Just so you're aware how much players 'time waste' is partially dependant on their personalities and age, youngsters generally aren't as cynical and unsporting as more elderly players who've been through more and are more 'out to win at all costs' (lets face it timewasting is far from sporting and doesn't exactly endure a player to the opposition crowd - jeers tend to affect kids more than experienced players .... some of whom thrive on that sort of thing).

If you've a hot young playmaker in your side its sometimes worth having an experienced backup on the bench during important games so you can swap them around and use the experienced player to help kill games off by holding up the ball and generally wasting time.

Exactly, I was gonna echo Marc's comments. You can't tell Yao Ming to run the point. In other words, you have to have the right player(s) in place to time waste.

442 magazine had a whole section on a simulation of the World Cup that they did on the FM engine in last month's magazine. It made for a pretty exciting article. The way they interspersed the writeup with pictures of real players in action photos, it felt almost real. You could almost close your eyes and see the whole thing playing out with little dots racing around the screen... :D

Well there you go. The depth of the game rears it's head again :) It's simply amazing what you guys have done making this game. I'm so glad I got over my "football is boring" mindset and gave WSM a try.

Thanks Marc for the explanation.

Marc,
something strange - my team's free kick settings for defense seem to get randomly changed- if I make any sort of change, they go from their previous ind setting (Form Wall, Man Mark) to "default" for the backline and the midfield. This consistently happens multiple times a game.

Side note - I know this isn't a bug, but it drives me nuts that in a man-marking system for the Center Backs - substitutions are annoying. Basically, if the opposition replaces striker A and midfielder A with mid B and striker B, my center back is now marking the midfielder - even though the striker B has actually replaced striker A in the formation.

With that problem you mentioned - if you have any preference for a 'solution' then feel free to email it to me ([email protected]) - I'm not saying we'll instantly implement it (as to be honest it might be something we disagree with), but I'm always open to possible ways to improve the game.

How about coding it to mark the position and not the man, regardless of how it is displayed. That way the CB is always guarding the Striker and not switching to mid

what can be worse than leaving your computer on midgame and Windows decides overnight to do an update, restarting the computer :(

Sorry, Flaschen. :(

More than once, I've left the game running for a couple of weeks at a time, but my computer doesn't do automatic reboots after updates. I think my time played is up to 70 days, but most of that was just idle time of having the game open while I was doing something else.

Pretty neat, though.

Marc - sorry - which problem are you referring to ?

We did use this system a while back but changed it at user request strangely enough due to problems in different circumstances (ie. you've a tall striker who you don't want dribbling but switch him with your short fast striker), possibly we could make it user configurable how this sort of thing handles itself - only problem is most users probably wouldn't ever notice the option.

btw, cool thing (to see anyway) - my asinine chairman, Simon Jordan, was quite unhappy that I didn't sign a high profile player in the Jan transfer window - so he frigging tried to buy one himself and took over contract negotiations! As soon as the Liverpool job opens, I'm out of this club.

The tactical switching of players and their personal settings ..

It might interest you to read a little about your chairman from real-life ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Jordan

Oh I know his genius - F365 in particular seems to love him. :D

Not a fan of Steve Bruce though - is he ?

I feel your pain. Same @#$%! thing happened to me last night.

I haven't read all 35 pages, so this may have been answered. I am managing a part-time team that has made the Irish Premier league. How do I compete with full-time teams with gobs of money to spend? Should I just pack it in and move to a bigger club in an English league?

get loaners

and

yes

In my ongoing efforts to catch the top 2 teams in the Irish Premier league (who make the Yankees look cheap), I was receiving many offers of about $35k for my star midfielder from English clubs. After getting tired of rejecting them, I thought I would require an outrageous sum. So I shot back $725k and he's yours. The said ok. Huh? They're gonna give me twice what the club is worth for one guy? Ok, done deal.

Not sure how this will affect the club's future. I just hope this isn't some bug and I'm cheating.

Marc: There has been some debate over the forums as to wether the Pitch being displayed during games is a real-time reflection of your tactics chosen during the game (and subsequent tactics during mid-game), or if the pitch is only designed to show how a goal is scored with the movements/positioning of the players not really detemined by the tactics you have, but by just the program wanting to visualize a goal being scored/attempted.

