Daniel Evensen

I tend to go for personality only and not worry too much about the attributes. Regardless of who you go with, take another look in the next transfer window to see if you can't find a model citizen. Chances are one will pop up.

The Title I was nervous for this one. We didn’t do anything in the first half to put me at ease, either. Pietro Rovaglia won a penalty in the 25th minute, but his shot was saved by the keeper. I should have insisted on Younes Delfi taking the penalty, but Rovaglia hopped in there before I could say anything. We went into halftime drawing 0-0. A draw would have secured us the title. But you know how things are around here. We want to win every match. Drawing just doesn’t do it. I took Rovaglia off after his awful first half performance. And that’s when Delfi started working his magic. Delfi’s first goal came from a corner in the 46th minute, a close range shot that probably was offside. His second, third, and fourth came within 5 minutes of each other, near the 60 minute mark. And we won, 4-0. The Chinese National Second Division Northern Group title is now ours. We knew coming into this that we were going to be promoted. I never thought that we would wind up going undefeated, however. This wasn’t exactly a surprise. The pundits had us picked to win before the season started, and that was before I started making big splashes in the transfer market. Still, a win is a win. The board is happy, our fans are happy, and I’m happy. We’ve now won 39 league matches in a row. We’ll see if we can keep our Chinese FA Cup dreams alive in the next match. It’s going to be close. Honestly, I’m still not convinced that this team is good enough to compete at the Chinese Super League level, let alone in the European Champions League. We’ll see when we get there, I suppose. Even the likes of Delfi have had off games here and there. I worry that some of our younger players have developed a strong dislike for big matches. And, of course, I want to do everything in my power to ensure that we’re developing good Chinese players. Speaking of which, we finally managed to get recognition in the Team of the Month. Liu Shaoziyang and Yan Kun, two of our young Chinese stars, were recognized as the best at their positions for the month of August. I’m hoping that is a sign of things to come. Month In Review It’s April, which means it’s time to look back at what happened in March. We’re still rich, of course. We haven’t been turning much of a profit, but there’s still more than enough money to keep us going for quite some time. The board is pleased with everything except for my transfers. Actually, Chairman Guo still doesn’t seem all that thrilled with our results, despite the fact that we’ve won the league title without losing a single game. I’m not sure what more he wants from us. The supporters are even more upset about my transfer policy. I guess my policy of signing every halfway decent under-18 player we can find regardless of future potential isn’t winning over a lot of converts. Sadly, there’s no way for me to tell everybody that they’ll thank me in 5 years for what I’m doing here. Our squad dynamics are good, especially now that Ye Jie is happy again. He’s happy just in time for me to sell him this summer. The one piece of sad news is that Zhang Jianyi, our left back, is out with damaged cruciate ligaments. That’s going to keep him out for 9 months, and likely will mean the end of his career. I was never really convinced by his abilities to begin with, and I just don’t see him getting past this injury — certainly not if we keep improving our personnel. We’ve had a number of injuries lately. Hopefully we can stop that problem from spreading. Guangzhou City We’ve got another huge one coming up. We’re going down to Guangzhou to face Guangzhou City in the Chinese FA Cup semi final. The press think that we’re going to win. I actually think we have a better chance this time than we did against Zhejiang FC. Guangzhou are in 11th place in the Chinese Super League and haven’t played well lately. We’re not only undefeated, but we’re also going to start Luciano Parra and Suphanat Mueanta, our two big star strikers. We’ll have Lee Jin-Yong out there too, for the ladies. Chairman Guo expects us to win, of course. He always expects us to win. Let’s hope that we don’t disappoint him.

I mean, I don't completely disagree with some of the things he does. I pay a lot of attention to player personalities, and brought in a few older players just because they had Perfectionist and Professional personalities for the sole purpose of helping the squad's overall personality out. I don't disagree with the transfer tricks either; heck, I'm currently in the process of poaching the youth intake of every other team in the country to make up for my batch of inconsistent and unambitious newgens. But, yeah, you can't complain that the game is too easy if you make sure to use every exploit under the sun every single time you play. If you really want a challenge, start from the very bottom in a country in the middle of nowhere, force yourself to come up with your own tactic, set things up so that you can't see player personalities, ignore the coach reports, turn off star ratings and attributes (what I call hardcore mode), and go from there. The game will be a lot harder — and you don't even need extra editor data files to do so. It's not polite to come onto the official forums and complain that the game is too easy when you use exploits to win everything, though. The problem's not the game.

