Bored rant...

I'm getting bored of FML at the minute and yes its because I can't seem to beat any semi decent teams.

I'm getting lots and lots of disallowed goals despite not changing my tactic and it never being an issue before. I seem to have randomly started to score a lot of goals via corners to the far post. Well not a lot of goals, cos I'm not creating a lot at the minute but of the goals I'm getting a good majority are from corners.

As I've stated before my squad is older with average age of 27. I should be getting consistent performances but its simply not happening. I have to play rubbish teams to get my morale up only to lose to a decent team and see it dive back down like I went and murdered the first born child of every squad member. Its so frustrating and I wonder whether the fact that I'm the only level 19 rep team in the GW is working against me? What I'm thinking is I'm expected to win games so only get small morale boosts when I do and massive morale drops when I don't. Nothing to back this up like so its probably just me but I can't seem to get things right and its so frustrating.

Only thing I can think to do is a formation change and to shake the squad up. Problem being my players are 'old' so won't sell, the market is dead and I have chuff all money. Good times! I'm just getting bored of logging in for the little time I have at the minute only to lose the majority of my games. I'm not gonna say its the most frustrated I've ever been cos I have a tendency to end up playing crap but I'm getting to the stage where I'm thinking is it worth logging in.

Whinge over, tune in soon for the next one!

Meh meh MEH

Well its turned into a bit of a boring season. I don't really know what it is but the team that got me to 2nd in the gameworld rankings last season and won me the Champions cup has turned into an average side this season. The only thing I can put my finger on is the fact that instead of buying a first teamer I ended up purchasing some younger players to flesh out the squad and help with injuries. My team is also getting older but there's only one player over 30 so it should basically be a team full of players at their peak and playing at a consistent level.

I've ended up finishing 5th in the first run of the DFA Premier league so i'm clinging onto the hope of progressing in the three decent cups i'm left in.

I had a lot of prize money to be paid in this season due to winning the champ cup but i dunno where it all seems to have went. Well if i'm truthful I do, I wasted it on some youth players and went rather far into the red. The young players I bought are decent but i don't know if they will ever be more than squad players, hence me considering the investment a bit of a waste! I'm going to be down drastically in prize money next season, maybe by as much as 2-3m however there's a few transfer installment deals that have now finished and I only have two large stadium payments to make.

Where to go from here? I don't know, the whole thing feels a bit stale at the minute. I think I might tread water until youth acadamy updates come in and then delve into the world of youth to freshen things up a bit. I won't be going all youth but i'll be looking to get going a decent youth side with the hope of uncovering some future first team players, should be possible with the coaching skills I have!

This is the return of the space cowboy

Wow,

How much time you got then?!

Well over three months since my last post. I now have a 6 month old son and things are starting to settle down a bit in real life so I thought it was about time to start blogging again. Where to start? Well I'm still playing and modding in Lemerre and we are up to season 7.

My teams doing well at the minute. Villalva has been long sold for 6.1m, which was done as soon as he hit his potential in season 4. It seems like this was the right decision as although he's traded clubs a few times since then its never been for more than that. He basically funded my first big stadium build and I'm currently on stage two of that and running at 149k match revenue.

Since he's went I had to decide how to improve my team. Basically I didn't have the money to splash out with as I don't have any youths to flog for stupid money. My solution was to go for the GW 'OAPs' i.e anyone over 27. Its basically worked and this season I have a team ranked 2 in the GW and I won the champions Cup(the GW's Champions League) in season 6 whilst in the Classic FA. It was only my second major trophy though, the first one being one of the qualifying league run through and I feel there's a few more trophies in the team if i can get the right run together.

In an attempt to help it get up and running and maybe even play some games v some actual human managers, I've swapped to the new Dugout FA this season. Its early days and I haven't got off to a great start but I'll update about that more when the season is in full swing.

As this is a new start to the blog i may as well introduce my current team at the start of season 7:



GK: Alex Smithies. Superb 25 y/o GKer picked up in wage auction for bargain price and bargain wage. Is World Famous and should keep me going for years to come.

RB: Raul. A best of a RB. I love attacking fullbacks and he hits the spot. Only 26 and can go higher than his current high profile status.

LB: Paulo De Cegile. Solid and can play right up the wing, just how I like it. Is 29 now so will be looking to replace in next couple of seasons.

CB: Ivan Marcano. 28 y/o left footer who can also cover left back. Is OK but is prone to a poor performance.