$725k really isn't an extraordinary sum for English clubs in the upper 2-3 divisions to spend on good players. If the midfielder's good enough to make an impact at Championship level, it's a pretty reasonable figure.

I'm not sure 100% what you mean to be honest, the 2D pitch displayed shows what is happening during a match.

The exact clips you see depend on the commentary setting - if its 'key' then it'd mainly be shots and goals interspersed with card offenses, if its 'extended' then you'll get more 'gameplay' clips - if its a full match then you'll see everything.

Regardless of what option for viewing you choose the match is always 'simulated' in the same manner and the same things will happen- its just somethings you might see in one mode that you wouldn't in another (think about it like if you watch a match at a ground you'd see everything, however watching the highlights on tv you only see short clips - but the match was the same one).

Marc, for future versions, could we get a little better MLS draft players coming out? Not so much for an improved MLS game playing experience as it is 14 years down the line, the American team is just not very good

I am managing Cwmbran Town in the Welsh Premier League. At the beginning of the season, my first with the club, we were expected to fight relegation. After 12 games we are sitting in 2nd in the table but many players are "eager to help the team improve its league position" or something like that. Also, many of the news clips mention how my team has been disappointing this season even though we're in 2nd place! :eek: What gives?

Maybe this has been answered somewhere in this thread, but I'm curious what you all do when a player gets 'nicked' during a game (the green cross injury). Do you take him off asap or let him play through the half/game? I can only go on anecdotal evidence, but it seems that it has helped the player's injury status if I take him off immediately. Anyone have any more conclusive evidence?

i agree that it helps his status if you take him off immediately. for me what i do will depend on a large variety of factors (as it should): what position he plays, how important the match is, what time/score in the match is it, what kind of cover i have for him on the bench to play immediately, what kind of cover i have on the squad in case he goes down with a serious injury, what his % fitness is at after the injury.

so basically if my GK gets knicked in the CL finals he will probably be staying in unless it's early in the game and i am the underdog and i have a strong backup keeper.

but if my star striker gets knicked in the 2nd half of some meaningless league game that i am winning 4-0 already, he's coming off right away regardless of the dropoff in quality to the bench player i bring on.

MrBug708:
Yeah regens (the new players) are being worked on, and this includes the players who enter the draft :)

"There has been some debate over the forums as to wether the Pitch being displayed during games is a real-time reflection of your tactics chosen during the game (and subsequent tactics during mid-game), or if the pitch is only designed to show how a goal is scored with the movements/positioning of the players not really detemined by the tactics you have, but by just the program wanting to visualize a goal being scored/attempted."

Its the first one :) There is not "pre-set" goals so to speak the match engine calls upon to show you.

IMHO It's a pretty decent fee for a Championship side to pay nowadays, and would be huge for League 1 level.

Francis obviously has the inside knowledge so I'm definitely have the lesser voice but I haven't seen any evidence of the latter with regards to goals.

The one part where I feel like the display engine could use work on is on offside calls where I feel sometimes it is not properly displaying what the simulation engine is "seeing".

The two are the same thing - simply put the 2D display is what the simulation engine is seeing because there's no 'interpretation' involved (the simulation is down to 1/8th inch in real-time so the 2D display is simply 'slaved' off from that).

With regards to offsides - please bear in mind that the referee and linesmen do have their own stats and will occassionally make mistakes - especially likely if they're failing to keep up with play (as their line of sight isn't reliable then and they have to make judgement calls based on their experience, ability and intuition).

I've had a problem with the offsides calls since I purchased '06. I find myself saying "WTF" once a game easily.

It's not a trivial sum, certainly; my point was just that it's not so huge as to be completely implausible or evidence of a bug, if the player's worthwhile.

Here's something I've noticed in re-training players but I'm not exactly sure what is happening:

I've had two young DC that I brought in as 16 year olds as hot prospects. They had incredible attributes but didn't have the jumping I'd want in a DC. Plus, they were 'Unconvincing' at the DC position and could not play anywhere else. I decided to train them as MC. One became 'Accomplished' in about a year (I played him a lot at midfield because I could afford to), the other took two years but he was in the reserves.

