Is it bad swapping tactics a lot?

[arsenal12]

Does this affect the players in some way if I change tactics a lot? Is it better to stick with just 1 tactic and do changes sometimes?

[bigwoody]

That depends. Tactical familiarity matters a LOT! One of my tactics has great teams looking like circus clowns in the pre-season, but once they get fluid, it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen - don't be constantly making new tactics during a season for no real reason.

But, you can have 3 tactics in place and learned at a time - switching between them seems to have no consequence at all.

[beeje13]

Ive recently had the opposition 'learn' my tactic and while I couldn't just sit there expecting results to improve on there own, I changed things a little bit at a time.

[sosasoser]

I've recently abandoned an experiment to look into this. My idea was to take three very different tactics, train them up as much as possible in the pre-season and then use them all during the season. The plan for the first half was to switch tactics after every non-win. For the second half, the plan was to rotate between the tactics every game. To give you and idea of the squad, I'm playing in the EPL. The media projected my team to finish 6th with a 16-1 chance of winning the league. The previous season, I finished 2nd.

I made it all the way through the first half of the season with this experiment. I was in 3rd place in the league, had made the semi-finals of the Capital One Cup and won all but one of my group games in the Champions League. The results were fairly equivalent to what I might have gotten if I had just stuck with one tactical approach.

On to the second half of the season and switching tactics every game. This I have abandoned. The results themselves aren't bad. It's now March 2nd and I'm still in third. I beat Chelsea, who are in second, in the Capital One Cup semis, but lost in the finals to first place Man City. However, I can tell that my players are getting confused. I'm conceding a lot more goals after stupid mistakes. Bad passes in the midfield and blown assignments in the backline are becoming increasingly more common. Familiarity with all of the tactics is at 100% and the players are not complacent. I've already conceded more goals in the second half than I did in the entire first half in league play. I called this experiment off before things got worse and my board got irritated.

So, I guess I would say that switching tactics is fine. However, I strongly suggest not doing it for no reason and certainly not every game.

[Sussex Hammer]

I've recently abandoned an experiment to look into this. My idea was to take three very different tactics, train them up as much as possible in the pre-season and then use them all during the season. The plan for the first half was to switch tactics after every non-win. For the second half, the plan was to rotate between the tactics every game. To give you and idea of the squad, I'm playing in the EPL. The media projected my team to finish 6th with a 16-1 chance of winning the league. The previous season, I finished 2nd.

I made it all the way through the first half of the season with this experiment. I was in 3rd place in the league, had made the semi-finals of the Capital One Cup and won all but one of my group games in the Champions League. The results were fairly equivalent to what I might have gotten if I had just stuck with one tactical approach.

On to the second half of the season and switching tactics every game. This I have abandoned. The results themselves aren't bad. It's now March 2nd and I'm still in third. I beat Chelsea, who are in second, in the Capital One Cup semis, but lost in the finals to first place Man City. However, I can tell that my players are getting confused. I'm conceding a lot more goals after stupid mistakes. Bad passes in the midfield and blown assignments in the backline are becoming increasingly more common. Familiarity with all of the tactics is at 100% and the players are not complacent. I've already conceded more goals in the second half than I did in the entire first half in league play. I called this experiment off before things got worse and my board got irritated.

So, I guess I would say that switching tactics is fine. However, I strongly suggest not doing it for no reason and certainly not every game.

It's interesting what you have posted here because swapping tactics all the time seems to be what I constantly do as I cannot find any consistency. The irony is I never seem to finish outside the top six. I tend to scrap a tactic when it seems to stop working in any shape or form which seems to be about 3-4 games if I am lucky. I'm probably just a bit pants at creating solid tactics but it gets to me that I can (as I did recently) create a tactic that absolutely mullered Man City 4-1 at home with some fantastic football then it seemed to get less and less effective over the next few games until someone finally battered me. Yes I know, strategies, philosophies and all that but changing little things don't seem to help it just a clean sweep and brand new tactic and more often than not I win the next game. Hence my usual comment about FM being seemingly very random these days as to what actually works!

[Kenco]

I had 3 tactics set up with Liverpool and would use them all during the season for different situations: 4-1-2-1-2 narrow diamond was my primary tactic, used for majority of home games and away to much lesser teams. 2nd was a 4-5-1/4-3-3/4-1-2-2-1 or whatever it's called. 1 DM, 2 MCs, wingers and a striker. This was used in most away games. Then I had a 3-3-2-1-1 system with wing-backs, which I used against big teams who play 4-2-3-1.

