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.