Shortly after reaching 'Accomplished' status, their attributes plummeted right across the board. Red arrows everywhere and suddenly they're not so attractive anymore. In fact, they no longer have a role on the team. It's happend twice now so I'm not going to bother to try and re-train players anymore and won't bring on 'projects' who don't have a position.

Maybe MarcV or someone else has insight into what could have been the cause...

Here are some cool new skins (well to me) that may renew your interest a bit...

http://www.sortitoutsi.net/index.php...le&fileid=7172
http://www.sortitoutsi.net/index.php...le&fileid=6275

If you can indicate the attributes involved then I'll try and check what happened.

Most likely cause is simply a players physical development - if a player has a growth spurt then this can seriously affect his technical ability in the short term as he has to adjust to the changes in his height and/or weight.

Generally speaking a good player will obviously pick up and regain his technical edge fairly quickly (especially with good coaching) - however an unprofessional/poorly motivated youngster might fall out of love with the game to some extent and simply not pick up his 'edge' again ...

(in summary generally give them some time and see if they recover their 'edge' or not)

YES! I really signing American players and it's hard to find good ones. Not asking for 10 good ones every year, but some decent ones nonetheless

Will this also address most regens not having/starting with preferred moves?

This game sounds unbelievably amazing. I'm too afraid to buy it and start a career :(

So, how well do you SI guys know your basketball? ;)

I enjoy basketball a lot - but the answer is "not very well unfortunately" - I'm 6'6'' so played a bit at high school but thats the extent of things (apart from following the NBA when I worked in America, but not to the extent where I would feel competant to make a sim about the sport - to do that 'properly' imho you have to know the sport in question inside and out).

At some stage in the far flung future we might expand again and take on more sports (which will be partially dependant on finding the right people with the right experience, ala Riz and Markus) - but for the immediate future we're happy with the size of things as they are.

i've sunk back into my FM career! Hence being up at 4am when i have to work in 6-7 hours. Damm you SI!! :D

Yes.

LOL :D

(if it makes you feel better I was up at 1am (cough) testing an early beta of FM2007 PC)

Marc: I am loving the game. I've played 5 seasons. Spent 2 1/2 years languishing as Lincoln in L2, feeling things out with the game. Then I get an offer from Gillingham in L1. I take it. I spend half a year finally knowing what to do, and re-asses my Gillingham squad. I manage to form a cohesive unit and develop my own tactics... and after playing one full seaosn in Gillingham, I manage to have them finish 3rd in L1. I lose in the playoffs though. So in my 5th year I bought two stars, a 28 year old striker and a 30 year old AMC. They have just solidified my offense. We finish 2nd in L1 and are promoted to the Championship. I am a heavy favorite for relegation in the Championship, have played 12 season games already and are curently #8. Yay. Hopefully we don't slide down towards the end of the season (mainyl due to injuries/fatigue/disillusion).

I have had so many heart-breaking and heart-soaring moments in the game. I won promotion into the championship by beating a rival in the 90th minute with a clutch goal. And I also performed extremely well in a cup match against Liverpool as Lincoln, taking them to penalties... we lost the game after like 8 or 9 penalty tries from both sides. It was so exciting and draining that I just had to shut down the PC and rest after losing that one. :)

Great game! Two thumbs up! :)

I have to echo Neon Chaos' sentiment. With Plymouth, I absolutely demolished the Championship with 111 points but was 200-1 odds to avoid relegation in the Premiership. With four games left, I'm 23 points away from the drop and in sixth place. Nothing was more satisfying than beating Chelsea on the road. I was actually fist-pumping and the whole deal as if it was taking place in front of me. Thankfully the house was empty...

A question on strategy: Upon promotion, do you guys chase after more talented players or try to work it out with the squad that took you to the upper level?

I'm finding a hard time letting go of my players in Gillingham, since I've grown attached to them these past two seasons. But I feel like I have to replace over 50% of my squad to actually compete.

Your thoughts?

OK, I can't stand it any longer, I'm installing the demo!!!

Damn you guys, damn you guys to hell!!!

