Alright boyz, here we go!!! FM 2006 First Impressions

[WSUCougar]

Originally Posted by Bee

I looked at my game last night and it doesn't really seem to apply to my universe (fictional). Could have something to do with database size and the game trying to generate enough mid-quality players, a lot end up with similar skill sets? Otherwise, I'm not really sure what would cause it. Of course, I'm several seasons into my career, so perhaps it evens out later and I just didn't notice it early.

I've certainly noticed it in my fictional universe. I think my database size is mid-level, for what that's worth.

[Desnudo]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Have you guys ever had a deal that seemed to be too good to be true in FM2006? If so.. how'd it turn out..

Looks like I'm going to pick up a monster goalie from a 2nd division Argentinian club.. but there has to be a catch... that I can't see... the goalie is literally looking like he's world class, and I'm getting him for 1K (transfer listed, base value is 100K). If you check my Revs thread (Shameless plug).. I can't see any gotchas.. but looking to see what you guys think.

What did your scout say?

[FBPro]

Found this for anyone who might want to try an older copy of the game:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MESE%3AIT&rd=1

[SirFozzie]

Originally Posted by Desnudo

What did your scout say?

That he would be a useful part of the first team.

I'm hoping I acquire him, my computer crashed while I was at work and I lost a month :P

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by FBPro

Found this for anyone who might want to try an older copy of the game:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MESE%3AIT&rd=1

If that bid doesn't work out, and I end up getting the new game, I'd sell my copy for a pittance.

[Sweed]

Got to finally play some yesterday and the depth is incredible. I'm still trying to get a handle on things.

I really don't know much about football and the tactics required to be succesful.
Playing out games should help with that. In time the basics and then the in depth stuff will come.

What I have trouble with is wrapping my mind around the transfer system. I've never dealt with anything like this. I'm used to the American sports with drafts where you own the rights and the only real player movement comes through trades. This buying, selling, and loaning of players is just so foreign. I get an offer that someone wants one of my guys and makes a cash offer. I've got to say I don't have a clue if it's a good deal for me or not. I find it hard to accept anything knowing all I'm getting is money and no players in return.

I do have some questions..

1. Are all contracts guaranteed?

2. If you have a good young guy that isn't playing on the first team you should try to loan him to a lower level club to get him playing time, maybe even paying his salary?

3. Does your U18 team play a full schedule of it's own? So if the young player in question two is under 18 you wouldn't need to loan him out as he would be getting plenty of playing time?

4.Your second team players are only resereves for the first team? They only play if you activate them due to injury or bad play of a first teamer? These are guys you would look to loan out if you'd want to make sure they get playing time and can develope for you in the future?

If any of these questions are stupid please ignore them and consider the source is a total noob

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Sweed

Got to finally play some yesterday and the depth is incredible. I'm still trying to get a handle on things.

I really don't know much about football and the tactics required to be succesful.
Playing out games should help with that. In time the basics and then the in depth stuff will come.

What I have trouble with is wrapping my mind around the transfer system. I've never dealt with anything like this. I'm used to the American sports with drafts where you own the rights and the only real player movement comes through trades. This buying, selling, and loaning of players is just so foreign. I get an offer that someone wants one of my guys and makes a cash offer. I've got to say I don't have a clue if it's a good deal for me or not. I find it hard to accept anything knowing all I'm getting is money and no players in return.

I do have some questions..

1. Are all contracts guaranteed?

2. If you have a good young guy that isn't playing on the first team you should try to loan him to a lower level club to get him playing time, maybe even paying his salary?

3. Does your U18 team play a full schedule of it's own? So if the young player in question two is under 18 you wouldn't need to loan him out as he would be getting plenty of playing time?

4.Your second team players are only resereves for the first team? They only play if you activate them due to injury or bad play of a first teamer? These are guys you would look to loan out if you'd want to make sure they get playing time and can develope for you in the future?

If any of these questions are stupid please ignore them and consider the source is a total noob

Let me try to take a stab at your questions...

1. yes contract are guaranteed. Try hitting the "release on a free" button for a player and it will tell you what you have to pay the player to release him.

2. If the guy really isn't playing for you, then yes you could try to loan him out while adding the "can be recalled" clause in case you need him back because of injuries.

3.(&4) U18 and reserves squad both play schedules of their own so they don't only play when an injury happen to one of your starters. I'm always careful to check the other team's training facilities when loaning out a youngster. I wouldn't want him to go from my "top facilities" to a team with only "good facilities" as his training could suffer and he could be worse off somewhere else than he'd be with us.

As for the transfer market, learn to search for player (SEARCH on the side menu) and you will see players that you can "buy" with the money you'd get from the guy you just "sold". By customizing your search filters, you can even ask to see only players that are "unattached" also known to us north americans as free agents You can offer these guys contracts without paying anybody any fee and sometimes you can find a nice older player that could fill a hole for a season or two...

I really got a hold for the whole transgfer market once I learned how shop for players...

Good luck !

