Alive... but relegated!

Hello! I'm still alive, just in case anyone was worried :p

It's just been an even busier time for me IRL than I had expected, and so I've barely logged in this past season. In the end I had to go in to holiday mode to avoid exceeding the AI limit for my league. But the team has suffered, and we've had the worst season I've ever had in my FML career - finishing 17th out of 20th and being relegated. I'm pretty disappointed really, our team was never one of the best in the division but we should have done better than that. But with me not being around, and sometimes even forgetting to set the match plans up, I guess it was perhaps to be expected.

I'm not going to be around much next season either (exams are over but I have a holiday and then a house move coming up!), so I'm making plans accordingly. I've wondered about switching to the Open FA but there are currently no spaces available and I have this weird thing about not wanting different FA's on my club history - it's not very realistic is it?! So that's one to ponder and keep an eye on whether any spots open up.

Team wise, the squad will remain pretty much the same for one more year. A number of players are turning 32 this year so this will probably be the final season I can count on them. But that's fine - I have a few youth players waiting in the wings, and by the end of the season I should have a nice little warchest too (and that despite starting yet another stadium building project). So next off-season when I have some more time I should have the opportunity to completely re-shape my team and take things forward for the next phase.

In the meantime, just need to make sure I avoid a double relegation ;)

Consolidation

Once again, apologies for the lack of updates. It's been a busy time for me IRL with both a big exam and a house move coming up, plus of course the small matter of a World Cup to watch...

Fortunately this has co-incided with a pretty slow time for the team in game. We crawled to 12th place in our season 3 top tier qualifier, which I think will be good enough for Championship football in Season 4, but because of the fiendishly complex league reputation system I won't know until after FA lockdown on Sunday. Whilst on the whole I like the shift to 3 season qualifying, I do think this now knowing where you stand is one area that could be improved. I may write a longer post on the qualifying system some other time.

Since the season finished the main news has been the sale of our young starlet striker Israel Santos. Picked up in the starting pool for a 55k AF, he went in transfer auction for just shy of £2.7m plus a 20% future profit clause. I actually thought he might fetch a bit more than that - perhaps the fact I wasn't online much to plug the auction didn't help.

But still the money will be helpful as I move in to the consolidation phase. Those of you who have followed this blog from the start may recall that when the new GW first began I intended to see how things went before deciding on a longer-term strategy, but this quickly went out of the window when I examined the economy more closely and saw the big financial benefits of short-term success that allowed you to buy good players early on and then ride the inflationary wave. At that stage I argued for 2-3 seasons of full-on going for victory to give the team a high rep, followed by some financial consolidation before the big wages kick in and the teams who are still on the edge of their overdrafts get in to some serious trouble.

Well, the time for that consolidation is now. Actually it has been for a little while - I haven't made a major signing for more than a season. But the sale of Santos takes it up a level. The funds are paying for about 80% of a new North stand (named the "Israel Santos Stand" in his honour) - a handy 2 tier Ospitalita II with lots of seats and corporate box slots filled. This will bring The Pearl Stadium's capacity up to close to 19,000 - suitable for a level 12 (i.e. lower mid-table Championship) team. In addition, I am up to three academies and preparing to open a fourth and fifth now that it looks like the system may not be changed for a little while. And the bank balance is around £1m with the projected showing another £1m profit over the next season despite stadium repayments.

So things are looking reasonable. The priority now will be to stay in the Championship whilst I complete this consolidation - and then look to press on in a few seasons time. This does however mean the next few seasons may be a bit dull. Thank goodness for real life ;)

All quiet on the Eastern Front

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, but there really isn't much to report! Out of both cups at the Last 16 stage, and in the league we're midtable once again. Played 20, Won 6, Drawn 8, Lost 6. At this rate we could be in for another tight finish to achieve our aim of 12th place but until we get a bit closer to the end it's impossible to say.

The only thing that has livened it up a bit was a wonderful psycho keeper moment from Sebastien Martens. Early in the second half of a tense 0-0 game their goalie took a goal-kick and despite all my back four being in position Martens decided to run halfway to the halfway line and handle the ball! He received a red card for his troubles and we went on to lose 1-0, so I was pretty annoyed but in a funny way it actually restored a bit of my faith in the Match Engine. The fact that despite a situation like this happens very very very rarely (this is the first time I've seen it in 15+ years of playing CM/FM) SI have seen fit to code it in does lead me to think they've thought of most things. The ME has many flaws and the intense environment of PvP play shows these up cruelly as many teams look to exploit them, but still it's the best that's out there, and still it has the power to surprise so I've resolved to cut it some slack for a bit. Let's see how long that lasts... :p

Managing Risk in FML

A very interesting thread on the forums in the past few days started by a guy called Ackter.

