I can't help you with your FM problem, but I do have this advice for you. Don't save screenshots in bitmap format - the screenshots are huge in file size. Use jpeg and lower the quality to around 50-70% if you can (possible in IrfanView). You can cut the file size to around 100-250k this way.

lol, thanks. You must be on dialup.

I'm back to WWSM after my crash, and I'm probably about to get fired by Exeter City, but there's been a shocker in the FA Cup 5th round! Gillingham went into Old Trafford and beat Manchester United 2-1, winning on a goal in stoppage time!! Man Utd didn't play all of their best players, but it's still big news in my universe. This can't look good on Alex Ferguson's resume, not that it's going to make him lose his job or anything. I was just shocked to see that result. I don't even really keep up with what's happening in any of the competitions once I get knocked out, but there was obviously a news item about it. Big-time stuff. :)

Nope, but I feel for anyone who is. Plus, it still takes around 30 seconds to download each of those screenies with DSL.

how about back to the point? Have anyone seen those issues in their game?

ps. took me 5 seconds on cable.

Exeter City just sacked me. I'm surprised that I lasted 608 days. I'm going to try to catch up with another team in England, but I don't know if anybody wants me. :)

who wouldn't want Pumpy as their manager??? :eek:

:D

FM

Cheltenham Town have offered me their job. They have a player on the team who did so poorly at Exeter that I sold him off. Now, if I accept, I'll have to put up with him again. :) Their wage bill is currently $35,500 per week. Their wage budget is $25,000 per week. This is going to be a tough assignment, especially since Cheltenham are in danger of getting relegated to the Conference National. I almost want them to get relegated just so I can pay back Exeter for firing me. ;)

I think I'm going to take this job.

I'm early in season three in my game and I'm less impressed than I was at the start, at the point of shelving it (or the equivalent of shelving when the software is download) until there's at least another patch or two. The media stuff is pretty nice, far better than in the previous versions, but there are too many niggles that ruin the realism for me.

Here's a list of most of my major annoyances off the top of my head:

1. Substitutions of injured players: I see this in every game outside my division when a player is injured:

hxxp://img501.imageshack.us/img501/9448/fm9uu.jpg

So Edwards was injured in the 43rd minute, Wolves brought off three players (not including Edwards) and brought on three subs, so played with 10 men for the rest of the game. Interestingly Leeds also brought on all their subs in the 43rd minute as well in sympathy.

2. Goalkeeper substitutions: In real life they're very rare, only injury or seriously bad performance. In my game I noticed that Celtic substituted their keeper twice in a row when playing against me despite not conceding a goal. Checking up on their season I see that the keeper who was subbed was taken off in 20 of his 23 starts. This season that keeper has moved on but they've still subbed their keeper in 4 out of 5 league games this year.

3. Two seasons in I've won the Scottish First with Clyde, then scraped by in the Premier without getting relegated in season two (finished 10th out of 12). Surely it should take more success than that to be offered the Man Utd and the Scotland jobs?

4. By far the worst (for me) is that the transfers in the Scottish leagues are completely unrealistic. Out side the old firm very little money is actually spent in real life, even the big Hearts changes this season were mainly based on loan players. In the game everybody is throwing cash about. In real life only the Old Firm and Aberdeen have ever spent a million on a player (and it's over 10 years since Aberdeen did), in the game 900k to 1.6mil is a common occurance, Motherwell, Livingston, Dunfermline, Hearts, Hibs, Dundee United, Falkirk, Caley Thistle, Killie as well as Rangers, Celtic and the Sheep have all signed players for over 900k in 2 and a bit seasons of the game. In real life the Scottish Premier league (other than Rangers and Celtic) is full of teams on small budgets who pick up bosmans and free transfers to build the squad, this isn't reflected in the game.

Take Falkirk as an example, in real life they prepared to be in the Premier by picking up a couple of free transfers. In my game they spent 2 mil on 13 players.

Then Dundee United, the most they've ever spent on a player is 400k in real life, in the game they've beaten that record 7 times this off season alone for a grand total of 4.9mil spent, despite being in the first division in the game.

Another example is Inverness Caley Thistle. In real life the most they've ever paid for a player is 30k. In my game they've spent over 600k on a player on 4 occasions in the last season alone.

It completely kills any realism at all when there's a Scottish First Division team offering 1.5mil for my star player, an offer like that could never happen.

Hopefully the little glitches will vanish in a patch or two, but the imbalance in the finances in the Scottish league probably won't be so easy. I'm guessing that if the Scottish league is that far from realism, a number of the other smaller leagues will be too.

You miss the point. You want people to look at your screenshots and, perhaps, offer suggestions and thoughts on your situation. Yet, you do not attempt to make it easier for them to do so. It's quite irrelevant how fast it is for you to download the pictures, since you already know what they look like and what they show. What matters is how fast or slow it is for other parties who could possibly offer thoughts or ideas on your specific problem, whether they have 56K (like me!) or T1.

