Shouts what they mean and how to relate real life football to them - WIP

[Rashidi]

I am just uploading these up first ..a long time ago, a bunch of people came together and discussed what shouts were to be incorporated into the game, there were some guys from SI forums, SI and FM-B who were involved in all of this. What I've realized that even after being away for so long its important to actually nail down these shouts to see what affects which attribute, this is very much a work in progress, I wanted to do a table but tbh i just havent had time..so I am copying over images I uploaded of screenshots of my xl files that i am working on. If these come out right yay..otherwise i need to think of another way.

The thread will build, more shouts will be added so excuse my brevity, I just wanted to see how this looks before continuing. The goal of this thread to show what attributes these shouts affect then how we can apply them. This all coming from a guy who hardly uses them. For people who customize their tactics like me they wont find it useful unless, you use the tactical creator and then ADJUST individual settings, when you do that you can still use the shouts. But, you need to know exactly what they affect. Theres no point using a customized mentality setting and then go use the Exploit the Flanks shout. Your mentality settings wont change

The three shouts listed below are probably very commonly used, but I will need to incorporate Philosophy and Strategy into this thread, cos they all affect what happens in a game. Nothing can be discussed in isolation. This thread comes from all the frustration I feel reading threads in the bugs forum where people cite the engine for failing to provide players who run across the D-line or play that elegant through ball.. its possible. I have a very strong feeling that whilst a lot of older players more used to sliders have become adept, a newer group of players who come on using the TC may not understand the interplay between sliders, shouts, and such.

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These shouts(the ones below) I use more commonly, cos I do use the tactical creator, but i adjust the mentality sliders to suit my style of play. I leave everything on loose zonal cos i find that in games where i need to impose tactical discipline these shouts actually come in very handy. In a lot of games you will find yourself either stuck on a narrow pitch or you could end up facing someone whos determined to play through the middle. In such a case I use Opposition Instructions to shut down their most influential passer of the ball in midfield and then switch to wider. I also turn on hassle opponents, but this needs to be done with caution. It affects tight marking and closing down. If you are faced with a technical superior side this instruction can actually work against you cos you are closing down more. It works well on narrow pitches, but on wide pitches its really counter productive. Its far better using individual settings to shut down players or tight mark them.

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In this case i usually just ignore hassle opponents and since i like to play with 2 teams of players..ie defensive/attacking. I set up tight marking on the attacking group and set them up..cos AMLs with TM the opposing FB.

On paper, you hear commentators remarking how players should do whats below. The reality is much harder. Even in the game its much harder to get it off. It requires a great deal of stamina and determination. If you have neither in high quantity, be prepared for winded players. The look for overlap instruction will set players off down the flanks. It works by getting midfielders to hold up ball to make room for the FBs. Now whilst this looks ideal, players need good otb and good decisions as well as passing. There are other shouts I havent listed which come in very handy when you want to do this and they include the Work into Box instruction. Setting your wingers to roam out of position, coupled with higher Creative Freedom which you can customize, you can actually create effective inside forwards for your FBs to exploit.

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I usually like to to see FBs come up the pitch and inside forwards pick up the ball and run inside to give the FB unmarked space to exploit. Setting roam, plus FWR does that for them. So whilst the overlap shout is good, you can make it better by customizing the creative freedom and roam instructions.

More to follow..

[däkkä]

Off to a good start!

Exploit the middle affects winger wide play: hug touchline > normal > cut inside. And all wide players get a RFD reduction, not just wingers.

Exploit the flanks makes MCs HUB and it also affects winger wide play in the opposite way of 'exploit the middle': cut inside > normal > hug touchline.

And both affect passing focus as does Look For Overlap.

[Rashidi]

Yeah feel free to add on, I am pretty certain I may be mistaken in some areas, cos my experience was with the tactical creator when it was first created. There are some new shouts since then I am certain..

[Wiwyum]

Great work. I only hope that one day, we can amalgamate these incredibly useful threads into a comprehensive guide to FM.... keep up the great work! (P.S. Are these changes quite literally altering the position of sliders within the tactics section?)

[Rashidi]

Yeah like Dakka said there is much more..Look for overlap, exploit the middle and exploit the flanks all change passing attributes in a team

Whats interesting is how shouts can drastically alter your game plan.

Assume you decided one fine day that you wanted to go make a 4231. There you are sitting down, sippin ya coffee and you think that Control and Fluid are fairly safe. You think they both have the right balance of attack and control. You arent far wrong, I do that almost all the time for all my tactics so you decide to set this up

It aint half bad most of its set on default and normal..and if you look at the mentality settings "control", and you look at how the mentalities are spread "fluid" you reckon its pretty balanced.

Tbh its a pretty safe way to start, yeah my mentalities are a bit different cos i want one full back to be more attacking orientated. Now when you get to the team settings page you can always do minor things eh? You can make em drill crosses, ah there is also an instruction to press more. Who doesnt want to press more? All things being equal we all love that extra press dont we, and you hear it on the telly that the players should press more. So you choose to make some modifications which would be natural..So you add the pressing instruction and you tell em to drill crosses and you choose to get your players to be a bit more aggressive.

Yeah why not eh?

Now by doing that little press more instruction your defensive line just went up a few notches..chances are a lot of people would have missed that. Now you start the game and you decide, hmm I want to play retain possession and make sure i play in their half..( at least thats what they all say they do on the telly and you decide to make two shouts: RETAIN POSSESSION and PUSH HIGHER.

VOILA!

Now look at your defensive line..

Congratulations you just took a control mentality tactic and set the DLine to max whilst also telling your players to hold possession when they ahve the ball in their half and to press a lot more when they don have the ball..if you dont concede a goal you must have God playing as a Keeper

[Wiwyum]

In the order of events... what takes priority. Like if I didnt a tactic, then changed the roles of the players... and their passing etc changes.... which one does it set to. The role or the tactic? Or does it depend which one you happen to choose first?

[Rashidi]

If you use the tactical creator, you need to choose your control and philosophy first. Essentiall these set up as board roles for the team in general. When you set up roles say change a player to BWM from DLPM then his individual settings change. Individual changes you then make, for eg if you tick a player and you modify his mentality settings and say his passing, then any shouts you do have no effect on him.I hope that answered your question.

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As long as you leave the boxes unticked, their role works within the tactic as a whole. You could theoretically set half the team to respond to shouts and leave the other half immune to shouts. But the shouts have become a very effective way of changing the state of the game along with roles.For instance you could go change the strategy to a defensive posture since that affects their mentality, but its always important to check how your shouts can affect a team. The purpose of this thread was to show that misusing shouts can have a devastating effect on your game

IMHO default tactics are fine, they are better than they were back in 2000, when default tactics were so bad i had to make a whole set of new default tactics and post them up on the forums. Today the tactical creator is a lot more finished as a product, default tactics such as the 4231 work fine outta the box. Even the default player roles make sense. You arent gonna go out and win every game by 3 goals, but you certainly find yourself tough to beat. If you don understand the nuts and bolts of tactics, the default tactical creator is so much better than what we had in the past. What one needs to do is absolutely learn what the shouts do and how they affect ya.