FM

[SirFozzie]

1. In most leagues, salaries ARE guaranteed (In some cases where they really want away, they'll settle for a negotiated buyout. In MLS, contracts are binding on the player, but the team can terminate the contract at any time (cutting the player)

2. Reserve and U18 football is nice, but it's no substitute for real live games, even in lower leagues.

3. They do, but you're only playing similar players.

4. Since teams can play up to 60-70 games a year depending on the competitions you are in, burnout is not a possibility, it's a probability, you always want to try to rest players in some games. But yeah, if a good player is not getting player time, it's nearly always good to loan him out and get him in a good atmosphere AND playing time. If you have a full fledge training centre, and the team who wants to loan your player has a bag of balls, an empty field and some little orange cones.. you might want to think twice, as the training benefit with you may outweigh the first team experience there.

[moriarty]

Edit - looks like everyone beat me to it.

Originally Posted by Sweed

1. Are all contracts guaranteed?

I'll let someone answer this in better detail, but there is a penalty to release someone early (aka cut them). You can see the penalty by selecting the "release on a free" (aka cut them) option and it will indicate on the screen the penalty.

Originally Posted by Sweed

2. If you have a good young guy that isn't playing on the first team you should try to loan him to a lower level club to get him playing time, maybe even paying his salary?

I often do if I don't think I'm going to need his services (if someone gets injured on the first team, you have to make sure you won't need him). Some players dont' like getting loaned out and they'll tell you when they return saying it was a waste of time or something.

Originally Posted by Sweed

3. Does your U18 team play a full schedule of it's own? So if the young player in question two is under 18 you wouldn't need to loan him out as he would be getting plenty of playing time?

At least at the bigger clubs yes, they play a schedule. I still may loan a guy out of he's on my reserves if the opportunity comes to give him better competition. E.g. a champions league team loaning him out is probably better competition for him than the under 18 team.

Originally Posted by Sweed

4.Your second team players are only resereves for the first team? They only play if you activate them due to injury or bad play of a first teamer? These are guys you would look to loan out if you'd want to make sure they get playing time and can develope for you in the future?

Yes, but be wary of injuries to first team guys when loaning folks out (make sure your first team replacement isn't loaned out when an injury occurs). I also occasionally send my first team players down to the second team to get them in shape (like when they come back from a long injury) prior to playing on the first team. Typically it will say something like lacking match fitness in the player screen, and I'll give them a runout with the reserves to get them match fit before returning to the first team.

[MikeVick7]

I like how the above three explanation posts all were posted with 2 minutes of one another. Good work guys.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by MikeVick7

I like how the above three explanation posts all were posted with 2 minutes of one another. Good work guys.

proof that anybody new to the game should come and post their questions in this thread. There should alway be someone to answer...

FM

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by MikeVick7

I like how the above three explanation posts all were posted with 2 minutes of one another. Good work guys.

Yes, thanks to all that took the time to answer. This post in this forum is a big reason I finally decided to try WWSM. You can feel the excitement when guys talk about their teams and leagues. And the way questions are answered here is an indication of the quality of the game, the people that play it, and how immersive it becomes.

Thanks again. I'm off to continue my climb up the learning curve, the top seems so far away. I have a feeling though that getting there will be fun.

[FrogMan]

Okay, still curious about players retained vs database size, I set myself to do some testing in WSM2006 last night. I created many different games, with some different leagues running on normal and some different database sizes. Then, once the game had been created, I did a simple search using only the letter "a" in the search field. This returned everything that had an "a" in their name. I understand that this includes staff, clubs, and even referee, but I assumed these are always in the game no matter what size of db (especially clubs and referees). Also that was my only way to try it out and after seeing the data, it at least gave me a feel for relative size from one database to another... Fwiw, I tried searching for "e" but had a tad fewer hits, so I went with "a"

Don't know how useful this could be to anybody, but since I go the data, I might as well share it

Here we go...

First test setup was the most basic setup...
Leagues included: Enlgand L2+ (4 leagues/1 nation)
small db: 7756
normal db: 10916
large db: 13004
huge db: 42482

Every game but the huge database was created quite quickly. The huge db took a relatively long time to create the manager shortlists and as you can see, the number of hits is more than triple the one with a large database. Seeing that and with the fact that I will never run on a huge db, this will be the last time I create a game with a huge db.

The second test setup was something that I may like to run, mostly since I included only leagues I'd like to manage in, although not the biggest European leagues...
Leagues included: Enlgand L2+, Holland, Scotland, France, MLS (8 leagues/5 nations)
small: 14654
normal: 20165
large: 23233

As you can see, by including some other leagues to be run on normal, the number of hits has basically doubled...

The third test setup was one with the same number of leagues, but now including the top 4 in terms of European coefficients (as found in the game, Champions League screen), the MLS remaining as a constant.
Leagues included: England L2+, Spain, Italy, France, MLS (8 leagues/5 nations)
small: 20416
normal: 31765
large: 34781

This confirmed what Marc said earlier about when you run bigger nations, you get more players. I guess it simply made sense, but I had to see it with my eyes

I was about done with my testing by then, but I wanted to see a couple more things, so off I went...

My fourth test setup had to do with seeing if running more than league per country made a difference, so I took my test #2 and created new games but now with the top 2 leagues where I could (USA is MLS only)...
England L2+, top 2 of Holland, Scotland & France + MLS
small: 15312
normal: 20123

Comparing it to test #2, you can see that adding an extra league per nation hardly added any new players to the database (658 over 14654 or 4.4%) and seeing how the pattern went, I didn't see the need to do the large db.