You must have downloaded these cheats into my game to sabotage it via the FOFC ;)

Lost both legs 1-0 to Roma, both penalties (handball & a push at a corner), but in truth we never really created many problems for their defence - in fairness we restricted them to long shots as well, but this may have been because of the structure of the tie: 1st leg in Leicester was 0-0 until 80 minutes, and they wwere trying to keep it tight, and then at their place they didn't need to go overboard, especially when they got the penalty right after half time - knocked the stuffing out of us.

But can't complain - if IRL Leicester finish 4th in the Prem and get to the UEFA Cup semi-final next year I think I'll be needing extra supplies of hangover cure!

I liked the way a couple of my younger players started being slightly concerned at the weight of public expectation in the last month of the season, and the fact that it felt a real struggle to maintain form to finish off the season (countering the Charlton effect if you like :) )

Champions League (qualifiers) here we come!

I have come across this in my recent season as well. Is there a way to counter act it? It doesn't seem to be based on ambition, since the next season my star 19 year old DMC decided he had accomplished all he could at the club and wanted to move to a bigger club (a significant pay increase changed his mind, however), yet the previous season he couldn't cope with public expectation. It would seem to me that public expectation would be greater at a bigger club. Maybe it is something that just goes away with maturity?

OK, I thought I would give another update on my run with Portstewart in Northern Ireland. I started in NI2 and in both my first two seasons I performed way above expectations and found myself heading into the NI Premier League for season 3. That was where I left it off.

Season 3 started a little rough as I fell short advancing out of the Irish Cup group stage. My team played well though so I had hope. Then league play started and I started out 0-0-3. I had some new players for this season, guys I was real excited because they seemed like an upgrade I had been looking for. But with things not going so well I went back to the old starting lineup, with the exception of switching out my keeper for the backup. The backup keeper played good and stayed in, and the old starting lineup played good. I started to get some draws and then some wins. I was then able to work the new guys in and I started getting even better. I finished the season, shocking the world, in 4th place.

Now, before season 3 I had a job offer from a decent Scottish club, don't remember who but they were Division 2. When I looked closer I saw they had been relegated to Division 3, so I turned it down. I was hoping for an offer again between season 3 and 4 but no go, and the job I applied for was a quick rejection. Funny thing is that two of my assistants got job offers and split, one as an assistant for a English club and one as a head coach for an English club. This turned out to be a blessing in the end, as I was given a little proof that I am being noticed because I was able to bring on 3 new coaches who were actually better. My training abilities are now twice as good as before. This is good too because I didn't bring in any new players for year 4. I had been thinking all along that if I keep my team together they will turn into something good because they all started out around 18-19 years old with a couple exceptions. (One exception is my 'star' striker who is now 27 and has been noticed by the soccer world as his value has gone from $1000 to now $75000, and a AM R/FW who has become wanted by a lot of other teams.) Well, now that I think about it I did get 1 new player, a WB who can and does play DC for me. I had signed him in season 3 but he didn't join me until after the season.

So season 4 starts, and I have high hopes although no one else does it seems. I am once again asked to 'fight bravely against relegation.' I get drawn in with Linfield in my Northern Irish Cup group (they destroyed the Premier League in year 3 and are the time champs) and a team who has had my number, along with a newly promoted team. I am not sure how things will go but I end up happy. I defeat Linfield in game one, then draw and lose my next two. Then I win my next two and secure promotion. Linfield is my last game, which means nothing, but I end up beating them for the sweep. We both go into the quarter finals. I win in the quarters and then my semi final game goes to penalties (which I have never won). This time my teams comes through and I am into the Final against, opponent not determined yet but I hope it will be Linfield. Meanwhile I am 3-0-1 in league play, with my one loss coming before my Cup Semi-final game so I was sitting some players so they would be well rested. I hope to win some stuff this year, I want to take this team into some international play (if I don't get a great job offer after this year that is).

Now, to my money situation. I told you guys before I was losing money. And I still am. I am telling you this team just does not seem to care right now. I do lose less money now then I did my first 2 years, but a loss is a loss. My balance started out at $0 by the way, so I am now well over $300,000 in the red with 'the bank' yet the board still says they are thrilled with me. Hey man, they should be thrilled, I am kicking ass with this team right now.

My one question, is when does my reputation go up? I am still listed as 'unproven' after all of this and I wonder what it takes to atleast get to the 'local' reputation? Thats all I want. By now all or Northern Ireland should be talking about my great managing skills. :D

So, uhhh, I'll fill y'all in on the effect of bringing in 39 players on July 1st later. :D

So there's a kid in France whose description includes "Could be the next Nicholas Anelka" and my first thought was, "Damn, that's mean." Until I thought about it for a second and realized that they meant it as a complement.

Does carrying 10 physios over 1 make a difference? Does it increase exponentially, or should i fire some of them? Same with Assistant Managers, as a lot of clubs seems to have 2

I have not seen any benefit to having two physios. I picked up a second one because the guy who starts on the club is rubbish. I have no idea about two AMs. I wouldn't have thought you could get two..

