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!)