I mean, it is an off-topic comparison that isn't really valid. There's nothing holding you back from challenging yourself in this game. I'm puzzled by your intransigence. Seriously, if you have a history of starting threads on this very topic, and people keep giving you ideas that you could pursue to make the game more interesting and challenging, why do you persist in throwing them back in our faces? People are legitimately trying to help you, but you are insisting that something that the rest of us don't even consider a problem be solved. It feels a lot like trolling.

Have you tried using Daveincid's Increase Realism Megapack? It's not perfect, but it will correct some egregious AI behavior, such as its inability to give young players proper game time. There are other editor data files out there that improve AI managerial behavior. My favorite is the one that DarthFurion comes out with as part of his World Super League each year, though we're still waiting on the FM23 version. Seriously, if you're getting bored with the game, give that World Super League a try. It'll take you a long time to try to win that crazy worldwide Premier League. But, yeah, if you keep doing the same challenge with the same team or league every year, FM is going to start feeling boring.

Like @Brother Ben said, we're telling you how to make the game harder. And, yes, the Youth Academy Challenge looks incredibly difficult. There's a reason why those who attempt it wind up having to "reroll" so many times.

Promoted! Well, we did it. We managed to secure promotion to the Chinese First Division. We didn’t look particularly good, though. Beijing Baxy, who are in 22nd place and are a simply awful team, managed to hold our strikers at bay. We won this one by 2-0, one of the slimmest margins we’ve had all season. Pietro Rovaglia became the hero, scoring two quick goals in the first half that proved to be the final margin of victory. Our other strikers were eerily quiet. Mueanta had the worst game that he’s had for us yet, and has me worried about how he’ll do next season. There was a crowd of 1,000 there to watch us, probably the biggest crowd that Beijing Baxy has had all season long. I’m just happy that we were able to put it away. The Spoils of Victory Everybody is happy following our triumph. Chairman Guo was thrilled, though he did remind me that he knew we would wind up on top all along. We’ll see if he is willing to open up his pocket book a bit more for us in the coming transfer window. It wasn’t exactly a shock result for the board, of course. The board thought all along that we should gain automatic promotion to the First Division this season. If we really want to impress them, we’d better duplicate the feat next season. The fans are also delighted, though they had the same expectation right from the start. They don’t give you a lot of room to budge around these parts. Anyway, we’ve got two big pieces of news after this victory. The first is that our Under 21 team has officially won its group, after an emphatic 10-0 win. The Under 21 team has gone undefeated in its season to date, and looks absolutely stellar. Young striker Max McMillan scored 36 goals in his youth season for us, making me wonder whether he’ll start trying to elbow his way into the first team squad next season. The second big piece of news is that Ye Jie has finally gotten over the sale of Fan Xiang. Being able to start for the Chinese national team during the most recent international break might have helped calm him down a bit. However, I’m afraid to say that it’s probably too little too late for the 28 year old centerback. With youngsters like Yan Kun and Paulsen hanging around the first team, Ye Jie is starting to look expendable. Winning The League? The next task facing us is to defeat Ningxia Renhaixi once again. If we win this one we win the league. It’s as simple as that. View draft history

Yep! I downloaded an extended fantasy Chinese league database from the Steam Workshop. The rules are different: you can have up to 20 foreigners registered, and as many as 8 on the pitch at any time. The database also resurrected a number of Chinese teams that have gone bankrupt over the years, including our rivals Jiangsu FC, who went under a year or so ago, and Yanbian FC, who went under back in 2018. It also includes a path to the European Champions League if we manage to finish in first place in the Chinese Super League. If I remember right, the database is called something like "入歐" (enter into Europe) as part of its name. I made a few slight modifications to get our club out of debt... and to add on a sugar daddy... Anyway, the entire thing is 100% fantasy, from the more friendly foreigner rules to the fact that these otherwise bankrupt and dead teams are able to play again. I'm not certain that there are enough professional teams surviving in China right now to warrant a third division...

Caoshangfei This match wasn’t any contest. We only won by a 3-0 margin. However, we didn’t give Neimenggu Caoshangfei any chance at competing. Mueanta scored an easy goal in the 17th minute, followed by a free kick strike from Paul Wade. Kristoffer Paulsen sealed the deal with a header from a free kick in the 56th minute, and that was all she wrote. Paulsen got the Player of the Match award, though it wasn’t quite as impressive as his prior performances have been. I think that award came to him mostly due to his goal. That makes it 37 wins out of 37 matches for us in the league. We’ve scored 193 goals in the process. We’re likely to beat the 200 goal mark before the season is over. It’s hard to believe, but we still have 9 matches left. Title Push Apologies for being a bit abrupt, but we’ve got a title to push for. We are playing on the road against Beijing Baxy again. We’re sure to win. The question is whether Jiangsu and Beijing University lose. A win here means that we’re promoted, since Beijing University will be at least 27 points behind us with 8 games remaining. Meanwhile, a loss by Jiangsu would put them 26 points behind us with 8 games remaining, clinching the league for us. If Jiangsu draws, they would be 25 points behind us, also clinching the league for us. Once this is done, the only remaining question will be whether we can hit 200 goals or not.