I had a bunch of coaches, then realized that there isn't any benefit to having two guys on the same schedule. It just takes the value of the best coach. I've canned three coaches with no effect whatsoever. The only important thing is to make sure no coach has more than two schedules.

It's been in the game before, and is linked to experience. This is the first time I have seen it seemingly so directly affected by the stage of the season - the kid was OK in the UEFA QFs, but got nervous about the semi-finals, and obviously about our fight to secure the 4th and final CL spot.

We lost the SF, but he was still worried: once we had guaranteed 4th spot, for the final two games he was fine - cup run over, league position secured - the season was in effect over, so there was no pressure and his concerns vanished. Very cool.

You'll want more then one coach on a schedule if there are lots of players on it, and the coaches work load becomes too heavy for him to handle. Keeping more than one on will keep the work load at light, giving you (presumably) the full benefit of training.

I like to run with two Assistant Managers, mainly because it's another opinion in the team report I can use for evaluation of talent, and I prefer to let one manager handle the U-18 club.

As far as physios go, I'm not sure if there is a benefit to having more than one (although I'm sure the work load would apply here as well), but I always run with three of them for no reason other than it helps me sleep at night.

Really? I never saw it in FM2005. I thought it was new. My guy continued to feel pressure right up until the final game, even though I had won the league with several games left to go. Strangely enough, I thought it might be related to the amount of games he was playing (since he was only 19), and after I rested him a few games during the season, it would go away only to reappear when he played again. Still pretty cool watching 19 year olds crack under the pressure though.

I think I just pulled off my best coaching effort so far.

I just promoted to the Nationwide Conference and entered my first game with only one health keeper. (My other got injured in training) Anyway, about 15 minutes into the match my other keeper goes down so I have to use a midfielder in goal. (I really didn't think I would have lost both so fast) And I end up pulling out a 2-2 draw against a better team.

Anyway, my 2nd match was just three days away and I didn't have time to sign anyone, so I had to play the 2nd match with another outfielder. This time on the road. Well, I played narrow and very defensive and came away with a 3-0 victory. I got away with only allowing one shot on goal.

I finally got a keeper to come in on loan in time for game three.

I'm giddy.

My first England call-up: striker Elvis Hammond just got invited to the England squad, for a qualifier :eek: (albeit as an injury replacement).

This is a man who IRL, we signed a the start of the season, aged 24, a striker who had scored 2 professional goals in 39 appearances! (I learnt something checking this: I was under the impression he had never scored in 40!)

I must be good :cool:

In FM2005 I was sacked by Weymouth after dropping something like 8 of 11 to start the season. I went to holiday and told the game to basically auto apply to jobs while I left the room. I came back and found that I'd been hired as manager of Weymouth! I checked my e-mail and it basically said that Weymouth realized they couldn't find anyone and might have made a harsh decision on my part and welcomed me back in open arms. Now that was cool!

Is SGE still the England boss?

'Cause, y'know, that'd pretty much 'xplain 'verything right there.

I"m still very new to the game, this years, and love hearing about things like this.

One thing though, did it give you the option to tell them to "stuff it"? :)
Now that would be cool.

Haha, yes, it would have given me this option if I were actively playing the game and not on holiday. Because I set the game to go on holiday and auto apply/accept job offers, I didn't have a chance to reject their offer. I was happy to be back because I was very disappointed when they sacked me in the first place.

My greatest FM moment just happened a couple of minutes ago, and the press stories have added to it even more I must say.

As my update on my career stated yesterday, I was on my way to the (Northern) Irish League Cup final. Last night I found out I would be playing Cliftonville who upset Linfield (the two time Premier League champs). I tried to get to the game last night but found myself falling asleep at the computer I was so tired.

So I just played the game, and before I get a news story about how it is a historical moment for my team because it is their first time ever in the Cup final. And it adds Cliftonville is going for the Cup title for only the second time in their 129 year history. Very cool matchup, take that Red Sox!!

Anyways, at the half I am up 2-0 because of a great goal and a penalty kick made. I go more defensive (I already play a defensive style 4-4-2, but one I made off of a normal 4-4-2 and not the pre-made one). I hold them down but the blow by my defense at one point somehow and get a goal at the 82 minute. I start to worry a little but my team says screw this and dominates the rest of the game pretty much. I win 2-1.

Then after the game I get several messages. First I win $12,000, very nice for my team. Second one says the fans are going crazy, and that after celebrating all night on leader of a the supporters was overheard saying they would rename their Supporters club after Paco Del Nacho (me), their great head coach.

Then I get a message saying the Board is overjoyed beyond belief basically, and feel that their club can accomplish anything with me at the helm.

Ah....good times. Now it's time to focus on taking the Premier League crown. I currently sit in second place with well over half the season still to go.

Has your reputation change yet?

congrats Cringer. That's a great feeling isn't it? One of those moments where FM truly transcends being a GAME and becomes REAL.

Haha. Nope, still considered unproven. Of Course this was the finals of a cup and there were only 2,000 people there to witness it. What Mark said about the Northern Irish being more into the Scottish and English leagues and that being reflected in the game holds up pretty well in that area.