My popular shouts

These are the shouts I always turn to for some strange reason these are usually the only ones i use.

Play out of defense, is a favorite of mine. Once or if they ever fix the Keeper Distribution bug, this will become way better. I reckon the challenge in fixing the bug is that the instruction may ship a lot of goals for the guy using it. At least thats the rationale in my head. This shout is almost a default starting shout for me, and in line with my short passing philosophy it allows me to build up play.

Work Ball into Box is another shout and i usually pair both shouts together. Its part of my package i use during the prematch team talk. Once the game kicks off I pay attention to other stuff. This instruction is especially helpful when combined with the the first one. It leads to patient buildup from the back and around the box. While you may see a lot of lateral passing, more often than not it creates really good goal scoring chances.

I do believe that Look for Overlap is a great instruction, I can even remember how it came about. There were many people who were struggling to make their players overlap and this shout was born. Now whilst on paper it does the basic stuff, you need to be aware that using this shout has the effect of pushing your fullbacks into a more attacking posture. To get the most out of this you need to make sure somewhere in your team you know if your wingers are going to do inside runs along the opponents defensive line. To find out you need to first check if your wingers can do that via ppms and attributes. Once that is done check to see what kind of passing you are using to unleash them. Work into Box means that more often than not the ball will move left and right a lot before space opens up and the fullback charges in or the inside forward makes a run for it.

A lot of how you use shouts depends on your formation. You have a 442 and want inside forwards running? Not easy but doable. Its always best to start with formations that encourage IF play. such as the 343, 424, 4213 or the 4231. The look for overlap shout is very powerful but people who customize their tactics wont need to set that up if they know how to use individual instructions to get them to do that work. Eg, Winger passing set to short or direct and FWR set to mixed. If FWR is set to often he is actually making the run forward not waiting to do the overlap

Push Up Higher I use this shout a lot in the game to squeeze play, but when i do use this shout I make sure two things are set..either I use Hassle Opponeents or i set up tight marking for my wingers and fullbacks. The biggest fear i have when using the push up high shout is that while i may be pushed up, my players may not have the wits to counter fast and skilful forwards. Pushing up because you think you are the better side, is normal. It forces play to be squeezed. Add the narrow pitch option and you suddenly throw in a cramped midfield. It is quite the option for squeezing play, but if you dont pay attention to your flanks you will be overrun.

Shouts can be very powerful if used right. In fact a person using a default tactic should do reasonably well. I ran a test on my assman gave him a default 4231 and just set up the roster..took a holiday for 2 months to come back and discover he was doing pretty well. If an 'assman' can do it anyone can. We dont call them assmen for nothing

[higgins]

This is why people should add no more than 1-2 shouts per time, if they're not sure about them; in fact a combination of several shouts could be lethal (for you...).

[Rashidi]

Now for the interplay between Shouts, Style and Strategy

Style

- Affects Mentality, Creative Freedom and Closing down

In a very rigid system, there is low creative freedom and lower mentality settings. Any variance in mentality settings is a result of player role assignments, for example a fullback and a wingback occupying the same slot will have different mentalities

When it comes to style….its basically how mentality is set up for your team, a very fluid system sets everyone up with the same mentality. Its one group of players, and in this system you are really depending on players knowing what they are supposed to do. Creative freedom is fixed based on role and modified based on style. So the more fluid you are the higher your CF. So your fullbacks and your dcs will always have theirs setup within a proportion of each other. When you change style say move from rigid to very fluid it increases in proportion.

For example in a very rigid system the fullback may have 5 for CF and the DC has 1, in a rigid system, it goes up in proportion, 7 and 3, and as you change style it changes in a set proportion.

What this implies is that as Style systems change. You are adjusting mentality and creative freedom. So at the very basic level "very rigid" you have a team who sticks by your instructions and has little to no creative freedom to exercise their flair and decisions attributes apart from whats defined in their roles. So if you dont see fantastic through balls and backheels then blame your style. Too much and you get my problem, backheeling defenders :-)

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There is a slight difference to closing down settings for the very rigid to very fluid systems. Its all based on the logic that in a very fluid system, everyone is essentially on the same mentality. You can see that when you set VERY FLUID style to a STANDARD strategy..very fluid systems with higher creative freedom imply that players are given more latitude to close down and defend as a unit as opposed to very rigid styles where players work in zones.

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So your style sets up your teams "thought process", the strategy basically tells them how hard to work. Mentality is the main fulcrum for a teams thought processes, creative freedom and closing down then work within that framework. A very fluid system has everyone on the same mentality and a very rigid system has the defenders on one mentality system and the rest of the team usually spread within 4 notches of that.

A rigid system has 3 groups of players on mentality settings, say defenders, midfield and strikers.

A balanced system has 3 groups of players on mentality settings as well, your defensive group will be on one setting, your support group on another and your attack group on another

A fluid system has 2 distinct groups a defensive group made up of defensive midfielders on defend only, fullbacks and dcs and the other group are made up of midfielders and attackers

A very fluid system just has one global mentality setting for all

So how do you decide which one to use? Well the easiest one imho is the fluid system, It has 2 groups of players, essentially your roles define who goes where. The very fluid system is good too, but you absolutely must master shouts and the use of strategies in a game so that you can adjust how the team plays. IMHO this is the best on paper. Rigid and Balanced systems impose high discipline, its great for matches where you may be inferior, however understanding the effect of your shouts is paramount, you could usually end up in matches pulling your hair out wondering why you have so many close shave results.

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Shouts enhance your teams play, but if you dont understand how fundamentally your setups affect your closing downs, then you could end up using a shout and sinking your ship, tantamount to dropping a cannon ball on your own ship.

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So style sets up your Mentality, Closing Down and Creative freedom, what happens when you change strategy?

Strategy is how your team works, so if you set up a balanced style and go for a standard strategy, its basically MOTR, but when you start changing that strategy in the game , you effectively change your closing down and mentality. Heres where creative freedom takes a break. Once you have set up your styles, creative freedom is not affected by any change in stratagem, unless its for defensive reasons. So if you go from standard to overload, there is no change to CF, but if you go from attacking to Contain, what happens is your teams mentality, closing down AND creative freedom get changed.

Shouts have the effect of enhancing all these changes you can do. The difference between a great tactician in this game and the average joe is that, by understanding the concepts you can take this game and pretty much romp through it all, its not hard. Any player can do anything and if things aren't working the way they are meant to be, believe me I want to get it fixed as much as you.

[Taunton]

Great thread. I learn a lot from this.

To find out you need to first check if your wingers can do that via ppms and attributes.