Finally, I wanted to see what would happen if I retained players from Canada. Well I also added a retain for players from Ivory Coast, since, well I'm attached to that great nation now (see sig for explanation ). Basic setup is the same as test #2 with a retain on Canada and Ivory Coast...
Leagues included: Enlgand L2+, Holland, Scotland, France, MLS (8 leagues/5 nations + retain)
small: 15169
normal: 20675
large: 23691

So these two nations added about 500 players, not that big a deal. I'd guess that retaining bigger football nations in Europe would have had a (much) bigger effect...

Do what you want with these figures, I know I'll be using them when I'll decide what leagues I'll run when I finally start my career...

fwiw, the first game I started as a test is England (L2+), Spain, Italy, USA (top in each) with a retain on Canada and a normal database and it gets 17693 hits... Kind of middle of the road and it runs reasonably well on my Athlon 2000+ (1.67) w/512mb RAM
FM

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Sweed

Yes, thanks to all that took the time to answer. This post in this forum is a big reason I finally decided to try WWSM. You can feel the excitement when guys talk about their teams and leagues. And the way questions are answered here is an indication of the quality of the game, the people that play it, and how immersive it becomes.

Thanks again. I'm off to continue my climb up the learning curve, the top seems so far away. I have a feeling though that getting there will be fun.

See the bolded part. This is so true. I've had great fun with FOF in the past, but I've never felt as attached to my players as I'm feeling now with FM (2005 for now). You really get a feeling that they are real, with feelings, sort of. On thing I saw in '06 that will only help this feeling is the prefered moves listed in the player profile. How can you not care about a player when you see simple things like this in his profile:
"gets crowd going"
"slides in tackles"
"argues with referee"

I mean, dang! How personal can it get?!? And you know what, most of the stuff I saw in player profiles in WSM2006 is exactly the way I felt about some players that were on my squad in FM2005. Marc Bircham for example is one that is said to argue with referees and I can tell you that I saw the sentence "Bircham is furious with the referee" more than once when watching a game....

Simply a great game...

FM

[Icy]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

See the bolded part. This is so true. I've had great fun with FOF in the past, but I've never felt as attached to my players as I'm feeling now with FM (2005 for now). You really get a feeling that they are real, with feelings, sort of. On thing I saw in '06 that will only help this feeling is the prefered moves listed in the player profile. How can you not care about a player when you see simple things like this in his profile:
"gets crowd going"
"slides in tackles"
"argues with referee"

I mean, dang! How personal can it get?!? And you know what, most of the stuff I saw in player profiles in WSM2006 is exactly the way I felt about some players that were on my squad in FM2005. Marc Bircham for example is one that is said to argue with referees and I can tell you that I saw the sentence "Bircham is furious with the referee" more than once when watching a game....

Simply a great game...

FM

You can like soccer or not, in fact i didn't buy FM05 as i'm liking more USA sports since 2 years ago. As it happens to some guys with football, i'm tired of real soccer after 30 years having it as the only Sport in Spain, but this year i couldn't pass to buy it as the FM experience is not in any other sport sim.


The true is that FM is the best test sim regarding playing personalities. That is what i miss from all the great USA sports sims we have like FOF, FBCB, OOTP, TPB (this one started to add them too on some way and i hope Gary will keep expanding that more and more), etc.

I would love a football, baseball or basketball game with the players personalities that FM has. Somebody argued in the past that players personalities shouldn't be included in sport sims as are not part of the sport, but real life and FM prove them wrong. Take a look at T.Owens, R.Williams etc where the player personality affects the team a lot. Also moral and professionalism are a big part on any sport and it varies a lot between players. In the USA sports sims, players personalities only affect when you want to resign them, but not for anything else. FOF has cohesion that i like too as it's something that affects real life too, a team who plays a few season together can play way better as they know each other.

I really hope that the future OOTP will have it too, at least as option as i understand that the players who enjoy replaying historical leagues only want accurate stats, but those of us who enjoy playing a rol game where we are the GM's, really want to deal with players personalities not just with stats.

[Bee]

I agree. I don't like soccer, didn't like it 5 years ago when I first started playing CM and don't like it now. I've watched all of 1 full match in my life (when I was in France and my wife's family wanted to watch it). I understand the sport better now, but still don't find it interesting in real life. But FM is my favorite game and has been for several years because of the depth of the game, the decisions involved in running a club and the player personalities. There are so many factors that go into making decisions in the game that go beyond just getting the guy with the best rating. The game is very complex for those of us who don't know soccer, but well worth it once you get past the learning curve.

[MikeVick7]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

"gets crowd going"
"slides in tackles"
"argues with referee"

Yes, I love this addition to the game. It definitely adds more personality into the game.

[AlexB]

I agree with Icy's post: although football/soccer is my no.1 sport, the NFL is a fairly close second. But in terms of sport text sims, FM is way ahead of anything else.

The exciting thing though is that SI seem to be getting involved with developers like Jim, not necessarily officially, but in a networking kinda way, and offering advice on their own boards as to developing sports.