I guess I will have to hope that a Premier title, if I can get it, will change it. That and I still have the Country Wide Irish Cup that I can try to win too. I haven't started playing in that one though, I think the next round will be the first round I will be in and he finals are not until the end of the season.

Or I may just have to leave Northern Ireland to get the reputation up.

And DaddyTorgo, yeah it was great. I cheered somewhat loudly when I got my first goal in the game. Thankfully no comment from the wife on that though.... :D

yeah, wouldn't want her to cut you off on your addiction ;)

FM

Remember you cAN view an outfielders basic goalkeeping ability on their profile - some outfielders can 'hold their own' in the nets when needed, these are often players who played in goal as a kid or who simply do so occassionally in training for a laugh ... having an outfielder like that on the bench makes life a lot more flexible for a coach (even if he's not going to be as good as a 'real' goalie at least you can be reasonably confident he'll handle the easy shots).

Its based on the pressure given to players in specific situations (ie. signing for a big club, being in a title/cup run, getting praise & attention from the media or whatever) ..

The only real cures is to either try and bring the player out of the limelight a little (ie. don't play him so much) or to try and talk him around by praising him and telling him he'll be fine basically.

(also bear in mind that such things CAN affect a young players development, if a player gets totally frazzled by something like that and loses form then he might find it harder to find consistency in the future due to the knock to his confidence etc. (again though with careful nurturing you can ressurect his confidence).

Yup, and that's what I did in both cases. I think the guy that played goal in the first game had a rating of 3. And then before the next match I was able to select a guy who had a rating of 4.

this was probably in FM2005 but I never fooled with it until I tried it in WSM2006 and I present you the FULL SCREEN MATCH VIEWING!


Woah nelly! Take a look at these two screenies...

First some live action:


Then the split screen I use when there's no action going on:


I don't think I'll be watching matches in less than that anymore...
FM

Yup, they had full-screen in 2005. I think it may have been with only certain skins however??? I might be off on this however.

that's what I think, available with some skins only. I don't remember seeing it with the silverstone skin that I use though...

FM

I'm officially hooked now. I've been using cm 03/04 for a while now, but the demo has convinced me to upgrade. I miss a couple of the things I relied on in the older version, but some of the new features are great.

I've started a real career with '06 and I keep seeing little things that I like very much. One of them is the little comments that come at the end of the half and of the match. I'm playing with Luton Town, newly promoted to the Championship and my last two friendlies were home games against Fulham first, then Everton. We beat both of them 2-1 and after the 90 minutes of the Everton game came this little tidbit: "Luton showed they were no pushovers!"... Gotta love that :)


FM

In the quarterfinals of the MLS Cup, I found myself down 5-3 after the first leg. We ended up going back to NJ (I was the Metrostars) and I managed to score 3 goals, the last of which was with a minute to go. I ended up pulling the game out. The media praised it as one of the greatest comebacks ever and that they owed it all to my managing skills.

Some questions and thoughts . . .

Titi went from a "world class" striker to a "cultured" one in the span of about a week. No injury, no problems. He had been in-form as well. Any idea why that might be?

One of my kiddies is considered a "decisive" fullback. That's pretty spiff, I hadn't seen that before.

The labels have something to do with your attributes I think?? So, depending on like what his ratings for creativity or flair are, for example, he may have been considered world class and then if he loses or gains a point in those certain categories his label will change.

With regards to the world class label it could be any of a number of things, most likely that his reputation has been superceeded by another player and so his 'world' standing isn't quite as high as it was (as you indicated he's still inform).

Which club are you at? and are you still in continental competitions and is he playing for his international side? (as if you're a relatively small club then this might hurt his reputation especially if you're not in a continental competition, ditto if he's not playing internationals etc. ... just being injured for a long period can take the 'edge' of a world class players reputation irl, for example Ronaldo etc.).

Or, what Marc said... :)

Aha! I was unaware that the "world class" tag was relative to other players. I tend to practice a heavy rotation system to keep them fresh so it's quite possible that another striker played more game in the meanwhile and, consequently, scored more goals to boost his reputation above Titi. Not too long afterward, he strained his back and was out for 3 weeks so I'm sure that did not help, either.As of right now, Titi still plies his trade for the Gooners. I have managed to extend his contract to '11 and made it onto his list of favoured personnel. He graciously thanked me for helping him maintain the form he needed to have earned the Players' Player of the Year award last season.

With his help and the ₤24M Peter Hill-Wood graciously offered me for transfer fund (and I used all of it), we were able to take the league when Chelsea beat Manchester United in the next to last game of the season and finished runner-up in the Champion's League, thanks to some lucky breaks (favourable early draws and getting lucky on penalty shootout in the semi-final against Bayern, who had eliminated Chelsea in the quarter-final).

More questions and thoughts . . .