Taiyuan University of Technology Apparently the students in Taiyuan don’t exactly play fair. Our match against the Taiyuan University of Technology was simply ugly. There were 9 yellow cards in all, 6 of which were called against them. We won, 4-0. It wasn’t pretty, though. And, worst of all, Luciano Parra was injured by a pretty deliberate challenge. There were bright spots. Both Yan Kun and Shi Jiayang scored. Yan Kun’s goal was a sight to behold, too. He scored from a few yards outside the penalty area, giving us a glimpse of what an amazing player he truly is. In the end, however, it was the 16-year-old wonder Zhu Bin who came away as the man of the match. His passing was simply amazing, and I’ve got a feeling that he’s going to wind up being our first choice left winger in the near future. Parra’s Injury Luciano will be out for about a month. The press is worried that this will damage our chances. I think we’ll be fine. It means that Rovaglia will have more chances up front. My plan is to start him together with Mueanta up top, and to stick Delfi on the right wing. We’ll probably stick with Zhu Bin on the left wing, and will let the rest of the team come together naturally. Speaking of Yousuf Delfi, there are already calls for him to be called up to the Iranian international squad. He deserves it. Lee Jin-Yong On Loan? “You said no, right?” Charlotte asked me at breakfast the other morning. I gave her a blank look. “You said no?” she repeated, eying me carefully. “No… to what?” I asked, puzzled. “To the loan request, silly,” she replied. “You know you need to keep my 오빠 here, right?” It took me a while to figure out what she was talking about. We received two different offers from 2nd tier South Korean clubs to take Lee Jin-Yong in on loan. Neither club wanted to pay any of his wages, which are hilariously high at 465,000 RMB per month (highest on our squad). He’s been starting a lot recently, too. There’s no reason to loan him out, and so I refused both offers. Still, I’ve got to wonder how in the world the Lee Jin-Yong Fan Club knows this stuff before I do. Inner Mongolia We’re playing against the Caoshangfei squad from Inner Mongolia at home this time around. We’re almost certain to win. We’ll clinch promotion with a win here, and I think we’ll probably clinch the league as well. No pressure.

Go start a new save with FC Ingolstadt 04. Make your coach have no badges and no experience. See how you do with a mostly injured squad, no transfer budget, an injured (and injury-prone) centerback who takes up something like 1/5 of your wage bill and who just signed a contract 4 months ago, and expectations to win now. I lasted about 2 1/2 months, lol.

Paging @Daveincid... Dave has a list on his Patreon of recommended setups for different purposes. Personally, I always play with all players activated and all leagues on. If I ever have the money, I'm going to make my own computer with one of those really nice Ryzen 9 chips and will try to play with the entire world loaded. The last time I tried that it took something like 30 minutes to advance past the first turn in the game, lol.

Just wanted to add on that there are editor files that mess around with these newgen templates. I think there's one that floats around every year that makes the playing field completely even for every country, in case that floats your boat. Honestly, I've found odd success with players from random countries that my coaches claim are not good enough to play on my squad at all. There's enough randomization in this game to make it interesting despite the fact that Brazil always produces better newgens than Costa Rica.

Interesting issue, and one that I never faced with Monterey. I did have a problem with my Intel iMac when I upgraded to Ventura, however, that rendered the graphics card useless for some random reason. You probably don't want to hear this, but I got so frustrated that I switched straight over to Linux. I'm on Pop!_OS now, and all of those issues are gone. FM actually runs more smoothly, too. Do you know what specific folder the data is (or was) stored in? I've never trusted that general OSX breakdown of data by category. Again, I'm biased by my negative experience, but I've got a feeling that OSX is creating this monster-sized data, and not FM.

Just be careful with whatever you do. It can be fun to throw a bottle now and then, but if you hurt your morale too much you'll find it almost impossible to recover. This is how I lost my virtual job with Ingolstadt 04...

Quoting this for truth. The game really is a lot more fun when you stay away from the wonderkid lists and all that jazz. This is one reason why people find it more enjoyable when the newgens start coming around.

Yeah, I think this is actually right. One of your attributes will change if you curse in press conference comments that you type up yourself.

Lol - and here I am trying to figure out how to justify buying an AMD Ryzen 9 just to play this game.