When you consider that FM has more than double the amount of released versions than FOF, it is only natural that it is more complex. But with the acclaim that it is held in, spread into the North American market, and networking that appears to be going on, features such as those Icy mentioned are sure to appear in future US sport text sims, hopefully incluiding (please Jim ) the next FOF release.

[Ajaxab]

Another thing I love about the FM series besides player personalities is the media messages that tell me what's going on in other parts of the football universe. It's nice to hear about cupsets, milestones, transfers without having to hunt for them like I do in OOTP, FOF, etc. I want to know when big deals have been completed, coaches have been fired and players have set records, but North American text sims don't provide this info easily. FM, in this respect, makes me feel like I'm part of a larger world rather than simply just dealing with numbers. Other game 'worlds' seem rather sterile in comparison to FM's.

[Pumpy Tudors]

Just to touch on some of what's been said here, I am getting very attached to my Exeter team in WWSM. Our second season started horribly. We were getting blown out repeatedly, and we couldn't win the close games either. I had brought in three players before the season because I thought they'd improve the club. One of them played so badly that I ended up selling him off early in the season. Another one ended up getting homesick. The third player was actually a pretty decent wingback. Unfortunately, my formation doesn't really use a wingback. He is listed as a natural fullback, so I backed him up, but no matter how much I told him to play defense, he was always thinking about running up and joining the attack. I ended up transferring in a sweeper a couple of months later just to sort of help cover this guy's mistakes.

I finally decided that I couldn't give these new players (the homesick guy, the offense-minded defender, and the sweeper) too much freedom. I had originally tried to tailor my team's game to these guys because they had the most raw talent. It just wasn't going to work, at least not in time to save my job. I sent the homesick player back to Morocco to let him get his head on straight. When he returned, he assured me and the Exeter fans that he would be ready to play. It helped that he has learned a little English now. The wingback ended up sitting on the bench for a few games. He was going to learn to play Exeter football, but he was going to do it in training. I wasn't going to let him screw over my matches. The sweeper also plays some midfield, and due to injuries, I moved him up. He played very well there, and he played within my system.

Now, as we enter January, everything is coming together. We've gone nine straight matches without a loss (most of them have been draws, but we've had comebacks from 2-0 and 3-0 during this run). We're manhandling small semi-pro clubs in the only competition we're still playing (the FA Trophy, maybe?), and that's got the confidence level through the roof. Our strikers were almost certainly getting frustrated because they weren't getting the ball, but all my players are learning how to play as a team now, and they're getting the ball to the scorers. We're in 13th place in the Conference National at the moment, but we're only about 6 points out of 5th. If we keep playing well and actually WIN instead of draw, we could be in playoff position within 3 or 4 matches.

Right now, the only problem on my team is that I had to kill a few egos. Last season, a lot of players were promised first team football, but as this year has progressed, some guys are distancing themselves from others. I've had to knock a couple of guys down to rotation or even backup. They may feel that I don't appreciate them, but when they get onto the field, they play their asses off. They're playing Exeter football. A couple of players have even saved their jobs this season. They may mope in the dressing room, but as long as they produce on the pitch, I'm not going to get on their backs. It's starting to work very well. We're probably not going to get promoted this season, but we will need minimal changes for next year, and with my guys knowing how to play as a unit now, I expect us to be a force when the new season starts.

LONG LIVE EXETER FOOTBALL!

[Ramzavail]

The beauty of these version and this series in general is that everybody could have just reeled off 4-5 paragraphs about their current team just like Pumpy did.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Ramzavail

The beauty of these version and this series in general is that everybody could have just reeled off 4-5 paragraphs about their current team just like Pumpy did.

agreed, you have just summed up why this is a great game.

FM

[Coffee Warlord]

Originally Posted by Ramzavail

The beauty of these version and this series in general is that everybody could have just reeled off 4-5 paragraphs about their current team just like Pumpy did.

You ain't kidding. Such a fun game.

[AlexB]

Even though I've played this series for 10 years, I don;t think I've felt so good after a victory before.

PLaying as Leicester, we get to the UEFA QF against Barcelona, after edging past Celtic on away goals. Away 1st leg, I'm a little bit scared tbh so for the fourth time this season I don't play 2 up front, instead playing 2 wide midfielders, 2 DMs and an AM to try and keep in the game for the second leg.

We are basically annihilated to start with by the mighty Barca: I realise that we had a huge hole in midfield, so bring the AMC back to a normal MC, and with a little help from my back up goalie and my FC playing the game of his life on his own up front, we managed to keep it to a 1-3 defeat. The away goal gives us hope.

So learning from the first leg, back at fortress Walkers Stadium I play a wide version of my old CM favourite formation, 4-1-3-2: high tempo, defenders very defensive, midfield & forwards attacking, on the basis of foreign teams don't like it up 'em!. 10 minutes in, we've got the two goals back, and lead on away goals

I figure I need at least one more, so carry on as before - 16 minutes we get a third. My 5 defensive players are already on defensive, so wtf, stay as we are... 40 minutes: 4-0!

2nd half the commentary reads 'Barcelona change to a more attacking style' at which point I shat meself and played defensively throughout the team, but restrcited them to long range shots. We hold out for a 4-0 win and a 5-3 aggregate victory

Unfortunatly, next up are Roma in the SF!