I downloaded Rixx's 3GT kits and HIGHLY recommend them to ANYONE who has interest in playing in the EPL. Gorgeous. I believe they now have one set for the Coke League, one for the SPL and one for La Liga. Does anyone know how I can set my reserve and U-18 side to use those for the game kits? After looking at the 3GT kits, it's tough to look at the standard one (no offense meant to the SI crew, by the way).

By the way, one of the bugs I have actually seen is occasionally contracts that are turned down or do not get accepted just stay stuck on the player. For example, I have a young french defender who has been considering a loan offer since the middle of last winter and we are now in the following October. I also have a contract that a young French striker does not like that is still listed in his note ("Considering a contract offer from Arsenal").

Does anyone know what the qualification for a "clinical" striker would be? I was always under the impression that it was finishing and, possibly, technique. But I have a young striker who has both and does not feature that tag yet. Also, is there a specific precedence or pecking order for the tags? Like, I have a young forward who could qualify for either "explosive" or "cultured" and he's listed as "cultured". No complaints, really. Just curious.

It's really impressive how quickly some youngsters can improve. I've got a couple of players who started with quite pedestrian ratings but are now possible Premiership players. Cheers!

(this is off the top of my head and I don't have the code to hand to check so it might not be 100% correct)

I believe that 'clinical' includes some of the hidden ratings such as 'pressure' and 'consistency' which might be why it hasn't shown up for that player, simply put a 'clinical' striker is one who can be normally relied upon for 'clinical' finishes (ie. he's like a robot in his finishing and is very very reliable).

Please note that these do change a lot during the game, especially for young players ... if you over play a kid and he falls apart then these might drop, accustoming him to first team football gradually and surrounding him with players with good leadership and positive mental skills will make these rise etc.

Cool deal. :)

I know it sounds vain but it's really spiffy to go through my players and look to see who gets what tag. Gives them more personalities. Make them more fleshed out, for me. :)

Weird ones are, like, when Van Persie gets the "playmaking forward" tag and now it's gone. I'm guessing it's the fluctuation through development (he hasn't had an injury) like you just mentioned. I'm curious to see if it comes back. :)

Oh . . . just out of curiosity, do players develop those tendencies ("preferred moves") that's listed under the "Positions" panel as well? Or does that just get created with the players and that's it?

I'd just like to return to the above post of mine for a moment. It turns out that Sir Alex DID lose his job at Manchester United as soon as the EPL season ended. I don't think that the home loss to Gillingham was the only reason, but I bet that it had a lot to do with it. :)

As for me, I went into my first match as Cheltenham's manager without really setting up the team. I just let my assistant pick the team, I chose the stock 4-4-2 defensive formation, and then I let them play. My team got rocked, 3-0. I put the game aside for a few days, and then I went back to it last night. I finally decided to really dig into the club and learn about each of my players. After having played 4-4-2 for most of my 608 days at Exeter, I decided to create my own 4-3-3 (well, if one of the midfielders is an AM, is it really a 4-2-1-3?). We ended up winning five of our last six matches (and the non-win was a draw). We aren't just winning, though. We've been dominating. We even knocked off the 2nd and 4th teams in League Two during that run. I've only been with the club for seven matches, and we've won five and drawn one. I even won the Manager of the Month award for April! I still need to get the wage bill down, so things aren't completely rosy for me, but I'm hoping that I've convinced the board of my ability to turn these guys into winners. Maybe they'll give me a bigger wage budget.

For fun, I took a couple of jabs at my old team's new manager. I told the media that I'm unsure about him. As soon as I did that, I noticed that one of the Exeter players is now feeling unsure about his new manager, since the manager isn't getting any respect from his peers. If I can't tear Exeter down on the field, I'll tear 'em down behind the scenes. ;)

not that there was anything wrong with it in FM2005, but I really like the 2D engine in '06. I don't know, it just flows better, passes are more diverse, kinda see more stray passes and some longer passes that are not always perfect.

I also like the commentary. Just saw that one of my players slid on his knees pumping his fists in the air after scoring a goal. Never read that kind of commentary before...

FM

Dola, and I just got a question from the medi regarding a new signee who got a rating of 5 in his debut. Something about him maybe not being that good a signing... prrrrrt!

FM

I offered Exeter a friendly (and I paid them a thousand bucks, although they probably would've accepted without it). We did a match for 90 minutes + penalities if necessary. We were tied 1-1 after 90 minutes, and they beat me 4-3 on penalties. I bet they're happy at Exeter about beating me, especially after I had bad things to say about their new manager. Oh, well. I'm in League Two and they're not! Bwahaha!

In my first career in FM2005, I got sacked by Luton Town after 3 and a half seasons but I absolutely wanted to play them qith Q.P.R. the following offseason. Even went to play them on their pitch. Kinda weird but I was all emotional about it...

After that, I've always tried to play one yearly friendly against them whenever I got the chance and in my FM2006, I'm back managing them instead of my usual Q.P.R. of the last few seasons... :)

FM

Let's hear it for the return of Pumpy Frog Tudors Man!