I had pretty good results, finishing in the top 3 every season but never really excelling. During last season I started to use my 4-1-2-1-2 formation a lot more (changing my WBs to CWBs) as it was proving more successful than the others. I would sometimes change mentality and a few TIs but nothing else. I stormed through the 2nd half of the season winning the league and have started the new season even better, using this tactic for every match and I've opened up a 15 point lead and it's only January.

The problem is, my success could be down to one of 3 things; my use of CWBs, keeping the same tactic for every game or my other two tactics were not very good.

[beeje13]

I had 3 tactics set up with Liverpool and would use them all during the season for different situations: 4-1-2-1-2 narrow diamond was my primary tactic, used for majority of home games and away to much lesser teams. 2nd was a 4-5-1/4-3-3/4-1-2-2-1 or whatever it's called. 1 DM, 2 MCs, wingers and a striker. This was used in most away games. Then I had a 3-3-2-1-1 system with wing-backs, which I used against big teams who play 4-2-3-1.

I had pretty good results, finishing in the top 3 every season but never really excelling. During last season I started to use my 4-1-2-1-2 formation a lot more (changing my WBs to CWBs) as it was proving more successful than the others. I would sometimes change mentality and a few TIs but nothing else. I stormed through the 2nd half of the season winning the league and have started the new season even better, using this tactic for every match and I've opened up a 15 point lead and it's only January.

The problem is, my success could be down to one of 3 things; my use of CWBs, keeping the same tactic for every game or my other two tactics were not very good.

I managed to win the league in the first season with LFC with just one tactic, but second season is where Ive run into problems and I'm 10 points behind 1st with about 12 games left. Ive put it down to the AI learning my tactic.

In fact for the 3rd season I am planning to do exactly what you did, rotate between three tactics to keep the opposition guessing. But I just need 3 good tactics now!

[Kenco]

I managed to win the league in the first season with LFC with just one tactic, but second season is where Ive run into problems and I'm 10 points behind 1st with about 12 games left. Ive put it down to the AI learning my tactic.

In fact for the 3rd season I am planning to do exactly what you did, rotate between three tactics to keep the opposition guessing. But I just need 3 good tactics now!

The AI doesn't "learn" your tactics. It will change the way it plays against you based on reputation changes, which is probably what happened after you won the league. Your reputation goes up, so the next season teams will be a little more cautious against you. This may now render your initial tactic ineffective but does not mean they learnt it.

I wouldn't say rotating tactics will keep them guessing, that's not how it works. You just need to be able to apply the correct tactics against the team in front of you. This is what I tried to do initially but now I'm finding great success by using the same structure with the occasional change of mentality based on the opposition.

[bluesjunior]

I managed to win the league in the first season with LFC with just one tactic, but second season is where Ive run into problems and I'm 10 points behind 1st with about 12 games left. Ive put it down to the AI learning my tactic.

In fact for the 3rd season I am planning to do exactly what you did, rotate between three tactics to keep the opposition guessing. But I just need 3 good tactics now!

I have found that you don't really need to have three different tactics as three different formations. I also started my Liverpool save using my favourite 4-1-2CM-2W/IF-1 formation and won the league. Like you I had problems winning as easily in my second season but instead of inventing two new tactics I just changed the front three into one AMC and two Strikers as a Narrow 4-1-2-1-2 and another where I pushed the DM/Anchor/Regista up into a DLP position in between my two B-B central midfielders in a 4-3-1-2. Other than having to drop the Look for Overlap instruction and change a couple of PI's for the different positions my tactical instructions are more or less the same and I find that one of those formations will suit almost every opposing one. I did try a 4-2-3-1 formation by pushing the centrally placed DLP forward into the AMC slot but didn't like it and it wasn't very successful tbh. In my experience the 4-1-2-1-2 Narrow was the most defensive tactic and the 4-3-1-2 tactic the most Offensive I also noticed that the AI would change to a 4-2-2-2 formation when it had difficulty breaking mine down so my thinking is that must be the most Offensive formation so at present in my fourth season I have dropped the 4-3-1-2 tactic and created a 4-2CM-2W/IF-2CF's a DLF/att and an F9 which I am having great success with and still using more or less the same TI & PI's in all of them. I also found that the 4-2-2-2 tactic filled the bars very quickly and as the instructions are more or less the same in all of these tactics it is also easier to alter the formation in mid game by just moving the players about rather than change the whole tactic at one time and I find that coupled with my hard earned tactical knowledge of in match alterations there are very few teams who I cannot beat.