Ackter's dilemma - as it shall henceforth be known (!) - was the following... he had a youth whose wage demand had shot up from 1.2k to 6k, and wasn't sure whether or not to auto-extend at that rate or risk a wage auction. This is a dilemma that a lot of managers are going to face in the coming seasons! In the end - since the player wasn't yet really good enough for the first team football he had been getting - Ackter risked a wage auction with a max bid of 3k. But he was overbid by someone else who entered 7.5k, and so the player left with Ackter only receiving 16k compensation from the AQ fee. Ackter's argument is that he should have received more, perhaps with a rate set in a similar manner to the way the tribunal system works in real life. He mentioned the figure of 100k ish plus sell on clause perhaps being reasonable in this case. This prompted an interesting and passionate debate about whether the system should change, but I don't want to comment on that here...

Instead, I want to look at strategy within the current system and ask how could Ackter have managed his risk? Basically in the situation he was in he had three options:
1 - Hold his nose and pay the auto-extend rate.
2 - Let it go to wage auction as he did.
3 - Before the player's contract expired put him in a transfer auction.
I want to explore option 3 some more.

Now lots of people don't like using the transfer auction route because they say it guarantees they'll lose the player, whereas in a wage auction they still have a chance of keeping him. And of course it's true that just before the wage auction period can be the worst time to put a player in transfer auction, since prices come down a bit with other managers waiting for wage auctions.

But I want to suggest that a transfer auction can be a great way of testing the waters before a possible wage auction. Take Ackter's case. He knew that he was only willing to bid a maximum of 3k for this player in wage auction. So he would know that a bid of 3.1k would see him lose the player for just 16k compensation. Now someone making a bid of 3.1k for this player would end up paying the 16k AF plus a 31k signing on fee (3.1k x 10) for a total of 47k. Of course Ackter only sees 16k of this money.

So what if Ackter had put the player in a transfer auction with a starting bid of 50k, perhaps throwing in a 10% sell-on clause for good measure? If no-one bid, Ackter could be reasonably confident that no-one was willing to bid more than 3k for the player in wage auction, and could go on to risk it. If somebody bid over 50k then yes Ackter would lose the player - but if this happened he was going to lose the player in wage auction anyway! The difference now is that all of the 50k comes to him, rather than most of it flowing out of the system as a signing on fee. And of course he's got his sell on clause. And there's a chance that multiple managers will bid, and drive up the price, giving him more compensation.

Of course this isn't a risk free system. It assumes that all interested managers see the transfer auction, and furthermore that managers actually sit down and make a calculation about whether a player will be cheaper to sign in transfer or wage auction - not all FML managers are that rational!! But I think it's a reasonable way of managing your risk in these sorts of situations.

Season 3 - Let the building commence

So Season 3 is now underway following a quiet off-season at the Pearl
Stadium. Those who have followed this blog from the start will know
that my strategy was always to spend in the first two seasons in
pursuit of a relatively high league position and then to start the
investment processes designed to secure long term stability and
success and leave me with a good amount of cash just as other teams
run in to financial problems with escalating wages etc.

And so that's what I'm doing! The off-season saw 5 players leave and 3
come in. Of the 3 who arrived only one (a Saudi Arabian LB nabbed in a
wage auction) will start - the other two are backup strikers; a
position in which I have two high quality players but previously had
little cover. I hope this squad should now be pretty much set for 2
seasons - the only real question mark being whether I get an offer I
can't refuse for Israel Santos, my 20y/o star of a Spanish striker
(think the next Torres!).

In the meantime the cash I'm not spending on transfer fees and wages
is going on building work. A new stand with nice seats and corp boxes
behind one goal and extra blocks of cheap seats in one of my other
stands are my first round of stadium work (realistically it's going to
be 5 seasons before I get to redeveloping the 4th stand so this seems
like a worthwhile investment). By the time this is finished the
stadium will be big enough for a Level 10 team (I'm currently L8).