If I stick around at Cheltenham (considering that we're hemorrhaging money, that's a big "if"), I'll be sure to schedule Exeter for a friendly every year. It'd be awesome if we got to play them in one of the cup competitions this year, though. I'll be watching the draws very closely. :D

Marc V - Just have a question about the AI in '06 as I'm sitting here bored at work.

Being that the AI seems to be more advanced this year with changing up it's tactics when it gets behind or ahead. What I was wondering is if the changes that were made during the game were coach specific. So if you're playing against a Premier League manager would his changes be more effective than say if you were playing against a Conference manager? Or did you just change up the AI across the board so every opposing manager is on equal terms?

i seem to have run into an interesting bug

i'm in my second year as manager at Celtic, and Russia offers me a job as the national manager. I accept and notice we're second in the Euro '08 qualifying group. I played a friendly about 20 days later and got immersed with my Celtic side. Well now we're heading into the '07 season and i haven't played a competitive match with Russia. So i go check out the Euro '08 fixtures and notice there's nothing listed at all. Everything seemed to stop around Nov. '06 and nothing is scheduled for the rest of '07. Teams have played either 5 or 6 matches. It appears no progress has been made and that all scheduling came to a halt when i took over the Russia job...

i'm going to keep playing because i'm enjoying myself, but i figured Marc or whoever would be interested in hearing about this.

also, when i got sacked from Celtic towards the end of season two there was no e-mail message. I found out when i read about a contract offer that Celtic had made and i was like... wait a minute, i didn't make that offer

aside from those two things, i'm having a great time. Tottenham just hired me and things look rather promising for us

i'm guessing the former. the latter seems like way too much of a shortcut for SI to take.

Really? Man, if that's the case then I'm even more impressed than I am already with this game.

Each manager has abilities and personalities in the same way that the players in the game do, so they'll react as realistically as possible to situations in the match.

Some managers will be 'tweakers' who will continually adjust tactics and setups, others might be loyal and leave things be generally on the pitch while again some might throw a strop and do huge substitutions in a huff if things aren't going there way ...

Again the style of their play and how effectively they use tactics and players* (and indeed if they have vendetta's against players** or a blind spot for a favourite player) is modelled by these characteristics and their personalities.

*Bear in mind these two are subtly different things, some managers prefer to fit players into a tactic, others fit a tactic to the players available
**You'll sometimes see some hard headed managers who fall out with volitile players (especially if they talk to the media about concerns or heaven forbid indicate they've lost faith in their manager) who then find themselves benched for the foreseeable future :D

Sorry if this has been asked before, but now that my conf. north team has been promoted to conf national, how would i go about changing my team from "Semi-Professional" to "Professional"?

Would I just start signing full-time contracts instead of part-time contracts with my players? And if so, would the team type change automatically to "professional"?

About 2/3 of conference national are full-time / professional teams and I'm getting my ass whooped. I don't see how I can compete against these guys until we get serious and start playing full-time.

I'm not sure if that's something that you can control?? When I was promoted to the Nationwide Conference, I just received an email telling me that my team was now professional.

I didn't have any f/t players on my team at that point.

Woo-hoo! My second season in charge of Blackpool and we won promotion to the Championship, claiming the second automatic promotion spot by winning the second-last game of the season. Feel quite lucky: we lost three games on the trot before then, and my young team's confidence looked shot. Fortunately, those behind us in the table were having similar troubles.

Before the game my young Swedish star Andreas Dahl gave the team an inspirational speech encouraging them to win (a new feature, I think, and one I like). Top man. This is why he's my captain. He and a couple of others have earned themselves improved contracts with their play this year; hopefully I can get them to accept ones without minimum release clauses.

When I played as Blackpool in FM2005 I always got promoted quickly and without much difficulty. This has been far more satisfying, having to deal with runs of bad form, player complaints (though only a few), and injuries. I also like that I can have success with a genuine 442, something I've never really achieved in previous FM/CM versions.

I always like to play Blackpool. I've never been there, and have little to no interest in the real-life team. Way back in CM1 I tried them because I wanted to see if I could bring a proud old club back to glory, and I liked their kit. I've stuck with them throughout every version since, with occasional dalliances with Elgin City (close to being my home town team) thrown in.

Again, I love this game. I don't have any more to say than that right now.

And Pumpy Frog Tudors Man strikes again!

I know I've declared my love for the 2D engine already but I also found that I love the little things they added to this game, especially in the commentary after a goal. Like "player xxx must be feeling bad he made that mistake" or "xxx's bad clearance led to that goal"... I also had a player "kiss his badge and thump his chest" after a goal. Simple stuff but I find that it makes the player more real. I can absolutely see them doing these antics on the field...

And back to the easiness of making transfers, I transfered out four players from Luton in the August transfer window. Not big money mind you but most went for their valued price. I kind of like how the AI managers try to first low ball you into offers with money spread over 18 or 24 months. What do I look like, your mom & pop furniture shop that offers 36 months without interest???

One open question about the transfer window too: is it new rules in the English league that teams in the Championship cannot transfer players in outside of the transfer window? I used to remember that teams below the top league could transfer domestic player at about any time but it's not the case anymore. Any offer I make tells me the player would move on January 1st (start of second transfer window)...

