None Of Us Is As Dumb As All of Us: Let's Play Football, Tactics & Glory!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > None Of Us Is As Dumb As All of Us: Let's Play Football, Tactics & Glory!

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Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

What?

Football, Tactics & Glory is what you might get if you took parts of Football Manager and XCOM and put them together. That's my take, but interestingly it's also how they describe it:

Developer Steam Blurb posted:

XCOM meets Football Manager. Develop your club, earn experience in turn-based matches, learn new skills, achieve new classes, upgrade your facilities, buy and sell footballers, grow your youth academy, make difficult choices. It's a deep strategy game that respects your time.

It's a hybrid of sports simulation and turn-based strategy. Decidedly odd, and also perplexingly compelling. My evaluation is that it's fairly well put-together and a lot of fun. Steam release was in June 2018, with two noteworthy expansions since: we'll be using both of them. Progress has been slowed recently, but that's only natural given their misfortune; small developer Creoteam (est. 2005) is based in Kiyv, where the war has changed many plans and destroyed many lives, to say the least.

Hard Homegrown Challenge

This is how we'll playing, aiming to set ourselves an challenge of sufficient difficulty so that the choices that are made have a major impact on the outcome.

- Hard is the most difficult setting in the game. It means rival clubs face no penalties to development of their players, and prices for our upgrades, contract renewals, and so forth are elevated. It also means our starting club will be a complete dumpster fire.

- There are two paths to play in FTG. One is the 'journeyman' style, hopping from club to club on your way to the top. That's the easier path if done wisely. Homegrown means we will only be getting players from our Youth Academy, and not signing them via transfers. It's harder and slower because we can only get two players per year this way, and we can't control the skillsets nearly as much. The transfer approach allows a skilled manager to get exactly what they want and trivialize some aspects of the game; we'll be facing more of a 'making do the best we can with what we have to work with' reality.

- Our ultimate goal is to achieve back-to-back 'quadruples'. That means winning all the top-level competitions in back-to-back seasons: domestic league, national cup, continental cup, and club world cup. I'm not sure if this is even possible with a homegrown approach; it was done pre-expansions but I don't know of any documented cases since. We'll see as the saga unfolds.

I expect this to take a few decades in-game; it's going to be a long and hopefully enjoyable haul. It will also enforce a slow start which I think should be useful in onboarding new people who aren't familiar with the game.

How To Join

Anyone who wishes may participate in any of the following ways, or none. It is within your power to make this saga fail entirely, or be much better than if I just made all the choices myself, or anywhere in between.

Hopefully it won't look like this wonderful thought from Despair.com:

- Take control of a player's development. Just post and ask for one. Position requests are perfectly acceptable but will also likely make it take longer until a player fitting what you want shows up , so make those or don't at your discretion. You can choose how to train your player, what upgrades they get, etc. There's quite a bit of RPG feel to this part of the game. If you're into that sort of thing, I can also put in a custom name and edit the facial appearance to a stupid level of detail.

You will have total control of these for your player as long as they are on the squad, but when - almost never if, but when - the majority of coaches votes that it is time for your player to be sold, you can't override that. Carte blanche otherwhise, and of course you can just re-join with a new player.

- Vote on and/or submit formal proposals in bi-annual Coaches Meetings. These will cover decisions such as what players to extend contracts on or sell, what club upgrades to invest in, and any match tactics instructions for the poor sap (me) who is serving/infesting as Head Manager/Coach.

- Just do what you do in other LP threads; lurk/post as you wish without doing any of that stuff unless you feel like it.

- Any decisions that come up will be given a 48-hour time frame to respond, to allow people to have a semblance of a life and not necessarily have to be on the forum every day. I'll also try to avoid/delay for major holidays. There will be a 3-strike policy in effect; if you miss three pings/choices on your player in a row, I'll take over control of them so that the thread isn't perpetually delayed for someone who isn't interested in participating anymore.

Active Punchable Faces

Inactive

Must post in the thread to re-activate.

BraveLThreester

Sold/Retired

CD Jossar ('25-'28); 50 matches, 35 tackles, 1x MoM. Cost 7.18k, Sold for 85.3k (11.9x)
AM ally_1986 ('22-'30); 115 matches, 43 goals, 31 tackles, 4x MoM. Cost 14.5k, Sold for 218k (15.0x)
CM AverageLettuce ('23-'30); 115 matches, 2x MoM, 37 assists, 11 tackles. Cost 16.5k, Sold for 164k (9.9x) + 14 Glory
GK NiftyBottle ('24-'31); 109 matches, 5x MoM, 71 saves, 3 tackles. Sold for 514k
SW Insurrectionist (''23-'32); 163 matches, 10x MoM, 12 goals, 148 tackles. Cost 168k, Sold for 1.2M + 19 Glory
CD Tevery Best ('28-'32); 115 matches, 1x MoM, 68 tackles. Cost 11.1k, sold for 55.2k (4.97x)
FW ShadowedFlame ('26-'34); 166 matches, 22x MoM, 95 goals, 7 tackles. Cost 201k, sold for 3.71M (18.5x)
GK BraveLittlToaster ('28-'34); 93 matches, 2x MoM, 51 saves, 3 tackles. Cost 25.9k, sold for 414k (16x) + 25 Glory
MF Odd Wilson ('24-'35); 217 matches, 27x Mom, 97 assists, 125 tackles. Cost 680k, sold for 4.39M (6.5x)
LD PotatoManJack ('25-'36); 219 matches, 2x MoM, 17 assists, 84 tackles. Cost 91k, sold for 417k (4.6x)
CD megane ('27-'37); 206 matches, 7x MoM, 159 tackles. Cost 117k, sold for 677k (5.8x)
LF/RF Dragongem ('27-'37); 204 matches, 20x MoM, 42 goals, 8 tackles. Cost 94k, sold for 801k (8.5x) plus 43 Glory
DF Torrannor ('26-'37); 248 matches, 6x MoM, 2 assists, 211 tackles. Cost 389k, sold for 2.39M (6x). To Oberhausen!

.
MF Fat Samurai ('29-'38); 230 matches, 2x MoM, 51 assists, 14 tackles, 1 goal. Sold for 3.33M
FW Kyoon Griffey Jr. ('30-'39): 202 matches, 14x MoM, 72 goals, 13 tackles, 1 assist. Cost 290k, Sold for 933k(3.2x) + 37 Glory.
GK Coward ('31-'40); 278 matches, 25x MoM, 7 tackles, 382 saves. Cost 2.94M, sold for 16.2M (5.5x).
DF Quackles ('31-'40); 278 matches, 2x MoM, 162 tackles. Cost 262k, sold for 1.29M (4.9x).
CD/DM PokeyTax ('30-'40); 281 matches, 6x MoM, 202 tackles. Cost 173k, sold for 367k (2.1x) + 54 Glory.
AM AJ_Impy ('29-'42); 264 matches, 6x MoM, 28 goals, 73 assists, 45 tackles, 3 yellow cards. Cost 611k, sold for 130k (0.21x)
CD illmucche ('32-'43); 248 matches, 7x MoM, 181 tackles. Cost 372k, sold for 1.68M (4.5x).
AM NiftyBottle2 (''33-'43); 155 matches, 4 goals, 8 assists, 16 tackles. Cost 191k, sold for 38k (0.2x).
FW ShadowFlame2 (''36-'43); 92 matches, 1x MoM, 4 goals, 3 tackles. Cost 108k, sold for 38k (0.35x).
DM Nizaha ('32-'43); 208 matches, 19x MoM, 12 assists, 245 tackles. Cost 583k, sold for 1.09m (1.87x)
CD BraveLilToaster2 (''35-'43); 139 matches, 68 tackles. Cost 155k, sold for 170k (1.1x).
GK PotatwoManJack ('39-'44); 181 matches, 12x MoM, 2 tackles, 196 saves. Cost 1.31M, sold for 26.7M to Greece (20.4x!)
CF/AM Kanthulhu (''33-'44); 261 matches, 44x MoM, 153 goals, 6 tackles. Cost 1.31M, sold for 2.11M + 53 Glory (1.6x)
CM DTurtle ('37-'45); 215 matches, 8x MoM, 33 assists, 85 tackles. Cost 2.9M, sold for 20.7M (7.1x)
LD/RD Nea (''34-'45); 287 matches, 3x MoM, 2 assists, 102 tackles. Cost 838k, sold for 2.36M (2.8x)
MF Arcturas ('34-'46); 266 matches, 10x MoM, 63 assists, 75 tackles. Cost 4.38M, sold for 8.59M (2.0x)
RF DavidCorperial ('46); 9 matches. Sold for 80.5k (undefined x)

Waiting List

DavidCorperial2
ShadowThree

Completed Seasons

'22-'23; 3-3-8, 12 pts, 6th in Amateur League, R32 in Prestige Cup
'23-'24; 2-6-6, 12 pts, 7th in Amateur League, R32 in Prestige Cup
'24-'25; 1-4-9, 7 pts, 7th in Amateur League, Qualifying Round in Prestige Cup
'25-'26: 1-3-10, 6 pts, 8th in Amateur League, Qualifying Round in Prestige Cup
'26-'27: 1-5-8, 8 pts, 7th in Amateur League, Qualifying Round in Prestige Cup
'27-28: 3-5-6, 14 pts, 7th in Amateur League, R32 in Prestige Cup
'28-'29: 3-3-8, 12 pts, 7th in Amateur League, R32 in Prestige Cup
'29-'30; 8-4-2, 28 pts, 2nd in Amateur League, Qualifying Round in Prestige Cup. Promoted to Third League!
'30-'31; 14-4-4, 46 pts, 1st in Third League, R32 in Prestige Cup. Promoted to Second League!
'31-'32; 9-5-12, 32 pts, 8th in Second League, QF in Prestige Cup.
'32-'33; 11-5-10, 38 pts, 6th in Second League, R16 in Prestige Cup.
'33-'34; 14-7-5, 49 pts, 4th in Second League, Finals in Prestige Cup. So close!
'34-'35; 18-4-4, 58 pts, 2nd in Second League, Semifinals in Prestige Cup. Promoted to First League!
'35-'36; 6-12-12, 30 pts, 12th in First League, Round of 32 in National Cup.
'36-'37; 8-14-8, 38 pts, 9th in First League, Round of 32 in National Cup.
'37-'38; 20-5-5, 65 pts, 2nd in First League, Round of 32 in National Cup. Promoted to Premier League!
'38-'39; 4-12-18, 24 pts, 18th in Premier League, Round of 32 in National Cup. Relegated to First League

Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 11:39 on Apr 12, 2024

# ¿ Oct 11, 2022 02:41

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 16:00

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

Coaches Corner

Reserved for reference material on mechanics, classes, skills, talents, and the like.

Base Classes

There are the four options, one for each of the four position groups.

- Amateur Goalkeeper (G)

Must be in the goal to receive G experience. Amateur Goalkeepers gains a +10% to Control and Defence, but suffer a -85% to Defence if not in goal. In other words, get by the net and stay there.

Any class that isn't a goalkeeper has a -50% to Defence if they are in goal. Basically you always want a keeper, and you always want them in goal and nowhere else.

- Amateur Defender (D)

Intercepts shots on goal that pass through adjacent tiles. Amateur Defenders possess a modicum of awareness and anticipation, and can compensate to a degree if the defense is out of position.

- Amateur Midfielder (M)

Moves two tiles without the ball. Amateur Midfielders are more mobile, allowing them to adapt to changing tactical situations.

- Amateur Forward (F)

Able to act after an unsuccessful shot on goal. Also, Motivation lasts 7 actions instead of the usual 6.

All of these also have the ability to begin training Skills at a limited level; one Skill, and only up to Level 1 at this point, but it's a start. Also, just because you start someone as a midfielder or forward doesn't mean they have to stay there. A common approach that actually has an achievement attached is to turn a defender into a defensive midfielder.

A couple of caveats with that though. You need to train them in adjacent positions; that is, you can't turn a forward directly into a defender, or vice-versa. They'd need to train in a midfield position, and then into one on the other end of the pitch. Also, Goalkeepers aren't eligible for cross-training. Training in another position means you can't be a keeper, and keepers can't turn into another position. You either start out becoming a keeper, or you aren't one.

Advanced Classes

There are two types: Universal and Special classes. I think 'Special' is being used too much though, so I'm going to limit the confusion and call those Focused Classes.

Universal Classes:

- Are notable for their versatility
- Except for Goalkeepers, allow a player to be effective anywhere on the pitch
- Allow the training of two Skills or Talents
- Are not as powerful as a Focused Class in terms of the abilities they provide
- Are a permanent and final choice; you can't be cross-trained from a Universal Class into something else.

Focused Classes:

- Are notable for their powerful abilities, but only within a specific area of the pitch
- Allow the training of only one Skill or Talent
- A player can be cross-trained into as many as three additional Focused Classes, each requiring a specialization level under the Utility section. Cross-training is advised to be done early. Since each successive SL is more costly than the last, and the player will be ineffective until it is completed, a highly cross-trained player is a major investment in specialization poins and also reduced team effectiveness while it is being worked on.

When making this choice, you need to know specifics. First, the Universal Classes simply grow directly out of the Amateur Classes. They can be seen as the final version of them.

- Goalkeepers (GK) increase the bonus of Control & Defense in goal from the 10% for Amateurs to 50%. They also get the same two skills/talents to maximum level allowance that all other Universal Classes have. The penalties for being out of goal remain intact, however - GKs are useless out of the goal.

- Universal Defenders (DF) add the ability to intercept passes on adjacent tiles to the Amateur ability to intercept shots. Aside from training two max-level Skills/Talents, they are otherwhise the same as Amateurs.

- Universal Midfielders (MF) add the Skill/Talent training and the ability to move 2 tiles with the ball; Amateurs can move 2 tiles only without the ball.

- Universal Forwards (FW) add the Skill/Talent training, have a 30% boost to control on the opponents turn, and can move 2 tiles without the ball.

Most players are not fans of Universal Forwards. While I've not tried it much myself, using them in a 'defensive forward' role, where they hold the ball and wait for a better scoring chance on the next turn, seems in theory that it could be useful. This depends a lot of course on whether the opponent has anyone with Slide Tackle nearby.

DF, MF, and FW all gain specialization experience regardless of where they are on the pitch, and retain these abilities in all locations.

There are many more Focused Classes, which exist more in the realm of positives and negatives. This diagram shows the areas where players can gain specialization experience in each:

Starting with the defense, the capabilities of each focused class. For 'wing' classes, the abilities are the same but if you want to play a player on both sides, they need to get a SL in both. If a focused class player leaves the effective area for their class, they also lose the benefits of their class until they return to it.

- Fullback (LD/RD) - Reduce the effectiveness of skills used by nearby (adjacent) opposing players. Specifically, the maximum roll of those skill is reduced by 1 + (skill potential / 2). They can also advance three tiles in a straight line along the flank. If they have possession, there is a chance for opponents to tackle them while doing this at a 70% penalty to the tackler's defense. Fullbacks retain their abilities anywhere along the flanks, but not in the middle of the pitch.

Fullbacks are one of the classes that can easily come in different flavors. They can neutralize some of the most dangerous types of opposing forwards if given high defense. Alternatively, with some investment in control and either passing or the Long Pass/Layoff Pass skills, they can be effective in counterattacking and delivering the ball to an attacking player in time for a scoring opportunity. You could even spread them out into defense, passing, and control for a more balanced player that can do some of each, but not any of them at a particularly high level.

- Sweeper (SW) - Moves automatically in the penalty area just in front of the keeper, attempting to keep themselves between the ball and goal as long as there isn't another player in the way. The Sweeper also retains the amateur defender's ability to intercept shots only on adjacent tiles. Only effective in the three tiles directly in front of the goal.

Sweepers are quite effective esp. in the lower leagues. Their automatic movement can often assure a second player in position to stop a shot on goal before it reaches the keeper. However, deploying one does make it impossible to utilize the offside trap, which depending on the formation may or may not be a good thing.

- Central Defender (CD) - Automatically tackles any opponent that enters their zone, unless that opponent just used a skill on them. Effective anywhere in central defense; the entire penalty area or a tile forward outside of it. No longer intercepts shots on adjacent tiles.

It is common to combine CD and DF players in a defensive line, as their abilities complement each other; CDs being more proactive and DFs more reactive.

- Defending Midfielder(DM) - Automatically intercepts passes up to two tiles away; Defence is doubled when intercepting passes crossing their tile; gets 1 level of Intercept talent innately; retains amateur ability to move two tiles without the ball.

It is very difficult to pass the ball directly through the middle to forwards when a good DM is in position. On the other hand, they do tend tire out quickly.

- Wing Midfielder (RM/LM) - No action points required to press. Moves 4 tiles with or without the ball. Like Fullbacks, they can be tackled while on a run with a 70% penalty to the tackler. Also like Fullbacks, they are effective anywhere on the flank but not in the middle of the pitch.

Wing Midfielders are the most mobile players on the pitch, able to switch from attack to support/defense and back quickly. As with DMs, this results in fatigue becoming an issue. They are particularly well-equipped to push the ball up the flank for crossing attempts.

- Central Midfielder (CM) - A very small effective area, in the middle just behind the midline. 30% boost to Passing, no action points required for Pressing, and retains the 2 tiles without the ball movement of an amateur.

Central Midfielders clog up the middle as a traditional passing link between defense and attack. Their passing bonus can attempt to counter the presence of an opposing DM.

- Attacking Midfielder (AM) - Opponents suffer 60% penalty when intercepting their passes; Range penalty for shooting is halved; only class capable of using the False Kick - costs no action points, and draws an opposing player a tile in their direction. AMs are effective anywhere on the attacking half of the pitch except for the final tiles along the goalline.

Attacking Midfielders are favored by many skilled players. They essentially come in two flavors; long-range shooting assassins, or brilliant passers who can thread the needle into the opposing penalty area through the defensive line consistently.

- Wing Forward (RF/LF) - 2 tiles movement with or without the ball; owners of the powerful Break-In ability. Break-In allows a Wing Forward to cut in from the side of the pitch into the penalty area, with a 50% penalty to defense for any trying to tackle them. It also costs no action points. As with other wing players, Wing Forwards are effective anywhere along the flanks.

Because of Break-In, Wing Forwards often are built with high Control. It also common for them to rely not on scoring directly, but on provoking a foul in the penalty area to result in a penalty kick. If this is combined with a skill that the keeper can't counter for scoring directly if a penalty does not result, they can become very dangerous indeed. Often a defender is placed wide to prevent a Wing Forward from easily reaching the Break-In tile, as shown:

The tile with the red X must be reached in order to attempt the Break-In. Another use of Wing Forwards is of course to be used as a Passing weapon to cross the ball into the box. For this role though, they rely more than Wing Midfielders or Fullbacks on other players passing the ball up the pitch to them, as they are not as mobile.

