New to the game Genre- Looking for advice

[MadCat]

Hi Everyone,

I really do Hope I am at the right place and hopefully someone can just explain to me If the game AI is just strange or is it something I am doing wrong.

I am brand new to the game and to the genre as the title says, and please if I am in the wrong forum please direct me.

I started today and created a manager as unemployed, after days and days of wondering if I will ever get a job offer that doesnt decline me I got an offer in argentina.

I was excited and took the offer, reading and going through all the stats and tactics and fun stuff, I was 3-0 down when i scored a goal to make it 3-1 and ended with 5-2, Not a great score but it was to be expected i guess.

Anyway I played another and lossed 3-0.

Then my 3rd game and this is when i decided, Clearly i must be doing something horribly wrong. lost 3-0 again

Now in my 3rd game my team defended a good shot on goal and then the ball was lying few inches off the goal line, my heart racing and no opposing player near the ball i thought great, then my team member ran straight at the ball and kicked it into his own goal... Flabbergasted at what just happened I shook it off and few min later the ball gets deflected off the goal keeper, the ball lies about 2 inches to the left of him and a opposing team slowly walks up and kicks the ball into the net. All the goalkeeper was doing was standing up did not even attempt to pick up the ball right next to him...

What is this? Did i get a bunch of brain dead player? Am i suppose to smash my keyboard with some magical keys to tell the guy pick up the ball?

Any assistance would be appreciated

P.S i watch the full game for enjoyment, but it really can be a lot of headache from stupid plays a 2 year old won't do.

[PM_BREWER]

some of its the match engine but its your tactics/team level in division, how good your players are, the common problem for this is tactic as the league goes on try to learn about the teams in your division as the table starts to form, make sure player roles are correct like dlp etc poacher put full backs on [d] tight marking in own half, try find your best player and play the tactics around him:D

[casdelo]

Ok. Realize that this game is very tough, and for someone new to the genre, you just took on one of the most difficult scenarios in the game. Starting unemployed and your working your way up is the trial by fire method to learn the game. I would recommend you start to learn the system with a team you can make mistakes with. Manchester United, City, Arsenal, Chelsea are all good ones, but the Premier League is still tough and high level. Many have suggested that Celtic are the best team to learn the game with. They have a strong side, facilities, finances, and a relatively weak division to play against.

Next, when you have questions on specific concepts, try the search method on this forum, or any of numerous websites out there. This game takes much studying both to grasp the interface, as well as the concepts. Often things don't mean what you think they do. Particularly in the tactics arena.

A brief word on tactics. Keep them simple, and don't use the sliders until you completely understand what they do. Use the tactic creator, and shouts. When you turn on a shout, compare where the sliders are before and after and you will start to understand what the shouts are really doing.

Player roles are extremely important in this game, but also extremely small on the interface. This makes them easy to overlook. At each level (Defense, Midfield, and Attack) you want at least one player defensively minded, and attacking minded. Essentially you want a player playing between the lines so there are not large gaps on the field.

Good luck to you, and welcome to what is a fantastic, albeit frequently frustrating, but also incredibly rewarding genre!

[MadCat]

Thank you all so far for the responses, I will try going the route where i don't start unemployed and see how it goes, I just did a rerun of my 5-2 loss and no on half time i am on 6-1.. haha i am getting worse at this

[casdelo]

Thank you all so far for the responses, I will try going the route where i don't start unemployed and see how it goes, I just did a rerun of my 5-2 loss and no on half time i am on 6-1.. haha i am getting worse at this

No problem. You choose how you want to play the game, but I will caution you if you start down the "rerun" path, you can win everything, but ultimately you burn out getting tired of reloading until you win, and you never really develop the understanding it takes to actually be successful in the game. That's why the suggestion of starting out as manager of Celtic is a good one. You will usually win games, and you can really learn the game at the same time. It is a tough ask to be motivated to learn this game when you are constantly at the wrong end of 3-0 drubbing!

[haunted1234]

if you are new to the game, i recommand download some tactics that are made by other players, play with them, later you can learn to do your own

[MadCat]

No problem. You choose how you want to play the game, but I will caution you if you start down the "rerun" path, you can win everything, but ultimately you burn out getting tired of reloading until you win, and you never really develop the understanding it takes to actually be successful in the game. That's why the suggestion of starting out as manager of Celtic is a good one. You will usually win games, and you can really learn the game at the same time. It is a tough ask to be motivated to learn this game when you are constantly at the wrong end of 3-0 drubbing!