(wrings hands in best Mr. Burns manner)

Excellent, Excellent ..... another one lured into my grasp ;)

You can probably "compete" with the squad that got you there... but to achieve long-term success, you probably need to upgrade at least 75% of the squad eventually.

The thing I like to do is give everybody some settling in time... run them out there for a few games in August, all the while signing a few new, better players in key spots... then see who's not performing, and replace them. The great thing about the Premiership is, that usually in your first year that windfall of TV revenue helps you buy a difference-maker or three.

In the past, I let players who were fairly cheap and didn't look like they could perform just sit on the reserves... then when I bring them up for a spot start or two, sometimes they turn out to be pretty good players. So you can't just judge from ratings. You have to let them play themselves in or out of a job, I think... or keep them on hand to play the crappy Cup ties.

I always look to upgrade. I guess I would just compare the talent level of your current squad with the teams in the next level and see where you stand.

If I start a career with a lower level team, I always take on the mindset that these guys probably won't be with me in 4 or 5 years as I'll have to upgrade to climb to the top.

One thing to watch for is over-improving. I know, I know. That sounds stupid. How can you improve too much? I am referring more to the fact that you shouldn't upgrade at too many positions at once, even if you are financially capable of doing so. Earlier in the thread, someone mentioned that they don't understand how their team can so underachieve when they've brought in multiple 4- and 5-stars quality players with their new Premiership money. It has to do with the fact that the new players require time to integrate (or settle, as it were). If I recall correctly, this situation was confirmed by Marc Vaughan a few posts after as well.

As Butter said, improve at a position or maybe two and see which of your old players can hold up for now. Just be careful about trying to integrate too many new players all at once, the key is to stay up over multiple years to keep improving. ("Thanks for putting me in the position to replace you with better players, guys. Have fun back in the Coke.")

Will future version have players developing preferred moves or will they still be starting out with them?

I'm afraid you'll have to wait and see I'm afraid - waaaay too early to be revealing things about the next version I'm afraid ... sorry.

Just to confirm this sort of thing in brief - simply put a team is that a 'team' - if you get into the Premiership and bench your existing squad bringing in eleven new players then expect those players while undoubtably talented to take time to get to know each other and 'gel' before they start playing towards their potential ... obviously the more players you bring in at once the more likely it is to upset the teams dynamic and thus impinge upon their performances.

This combined with the morale issues which repeated losses can cause can often be enough to dissuade most managers from doing wholesale changes unless they're in the lower reaches (where tactics and suchlike are generally 'simpler' and so its not quite as important).

Obviously you 'can' sometimes get away with changing all 11 starting players and having your newcomers gel instantly and get results - but its a large risk and as a manager (as with most things ;) ) .... its your call entirely ...

(another thing to note is the influence of players - sometimes its worth keeping your captain in the team even if he's now a 38 year old geriatric who doesn't cut it anymore - simply because of the confidence he inspires in the team around him, obviously there's a cut-out point where he has to go, but the effect of an inspirational leader shouldn't be ignored)

next version or next patch?

No more patches planned for FM2006 at present (we have to start on the next version at some point ;) ).

Its cool, once i find a properly priced EHM im sure it will tide me over...i just cant pay $90 for it, and dont see other options(for a CD version)

Blade: gogamer has it for 49.90

Question:

What real life competitions do the Champions Cup, EURO Cup, EURO Vase, and Euro. Super Cup correspond to and what place in the Premiership do you have to finish to qualify for them?

TIA.

Champions Cup = European Cup/Champions League - top 2 automatic, 3 and 4 must go through one qualifing round

EURO Cup = UEFA Cup - 5th, FA Cup winner and League Cup winner. If FA Cup and/or League Cup winner is already in UEFA or CL via league position then the runner up qualifies. If the runner up has already qualified via league position, then go down a place/2 places further on the league table to make up the three spots.

EURO Vase = Intertoto Cup - Must already not be in Europe and decide to apply, highest league position to apply gets in. Serves as a possible backdoor entry to UEFA Cup, but does add around 3 weeks to the start of your season.

European Super Cup = same name - Champions League winner verses UEFA Cup winner of previous season.

get one of the unfake files at various FM websites (like sortitoutsi) and they will give you the real cup names.