CB: Serdar Tasci. 29 y/o who like his partner in crime is decent but suffers the same issue as his defensive partner.

DM: Cicero. Now 31, Cicero used to be my midfield playmaker. He has been a brilliant player for me and has now dropped into the DM position which he isn't ideally suited for but still puts in a 7 average performance. Does nicely in a position that usually gives poor ratings.

MCL: Luka Modric. Sheer class, can be deployed as an attacking player right across the pitch. Would make a superb playmaker but just can't get a game in that role for me. Still gets a great average and at 29 is in his peak. One of my four household names.

MCR: Elder. What can I say about this 22 y/o? He averaged 8.16 in major games last season with 35 assists in 60 games. A superb youngster and surely a Household name of the future.

AML: Jermey Menez. Another 29 y/o and my second household name. Can play across the midfield and also as a forward. Links in well with Obertan on the other side and the two regularly swap causing confusion in the opposition ranks

AMR: Gabriel Obertan. At 27 just coming into his peak years. my third household name he grabs plenty of goals for me.

FC: Jonathan Cristaldo. At 26 my final household name. Since I signed him three seasons ago he's took some tweaking to get him into goalscoring form but did well in season 6 before injury wrecked it with a 20 game spell out. Hoping for more this season.

Notable others:

DL - Fabio Fredes. A young DL who I'm hoping will replace Cegile. He is also good at set pieces but needs to become more consistent before he gets into the side full time. Hoping there's some potential left in him too. Picked up in this seasons wage auctions for 8k wages.

DCL - Jose Segovia. Young 22 y/o central defender. Is strong with great jumping. Was hoping he would replace Marcano but he has been really disappointing with poor performances. Maybe he'll come good but it may be he is just one of those DC's who won't perform. Plus he is natural at DL not DC despite his attributes.

AMLC - Gaizka Jalle. 21 y/o brought in for cover. Paid about half a million too much for him after accidentally bidding too much in a transfer auction. Seems to perform well when called on.

DM - Guillaume Loriot. At 28 I feel I've wasted this lad. He was playing in the DM role for many seasons and averaged about 6.8. However he has very good attributes and is actually still improving now. He plays well in the box to box role and should really be in there instead of Modric as he's a far more defensive player. However he now serves as a great stand in player.


A decent team but it is aging(which I suppose it always will be considering the age I go for). As you can tell I think my defence is my weak spot but a good DC is hard to come by!

I'm going to leave it at that for now before it gets too long. More updates to come I promise!

MIA

Life is busy when you have a full time job and a 10 week old son!

Couldn't even say where the last month and a bit have went, all I know is it flew over! To follow on from my last post I won the league in I was in. Bit of an anti climatic post I know but with real life being so busy it felt pretty anti-climatic too!

At the minute i'm concentrating on Lemerre. Haven't set the house on fire but top 3 finishes mean i'm looking certain for Premier league if I carry on this season too. Not made any money like the people flogging youth but then I find I pay a lot less than they do for players I buy so its swings and roundabouts. My team is not amazing but it seems the formation(which uses wingers!!) works ok and I just keep trying to buy slightly better players on decent wages season upon season. It never turns me into the best team in the GW but it usually does well enough to get some success. Really need to spend some money on a stadium stand but I just can't bring myself to spend the cash at the minute!

Squeaky bum time

In miller its so tight at the top its unreal. There's 5 goals keeping me in first place with 4 games to go. The team in second has an easier run in with games against 17th and 18th who've won two games between them followed by 12th and 10th. I've only lost twice all season so my philosophy will be to ignore him and try and win my games. In reality I'm probably going to need him to slip up somewhere though as his games against the bottom two will probably get rid of the goal difference. Squeaky bum time indeed to quote Sir Alex!

Why am I so bothered you ask? After all there's only 30k difference in prize money between first and second but I've NEVER won a proper league in FML and I've played the game since beta so the silverware would be more important to me than the money. Plus to use another quote, this time from Ricky Bobby "If you ain't first, you're last. You know, you know what I'm talking about?".

As a side note over in Lemerre looks like a top 5 finish with me currently sitting 3rd with two matches to go. Anything that keeps me on track for top tier footie I'm happy with. For some reason I can't let my finances go in the green though and I currently have a bid in for a new defender from the free agents list. In relation to this I can definitely see a difference in finances between Lemerre and Ramos. There's far more players getting unlocked that aren't getting snapped up straight away and that goes for players that are under 29 too. Also the wages are far more reasonable. To me this gets a big thumbs up and although its early to say so, the decision to spread prize money rises over 6 instead of 4 seasons looks to be paying off.