No I did not plan to reload an old game, I did not realise there was no autosave, after my 3rd loss i quit the game to watch some game of thrones, then when i started back up i was at the start again

[MadCat]

if you are new to the game, i recommand download some tactics that are made by other players, play with them, later you can learn to do your own

would you be so kind to point me in the right direction on how this works? and what it en tales?

[Guest]

if you are new to the game, i recommand download some tactics that are made by other players, play with them, later you can learn to do your own

IMHO that's the worst thing anyone new to FM can do, chances are there will be little understanding as to why a tactic worked or failed & will lead people down a path that will see them posting about how the ME is broken because Mr Hough's wonder tactic doesn't work on FM15 even though it worked on 13.

Taking charge of a league giant such as Celtic with a high starting rep is a good idea, not only is the standard of opposition player quite low but the tactics employed by the managers will be a pretty vanilla 4-4-2 which is a good one to learn against, for me the key bits of advice would be to keep things simple at the beginning & just use the Tactics Creator, over time you can then start to play around with specific instructions & see the affects on the pitch & most importantly of all have patience, this game can be soul destroying but once you get the hang of it no other game gets close to having the same pull to make you play just one more game.

Out of interest when you (OP) say that you're new to the game & genre are you just referring to FM & sports management sims or are you fairly new to real life football? How would you rate your own understanding of real world football tactics?

No I did not plan to reload an old game, I did not realise there was no autosave, after my 3rd loss i quit the game to watch some game of thrones, then when i started back up i was at the start again

There is an autosave option, go to the saving tab in the preferences menu.

[TacticalGenius]

No I did not plan to reload an old game, I did not realise there was no autosave, after my 3rd loss i quit the game to watch some game of thrones, then when i started back up i was at the start again

Autosave can be activated in FM > Preferences. I strongly recommend a rolling 3 save autosave, set to save (at most) fortnightly.

I've also written some pretty basic FM guides that should help a newcomer to FM, if you fancy taking a look: http://footballmanagerhowto.wordpress.com/category/how-to-guides/

[casdelo]

IMHO that's the worst thing anyone new to FM can do, chances are there will be little understanding as to why a tactic worked or failed & will lead people down a path that will see them posting about how the ME is broken because Mr Hough's wonder tactic doesn't work on FM15 even though it worked on 13.

Very well put Barside. I was trying to figure out how to articulate just that!

Tactics, Training, and Transfers are what makes this game wonderful. Downloading pre-made tactics is like cutting a whole third of the game out. If you are going to be a manager, work on your tactics! Not to mention the fact that this years game puts greater emphasis on the need to develop your tactics not only to fit your own players, but to counter the players on the other team!

[MadCat]

IMHO that's the worst thing anyone new to FM can do, chances are there will be little understanding as to why a tactic worked or failed & will lead people down a path that will see them posting about how the ME is broken because Mr Hough's wonder tactic doesn't work on FM15 even though it worked on 13.

Taking charge of a league giant such as Celtic with a high starting rep is a good idea, not only is the standard of opposition player quite low but the tactics employed by the managers will be a pretty vanilla 4-4-2 which is a good one to learn against, for me the key bits of advice would be to keep things simple at the beginning & just use the Tactics Creator, over time you can then start to play around with specific instructions & see the affects on the pitch & most importantly of all have patience, this game can be soul destroying but once you get the hang of it no other game gets close to having the same pull to make you play just one more game.

Out of interest when you (OP) say that you're new to the game & genre are you just referring to FM & sports management sims or are you fairly new to real life football? How would you rate your own understanding of real world football tactics?

There is an autosave option, go to the saving tab in the preferences menu.

Well I am actually a South African, so we are more focused on Rugby than football, but i do enjoy football. I won't say i know many player names or club name and so on, but i do have a very decent understanding of game mechanics, and workings.

I am also new to FM, Sure i have played a bit of Fifa many years ago, bu this is completely different and new to me.

I have noticed that my UI was completely different when i picked Chelsea as a team than when i was unemployed etc. Not only was the pause and camera buttons and orders on dif locations, but Mid game and pre game i could not give "motivational" speeches etc.