I'm back in love with CM/FM!

Although in all honesty, it probably could do with a tweak to make it a bit tougher...

[daedalus]

Okay, so I feel slightly 'tarded having to ask this:

I have Alexandre Song (Billong!) on loan with an agreement for a transfer, if I so choose. Except I can't figure out how to complete the transfer. Can I get a dumb down version of how to do it, please?

[FrogMan]

okay, been testing it some more, basically processing days and only managing the game, putting myself on holiday whenever a game for my team happens. I want to see how things are flowing over a few months. I'm now up to October 3 and here are some comments...

• I really like having leagues on basic details. It doesn't seem to slow my game too much but adds the league table to every leagues set to basic. Why I say it doesn't slow my game? Well, I have a very smallish setup for this game, with England (L2+), Spain, Italy on normal, and every possible top leagues in Europe set to basic, that's a big number of leagues yet, it's flowing quite well. On top of seeing who's in what position in Greece for example, you also get player stats for every players available according to your database setting. I'm on normal and was looking at the Polish top league. Some 15 players were available from that league, but I was able to stats for each and every one of them...
• I like seeing my players' training developments after a couple of months. The little graph you can access by clicking on a skill's label are nice and useful.
• I like the match previews and post game reports.
• The comments regarding when a player joined a team whenever they report an injury or a possible transfer are a nice addition.

I'll probably think of more at some point...

FM

[SirFozzie]

Originally Posted by daedalus

Okay, so I feel slightly 'tarded having to ask this:

I have Alexandre Song (Billong!) on loan with an agreement for a transfer, if I so choose. Except I can't figure out how to complete the transfer. Can I get a dumb down version of how to do it, please?

Just click on him, you should have the option to make transfer offer or something siilar, and then offer the amount agreed on.. they automatically accept IIRC

[klayman]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

Okay, still curious about players retained vs database size, I set myself to do some testing in WSM2006 last night. I created many different games, with some different leagues running on normal and some different database sizes. Then, once the game had been created, I did a simple search using only the letter "a" in the search field. This returned everything that had an "a" in their name. I understand that this includes staff, clubs, and even referee, but I assumed these are always in the game no matter what size of db (especially clubs and referees). Also that was my only way to try it out and after seeing the data, it at least gave me a feel for relative size from one database to another... Fwiw, I tried searching for "e" but had a tad fewer hits, so I went with "a"

Don't know how useful this could be to anybody, but since I go the data, I might as well share it

Here we go...

First test setup was the most basic setup...
Leagues included: Enlgand L2+ (4 leagues/1 nation)
small db: 7756
normal db: 10916
large db: 13004
huge db: 42482

Every game but the huge database was created quite quickly. The huge db took a relatively long time to create the manager shortlists and as you can see, the number of hits is more than triple the one with a large database. Seeing that and with the fact that I will never run on a huge db, this will be the last time I create a game with a huge db.

The second test setup was something that I may like to run, mostly since I included only leagues I'd like to manage in, although not the biggest European leagues...
Leagues included: Enlgand L2+, Holland, Scotland, France, MLS (8 leagues/5 nations)
small: 14654
normal: 20165
large: 23233

As you can see, by including some other leagues to be run on normal, the number of hits has basically doubled...

The third test setup was one with the same number of leagues, but now including the top 4 in terms of European coefficients (as found in the game, Champions League screen), the MLS remaining as a constant.
Leagues included: England L2+, Spain, Italy, France, MLS (8 leagues/5 nations)
small: 20416
normal: 31765
large: 34781

This confirmed what Marc said earlier about when you run bigger nations, you get more players. I guess it simply made sense, but I had to see it with my eyes

I was about done with my testing by then, but I wanted to see a couple more things, so off I went...

My fourth test setup had to do with seeing if running more than league per country made a difference, so I took my test #2 and created new games but now with the top 2 leagues where I could (USA is MLS only)...
England L2+, top 2 of Holland, Scotland & France + MLS
small: 15312
normal: 20123

Comparing it to test #2, you can see that adding an extra league per nation hardly added any new players to the database (658 over 14654 or 4.4%) and seeing how the pattern went, I didn't see the need to do the large db.

Finally, I wanted to see what would happen if I retained players from Canada. Well I also added a retain for players from Ivory Coast, since, well I'm attached to that great nation now (see sig for explanation ). Basic setup is the same as test #2 with a retain on Canada and Ivory Coast...
Leagues included: Enlgand L2+, Holland, Scotland, France, MLS (8 leagues/5 nations + retain)
small: 15169
normal: 20675
large: 23691

So these two nations added about 500 players, not that big a deal. I'd guess that retaining bigger football nations in Europe would have had a (much) bigger effect...