What attributes highlights that wingers can do inside runs?

And how is it possible to do that in a 442 formation? If it is.

[Rashidi]

Look for Off the ball running. Its especially important. I would also check dribbling, determinaton as well, acceleration i reckon has more bite than pace. If you look at a players information screen you will also see a list of player preferred moves, which you can train in the long run. Furthermore it will tell you if he fits your role.

You can also get the assistant manager to give you a report on the team and see how he sees their roles, if the assman is any good, they should be able to point in some direction. Inside forwards are so easy to get done in this game. What a lot of people have problems with is how to unleash them. Since they usually start their runs close to the opponents d-line, i prefer acceleration and with their OTB you should see them cut in.

[mixmkz]

I have to say, after reading this thread its been a massive help. Looking at opponent players and formations then figuring stuff out from there. Playing against Juventus in CL semi finals with their 3-5-2 formation, I used 4-4-2 and had my wingers man mark their wingers while playing narrow. Suddenly they lost all width and my full backs were whipping in cross after crosses while on defense I have 4 full defender handling the center since my winger were marking their wide players.

[MeesterCat]

I thought I should bump this thread as its opened my eyes to a problem I've been experiencing in FM13. I've read in other threads that it can be useful to leave the team and player settings as the default provided by the TC and use Shouts instead to manipulate your players.

However, while the Shout names look self explanatory, I had sensed that there was actually a lot more going on 'under the hood' and I couldn't fully understand the interplay between shouts, mentalities and strategies. While I still have lots to take in, this has set the ball rolling. Thanks Rashidi and contributors.

[DirtyJoe]

Very enlightening. Thanks for explaining it so well.

[taylorsmen]

Added this to my other FM info bookmarks i was only thinking last night about what the shouts actually change in the game, great thread.

[Rashidi]

Glad this helped, you can see how I employ these in games as well in the stafford thread where I give breakdowns of what I do ingame as well. The shout system was essentially a way for people 'to change the sliders ingame' but a more intuitive system which hopefully made more sense than, set to wide adjust passing for attacking group to 15 etc.It's also possible to go through a game without shouts, but I believe for maximum value, shouts and OI are fantastic

[wez007]

Nice one, been looking for this for ages. Should without doubt be a main sticky, things like this are a MUST for everyone, esp new starters!

I still dont know what shouts do what in FM, Ive always gone along with my IRL intepratation (which is mostly wrong when it comes to FM!)

[sweep17]

Are some shouts more effective when combined with others? I used the work ball into box and play out of defence shouts which seemed to work well. However when using the work ball into box shout on its own it didn't seem all that affective.

I haven't combined them much in the past cos its difficult to keep track of what you're changing.

[Contexx]

Excellent thread, Rashidi. I think it may be your best work since the old Screamjet threads of FM10.

I think the biggest point of confusion about the game is the relationship between sliders and the language of the TC - not because it's not accurate, but because we form our own images of what happens based on what we know about football and how we play the game. Pointing out what is "under the hood" helps make that clear. Personally, I always look at what happens to the sliders when using particular shouts and roles. Using a narrow 4231 with no wingers and 3 AMC's, shouts help me compensate for my lack of wingers and ultimately use the space imbalance to my advantage. Shouts like "play wider", and "work the ball into the box" are fantastic - as long as you know what instructions they give, and can foresee their effect.

For example, if I want my wide players involved more, I will sometimes use "play narrower" - at first it sounds contradictory, but in a sense it baits the opposition in the center, squeezing them even further in, and opening a lot of space for the fullbacks to take up position. In the instructions, it's not just an effect on the width, but also tells the team to play through the middle - not because I'm necessarily looking for opportunities through the middle, but in fact to lure the opposition into the center and open up space.

I highly recommend for people to use the TC and get to know the mechanics of what happens to the sliders in pre-season matches, as well as their effects. The outdated idea of counterattacking strategy being "defensive" and giving player run with ball because he can dribble and run fast is a thing of the past. Every time a match is played out, it's basically a chess game between two set-ups, with an inevitable opportunity cost system. There will be gaps and mismatches, and understanding how to compensate for them and ultimately exploit them makes the game a much more enjoyable experience.

[Rashidi]

Are some shouts more effective when combined with others? I used the work ball into box and play out of defence shouts which seemed to work well. However when using the work ball into box shout on its own it didn't seem all that affective.

I haven't combined them much in the past cos its difficult to keep track of what you're changing.

Yes, but care should be exercised when doing so. For example a good conservative opening shout would be to : Play out of defense, go narrower and work ball into box. All three shouts encourage keeping the ball and not to waste opportunites. Further the narrow shout encourages play through the middle and buys you time to assess the conditions of the game.

Now having said that how this relates to the opponents formation is important too and how they are playing, my first set of shouts are always used to suss out the style of play of the other manager. There are also other ways such as finding out what the mental attributes of the opposing manager are, but I prefer this, it feels a lot more natural. Once you understand what you are up against, its vital to know if your formation needs help. For instance if you are facing an opponent thats attacking you down the flanks exclusively..( like when you see your fullbacks always being skinned and DCs opened up) then you may even need to Drop Deeper as a first choice or drop your strategy. Personally I maintain my strategy and only occassional drop strategy. And thats only because I know my team very well.

If I were you I would start simply:

Step 1. Have a conservative strategy to start games with, say go narrow and work ball into box and play out of defense

Step 2. The go for goals shout: Option A, If you are flank based and want overlap then use that shout..in which case you may want to go wider and overlap and run at defense instead of Work Ball into Box.

Step 3, you have scored a goal then PLay out of defense to hold possession, work ball into box for the same, and adjust your fullbacks manually to defend

If you want to have a clue of how to use them look at my stafford thread where i use shouts. It takes time but do it a step at a time.

Excellent thread, Rashidi. I think it may be your best work since the old Screamjet threads of FM10.

I think the biggest point of confusion about the game is the relationship between sliders and the language of the TC - not because it's not accurate, but because we form our own images of what happens based on what we know about football and how we play the game. Pointing out what is "under the hood" helps make that clear. Personally, I always look at what happens to the sliders when using particular shouts and roles. .

Scramjet lol and I think it was way earlier than that...way way earlier. Thank btw. Yeah I agree on how the confusion has come about. ATM too many people are confused by multiple things in the game. Interaction between Strategy and Philosophy for one and then how these two then get influenced by shouts and then you have people say use OI for max effect. Yes its a lot more complicated, but fundamentally the concepts are simple to grasp. The challenge is simplifying the way its presented. And to that end that was the goal of this thread. Shouts are just meant to be understood intuitively, but then when most people do that they naturally select 4 shouts that may seem to be "attacking" and opt to start with that, and that can be disastrous. People need to understand how they shouts affect their team under the tactical parameters that have been set by them via the TC . So if my team doesnt have good passing and pace then the get balls to flank shout will be suicidal like the hassle opponents shout if paired with push up higher, and to understand all that people need to have a basic grasp of what mentality, defensive line and closing down do. Defensive line is the easiest to see and so are mentality, but people shouldnt just assume that the shout is good, without understanding what it does. And, thats why people should use shouts wisely, these are the single most beneficial feature on the tactics screen and easily the most self-destructive.