[MadCat]

Autosave can be activated in FM > Preferences. I strongly recommend a rolling 3 save autosave, set to save (at most) fortnightly.

I've also written some pretty basic FM guides that should help a newcomer to FM, if you fancy taking a look: http://footballmanagerhowto.wordpress.com/category/how-to-guides/

Thank you very much, Will have a look on there.

[MadCat]

Very well put Barside. I was trying to figure out how to articulate just that!

Tactics, Training, and Transfers are what makes this game wonderful. Downloading pre-made tactics is like cutting a whole third of the game out. If you are going to be a manager, work on your tactics! Not to mention the fact that this years game puts greater emphasis on the need to develop your tactics not only to fit your own players, but to counter the players on the other team!

Clearly my tactics are terrible but yeah i totally agree, I think The day i score i win with my own tactics... It will feel amazing!

[haunted1234]

IMHO that's the worst thing anyone new to FM can do, chances are there will be little understanding as to why a tactic worked or failed & will lead people down a path that will see them posting about how the ME is broken because Mr Hough's wonder tactic doesn't work on FM15 even though it worked on 13.

Taking charge of a league giant such as Celtic with a high starting rep is a good idea, not only is the standard of opposition player quite low but the tactics employed by the managers will be a pretty vanilla 4-4-2 which is a good one to learn against, for me the key bits of advice would be to keep things simple at the beginning & just use the Tactics Creator, over time you can then start to play around with specific instructions & see the affects on the pitch & most importantly of all have patience, this game can be soul destroying but once you get the hang of it no other game gets close to having the same pull to make you play just one more game.

Out of interest when you (OP) say that you're new to the game & genre are you just referring to FM & sports management sims or are you fairly new to real life football? How would you rate your own understanding of real world football tactics?

There is an autosave option, go to the saving tab in the preferences menu.

the game to a "noob" can be so frustrating that its possible to mid-table finish even with a overpowered team like celtic in their league..

http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/football-manager-2013-tactics-training/

go there and download couple tactics and load them in your game and see if you can win couple games

nothing more frustrating than losing every game, also all the sliders and stuff, its not a very charming topic to learn how to setup your team according to the match engine and stuff, better let others worry about it

[Guest]

I cannot agree with the sentiment of your post in any way, it might be my llama side shinning through but downloading another persons plug & play, will win every time tactic doesn't make sense. What's the point in winning if you do not understand why you're winning?

One common theme that I've noticed with these types of tactics is that the originator always talks about keeping morale close to the max which in my mind indicates that the tactic is inherently flawed but that's a different discussion for another day.

[TacticalGenius]

I cannot agree with the sentiment of your post in any way, it might be my llama side shinning through but downloading another persons plug & play, will win every time tactic doesn't make sense. What's the point in winning if you do not understand why you're winning?

If there was a rep button, you'd have just earned a +1 from me.

In my opinion, it is better to give a man a plan, basic knowledge and some bricks rather than build the house for him.

[haunted1234]

not worth a second to invest how the match engine thinks and what all the sliders do

but OP has to decide for himself

[MadCat]

Yeah I do not think i want to download someones tactics, but even if you did would it not be pointless? as it depends who you play against and all that? how good your players are etc?

So far I have been given some great advise and thank you all for that, I have also been given http://www.guidetofootballmanager.com/#players to look at so hopefully I will start getting better at this

[KevMaaan]

Perhaps play footbal manager classic, it takes away some of the more complicated features and "simplifies" the game a bit allowing new players to get used to the fundamentals before trying to grasp the intricacies of the game. Pick celtic, easy league, strong team. You will be able to play around with different tactics and see what they do.

[MadCat]

Can someone explain to me what the difference is between classic and the normal version?

[Jegpeg]

Essentially Classic has taken out some of the features and complexities of the full version.

For example

Full version you have much more options how you train the players, and you can ask experienced players to mentor your youth players.

Classic has a single assistant manager (effectively the coaching staff) where in the full version you handle all the coaching staff under him

Similarly in classic you just have a single scout (representing a scouting team)

Not only is it easier to learn as it is less complicated but it is good to stick to if you don't want to micro manage. People were complaining that as more and more features came into Football manager it took longer and longer to play, Classic is the response to that.

[MadCat]

Essentially Classic has taken out some of the features and complexities of the full version.

For example

Full version you have much more options how you train the players, and you can ask experienced players to mentor your youth players.