- Central Forward (CF) - Automatically moves one tile closer to the opponents goal if there is space available. Innately has one level of the Head Play talent, which is used for attempting to score via headers off of crosses. Central Forwards are effective anywhere in the middle of the pitch within four tiles of the opposing goal.

Central Forwards naturally synergize with wingers. They specialize in scoring at close range in a variety of methods, but esp. at the business end of crosses with their headers. A full, skilled defensive line is often required to keep a quality Central Forward at bay.

Skills & Talents

First up a quick correction on how counters work. If you have a talent that counters an opposing skill, it doesn't just make it less likely to succeed - it completely negates the possibility. If you have a talent of the same level as the skill, the result looks like this:

If you have a talent of a lower level, it reduces the level of the skill. So a talent of level 2 working against a skill of level 3 would result in that skill still being available, but only as a level 1.

Rainbow Feint - Player with the ball kicks the ball over the defenders head. The players will switch positions with the player still in possession, if it is a success. It's basically a skill version of dribbling - it can be and often is used to score against the keeper. Rainbow Feint is countered by Reaction

Nutmeg - Player with the ball kicks the ball between the legs of the opponent, taking possession 1-2 tiles past them. It only works directly forward, not diagonally or to the side. Nutmeg cannot be used score, but it does allow making it through a troublesome line of opposition. Additionally, 50% bonuses to Passing, Control, and Accuracy are conferred immediately after the Nutmeg is used, so the biggest danger to the defense is what happens afterwards. There is no talent counter to Nutmeg.

Cannon Shot A powerful shot on goal which can only be used if the player is directly on a line in front of or diagonally away from the keeper, with no defenders in the path. Countered by Strong Goalkeeper.

Slide Tackle allows taking the ball from a player with high control or who is holding it to try to retain possession. It has no counter, but if it fails it is susceptible to similar possibilities of fouling/injury as a regular tackle, esp. if made from behind the play.

Long Pass as we've noted is a pass of 4-5 tiles instead of the default 3. It is countered by Intercept

Layoff Pass is a teamwork play where the pass 'leads' the target teammate into a hopefully better position on an adjacent tile. This allows both the pass and moving the teammate in the same action, as shown below. It is also countered by Intercept.

Olympic Kick is used on corners, an attempt to make a curved kick into the goals. Defenders with heading talent can try to intercept it, and it is also directly countered by the Playing Out talent, which is also useful in intercepting crossing attempts.

A couple of other Talents not yet mentioned as counters:

Head Play, which all CFs get one level for free, is the ability to score via header from a crossing attempt. On set pieces, midfielders and defenders can score this way as well, but CFs are the primary targets for it. Another use of Head Play is players fighting for the ball in the air on a Lofted Pass. There's an example this that I'll try to remember to show in an upcoming match.

Throw-In is easily the least-valued Skill or Talent IMO, simply because it's not a common situation. Throw-In extends the range of throws that can be made, adding one tile per level of the talent. Even the help says it's 'rarely useful'. So typically you'll just be irritated that it shows up in your list ... but we'll keep an eye on any possibilities that come up.

One thing to keep in mind is the 2-skill limit means that no GK can counter all possibilities. High Defense is good against Precision/Power Shot, Playing Out + high Control is good against Crosses, then there's Rainbow Feint and Cannon Shot to consider. You can't have Playing Out and Strong Goalkeeper and Reaction .... so you will always be susceptible to something.

The Specialization Trees

As we've noted, once you get your Advanced Class the options open up. We can select any of the blue options. The grey ones need to be unlocked by working our way down each section of the tree.

This is another player, who has a Focused rather than a Universal class. The Talent section is a bit different, and there is also the added Utility section.

Specialist

We've already been through the first section. Every player gets a Base class, then an Advanced class, then they can get into the other options.

Talent

The top pick for a Universal player (first picture) allows training their first skill up to Level 3. Until you get this, Level 1 is the limit. The left pick for a Universal player allows training a second skill up to Level 3.

In the second picture, a Focused player only gets their skill up to Level 2 for the top pick; they need to get the left pick to reach Level 3, and of course they don't get a second skill.

For both types of players, the pick on the right speeds up skill training by 30%, and the bottom one increases that bonus to 70%. Completing the entire Talent Tree increases the maximum potential of skills by 2. Another way of looking at that is that it boosts your Giftedness by one star for the purpose of skills.

Dedication

Dedication has two types of picks. Upper-left is a 30% increase in match experience for increasing attribute levels; lower-left boosts that to 70%. Upper-right is 2 points in the attribute being trained on level-up; Lower-right is all 3 points, allowing total control of attribute gains and eliminating any further influence of the player's 'Fate'.

Completing the Dedication Tree confers a sizable boost of 5 attribute levels.

Fan Favourite

Left is Glory boost for making it into the Team of the Round. Right is where you get the 5% boost in sponsor payment when signing a new sponsor deal each year. Middle is a 30% boost in selling price for the player; bottom a 70% increase.

* Note: these have now been increased in a patch to 60% and 130%.

Completing the Fan Favourite Tree produces a one-time 5% increase in fans of the club.

Stamina

Upper-left; a player who has been in the game the entire first half will double their energy recovery at the half. Middle-left: 20% reduction in injury chance. Lower-left: 30% reduction in the odds of being carded when making a tackle. Right; player spends more time on the match day for recovery. 50% energy recovery on match day for players listed as substitutes. 150% if they are in reserve squad.

Completion of the Stamina Tree halves the energy recovery penalty for players 30+.

Utility

This is pretty straight-forward; up to three different Focused classes to cross-train into. Completing the tree doubles Specialization experience gained for the next 10 matches.

How to Choose Your Specialization

No player will ever get all of the possible upgrades in a career due to the escalating cost. You need to be selective. There's also a tension between aiming for peak performance, flexibility, or the long-term goals of the club.

Talent and Dedication are good ones to go for early to maximize a player in a particular class. Skills are powerful on the one hand, while Dedication allows you to shape your player more to your choosing and can give you a boost in leveling up. Esp. if you have a high-Giftedness player in a lower league, you may not be able to get enough levels to really have them reach their potential without it.

If you want versatility instead, going for Utility right away is the play. Stamina is probably my least-used tree; I expect it will be uncommon for players to hang around long enough to really benefit from it, and the other upgrades are just better in general IMO.

Fan Favourite allows the player to leverage their abilities to bring in some extra Glory and espescially money. If you go into this tree early enough to get the selling price boosts, it can really elevate the financial status of the club for the future after a player is no longer around.

Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 16:50 on Sep 14, 2023

# ¿ Oct 11, 2022 02:41

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

Initial Setup & Choices

This is the first screen after starting a new game. If you want, there's the 'sandbox' start as high as you want option. We're not using that of course. Normal here.

Now we're asked about game setup. The tutorial shows a match demonstration which has a bit of backstory for the manager and is useful, so I will show that. It's off here though because it will clog up my email notification inbox throughout the campaign if it's on.

Note the description of what Hard does at the top.

Match Duration: 48 actions is the recommended amount. Some people think it's too short, but making it longer messes with balance, ends up with unrealistically high scores, etc. We're sticking with 48; the other options are 60 and 90.

RNG type: This is the most controversial one, and is an interesting example of gamer psychology. I'll explain these later, but Decreased is the most realistic option IMO.

Here we decide settings for the player personally. Strictness impacts whether you can be fired - yes for Adequate or stricter - and how big the Reputation hits are for failing objectives given by the club President. This will not be relevant for this campaign, because ...

We are now presented with the two main different ways of starting out, and see our first example of how the email works in FTG. You can see a reference here from our Assistant to us being a footballer ourselves at one point and business failures - we'll get back to that when we go through the Tutorial. She's presenting to us the 'Journeyman' path here. If we choose this path, the Strictness level we set on the previous screen will be used, and as noted it will be an easier start because we'll have a low-level, but established club to work with and some choices between which we want to take.

Here's an example of what we would get if we took this path. A total of five offers, and you will get more choices annually, with the club names, overall star rating, expectations, length of contract, and so on.

'Unknown contact' is about as impersonal as it gets. This guy is the club president we'll be working for - same photo even if you take the Journeyman route.

As this notes, management is set to friendly regardless of what we entered for Strictness on the previous screen. We can't be fired so long as we stay at the drek club we're going to have. If we choose this option and later decided to take another job, then the Strictness level would take effect. Basically getting fired from this job would be too easy for us, it would simply force us into a better situation rather than making good on our goal of progressing in rags-to-riches style.

The starting conditions don't change whether you Create a new club or Select an existing one. The Create option just lets you name the club and give it your own aesthetic stamp. So let's do that.

Here's where the choices for the thread start to come in. We're going to need a nation to start in - I'll switch the manager to whatever nationality is chosen. The choices I am giving are the top nations in FTG in Europe. There are four continents; Europe, Africa, Asia & Oceania, and Americas. Europe has just over half the nations in the game though, and is at High playing level; Americas are at Medium, Africa & Asia at Low. This is important because if we went to another continent, we would have a lot less competition. Also somewhat lower talent coming in from even a maxed-out Youth Academy, but overall it would IMO be much easier and less interesting than playing against the best regularly as we'll do at a top European nation.

There are five 'heavyweights' that are of equal quality in the default setup: England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. In addition to choosing one of those, we need a Club Name that isn't completely inappropriate.

Now I need to spam the thread with the aesthetic options. If you're just in the 'whatever, I don't care' category I can always pick something myself, but I'd rather it be chosen by the thread depending on how many are interested here. Color schemes and visual artistry are not my strong suit. I'm also cutting out a lot of the choices just for the sake of not making it overwhelming - I don't think the precise model of shoes and socks is going to matter a whole lot for the LP. But others elements area more visually obvious, and I would like to give everyone a voice in those.

These are the available colors for all elements. It would probably be helpful if people said 'Row 1, Column 1' or similar instead of just saying 'Red' because then I'm just going to ask 'ok, which red'?

We need a Logo first, which is comprised of two parts; a Shield, and an Image. We'll be looking at this on the main screen for advancing the game, in the league standings table, in cup matchups, when viewing information about our club - it's pretty much everywhere on the management side of the game. Another example of a Logo:

Shield is obviously the black with the white outline, the ball on top of it is the Image element. I'm going to have a fairly basic shield, probably not this one but not one with an extravagant design. So just Main and Additional Colors here. The Images though I will list.

Here the choice is which Image, along with Main and Additional Colors. The Uniforms are where it really gets stupid. There are selections Jersey, Shorts, Socks, and Boots for Home and Away uniforms, then also Jersey Socks and Boots for Goalkeepers. Guh. The Jerseys will by far be the most important here, I'll find something that fits reasonably well for the others.

The Home & Away Jersey options are from the same group:

So a Home Jersey with colors, and a Away Jersey with colors from these. They don't have to be the same jersey type, but they can be. The goalkeeper jerseys are a much smaller selection:

One of these, and colors as well. I should mention that typically keeper jerseys are a much different and brighter color than the other uniforms, for reasons of distinguishing them.

Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Oct 14, 2022

# ¿ Oct 11, 2022 02:43

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

First Decisions

The initial information needed from the above post then:

- Country. Choose from England, France, Germany, Italy, or Spain.

- Club Name. Preferably appropriate to the nation chosen.

Those are the most important. For those who want input on the aesthetics, also:

- Logo Image and Colors
- Home Jersey and Colors
- Away Jersey and Colors
- Keeper Jersey and Colors

I'm not in a hot hurry at this point, I'll wait at least a couple days, longer if useful, until it looks like initial submissions are done and then introduce our pathetic starting situation and start getting the game proper underway. Anyone who wants to get on the Player Waiting List right away, just post to that effect. Name if different than your username or you want the default game-generated one, and Position if you want to request one.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2022 02:43

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

PurpleXVI posted:

Any particular reason you're limiting it to the five "heavyweights"? It feels like it would be funnier if it was some smaller nation, but I imagine that there's a gameplay/mechanics reason for it.

me posted:

if we went to another continent, we would have a lot less competition. Also somewhat lower talent coming in from even a maxed-out Youth Academy, but overall it would IMO be much easier and less interesting than playing against the best regularly as we'll do at a top European nation.

Same reason as I mentioned here. If we don't start at a top nation, when you reach the highest domestic league in that country they won't be able to compete with us as well and it would trivialize the end-game challenge most likely. I could take a small nation and edit them to be as strong as the big boys, but then they wouldn't be small anymore so it would defeat the point

# ¿ Oct 11, 2022 18:52

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

Kaboom Dragoon posted:

Country: Scotland

Your input does not compute. Please check the available options and try again :P

# ¿ Oct 11, 2022 18:54

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

Totally understandable, I haven't gotten into the details of how all that works yet.

We would have to face off against them in the cup competitions, but on the domestic league side it's only within your country. Just for frame of reference, top league in a small country in Africa or Asia has 2.5-star clubs at best. Whereas the big five have nobody below 4-stars in that top league, a handful of 4.5, and a couple of 5-stars each. It's ... not a small difference.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2022 19:58

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

Quackles posted:

Country: Germany and have the club name be a hilariously long compound noun name.

I actually googled the longest German word and apparently it's a clearly recognized winner: "Kraftfahrzeug-Haftpflichtversicherung". The internet proclaims that means 'motor vehicle indemnity insurance'.

As spectacular as that would be, esp. given it's total irrelevance to a football club - it's 36 characters. We are limited to 22 characters for the name in the game. So if we go this route, we'd have to settle for 'fairly long' rather than 'hilariously long'.

This also means supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is out of the question.

Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 02:10 on Oct 12, 2022

# ¿ Oct 12, 2022 02:05

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

Humbug Scoolbus posted:

'Backpfeifengesicht' = 'Face in need of a fist,' 18 letters.

Ok I'm not going to lie, that's very funny! Is there a plural version? 'Faces in need of a fist'?

# ¿ Oct 12, 2022 02:25

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

Keep all the good ideas and votes coming! I thought it might be useful to get tutorializing while that goes on, so that there's some meat/substance to look at in terms of how FTG works. First up, the Tutorial on match play. After that I'll do a run-through of the main screens on the management side of things.

This is how the tutorial begins. The National Cup is the highest domestic cup; i.e., best clubs in the country battling it out for the trophy.

Appropriately, we've got a late-game stadium backdrop here. The one our club will have is decidedly .... less impressive. The matches take place in this horizontal orientation always, and you can see the grid; 10 squares wide by 7 high, and the keepers on each end of it.

Simple enough.

We're going to see what happens when we shoot on goal first.

Notice the ratings for 'G Dwelley', the opposing keeper, at the top. He is terrible. This type of player would never be a starting keeper in the final of the National Cup, full stop, in any country on the planet. They're set that way so that we can actually score using basic methods for tutorial purposes.

We're currently set to Precision Shot by default, so we shift to Power Shot as instructed.

The description here is accurate for Default RNG, which will always be used for the tutorial. A few interesting bits on the RNG system. It was originally designed in XCOM style, with a % probability of success. In testing they found people were very averse to trying low-probability actions though, and they were willing to experiment and try different things when it was presented as this kind of straight dice roll - even though the underlying calculation was unchanged.

So under Default, it's 100% fair and even, using the entire range from 1 to whatever the attribute rating is. The better player will usually succeed, but it's possible for even a very low-rated player to rarely succeed against a world-class one. For Expected RNG setting, the low end of rolls for the player only is cut off. It's biased in favor of the player, feeding into human bias that tends to exaggerate bad luck against us and minimize good luck in our favor. I just find the fact that it's labeled as 'Expected' quite amusing. The third option and the one we are using for the campaign is Decreased, which cuts off the bottom 30%. In other words, in the case here with a maximum of 8, a roll of 1 or 2 would never happen. But Decreased is fair to both sides - the bottom is cut off for both our rolls and those of our opponents. It just prevents the scenario of an immensely outclassed player succeeding against a far superior opponent, increasing the advantage of higher abilities. If a 25 is rolling against a 100, the 100 will never roll below 30, and the outcome is assured.

The number by Shaffer hasn't changed, it's still 8. Accuracy decreases with distance, and whenever possible it's advised to shoot as close as you can. But compare the picture above to the one a couple pictures above it, and you can see the numbers over the defenders has changed. Dwelley had a 13 against Precision Shot, but a 20 against Power Shot. This is because when using Precision Shot, defenders are reduced to 65% of their full rating. Power Shot has a different advantage; if a Precison Shot fails, whatever defender stopped the shot has possession. If a Power Shot fails, it will 'bounce off' or rebound to a random tile adjacent to that defender. If a Power Shot is stopped by the keeper, there's a fairly good chance a corner kick will result. A common strategy then is to go for Power Shot if you don't have much chance of scoring directly, and try to get a better opportunity out of a corner kick. There are many other ways of scoring of course. Precision Shot and Power Shot are just the basic ones that every player can attempt.

To score from here, we must get the ball past all opposition on a direct line - Dwelley in goal, and Wicker immediately opposite us in the direction of the shot. But also notice that the toughest obstacle is in between; Snowball and Kirkland will move to intercept the shot on the empty tile there, with a combined resistance of 30. It would actually be better for us if one of them was just standing on that tile as opposed to having to deal with both trying to block it. This is one example of how positioning when attacking or defending the goal will be a very important tactical factor going forward.

Shaffer has almost no chance of scoring, so it's time for Plan B. The old adage from chess that when you see a good move, look for a better one, is appropriate here.

This is where 'I' enter the story. The player under the arrow is named what you entered as your coach on the settings screen; all the others are random.

The in-game help is quite good overall. Pretty much every important topic is covered in the 'Footballopedia', and there's also contextual stuff like the ? here on Lofted Pass. Mousing over that brings up this:

I'm not a fan of Lofted Pass being used at this point in the tutorial though. As you can see here, the passing and the range factor - the number above Sage - are both at 60. There will be a dice roll for each, and under normal conditions this would have almost a 50% chance of failing. Almost, because the action succeeds if there's a tie. In this case though it is hardcoded to work.

Setting up a situation with a normal pass, which has a range of up to 3 tiles and automatically succeeds if no defender is in the way or can intercept it, would be more sensible here.

There's animations as these actions play out, I'll show those in a brief video once we're through these instructions.