[vasilli07]

When will you use the 'pass into space' and 'pass to feet' shout?

And for the 'stay on feet' shout, will we lose out on alot of 50-50 tackles if we use that?

[Cleon]

When will you use the 'pass into space' and 'pass to feet' shout?

And for the 'stay on feet' shout, will we lose out on alot of 50-50 tackles if we use that?

Pass into feet is great against sides who allow you lots of space and are not tight marking you. Pass into space is best when the opposition aren't allowing you space and time on the ball and are making it difficult for you to break them down.

[vasilli07]

Pass into feet is great against sides who allow you lots of space and are not tight marking you. Pass into space is best when the opposition aren't allowing you space and time on the ball and are making it difficult for you to break them down.

So can I assume pass into feet is more for a underdog team? And pass into space is if I'm managing a stronger team?

[Rashidi]

I would say it depends on the situation, for me if i am losing possession a lot through bad passing then I will go to pass to feet. I generally do that against teams that are better than me..way better. Its also used when I have taken the lead against a good team and I want to keep possession. Passing into space I'd use when I need to unlock stubborn teams and playing against teams that are defensive, its a shout well used with other shouts that encourage holding possession.

[vasilli07]

For the last part, which other shouts are you referring to go with pass to space to hold possession?

[Rashidi]

Play out of defense, work ball into box and pass to feet all encourage possession

[Rashidi]

I've been thinking of doing this for a while now, a blog about how to use the Shouts and OI effectively, I remember covering the basics Shouts in Detail and here. The purpose of this update is to put this information all down together and simplify how its presented. Before we begin lets establish what some of the sliders mean.

Defensive Line

Basically this is how far how defense is willing to push up from their goal to support an attack. So if you are playing a high defensive line then your defenders are further away and suspect to the through ball, or and over the top pass (OTT). High defensive lines are common if you are chasing a game and mean that you are exerting pressure on the other team to clear their lines quick, but you are leaving yourselves vulnerable to quick attacks. And since your midfield screen is going to be in the opponents half, it means that your backline must have the pace and awareness to defend.

If you notice that your players are having to backtrack a lot and this will come up on your highlights then your defensive line is very high. Generally a containment strategy only requires that your defenders only take a few steps to receive the pass, if they need to run backwards, you are not playing a containment strategy.

Marking

In real life we have only two kinds of marking Man and Zonal. Tight marking was ubiquitous with manmarking for many years. Man- Marking is a defensive strategy to mark a specific person on a pitch instead of marking a certain zone on the pitch.

It was perfected in the 60s and 70s by the great Italian sides of that era with their catenaccio formations. It quickly became popular but it didnt provide a spectacle since players who did the job of tight marking would invariably not be involved in attacking plays. Its a tradition thats been slowly dying and the only real side to employ it generously was Greece in the European Championships of 2004. In fact only 1 out of the 16 sides that made the Euro Champions League quarterfinals employed manmarking. You may find it used more often in lower league football or when a clearly inferior team is up against it with a good side.

Zonal Marking is currently more popular since players are designated specific zones to cover. When a player enters a zone a specific player is then tasked with marking him. You can also mark the player tightly and when he leaves one zone and enters a new zone that player continues to be tracked. This is particularly effective against sides who use a lot of movement on the pitch and it the failure of man-marking's handling of fluid football systems saw the rapid adoption of zonal marking. Zonal marking requires communication and teamwork to be successful.

Where zonal marking struggles is in defending set pieces and this is where man marking can be employed.

In FM2013, it isnt hard to employ either of the two systems. However I am a huge critic of specific and non specific marking in the game. The game ideally should only have specific man marking and not nonspecific.

The very notion of "non specific " man marking makes no sense. If you are man marking a specific position on the pitch that logically should be zonal marking, since zonal marking by definition is the marking of a specific zone.

If you want to employ a form of marking that denies the opponent space in crucial areas of the pitch, just use zonal and tight marking. Zonal marking works by given specific players zones, not the whole pitch is covered of course which is why you will see players disengage and moments when an opponent is "unmarked" but once the opponent enters the 'danger zone" of another he gets marked. How early this happens is a function of your defensive line, closing down and whether you have tight marking on.

If your defensive line is too high chances are he would already be leaving players zones really fast, since the workable area to defend is smaller. A high defensive line compresses space on a pitch and means that your fullbacks, defenders and DMCs see a lot more work. So setting closing down instructions that are too high will displace your formations and leave vulnerable holes. To counter this what I always do is identify the threats that come from the OI and thats how i employ marking.

I do not employ any man marking, all i do is zonal and tight marking. Since I want to compress the allowable space and to get my players to engage and shut down the opposing sides passing patterns early, I opt to TM their wingers and ball crossers. If its a 442 formation I normally opt to use the Opposition Instructions to close down their fullbacks and TM their wingers.

Any formation that has an outright flanking attack can be shut down using OI. The instructions you have at your disposal include Player Specific and Position Specific Instructions:

1. Tight Marking
   
2. Closing Down
   
3. Tackling
   
4. Show Onto Foot
   

If I am faced with a side that is playing with fullbacks and wingers, I know that by shutting the flanks down I give myself a lot more options TM, Closing down and Show Onto foot can all be used. My AI Manager is using a 41212 narrow so I set things up by closing down Keeper, and fullbacks and TMin the AMC and Closing down the DMC. By doing so i shut down its wings and its centre. So thats my overall plan, how well I execute it is going to be done via shouts and my formation. Both sides are fairly evenly matched in my example.

So lets assume you are facing a a narrow 41212 formation and you are playing a wide 41221 formation. Your immediate concern when you go into the match should be the middle of your park, since the AI Manager is using a DMC and an AMC, its most likely going to exploit the middle. I am also playing away in this example and up against a team that is on par with me. So to set things up I will head in with a standard strategy but I will attempt to control space in the middle

You have several options, personally I would then look at my shouts and divide them up into several categories:

• Defending Shouts: Retain Possession, Clear Ball to Flanks
  
• Controlling Shouts: Pass to feet, Play out of defense, Work ball into box
  
• Attacking Shouts: Pass to Space, Pump Ball into Box, Hit early cross, Run at defense, play through defense
  
• Desperation Shouts: Get Ball forward, Shoot on sight
  
• Space & Aggression: Play Wider, Narrower, Higher, Deeper, Stay on Feet, Stand off , Get stuck in
  

I hardly every use Hassle Opponents, its a good shout but it effectively affects tight marking, closing down and your defensive line, for me personally thats too dangeous, I like to control things a lot more which is why I tend to start all matches Play out of defense and Work ball into box. In this scenario I am playing standard so I will push higher and go narrower since I also want to exploit the middle as the AI does it at the same time. Essentially I am locking down the flanks and going toe to toe with the AI in the middle of the park.