Anyway, here are a few
Champions Cup = Champions League (4 teams)
top 4 in EPL qualify with the top two going straight to group play and the other two having to go through a couple rounds of qualification

Euro Cup = UEFA Cup (3 teams)
-5th from EPL
-winner of FA Cup or finalist if winner is already qualified for UEFA or Champions league, next unqualified team in EPL if both are already in
-winner of Carling Cup (called League Cup in game) or next unqualified in EPL if they're already qualified

Note, the finalist of the Carling Cup is not auto qualified to the UEFA Cup

EURO Vase = Intertoto Cup (2 or 3 teams I think)
next two or three teams in the EPL

No idea about the supercup...

FM

boooo, I'm so slow :(

:)

FM

remember, this will change based on how teams from that nation do in the various competitions

you know if you sent that early beta over this way you could get 2x the amount of early testing on it ;)

Thanks for the quick responses!

Marc,
one thing that's always bugged me a little - why is the AI not aggresive in the transfer market ? The big teams never seem to exert the pressure to sign the big boys, ala the Scott Parker's of the world and they rarely last with the same teams.

This seems to applies to managers as well, where teams always seem to hire out of work guys rather than a top manager from another team. For example, Sir Alex retired at Man U in my game, the assistant manager (Quiroz) is World Class - and instead of hiring a top foreign coach or a top English coach - they hire Brian Robson, who's been fired twice, and has a reputation of "National" - and not surprisingly, was unemployed. It just seems as if the manager AI looks amongst those available domestically, rather than the top talent out there.

Edit: I looked at the available unemployed coaches: you had 1 world class guy (the only manager in the game who's apparently World Class - Bianchi), 5 continental guys. I guess I'm just trying to understand the manager process, especially for the big boys.

Dumb question alert...

Is there a real transfer list maintained by the FA or various leagues or is this just a mechanism implemented by SI? Doing a google search, I see various transfer rumours (trade rumours?) but no mention of an actual list. So how is it done in real life? Just a press release?

You would think it would be valuable to professional teams to maintain a database of players from all the league around the world, their contract status, their transfer status, etc, kind of what FM does.

In real-life the FA provides managers with laptops (probably at a charge, not sure) which facilitate such things via. custom software.

In the 'old days' paper based lists were indeed mailed around the place by the FA.

(some managers also irl subscribe to one of the various professional scouting bodies which exist and give out information, SI have been contacted a few times by clubs (and indeed scouting agencies) about our db which is quite cool :D)

PS> With regards to transfer AI - its pretty good in the game imho, but its something which we're continually trying to improve.

OK I've only ever bought versions of CM/FM off of ebay. I'm trying the demo of FM 2006 right now and am considering purchasing it. If I wanted to buy WWSM is there a download option? I'd like to download it and purchase by credit card if possible over other options. Can someone explain what the best method for me is?

There is a Try and Buy Download option from Sega America's website:

http://www.shopsega.com/servlet/Cont...31800&Env=BASE

$30. Great deal

It's downloadable

Estimated Download Speed (File Size = 301,778 KB)
• 56k = 11.9 hours
• DSL (1.5 mbps) = 28 minutes
• Cable (3.0 mbps) = 15 minutes
• T1 = 12 minutes

Perfect, thank you Foz.

No Prob.

One of these weekends, I still want to get a net game going.

Good grief I see an ad for buy one SI game, get another FREE on that site, but I can't figure out how to JUMP on that offer. Anyone done it or know how?

the free game is like Virtua Fighter 4. IE, OH MY GOD SIX YEARS LATER WE STILL HAVE THESE CD'S.. PLEASE TAKE THEM FROM US!

oh lame

SirFozzie,

Are you sure it's Try and Buy? It is asking for credit card information before I download it.

Todd

go to this page and click on PC DEMO, this should allow you to download the try and buy, which you can register later on...

FM

dola, to be clearer, clicking the PC DEMO link will allow you to download the "download starter". Save it on your pc, then run it, it will start the download of the big PC file...

FM

Thanks FrogMan, except nothing happens when I click that link. It tries to open a new page, but then nothing.

you mean the PC DEMO link? It tries to open a new window, if you have a popup blocker, this could block it. Anyway, the dowload starter is like 110k, pm me your email addy and I'll send it to you...