It's now setting us loose and allowing us to play around with some different possibilities. One note on the three actions per turn; skills are an exception to that, as we will see in a bit. At the bottom of the screen is says SKILLS ARE UNAVAILABLE, because right now we're just supposed to be learning and experimenting with the basic actions.

Time doesn't pass unless we take an action. We can sit here and contemplate the situation, our navel, our shameful lack of repentance, or the vastness of the cosmos for as long as we wish before deciding what to do.

Let's consider our options then. Selecting a player and clicking on the square they are on allows for Hold, an attempt to just maintain possession or more realistically, force the other team to spend some actions getting it back, giving them less actions to use trying to score. This is your delaying/stalling tactic.

Here's the basic pass I mentioned. Swap Positions is only used when two players are adjacent. This can be done with or without the ball - players can be moved even if they aren't the one in possession. If I did it here, Sage would keep the ball and dribble to where McCraken is.

If you just want to go through the defense instead of around them, try Dribbling.

If there's no opposition, technically it's not considered a dribble, just Moving. I can move two tiles to the right, but not two tiles up, because of the limitations of my 'class'. That's something we'll get to in the future, but basically my player is trained to be most effective operating up the flank, not in the middle of the pitch.

This isn't the best choice, but I'm moving here to demonstrate one other possibility .... which as it turns out isn't allowed in the tutorial. When you're next to the edge of the pitch, you can choose to Kick Out, and require the opponent to execute a Throw-In. This is probably one of the weakest and least-used actions, but it is an option worth mentioning.

We've only got one action left, so let's shoot. Due to my player's high accuracy and the ineptitude of the opposition, I actually will probably still score even though accuracy is halved due to the distance of the shot. Let's go to the video at this point.

:siren:

FTG Match Play Tutorial (2:23)
:siren:

The rest of the half plays out with a couple of turns for each team, just to give an idea of the flow of play, animations and sound effects, etc. The cinematic celebrations after scoring, kick-off after a score (or at the start of a half), and we see the actions of Tackling and Pressing for when you aren't in possession and need to get it back. There's also a bit where a midfielder on our team could have used the Kick Out option, and then an example of a halftime report.

The pace can be sped up if you choose; that's an option under the gear icon in the lower-left. It was set to 1 here which is the slowest. I think 1.5 is default, and it can go as high as 3 if you just want to get through the animations and opponents turn as quick as possible. The kickoff animations and such can be turned off as well if you don't like them, they do get repetitive but I just had them on here for demonstration.

After the half, we are skipped forward to near the end of the game for the conclusion of the tutorial. It's time to learn about Skills.

The 'across his opponent' statement is an important stipulation. It is possible to perform a skill that no opponent is in position to oppose. You can't abuse this free action to endlessly position optimally, but it is not uncommon to have 4 or even 5 actions in a turn instead of the default 3 by using skills wisely. This becomes increasingly important as you reach higher levels of competition. Another balancing element is the fact that you cannot use skills on the first turn following a kick-off.

It's me again!!

The Long Pass has a range of 4-5 tiles, allowing passing further than the regular Pass action, and more accurately and safely than the Lofted Pass. The maximum number above each player for this role isn't determined by any of the attribute ratings, but by the player's Giftedness (if you have the expansions, otherwhise it's just always 10). We'll come back to that when we look at the management side of the game. The 'x3' by the 8 for Branch indicates that he has Long Pass trained up to Level 3. That's the maximum level for all Skills, and for each level you get another roll. So he has three rolls of 8 to beat or equal one roll of 5. This will be no contest.

Many skills have other skills that counter them, which makes it a lot more interesting. For example, if the player on the other team had Level 3 Interception, which counters Long Pass, and the same Giftedness as Branch does, they would stand a good chance of preventing this pass from being completed.

At the lower level of competition, skills are only a minimal factor and you're generally only thinking about one turn. Attribute ratings are central. You're weighing how to get the best chance to score, and whether it's best to go for that, or go for a strategy of trying to make sure your opponent can't score if you fail to. As you progress upwards, it becomes a lot more complicated. Attributes diminish in importance as skills become predominant. Skills countering skills, counters to the counters, and so on - and there are also situations for a multi-turn strategy. On one turn you might want to provoke or manipulate a weakening in the opposing formation, so that you can later exploit that for a scoring opportunity.

I'm competent at tactics, but far from the best. Perhaps some of you will have ideas I've not yet considered. 'Backseat management' is welcomed

.

It's also important to note that every action you take consumes some energy - you can't just overuse one player non-stop. If a player's energy drops below 50%, their attribute ratings are decreased and any skill used against them automatically succeeds. Such players will be shown bent over with hands on their knees to indicate how tired they are. Particularly for positions where the players move around a lot, you can't just 'ride your best horse into the ground' for long without paying a price for it.

There is another mechanic not shown in the tutorial - motivation. Motivation basically balances out particularly bad RNG but it also provides a home-field advantage; home players become motivated twice as quickly as those playing for the visitors. If a player fails enough actions in a match, he can become 'motivated' - the worse his rolls are, the less failures it will take for it to happen. This is indicated by a Star by the player with the duration indicated, usually 6. Motivated players are immune to having skills used against them for the duration, have their attribute ratings increased by 30%, and have access to the Aggressive Tackle action, which operates with a +20 bonus to Defence. But if it fails, it's virtually a guaranteed yellow card at minimum, so it's not a good idea to use it mindlessly. Still, motivated players in the right situation at the right time can make the difference in scoring or preventing a key goal.

Here's motivation-in-progress. Look at the yellow star in FW Gilmore's information bar at the top. He's had the ball tackled away from him on a couple of consecutive turns, and his star is mostly full. He becomes motivated when it is completely full. Early in a match, most players will tend to have a completely or mostly black star. But they will tend to fill up over the course of a match as various actions are attempted and some inevitably fail.
You can also see a bit in the background of what it looks like when you're not exactly at the apex of the football pyramid

Later in the game, Gilmore is now Motivated and will remain so until 7 more actions have occurred.

We've seen how hold works already.

Note that now we would have the Kick Out option available.

The red X by the nearby defender is there because they've tried to perform an action - a failed tackle on us - and can't do anything else for the rest of this turn.

On 'tackling from behind' - behind in this case means away from your goal, away from the direction of play. If you are not 'even with the ball' or further up the pitch, it is considered a tackle from behind. If we are tackled from below or the left in this case, it is not from behind; it would have to come from the right. Weather also has impacts on play. This is normal weather conditions, but there can also be hot conditions (increasing how fast players fatigue), rain (increased chance of fouls), or snow (skills are harder to use). Those are uncommon, but we will have to occasionally deal with them.

The opposing midfielder Dougherty approaches from the right and attempts the Slide Tackle skill. It fails, and I am injured. He receives a red card, being sent off for the rest of the match and his team will play a man short for the remainder. The red card booking also reduces their rolls for all actions in the rest of the match by 15%.

And thus have the Fates treated me. I have become a statistic, left to ponder what might have been for the rest of my days ...

We fade to black ...

And so ends the Tutorial. From here it returns to the game setup process. This does place the age of my in-game persona however at probably late 30s.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2022 02:50

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

If anyone has an opinion on Country but hasn't held forth yet, we have a tie between Germany and Italy. I could always flip a coin, but since this is the one choice we can't change later, I'll leave it open another couple of days to make sure there are no decisive votes.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2022 17:33

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

Management Overview

In the upper-right of the main sim screen and many others is the 'Key Resources' area. Club Name, Logo, Flag, ? links to the help, but it's the four icons and numbers that we are concerned with now.

- Glory is the red flag. We will start with no Glory. None whatsoever. We will be Gloryless. From the game:

FTG posted:

this is an indication of your authority and influence. You can use your authority to motivate footballers before matches, carry out individual training sessions and invite more experienced assistant coaches. Glory gives you the ability to influence those aspects of club management where money has no power

In the long-term, you would have to be wildly successful to accumulate more Glory than you can use. It's possible, but only at the very highest level. I view it as being the overall most important resource, although it becomes more critical later and won't matter much to us in the early years.

- Money is the coin with the dollar sign on it. It isn't hard to understand. As shown here, we will also start out with none of it. To extend players contracts or upgrade facilities at the club we need to turn a profit, and the bigger the better. If we become successful in the Premier League we will eventually get to a point where we are effectively printing money, but we will need a lot of it to reach that point and we'll need all we can get for most of the journey. I'll refer to this as Euros probably.

For both Money and Glory, purchases are done almost exclusively on an up-front basis. You either have enough to buy something, or you don't. The full price for player contracts is due and paid at the moment the contract is signed.
There are no 'maintenance fees' or degredation in facilities, the world isn't dynamic in that way. Facilities at rival clubs will remain indefinitely as they were set at the start of the campaign. Climbing the ladder will require us to manage both resources well. It is possible to get into a situation where you don't have enough to even maintain your current roster and go into a tailspin. If you haven't built a reasonable foundation, it can even be unrecoverable.

Let's not do that.

- Below Glory is the Stadium. At start, 100 fans can attend our home matches. Even if we get more fans than that - which we don't have to worry about happening for quite some time - only 100 will be paying customers until we upgrade this. 'Stadium' is a hilariously pretentious term for where we will be playing a miserable excuse for football, but if we do manage to expand the fanbase then we need to upgrade the grounds to accomodate them, or we'll lose out on potential income.

- Fans are the blue jersey. Because there's no accounting for taste, 50 people will currently pay to attend our matches. This is always an accurate number with no variance. If we win regularly, it will begin to rise. If we lose regularly, it will decline - but never below 15. I'm assuming that's the 'die-hard friends and family' level, the people we know personally who attend because it would feel like a betrayal if they didn't and we'd pack their bags and take them on a guilt trip otherwhise.

Cup results, and esp. being promoted and relegated between leagues will have an even more dramatic effect. Hard-earned fan loyalty can go in the tank in a hurry if you tank too badly. This is important to keep in mind when selling a star player.

Inbound transfers will not be a thing in this run, but it's worth knowing how it works in case someone is interested in a more 'standard' playthrough. The personal list here will always have at least five names - you can unlock more and younger ones with upgrades to club scouting. The Extended List requires a cash payment for the service, international scouting you have to progress further as a manager to be able to use, and the wishlist is just your basic 'I want to keep an eye on this player' feature.

The Squad screen is the most used screen in FTG. It is the nerve center of your operations. The most brilliant coach or manager accomplishes not a darned thing without players. There's also sections for Club and Coach if we are looking at our club and also contract & training details and so on. For purposes of having a good variety of players to demonstrate though, we're looking at Third-League Bristol FC in a fairly mature save.

The pitch on the right allows us to move players around as we see fit. This is the Tactical View which I pretty much always use; there's also the Default View which has jerseys with numbers instead of the symbols if you prefer that. In general though, we'll note that defenders are placed anywhere in the blue area; keepers obviously in goal; midfielders in the yellow area; forwards in the red. Green is reserved for our opponent. We can click and drag players around to arrange our starting formation, and on match days we'll see the formation they are going to start with and match up against that as best we are able.

What we really want to focus on here though are the players themselves. There's a number of elements to look at, and this will be a general overview. We will break out details and specifics as they come up and become relevant with our club.

- Class. This is the general position the player is trained to play. There's four basic categories: Keeper (purple), Defense (blue), Midfield (yellow), and Forward (Red). The players in green towards the bottom? Well, they're not trained in any position yet. Sadly we'll get to know players like that far too well.

- Name I hope I don't need to explain what a name is.

- Giftedness Added by the first expansion, this doesn't have a column but is indicated by the stars on the player's name 'panel'. For example, Fielder has two. Many others have one. MacNeil has one, but it's empty/not filled in. That's a Giftedness of 0. The range is 0-5. It's basically a cap on their potential; lower Giftedness means a player earns less experience and therefore improves slower once they reach a certain level. They will also have lower maximum rolls on their skills; you can see here Fielder has a maximum of 8 in the Skills column - while the others are at 6 or 4.

- Attributes Acc for Accuracy (shooting on goal); Pas for Passing (kicking the ball to a teammate); Def for Defense (stopping passes or shots by the opposition, tackling to gain possession); and Ctr for Control (maintaining possession once you have the ball, dribbling through opponents).

Accuracy is the primary attribute for Forwards, Passing for Midfielders, Defense for Keeper & Defenders. Control can be useful for all positions, and is always useful for Keepers and some variants of Forwards, but it's sort of in it's own category as a 'universal attribute' that's often useful but rarely of first importance. Of course, you don't have to follow that approach - thinking outside the box and developing a player in a 'non-standard' way can be rewarded if done intelligently. If done foolishly ... well, you'll just end up with a player who isn't very useful and I might end up consigning them to the pine pony.

- Level. Players gain levels when they have enough match experience, and their attributes increase. So think of Level here as 'general indicator of how good the attributes are overall'. One aspect of control over development is the training focus, an attribute that the player will be guaranteed to get at least one point in out of the three gained every time they level up . This is part of how you can shape your player in the direction you wish.

Players will tend to keep to the same distribution of attributes, all other things being equal. This is known as 'Fate', but you could consider it their 'shape' or whatever other term you might prefer. Look at the two green players at the bottom. Lappin has more passing than all other three attributes combined, so he's the kind of player that needs to be in a role where his passing is valuable, because he can't do much of anything else. Left to his own, he will continue to have most attributes he gains go to passing. You might want to train them in passing and make that even more prominent, or train on another attribute and shore up a weakness. By contrast, McLeary is nearly equal in accuracy and passing, also possessing some control. If he is played in a role that heavily relies on one attribute, he's going to be in trouble. Training McLeary you'd probably want to emphasize either accuracy or passing and place him in a role where both of them would be useful. As we get into classes in more practical detail, we'll get a better picture of how to do that.

There is also a different kind of experience, 'specialization experience', that is used to unlock training in different classes, allow players to begin training skills & talents, and shape their development and value in other ways. That's where probably the most important decisions come in building a player into a vital member of the squad.

- Age. Main points to know here are that players have a more difficult time dealing with fatigue once they reach 30, and they can't be re-signed to a contract once they hit 34. So if you haven't done it before, at 30 it's time to start thinking about how much longer they should be with the club. The selling price for players also decreases with age - a young prospect with the same skillset as an older one is more valuable because clubs will get more mileage out of them.

-Skills. Players can have up to two Skills or Talents, all maxing out at Level 3. The difference between a Skill and a Talent is that Talents are passive - the player just does them on their own when appropriate. In the Tutorial example that I discussed, Long Pass is a skill, Interception is a talent that counters Long Pass.

There's a lot under Club info to cover later; a Trophies Room where all of our hardware won (or lack thereof) will be displayed; graphs of historical performance, a number of stats to peruse, H2H results against any opponent, we can change our club logo/colors/uniform at any time, etc. Photos of the current roster are another cool feature. But all of that is best explored when we've actually got our club up and running and some history built up IMO. But I will show one example of how the stats can be useful:

This is an Action Zones display. We can see most of our Assists coming from midfield, the most shots coming from straight on outside of the penalty area but not scoring anything from there, most of our goals coming from close in as you might expect.

This is from a simmed season, a human would likely be a lot different, and it will also vary based on your tactics. The aggregate data though is good enough to give valuable tools for adjusting your approach.

Now for the Club Upgrades - this is where we make those investments in infrastructure and facilities. These are permanent, strategic decisions. As shown here, we will start once more with not a darned thing. Each upgrade increases our rating by a half-star; there are 10 in each category, of escalating cost. Not listed here is the important fact that Youth Academy upgrades also boost the Giftedness of youth players - this is the main factor, but playing level on the continent and country ranking also impact it. To start with, we'll get 90% 0-stars no matter where we are. There's a remote chance of getting 2-3 star Giftedness but it's very unlikely. This will be by far the most important and prioritized upgrade for us - filling the pipeline with better players.

Youth Work opens up the possibility, once we've learned how to do it through Coach experience, to spend Glory for requesting a certain type of player, or to be able to choose from multiple options for our youth intake. The cost of this scales with the level of our youth academy.

The Training Grounds section and the coach upgrades here allow us to boost how much improvement players gain from each match.

Finally, Scout Centre we are not going to care about since we're not going to be buying players, but the Medical Centre is not wisely ignored. Career-ending injuries as such or permanent ability reductions such as we suffered are not a feature, but losing your top goal-scorer or a key defender for half a year - that you are still paying them for - is not an easy pill to swallow. Eventually this can get very OP, with the ability to eliminate long-term injuries through the Chief Physician. And there's another sub-screen for improving recovery time as well.

Indie games often suffer from a lack of work on the in-game help, but that's one of the strong points of FTG in my opinion. This is a game that wants you to understand how to play it. Three-tier system including some focused tutorials the Tests section - on implementing various tactics.

There's also browser-like navigation with links to other relevant topics and returning to previous articles conveniently. Here I went to Sporting Anger and then linked to Aggressive Tackle, so I can go back if I wish. I would say 90-95% of the mechanics questions I've had were answered somewhere in here. A lot of work clearly went into this.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2022 17:54

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

Competitions

For our last bit of overview before we dive in, we'll look at the full range of the task ahead of us.

Tables shows us the standings for all the competitions. We can also view the rules - there are 11 tiebreakers if different clubs are tied on points - top performers in the listed competition, and completed matches in the current season. The star ratings by the clubs are a sort of power ranking; they change gradually as you win, lose, or draw matches, not as a result of players improving, being signed, or being sold. The red flags on the left are the amount of the Glory awarded for finishing the season in those positions - there's also a cash reward for finishing in a good enough position.

Competitive Structure

The general 'European Model' is used across the board. All countries have the same competitive structure for their domestic leagues; five tiers as shown. They have increasing numbers of clubs in each; Amateur League has 8, Third League 12, Second League 14, First League 16, Premier League 18. I can change the names if people are interested in that to match our chosen nation, but that would be cosmetic only - they will still function the same. They all have a double round-robin format, one match at home and on the road against every other club in the league. The top three in each are promoted, bottom three relegated, except of course that you can't promote from the Premier or be relegated from the Amateur. 3 points for a win, one for a draw.

Then there are domestic cups. Every country has a Prestige Cup and a National Cup. Both have 34 clubs in each. Premier and First League clubs participate in the National Cup, lower three leagues in the Prestige Cup. Advancement in these is on a knockout tournament basis, each round has a home leg and an away leg, winner determined on aggregate goals scored. Penalty shootouts resolve ties, and they are annoying as I'm sure we'll experience.

For the international play elements, we need to take a look at this Countries table. This is from a save in Asia; Europe has about triple this many countries. On the right though, we see that 4-6 clubs from each nation are competing in the continental cups. In Europe, the top nations send 7, possibly as many as 8, but 4 is always the minimum. The clubs that particpate are based on the previous year's standings. Points are awarded for their performance in these cups and reflected here on a 5-year rolling basis.