However its not all straightforward. There's a lot of decent players coming through youth academies and because there on 200 quid a day people are flogging them for LOTS of money. I think it goes to show that no matter what steps SI take to make the playing field as level as possible there will always be a way to get ahead of the game, even if it is only temporary until the wages on your team catch up with you. We can only wait and see how Lemerre pans out but at the minute I think my team will be hanging onto the coattails of top tier footie once everything settles down after the first three seasons.

You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby

Through the hard times and the good..

In live things have definitely settled down a lot since my change of formation. I recently won 4 games in a row to take me up to the heady heights of 3rd. However this morning I came down to ragequit reality with a bump after a 1-0 loss at home to 15th. I knew I was destined to fail when I hit the post for the 3rd time and sure enough his AMC popped up in the 83rd minute to smash one past my keeper and send me into a rage not seen in my lifetime before(or at least since the last time I lost).

A typical footie result or an inbuilt conspiracy by SI to keep subscribers interested? You decide! Of course when the result just happened I'm adamant it was the latter and I guess there's still an element of something that's not quite right that SI have conceded and are looking to fix. However when I calm down and think things through i know that just like in actual footie games, its just one of those things, we all lose at some point even if we don't think we should.

Unfortunately I also think that is one of the major flaws of FML. A lot of people are used to playing ordinary Football Manager and either playing as a major team and winning everything in front of them or taking a team like York City and winning everything in front of them. There's not that many lower league managers out there ready to plug away without getting lots of success. However in FML a lot of us are LLM's(although not through choice) and I think this is where a lot of ragequit or just plain and simple quit comes from. After all we can't ALL win everything ALL of the time in FML.

It does seem to get tough though the better you are, I know in beta I'm currently more than happy being one of the lower teams. I just stick to playing the competitions at my level and I just keep winning and winning. However I realise as i move up things are going to get harder and harder and ragequit will strike, just like it does in live. Would I change it though? I don't think I would, its part of FML whether we like it or not. After all if there's one thing that makes up for a random run of poor form its a random run of good form!

Now here's a question for you, does anyone else type obscenities and rants into the match chat in AI games when things go wrong or is it just me? It's a good job the offline manager can't look back what was typed when they view highlights otherwise I'd be shipped out of FML quicker than you can say RAGEQUIT!

Ok I lied...

You know how I was waffling on about playing is sensible and waiting until the end of the season before changing to a 451 formation? Well I sorta lied. As soon as I'd done yesterdays blog I went into fml to setup the same formation I use in beta and then sort of started playing games with it! Its a 41221 formation with a DM, two central mids and two wingers/inside forwards.

The formation has been playing really well in beta and seems to give me decent defensive cover whilst not being too shy on goals either. However the problem with beta is I picked up a pretty decent initial squad with being so new and my opposition can be pretty poor at times. So i have been wondering if it was the formation that was helping me play well or rather my players were playing well despite it. The only way to find out is to play it in live where the playing field is still pretty level. The result so far is a 6-1 win with Jonas scoring 4 and a 1-0 win in the league away from home where I had to pretty much hang on at the end. So a good solid start but I'm just waiting for the usual inconsistency to set in after changing formation before I can really see if it makes much difference.

I've also popped a 17 year old winger I picked up in my initial squad into the team as the guy who was playing on the left was more of a left midfielder than a winger. The result has been great so far with young Cakmak averaging 7.32 in 4 major games with a goal and an assist to boot. Even better is that like Jonas he can play on either wing so I can set them up to swap and hopefully confuse the opposition to boot!

Take a look at him:


Not up to much at the minute is he really? Sure he has the basics for a winger 16 pace/accel, 13 dribbling and 12 crossing which is why I picked him in initially in first place. Also a few of his mental stats aren't awful but overall should he really be averaging so well considering his attributes overall and his current age? Its hard to say for sure at the minute as he's only played 4 games but I'll keep him in there and update when there's more games under the bonnet.