Classic has a single assistant manager (effectively the coaching staff) where in the full version you handle all the coaching staff under him

Similarly in classic you just have a single scout (representing a scouting team)

Not only is it easier to learn as it is less complicated but it is good to stick to if you don't want to micro manage. People were complaining that as more and more features came into Football manager it took longer and longer to play, Classic is the response to that.

I see, Thanks!

Maybe I should try out that then, but I started a new unemployment track and lost a friendly to myself ( reserves ) and won the next one 2-0! yay my 1st win

[soccer.joel]

if you are new to the game, i recommand download some tactics that are made by other players, play with them, later you can learn to do your own

Its better to read guides and make them yourself

[soccer.joel]

Try reading these:

http://pushthemwide.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/beginners-resource-pack/

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/185681-Creating-a-Tactic-%25E2%2580%2593-From-the-Beginning

http://www.footballmanager.com/manual/?game=33&locale=en_GB&id=1

I recommended these to a friend who started playing and he started doing a lot better

The first 2 help you with the tactical side of things. The latter is the official guide which can help you find your way around the game and know what stuff means

[jamesbeil]

Sometimes, the game can be absolutely maddening - a team in good form can lose two-nil to a side rooted to the bottom of the league, or you could lose in the cup to a team of complete minnows. Sometimes things like this just happen, and we have to put up with it.

That said, Celtic are a good side to start with, or alternatively Luton or Fleetwood in the BSP. Playing through the tutorials can save you a headache, and ultimately you will learn the most from slogging through. Don't get disheartened if you can't get promoted every season like some of the careers on the forums - slowly, slowly, catchy monkey.

Good luck, and congratulations on your superb taste in games!

[BiggusD]

I think downloading a tactic can be useful, but only if you have already learned how to create one yourself and just want input or new ideas. Downloading a tactic in FM13 without knowing how to play the game is probably a bad idea - since the tactic will only help you so far.

The problem with choosing huge, huge teams like Manchester U/C, Chelsea, Barca or Real is that even International starting reputation will not be enough to make the players listen to what you have to say. These clubs also have huge expectations and a top-half position in November may see you fired. The problem with choosing unemployed and the lowest starting reputation is that the club you get will have no money and likely a poor team in poor shape.

Therefore I recommend picking International starting reputation and picking a club with good potential (big stadium) that the media has tipped at mid-table or top-half. Then you have the time you need to learn the game; the players will listen to you, the board will not demand instant success and you will likely be able to sign a few players if not the first season then at least from the second because of the fanbase.

The Premier League and Championship are both very tough leagues to start in. I recommend trying other leagues first. Either League One or lower in England, or abroad. Italy is probably my favourite because of the money. In Spain it may take decades before a smaller club gets a chunk out of the TV money pie rather than leftover crumbs. Germany and France are both good leagues but they don't really have TV money there. The other leagues will likely not be big enough to build world-class teams the first 10-20 seasons, and even if you could the league games would become boring very soon.

So, pick an Italian club tipped between 6th to 12th place by the media in either Serie A or B. One with not too much debt and a decent stadium.

Then, as has been said above, make a default 442 tactic and start learning the game.

[sjm]

One thing that will make everything a lot easier is to step back and analyze your team the very first thing you do. If you pick a team you known well in real life, this is a lot easier to do. But essentially you need to have a vague idea of what your players are good at (which translate roughly to their roles in the TC), and what your deficiencies are. Then you need to think of how best to utilise your players.

Certain players tend to complement each other, so you need to think about your tactics as a whole. There's no point having a winger whose crossing is sublime if your strikers are both tiny and won't win the headers. You need someone in midfield to break up the opposition's play. You need a way to create chances. You need someone who can score those chances you create.

There are many different ways to approach these challenges. Some of the bog standard and easy ways to tinker with your attacking, for example, is to look at your attacking players physical attributes. A striker with good heading and jumping makes a good target for crosses in the box. If he can also create chances or works hard for the team and is strong, you might want him to hold up the ball in a target man role, bringing other players into play. If you have a pacy striker, look to play through balls for him to run onto, or get him to dribble a lot if he's good at it.

It's not just enough to plunk a few players into the team and see what happens, you need to have a strategy:

Jones (MC) is there to break up play in midfield - he's more defensive minded

Smith (MC) is there to create chances in open play by playing the killer ball - he might be a playmaker too.