In other words, if a nation's top Premier League clubs do well in the continental cups, the nation's ranking will rise in the continent and more spots can open up for other clubs to participate. Do poorly, and a nation can lose available slots to another nation. This works in general, but there is some funkiness in this part of the game; sometimes it appears that a nation will have a spot more or less than they should.

All continents have two cups; the lower one, in the case of Europe the EFA, will have the lower two-thirds of entrants. The elite cup, European Cup for us, has the better one-third. All nations are guaranteed at least one entrant in the higher-level cup. The continental cups work on a 'pool' system. Clubs are divided into pools of four team that play double round-robin against other clubs in the pool. Then the top two advance to the knockout rounds, while the bottom two are eliminated. So there's more room for error in the pool phase.

This is an example of the current Premier League table for a game that's over a decade in progress. Norway is a mid-level nation, presently ranked 19th in Europe. In general, all of the bottom-half nations will look like this. They have the one European Cup slot, Drammen FC highlighted in green. The next three slots are highlighted in blue, and they will have admission to the EFA.

This is Portugal, currently 6th. They are looking at six positions; three in the EFA, three in the European Cup. The different shading of each color indicates playing in the qualifying rounds or making it directly into the pool phase of each cup.

Finally, there is the Club World Cup which is pretty much a throw-in event. The winner of the top continental cup from each continent (Asia, Europe, America, Africa) the previous year will meet in a four team tournament. Starting in the Amateur League, we'll have at least 16 matches a year - two for the Prestige Cup and 14 in the league. A club at the top of the Premier League winning everything in the quadruple - Premier League, National Cup, European Cup, Club World Cup - will have on the order of 60 matches a year with all the associated issues of fixture density, squad rotation, etc.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2022 18:56

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

Club Intro

It's still a close vote, but I'm calling it for Germany 6-5 over Italy. I was going to pick Germany if it was tied, so the result seems unlikely to change.

Club Name, abbreviation, and logo are seen here. All can be changed, only playing in Germany is set in stone. I think I'm going to be calling us 'the club' or 'our club' or 'Club B' or something instead of typing that all out every time. Thanks a lot for that.

On the logo, the idea suggested of a teal crab I initially thought was ridiculous. But then I considered it a bit more, and thought - 'Yes! It's ridiculous! Let's go with that.' I didn't want to make it a total clown car though. The idea of this logo is that it starts off reasonably well. The shield is solid - it's not too simple but not too extravagant, looks like some thought went into it ... and then somebody stuck this crab on top of it for no reason. It's as if you really tried to come up with something good, and that's still the best you could do?

A few more options on this theme;

This one I particularly found amusing in the crab so absurdly large compared to the lions along the side. If people like any of these other ones better, I'll make a switch.

In keeping with the same general idea, the uniforms have I think a decent design but the the thinner stripes of the jersey don't quite match with the shorts. Also, it's like they wanted all three colors of the German flag but they were told they could only have two in the uniform, so the socks and boots use the opposite color because we're using all three whether you like it or not.

First one is home, second one away.

Goalkeeper. There was a suggestion of using pink and lime green, and I put that in the main uniforms but ... it was just too silly. I thought maybe it was too silly here also, but then I looked up some real pictures of keepers. Some of them just have different shades and designs of the same color, but then there are some like this ...

Copyrighted image, so credit to Justin Tallis, Getty Images, printed in the LA Times. This is Jonathon Bond, and not the only example of basically deciding to use half the colors in the rainbow. By that comparison, there's nothing 'too much' about what we've got.

Our initial motley collection of 'Punchable Faces'. None of these are the players you will control; you'll have entirely new players from the Youth Academy to punch.

The Trophy Room. We don't have any, naturally. This room will stay the same except for those pedestals. From right to left, they are used for the five domestic leagues in ascending order, and the four cups in ascending order. We'll be able to see what how many times and in what year we won each trophy - third or better gets one for the leagues - once we, you know, actually do that.

I won't go through these every year, but our Assistant has a few messages for us to consider:

There are two transfer windows each year, one at the start of the year from mid-July through the end of August; the other for the second half of the year after the Winter Break, covering the month of February. Along with dealing with player contracts, this is also when we get new players from the Youth Academy, one at the start of each transfer window.

Only the worst 4 out of 34 in each domestic cup play in the qualifying round. We're considered one of the bottom 4 of the bottom cup. Just in case we were wondering where we ranked in the grand scheme.

Annual reminder that we're part of a country with a grand and successful tradition. One that we are actively detracting from at every turn right now. I also enjoy the matter-of-fact way she says 'Advance to the Premier League' as if it were as simple as wishing it to be so.

The Amateur League. Note that only one other club, Oberhausen, is so low that along with us they don't even merit half a star of power ranking. A less prestigious country would have three no-star amateur clubs to begin. But hey, the length of our club name puts them all to shame! The standings are worth noting for another reason; mark my words, this placing is the highest we'll reach this inaugural season.

Next up, we'll get to know our starting roster and make some decisions on what to do.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2022 19:46

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

Our beginning roster and formation. Notice that all of them just have green circles. In the squad list, the only reason for the color-coding is that they are currently assigned to play forward, midfield, etc. Don't mistake that for an indication of actual ability.

All are Level 1, the absolute minimum, which means they have 20 attribute points spread across the four categories. Before we disrespect them too much for that, we should consider that at 3 attribute points/level, the rock-bottom of 1 across the boad would actually be just below a Level of -4. Which is more like where I and probably a good amount of the people reading this would be. I basically figure this team was assembled by going around to local rec. leagues and finding the best players willing to join the club.

All are also at 0 Giftedness. This means that their Skills have a maximum roll of 4 and will be very ineffective. It also means they will gain only 60% of the normal experience at Level 5, 30% at Level 10, 10% at Level 15. No matter how much time and training they are given, they will always be terrible by professional standards.

Everyone is 30 or over. This is one of the features of Hard difficulty. The fatigue penalty for everyone 30+ is in force, and within a few years none of these players will be on the team. There's no building for the long-term future with this group.

Also notice the Class is ? for all of them. From the game text: "Zero-class footballers possess only a basic understanding of the game. They are equally poor in any role." More specifically, they can move 1 tile in any direction, have no preference for a particular position on the pitch as they haven't advanced enough to meaningfully tell the difference, can't react to anything happening in adjacent tiles, can't learn skills or talents, and suffer a 50% penalty to all attributes when playing in goal.

They Really Suck.

The Contracts view is very important here. Contract length on the far right is one of the kindnesses we've been shown at the start here; we have a year at least for all the players. For all transfer window except this first one, we would have players to decide on extending and also would have a new youth player coming in. There's no option to extend these deals yet, because that can only be done with less than a year remaining. That means with each player we'll have two transfer window to decide to extend them before they leave the club. In the next transfer window, we'll look at how contract extensions work.

Value is the selling price of a player. 6-9 Euros for all of these. One metric I'm going to track for the overall financial health/sustainability of the club is the total of our money on hand and value of all the players on the roster. Right now that stands at 140. To give an idea of how sad that is, only one other Amateur club is below a thousand, the rest are into five figures, and favorite Sinsheim FC is over 100k. At the top level, individual players will easily reach eight figures on their own.

Value is determined by the player's skill-set; skills, specialization, level, giftedness - but also by the Interest level and Age. Every year on their birthdate, a player's value declines. The older they are, the more it declines; you can sell players up to age 33, but practically speaking it is always better to sell them at 32, sometimes earlier. Interest can be Low, Medium, and High.

We're not going to sell anyone right now, but if we tried this would come up. You get one offer for Low interest, two for Medium, three for High. . It's also possible to get offers for a higher amount but with half of the payment delayed till the next transfer period, or for a lower amount of money but some Glory thrown in. It's always possible to sell a player - there will always be a buyer.

Even more importantly, with Medium interest the value will be several times higher than Low. High interest isn't as much of a boost but still does add a fair amount to the price. Interest is based on how often a player plays, and also whether they are noted as one of the stars of the game when they play. So it's important to regularly play anybody that we might want to be selling soon.

Typically you will also be selling to other clubs in your league, esp. at first; our players won't be good enough for higher leagues, and there is no lower league for them to go to. Practically speaking this feels kind of strange because you're basically making the competition better - and the more money you get for the player, the better they are so your squad gets worse relative to them. But it's also very necessary. Esp. at first, our main source of income will be selling players.

Specialization is where we guide our players down a specific path to a more productive future. Players earn specialization experience by playing a specific area of the pitch during a match. They'll earn some just for being there, 5 points if they play the entire match, but they'll earn more for being involved in actions. The 'SL' column stands for Specialization Level. All of our players being zero-class, they all have 0. Note the tool-tip telling us Schlomer has 15 of the 70 points he needs to become a midfielder. As is typical for these kinds of RPG elements, both attribute levels and specialization levels cost larger and larger amounts the more of them you acquire.

This is the Specialization Tree. We'll get into this more later, but it's just here to illustrate that there is more going on than just determining your player's class. That's how it starts - we need to get a class for each player, and then a more specialized class, you can see where it branches at the bottom of the Specialist tree - but after that you can choose to go to different sections and options open up a lot more. There's also a Utility Tree below Dedication when appropriate. Those of you with players in the game, you'll be seeing this screen a lot when making decisions about your players development. It will probably be the most important one.

The first choice in any players development is to choose a base class. There are the four options, one for each of the four position groups.

- Amateur Goalkeeper (G)

Must be in the goal to receive G experience. Amateur Goalkeepers gains a +10% to Control and Defence, but suffer a -85% to Defence if not in goal. In other words, get by the net and stay there.

Any class that isn't a goalkeeper has a -50% to Defence if they are in goal. Basically you always want a keeper, and you always want them in goal and nowhere else.

- Amateur Defender (D)

Intercepts shots on goal that pass through adjacent tiles. Amateur Defenders possess a modicum of awareness and anticipation, and can compensate to a degree if the defense is out of position.

- Amateur Midfielder (M)

Moves two tiles without the ball. Amateur Midfielders are more mobile, allowing them to adapt to changing tactical situations.

- Amateur Forward (F)

Able to act after an unsuccessful shot on goal. Also, Motivation lasts 7 actions instead of the usual 6.

All of these also have the ability to begin training Skills at a limited level; one Skill, and only up to Level 1 at this point, but it's a start. Also, just because you start someone as a midfielder or forward doesn't mean they have to stay there. A common approach that actually has an achievement attached is to turn a defender into a defensive midfielder.

A couple of caveats with that though. You need to train them in adjacent positions; that is, you can't turn a forward directly into a defender, or vice-versa. They'd need to train in a midfield position, and then into one on the other end of the pitch. Also, Goalkeepers aren't eligible for cross-training. Training in another position means you can't be a keeper, and keepers can't turn into another position. You either start out becoming a keeper, or you aren't one.

The options are much more varied once a player has achieved their Base/Amateur Class, but we'll deal with that once we get there.

Now What?

This would be the point where I'd normally suggest some possible approaches to be voted on, let all of you propose your own, at the very least decide who to sell/extend contracts on, and so forth. For the first few years I'm going to handle that myself. A couple reasons:

- I want to get a bunch of you who are on the waiting list in the team with players so you can have some 'skin in the game' and a reason to stick around and be active. To do that, I'd like to move through the opening years at a somewhat accelerated pace.

- This part needs to be handled with a specific approach for us to be successful.

I'm hoping that by the time we have a critical mass of new players on the team, it will be clear enough how everything works and all of you as coaches can take over on a lot of the decision-making.

Our #1 goal right now has nothing to do with actually winning matches - we need to maximize how much money we can make, most of that coming from selling some of our starting group of players. To get the most out of them, we need to sell as many as possible at age 32. We'll get more from the younger ones, as they have more time to improve before they reach that point. The youngest are currently just over 30, so that gives us a hard endpoint on this phase; in 2.5 years time, the second transfer window of '24, we will be selling the last of them.

Between now and then we will get 5 players from our youth academy. We can't sell players if we don't have enough to field a full starting XI, which means we can't sell everyone - we need to hang on to six players to combined as dead weight with the youth. For that reason, I'm dividing our initial group of 18 players into two groups; the oldest 6 in the dead weight category, and other 12 to be sold for as much money as possible. Those 12 will get as much of the playing time as possible.

This is our general formation then. We got a bit fortunate with the starting squad; 6 players at 32, only 4 at 31, and 8 at 30. Everybody is in the position that they already had a bit of specialization in, except for Brummern - only a single point in defence, he becomes the second midfielder so we aren't too imbalanced. I'm not going to get into the particulars of most of these players, because frankly they aren't going to be around long enough to make it worth the effort.

With that settled, it's time to move forward and embarass ourselves on the field!

Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Oct 14, 2022

# ¿ Oct 14, 2022 00:38

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

PotatoManJack posted:

Super happy you took my suggestion of Pink+Lime Green - it looks great on the keeper.

I like the round option with the little yellow curved bubble around the crab if that makes sense.

Loving this LP so far - keep up the good work!

Thanks! I will try to do so.

Appreciate all the logo input. I'm keeping it as is for now just to let more feedback come in, but it looks like it'll be changing. Pretty split opinions so far though so changing to what, I will wait and see.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2022 03:19

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

The First Match

You never get a second chance to introduce yourself with a proper faceplant.

For this one only, I'm going to walk through the whole process - I'll be more selective about what I show in the future.

The main screen that you see when loading up save. This is where we advance time. We can see a month at a time via the Calendar, click on any of the days to see all of the matches taking place that day, etc. The airplane on the 17th tells us it's a road match, and the icon that our opponent is Koblenz. They are a 0.5-star club, roughly average by Amateur League standards.

We click Next to advance.

Day of the match arrives. It's been three whole days, and we've managed not to burn the club down. Head-to-head shows nothing now of course, but it can be interesting to look at after a few years in.

The weather shows as normal. We'd also get an email from our Assistant notifying us if it wasn't. Formation must always, always, always be your first stop.

Arguably the largest advantage the player has in the match play of FTG is the ability to see the opponents formation and set up to respond to it. When we reach the stage of having competent players, we'll often be able to take advantage of this.

Koblenz has an adequate amateur-level midfield and forwards, but only one defender and no keeper. We can mouse over their players on the formation as here, and see what their attributes and skills are. Exotic formations are definitely possible, but here ours are actually mirroring theirs. There's logic to this 5-2-3 system; basically just throwing lots of bodies at the defense. The forwards for both sides can't get into the penalty area for a reasonably close-ranged shot without challenging the defense. Making them shoot through us from distance as much as possible is really the best we can do with the players we have. We can still make some tweaks here; positioning our weakest defenders away from their best forwards, and the opposite on the other end.

The Manager isn't any better than his players at this point. I will be gaining experience as well. I literally can't yell at everyone for being losers. I haven't advanced that far yet. So much for the Motivation section, but I think this proposed statement here is quite appropriate for the squad.

The key players here are ... not always the best selections. And we definitely caught Gerhardt at an odd moment. We can change uniforms if we are so inclined; Simulate uses the same AI decisions as if we played out the match. Watch is useful if you are new to the game or just want to see how the AI might play in your formation - it can sometimes show ideas you might not have known about.

For matches, you'll probably notice a hopefully-small drop in screenshot quality. That's because I can't save mid-match or pause during the opponent's action, so I'm taking screenshots from video. Open to suggestions on how to do it better, but for now I'm just doing it this way and will probably turn up the settings on the recording to try to improve the quality a bit more.

This is similar, but slightly better, than where we will play our home matches. Amateur league contests look to me like the clubs are renting, if even that, a field from a local park or community center that isn't occupied at the time.

This is bad news right away. Routine pass up to one of their forwards. When they don't even bother to try to get around or through your defensive line and just blast a shot from distance, you know they are utterly unconcerned about your defense.

That '0 Wk' by Schmidinger is particularly horrifying. Wk shows up when an action is an automatic success or failure. Ewen can't roll below a 4. Schmidinger, with the 50% penalty in goal because he's zero-class, can't roll above a 4. He's literally physically incapable of stopping any shot attempt from this distance by a forward of Ewen's abilities.

He dives ineptly, but the foregone result is confirmed. Notice the +2D and the +3G? Those are Specialization experience points. As mentioned, you get 5 just for showing up and playing the whole match. You get 2 more for failing against an opposing player in an action. You get 5 if you succeed. For doing something unopposed, like the pass that got the ball to Ewen on the kickoff, or just moving/dribbling somewhere, you get 1. Why 3 then for Schmidinger? Because anyone in goal always gets 50% more specialization experience for actions they are involved in. This whole 'getting more xp for success than failure' is an important concept in FTG that is used consistently.

We have just given up our first goal, four minutes into the season. It won't be the last.

Our turn to kickoff. In the formation screen when you set up, you may have noticed the ball icon. The kickoff man will be the player closest to the midline but behind it. It goes to a player in the middle before the wings, and to the left before the right. This is not adjustable, you just sort of accept it and make your formation accordingly.

Brummern could do this angled pass to Fried, the same type of pass Koblenz used. As with them, it would be unopposed. The green highlight is the range he can use normal Pass on; the amber tiles between Brummern and Fried indicate the tiles the ball will pass through. That's where a defender would need to be, or have the range to intercept on, in order to make an attempt to prevent this pass.

I am not in Making The Safe Play mode here though. I am in Farming Specialization Points mode. I want an action opposed by another player, so that I'll get the 2 if I fail, 5 if I succeed, not the 1 for just doing anything.

This will probably fail, and would be a bad idea under normal 'trying to win the match' circumstances. We have zero chance of winning the match. This is the only action Brummern can take to get more specialization.

Their midfielder rolled a maximum of 8, because of course he did and because he didn't need it. So now Brummern can't take any actions the rest of my turn, and they have the ball. I can move Rossen over, or a forward back, and try to tackle ... but chances of foul/carding are there, it would be only one spec. point for the move. I do something else.

This looks, and is, exceptionally dumb in most regards. I'm swapping positions for two defenders. Then, with my final action, I swap them right back to where they were. I've accomplished nothing but using a bit of their energy ... or have I? Each of them gets the +1D each time they move. It's a safe 2 points per action.

I feel like that guy at the family gathering who is constantly rearranging the pieces that are on their 'home row' and they aren't allowed to move yet in Sorry or whatever board game. But it works.