Essentially thats one way you can combine all the shouts into a kind of package, to do so would require you at least understand what all the shouts do. So before you go an click every shout, at least go read the manual or cleons notes on shouts.

[FuSS]

excellent thread.

It really annoys me how people misuse shouts as 'permanent adjustments' - i.e. I see a lot of tactics that say 'always use these 3 shouts'. If you wish to use shouts permanently then just adjust the base tactic in the appropriate way! Shouts are a useful tool to change things on the fly, using the same ones constantly from the start of a match is ridiculous as it just means you haven't actually setup your tactic to do what you want.

[Rashidi]

excellent thread.

It really annoys me how people misuse shouts as 'permanent adjustments' - i.e. I see a lot of tactics that say 'always use these 3 shouts'. If you wish to use shouts permanently then just adjust the base tactic in the appropriate way! Shouts are a useful tool to change things on the fly, using the same ones constantly from the start of a match is ridiculous as it just means you haven't actually setup your tactic to do what you want.

Hmm whoever makes tactics that say "use these shouts all the time" should be shot, and people should avoid using them altogether. There is no such thing in the game anymore. Prior to FM2009, the engine had a really hard time reacting to unique positional changes made to tactics, overtly attacking formations could be done without having to "manage" them much. And this is the prime reason why so many people are having a hard time adjusting. In an effort to make the game more "realistic" changes have been made under the hood. The AI adapts a lot better now and tbh, there are some of us who want the default AI tactics to be even harder. This should especially be the case for good teams, to illustrate:

Assume for example that a club has a "guardiola" as a manager as opposed to a "ferguson", i want to see the clubs football adapt.

Guardiola is famous for being more a coach than a manager. He is fanatically committed to training with his players so much so that he takes a keen role in their "teamwork" training which is done to enhance their first touch and anticipation. Ferguson on the other hand is notorious for not even being on the training pitch for the majority of time. A team can train the whole week preparing for a match in a specific way and on match day the guvnor may show up and change to a 4213 formation. In that respect Ferguson is more a tactical manager than he is a coach.

What I would love to see is this being integrated directly into the AI..so a club with a guardiola would have a coach with a tendency to do less delegation, hence players would have more ball control development and attacking/defensive development, and a team like fergusons would be more general balanced. How these would then play out would be directly related to their managerial styles. So a Guardiola sort of manager would see more shouts being deployed that encouraged close control such as push up, exploit the middle and go narrow, whereas a manager like Ferguson could opt to change the flow of a match going from one formation to another.

By doing this the game becomes more engaging. SI are certainly heading in the right direction and I do know they want to expand on the match engine to make the game feel more holistic, I just feel sorry for everyone who wants to be able to play an entire season doing nothing but buying players. Perhaps they should have the option of getting the tactical coach play out their matches. ;-)

[RTHerringbone]

Post at 30-11-2012 06:59 is very useful, thank you.

I've finally learned how to intelligently set up a tactic, appropriately combining roles and duties.

I also feel that I have a grasp of when to change strategy, but it is shouts that are next on my hit-list to get to grips with.

My current assumption is that shouts are a step below a full scale strategy change - they allow you to tweak single sliders (or combinations of them) in a logical way to influence your strategy, without overriding its wider thought process. Is that about right?

[Rashidi]

Post at 30-11-2012 06:59 is very useful, thank you.My current assumption is that shouts are a step below a full scale strategy change - they allow you to tweak single sliders (or combinations of them) in a logical way to influence your strategy, without overriding its wider thought process. Is that about right?

Dude that's the best explanation I've ever seen! It's inspired me to do a bigger update on shouts. Sometimes a set of shouts can change how your team approaches a game. If you find it hard to break down a side playing 442 via the flanks, a quick adjustment and you can surge from one side.

[Tafse]

Excellent work, rashidi1! I found post nr. 27 regarding marking and OI very, very helpful. It's amazing really.. the more I read up on the TC, shouts and the different tactical choices and strategies in this game, the more I realize I don't know anything. I guess that's the path to enlightenment.

[lam]

I think everyone has differing views on shouts. In FM12 I used them tons, here in Fm13 I don't use them so much.

I'm playing as Spurs, pretty much along side a Tactics forum legend (although he gets through his games faster than me) and we both use pretty much the same tactic (both are spurs). I started using it part way through the last season along side my usual attacking flavoured one, whilst for him it was pretty much his 'go to' tactic.

What had become VERY VERY clear is that as our teams change (ME: Sandro out, youngsters in, Ade out, Cavani & Llorente in. HIM: Neymar in mainly (along side some others)) the use of shouts have very different effects.

A combination worked nicely for both of us last season (retain, press, push, throughball, light tackle, work ball) no long works for me in this season (2). With the departure of Sandro from my midfield and the more prolific use of other MC's I have lost all my pace in my MC/DM strata. Despite a good start to the season using the same shouts, against Liverpool and Man Utd I was chasing ghosts and leaving massive gaps.

Now I'm having more success with standing off and sitting deeper (Spurs have very good positioning defenders) and then launching fast direct attacks.

Some of the time I am certain of the mind that if you use them all the time then it shoudl be part of your tactic, BUT essentially, at their heart, shouts are merely shortcuts. Therefore they give you a desired result in under 2 seconds. If you were to make the same adjustments through the TC, then above you could expect to spend around 5 minutes per change.

I completely understand why people say they should be part of the tactic if you use them all the time, but this version of the game highlights something that the others never have...... you simply can not play the same way from the first minute through to the final whistle..... and knowing that, shouts are incredibly useful.

BUT they have to suit your team. The knoweldge of this poster is such that if he tells me to do it, I do it! but I have had to change it now. They still work for him, he still has his physical side, whereas I don't.

It's the same with this whole game...... if it works for you keep with it. But if it doesn't then don't. You can't sit there losing because XYZ tactic works best with ABC shouts. It may for them, but in the space of half a season our teams differed by three players and it was enough to stop the original set of shouts working.

I think Herringbone made a very good point. They are tweakers.... BUT who's to say if people should or should not be using them all the time.

The key thing about shouts is that I bet noone fully understands the impact that ALL the shouts have. I know I certainly don't. And, even knowing them, I bet many don't use a full set, they'll have their favourites......

*EDIT*

Taking time out of the equation and assuming everyone knows what they are doing. You simply can not beat manual changes to the team.

Now that I play more stand off(ish), the shout 'push up', even if I want to push my Defence Line has lost some of it's appeal... the reason being is that it increases your closing down. I don't want my team to close down more, I just want them to push up.