Green (DC) is there to head crosses out of your box. He needs to be marking the opposition's best aerial player at set pieces, and needs to get up when you have a corner.

Rogers (ML) is there to run with the ball down the flank, delivering crosses into the box. He can't defend, so he's going to have an offensive mindset.

etc.

Give the players a role that best suits what you think they should be doing, and try to keep a balance to the team. Not everyone can be attacking-minded, and the extent to which your tactics can be offensive or defensive depends a lot on the standard of your players compared to other teams. If you start at the bottom with a poor club, you'll probably be best off playing a defensive, counter-attacking tactic. The emphasis being on breaking quickly and defending compactly. (I'd therefore agree that you might prefer something like playing as Celtic where you can play far more offensively in every game and are easily going to win some games even if you aren't that good at FM.)

Only once you have an idea what the players should be doing will you be able to get them to actually do it. You need to watch the matches a bit and check to what extent the players are doing what you want them to. At the start you'll find it infuriating how the players do things you don't want them to, but the next stage is to learn how to get them to behave properly.

So don't just pick 11 players and click on Continue. Pick 11 players with a plan, watch the match in full and try and work out how to get them to do what you want - play with the shouts or other tactical settings and experiment with different players in different roles within the same formation to see what works for you.

You won't become great overnight, but you'll hopefully have something to work towards and to work around if you take a little time to devise a general strategy.

Other than that, try and identify how players respond to you and try and keep morale high. Some players need love, some need a kick up the backside. High morale will give your team a big boost and make them play better.

[MadCat]

Well its a new day, work is done and time to get back into action, Thanks once again for everyone who has responded and I really appreciate the communities assistance.

So What have I done?

Well i ignored most of the advise and started as unemployed again like i said in my last post, I have won my st friendly 2-0, I think my team is doing okay, their moral is sky high and I hope I can get somewhere with them.

So the things where I have problems with is that my budget on salaries is something like 10K and my current wages is 13K, so i am a bit over budget, but the board doesn't wanna give me more money!

Does it matter? will I get fired? what is the issues with being behind on budget? Will the board be nicer when I win some matches?

The other thing I have read in all the advise is setting your players up so they play where they should play, attacking defending and all that. Is iits TERRIBLY bad to click on the "ask to pick" button? and then work from there? or is it not a bad setup?

I use to only make sure everyone is green and is not playing in some position where his red or orange, but then when it comes to the finer details like auto/defensive/attacking/support, fullback/wingback/ etc my brain starts laughing at me. This I am sure I will improve with time though.

My current team is the Witbank Spurs, A south African club, not that I know any players unfortunately.

[TacticalGenius]

If you're doing well in other areas, finances aren't really worth worrying about. They will improve with success, and you're much more likely to be fired for on-pitch reasons than off-pitch ones.

Asking to pick will only place players that can play in that position, not by their preferred role, so for that reason it should be avoided.

[MadCat]

Right thanks,

I am about 32 min into a game score is 0-0 which for me is great , i seem to be tackling very well but my back line keeps kicking the balls so far forward it just runs out the back of the goal line, no chance anyone can get to it. I have selected under passing "shorter passes" will this aid with this problem?

This is how my team is setup atm

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[MadCat]

aww man! 1-0 against me 68 min in, I removed a defense and put in an additional striker, hopefully i can get a goal!

[MadCat]

sorry if I am being annoying but

77 min SCORE 1-1 phew!

81st min 1-2 for mee

87th 1-3 ! i want their babies! we won..

Seems 3 strikers at front is great on my team or something, I selected for them to play "contained" after my 2nd goal, but they just kept pushing and pushing!

[sjm]

The other thing I have read in all the advise is setting your players up so they play where they should play, attacking defending and all that. Is iits TERRIBLY bad to click on the "ask to pick" button? and then work from there? or is it not a bad setup?

It's not necessarily a bad idea - and check out your assistant manager's feedback as well for a breakdown of your team. However, take what your AM says with a pinch of salt. People call him the ass man for a good reason. Do look at his suggestions and see if you can figure out why he's picked certain players or why you don't agree with his choices. Sometimes he'll pick someone you've overlooked because he can fulfill a specific function, and sometimes (most of the time?) he selects players based on reputation rather than how good they'll actually be and is a waste of space...

