to contract expiry and lack of interest from other clubs.
- Toned down the amount of money man city are prepared to spend on non world class players.
(...)

These are game fixes, engine fixes are far more important and could be found here: http://community.sigames.com/showthr... along with the patch itself.

- Reduced number of passes hit "at team mate" at short distance causing silly ricochet

Finally.

UCRC wrote:

9.3.0 is out. Some interesting fixes:
.
- Toned down the amount of money man city are prepared to spend on non world class players.

Finally.

Hmm, someone's not been watching Jo...or Wayne Bridge

But have they done anything about the "goalkeeper lumps it up to striker who beats offside trap and scores" goals?