AI Tactics and Realism?

[jameswing]

Trying to have the greatest realism for Football Manager is probably every FM players dream, but I think that this season has become less realistic than last seasons production, especially with the farrows on AI tactics.

I, as I am sure lots of FM managers have experienced is teams throwing men into the box, overloading it and eventually scoring due to having 7 or 8 men in the box for a cross. This is more common place with certain tactics, such as 4-4-2, and the narrow 4-1-2-1-2, in which the left and right backs do all the crossing, and both strikers, the attacking mid, both centre mids and the defensive mid in the box, as well as the wingback that is not crossing at the back post.

This maybe one of the reasons managers on this version of the game feel their tactics are not working, and struggle with conceding goals compared to last season.

on FM 2008 I normally started my tactics by creating a solid defense, often as I prefer to manage lower level clubs in the top leagues, such as Sochaux or Bochum for example, and I was normally successful in that my defense was normally one of the top five in the league, even if I did not score that many.

I started this version in the same vein, and got extremely annoyed as my previously solid defense was being overrun by 7 or 8 players in my own box everytime a cross came in.

I understand that this is because of the farrows on the new tactics, and this means that the AI teams players all run forward lots, but this is highly unrealistic, and impossible to defend in the long term.

I watched the Liverpool v Everton game on Monday and concentrated on how many players were in the box for crosses from open play, and for the most part, there where either 2 or 3 players inside the penalty box for crosses, the strikers and the wide midfielder on the far side, and on one occassion there were 4 in the box.

I feel that the the make the game more realistic the forward runs should be toned down to reduce the overload in the box for AI teams. so by default any center-mids, attacking mids and defensive mids have mixed runs instead.

[el sid]

I don't agree with the last part that they should be by default mixed. What could work is that players in different positions have different forward runs.

For example, a DC and a MC set forward runs often, there should be a maximum position to which he could make his forward runs, unless the player is completely bad, like the DC running all the time to the opposition's box because he is set on FR - often. This is only a workaround though. The real thing would be to give players loads of Common sense