Windows Football Manager 2006: Goodbye Private Life

There must be some closet CM/FM fans out there in Bit-Tech land, so I thought I'd just make a thread to discuss this most life-sapping of games.

Incase you didn't know, the latest version of SI Games Football Manager is out in the shops (is it me or is it getting more expensive each time?) and once again I find myself sucked into long evening pouring over glorified database tables and animated Subbuteo pitches. Aside from WoW, these management games have been the single largest drain on my free time since I bought a PC 10 yrs ago (I actually first played something akin to it on my Amiga - league champs with Cambridge!).

Anyway, what do people reckon of the new version? Here are my thoughts:

Good 'uns:

- Half time team talks
- Releasing media gossip and slander about opposing managers and your own players
- Quick tactical changes on the fly, whilst the action goes on around you
- Seems to run much more efficiently (not hard...)
- Loads of new leagues = loads of new, obscure players to buy!
- Still the same, digital version of heroin. Destroys your life, and the lives of the ones you love.

Bad 'uns:

- Incredible comebacks by the opposition. I simply love being beaten by a five goal onslaught, 20 mins from the end, after leading Newcastle comfortably 4-0
- Goal rushes within the first 20 mins. I seem to either score a load or concede a load withing the first 20, usually within the first ten you can guarantee a goal going in at one end
- Half time team talk - does it make any difference?
- Mind boggling, and overwhelming tactical choices. Why not have some streamlined sliders for more general changes?
- Overpriced players that only Chelsea can afford. Reality I suppose...
- Still no option to swear at the linesman and ref in the tunnel

I play as the mighty Sunderland, and this is the first CM/FM game I've struggled with. It's taken me three attempts to avoid relegation with them, regardless of tactics and players. Going back to the Bad Points, I'm sure there must be a bug in there that needs patched for the match engine as the opposition has at times, the ability to transfix your own players and stroll from one end to the other to score with ease. Not once. But three times. Usually within ten minutes. Usually when your leading.

Despite the negatives, it's still utterly awesome.

*pant pant*

P.S Being able to play a game on my iBook, make it even worse. I play in bed, on the bog, eating me tea, watching the telly, having a wa... ahem. Seemingly theres a PSP version coming soon too. Hells teeth.

 

I think these games are a load of sh**e you hardly see anything anyway most boring game ever... but im not into football anyways

 

A great contribution. Thank you.

 

ok ill pretend for a second that i dont know what im talking about seeing as this is only my second cm/fm...i must also agree about privat life going down the drain, but now that im not at uni any more, i actually have to get up in the morning so playing fm till the wee`hours of the morning is a big no no...

i probably agree with everything you have said good n bad points wise, but i think the one i would like to add to the gooden list is the new training...for the first time in a fm game, it actually seems to make some sense (some being the key word here) so that when you set it to do something, it actually does that something! and re-training players to play in different positions, is even easier now, and so helpfull!

not sure about the whole position screen, as you tend to know, or at least try out if a player can play in a position or not, and when push comes to shove, usually through injuries, i can always end up sacrificing the overrall player rating for one of my players, by playing a striker in midfield/wing...etx....

i think i also mentioned the incredible silly comeback thing, that no matter how well your team are playing, if you are leading 3:0,5:0, whatEver:0 the other team will go on a sccoring frenzy and draw or beat you....for the first coulpe of games i started this really started to annoy me, as i was trying out barca, i know ridicolous big club, just to see how i had to faff about with the new tactics to get it right...one thing i can say is that the new fm does really not like my tactics of who cares about defense, so i only play 3 defenders!

...anyway, starting to ramble, as one tends to when it comes to fm, but here goes, on a list of ideas on what i think helps work the team better!

- the way the comebacks work i think is solely down to the team talk thing, as when hammering a team is usually in the first half, esp. if my players have been well rested, and then after the other manager has a chance to chat to his players, they actually start playing...now as i dont really like defending, or changing tactics to defending, i will usually just put another DMC in the MC position, thus winning a couple more challenges in the midfield! seems to work at times, but even though, if we are on the loosing end, and i try to fire my players up it doesnt tend to work half way as well as when the computer does it...

- training...very important in the new fm...getting new staff seems to be relativly easy, and the better the coaches...well nuff said, but my real point here is that when i tried my first game i tried improving my strikers on attacking/ball control, midfielders on pace/setpieces/attacking, and defenders on defending/strength...makes sense?? well it did, until i realised the reason why its not really working is because, when a defender wins a tackle, cause he is good at it, instead of playing a nice pass to a winger/midfielder he just boots it! hence increasing his attacking training improved his passing/ball control, so now my defenders can pass! (one of them was on a bit of a run in a game 129passes:117sucessfull )
now using that what seemed at first illogical tactics on all my players, allowed my strikers to stop loosing the ball in the oppositions penalty box, my midfield was actually winning challenges, and then doing something usefull with the ball, and my wingers actually started dribbling!