[Cleon]

Creating a group of shouts can be very beneficial when you're inside a game and want to achieve something quick. I often create quite a few different kinds of shouts to retain possession, break down a stubborn defence amongst other things. But they can also be a great tool for recreating a particular style of play without manually changing sliders. Some discussions recently on here say if you use a certain set of shouts at the beginning of every game then you should have them in the base tactic instead. But why? I used to think along these lines but not any more.

By using them as a set of shouts rather than making the changes manually to the base tactic, it allows me quicker general play and means if they aren't working in a game I can swap them out for another set I've created depending on the scenario I am facing in the actual game. Some styles of play don't always work especially if you are trying to play a possession based game on wet pitches. So if you did manually add the changes to the base tactic then every time you'd want to change the way you play you'd have to manually change the settings again to something more suitable. Where as a group of shouts allow you to do this instantly with 1 click.

I'm not to sure why people criticise this style of play or approach, maybe it's because they don't actually understand what the shouts are about and how they work? Admittedly this style might not be for everyone but for those who use it, I'm not sure why its frowned upon or suggested they should add it to the tactic to start with, that's not logical at all if they intend to use other shouts in other scenarios. Once you start changing something manually then you are making it incredibly hard to keep track of which shouts you are negating.

[RTHerringbone]

Like I said earlier, I really do want to get my head round shouts as conceptually for me they are short terms influencers on a game (which I assume is why SI have made them so easy to add and remove in game).

Post 1 is excellent in showing what elements / attributes are affected by shouts, and I think I'll experiment with changing my general tactical approach to test shouts.

I barely use shouts at the moment, usually only just after scoring or conceding a goal or at the end of 45 / 90 minutes; I don't use them to influence the main flow of the game at all, and that seems a bit short-sighted in hindsight.

At the moment, if I spot something going wrong during a match, I'll change the whole strategy to try to counter that threat. But thinking about it, I am probably fixing one problem but creating another one (two, three...) in the process. Shouts are more targeted solutions to any weakness that may exist or be created in your tactics.

If and when I understand shouts, I'd then appreciate some guidance on Styles. I understand broadly what the definitions are, but not what it actually means in footballing terms.

Cheers as usual for all the useful stuff knocking about in here.

[Rashidi]

I'm not to sure why people criticise this style of play or approach, maybe it's because they don't actually understand what the shouts are about and how they work? Admittedly this style might not be for everyone but for those who use it, I'm not sure why its frowned upon or suggested they should add it to the tactic to start with, that's not logical at all if they intend to use other shouts in other scenarios. Once you start changing something manually then you are making it incredibly hard to keep track of which shouts you are negating.

Precisely, what Lam and Cleon have raised is very valid.

Firstly shouts can only be done in concert with your own teams abilities. As a manager you are REQUIRED to know what your players can and cant do. For example if you had a B2B MC and you expected via the shout exploit the middle to see him charging in and creating lots of chances for the rest you are partially right. The part people forget to do is to check if the player has the first shout and the flair to pull that off. I for one believe in playing the same way in all my tactics, whats cool about what Lam raised is that he does it differently, he adapts based on his team. Fundamentally both approaches are spot on, what irks me and I have to stop short of being abusive is that there are countless people who frown on using the tactical creator; for whatever bizarre reason they choose to make their own tactics. Whilst there is nothing wrong using the custom creator, making various versions of the same tactic is essentially using the shouts as well.

What baffles me is that these people who claim that they make great tactics and then lumber around and say the engine is flawed, prove only thing: they have no clue. I consider myself to be fairly adept at making tactics. Without sounding arrogant, there are few on the forum who can whip out a tactic as quickly as me. The thing about the TC is that if you know how to make custom tactics, the tactical creator will become a godsend, cos you can effectively isolate group of players and end up making "supertactics", these then will be driven via shouts. You are then able to manually change the sliders or the instructions via the shouts and get some brilliant football going. I feel sorry for anyone who reckons that the custom creator is the best way. The TC is by a country mile the best way forward. If you make a custom tactic you will need to occasionally need to make minor adjustments such as width, defensive line adjustments, and tempo, in fact to be perfect, you'd also have to make individual tweaks to get a control, attacking or a defensive variant. Thank god I am no longer moderating, I would close ANY thread which has a custom tactic asking for help, if the setup is lubricous; and we have seen some beauties.

What Cleon says hits the nail on the truth, if you are manually setting up tactics then you have to do it for a whole host of reasons and if you cant see the TC as an "exploit" to make things easy, then that person is being daft; dont criticise something you dont understand.

[Rashidi]

Like I said earlier, I really do want to get my head round shouts as conceptually for me they are short terms influencers on a game (which I assume is why SI have made them so easy to add and remove in game).

Post 1 is excellent in showing what elements / attributes are affected by shouts, and I think I'll experiment with changing my general tactical approach to test shouts.

I barely use shouts at the moment, usually only just after scoring or conceding a goal or at the end of 45 / 90 minutes; I don't use them to influence the main flow of the game at all, and that seems a bit short-sighted in hindsight.

At the moment, if I spot something going wrong during a match, I'll change the whole strategy to try to counter that threat. But thinking about it, I am probably fixing one problem but creating another one (two, three...) in the process. Shouts are more targeted solutions to any weakness that may exist or be created in your tactics.

If and when I understand shouts, I'd then appreciate some guidance on Styles. I understand broadly what the definitions are, but not what it actually means in footballing terms.

Cheers as usual for all the useful stuff knocking about in here.

Shouts aren't really a targeted solution for a weakness. Its more like changing the emphasis of your style of play. Understanding shouts by groupin them up as defensive/attacking is the best way to start. If you see your side having to drop marginally down to chase a through ball, then drop deeper is better than changing your strategy outright. For example I have on numerous occassions started a match on control then just gone narrow and pushed higher to close down the space that is being used. So in that way I have changed the emphasis of play.

By changing your strategy you are effectively telling your team to adjust their risk/reward motivations. So going from control to attacking makes you take more riskier chances. Styles is really simple to grasp, what it basically does is sets up your closing down, mentality and creative freedom. It defines how your team approaches a game in general. In footballing terms rigid would make you more Mourinho like cos you are setting clear guidelines for 3 groups of players. As you move down the style scale you make relative changes to M,CF and CD. The more fluid you become the more latitude you are giving your team to apply their own nous to a match. You get more unpredictability with fluid/very fluid formations and you get more solidity with rigid ones. This doesnt mean poor sides should avoid fluid ones, I for one use fluid with Stafford, but you need to accept that by doing so, some weird stuff happens.

Essentially thats about it.

[RTHerringbone]

What Cleon says hits the nail on the truth, if you are manually setting up tactics then you have to do it for a whole host of reasons and if you cant see the TC as an "exploit" to make things easy, then that person is being daft; dont criticise something you dont understand.