I use to only make sure everyone is green and is not playing in some position where his red or orange, but then when it comes to the finer details like auto/defensive/attacking/support, fullback/wingback/ etc my brain starts laughing at me. This I am sure I will improve with time though.

This is definitely something that you get very good at. Once you've played the game a lot, you can click on a player's profile and know immediately what kind of player he is, whether he's interesting as a potential signing etc. At the beginning this is quite hard - you don't really know what attributes are important for the type of football you want to play, so you'll have to learn the hard way.

One thing you shouldn't underestimate is the importance of the mental attributes and also the hidden attributes that you can't see directly - these govern how well a player will handle pressure or perform in big matches, how professional they are etc. A player with good technical attributes but poor mental attributes and a poor all-round personality won't necessarily perform as well as a so-so player with a great personality.

[MadCat]

very interisting!

[Alaa]

Hi there,

First of all, welcome to football manager.. I wish you the best luck in your career(s).

I took a quick look on your screenshot, and here's the deal:

it seems that your tactic was a (preset tactic) from the tactics list, and you didn't change anything at all.

you see the field, where it shows you the formation, players names, and positions? i.e lets talk about your central defender (Tau): His name is there, his role is CD (central Defender), and his duty is D (Defend).

If you click on his name (Tau), it will take you to his personal page, and there will be some tabs on the top right of your screen, if you click on reports, it will show you a detailed report on your player, including his position report.. he might not good playing as a (CD) with (D) duty. He might be good as (LD) "Limited Defender" with duty of (X) "Stopper".

If you want to know the deference between all these roles and duties, from the tactic screen (the one you posted) click on the player's tab, navigate through the roles and duties and read the information about each one of them. And then pay a visit to the tactic forum to know more about it.

As a quick brief, you need some sort of balance between all the lines. You would want to use WingBacks instead of FullBacks, with duty of attack, because your midfield area lacks any wingers or wide players. While you would want to give them a Fullback duty with defending roles, just because you are playing a much stronger team, and expect to concede heavily.

So, in the tactic screen, from this tab "overview" you could change a lot, but also not quite enough, as all the advanced settings for you team tactics are in the "team" tab.. while you could give each player an individual instructions from the "player" tab.

Tactics are very complicated in FM, but its the thing that makes FM very interesting game. You will not be any happier than the time you see your tactics are actually working and you are knocking some big teams by winning tactically.

[MadCat]

Thanks,

So what is the difference between the position with the Brackets ( ) and position without? - *edit*nvm i kinda figured it out

And no I tried to create my own tactic, I just suck so bad that it looks like a default one ?

And yeah I am having a hard time seeing if my tactics work or if they don't work, All i am seeing is players being stupid, but that's possibly because i am putting them in positions and duties they not good at as you mentioned. I wil make a new one and try read each player's info and take another screenshot.

[Herbert Fandel]

And no I tried to create my own tactic, I just suck so bad that it looks like a default one ?.

I wouldn't worry about your own made tactic looking like a default one in terms of the players of the positions on the pitch, after all there are only so many combinations and most of the sensible ones have been covered by the default tactics. For example, a lot of IRL managers still play 4-4-2 without any concern for whether it is 'their own' or not. That said, I currently have a formation which isn't one of the default ones, but nor is it outlandish or greatly different, nor would I say it is the height of tactical intelligence.

It is in the roles, defending/support/attack instructions, individual instructions and team instructions that you can make your tactic different from others, rather than via positions on the pitch (beyond a certain degree).

If I was you then for the time being I would ignore the advanced individual instructions and just play around with roles, (Target Man, Advanced Forward, Defensive forward etc. for ST position etc.). Read the descriptions of it and think about how they fit in to the roles around them.

I've tried to keep it simple so far, next bit could be too complex

Pre-season friendlies against decent opposition, watched in either full match or the setting down from that, are the best way to see if a tactic is working. Initially think more in terms of their movement than what they do in terms of competencies. If they seem isolated, too crowded, etc, then think about changing their role during the match and trying that one out for a bit, whilst watching. Once you have your players occupying nice areas of space and moving in a nice manner, then think about what they do with the ball, and how their role and settings affect what they do with the ball. (e.g. a Target man holds it up whilst a Trequaraista might run around with it).