...uff! long post i know, but hey, being abroad and not having anyone to discuss the new and wonderfull world of fm06 is quite tricky, now that i have actually managed to get the game, and get it working on my laptop!

...completly agree that it runs a lot smoother, ie loading games, and setting up new games, and about the whole expensive players shiznit, i would agree, but just as with 05, there are still some true gems around the place, that can be picked up for v. cheap, as long as you get them before too much interest from the big clubs gets them!

anyway, playing in portugese leauge at the moment (hideously attacking ) and doing ok, apart from getting knocked out of the cup at the 6th stage! but leauge is going well with 64Goals For, and 12 Against!

 

I could never get into these footie management games, no matter what I never feel as if I'm in control.

 

not sure if i should say this, but it seems to be one of those marmite type relationships!

- either you love it to bits, and you can spend your whole lifetime wasting away playing fm (or in the eyes of the person playing, becoming the best manager evaH! )

- or you hate it, and would rather see every copy being sent into outer space and for it to never return...

have you tried playing in some of the so called "easier" leauges??

 

Yeah it's defo an aquired taste, but like Marmite it does seem to instill an amazing amount of passion in people who enjoy it. I've got friends that don't play video or computer games to same degree as we all probably do (i.e. normal people ) and they rave about it whenever it's brought up.

On the subject of gems, I've noticed that if you wait until ********* (the swear filter blocks out Xmas? Wtf?) in the game, stick on a search for players out of contract, and you can come up with some incredible players for absolutely nothing. At worst, you can fill out your reserves with some useful veterans that might come in handy for cup games atleast (I picked up a Greek attacking left midfielder called Vsartes or something, with several 20 stats including flair and freekicks). In terms of gems you have to pay for (grrrr) go for Derek Riordan from Hibs (I got lucky and got him on a Bosman after a season - he retails at approx 1.5million) as a very young striker with lots of goals in him. Also there's a striker for Red Star Belgrade called Zigic with numerous 19s and 20s (including heading and finishing) that makes a perfect target for crossed balls - again retails around the the £2.5m mark if your lucky.

 

defenders, if i want to go for versitality, i tend to pick up kompany or van den boore (funny belgians ), depending on the cash situation, as kompany tends to be a bidding war with barca, madrid, etx, and then just spend the first season getting them good...lots of training, lots of re-position-training, and by the end of the first season you should have a SWP/DC/DR/DMC/MC/MR who is more then capable of playing as a solid CB but also having good passing/flair/creativity to have a go on the wings when push comes to shove...brazilian left winger called ederson (i think) i found late last night that was more then capable, and seemed quite useful, but as you said some of the elder players, especially when they are left to rot on the bench ie at chelski can come in handy when bought for about 2.5m...

how is your team doing these days and have you found that with the team talk games take even longer now, so finishing a season is even more of a challenge?? (or is that just me??)

edit: cerci from roma used to be v. good in 04/05, might be worth checking out as a FC/FR/FL...

 

note quite sure what to make of this one...ie, am i being completly ignorant or what is it actually useful for??
ta

 

I dunno, I wish it was in real time so you could see the changes happening infront of you. It just adds to the sense of realism I suppose, and speeds up making a small change to one slider.

 

Well say you go 2 or 3 nil up early on, you can then change to a defencive system and protect your lead.

 

Yeah, drop the mentality slider back towards the left (defensive) and pull back the height of the defensive line on the pitch and start to defend deeply. Dropping the tempo of the game down reduces the number of chances you have to score again, but also means your players spend longer working the ball round the pitch. Stuff like setting the passing of the keeper helps too as he won't boot it out willy nilly. The DM position is gold too - if I have a safe lead (in this game that means 3 - 0 against some top flight clubs!) I sub a striker for DC or DM and put him in the hole between midfield and defence, and delete the forward run lines of the tactics map. It works 8 times out of 10, provided you don't do it too early in the game. One thing thought that I hate is that the game doesn't really react well to total tactical changes. Many modern managers might slide from say a 442 to a 352 within a match, as does the opposition, but it always seems to lead to total disaster for me!

Last tip: if you're playing as a mediocre-to-decent team, try the Sir Bobby Moore II 4-4-2 attacking tactic file (it's on the FM forum). Produces masses of goals from headers and crosses. Doesn't work against every team, but it was the only tactic I could find to keep my beloved Sunderland in the top flight in three or four attempts.