It's true, and these forums see a few parallel versions of the same non-argument across the game in general. There are a lot of "special" people posting for whom their method of playing is the only way; everyone else is wrong.

One that riled me when I started FM13 was the whole FMC vs. Simulation mode nonsense.

I started to play FMC when the Beta was released and enjoyed it. It is a great option for many people, and as it evolves it may become my preferred mode.

However, it excludes key things like the Analysis Tab, and so I reverted to Simulation mode as I need all the help I can get to refine my tactics.

In spite of its many merits, FMC was derided as being "dumbed down", "an arcade game", "a game for people who don't understand the game". All comments posted by users who usually then claim vehemently that the "ME is broken".

Hugely off topic (apologies!) but the increasing prevalence of this sort of knuckle-dragging gibberish bugs me!

[RTHerringbone]

Shouts aren't really a targeted solution for a weakness.

Cheers. I didn't really get my words right there, but have to admit I was temporarily only thinking about the defensive side of the game. Shouts obviously can be used to influence attack and defence.

I'll definitely look into grouping shouts to handle the more sort of generic changes that need to be made in a game.

Regarding Styles - does it set closing down, mentality and creative freedom across the board, or does it weight it slightly depending on the strata or role / duty of a player? I assume it does it across the board, as it would only create gaps otherwise.

[Cleon]

It's true, and these forums see a few parallel versions of the same non-argument across the game in general. There are a lot of "special" people posting for whom their method of playing is the only way; everyone else is wrong.

One that riled me when I started FM13 was the whole FMC vs. Simulation mode nonsense.

I started to play FMC when the Beta was released and enjoyed it. It is a great option for many people, and as it evolves it may become my preferred mode.

However, it excludes key things like the Analysis Tab, and so I reverted to Simulation mode as I need all the help I can get to refine my tactics.

In spite of its many merits, FMC was derided as being "dumbed down", "an arcade game", "a game for people who don't understand the game". All comments posted by users who usually then claim vehemently that the "ME is broken".

Hugely off topic (apologies!) but the increasing prevalence of this sort of knuckle-dragging gibberish bugs me!

If people put more time into learning the game rather than criticising it and other people for the way they play, many more would be having more enjoyment and success.

Rashidi, wwfan, Lam and a few others on these forums all play very differently to me yet all are successful and their approach works for them. That's the beauty of FM, you can play it in many different ways, there isn't one set way

[Rashidi]

There are a lot of "special" people posting for whom their method of playing is the only way; everyone else is wrong.

And its these same people who like to post that they cant do A, B or C, and I put up screenshots on how easily I can do it. For them the game has to play the way they want and thats not going to happen, cos the game is heading in the direction of

Rashidi, wwfan, Lam and a few others on these forums all play very differently to me yet all are successful and their approach works for them. That's the beauty of FM, you can play it in many different ways, there isn't one set way

Regarding Styles - does it set closing down, mentality and creative freedom across the board, or does it weight it slightly depending on the strata or role / duty of a player? I assume it does it across the board, as it would only create gaps otherwise.

Yes to both, depending on the style, for very fluid formations all players get more creative freedom.

Very Rigid/Rigid creates at least 3 distinct groups of players, which can be furthermore affected by roles. So a fullback on defend will have lower mentality than a fullback on support

Balanced will create 3 groups of players again based on mentality ( dont forget each groups closing down and cf will be affected as well, for more refer back to a detailed explanation earlier in the thread)

Fluid largely creates two and Very fluid creates one group. Essentially by grouping I refer to mentality only, and that affects their assessment of risk/reward. Within each strata they have closing down and creative freedom settings. So when you adjust style you will affect the strata, and those that have been slightly modified by role will get a relative increase. So if that strata gets say +2 mentality increase by a change in Strategy then the one who has the support role who is already +2 will get +4 since he was already increased by +2 from the role.

There is no fear in creating gaps tbh, its almost impossible to do that when you change style/strategy, it was designed a long time ago and it was done largely on FMLive and we put it through the grinder. So changes are balanced, the only way you could cause gaps is if you intentionally modified a group like the defending group. And then went to set up the attacking group via the TC settings by leaving em on default. So in this case if you had the defending strata on +8 and then decided in game to go to Attacking strategy you will create a big gap.

I hope that cleared things up.

[lam]

Short term fixers, tweakers, starters, enders, etc etc etc..... call 'em what you wan folks..... I just see them as shortcuts.... and it works for me

[Contexx]

I never understood the enjoyment of one single plug and play tactic, which is supposed to be "unbeatable". The obsession with sliders seems to come mostly from people not understanding what they do - particularly with mentality, which I admit, is a tricky one.

Shouts are, indeed, shortcuts. Do I want to pause my game, tick and untick a bunch of sliders, so that for about 15 minutes in a match I can focus on one particular area?

Basically, I have two formations, but essentially the same style of play for my team. One is for playing against wider, more attacking teams, the other for breaking down more stubborn "inferior" ones. The tactics themselves are fairly simple, with enough flexibility to make adjustments according to my squad and opposition - I'm comfortable enough slotting in a B2B midfielder and compensating for space left by playing a DLP, for example, but only once I understand what it will do to the shape and style of play.

As part of the manual for the game, or pre-season for the players, I think there should be a tutorial for what settings in the TC actually do. I rememeber reading the Tactical Theoroms manual, and most of it made sense when applied to real life players, but also seeing what the different roles and strategies do to sliders.

One thing I find in this game is that the AI seems to adjust more quickly, so that it's possible to actually see the effect of the shouts and other adjustments. Noting that the hitherto defensive team is now starting to bomb forward via the fullbacks should be evident to anyone watching the highlights, and it would be just foolish to say "well, I'm using a supermega tactic I downloaded from FM-***.comm so I'll go make a sandwich while winning the quadruple" because it does not work any more. Now it's still possible to pause the game, go to the tactic screen and start ticking and unticking, using a a calculator to find how many notches need to be pulled for the fullback's mentality, but a simple shout makes the game flow better and gives you, as the manager, more control.

One thing I'd like to add is a general comment about the language of the TC. As mentioned before, Attacking isn't always "I wanna score more goals" and "counter/defensive" is not "My team is poor, I need to cover my face and hope not to get beat up". Playing against Mourinho's Madrid in a recent game, away from home and with a cushy 3:1 aggregate lead, I chose to play "control/fluid" strategy, which worked beautifully with adjustments via Opposition Instructions. One of their centerbacks, Howedes, had pretty poor passing and creativity, and I chose to "never" close him down, and ensured passes would go to him and the ball stayed in an area where I didn't want them. Conversely, against an smaller, "attacking" (direct?) team away, I played a counter strategy, keeping their pretty decent strikers in check and exploiting their slow defenders by inviting space, with the knowledge and confidence in my team to be able to handle and cope with pressure.