This poses another question, are some youths in FML over performing? I've heard a few grumblings of this and maybe they are in some cases or is it just a case that some of the opposition is so poor the youngsters are getting away with it? I had a little look and there's currently 78 players in Lemerre that are under 17's and have an average rating of 7 or OVER. I tried doing 6.8 but it would only let me pick 7 or 6.5 for some reason! I've had a quick look through and I must say some of them look genuinely good. Some on the other hand really don't and it would appear their ratings are either pace/accel or jumping/corner taking based. It would be interesting to see someone like Adreas F over on the excellent It's a numbers game blog look at the stats of a gameworld properly, wiggle his magic statistical wand come up with some conclusion. All I can offer is that I don't think it stacks up quite right and probably reinforces the idea that there are indeed some attributes that really do rule the game. If that's the case then should youths have some sort of mental inhibitor to stop all but the best from ruling at senior level? I know for sure if I was a 15 year old playing with a bunch of 29 year olds I might be a bit flaky from time to time. What do you think?

An update, finally...

Can't believe its well over a week since the last post! Anyway over in Lemerre things are tight, very tight. There's not really one team that's really pulling away from the pack in my qualifying league although there are a couple that have the potential to do so if they can win their games in hand. I'm currently down in 5th, which is where I'm predicted to stay. If I can finish there I'll be more than happy with that given the way things have gone this season! I've crashed out of all cup competitions relatively early on so I need a decent league finish to get some sort of income for next season. This is an area where I really noticed a difference compared to Ramos, they've really toned the finances down and I really have noticed a difference. There's a lot more unlocked free agents going for sensible wages as I believe people just can't afford to splash the budget on anyone and are having to pick and choose there targets very carefully. I'll keep an eye on this and give it a comparison to season 2. As i already mentioned in my first posts by the end of season 2 in Ramos I'd bought 3 300k+ players AND improved my stadium, that just won't be happening here!

I opened with a wide 41212 diamond and I have to say I just don't like the two striker combination. It almost feels like I'm carrying the second striker even though this isn't true at all. My best striker Villalva is playing well in senior for a 17 year old. He's averaging 7.21 and has scored 18 goals in 34 major matches so far. The green shoots are also showing on him and his potential is showing as 5 star. As I mentioned in an earlier post I struck well in the pool lottery with him. My support striker is also playing well averaging just under 7 at 6.95 but he's only bagged 9 in 34 major matches adding 6 assists and I feel this is the area I want to change for next season.

I don't really want to tinker with my formation mid season so I'll tough it out and probably switch to a 451 derivative in the pre-season. Everyone else seems to be playing 433 or a variation of it and while I know this brings the most success I'm determined to keep using wingers even if it does lead to some ranting and raving. The problem is when I play 451 I like attacking left and right players but my current left sided player is really a wing back pushed on to ML. He's also my third best player average wise but I believe this is more to do with him taking corners and getting 15 assists as a result more than anything else. Jonas is still my best player by far with an average of 7.80 and 12 goals in 25 games. At this low level his blistering pace more than makes up for his poor technical skills although there are plenty of green shoots showing so at 26 there's hopefully still room in his PA for some improvement.

Finally over in Miller my beta team are top of my current division and doing really well. With a reputation level of 6 and a ability level of 14 there pulling off some very good results. I think it shows how easy it can feel for a new team coming into an established gameworld. I'm sticking to playing teams at my level and winning almost constantly. The problems seem to come when you get more established. Wins suddenly get harder to come by at your own level, throw in losses to the poorer teams below you that FML likes to randomly throw in and the game is suddenly transformed into some sort of frustrating hell hole! I'll enjoy it for now eh, its not going to last more than a few seasons!

Spiderman arrives at the harriers!

I was going to play the safe game finance wise and not buy anyone until at least season 2. However I always play with wingers because despite the rubbish way they play in fml I just love the idea of a player taking people on and either cutting in or whipping that cross in. The guys I picked up from my initial pool aren't really out and out wingers so my pledge not to buy anyone ended up lasting about a day!

For my sins I'm a Newcastle United fan so when I saw Argentinian international and all round favourite of Maradonna's Jonas Gutierrez pop up in the free agents I decided to take the plunge. Now there's four things stupid about this:

1. His wage demand was 14k for a 100k Aq fee player.
2. His attributes basically amount to pace, acceleration and dribbling and not a lot else.
   
3. The guy he's replacing has some potential I believe despite his 6.8 average rating so far and is now probably not going to get games!
4. There's no 3d match engine yet so I don't get to see him take a spiderman mask out his pants if he scores.

