I was looking for some inspiration to play.

[SOULjah]

FM18 has been a fun but unsuccessful game for me to play with 2 sackings and a kind of a forced resignation due to me not agreeing with anything they outlined for me to do, however, my playing habits have changed most notably I do not have pages and pages of notes surrounding me when playing like I have with previous versions . FM17 was definitely my most successful getting Welling up to I think was League One, however, I do wonder whether it was my fine tuning over several other iterations of the game with my pages of notes of the game or was it easy?

I am currently downloading FM17 on my older daughters laptop because that's where my Welling save is and going to save it to the cloud to play on my new computer.

The odd thing is I stopped playing when I was just about to play LIverpool at Anfield which was going to e the biggest and most lucrative game I have ever played, ever in me playing FM in the Steam versions which would of given my Welling team a nice cash bonus to work with one way or another being that I was working with a very tight budget all the time.

In all honesty I think I burnt out from all the god damn note writing, looking at notes etc etc which is why with FM18 I decided to stop the note writing and to be truthful I have had my longest stint in playing the game everyday over 3 months working with muscle memory.

Being a little bit active in the forums today which is the most I have been since joining (Aug 2012) other than beta version time, I have drawn from you guys some inspiration to download FM17 again as I see a lot of you still playing older versions one guy saying he is playing FM07 which I believe was out on a version of Playstation with LMA Manager, which was my go-to game when I was in my early years of playing management games but early early management game still for me was Kevin Keegan's Player Manager because my family couldn't afford a computer for me to play what was probably Championship Manager I saw round my friends.

Anyway...

What I'm interested in knowing,

* Who plays older versions? 

* Who uses notes?

* Who watches full matches rather than highlights? And why?

* What is you best achievement with a Lower League Management team from VNS/N but not Conference unless Conference is the lowest in old games or foreign league LLM? Doesn't matter if you are sacked or resigned from posts.

[Baodan]

17 hours ago, Handstar said:

* Who plays older versions? 

I don't bother with older versions.

* Who uses notes?

I don't take notes but I do lean quite heavily on the forum for tips and clarification on all the poorly explained things in FM.

* Who watches full matches rather than highlights? And why?

I don't watch full matches, I just don't have the time for it.

* What is you best achievement with a Lower League Management team from VNS/N but not Conference unless Conference is the lowest in old games or foreign league LLM? Doesn't matter if you are sacked or resigned from posts.

I don't care much for English football probably cause it's so bland, in my opinion, but that might change when Brexit finally hits in real life.

The best I have done is to get Paris FC from the French National league up to Ligue 1 and win the championship. It might not look like that big of an achievement, but to me it was damn hard work. Now they start in Ligue 2 and it's a bit easier to get them up and competing.

 

[XaW]

17 hours ago, Handstar said:

* Who plays older versions? 

This I don't usually. Though, I sometimes open up old version to check things.

* Who uses notes?

I do, a lot. Though mostly spreadsheets filled with various details, stats, attributes or similar.

* Who watches full matches rather than highlights? And why?

Only while making tactics, or if I'm struggling to get a team to work. Once it's on track I change to various highlight modes.

* What is you best achievement with a Lower League Management team from VNS/N but not Conference unless Conference is the lowest in old games or foreign league LLM? Doesn't matter if you are sacked or resigned from posts.

Reached Premier League several times as non-league sides. Won the Champions League with previously unplayable teams (promoted to lower tier) in various countries.

 

[CFuller]

21 hours ago, Handstar said:

* Who plays older versions?

[Raises hand] I didn't bother with FM18 after completing the demo, so I continued to play FM17 and FM13 (very long-term save) until earlier this year. I also recently had a holiday save on CM00/01.

* Who uses notes?

I've never been one for notes. I usually have a good idea in my head of how I want my squad to look, and if I want some tactical or other advice, I usually refer to guides.

* Who watches full matches rather than highlights? And why?

I almost always watch matches on Extended Highlights. I watched my first FA Cup Final on FM13 in full, and it was mentally exhausting, so I only go as high as Comprehensive for major Finals now.

* What is you best achievement with a Lower League Management team from VNS/N but not Conference unless Conference is the lowest in old games or foreign league LLM? Doesn't matter if you are sacked or resigned from posts.

Not quite what you're after, but I took over Dagenham & Redbridge in the Conference Premier and took them up to the Premier League within 12 seasons. That was in an FM13 save where I started out as manager of my local club Romford in the Isthmian North. I took them up two divisions to the Conference South but then got stuck there and quit after nearly 10 seasons in charge.

 

[sporadicsmiles]

On 05/09/2018 at 19:27, Handstar said:

* Who plays older versions?  

I do not play older version, but I will sometimes fire them up to see how I used to play and how I have changed my approach.

On 05/09/2018 at 19:27, Handstar said:

* Who uses notes?

I usually only take notes when I am planning to write something up, so I do not have to trawl through a match again to find things I want to talk about. I will also scribble some notes when I am planning a new tactic to get my ideas on paper so I can translate them into the ME. I used to have an excel sheet where I could keep track of match stats and analyse them myself in a little more detail than I can in game (especially making graphs) to see if I could find trends of identify problems. Also because I like to play with numbers and data sets.