Do what you want with these figures, I know I'll be using them when I'll decide what leagues I'll run when I finally start my career...

fwiw, the first game I started as a test is England (L2+), Spain, Italy, USA (top in each) with a retain on Canada and a normal database and it gets 17693 hits... Kind of middle of the road and it runs reasonably well on my Athlon 2000+ (1.67) w/512mb RAM
FM

For what it is worth, I did some tests on CM4 when it first came out for Godzilla Blitz (posted somewhere on the forum), and the smaller and normal size databases are virtually unplayable as a lower league manager due to lack of options in coaching and somewhat in players. I believe, for instance, there was 3 unemployed physios at the start of the game on a small database in England. Granted, things have probably improved two versions later, but I would still recommend going with a large or huge database if you plan to run in the lower leagues.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by klayman

For what it is worth, I did some tests on CM4 when it first came out for Godzilla Blitz (posted somewhere on the forum), and the smaller and normal size databases are virtually unplayable as a lower league manager due to lack of options in coaching and somewhat in players. I believe, for instance, there was 3 unemployed physios at the start of the game on a small database in England. Granted, things have probably improved two versions later, but I would still recommend going with a large or huge database if you plan to run in the lower leagues.

This may be good advice for other people, but not for me as I'm not really into lower league management. I like starting with a Championship team and try to bring them to Europe success, so I usually find plenty of players suitable for my level of team with the size of database that I computed in these tests...

I remember seeing your analysis for CM4 too, that's sort of what made me think about doing this very simple one...

FM

[Pumpy Tudors]

Well, I finally had my first crash. It was my fault, though. I hadn't rebooted my computer or even exited the game for about a week. I had it set to save after every month of game time, but after my crash (a result of low available memory), I had lost my last two weeks of game time or so.

This hasn't completely killed my enthusiasm for my Exeter career, but I'm probably going to step back from it for a couple of days. I want the results of my wiped-out matches to get out of my head. I want to feel like I'm going into them "fresh" again. I'm weird that way.

[daedalus]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Just click on him, you should have the option to make transfer offer or something siilar, and then offer the amount agreed on.. they automatically accept IIRC

Aha! Thankee.

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by Jari Rantanen's Shorts

Although in all honesty, it probably could do with a tweak to make it a bit tougher...

I look forward to your post in the near future after Roma beat you where you complain about cheating AI/goalkeepers and/or losing streaks

[Marc Vaughan]

Someone asked about loans earlier

Anyway - if you've a young kid in the reserves or U18's who's looking like he might be a future star but you don't want to risk putting him into your first team then I'd definitely recommend loaning him out, especially if your main concern is his lack of experience.

Playing in the U18's and reserves is not as stressful as playing first team football at pretty much any level.

For instance a Premiership U18 match will have a couple of hundred supporters present if that, if you loan that player to a Championship level side then he'll be playing in front of ten thousand baying fans .... this builds character and the increased tension and pace of the Championship match will help the player develop.

Obviously offset this advantage with any disadvantage their might be due to their level of training or coaching at their club.

(and finally of course if a player has really enjoyed or hated a loan he'll tell you about it afterwards which helps you know if it was a 'good' or bad thing)

[daedalus]

A few random thoughts (about the game) from m'self as my initial season ends:

• I always felt first touch was underrated and under appreciated but they seem seriously huge in this edition. And rightly so. Still, I've got some guys who are rated for it (Dennis is rated 20 and deservedly so) and yet are having some horrid first touches. That's irritating me some.
• If you bring in new players, especially from other countries, keep an eye on and watch for both the team coming together and the new players adapting. In my game, it wasn't until the last two months before Aliaksandr Hleb got adapted to life in the Premiership enough to do his dribbling runs. On the other hand, Loftus Road-favourite Chris Wilhelmsson only took until about the New Year. I also had an Argentinian kid who managed to start scoring after about 2 months and a South African kid who started scoring from day one and started becoming "favoured personnel" with others at the club after about a month.
• The whole contract and negotiation thing with you and the club is nifty. It gives it a more human feel to it.
• The left wing-dominance of '05 doesn't seem to be there anymore. That said, if you can get yourself a GOOD winger who can make some run and threaten, life is much better. Somebody with 17+ speed (pace/acceleration) will probably be necessary, though. Le Bob's speed is down to 14/14 in this setup and he can't get away from anybody anymore.
• Watch for form. It's insane (and fair) how far an in-form player can take you. Early in the season, when I was trying to get everyone incorporated into the lineup and trying to get the right mix going, it was ridiculous how far an in-form Titi took us. He's darn good - Heck, GREAT - anyway but he was so in-form it was ridiculous. We'd be having a boring and struggling game then he'd just put us on his shoulder and drag us along. Then he strained his back and went out for 3 weeks and lost that feel. That was when RvP started playing up front instead of on the wing and, thankfully, HE was now in-form. He basically carried us through during those winter months (really not too far from what's happening in real life right now, actually - THAT's how good SI is!).

Now a problem I have. I downloaded some new kits for the Premiership from sortitoutsi, Rixx's 3GT serie. Highly recommended, by the way, they're gorgeous. Anyway, so I install these. They look great. They work for every team in the Premiership except . . . yeah, yeah, you guessed it: ARSENAL!@# I don't know why. The only one that works is the away. We're stuck with the default one for the home kit. Anybody know what I might need to do?

[daedalus]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

For instance a Premiership U18 match will have a couple of hundred supporters present if that, if you loan that player to a Championship level side then he'll be playing in front of ten thousand baying fans .... this builds character and the increased tension and pace of the Championship match will help the player develop.

Great example of this is Arturo Lupoli who desperately needs to be loaned out. Reserve games are really doing nothing for him and the more physical play in the Coke league would do him good as that's that's his main "flaw" right now.