Despite all this I captured him after I was unsurprisingly the only bidder. I also managed to hold off the massive(not!) temptation of selling him for exactly what I'd paid for him when someone bid about 2 hours after he joined my club. I really don't get some people who play this game!

The result?! I hear you all(well me when I read my own blog and pretend I wasn't the author) cry!!! 6 games played to far, 4 goals scored, 2 assists, 3 MoM's and an average rating of 8.23! Now I know that won't last but if he can keep up a 7+ rating then I'll be more than happy, plus I get to manage one of my favourite Toon players.

Now if I can only get another decent winger I could have them swap sides during games...er...I mean no more purchases til season 2!!

p.s Two of his goals have been headers, i don't think i've seen him head a ball in his life, gogogo fml ME!

A whole new world....

I've had this blog page sitting for months and months. It's a nice little page but I've always thought there was something missing. I pondered on what that was and then it came to me in a flash, some actual content!

Before I go any further I should really explain what I'm blogging about. Basically this is my blog covering my experiences of playing football manager live. I have two accounts. One is a beta account in the gameworld Miller where I also moderate. The other is the live account in lemerre. Both use the team Durham City Harriers. I'd like to point out that I have a serious love/hate relationship with this game. It frustrates me to hell, the match engine needs SERIOUS work and I spend a lot of time shouting and swearing at my laptop(and typing obscenities into the match chat if I'm playing the artificial intelligence and not an actual real manager!). I also believe that FML has a mind of its own and does things on purpose just to ANNOY me. Crazy? Yes! But there's some truth in that too I swear it! However I'm also addicted to the game and this leads to a nasty combination!

Anyway moving on....I've just recently moved from Ramos to Lemerre as there's a lot of ex-Shearer people there from the mod team I used to be in before the servers were reset. I started off by picking my initial squad from my pool of 50 superheros and I do believe I may have won the pool lottery! The reason?



Daniel Villalba! A 17 year old striker who's given me 8 goals in 11 games and an average rating of 7.44 already. I think he's going to be a huge help during the first three seasons of qualifying. The big question is when do I sell him? If I do well then my reputation is going to go up and its going to get more and more expensive to hold onto him(I'm assuming he may turn into a very good player of course!). I think I'll just have to enjoy him while Ican and make the decision a bit later down the line.

It sort of highlights the perils of the 50 pool system to me in that whilst I am quite a fan I could just of easily of had a 33 year old 50k aq striker in my squad then a 17 year old that I'm going to get a good few seasons out of and probably sell for very good money. But 'thems the breaks' I suppose and I'd still rather take the pool system then the free for all we used to have as soon as a gameworld opens. Luckily the players were there to fit the formation i wanted to play so I didn't have that other annoyance of having to fit a formation to my pool instead of being able to use the formation of my choice.

Interestingly the finance system for Lemerre is different from Ramos in that the prize money increase is spread out over 6 and not 4 seasons.


Season Attainable Reps. Prize Money
1 Levels 1-6 £550k- £2.2m
2 Levels 1-10 £700k - £2.8m
3 Levels 1-14 £850k - £3.4m
4 Levels 1-18 £1m - £4m

For all gameworlds launched after May 1st 2010.

Season Attainable Reps. Prize Money
1 Levels 1-6 £500k - £1m
2 Levels 1-10 £600k - £1.6m
3 Levels 1-14 £700k - £2.2m
4 Levels 1-18 £800k - £2.8m
5 Levels 1-18 £900k - £3.4m
6 Levels 1-18 £1m - £4m

I think this is a good thing personally. During season 2 in Ramos I ended up improving my stadium and buying 3 300k+ aq fee unlocked players on 15k+ wages and I was STILL in the green projected wise. It highlighted the fact that there was far too much money in the system and it'll be interesting to see if wages go crazy in Lemerre as much as they did in Ramos over the coming seasons.

So back to season 1 in Lemerre, I'm off to a decent start currently sitting 3rd in my group after playing 7 games but instead of making me happy it makes me worried. As Jak mentioned over on his blog form is a strange beast in FML. Looking at his analysis of form I would say I'm currently moving from phase 1 to phase 2 and I'm got my fingers crossed that my plunge into bad form comes into a competition that isn't the league!

Anyway I think I've rambled on enough so far for my first post. look out for T-Bag style rage posts in the future when the bad form hits(oh the joy!)