China Locomotive This one wasn’t even close. One of my assistant managers recommended that we start both Parra and Rovaglia as strikers, and that we stick Suphanat Mueanta out on the left wing. I thought it might be good to put Delfi back on the right wing to see what he could do. The result was a huge victory, much bigger than I had ever expected. Rovaglia wound up scoring 4 goals and getting an assist. Mueanta had 2 goals of his own, and Parra contributed 1. Younes Delfi wound up with the Player of the Match award, as well as the Player of the Week award, for his 3 assists and excellent contribution. We’ve now won 35 straight league games. If you count our Chinese FA Cup run, we’ve won 40 in a row. We show no signs of slowing down at all. This has been an amazing season, much better than I ever anticipated. And the real crazy part is the fact that these players are so young. Devastating Injury It’s bad enough with Juan David Torres out for another two months or so. I received word of a training injury that hurts even more. Camil Jebara, our great 20-year-old Swedish left winger, is out for 8 to 10 months with damaged cruciate ligaments. This is one of those injuries that might completely derail his career, and there sadly isn’t anything we can do about it. We do have other players who can play his position (Mueanta, for example, as we saw in our last match). However, I fear that Jebara will never be able to make up for the lost training time, and that he might never be the same again. I stuck him on the under 21 roster. It will take him some time to heal, and then we’ll take a look and see what his future is like at this club. Month in Review We’re losing money each month, but we’re still a rich club anyway. Most of that money lost comes due to player wage expenditures, which isn’t a huge issue. We’re still far below the allotment the board set. The board is happy in general, but remains lukewarm about our match performance. They also aren’t thrilled with my transfers, mostly because of the young players with questionable potential that I continue to sign. I think that this investment will pay off in the future, however, and I’m not going to give up my quest for wonderkids. The supporters are much happier, though they are also very critical of my transfer decisions. Ye Jie is currently the closest we have to a squad leader. There’s good unity on the squad, but still not too much by way of cohesion. We’re slowly pushing our general squad personality towards something more professional, which will hopefully start showing through once we reach the summer transfer season. Taiyuan University of Technology We’re heading out to Taiyuan for our next match. A win here might clinch promotion for us, assuming that Jiangsu FC lose. Yes, that’s right: our new rivals are currently in second position. If we crush Taiyuan and they lose, we’ve clinched promotion and can relax a bit. We’ll still play every game like it’s out last, though. I’m not going to take it easy.

As an American, I can only commend you on your patience. I don't think I'm ever going to have an MLS save in FM.

Jiangsu Nantong I thought we were going to roll on to victory again. I was wrong. We scored two quickly. Luciano Parra scored a quick header in the 3rd minute. Then came Younes Delfi, scoring yet another goal from the right wing. That made it 2-0 before 20 minutes were up. And then they came back. Tao Hongqiang, the Nantong striker, scored a goal in the 25th minute, and then tied the score with a penalty in the 29th. I was shocked. We haven’t given up this many goals in a league match in months. Thankfully, Suphanat Mueanta came back, scoring two penalties for us. A final goal by Jacob Dicko Eng gave us our 5th goal, leading us to a 5-2 victory. Still, that one has me worried. We should have crushed this team. China Locomotive We’re back at home again, this time to face China Locomotive. At Charlotte’s behest, I’m going to start Lee Jin-Yong again. My assistant manager thinks we should stick Mr. Kwon back out there, but I just can’t handle his inconsistency. I just hope we don’t keep letting in goals. Liu Shaoziyang is supposed to be the best young Chinese goalie in the world. I’m not sure what’s going on.

That was back during the pandemic. Those were dark times, my friend. I had a save for every day of the week, and played the game for like 8 to 10 hours a day. It's more fun if you slow things down, focus on one save, and get deep into the story.

Tagging on here just to mention that FM23's Linux compatibility is stellar. I switched over to Pop!_OS a few months ago and haven't missed a beat. If anything, I think the performance on Linux is better than on MacOS. I'm not surprised to see the Steam Deck verification here. Proton works wonders.

Nope. Every save is different. If you think the game is too hard, go manage Manchester City and score all the goals. If you think the game is still too hard, go into the pregame editor, give your squad max reputation, take away all debts, give yourself a huge transfer budget, and add on a front-end sugar daddy owner who will never leave the club for good measure. Conversely, if you think the game is too easy, go manage Ingolstadt 04 and see how you do with a mostly injured squad, no money at all, and expectations for success today. I lasted 9 matches, lol.

I would actually argue that most FM players want to become immersed in a realistic story, and aren't just looking for total sandbox wackiness. Having said that, you can use the pregame editor to remove squad registration rules as you like. I'll warn you, though, that the joys of managing FC Seoul start to fade away when you realize your squad doesn't have a single Korean player. Trust me: I've been there.