On 05/09/2018 at 19:27, Handstar said:

* Who watches full matches rather than highlights? And why?

Any time I am trying something different tactically I will watch a full match with the 2D screen (often with the game speed pretty high). That way I can really focus on one particular aspect of the game and properly see what is happening. I will also switch to full highlights if I am getting hammered and I do not know why, or I am having a lot of the ball without creating any chances. Any of the highlights packages do not really help in that situation - particularly when you are not getting any generated. When I am happy, or feel that I know a result is going to come, I will go to text only just to zip through.

 

On 05/09/2018 at 19:27, Handstar said:

* What is you best achievement with a Lower League Management team from VNS/N but not Conference unless Conference is the lowest in old games or foreign league LLM? Doesn't matter if you are sacked or resigned from posts. 

My biggest achievement was getting two seasons in =P. I have to admit I have never gotten into lower league management. I do not really like to have to think about finances at every turn, or have to spend time trying to find the correct players, etc. I am happier playing around with tactics and letting the finances deal with themselves. It is something I really do want to get into properly one day, but so far I have never been able to make it stick.

[..Valhalla..]

Who plays older versions? 

I occasionally dabble in an older version for the same reason as you - an enjoyable save that I want to go back and load up.

Who uses notes?

Only where the facility is provided in-game.

Who watches full matches rather than highlights? And why?

Extended highlights. When I first bought FM05 I was watching the full game as I though that's what everyone does, until I joined these forums and realised it's actually very rare.

What is your best achievement with a Lower League Management team from VNS/N but not Conference unless Conference is the lowest in old games or foreign league LLM? Doesn't matter if you are sacked or resigned from posts.

I've never completed a season of LLM because I just can't adjust my thinking for that level. All players look horrific to me and, well... I can't be bothered with it  

[RodentofDoom]

On 05/09/2018 at 18:27, Handstar said:

* Who plays older versions? 

* Who uses notes?

* Who watches full matches rather than highlights? And why?

* What is you best achievement with a Lower League Management team from VNS/N but not Conference unless Conference is the lowest in old games or foreign league LLM? Doesn't matter if you are sacked or resigned from posts.

# Nope. Only play the latest version I own (FM18).

# Nope. I will often tab out to check on the forums though.

# Yes. When I'm using a new tactic for a few matches. So I can see how individual players move, how the team moves as a whole, where the issues are with roles/duties i've given etc.

# Pretty much all my starts are made in the lowest vanilla league for any given nation, I don't use extra datafiles. Getting the "signing of the season" shout-out at the end of season, gotta love those for free higher league rejects. Generally I play career saves, so I'll start with 1 team until I'm poached by another, imo that's success right there  .. I rarely ever play Tier1 leagues as I find the financial stability & quality of the players just makes it boring.

 

[Federico]

Il 5/9/2018 in 19:27 , Handstar ha scritto:

What I'm interested in knowing,

* Who plays older versions? 

* Who uses notes?

* Who watches full matches rather than highlights? And why?

* What is you best achievement with a Lower League Management team from VNS/N but not Conference unless Conference is the lowest in old games or foreign league LLM? Doesn't matter if you are sacked or resigned from posts.

* FM18 erased forever by my PC. I'm still playing FM07. Nostalgy surely, I had the best career, the most memorable matches in the greatest time of my whole life playing it. Curiously I find it still funny to play and matches are a true enjoyment and to me they look much more realistics than any recent FM's, 18 especially. Something like strikers scoring 1v1, 1 woodwork every 3 matches, defenders saving on the goaline and beautiful shots from out of the box not going to corner flag. 11 years ago.

* Never used but once

* Extended highlights for me

* Never played british LLM

[mightypvfc]

Over the years I've generally refined my playing style, too. On the earlier versions, I'd start with a team in the Premier League and go through title after title. That got boring after a while. Then, in later versions, I'd play with my younger brother. We'd go on every league and both hit the random button 3 times when selecting a team. The other person then will get to choose out of the 3 who to manage. We've had some great games with this method. I remember one in particular with me managing Bradford and him Sunderland. I was top of the Premier League and he refused to carry on because he'd just been smashed by Blackburn in the playoff final. One of our other games started with me managing Stevenage and him Plymouth. After 3 seasons, I'd risen from the Conference to a league below him. Then he resigned because the board kept selling his best players (to my amusement) and went to manage Worksop Town. We didn't play much after that, he wouldn't carry on.

Nowadays, I play on full match (usually) although the past few games I've taken it down to Comprehensive Highlights due to the poor quality of games in the VNN (managing Tamworth). As you can imagine, I'm only in December 2019 even though I started my current game in January. I find it difficult to start a game already employed so I go unemployed with Sunday League experience. 

There's not too many of us Full Match Anoraks about but I find it works well for me. This way I can feel like I'm developing a tactic over time and really get to know the ins and outs of my players.