FM

FM

FrogMan, have you seen players start to take their shirts off and change their mind after glancing at the referee? Hilarious stuff. :D

Yeah, this trickles all the way down to the Nationwide Conference. I'm assuming it must be new.

hahaha!!! :D Nope, never seen that one, although I've not played many games yet, something like 6 or 7 games into the season so I'll probably see it at some point. Great stuff!

FM

It was a new change for this season - the clubs 'should' have had the rule come in a few years back but the Championship (and down to Div 2) got an extension for a while which has now expired.

Thanks for the answer Marc. That's what I thought, that it was new in real life. Still good to know...

I have not checked but is this kind of info available on the Rules page for a league, say for the Championship? I know I can see the general rules like length of schedule, who promotes/demotes, the playoffs, but are the transfer rules in there? I'm thinking it could be a good idea to include it if it's not already in there as it can help somebody get accustomed to a new league.

FM

FM

Yup, the transer rules are in there. I had to double check this last night, in fact, after I got the news item about the transfer window closing and I was curious if this affected me down in the Nationwide Conference.

good, then forget I said anything ;)

I'll check next time I fire up the game...

FM

One thing I noticed that bothers me. This is with WSM2006, digidownload version. Whenever I use the "quick tactics" button, make some changes then click the "apply" button, right after I see the "Making tactical changes" message appear at the bottom of the screen, it comes back without any sound. I have to hit the "pause" button, then "play" to get the sound back. Does it do that to evryone of you? I find it very annoying, so much so that I almost never use the quick tactics anymore...

FM

Yup, me too (also with the download version). Not all the time, just every now and again.

So is this only a problem with the downloaded version? I was wondering about that myself, but figured that someone had already reported it to SI.

seems like it's happening in any version... Took a while but found two mention of it on SI's bugs forum:
http://community.sigames.com/groupee...1/m/4452041171
http://community.sigames.com/groupee...1/m/7272079861

the second one is the most interesting one as there seems to be people on any version, PC and Mac, experiencing it. No official word from SI though.

Marc, you reading? ;)

FM

It happens to me with the FM CD version.

I just remembered this from playing last night. I noticed that Newcastle had been relegated to the Championship in my 3rd season. (I'm currently managing Hinckley) But they were making their way through the Carling Cup and ended up winning it along with the Championship division.

So I got curious and wondered if Michael Owen was still playing for them and was tearing up the Championship in the meantime, and yeah I guess you could say he was...

56 total games played
44 total goals scored including...
36 goals in league play

Nice season. :)

now i've beat Call of Duty 2, I'm ready for FM2006 to resume its rightful place in my CD-drive, never to come out again for months at a time

Time for my 'I coulda been a contender' post (kind of - unfortunately I've too much awareness this was not the case)

The current Hinckley is an amalgamation of Hinkcley Town & Hinckley Athletic, and Town was my team. I played in their youth side in the Midland leagues.

Unfortunately, while I was a prolific scorer in the Leicestershire (county) leagues for Blaby & Whetstone, my record was somewhat lacking at this higher level (in effect the level at which the better players played who were not taken on by league clubs.

So my better than a goal a game record from the county leagues, which carried on while I played for Hinckley (you could play for both then - not sure about now), translated into a massive one every 6.5 games at the regional level :(

I bet the manager was pissed - I was going to join another side in the same league (Lutterworth), but one of teammates told the Hinckley manager that if he wanted a goalscorer, he should sign me :D. So the manager came round to my house and convinced me to play for Hinckley: (still find it kinda cool tbh despite how it worked out that they were willing to gazump somebody else for me). Strangely after the end of the season, neither of us were offered a senior deal - can't imagine why :)

Holy crapola. I am still loving this and my time at Northern Irish team Portstewart continues. I am not going to give an update because I am getting into this so much I think I will start my first ever dynasty over in that forum. It won't be all that good because it will be my first, and I can only update once a week or so. But I don't care, I am loving this and figured it would be better to tell what is going on over there then in this thread all the time.

One quick update, I have gone from untested to obscure in reputation. Woohoo. More on that later though.

I also want to give guys a bit of a warning I guess (even though tis gives away a little of what as been happening with my team). I went to go into the Inter-Toto Cup and one of the rules is that you must have 5 players on the roster you give them that you trained yourself. I assume this means that came up through your youth system. Well, I had 1. A lot of the guys I have on my team have been there since the begining of the game, so it's not like I have made a ton of changes.

So, I couldn't move forward in the game. It wouldn't let me submit my roster. What I ended up having to do was go on vacation for 2 days so the computer would submit my roster for me. I wasn't sure it worked but it did. I was able to go on and play in the Inter-Toto even though I didn't meet that rule. Mainly I was happy that I didn't have to end the game right there because I couldn't move it ahead anymore.

it's irritating to me that if you do a player search for players with contract status "expiring" you don't end up with people whose contracts are expiring in any set amount of time, so I can't do that and get say everyone whose contract is expiring on say the June 30th deadline and then sort them by position or value or whatever, but I have to sort by the date they expire and THEN look through all the values/positions all mixed up.

you can sign "grey" players and submit them, sure they are crappy and won´t be playing but they're out from your youth system. Be sure to always have 4-5 of them around even if you don't need them.