One of the amusing bits here, in true Kerbal/Sims fashion, is watching the reactions of your players when someone scores. The game has proceeded in identical fashion now to the point where Koblenz is ahead 4-0 after 34 mins in the first half (actual gametime passed is like 2 mins or something). We have yet to complete a pass. They have yet to not score on every possession as if we weren't even on the field. And yet we've got players on the field, holding their head in their hands in utter disbelief. Koblenz's keeper has their hands in the air like they just won the World Cup (national teams aren't in the game by the way, they are a planned-for-future feature though). They're embracing, we're just walking around the pitch forlorn.

It's obviously a feature that just triggers with any score and assumes a normal circumstance where goals aren't that common, most matches are competitive, etc. But this kind of rout just makes me chuckle with each successive entirely predicable score generating the same level of response. Sometimes there are other animations, like players kicking the dirt in disgust.

Fourth time's the charm for Brummern. Mark it down, this is the first time we've successfully gotten a pass through the defense. Note the +5M for his trouble.

Posch, our forward with the best control, tries to dribble closer against their weakest defender. He fails. But at least he got to do something. It was a heck of an effort too. Rolled a max 9, but Wooge got a 10.

4% possession. Four percent.

I do the only useful thing I can think of, switching midfielders around so that Rossen can get in on some of the kickoff action. He's actually a little better at it, possessing the sky-high passing rating of 6 compared to Brummern's meager 5.

Whenever the other team makes a substitution - the standard rules of only 3 substitutes per match used, 7 players eligible for them are enforced - you are told so you can review the formation and make changes if need be. I have to think the devs had fun coming up with stupidly dramatic poses like the one Froebel on the right is demonstrating.

That moment when your keeper is motivated and still has no chance to prevent the score.

But wait! At 82 minutes, Posch actually manages a successful dribble for the first time. We're only trailing 8-0, is it possible we could score here?

Possible, yes. Likely, no. He's actually good enough to beat the waste-of-space in goal, but Koblenz's one adequate defender Schiff will almost certainly intercept the shot. And he does. His roll of 12 laughs at Posch's perfect - for his capabilities - attempt of 6. Literally doubling it.

After a pathetic lofted pass attempt fails - Schiff literally rolled a 1 on it and the Decreased RNG doesn't apply to actions that aren't made against another player - they hold it up on their side of midfield. This is another first. Due to Posch's 'heroics', this is the first - and in this game, only - opponent possession in which they did not score.

One of our forwards came in from below - not behind the play - and tried a tackle. It was never going to succeed, roll of 3 against 32, but I was hoping for just a failed tackle. Nope. Blatant shove in the back for the animation, have yourself a bit of history F Kimmel. You are the first club player to be carded. His next yellow card will result in an automatic 1-match suspension; they are reset at the end of the competition for that year, but this is only the first match. I'm thinking his odds of avoiding a suspension aren't great. I should have just kept doing Swap Position.

That gave them just enough time for one final score.

We doubled our possession to 8% and got a shot on goal! So ... yay?!?

By the way, these first matches if you just have the AI controlling everything? They'll try to stall a bit perhaps, pass around the defense and such, we'd get less specialization XP and still lose 5-0, 7-0, something in that range. It's not like there's any viable path to victory just yet.

Now it's time to get to one of the parts of the UI that annoys me. After each match there are a bunch of click-through screens. They all have useful information on them, but you can't skip any of them or save during this process. It's a required click-through regardless of whether you are actually interested in what they have to tell you after this particular match or not.

Ready? Me neither. Here we go:

This is way oversized just to have something on the screen, added with the rest of the manager elements in the Manager's Journey expansion. The common theme for experience is seen here though; the amount I get is based on the result of the match and the level of competition. Both as bad as it is possible to get here, but you still learn some from every match. When a new Coach Level is reached, I will have a choice from three perks/upgrades to choose from. Some of these unlock new management mechanics. It's definitely important to consider what I choose. .

Now for the player side, attribute experience first. We get 9 xp each player for losing in the Amateur Leagues, more for a draw, even more for a win. Also notice the three key players, with the top one getting the most bonus xp, and then descending in order. Scoring goals is naturally the best way to get yourself on this list. In this case, you're looking at the three players who performed successful actions against Koblenz. Of any kind. In low-scoring games, midfielders and to a lesser extend defenders tend to do well here as there can often be a lot of tackles, passes, possession changes.

By the way, these few players getting to Level 2? Yeah, that almost quintupled the total value of our roster. There's also just something about the three featured players standing there in their 'glory poses' after getting beat 9-0.

Specialization experience. Some of the players really spiking here. Another match like that and we'll have ourselves a goalkeeper. You can also see some unevenness - I can look at this and think about how to even out the gains for the forwards and defenders possibly. If the gains here max out the bar, a new SL is gained and the Info button turns to Upgrade. That means it's time for a new Specialization Level to be chosen, and you can't advance the game past this date - you can leave this screen, but it will send you back if you want to advance time - before choosing it.

For right now, the success or failure of our matches are measured by this screen more than they are the scoreboard.

Income. What did we gain ... or in terms of fans, possibly lose ... as a result of this match? We get no ticket sales because it was a road match. The sponsor is pre-chosen for us because it's the first year, but starting next year we will be selecting our sponsor from three choices. A base amount just per match is a good deal for clubs like ours that expect to lose a lot, and we don't get the victory amount because ... obvious. The next section is Glory. If we win, we get Glory based on how much we won by, competition bonus if any - above Amateur League you always get something here - and getting a result against a stronger club also adds some. The Ranking in League for both money and glory is only used after the final league match of the year.

New Fans can be positive or negative. It was just one match, so they are patient with us. For now. If you get a win after a bad streak, that won't make it shoot up either. You kind of have to demonstrate a trend.

But we have money now. Not merely more money - we actually have some.

Along with the other scores, we could delve into analytics, stats, action zones and the like. Most players I think don't pay enough attention to this, but there's no use right now. Three of the four matches in the season opener were blowouts. Oberhausen and Wuppertal were bad enough to give up six tallies each. That can give us some hope.

Most matches won't be nearly one-sided, overall scores tend to be pretty realistic unless you jack up the length of matches. For whatever reason, the rosters at the start of the campaign are not as good as the ones you'll see after a decade or two. In a 'standard' run, the idea is do everything you can to get promoted as fast as possible and get ahead of the curve, reaching at least Second League if not First before the competitiveness starts to take hold.

We won't have that option.

Team Of The Round. Top perfomers, 'Best XI' for the competition the match that was just completed is in. Getting players on this list adds New Fans as shown. The 'Glory for Fan Favourites' is based on having a player on the list who is also a Fan Favourite, which is a Specialization upgrade we'll look at later. Shockingly, in a 9-0 defeat they didn't think any of our players worthy.

Scrolling down to see more details about what club had the most players in the team, how the players that were selected did in their matches, etc. This is a nice report but also tends to be a very click-through one after you've done a couple dozen matches. How many Fans and Glory did I get? Jack diddly squat again? Cool, thanks, moving on.

Ahh, that's more like it. We feel so much more comfortable down there. Next up is a road trip to Emden. We are a hair better than we were in this match with the levels our players have gained ... but until we get some base classes in at a minimum, I don't expect much improvement in our results. We'll be checking in again when we reach the point, probably in a couple matches, of getting our first Class upgrade. There'll be :words:

about Skills and Classes at that point.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2022 03:53

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

I don't know exactly how FM works. I haven't played it in years. If you mean an all-in-one kind of thing, there isn't. It couldn't be a patch because that would require licensing. On the mod side, FTG doesn't work that way. Mods are done on a country-by-country basis, not as one big package. There are a lot of those on the Steam Workshop, but nothing like an organized 'here are all the updated assets for Year X' situation. Part of the reason for that is the structure just being rigid - you can't change the number of clubs in a league and play a normal game - you have to have a 'sandbox' game for that (one of the first screenshots describes what a Sandbox game is). People who make real-world mods often aren't satisfied with having the wrong number of clubs in a league, so a lot of what's out there is sandbox. It has to be either that or putting clubs in the wrong league, omitting some, and so on.

Example: the most popular EFL mod has 116 clubs. The game allows exactly 68 per country for a non-sandbox game. There's no squaring that circle

# ¿ Oct 14, 2022 06:58

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

DragonGem posted:

I got this game a long time ago and sort of enjoying it but it never clicked, probably because I struggled getting good enough players for it to feel like I could do things.

Added you to the list - we have 10 now, almost enough for a full starting squad! If I miss anyone on the waiting list, please yell at me.

For this, it makes sense. The capabilities of the players are quite basic until you upgrade them a ways. It feels simplistic at first ... but it doesn't stay that way.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2022 18:14

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

Skills & 'Advanced' Classes

**Note: The Advanced Class info is kind of dense. I plan on demonstrating how these positions work as we run into them in practice. But it is worth sharing the 'specs' IMO now that we've reached the point of working towards these capabilities. Questions are always good. Just experiment and try different ideas. Have fun with it.

The Embden match was similar; we lost 8-0. No shots for us this time, their roster was similar to Koblenz except for having three decent defenders instead of one. One of their forwards was a high-control player who dribbled into our line - without fear of resistance - to get closer before scoring.

I was able to even out the specialization gains more this time, which was nice; and we have our first Upgrade ready!

The full Specialization screen, it's small but on the right in the Player Profile you can see under Skills or Talents, Schmidinger has none. Also on the left, under Specialization, it doesn't branch off after we take the G to get Amateur Goalkeeper. That's because as mentioned, there's only one option at that point. Keepers are keepers. Other players will have choices. G is the only highlighted option because until the Specialization section is completed, none of the other sections are possible.

After selecting the G upgrade, we get this. There's always some sort of message letting you know how this will help you. And back on the right side of the screen, this has now happened ...

You can't really tell in a screenshot, but that green outline of the circle underneath Skills and Talents is now flashing. Schmidinger can now train a skill! Let's see how that works.

There are always three options here. There are more Skills & Talents than that, 13 in all, but every player has access to three and can eventually train 1-2 of them. There is no exchanging them for ones you would prefer or anything like that - each player can learn some and can't learn others. There is always also one at Maximum, one at Average, and one at Minimum propensity, which governs how long they take to learn.

It so happens that all three of these are good talents for a goalkeeper. Each counters a specific method of scoring. But for our present purposes we really don't care - the main point is to understand that these are the kinds of choices you will face when upgrading skills; luck of the draw in what options are there, and weighing which ones are good for the player you are building, versus how long it will take to learn them.

We just want the fastest option now, because learning a skill will make Schmidinger's sale value higher. The others will take too long and won't finish in time before he's sold. We choose Reaction, the fastest one.

Now, both here and on the main squad screen, we can see the symbol for Reaction and that he's training level 1, and how long it will take; 1 year 4 months. Notice also that his 'extra' specialization points carried over and are now listed under GK - the abbreviation for his next class of Goalkeeper.

In club news, we also lose 8 fans and are down to 42. Something about zero goals scored and 17 conceded in two matches doesn't excite them.

We need to explore the next tier of classes, 'Advanced Classes'. This is a bit complex, but it's quite important and I'll keep this as reference material in Coaches Corner indefinitely. There are two types: Universal and Special classes. I think 'Special' is being used too much though, so I'm going to limit the confusion and call those Focused Classes.

Universal Classes:

- Are notable for their versatility
- Except for Goalkeepers, allow a player to be effective anywhere on the pitch
- Allow the training of two Skills or Talents
- Are not as powerful as a Focused Class in terms of the abilities they provide
- Are a permanent and final choice; you can't be cross-trained from a Universal Class into something else.

Focused Classes:

- Are notable for their powerful abilities, but only within a specific area of the pitch
- Allow the training of only one Skill or Talent
- A player can be cross-trained into as many as three additional Focused Classes, each requiring a specialization level under the Utility section. Cross-training is advised to be done early. Since each successive SL is more costly than the last, and the player will be ineffective until it is completed, a highly cross-trained player is a major investment in specialization poins and also reduced team effectiveness while it is being worked on.

When making this choice, you need to know specifics. First, the Universal Classes simply grow directly out of the Amateur Classes. They can be seen as the final version of them.

- Goalkeepers (GK) increase the bonus of Control & Defense in goal from the 10% for Amateurs to 50%. They also get the same two skills/talents to maximum level allowance that all other Universal Classes have. The penalties for being out of goal remain intact, however - GKs are useless out of the goal.

- Universal Defenders (DF) add the ability to intercept passes on adjacent tiles to the Amateur ability to intercept shots. Aside from training two max-level Skills/Talents, they are otherwhise the same as Amateurs.

- Universal Midfielders (MF) add the Skill/Talent training and the ability to move 2 tiles with the ball; Amateurs can move 2 tiles only without the ball.

- Universal Forwards (FW) add the Skill/Talent training, have a 30% boost to control on the opponents turn, and can move 2 tiles without the ball.

Most players are not fans of Universal Forwards. While I've not tried it much myself, using them in a 'defensive forward' role, where they hold the ball and wait for a better scoring chance on the next turn, seems in theory that it could be useful. This depends a lot of course on whether the opponent has anyone with Slide Tackle nearby.

DF, MF, and FW all gain specialization experience regardless of where they are on the pitch, and retain these abilities in all locations.

There are many more Focused Classes, which exist more in the realm of positives and negatives. This diagram shows the areas where players can gain specialization experience in each:

Starting with the defense, the capabilities of each focused class. For 'wing' classes, the abilities are the same but if you want to play a player on both sides, they need to get a SL in both. If a focused class player leaves the effective area for their class, they also lose the benefits of their class until they return to it.

- Fullback (LD/RD) - Reduce the effectiveness of skills used by nearby (adjacent) opposing players. Specifically, the maximum roll of those skill is reduced by 1 + (skill potential / 2). They can also advance three tiles in a straight line along the flank. If they have possession, there is a chance for opponents to tackle them while doing this at a 70% penalty to the tackler's defense. Fullbacks retain their abilities anywhere along the flanks, but not in the middle of the pitch.

Fullbacks are one of the classes that can easily come in different flavors. They can neutralize some of the most dangerous types of opposing forwards if given high defense. Alternatively, with some investment in control and either passing or the Long Pass/Layoff Pass skills, they can be effective in counterattacking and delivering the ball to an attacking player in time for a scoring opportunity. You could even spread them out into defense, passing, and control for a more balanced player that can do some of each, but not any of them at a particularly high level.

- Sweeper (SW) - Moves automatically in the penalty area just in front of the keeper, attempting to keep themselves between the ball and goal as long as there isn't another player in the way. The Sweeper also retains the amateur defender's ability to intercept shots only on adjacent tiles. Only effective in the three tiles directly in front of the goal.

Sweepers are quite effective esp. in the lower leagues. Their automatic movement can often assure a second player in position to stop a shot on goal before it reaches the keeper. However, deploying one does make it impossible to utilize the offside trap, which depending on the formation may or may not be a good thing.

- Central Defender (CD) - Automatically tackles any opponent that enters their zone, unless that opponent just used a skill on them. Effective anywhere in central defense; the entire penalty area or a tile forward outside of it. No longer intercepts shots on adjacent tiles.

It is common to combine CD and DF players in a defensive line, as their abilities complement each other; CDs being more proactive and DFs more reactive.

- Defending Midfielder(DM) - Automatically intercepts passes up to two tiles away; Defence is doubled when intercepting passes crossing their tile; gets 1 level of Intercept talent innately; retains amateur ability to move two tiles without the ball.

It is very difficult to pass the ball directly through the middle to forwards when a good DM is in position. On the other hand, they do tend tire out quickly.

- Wing Midfielder (RM/LM) - No action points required to press. Moves 4 tiles with or without the ball. Like Fullbacks, they can be tackled while on a run with a 70% penalty to the tackler. Also like Fullbacks, they are effective anywhere on the flank but not in the middle of the pitch.

Wing Midfielders are the most mobile players on the pitch, able to switch from attack to support/defense and back quickly. As with DMs, this results in fatigue becoming an issue. They are particularly well-equipped to push the ball up the flank for crossing attempts.

- Central Midfielder (CM) - A very small effective area, in the middle just behind the midline. 30% boost to Passing, no action points required for Pressing, and retains the 2 tiles without the ball movement of an amateur.

Central Midfielders clog up the middle as a traditional passing link between defense and attack. Their passing bonus can attempt to counter the presence of an opposing DM.

- Attacking Midfielder (AM) - Opponents suffer 60% penalty when intercepting their passes; Range penalty for shooting is halved; only class capable of using the False Kick - costs no action points, and draws an opposing player a tile in their direction. AMs are effective anywhere on the attacking half of the pitch except for the final tiles along the goalline.

Attacking Midfielders are favored by many skilled players. They essentially come in two flavors; long-range shooting assassins, or brilliant passers who can thread the needle into the opposing penalty area through the defensive line consistently.

- Wing Forward (RM/LM) - 2 tiles movement with or without the ball; owners of the powerful Break-In ability. Break-In allows a Wing Forward to cut in from the side of the pitch into the penalty area, with a 50% penalty to defense for any trying to tackle them. It also costs no action points. As with other wing players, Wing Forwards are effective anywhere along the flanks.

Because of Break-In, Wing Forwards often are built with high Control. It also common for them to rely not on scoring directly, but on provoking a foul in the penalty area to result in a penalty kick. If this is combined with a skill that the keeper can't counter for scoring directly if a penalty does not result, they can become very dangerous indeed. Often a defender is placed wide to prevent a Wing Forward from easily reaching the Break-In tile, as shown:

The tile with the red X must be reached in order to attempt the Break-In. Another use of Wing Forwards is of course to be used as a Passing weapon to cross the ball into the box. For this role though, they rely more than Wing Midfielders or Fullbacks on other players passing the ball up the pitch to them, as they are not as mobile.

- Central Forward (CM) - Automatically moves one tile closer to the opponents goal if there is space available. Innately has one level of the Head Play talent, which is used for attempting to score via headers off of crosses. Central Forwards are effective anywhere in the middle of the pitch within four tiles of the opposing goal.

Central Forwards naturally synergize with wingers. They specialize in scoring at close range in a variety of methods, but esp. at the business end of crosses with their headers. A full, skilled defensive line is often required to keep a quality Central Forward at bay.

It's probably also appropriate for me to do an effortpost on Skills & Talents, but this will do for now so this post doesn't become a novel.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2022 18:28

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

Skills & Talents

First up a quick correction on how counters work. If you have a talent that counters an opposing skill, it doesn't just make it less likely to succeed - it completely negates the possibility. If you have a talent of the same level as the skill, the result looks like this:

Olympic Kick is used on corners, an attempt to make a curved kick into the goals. Defenders with heading talent can try to intercept it, and it is also directly countered by the Playing Out talent, which is also useful in intercepting crossing attempts.