Doing this is a bit tedious if you aren't committed, but if you do it and get a tactic you are happy with, you then don't need to tinker every 5 minutes all season, contrary to what some of the people complaining the game is too hard seem to think. If you are happy with the tactic, then losing a game every now and again doesn't mean its a bad tactic.

Also, sometimes your tactics need time to bed in. If you think something looks sensible and should work, then don't let being 3-0 down at half time in the first game you use it put you off it you truly have faith in it. Train the team in tactical cohesion, try to use the same players, and play it in 2-3-4 more friendlies to see how it works. If you are still getting hammered, perhaps it is time to re-think.

disclaimer - this is only my own opinion, and shouldn't be taken as gospel unlike the posts of some people in the tactics/training threads

[MadCat]

Thanks what you say does make sense and makes me fee a bit better, It has taken me now 2 days since i got this game and i have spent like gameplay 22 hours on it, in that time i have prolly only played 5 games, Currently i have 2 friendlies left then some tournament thing starts, so I hope I get something done

This is my new 4-4-2 setup

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, What I have done was remove everything I had before, then decided that I need some wingers, someone above mentioned my team is a bit squashed up with no side support.

I started at the goal keeper ( I only have one so easy choice! ) Then i Moved to the defenders, I picked the first defender in my team and looked at his attributes and clicked on dif styles ( central defender/full back, etc and picked where he was the strongest in. So I carried on for all my players and picked the best I could.

*EDIT* I also then picked training and made them train HEAVY and selected either the players position his playing if all his attributes are even ish, and some players that lack 1 specific skill train them in that skill specifically.

The thing I do not know is if it is a mistake, Do my team mixture work together? Does my back support my middle and middle my front etc? I have no idea If I am being completely stupid or am I moving in the right direction.

Another thing I wonder is, Should I select Fluid balanced rigid, with attacking/defending/balanced, If i am ahead should i say attacking, If loosing defending/counter.. this is where my pain points are, I don't really know what I am suppose to do in what situation. Sometimes my asistent manager says ( we need to do shorter passes ) but I have selected "short passing" in play style...

Anyway enough blabber

[MadCat]

Good lord this Goal keeper makes me so nervous! my defense passes the ball to him, then he dribbles it forward out of his box with 2 strikers just meters infront of him, then kicks the ball away.... I will murder him if he gives a goal away like that:D

[Guest]

Check his run with ball & make forward run instructions (Advanced player instructions), chances are his default position instructions have given him too much licence to make a fool of himself.

[MadCat]

Check his run with ball & make forward run instructions (Advanced player instructions), chances are his default position instructions have given him too much licence to make a fool of himself.

Roger that

I have an issue that maybe It is the game engine, or maybe I am missing some rule somewhere that I do not know of, but this seems 100% wrong.

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My (ST) Theron headers the ball backwards after my goal keeper kicks the ball, My (AM) you can see near the middle at the referee tries to get the ball and gets knocked off his feet, Then an OFFSIDE whislte gets blown against him... WHAAAAT?

[Guest]

That's a known bug in the match engine.

[MadCat]

That's a known bug in the match engine.

I was getting worried in that match, started with 0-1 against me, then 1-1 1-2 then 3-2 for a great friking WIN!

[Guest]

Glad to hear that you're getting the odd win to keep your interest alive.

[MadCat]

Glad to hear that you're getting the odd win to keep your interest alive.

I am so nervous now though LoL! That was my last friendly, next up 1st division cup ...

[MadCat]

That's a known bug in the match engine.

Waow this bug is getting a bit ridiculous 3 times in 1st half and twice lost me a nice attack move! Any workarounds?

[Guest]

I've never seen it happen that frequently, are the players clearly onside (I mean a good few metres) every time?

[Herbert Fandel]

Waow this bug is getting a bit ridiculous 3 times in 1st half and twice lost me a nice attack move! Any workarounds?

I haven't seen(/noticed) it once in 816 hours of gameplay.

Are you sure you understand the offside rule ? (no offence)

[MadCat]

I haven't seen(/noticed) it once in 816 hours of gameplay.

Are you sure you understand the offside rule ? (no offence)

Yup no offence taken, As that above screenshot shows, it has happened 3 times now in that match in the 1st half, not yet in the 2nd half, but man we are now 4-4 in 2nd part of overtime, I was 3-0 ahead at some point.. sigh!

*Edit* I will try save the match, can I send it to someone to watch ? or can I watch it later aswell?