 

went back to a bit of good ol' fm05 on the weekend to test out this so called "bug"...and yes it does work!!

bit silly tbh, but after a quick bash of 3-1-3-1-2 with porto, and a stadium just a tad oversized, i managed to finish the first season with roughly 267 goals for, 2 against, and best game being 16-0....

well im glad that got sorted in the new fm, so now i can go back to getting some more addictavnes rating points there!

with the tactic changes, i tend to play all pre season games at 442, then go back to my own mental tactics (basically 352) at the beginning of the season, adn then towards then end when we get to quarters, semis, n finals, i go back to 442 depending on who im playing...not really tried changing tactics mid game very much, but i do have a habbit on putting on another 2 strikers if a goal or two is needed for a win/draw...

 

I'm well into my second season now, and the game seems pretty bugged at times - more obviously so if you play a load of games quite quickly.

Whereas in the previous season, with the same formation, same defence, same midfield, and strikers (different subs though), I was scoring tons of goals and conceding loads too; now, I'm getting mainly 1 -1 draws. I'm currently on 7 wins, 11 draws, 5 defeats. Seems really odd when games follow the same pattern 3 or 4 times on the bounce. Maybe it's exactly what it should be doing, and it's all my fault, but sometimes it seems all too strange how results can get strung together.

Still completely addicted though.

 

love the last sentence!

somewhere on the SI forums i read that sometimes as the CA/PA ratio changes the same team could be working wonders, or could just be coming up with ever so strange results...i guess its just still quite buggy, and by the time we get to patch 0.5 it should be just as prefect as fm05, and then it will be time for fm07

...i just think sometimes its easy to see which team/player the producers or researchers or programmers liked as they are waaaY overrated...could just be me though...

 

Yeah, it's pretty much always the case that the match engine doesn't hit the right balance until a couple of patches are released. Although out of the box, FM05 seemed a lot more consistent and fair imho.

 

I've got the latest Football Manager and I'll give you a summary of my latest game-

I'm Managing Hull and at the start of the season the media predict I am destined for relagation, as does the chairman. So about 7 to 10 games in what do you know I'm in the relagation zone, not won a game, picked up the occasional draw. So I have a half decent team with some good players. To turn it into a decent team I get some loan players including Steven Davis (Very good young Aston Villa player) Lots of times I have been winning in the last 5 mins and then the opposition turns round and wins. Now at this point I was getting mighty angry with the game at how unrealistic the game is, but then something happened. I suddenly start winning almost every game! Now I am the one making amazing comebacks. The thing that confused me is that I made no tactical changes, now and again I swapped the odd player when my run started. But I hardly changed my team, no new players since start of season. I pick up Manager of the Month awards as my team goes on to have a better form than the leaders of the division. By the end of the season I manage to get into the play-offs.

Thats were my story stops. Sorry I bought DOD: Source.

But when they get there act together and get some kind of relism patch, I will resign myself to having only Football Manager as my social life. Till then Hull's campaign to get to the Premiership will (in my world) be put on hold.

 

I think the weird, apparent unrealism thing is a common experience. As is the incredible winning streak. Either there is a significant match engine bug, or there's factors hidden to the gamer that can suddenly swing into effect.

 

well the one thing they have taken out is the stadium size bug, which is a big improvement, as now the "not so good teams" will not get a stupid hammering due to the oppositions stadium, in an away game (home for the better team) being large and thus a humongeous home advantage...

the one factor that i reckon is the main problem is that the AI knows exactly what to say to their players to get them to work *that* much harder in the 2nd half if their loosing, or just get that one extra goal that will change a goal into a draw...but then again theres pretty much a 50-50 opinion on this on the fm forums...could be random, could be a bug...

the one thing i have found to really work is training your players in exactly the opposite of what i would have thought to be necessary, ie defenders in attacking...and strikers in defending...all of a sudden my strikers could take the ball past people without loosing it all the time, and my defenders can make *actual* passes...just me 2p though...not played enough to tell fo sua!

 

Spot on about the AI and teamtalks, the computer managers have an uncanny knack (not all the time though) of getting their team back into the game after half time, even bottom of the league relegation fodder. The best way I find to do the team talk, is to base it round the score rather than the performance. Loosing badly? Give them a rocket and I find they often pull a goal back very quickly in the second half. The encourage teamtalk is the one I use if the team are narrowly ahead or drawing or narrowly losing, with individual praise for the players on 8 or higher. Using praise on the whole team tends to end up with them getting a bit complacent and going on to concede loads of goals, and so I keep that one until fulltime. I've had quite a few miracle comebacks based on the severe dressing down at halftime, with a mediocre performance transformed into 8 and 9's right across the whole team.