I thought that might work and gave it a shot at first. The only problem was that the 3 guys I tried this with wouldn't sign a contract. :mad:

One thing I'm considering for a future version is allowing secondary sorting options (ie. sort by one column and then by another on top) ... if we can make a nice neat interface for this then I think a fair few people would like it.

Uhm, I would love it.

My reputation is still "obscure", but I am now listed as a "talented manager." Woohoo!

Obviously a bug ;)

I need to sign one of these contracts for Titi:

I also noticed another bug. It's now December '06 and Newcastle is 1st and Tottenham is 2nd in the Premiership.

We all know that's impossible because Newcastle will always underachieve and Spurs will always be shite.

As an aside, AFTER the "quick" tactical change is made, I do have a brief pause in crowd noise before they return (NOTE: I do not have to hit pause-play). I just had always attributed it to the fact that there was a pause in play (in order for the change to have been made) and nothing was happening.

In my current game I'm playing Southend United in the English League One.

My data base is running Spain, England, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Holland, Portugal, Scottland, USA, Brazil, and Argentina. I'm running all the leagues for Spain, England, and Italy. I'm playing the top two leagues of the rest. I'm also retaining all players from England.

I'd like to add another country, possibly two, or retain players from one of the countries I mentioned above to increase the amount and quality of players that would be available in English leagues One and Two. I was thinking of Scottland or Ireland but not sure of those would be the best choices. Do you guys have any suggestions?

Scotland would probably be the best for available players in League One/Two. You might add France, or one of the Scandinavian countries, but I think you'll find most of your players that you would be interested in (other than England) will come from Scotland.

Hmmm. I can think of two Scott Taylors, Scott Oakes, Keith Scott, Jake Scott, but that's about it. There may be more. I'd want more potential signings than this. :)

Quick note: My reputation has just jumped to "local." I'm no longer a "talented manager", though. Now I'm a "media-friendly boss." Ah, well. :)

well, it's still December so Newcastle still has plenty of time to crash and burn :)

FM

Ooops...I thought it was only a typo but noticed that I did it twice. Guess I'll learn to spell one of these days :D

That would be great. It would also be great to be able to filter on player description, like show all with "promising."

I just wanted to pass along this tidbit from one of my matches tonight. One of the things I love about this game is how you can set up your strategy all the way down to individual matchups.

So to set things up...I'm currently in League Two with Hinckley and I drew Conf South opponent Hendon in the FA Cup 1st Round.

Knowing that I had a decided advantage over my opponent I had played many of my back-ups or guys that had just come off injury and needed some conditioning. When looking over their lineup before the match I had noticed that were playing a mediocre central defender in 26-yr old Alex Stanley. Alex's only appearance this year was in the Cup, so if you're not even starting for your Conf South team, you know you're bad.

Anyway, up front, I like to play a big striker along with a quick forward type. So when I saw Stanley, I knew I had to single him out in my gameplan.

So what I did was lineup my big striker Drewe Broughton, who is 6'3, 196lbs and rated 18 for strength, 16 for jumping and 15 for heading, against Stanley who is 5'8, 171lbs and is rated 4 for strength, 8 for jumping and 7 for heading. And then along with making sure he was lined up across from Stanley, I made sure that I had set him up as my Target Man as well.

I fell behind 2-0 early when one of my back-up defenders got schooled by a quicker striker. But then I just remained patient and let Broughton do his work. He proceeded to set up the next three goals all from crosses he headed onto teammates who scored to make it 3-2 at the half.

Then in the 2nd half, Broughton ended up bruising one of Stanley's ribs when they both went up for a header and then later in the half at the 75 minute mark Broughton headed a goal in from a cross to make it 4-2. After that goal the Hendon manager finally moved Stanley up to striker so he would haven't to deal with Broughton anymore.

Good stuff.

Since a buddy of mine got the game, and I'm hoping to play online with him, I finally broke down and bought it! Now, what happened to that MP thread?

i know it's not a "bug" but why is it that when a player asks for first team football, the day after you get a message saying for example "player x has noticed a far greater willingness from his manager to play him in the first team since his plea."

even when there hasn't been a game. seems like the trigger on this needs to be pushed out a week or two. should be an easy fix no?

Anyone playing on a Mac? Have you had issues saving the game? I was playing on my laptop Saturday night, and when I went to save the game before quitting for the night, it kept coming back saying the game could not be saved. The last autosave was 2 weeks prior which isn't that bad, but now I am not sure if I will be able to continue beyond that point.

Usually when you quit w/o saving it will ask if you want to save right? Even though the save failed, it didn't ask if I wanted to save when I quit the game. I hope this game isn't toast as I have got my boys in 3rd in ECS right now.