A couple of other Talents not yet mentioned as counters:

Head Play, which all CFs get one level for free, is the ability to score via header from a crossing attempt. On set pieces, midfielders and defenders can score this way as well, but CFs are the primary targets for it. Another use of Head Play is players fighting for the ball in the air on a Lofted Pass. There's an example this that I'll try to remember to show in an upcoming match.

Throw-In is easily the least-valued Skill or Talent IMO, simply because it's not a common situation. Throw-In extends the range of throws that can be made, adding one tile per level of the talent. Even the help says it's 'rarely useful'. So typically you'll just be irritated that it shows up in your list ... but we'll keep an eye on any possibilities that come up.

One thing to keep in mind is the 2-skill limit means that no GK can counter all possibilities. High Defense is good against Precision/Power Shot, Playing Out + high Control is good against Crosses, then there's Rainbow Feint and Cannon Shot to consider. You can't have Playing Out and Strong Goalkeeper and Reaction .... so you will always be susceptible to something.

All right, that's pretty much it for the explanations. I'll just try to answer questions as they come up at this stage. I've added all this to Coaches Corner. Back to the field!

Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Oct 14, 2022

# ¿ Oct 14, 2022 18:58

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

Small Steps

Next up we have Sinsheim, one of three clubs to win their first pair of matches. You can pretty much mark them down for promotion, they are third right now but that's just goal differential. Lost the screenshot here, but they are closer to what a proper Amateur club looks like. Amateur classes all around - including the bench - they have a few 2-star players on the squad ... we're just doing nothing here of course.

From a match competitiveness standpoint, we want small improvements. Scoring a goal is a nice pipe dream, but right now that's all it is. How about stopping a shot by the opposition? Any shot at all? That's a good one to work towards.

32 minutes in, trailing 2-0, it happened. A poor effort from their forward here: 5 out of max of 14, so a near-minimum roll, and Schmidinger was just good enough to stop it with a maximum roll.

But he *was* good enough, snatching the ball securely instead of flailing about or, in some cases, diving in the opposite direction of the shot on a hopeless guess. After 19 straight attempts went sailing by, the 20th was denied.

8 beautiful GK points! Success has it's rewards. But now what? Eventually we need to learn to counterattack after a keeper made a save, but that's way beyond us now. It was a brief ray of sunshine in a 7-0 defeat. If we allow one fewer goal per match like this continually, then sometime in the second half of the season we'll make a draw!

Here's another option for getting keeper specialization going. At the end of a half, you can just move them one spot, and they'll get 2 instead of 1 because of the keeper bonus to specialization point gains. I only do this at at the end of the half, because of something I think is a bug. They will move back automatically, getting another two on their own - but it'll be SW points, and then the next action they are involved in will also give the SW points even though they are still in goal.

Moral of the story being, keep your players where they are 'supposed' to be, if you can help it.

As this was our home opener, we got some ticket income as well. 42 fans paying five Euros each for 210, nearly double our normal amount. As a very general matter, sponsor and ticket income tends to be relatively equal. It varies however.

The amount per ticket changes based on the competition just like experience does. This is looking a long ways forward, but it's one of the reasons why getting out of the Amateur League and into the Third League is so important. Proportionally, it's the biggest step. Third League has more than half again as many matches (22 to 14), double the income per paying fan (10 to 5), double the attribute xp per match - though specialization xp doesn't change. The Homegrown Challenge will keep us at the Amateur ranks long enough that that Third League clubs will just keep building those aggregate advantages. We need to get out of here as soon as we can.

Three matches out of four on the road is not a favorable start, but at least our next one was the easy matchup - Oberhausen is the one club that started off in nearly as bad as shape as us. Their players were a sensible range of ages, but all Level 1 zero-class failures. And you can see by their roster that they haven't taken the approach we have. We now have two Amateur class players, they have none yet. Also, their roster is more tired - the nameplates not being filled in is a measure of fatigue, which recovers gradually each day.

Some of this is bad luck - they have one of their better players sidelined with a two-week injury. But most of it is just our approach being smarter. Even though their keeper has better defense - Ebner actually has a near-perfect attribute distribution for the job - our Schmidinger is actually more effective at this point since he's reached the amateur stage and isn't suffering the zero-class penalties.

We should actually be favored to not merely not get blown out, but to actually win this one!

One of the things about playing at this very low, very basic level where it's just pass/dribble/shoot with attributes ruling the day, is that it's easier to score after a score then it is after you prevent a score. If the opponent scores you get a kickoff, but here they tried to dribble into our defense and Hense stopped them. Now we need a pass just to get it up to midfield, so we're one action behind a kickoff scenario, which means we can't get as close for a good shot without using skills or lofted pass - we aren't good enough to use lofted pass and have no skills, so this is just how it's gonna be.

Posch has to shoot from here without an action to get closer, it's blocked by the defense, now they have to move all the way up the pitch, and it's just back and forth like this for most of the first half. A lone stop on a kickoff can set this pattern in motion, until somebody breaks it open.

By the way, this is at Oberhausen but it's the same as our field - bottom-level home ground. It doesn't have as much seating at the top as the one we saw at Koblenz, doesn't have the red overhang, etc. It's an exaggeration of hilarious proportions to say this place can seat 100 paying fans (I see three of them, only one of which is even sitting down). It's a long bench with a walking/bike path to it, various bikes and clothing on the left end, and a volleyball court with more items strewn near it on the right.

It is a field, but a proper place for a sporting competition? Hardly. But until we get 100 fans, this is the kind of place we'll be hosting visitors at.

This is how the dam broke, midway through the first half. To spread the action around I gave Fried a try. It should have been stopped by the defender in front of him, but he had a minimum roll out of a total of 7. 5 is the max for both Fried and the keeper. Just good enough to give us our first-ever goal, and first-ever lead!

Whenever you score, if the animations for it are on, you get close ups of various expressions of joy. Here a leaping embrace of Fried by our third forward, Posch. The info card in the upper left tells you who is involved.

Mergel looks this way and that, claps his hands a few times, and raises his arms like he's just won the Tour de France.

Unfortunately they had pretty good odds to score as well. This time they were successful in dribble past our wing defender, and despite a perfect save attempt from the keeper, Tallenbaum is just good enough to beat him. 1-1.

The half continued in like manner. We scored again with Posch. Then they scored again. In a competitive match, I focused my actions on scoring, not on specialization so much. On their shots it was a 9 shot rolling against an 11 for the save; on ours, a 9 shot rolling against a 5 save. Over a long enough timeline we were going to win here, able to score almost every time while they would fail a fair amount. But the luck wasn't really with us at first, and we led 3-2 at the half with five consecutive goals being scored, only having that lead because we had possession last and their keeper had a bad roll on a shot he should have stopped.

Another just-good-enough goal after the second-half kickoff puts up by 2. Since they have a center focused defensive line with nobody on the wings and one player behind in the sweeper spot - but not yet trained - angling outside like this so we can just shoot directly as the keeper is the move, and there's no defender to stop or intercept.

Each team scored from their next kickoff again. 8 straight now. Their top forward was tired, and the AI doesn't like playing tired players; it's a good way to get them injured. They made a sub, reducing them to this at the 68-minute mark. Everyone rolled low, but Mergel was just good enough stop the shot at the defensive line.

We injured one of their defenders on a failed tackle at the end of the match, but this time weren't carded for it. As it turns out, he'll be out for over a month! If I was Oberhausen, I would kind of hate us right about now.

Mark it down, our first win!! As predicted, we were just a little better than them overall.

I picked up 10 Coach experience instead of the usual 2 for a loss, more than doubling my total. Remember how we got 9 each player for the defeats? Yeah, I think this is more. Every starter gets a level-up. This is a big result because it makes it that much more likely we'll be able to keep beating Oberhausen for a while. The winner gets more xp, loser gets less, winner gets to keep on winning (up to a point, eventually players are added/leave, skills and classes come into play, and so on). But success definitely breeds more success ... and the reverse is true as well.

We got 657 money for this, as the 418 sponsor payment for victories was in play. Also our first Glory, 3 of them. A couple players in the Team of the Round, so we gained back a couple of fans due to that; all good first-time achievements.

I generally figure once we've gotten about a quarter of the way through league play, it's a good time to look at the standings with a bit of seriousness. Before that it's just noise. We'll be crashing down to earth next, hosting Offenbach FC; they've scored the most while conceding just once, also tops in the league.

I'll have a few more highlights/lowlights from the first half of the year in the next update, but I want to get through our first adventures in the Prestige Cup and into the next transfer window quickly.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2022 22:23

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

Fat Samurai posted:

Also, midfield me

Done! We now have a full XI, eventually. There will always be room for more of course; players getting sold, we'll need depth, etc. A full roster is 30 (11 starters, 7 subs, 12 reserve squad). We won't want to carry that many at once, but the more the merrier.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2022 22:24

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

ShadowedFlames posted:

Posting the over/under for total points on the season at 2.5, and I�m taking the under.

We've hit the over!

Jossar posted:

Might even have a chance for a mid-table finish!

Unfortunately, not really. It looks like we might based on the standings so far, but notice Koblenz. They beat us 9-0. And then lost their next three by a combined 9-1. They are midtable at best. And we are .... what we are.

ShadowedFlames posted:

Barring a miracle I see no way of this squad even sniffing midtable until Season 2 or 3 at least.

Season 2-3 is about right. Skilled players promote out of Amateur League typically in year 3. 2 if it goes well for them. For us, it's actually going to take quite a bit longer, because once we start having to sell players - that will be next year - we'll be losing the ones who are gradually improving now and closing the gap. We have to wait that much longer for youths to come in and get to that level, and meanwhile everyone else in the league is improving for the most part, taking the players we sell to add veteran depth, they have much better starting age balance on their rosters ....

Competitiveness will come with all of your help, but it's still a number of years away before it becomes a consistent thing.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2022 22:31

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

It appears that the lions version of the logo is slightly favored, so I've switched to that.

ShadowedFlames posted:

(This is also a way to justify wanting to be a bench player�let some other folks who may not know the game have a turn to start!)

I wouldn't worry about that much. Plenty of spots, players are going to come and go, randomness with how Gifted a player is going to be when someone's turn in line shows up ... lots of unpredictables.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2022 03:56

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

Didn't quite get through as much as I was intending. Hopefully this will be fun for everyone anyway, as the games were more eventful than I expected. Featured here for the first time: Set Pieces and Throw-Ins!

8.14.22 Home vs. Offenbach

Here's what it looks like trying to score against Offenbach. Would have been better just to shoot it straight through the line - but no chance either way. Unless their defenders all just decide to quit, we're not doing anything here.

I tried a Power Shot, hoping it would bounce somewhere inconvenient. It went straight to Gorz here, who takes one dribble and then uncorks this. Long Pass is not the most intuitive ability to have on a defender, most people would associate it with midfielders. But it definitely has it's moments on the counterattack. Neumann blasts it into the goal from there easily.

Welp, that's game folks. At home, 12 minutes in, we have no chance of a result. Hope you enjoyed that win we just had, because we won't be repeating it here. Incredibly, they had what I think were minimum rolls on their next two shots, and we held them to one goal in the first half. The second half ... well, the less said about that the better. Final was 5-0 Offenbach.

8.19.22 Home vs. Oberhausen
Prestige Cup Qualifying Round, First Leg

The long and the short of it is this; we were given a huge gift here. There are three clubs we could have drawn here. Anyone other than Oberhausen and we lose. Getting Oberhausen is a chance to get an extra pair of Prestige Cup matches, highly beneficial for the development of our players.

If you're wondering what the Prestige Cup is anyway, it's this right here. Looks a lot more snazzy than the Amateur League trophies we've seen. Look, but don't touch. We haven't earned that yet.

Hey look! There's more of them here today, speaking of the fans. Pretty sure it's just a random visual, but whatever.

We started quickly, scoring on every first-half possession. Managed to stop them twice. The last time, they didn't even get the ball out of midfield which was pretty nice. Second half was the complete opposite, struggle for possession both ways, I wasn't trying to push it to allow our more-used players to not get more fatigued, and it was our first scoreless half of the year. 4-2 win, we could lose by one in the away leg and still advance.

This shot was unsuccessful, but here's an example of what can happen. Various tackles and switches of possession have led to a situation where some of their attackers are behind our defense. The neat formation you start in doesn't stay that way. Add some skills in, and it can get pretty chaotic. That's part of the next tactical level that we're headed toward once we get into a more stable competitive situation.

Winning a Prestige Cup match is kind of a big deal, and it easily ramps me up to being a Level 2 Coach. That gives me these three choices. Can't put them to a vote, because I can't save from here or decide later. I'll just choose, and then listen to any advice/flames from the peanut gallery and add that in to what I choose in the future.

The stars on these icons tell us that each of these have multiple tiers. From left to right, these options are:

- Prioritize Defenders. That means we would unlock the option to spend Glory to request a Defender from the Youth Academy during the next transfer window, as opposed to just getting a random whatever they want to give us. Right now we just want players and will take what they give us, but this kind of thing will be useful long down the road.

- Discount on signing footballers from my previous club. Irrelevant to this run on both counts.

- Ask for money. Once per season we can request money from management. It's a sliding scale, where a higher % chance of success has a higher chance of their mood dropping. This is something which we could really abuse since I'm never going to be fired in this setup, but as a house rule to keep it reasonable I won't pull the trigger on using this kind of action unless we've done enough to put the management mood above 100% (I'll show those screens another time).

I go with Prioritize Defenders. It's hard to have too many of those and I expect there will be occasions when we want to take that route.

Double the experience for an Amateur League win. Level-ups all around once more.

Check out those ticket sales! Prestige Cup tickets are sold at Second League rates, 15 Euros a head; triple the Amateur League rate. And we get a Glory bonus for winning a Cup match. And the fans like it as well. Believe it or not, we are - very temporarily - up to 54 fans. Four more than we started with.

8.21.22 @ Burghausen FC

Yep, it's just two days later.

Posch and Rossen aren't looking too hot for this one. This is one of our first situations where we have to prioritize and make potentially thorny choices in the lineup. To my mind, the main question is whether there's any chance of us not losing. Just maybe we can hold them out, but while Burghausen doesn't have a trained keeper yet, I don't see us scoring against that defensive line of theirs. Or to look at it another way, resting Posch and Rossen protects them against increased injury risk, and doesn't hurt our chances of getting a result. So I'm having them sit this one out.

Possessing all the subtlety of a rhinocerous, one of our substitutes, in his first match, commits this 'tackle'. And by tackle, we mean barging into the opponent, shouldering them into the ground, and making sure to plant your elbow into their back for good measure.

Yellow Card.

Since it took place on our side of the midline however, this brings up our first set-piece; a Direct Free Kick. Not shown; at the bottom of the screen we are told this, and we have a few actions to Prepare A Defence. I.e. we can reposition our players. From this far out, it's not an immediate threat, but the point here is that on a direct free kick we can make a few moves and set up a defence, and then the other team gets to make a few moves based on what we've done.

In other words, tactical advantage to the attacker.

That leads to this, but it's not a problem. There's no conceivable situation in which we could have set up to prevent this kind of shot; they can get this anytime they want. We're fine here ... right?

Wrong. Metelman rolls an 11, 10 for Schmidinger in goal, and our defenders absolutely screw up their responsibilities. You have defenders so they can converge and block these shots, but didn't happen here. Entirely appropriately, after missing the intercept, Kehr just wanders around in the penalty area, literally scratching the back of his head with his left hand.

I'm disgusted too, pal.

Another direct free kick for them, later in the half. Let's forget for the moment that this was caused by Klosner butchering a tackle attempt, fouling with a roll of 16 against 7. That's hard to do, but he did it.

A set piece in this area is very dangerous. The realism of free kicks is a much-debated element in FTG. The long and the short of it is that since the game mechanics ensure it's easier to pass for a good shot in the game than it is in real life, it is also made harder to score via direct kick than it would realistically be. Even with that, it's still easier to score on these than it 'should' be. Which also means it's really bad to foul the opponent near your own penalty area.

It's not the easiest to see, but there are actually two players in one tile here. We can do this for set pieces to form an effective 'wall' ... but that also means less defenders elsewhere.

Actual mechanics of direct free kicks:

- Defense can place four players. Up to four can be in the position to form the 'wall', and their defence is combined if a direct shot on goal is attempted

- Offense places one player to take the kick, and two others as well. If they shoot, they get a 100% bonus to Accuracy on the kick.

They tried to pass around our defense, but failed to score. Had a good shot at it though. The 'wall' dissolves with extra players stacked in that tile moving automatically as soon as the pass/kick is resolved.

I am not good at set pieces yet, either defending or attacking. Aside from it being harder to account for what possibilities may happen, there's also the fact that it can really transform the layout of players. You tend to end up with a formation of a bunch of players on both teams near where the free kick happened, and then if it doesn't result in a goal and there's time left in the half, you have to figure out how to make sense of this new formation.

Another way the formation can get disrupted; early second half, their shot was saved by our keeper. But one of our defenders tried to intercept and missed, so now they are out of position and there's a hole in the defense. Not to beat a dead horse, but our slowly increasing abilities are making the tactical situation more complicated.

We lost only 2-0, but were outshot 8-0 with 40% possession. So we're still getting beat badly, but able to make the score respectable by putting up some resistance at the back.

Schmidinger has reached GK status. That brings up this. Every time you complete a section or tree on the Specialization screen, you get a bonus. For the first one, it's always a boost of two attribute levels. All the more reason to get your Base and Advanced Classes ASAP.

We also lose 16 fans.

8.28.22 Home vs. Wuppertal

Shows just the sun with no clouds in front of it. This is a problem if it happens at a point where we need to manage fatigue. Today we don't care. It's the last match of the half of the league, and then we'll have a good amount of rest before resuming the Prestige Cup, and fatigue isn't a big issue for us yet in general.

Our biggest problem against Wuppertal was their keeper, Theiner. He's their best player with a defense of 30. Conventional methods of scoring were ineffective, and we don't know any unconventional ones. We got a few shots to him, all of which he easily engulfed.

Most of the time what the other team does makes some kind of sense. Then there are times when I think 'wait, what?'. First-half free-kick, we picked up another card because of course we did, and they are clearly overloading the top of the screen ...

... so that they can pass it to Lobsein in the opposite direction, and he can dribble laterally, making no attempt to score or get close to the goal. Clearly they determined they didn't have a realistic chance to score, but still ... why?