In my save, there have been some fairly strange results and success stories among the AI teams. One of them is Spezzia, a relegation struggling team comfortable fighting for Europe, and playing very direct attacking football. They sit deep, very deep, and will simply not let you play a control strategy because they tackle hard, close down space, and use a big man/little man strikeforce to perfection. A plug-and play tactic against them simply does not work, and playing against them was truly fascinating because it involved a lot of adjustment and work. In the end, I ground out a 1:1 draw, and was left with a lot of interesting points to analyze in the match highlights and stats.

Anyway, keep up the good work, gentlemen. It's certainly more refreshing as a discussion than they usual "help! I can't win with ManCity, the game is broken!" threads

[Rashidi]

Contexx how you use shouts is how advanced players used to modify their tactics to get the AI to play a certain way. If the AI has 4 doors to unlock, by using shouts and OI you can limit the number of doors it uses.

And you're spot on about strategy, it does not mean that by going counter attacking you are being defensive. I've had countless teams got out of the gate smashing me over, I just hunker down by going counter open up pass through space and go narrow, sounds strange, but if I go narrow I limit play through the middle, but my balls go BEHIND their attacks and with my inside forwards foraging I get plenty of goals. I once beat a better team playing CA football 4-0 and it sure looked like we were dominating. Cos halfway through the match I turned on work ball into box which meant we were tick tockin around their box.

Knowing when to change strategy is also important. If a team decides to attack you and you find that no matter how deep you get you are still feeling vulnerable, its time to start watching your fullbacks. Are they comfortable handling the pressure, look at their player motivations..are they getting anxious?...if you feel confident and you feel that you can then OI their fullback and keeper forcing them to rush their passes. This is where you absolutely must know what your players and formations can do. If you don't have an AMC, don't just OI their DMC it may not work cos they don't share the same space.

Once you get to terms with your formation there's tonnes you can do.

[Columnarius]

One thing I've struggled with for years and haven't seen as much discussion on these forums is the proper use of defending deeply and standing off. I find that a Rigid 4-1-4-1 on Defend with these shouts invites the opponent to either thread a through ball in or deliver an amazing cross from their fullback that falls between my 6 defenders.

I'm interested in your opinion on if/how/when to to use drop deep / stay on feet / stand off shouts.

[Rashidi]

I have a system of play now that typically plays attacking against normal opposition and against sides better than me (5) I choose control or sometimes even standard. A lot of what I do depends on the ebb and flow of a game.

There are times when I put under the cosh by sides, during times like this I pay attention to stats. Stuff like possession, shots and whether I can even get the ball out of my own half. At times like this the danger is always tackling. So i opt to stay on feet, and make sure my players don't make unnecessary challenges that will see them sent off. If I do decide to invite them to attack me, I will always tell my players to stand on feet and drop deeper. I don't really use stand off shouts a lot, and personally whilst I think defensive football is viable, it requires a lot of discipline to pull off

[drevil1969]

I am just uploading these up first ..a long time ago, a bunch of people came together and discussed what shouts were to be incorporated into the game, there were some guys from SI forums, SI and FM-B who were involved in all of this. What I've realized that even after being away for so long its important to actually nail down these shouts to see what affects which attribute, this is very much a work in progress, I wanted to do a table but tbh i just havent had time..so I am copying over images I uploaded of screenshots of my xl files that i am working on. If these come out right yay..otherwise i need to think of another way.

The thread will build, more shouts will be added so excuse my brevity, I just wanted to see how this looks before continuing. The goal of this thread to show what attributes these shouts affect then how we can apply them. This all coming from a guy who hardly uses them. For people who customize their tactics like me they wont find it useful unless, you use the tactical creator and then ADJUST individual settings, when you do that you can still use the shouts. But, you need to know exactly what they affect. Theres no point using a customized mentality setting and then go use the Exploit the Flanks shout. Your mentality settings wont change

The three shouts listed below are probably very commonly used, but I will need to incorporate Philosophy and Strategy into this thread, cos they all affect what happens in a game. Nothing can be discussed in isolation. This thread comes from all the frustration I feel reading threads in the bugs forum where people cite the engine for failing to provide players who run across the D-line or play that elegant through ball.. its possible. I have a very strong feeling that whilst a lot of older players more used to sliders have become adept, a newer group of players who come on using the TC may not understand the interplay between sliders, shouts, and such.

_______________________________________________________________________________________>>>

These shouts(the ones below) I use more commonly, cos I do use the tactical creator, but i adjust the mentality sliders to suit my style of play. I leave everything on loose zonal cos i find that in games where i need to impose tactical discipline these shouts actually come in very handy. In a lot of games you will find yourself either stuck on a narrow pitch or you could end up facing someone whos determined to play through the middle. In such a case I use Opposition Instructions to shut down their most influential passer of the ball in midfield and then switch to wider. I also turn on hassle opponents, but this needs to be done with caution. It affects tight marking and closing down. If you are faced with a technical superior side this instruction can actually work against you cos you are closing down more. It works well on narrow pitches, but on wide pitches its really counter productive. Its far better using individual settings to shut down players or tight mark them.

.

In this case i usually just ignore hassle opponents and since i like to play with 2 teams of players..ie defensive/attacking. I set up tight marking on the attacking group and set them up..cos AMLs with TM the opposing FB.

On paper, you hear commentators remarking how players should do whats below. The reality is much harder. Even in the game its much harder to get it off. It requires a great deal of stamina and determination. If you have neither in high quantity, be prepared for winded players. The look for overlap instruction will set players off down the flanks. It works by getting midfielders to hold up ball to make room for the FBs. Now whilst this looks ideal, players need good otb and good decisions as well as passing. There are other shouts I havent listed which come in very handy when you want to do this and they include the Work into Box instruction. Setting your wingers to roam out of position, coupled with higher Creative Freedom which you can customize, you can actually create effective inside forwards for your FBs to exploit.

.

I usually like to to see FBs come up the pitch and inside forwards pick up the ball and run inside to give the FB unmarked space to exploit. Setting roam, plus FWR does that for them. So whilst the overlap shout is good, you can make it better by customizing the creative freedom and roam instructions.

More to follow..

Hi Rashidi, the OP you said more to follow, any updates on this? I found the relation to real life football and the shouts really helpful and have difficulty imaging them, but this guide makes much easier. In my opinion

[Rashidi]

I have plans to update this, but I have a bad toothache, my dentist will only see me on Wed and I am bz at work with 2 huge meetings before my dental appt and I need to keep a smile on me face..so the update will have to wait soz :-(

[drevil1969]

Not good enough lol! Hate the dentist, you have my sympathies, seriously! Good luck with the meetings, cant see why you would get involved with things like work and life when football manager is about! lol

[Rashidi]

Not good enough lol! Hate the dentist, you have my sympathies, seriously! Good luck with the meetings, cant see why you would get involved with things like work and life when football manager is about! lol

Yeah my gf must be really pissed with me, came up with a new FM project for the community and she's so pissed..