I'd love to see SI try to tackle that "feeder" club system where teams can enter specific agreements to send over loanees for a few years. Like the one Arsenal has with Beveren or, even better, the one Manchester United has with Antwerp. I can't even remotely imagine how it could be achieved but, if it's at all possible, SI would be the crew that could do it.

Oh, on the topic of loans . . . statistics does not seem to be accruing properly for players who have returned from loans. Like, a player who has played a game or two for me before going on loan. Once returned, their numbers do not add up proper.

[daedalus]

Oh, major annoyance for me: Reserves and U18s do not hold onto the filters I set. I like to have every squad show with the nonavailable players removed. The first squad's screen retains this information properly. The Reserves and U18s screens do not. I have to go into filters and reset this every time. Major deal? Nah. Irritating? Definitely. Great game? For now, eating gives me the strength to keep on playing.

[daedalus]

It's a dola-tastic day.

Good reading at this site and definitely this article on Playmaker and Target Men. I'm not certain who pointed the site out first but I *think* it was Icy.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by daedalus

A few random thoughts (about the game) from m'self as my initial season ends:

• I always felt first touch was underrated and under appreciated but they seem seriously huge in this edition. And rightly so. Still, I've got some guys who are rated for it (Dennis is rated 20 and deservedly so) and yet are having some horrid first touches. That's irritating me some.
• If you bring in new players, especially from other countries, keep an eye on and watch for both the team coming together and the new players adapting. In my game, it wasn't until the last two months before Aliaksandr Hleb got adapted to life in the Premiership enough to do his dribbling runs. On the other hand, Loftus Road-favourite Chris Wilhelmsson only took until about the New Year. I also had an Argentinian kid who managed to start scoring after about 2 months and a South African kid who started scoring from day one and started becoming "favoured personnel" with others at the club after about a month.

hehe, nice inside, I'm sure my 7 readers were able to appreciate it

FM

[AlexB]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

I look forward to your post in the near future after Roma beat you where you complain about cheating AI/goalkeepers and/or losing streaks

I'll be sure to give an update - probably will next be able to play tomorrow after a couple of days FM down-time.

For the first time I am in a dilemma (spelling?) though - the 4-1-3-2 worked so well I'm wondering if I should stick to this every week (especially as two days after we beat Barca I reverted back to 442, rested the tired players, and got beat by a struggling Southampton 3-0!). Staying in 4th is still looking pretty good though (5 points clear of 5th), and 3rd is by no means out of reach...

[Sweed]

Ok boys, I'm still struggling with this whole transfer thing Ok, the whole game

Maybe I'll start titling my posts .. stupid question #1
stupid question #2
etc. etc. etc.

I'm Oldham and get a news item saying another club wants to take one of my players on loan and at the end of the message it says Oldham accepts. I want to loan the guy but I actually didn't do anything to accept the offer. Was it accepted by my assistant since he's ticked to control the reserve club?

Second thing is I got two more loan offers for the same player and they all said accepted under them but he's still on my team. One of the teams was in the North Conf one in the South Conf and the other didn't list a conferences at all . I believe that one was Marine and was only semi-pro? The offers came on July 4 and 5 I believe and it's now July 11. If I look at the last and best team to make the offer my player is listed as a future transfer (loan) but this team has already started playing games. When does my guy go to the new team?

By the way all the links in this game are just plain cool. At first I cliked on the team name and then info to find out about the guys wanting the loan. Then by accident I found out I could just right clik on the team in the news aticle to accomplish the same thing much quicker, very nice.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Sweed

Ok boys, I'm still struggling with this whole transfer thing Ok, the whole game

Maybe I'll start titling my posts .. stupid question #1
stupid question #2
etc. etc. etc.

I'm Oldham and get a news item saying another club wants to take one of my players on loan and at the end of the message it says Oldham accepts. I want to loan the guy but I actually didn't do anything to accept the offer. Was it accepted by my assistant since he's ticked to control the reserve club?

Yes, this may be why.

Originally Posted by Sweed

Second thing is I got two more loan offers for the same player and they all said accepted under them but he's still on my team. One of the teams was in the North Conf one in the South Conf and the other didn't list a conferences at all . I believe that one was Marine and was only semi-pro? The offers came on July 4 and 5 I believe and it's now July 11. If I look at the last and best team to make the offer my player is listed as a future transfer (loan) but this team has already started playing games. When does my guy go to the new team?

The player receives the loan offers you have accepted and basically chooses between the teams which one he wants to go to. He sort of can refuse to go to a lower league team on loan. Once you've accepted a loan offer for a player, you should see something like "is considering a contract from xxx" in one of his profile screens (transfer I think)...

Originally Posted by Sweed

By the way all the links in this game are just plain cool. At first I cliked on the team name and then info to find out about the guys wanting the loan. Then by accident I found out I could just right clik on the team in the news aticle to accomplish the same thing much quicker, very nice.

The game is very well integrated imo. You can get tons of info from tons of places. Same when you see a report about a game, click the score and there is the match screen...