They like to use Lofted Pass more than I do, but I also missed a couple times in this half when I think it would have been a good idea. It's still scoreless. Two actions left, final possession of the half. You've got the ball in defense - if you're going to try to score at all, you *have* to move it a long way downfield on this action. So even though this has a remote chance of succeeding, it's worth a try. If it works, you can have a long-range shot.

When they miss, they miss on an adjacent tile. Any adjacent tile. Including out of bounds, as here. Our first throw-in.

Just like for a kick-off, the formation is now re-set. We need someone to throw it in, placed like this at the place where the ball went out.

The range is only 1 tile, plus 1 for every level of the Throw-In talent. So we need somebody within a tile for them to throw to.

The other team places defenders nearby. The same mechanic used here is used for lofted passes into traffic; Head Play can be used to intercept the ball just in front, and the player behind - opposite direction of the throw/pass - can try to head the ball away in a struggle with the target of the throw/pass. In this case we win the roll, I pass ahead to our forward line, and absolutely nothing happens because a shot is easily saved.

This is where the match was decided. 76th minute, still scoreless. They're holding the ball up in their half. Natural response is what I did, try to get it back. Pressed with Posch, tried a low-percentage tackle, which failed. But look at the situation on our end. They've got a couple attackers stacked in the middle, and they were able to pass it there with no opposition. A little worse than coin-flip odds of scoring, but their striker hit it well.

This was one of those multi-possession tactics that I think I misplayed. I could have instead moved someone, maybe one of the midfielders, in position to prevent the ball getting through so easily. Might not have been able to stop it anyway, but I could have put up more resistance there. Should have thought about doing it at the least.

That was Wuppertal's only shot. We had three, overall they were better but this was actually quite a good match. Physical, lots of battles for possession, fouls both ways - the word *struggle* is fitting. What you get when both sides are searching for advantage because there's no easy answers.

Arguably I cost us a point here.

Corner kicks I think are the only major element we haven't yet seen, other than just the eventual further progression of tactics as skills and advanced classes come into play.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2022 08:26

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

Prestige Cup & Corner Kicks

9.16.22 @ Oberhausen
Prestige Cup Qualifying Round, 2nd Leg

Oberhausen is starting to get some Base Classes in; they have an amateur defender and a midfielder at least.

We stopped them on the opening kickoff - home club always gets the first kickoff - but from here it went south. We had three chances to tackle the ball away, one with a good chance of success and the other two basically even. All three failed. Less than a 10% chance of that happening. They marched in to point-blank range, and got a max roll on their shot to score easily. 0-1

Then we got a minimum roll on the pass from midfield. Anything but a minimum roll would have been good enough. Immediate turnover, and all we could do the rest of the half was just keep it from getting worse.

This was a max roll by their defender trying to intercept the shot, while we could have gotten as high as 12. It was just good enough though, tying it up to start the second half. 1-1.

By the way, if you ever forget who won the first leg or what the total count is, aggregate score is always displayed.

The defense continued to hold, and we had two low-odds identical chances to grab a win. This was the last of them, in the 86th minute. Partly due to Oberhausen improving, partly due to bad luck, this was the closer than the other games against them, but we pull out another win, 2-1.

At the end of a cup round, win or lose, you get dramatic music and scenes of your players. Rousing and celebratory if you win, as here. Depressing and dejected if you lose. We'll see that one very soon.

We were outshot 5-3, and lost possession 62-38%, but our defense is still much better.

Another advanced class! I go with MF here. I'm doing all universal classes on these players, because I want the flexibility. That way, I can play all of the new youth players wherever people want them to go, without worrying about these older guys being out of position as a result.

People like it when you advance in a Cup. This may not happen for us again for a very long time, but come on board everyone! We're now up over 60 fans. Temporarily.

The red numbers in the Koblenz-Burghausen match show the results of a penalty shootout.

Cologne-City is actually dead last in Second League, so they're not a particularly bad draw. Having said that, it's still a Second League club. We're not winning this. Particularly annoying was 2-star MF Gorz, who has passing in the 50s and defense in the 20s. In other words, we can go around him but not through him, and if he wants to pass the ball somewhere, there's nothing we can do about it.

10.7.22 @ Cologne-City
Prestige Cup Round of 32, First Leg

The Cup rounds are spread out over the winter. Particularly in the lower leagues, we don't have other matches during this time so we just advance to the next one. Their forwards weren't as good as the rest of the squad, so we were able to defend initially and tie them up in possession struggles most of the rest of the first game. It was a relatively competitive 2-0 defeat. Scoring ourselves was of course out of the question, but we made them work for both of their goals.

Next level-up for me! Every other level, I get a flat resource bonus selection. From left to right, I can take money, glory, or reputation. The amount scales based on what league we are in. IMO glory is more valuable in the long run, but right now the money is more important.

I take 3,752 in cold hard cash; 15 Glory or 1 Reputation were the other amounts.

11.4.22 vs. Cologne-City
Prestige Cup Round of 32, Second Leg

It's been almost a month since the first meeting.

Note that they are in a very defensive 6-2-2 even though they are the better team. This is not an accident. They can read the scoreboard as well as we can. We have to score twice to prevent them from winning on aggregate, so they're going to be extra-conservative and make darn sure we don't.

We did ok for a while, then it gradually got worse and worse. This is the last possession of the match, and we're down 3-0. A very good strategy here by Cologne City; our keeper is on their last action of motivation, and it's a low-percentage shot, so they go for a power shot.

Due to bad rolls by our defensive line, it gets through to the keeper, who easily blocks it ... out for a corner. This was their second corner of the match, but it's more worth looking at than the previous one. Also; this would have been the end of the match, but you still get the set piece if it comes at the end of a turn. So there is 'extra time', this match will be scored as having gone to 90 + 2.

The first phase of the corner kick is the attacker positioning, unlike a free kick. They pick the player to take the kick; passing is important here unless you have the Olympic Kick skill and are going for that. Then they'll position two other players in the penalty area, as shown here. They don't have to be forwards, but usually will be.

That's their three actions; now we get three. We can try to intercept the pass into the penalty area by putting a defender between the penalty area and the corner, but more critically we want to contest the forwards in the penalty area and push them out. This uses the Control attribute, another important application that I forgot to mention earlier. There is definitely value to be had here for defenders or forwards with high Control.

In this case I don't think I can stop the pass, so I focus my three moves on eliminating their forwards. Two on the closest one, one on the forward higher up in the middle of the box. We'll see the attacking side of this later, but importantly the attacking team decides where to kick after we've placed our players, but *before* the calculation for who wins the struggles for penalty area position is resolved.

Now it's time for the kick to be made. We lost one battle for positioning, but won the other two, ultimately kicking their forwards out of place. The defender at the bottom here is the one who lost, and was pushed to that position. You can see that they've got much higher ability so we were right in not being able to stop the pass. So where did they decide to go with it?

Right into the middle. Our defender is there, we get possession, we did everything right. But one of their forwards was motivated by being kicked out, and has Slide Tackle. It would have taken a perfect roll for us to resist. We did not get a perfect roll. And shortly after this they punch in the score at the final horn.

4-0, because when the opponent is sufficiently superior, you can do everything right - and still fail.

Queue the sad music, the slow walking off the pitch, the consoling and crying. Almost everyone will lose in the Cups every year, so we'd best get used to this even in better times.

As much as fans like you making it further in the Cup, they don't like you being eliminated, even if it was expected. If you lose earlier than they think you should have however, it can be a larger hit. The money's a positive though for sure. Just getting to this round of the Cup meant well over a thousand coming into the account between the two matches.

This is the positive message from the President when knocked out of Cup play. If he thinks you should have gotten further, he'll say so.

When we're told it's time for the Winter Break, that means we'll advance to the second half of the season and second transfer window by proceeding. Unless you progress quite far in Cup competition, this happens when you are eliminated from it.

Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Oct 16, 2022

# ¿ Oct 16, 2022 01:26

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

The Assistant Coach here also shows up in the Help areas. He's far more qualified than I am, I'm sure. He brings good news! Sort of. Our first youth player. The possible age range is 16-19, I don't think they come in at 20. And 0 giftedness, we had only a 10% shot at anyone better.

There's no advantage to being an older youth, there are no restrictions on training/playing/etc. for being younger. Just means you won't be around as long. So basically this is as bad as we could have done, on both metrics.

ally_1986, you are now on the clock. This is your player, I've taken the liberty of renaming them to your username, and they await instructions. Specifically:

- What Base Class should they play?. Goalkeeper, Defender, Midfielder, Forward. You can give an Advanced Class now if you wish, but you can wait on that or change your mind once you see what skills they will be able to train.

- What Attribute Should They Train?. Accuracy, Passing, Defense, or Control. At least one of the three attributes gained each level are guaranteed to go to whatever you select.

Here's what you have to work with; high accuracy, decent defense, low passing and control.

Suggestions

Forward is a natural fit given the accuracy. Attacking Midfielder could work as well. Midfield and defense would probably not be the best fit due to the accuracy basically going to waste. Low control and passing mean that the wing positions aren't a great idea either, but it's your material. Being non-traditional and or actively trying to sabotage the team is up to you to decide.

Leaning into accuracy to try and make a quality goal-scoring threat is a clear option. Going with defense to allow for the possibility of regaining possession in the attacking area of the pitch, or control/passing to shore up weaknesses is less conventional but also possible.

If you want to me to do something like 'keep accuracy and defense even' or 'focus on control one out of every two levels' or whatever sort of nuanced instruction, I can do that also.

Proper transfer window report upcoming, but since it's the weekend I will wait until Wednesday to advance the game further - unless we hear from ally_1986 before then.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2022 01:51

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

22-23 Mid-Season Report

This is just an example for now, but under normal conditions this would be the time for all of you to collectively vote on and/or make proposals on how the club should be run.

First up, the situation as it stands, beginning of February 2023.

Pretty clear 3-way division. The top 3 are clearly expecting to stay there and promote - at which point they'll be replaced by possibly better clubs from the Third League. Wuppertal has been fortunate but the middle three likely stay where they are, and then we along with Oberhausen occupy the cellar. But we're not last! 'We're Number 7' and 'Someone's Worse Than Us!' aren't the greatest rallying cries.

We also have a half-star of club strength. Didn't have that before.

Contract views for the roster.

Our players were worth a combined 140 at the start of the year. All were Level 1. This is better.

We have a net loss of 8 Fans, but all of that Glory and Money was gained from a starting point of nothing.

This is what we have, now what do we do with it? No point in posting the Club Upgrades as we're not diving into that - we'd need to upgrade facilities before we can hire staff, and we don't have the money for it - but eventually all of those will get added in here for future transfer windows.

Note the Extend button for any players that have less than a year left on their contract.

Those will bring up these options. They are always the same ones; 1, 2, or 3-year contracts, the one at the bottom with the Glory will always be the number of years until the player is 40. If you just absolutely can't let them go - normally the last contract a player can sign would expire when they are 36 at the oldest - you can spend a criminal amount of Glory to keep them around a few more years. This isn't going to be practical for decades, if ever, but it's there as a possibility.

Just as you can always sell a player, you can always re-sign a player. They'll never just refuse to do it because they hate your guts, and the amount they ask for is predictable as well. It's the same as the value for selling, except that Interest of other clubs doesn't matter, and Age doesn't matter. So as a player gets older, their contract demands will increase with their abilities. Past a certain point though, their value will not increase due to aging and not being able to improve them enough to compensate. That's pretty much the point at which, if you haven't yet done so, it's time to think about selling them.

This also means that it's generally not a good idea to wait until the next transfer window. We can do that, no contract will expire until you've had two windows to extend them in, but the player will just be more expensive for the same length of time if they've improved at all, or at best be the same price. Better to do it when you can get the best deal.

The proportions of the different contract lengths are always similar if not identical as well. Here, Schmidinger wants 1309 for 1 year, 1977 for the second year, and 2207 for the third year. The second-year increase is the highest, so two-year deals are usually not a good idea. There are exceptions, but usually you want:

- 1 year if you might not want them around for a 3-year extension or you don't think their price will go up very much, so that a series of 1-year bumps is the best deal.
- 3 years if their price is likely to spike soon and it's cheaper to lock them in longer-term right now.

A young players first contract extenson is a good example of the 3-year situation. We didn't pay ally_1986 to be signed, but getting a 3-year boost as soon as possible will be cheaper then doing it yearly due to increases in Level, SL, Skills, and so on.

- Schmidinger is an easy case. We need him around for one more year so we can sell him at 32. That needs a 1-year extension, costing 1309.

-Posch is a tougher call. He'll be here for a full two years yet, and be among the last of our initial group of players that we sell. The question is, if we go with one year now and one year later, is that cheaper or more expensive than going with two years now? He'll get a skill by the time we can extend him again, and some more specialization levels also. This is one of those cases where I think we do want the 2-year deal for 2323.

- Kimmel will be around for one more year also, so another easy decision. 1-year extension for 800.

There's nobody we need to sell in this window, so that's that; three extensions for 4,432, leaving us with 5,451 left. If we did want to sell anyone, usually we'll want to do that at the end of the transfer window to maximize the selling price. If we need to boost the interest of other clubs in them or they are about to hit their birthday, we might do it sooner though.

The financial aspects gets more teeth when you have five players to extend, but only enough cash to afford three, or something similar. Who do you sell and who do you keep?

Lineup/Rotation

Now that we have a new player, we want to have them playing as much as possible to improve. We also want to keep all of the current starters in action, but we can keep their Interest up as long as they are playing at least roughly half the matches. Wherever ally_1986 ends up slotting in, what I'll end up likely doing in taking a couple or a few of the others and just having them play in a rotation, a match or two on and a match or two off, so that everyone keeps getting the chance to play and improve and keep their value reasonably high.

I also want to play Deutscher more regularly, they're the 'odd man out' of the players we are going to sell, and they'll be sold in the next transfer window. The focus is still going to be on the established players, but getting him up to Average interest with a few more levels and a class shouldn't take that much playing time, and really help get a half-decent price for him.

Performance Goals

Staying out of last place is an easy one. I'd also like to get at least a draw or two against the clubs that are above us in the second half. The main goal is still squeezing as much value as we can out of this roster.

At the end of every transfer window I'll have links to appropriate explanation posts for reference, such as the second post of the thread, Coaches Corner.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2022 05:56

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

Torrannor posted:

I usually prefer the football manager games where I can't micromanage the players during matches, but it's nice to see this LPed by you, Strategic Sage.

Thanks. Added you to the list. I gave up on FM quite a while back due to the endless and to my mind pointless 'press interactions', 'team talks' and similar features. I also found the tactics settings to be indecipherable, and usually had no idea why my team was doing better or worse in different situations. It just became unrewarding work at a certain point.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2022 15:31

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

Always one at a time on the youth. We'll have options later for investing Glory to have an element on control over what type of player we get, but it's strictly one per transfer window, two per year, every time.

On the uniforms, if people want I could do a 'backwards' version - i.e. go with the gaudy pink & lime green on regular players, more 'normal' colors on the keeper uniform. Could go 'just plain' with an all-white, all-black whatever look. Or do some other design with the jerseys or whatever. I was mostly flying blind on that and I thought other than being oppressively ugly on purpose, there weren't a great deal of other ideas. Can be changed anytime though.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2022 03:27

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

More jersey pictures as possible food for discussion

Outlandish color schemes like pink and puke green here with the same style we already have - just seemed to me like it was trying too hard and just being an eyesore for the sake being an eyesore.

The black and white striped approach

Any number of gaudy color combos could end similarly

This one with the horizontal strip could look like a chef or straight-jacket vibe if done in all white.

This looked too much like a 'sweater'.

Modern 'blend' look. Far too fashionable.

Many versions of gradients or just half one color half of another.

Checkerboard-ish pattern.

There was nothing that really stood out to me in terms of a pattern that hit the right spot. But as said, aesthetics, graphics/color coordination aren't my strong suit.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2022 08:15

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

February 2023

Moving on, and ally_1986 has a strike. All strikes will be removed with a post of any kind in the thread.

I'm assigning Accuracy training and making them a forward. The fastest way to be competitive is with a good keeper and defense; second-fastest is to be able to score, and scoring more also gets you more Glory - if you win the match. Since Control is low, we're just going for a convention, shoot-through-the-defense, my-leg-is-my-weapon striker.

2.5.23 Koblenz (2-1-4, 6th) @ Backpfeifengensichter (1-0-6, 7th)

Once place ahead of us, four points ahead of us, and 33 goal differential ahead of us. On our second match with each club, let's see how much better we can do. 9-0 away loss the first time with Koblenz.

Our first match in the snow. This is actually good for us ...

Some of their players have skills. None of ours do yet. Also, a correction to something I said earlier - the star rating for the club is not based on wins and losses. It's based only on the players in the starting lineup. Since we're putting a couple of greens out there, we are down again to zilch from a half-star. Koblenz is still at one-half.

Unlike the hot weather, it is very obvious visually what's going on. No bikes around the outside, the volleyball net was taken down ...

And the ball itself is orange & black instead of white & black. Small touches but it gives the atmosphere.

Initially we had no chance of scoring, but were able to deflect their defenders out of position, move the ball back on the attack, hold it with Kimmel, and then maneuver Fried close enough to where there was an unlikely chance.

A near-perfect strike and poor effort by their keeper led to a celebration in the snow - and we stopped them down at the other end. Looking good. Now to get our new charge some specialization here and there.

A lot of possession battles; poor Brummern was run ragged in midfield and was sucking air by the end. We'll try to keep him out of the action more next time. But this is one heck of a turnaround. Only one viable shot for each side. Ours went in, theirs didn't.

Good example of the Strong Opponent's Bonus here, extra Glory because we won despite an inferior squad.

2.12.23 Emden (5-2-1, 3rd) @ Backpfeifengesichter (2-0-6, 7th)

This figured to be just a bit different, but another low bar to clear for improvement; 8-0 road defeat in the first meeting.

Emden's defense is not particularly good - we got a quality shot off right away, but it was a weak effort and their keeper easily handled it. They tried a couple of shots that were blocked by our defensive line, and were better in possession, but couldn't turn it into any scores.

A positively abysmal effort by Schmidinger to stop a shot through the line after the second-half kickoff put us down 1-0. We drew a foul on the ensuing possession, which was enough to get this attempt:

Odds somewhat against, but could go either way. It was converted, making for a 1-1 draw with the defense holding up the rest of the match. We had another chance later that almost got through .... overall the 3rd-ranked club in the Amateur League, looking likely for promotion, had to consider themselves fortunate that we didn't beat them. It was stunning, and left us feeling quite good about ourselves.