FM

Can anyone tell me how minimum transfer fees work? I've been playing for a while but still haven't figured them out.

Basically if a player has a minimum release clause in their contract any team can come in, bid whatever that amount is and the team that owns the player must accept the amount. Then it's just up to the player as to whether or not they want to sign a contract with the bidding team.

I forget again what the advantage of having that kind of clause in the contract is. Whenever I sign a player to a new contract I always make sure that part is taken out.

if someone has a mimimum transfer fee and you want to buy them, you submit a transfer offer for that amount (or more although there's no reason to do that) and it has to be accepted. This just means the player has to discuss terms with you, not that they have to transfer to you.

if one of your players has one then you are put in that position.

personally i try to avoid having any of my players have them (except in spain where it's required and then i just try to max them all out). right now though as a matter of fact, i'm currently freaked-out that my starting D/WB R has a 3 million dollar minimum fee release clause and is currently worth 16 million. And he keeps refusing to renegotiate!

The only direct benefit is that the player is more likely to accept a cheaper basic wage (on the contract being negotiated) in return for a inclusion of a minimum fee clause.

Thats what I thought...I was just hoping I was wrong:D

So I just lost in the UEFA Cup final on this play...



I'm playing as Everton against Lyon and as you can see #8 Juninho Pernambucano is passing the rock to #25 Nihat, who just happens to be about 3 miles offsides!! And of course he goes in and scores the go-ahead goal.

Truely depressing. The off-sides calls have to be fine-tuned for next year.

That's actually the correct call. If you are on the defensive side of midfield when it is kicked you are not offsides.

unless this has been changed, a player within his defensive zone can not be offside... Hoping I'm interpreting the pictures all right...

FM

Well damn. That's even more depressing that I got that wrong. Ha!

In case you're wondering that rule is in place to stop 'reverse goal hanging' ...

The offside rule prevents 'camping' which is strikers in the opposition half waiting for a ball hoofed from defense (meaning defenders always have to stay back and mark them).

The mid-point rule is in place to prevent the attacking team from simply pushing everyone forward to the opposition penalty box safe in the knowledge that a cleared ball would leave the opposition off-site in most cases anyway.

Learn something new every day...

Another question...

I remember reading that international management is fun only if you have the nation as an active league. Is this true? I only have England running but have been offered jobs by Venezuela, Greece and Tunisia. I've turned them all down because I don't see how I would operate in an 'unactive league'.

Thoughts?

On this side of the pond, we call that "cherry picking." :D

And can someone point me to a rule-book definition of offsides? I think I have it down, but sometimes it is still a head-scratcher. I mainly play FM in the English leagues, but is offsides standardized world-wide?

As far as I know offsides is standardized worldwide.

I was wondering about offsides on throw-ins. I've seen many instances where my team will have a throw-in deep in the opposition half, my striker will be standing near the corner flag in an offside position and then receive the throw-in anyway without being called for offside. Glitch in the match engine or legitimate play?

can't be offside on a throw in I believe

Correct as far as I can remember from when I played.

Offsides definition:

When the ball is kicked there must be 2 players between you and the goal.
You can't be offside if the ball is in front of you.
You are onside if you are on your side of the 50.
No offsides on throw-ins.

Correct. Also, just to cover almost everything:

-Intuitively, there is no offside directly off a corner kick
-There is offside on a goal kick

Is there any way to search for people eligible to Player/Coach? Best I've got is looking for young coaches and/or old players, but if there's a good way to (say...) search for GKs who would be servicable backups as well as on the coaching staff for a lower-league club, I don't know it.

You have a heck of a lot less players to work with

Just a quick moment of glory from this morning to share:

My Northampton Cobblers are playing Ipswich, who are currently running first in League One.

Tied 0-0 in the 92nd minute, my strikers haven't done squat all day - more specifically, they continually try to dribble and in a split second they are stripped of the ball - and my young, highly-sought-after forward gets a loose ball about 20 yards out, dances his way past two defenders, and drills a bullet low past the goalie for the game-winner. YaaaaHOO! Late goals like that are so frikkin' awesome. I went to work in a good mood. :D