FM

[FrogMan]

I did a search on "harchester" on FOFC but didn't find anything about it, so here goes...
=========

Here's something for you all for when you'll start a new game. You may have noticed two ticked boxes in your preferences, one is "harchester.ddt" and the other is "harchester.edt". These two files, from what I gathered on the SI forums, relate to some fake team mimicking a TV show called "Dream Team". By leaving these two boxes ticked, that team will only be able to play friendlies and the players on it will all be grey, thus a non-factor in your game.

You need to leave these two boxes ticked, or else this team will be filled with fake players, signable by anybody. This happened to me last night when I started my real game. I had some .ddt files of my own and I unticked the harchester ones. First thing I saw once in the game, while looking for player with expired contracts to bring to my team, is that some very good players were not only available (Danny Sullivan comes to mind) but also heavily scouted by other English teams (many of them in the Championship, the league I start in). I do not want that in my game and will restart it tonight.

If you don't want the Harchester players to be active in your game, YOU NEED TO LEAVE THE BOXES TICKED.

Hope this is of some help for some of you.

FM

[FrogMan]

dola,

fwiw, since I like reading about other people's selected leagues, here's how I've set up my football world.

I will be running a small database with 10 leagues from 5 nations on normal: England (League Two and up), France (Ligue 2 and up), Scotland (Scot's first and up), Holland (Premier only), and USA (MLS).

I looked at where the main qualifiers to the group stages of both the Champions League and the UEFA Cup were coming from and added 13 other nations' top league on basic: Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, and Ukrainia.

This gave me a game with 23 leagues from 18 nations in total.

I then created a .ddt file to retain the players of Canada and Ivory Coast, in order to possibly manage one of these countries on the international scene later on. I also made some test and decided to add a retain on England, as weird as this may seem. Doing that, it added almost 7000 "persons" to my list of search result. This made a few unemployed scouts and physios available for me to sign and it also populated all the conference teams, which would have been all grey players since I sim only at the league level.

Finally, after I had started a test version of my game, I took a look to see which European clubs, among those that had made it to the group stage of either the Champions League or the UEFA Cup, had many grey players (with the small database that I was using). I found the following club and added them in a separate .ddt file:

Team	country
AEK	GRE
Anderlecht	BEL
Basel	SUI
Benfica	POR
Besiktas	TUR
Club Brugge	BEL
Dinamo Kiev	UKR
FC Bayern	GER
Fenerbahçe	TUR
Galatasaray	TUR
Genk	BEL
Grasshopper	SUI
Hertha BSC	GER
Leverkusen	GER
Olympiakos	GRE
Panathinaikos	GRE
Partizan	SCG
Porto	POR
Red Star	SCG
Schalke	GER
Shakhtar	UKR
Slavia Prague	CZE
Sparta Prague	CZE
Sporting CP	POR
Stuttgart	GER
Trabzonspor	TUR
Werder Bremen	GER

This added about a 1000 "persons" to my database but also meant that European competition would look at least a bit lively

I know I'm leaving plenty of players behind by not simming Italy or Spain, but I don't have much interest to go manage in these countries and their top teams are all present in the database, even at the small size...
I know I'm a dork, but that was a fun process

FM

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by Bee

I had two deals like that. One was a striker that was valued at around 200K and I got for 1K and the other was a central defender valued at 120K and I got for 2K. Both signed for really low salaries too. The striker turned out great. He's scored 35 goals his first season and 30+ goals the second. The defender....not so good. Despite his great ratings, he just didn't perform. He wasn't a troublemaker or injury prone, just didn't play up to his ratings. I gave him a season and a half to prove himself because his ratings were so good (his rating over that time was probably around 6.3 or 6.4). Ended up selling him for 15K.

IRL sometimes a big club will let a player go for peanuts if he's surplus to requirements to them ... especially if he's on a reasonable wage and they can shift that out of the way.

These are normally reported in the media as being a 'nominal fee' irl ... something which might pop up in a version of FM at some stage

[path12]

I have a stupid question. Does the Norweigian league prohibit signing bonuses? I have not had one request for a signing bonus from anybody -- not when renegotiating with my own players, not with transfers, not with players available on a free, not with staff -- nobody.

It's so strange that I find myself just offering them out of guilt. I haven't heard anyone else bring this up, which makes me wonder if it was just a Norweigian thing or not.......

[Ramzavail]

Here are two issues I have and I was wondering if anybody knew of these issues or what I am seeing wrong.

First: Salary. The salaries don't jive with each other, one page says one thing, another page says another.

www.fftrealm.com/ramzavail/Misc/salary1.bmp
www.fftrealm.com/ramzavail/Misc/salary2.bmp
www.fftrealm.com/ramzavail/Misc/salary3.bmp

Second: Profit. Again, one page says one thing and another page says another.

www.fftrealm.com/ramzavail/Misc/profit1.bmp
www.fftrealm.com/ramzavail/Misc/profit2.bmp

Any help is appreciated.

[SirFozzie]

2nd one should probably be profit2.bmp

[Ramzavail]

yes thanks.

[FrogMan]

but that's not helping you much, is it?

Seriously, I remember Marc mentionned that there's some sort of overhead that gets included in the overall payroll, maybe that's the source of the difference...

Other than that, I don't have much, sorry...

FM

[Ramzavail]

Id really like to find out why. Is anybody else seeing this problem on their game?