2.19.23 Backpfeifengesichter (2-1-6, 7th) @ Sinsheim (8-1-0, 1st)

Here's the stiffest test for our new-found success. 7-0 loss at home in our first meeting. Sinsheim is scoring 3.5 per match, and conceding just under half a goal.

The snow outside the field always is seen during the appropriate time of year, even in normal weather.

Another hazard that can come up when you're on the attack. Here Sinsheim has worked a player into the area, but our line was able to keep him from getting the ball. We just barely saved this attempt ...

When the keeper gets the ball, the attackers are all forced to leave the penalty area.

Unfortunately, in addition to their impregnable keeper, they unleashed the power of the Nutmeg on their last possession of the half. This is one of the weaknesses of a high defensive line. Espescially when there's no CD to tackle any offenders.

All that was left was a near-gimme of a putaway. They added another similar tally in the second half, and we lose 2-0. We had a couple of shots, but they would more accurately be termed delaying tactics.

2.26.23 Oberhausen (0-0-10, 8th) @ Backpfiefengesichter (2-1-7, 7th)

Just what the doctor ordered for us to get right - a match against the one club that is definitively worse than us. They have most of a squad with base classes trained now, and while we were still better it wasn't clear we'd be able to make it count on the scoreboard. A tense maneuvering battle ensued.

A clutch tackle by ally late in the second half - putting that defense to use - set up a situation where they were all but forced to foul us near their penalty area. An angled try by Fried had better than even chances, but he absolutely botched it, and the match ended scoreless.

We didn't win, but we did get our new player their first Man of the Match honor.

At the end of the transfer window, FTG mandates that you click here and look at the contracts screen. You can just click in and come right back, but if you move on without taking care of any selling/extending/buying of players you wanted to do, it's your own fault.

3.5.23 Backpfeifengesichter (2-2-7, 6th) @ Offenbach (10-0-1, 2nd)

We're up a spot, with that draw sneaking us past Koblenz in the standings! At least for now. Offenbach thumped us 5-0 at our place in the first match.

So, this is a weird formation. That defender with the arrow? That's a central defender, who will tackle anyone coming into the area. Milde in the middle of our formation, has the dot/circle indicating a universal defender. But that defender off to the left edge they have? That would make sense if they were trained as a fullback (RD). They're not. So it's kind of pointless at the moment.

That midfielder with the up arrow? That's a Defensive Midfielder (DM). And that's trouble.

We stopped their initial possessions, leaving the defensive formation in roughly the state of swiss cheese. I was just trying to keep players between them and the goal, and then they uncorked the joy of Layoff Pass. This allowed Heumann to get around our flank and waltz into the penalty area unmolested. Thusly the competitive phase of this game came to an end.

Here's a DM in action. Trying to do something on our kickoff, anywhere we go is a guaranteed turnover.

Even a pointless lateral pass would be intercepted. Only thing we can is try to loft it over, and this will be very viable later on with higher passing skill. For now, it's nearly a guaranteed fail. Routine passing up to front line has become an almost impossible task. Lower-league DMs are beasts.

Another 2-0 defeat against a top club. 6-1 shots, 84-16 possession. The defenders got a workout, with our top players all coming from that area ... and ally_1986 got their first Specialization Level!

With two matches left in the year, Offenbach and Sinsheim have clinched promotion while Emden is looking good to hold off Burghausen for the final spot. We could finish anywhere from 5th to 7th yet, depending on how we close out.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2022 18:15

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

ally_1986 Skill & Advanced Class Choices

Already the second-highest accuracy on the roster, and should be the highest after the next class comes in.

This is quite a bad skill selection for a forward. We've just seen that Nutmeg can be effective, but particularly for a player like this with low control, what is often going to happen is they'll just get tackled by a CD immediately after using it. We'll need to look for situations where that won't happen if we take that. Slide Tackle is always useful, but it's best in midfield and for a forward that we want in a position to score rather than a supporting role, it's not great. Rainbow Feint is a good scoring skill, but being Minimum Propensity means it will take a long time to train.

One aspect to keep in mind is the financial side. Starting with the third skill level there's a huge leap in player value, whether it's all in one skill or split between two of them. There's an argument to be made for just going for the fastest one at this stage so we can get a better selling price.

Advanced Class

That also means Universal classes, if they have time to develop, will sell for a better price than Focused classes. As a Forward, ally_1986 can go a variety of directions from here: Universal Forward (FW), Wing Forward (RF or LF), Central Forward (CF), and Attacking Midfielder (AM) would be most likely for a high-accuracy player, but the other midfield spots are still technically possible.

Wing Forward is less attractive because of the low control - attribute training focus would need to change to even try to make that work. Rainbow Feint is more useful for the forward positions; Nutmeg doesn't synergize well for a Wing Forward or Central Forward, whose abilities get them into the penalty area where they are too close to use it. On the other hand, it can be very strong for an Attacking Midfielder, and Slide Tackle is arguably also better for that role than a forward.

ally_1986 is on the clock now, the usual 48 hours to report in until this time on Friday. Then we'll have a short update to finish the season one way or another, and get into the second year with another new player coming on board.

Coaches Corner info on the Classes and Skills

# ¿ Oct 19, 2022 18:29

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

FatSamurai posted:

That's a big improvement from the first few matches!

Enjoy this period of being 'less bad' while it lasts ...

ShadowedFlames posted:

If that accuracy and pass were swapped, I�d advocate for DM with Slide Tackle.

Alas, wishing will not make it so.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2022 22:29

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

Start of next year.

Always two per year there are*, no more, no less. A YouthGen at the start of each transfer window.

* Except the first year, because you don't get one or have to re-sign anyone at the first transfer window right when you begin a campaign.

Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Oct 21, 2022

# ¿ Oct 21, 2022 01:46

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

Coach Details

Taking a brief look at the coach/manager side of things; we won't spend a lot of time here as it's more for the journeyman style of play. First up, the Demands screen lets us know the mood of management. This will still be important for things like asking them for more money occasionally - I will want to achieve the demands when we can.

At the beginning of the year they don't have an opinion and are just waiting for some results to come in. The 'management wants you to succeed' bit is because of Friendly strictness - basically it puts a floor on how mad we can make them regardless of how bad we do. Then league and cup performance are shown; as the league finish is their main goal, they're a lot happier about not being last there than they are by getting past qualifying in the Prestige Cup.

Where it says 'Bonus +2', you get that amount of Reputation if you reach the 130% mark for mood. Reputation is spent when taking on new jobs, accumulate enough of it and you can jump up tiers. A 'prove yourself first' kind of mechanic, but not particularly relevant to this run.

There's a whole bunch of these to eventually choose and improve from my coach level-ups, and we'll go through them as we get them. They also can have drawbacks. It's likely we won't get all of them given how many there are, but the categories are:

- Match Day Speech; motivations given for a match. Some are limited, as in the case of the Most important match of the season, that can only be used once per year.

- Individual Training; these are hard to sell as a viable option at least until they're leveled up quite a bit. They either cost Glory or carry an injury risk to the player, with benefits like speeding up skill training, increasing specialization experience gained in the next match, etc.

- Youth Work; improvements related to the Youth Academy. Generally the most important for this campaign. We already have the Prioritise defenders option, you can prioritise the other positions, or there's a 'rivalry among youth' possibility that will allow us to eventually choose between 2-3 different choices for the next youth player. That's a powerful ability that I expect to see some use in the future.

- Injured Footballers; by expressing 'sincere support', I can help players recover from injury faster.

- Talking With Management; asking for more money as mentioned, or improving their mood. That could be useful if you were about to fail an objective and didn't want to get fired for a journeyman save.

-Scouts; Another one we can bypass. Discounts on transfers from a previous club, reduced prices for players in the transfer list, and the ability to send scouts to other countries which you can't do initially.

Some repeated info here, but also this is where you go to ask management for more time/money.

The Career and Statistics panels give the same type of information that we can see in club history and stats, but it's covering the coach's career. For our purposes, they'll be the same but that wouldn't be the case if you moved around to different clubs.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2022 07:49

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

ally_1986 posted:

- What Base Class should they play?. Forward

- What Attribute Should They Train?. Accuracy

Thanks for this; we are actually past that choice, latest one was here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4014526&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=2#post527099249

# ¿ Oct 21, 2022 18:11

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

22-23 Season Conclusion

I've elected to go with AM and Nutmeg for the choices - I can still change the AM part of that if ally_1986 wishes to hold forth. The training time for Rainbow Feint is just too long to be worth considering; I'm valuing the sale potential here. If we get better attacking players in the future we can sell ally and just focus on them. I overall think this is the best fit for their prospects; I don't have much experience using AMs, but people have had a lot of success Nutmegging ones so hopefully we can replicate a bit of that.

Home against Burghausen is next, we lost 2-0 to them the first time. It's a chance to play spoiler, as they still have a small chance to catch Embden and promote, but they need to win both of their remaining matches to keep the pressure on.

Getting AM position experience isn't the easiest thing to do; ally_1986 will need to stay in the middle, on the attacking side of the field, but not into the forward area to make that happen. I've got a MF up there just for position swaps if the situation makes that feasible, but at the same time I'd like to try to be competitive.

There's a weak link for us to potentially attack, the one zero-class defender in the line, but they have 20 defense and our best control attacker, Posch has 24. So it's little better than a coin flip to get close enough for a shot.

Meanwhile we've now got a CD, Klosner, in the middle of our line. One of their forwards has the Nutmeg skill, but he'll at least be able to deter them using it at will.

A near-perfect start; Posch barely got through into the gap, and their effort to stop his shot was pretty weak. Then our defense held up on the other end, and we would go on to claim a 1-0 victory. Beating the 4th-ranked team is quite an accomplishment!

I've mentioned possession battles a number of times; some of that in action to give a better picture of how these matches are playing out.

This is midway through the second half. Their keeper saved a shot that we'd spent some time working towards getting. They knew they weren't going to score, so a defender moved to the sideline and held it there. From here, without having access to skills it's basically impossible to do anything useful. Anybody fast enough to move multiple tiles still needs one action to get there, and enough defense to tackle it away. Good luck with that. If you press, you then have one action left and another player needs to get there and tackle it - there's not even enough time to get possession, nevermind do anything with it.

This is one situation where wing players with their mobility can really show themselves valuable, moving quickly up and down the flanks. There wasn't anything useful for me to do here but wait and see what they wanted to try next, so I just did some position swaps.

Wuppertal was our final opponent for the year; a road match after they beat us 1-0 when we hosted them. That was the one where they scored at the end and I thought we would be able to hold them to a scoreless draw. This one I'm going to walk through the first half on, because there were some good possession examples that happened, and just demonstrate the ebb and flow.

You know your defense is in good shape when they feel compelled to do something like this at the opening kickoff. We got this, right? Nope. Max. roll for them, and Mergel also rolls a 10 to just barely fail.

Another defender intercepts the ensuing shot though, so the threat is neutralized.

It was a power shot, they didn't expect to score but were hoping for a corner or a bad bounce. They got the second one. It's our turn, but we need to pick up the ball and our defensive formation is compromised.

Takes two actions to get possession and move here, ensuring one of their forwards can't just waltz into the gap with the ball. This is just a clearance pass, it's almost certainly not going to connect. Might go to us, to them, to empty space, but at least it'll be halfway up the pitch and not still in our end when it's their turn. Going into a crowded area like this can actually let you get the pass to somebody even it's not the intended somebody. We have two players adjacent, they have one, five tiles are empty space.

It went to Brummern, a fairly lucky turn of events. They press.

Then they tackle it away, but now what? Wuppertal has only one action left this turn.

Holding it is a reasonable choice. They are right in the middle of a bunch of our players though, unlike in the last match where Burghausen was on a wing away from everybody. On the other hand, if we had wingers on both sides then we wouldn't be as effective as here, where both sides have midfielders crowding the middle. Formation choices always have pros and cons.

We press, twice, then take it back. Obviously we're not getting anywhere, but neither are they, and the opening period is half spent. Our best chance of scoring is the second-half kickoff.

Press-tackle-dribble for them, moving it over the midline and away from our midfielders. It looks like they've won the possession battle ... but one of our players moves forward out of defense. The thing about this is that it has to work, because if it doesn't we've left a hole in our formation.

It's no risk in this case though. Wuppertal's player has low enough control that the result is guaranteed. A good example here of the flexibility that DFs - and other universal classes - can offer.

We pass it forward, where they press-tackle- .... and run a player away from the play up a tile? (#2 at top of the image). Sometimes the AI appears to throw up it's hands and make random moves when they don't know what to do. I would have done a lofted pass downrange here or Hold again.

One turn left for us, and we got it back, shot in good range. Odds of getting this past the keeper were not good. Tried a Power Shot in hopes of a corner, but it didn't get past their defender and that was it. A whole lot of maneuvering back and forth, one shot apiece, and no scores.

A typical low-level amateur game at this stage.

Midway through the second half, we maneuvered for a point-blank shot. Even here, it was odds against thanks to the keeper's skill. Precision Shot shows as 19 vs. 25. This is the Dribble option, which is generally rough but a high-control player, usually a Wing Forward, can sometimes pull it off. The normal shot is somewhat more likely here. Power Shot, going for a corner kick, wouldn't be able to give a better chance and might just end in a turnover.

Neither Posch or Theiner covered themselves in glory, but the attempt was just good enough to score. The celebration was short-lived though, as Wuppertal equalized immediately with a low-odds try of their own. One lucky score deserves another. A draw is probably the right result, 1-1.

We finish 6th, sandwiched between Wuppertal and Koblenz. Who would have bet after that initial 9-0 loss that we've finish ahead of the latter? I certainly wouldn't have.

In the first half we went 1-0-6, 5 goals scored and 35 conceded. Second half? 2-3-2, 4 scored and 6 conceded. Almost average. I think we got semi-fortunate, that's a little better than we deserved, but it's still excellent progress.

The players who made it happen:

Print it out and post it on your wall. Everyone needs a target to throw darts and other projectiles at, or for those moments when you just feel a desire to reach out and punch someone.

In all seriousness, this is as large a roster as we'll have for quite a while in one of these annual shots; 19 players under contract. By the end of next year, the fire sale will have begun.

Once we're sure we don't want to do anything else at the moment, esp. setting up any skills training that we might not have done previously, it's time to end the season.

We reach mid-June, a month before the season begins. All competitions including Cups have completed. We're informed it's time to look at our Results, which begins another battery of click-through screens.

We're given a fairly pro-forma description of how we did, which is surprisingly flattering given out outlook at the start of the year. Mediocre is frankly high praise for this roster.

How we ranked in any League and Cup competitons, and and trophies we won will also be shown here.

More stats than you will care about, both for league and cup competitions, are displayed next. But there are often interesting facts here worth looking up. If you emphasize defense, you'll get the 'boringly effective' 'honor' that we are awarded here quite often. As you can see, Sinsheim left very little on the table, leaving no doubt that they are deserving of promotion.

It says Team of the Tournament, but what this means is the Best XI from the league we played in for the year. Only two Amateur clubs didn't have anyone on it. Guess what? We're one of those two. The other is of course lowly Oberhausen.

This one is titled 'Your Players' Achievements'. We get Glory based on getting players in the Top 10 for a competition. Both Leagues and Cups are counted. The higher you rank, the more Glory you get; the more prestigious the competition, the more Glory you get as well. There are some items you don't get credit for; if a shot is blocked by a defender and doesn't get to the keeper, there's no category for that.

This will never be our main source of Glory, but it's a nice supplemental stream of it, and yet another reason to try to do well in cup competitions.

No time has passed: it's still mid-June. By clicking New Season though, we are confirming that anything we want to see and do for this year of the game has been done. We're ready to boldly fail like no club has failed before in an entirely new year.

Of course we must decide if we're actually going to hang around. Our Assistant will have more offers for us if we've completed the contract at our current club. We had 1 year to finish not last in the Amateur League. We succeeded, hence our 6 reputation.

We're not leaving of course, but in this case we have offers to take over at Koblenz and Oberhausen - the two crappiest alternatives the Amateur League has to offer - or similar situations elsewhere on the continent. One is Bosnia-Herzegovina, one in Iceland. They have differing lengths and objectives, different Reputation rewards, and cost us Reputation to move into. 3 each in this case. Since we aren't changing jobs, Reputation is going to be useless to us. But that's the basic scenario if we were.

We take the President's extension. Spoiler alert; we are not going to achieve his goal of promotion in two years.

That info button near the bottom of the email brings up this reminder of how we did.

Technically speaking, Sponsors are the first action for a year, done immediately after you've decided where to manage. At the bottom note the 5% bonus we get for the Fan Favourites; that's reflected in the '+' amounts by each sponsor payment. Number of fans confused me for a bit, but basically it's saying that since we have between 0 and 1,000 fans we get no bonus. If we get over 1,000 we will have a bonus there.

Each sponsor always has two conditions, and there's always an easy one and two that are some degree of more challenging. We can forget about promotion or winning the league, so it's pretty clear we want to go with Electrohouse here. There will be years where it's a lot more of a judgement call and we're unsure of whether or not we can pull off one of the conditions.

When we return, we'll have a new youth intake, new contracts up for extension, three new clubs relegated from Third League to replace those promoting, and it'll be back to work figuring out just exactly how we are going to build on what we've done in '22-23.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2022 18:49

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 16:00

Strategic Sage: Jan 22, 2017; And that's the way it is...

Later we'll be getting into details on the Specialization Tree, and also the transfer window to start of the new year, including the first collective coach decision from all of you! First up though, our new youth player:

Average Lettuce, this your charge. Who has no discernible lettuce, actually.

He also has no Giftedness, but we did do a little better here when it comes to starting off younger. In terms of attributes though, he is decidedly average; shift one point of passing into accuracy and he'd be flat-even across the board.

The usuals are now requested:

- Base Class: Goalkeeper, Defense, Midfield, or Forward

- Training Attribute: Accuracy, Passing, Defense, or Control

Suggestions

You requested a winger. This Punchable Face won't be great at any of those roles, but he could be capable in any of them. Skill draw will be important. Control could make him a good Wing Forward eventually, Passing is slightly his best asset which would lend itself to Wide Midfielder, Fullback is definitely also possible.

Going with Midfielder now would give you the flexibility to choose any of those based on the skills choices, and you really couldn't go wrong with the attribute training depending on your plans.

Average Lettuce, you are on the clock; deadline is Tuesday the time of this posting.

Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Oct 21, 2022

# ¿ Oct 21, 2022 19:04

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > None Of Us Is As Dumb As All of Us: Let's Play Football, Tactics & Glory!

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