Following the broadly encouraging (or at least not as dispiriting as I
feared!) findings of my youth academy research (see previous post) I
have also started work on 2 new small youth academies in countries
that look like reasonable investments.

Given the lack of on-pitch investment I'm trying not to set my league
expectations too high. I think the Premiership may be a bit tough but
I'm hoping that Championship level football next season is a
reasonable aim. Hard to know what would give me enough rep for that,
but I'd certainly be optimistic that top 10 (of 18) in this year's
qualifying league will do the trick. So far one win and two defeats,
but it's still early days.

Academies - Worth it after all?

In amongst all the academies fuss, I think I have found some evidence that academies may be worth it after all.

I've done some calculations based on the situation in Voller. I looked at the top 50 countries in the FIFA/Coca Cola world rankings and for each saw how many players there were in the database, and how many of these had acquisition fees of over 100k. I then looked at the number of academies in each country and their star ratings and worked out whether that country was over or under saturated. Using this I was able to work out how much it would cost in terms of academy running fees per "normal" PA player produced (i.e. not 1-1.5* filler players produced to make up the numbers) and how much for a player who would eventually grow to develop a 100k+ AQ fee in today's money. And the results were very interesting.

Firstly, in the case of "normal" PA players. In the ideal completely unsaturated country, it would cost you an average of £25,200 in running costs to produce each one of these players. That's because if you have a 1* academy you get 1 such player every 7 days (4 a season), paying £3600 a day, whereas if you have a 4.5* academy you get 1 such player every 2 days (14 a season), and you're paying £12600 per day. Either way the cost per player is the same (it's just the time that varies).

No country from the FIFA top 50 gave you this ideal outcome, however the top few came close.
Best Country: £27,182
2nd: £31,675
3rd: £35,161
4th: £40,166
5th: £45,850
Now the MV for a standard PA youth at age 16-17 is currently around 100k. So by that measure, you're on to a winner if you have a YA in one of these countries. You are producing players for less than half the cost that you can sell them on for (this doesn't include the fixed costs of building your academy of course, but we can't take that in to account here because the cost involved depends on how big the academy is. Consequently I prefer to look at academy building cost as really being about time - how quickly you want players - not as purely a financial investment).

Next, let's look at the case of those quality youths who will go on to have an AQ fee in excess of 100k. (I reckon this is roughly a 4* rep in old money). Obviously the vast majority of even normal PA players do not fall in to this category, so the figures involved are much higher. Here are the top 5 in terms of cheapest average amount of running costs per high quality player produced:
Best Country: £987,696
2nd: £1,134,831
3rd: £1,154,273
4th: £1,193,756
5th: £1,382,022
So how does this compare? Well, very few players come through to 100k+ AF's in their first season or two, and those who do are generally the serious wonderkids so it wouldn't be fair to look at those. Instead let's consider what happens if you take these players through their youth career up to 21/22. The average 21/22 y/o 100k+ AF player currently has a MV of around £1.1m. So it looks like you're just about breaking even here IF (and it's a big if!) you can keep their wages down during their youth career. In the case of the best placed country I think you'd need to keep wages to about £800/day throughout their youth career to break even. Difficult but not impossible.

Of course, all these are averages, and at the end of the day the system is still a lottery - you might do better than this and you might do worse - as I have! In addition, I have only listed the best countries above - the worst nations on my scale cost £249k per normal PA player and £18.7m per high quality player respectively! But to my mind the figures do indicate that the academy market is actually much closer to equilibrium than many might think.

Next Roadmap: Wish #5 - A Better Competition Creator

Off-season is always a good time to take stock and look at the bigger picture. So where are we now with FML? The re-set seems to have been pretty successful; there are still some bugs but they're being ironed out, and if rumours are to be believed 3D is on the way in the next major update. So far so good. And then? I guess we will see another roadmap - setting out future developments over the coming months. But what will be in it? Well, over the next week I'll set out my top five ideas. Some - like today's - are completely my own, others are drawn from elsewhere in the community with my own suggestions added. So here we go with...

In at number 5 is a better competition creator.

Now, I know this is not most people's top priority. But competition creation is one of the life bloods of a gameworld - keeping people entertained when they have no official matches to play, and allowing for some of the user creativity that is part of what makes an MMO more engrossing than a bog-standard offline game.

So here are some of the things I think it would be good to see incorporated in a new improved competition creator:
- being able to have more than 8 stages to a competition: this can be quite limiting.
- being able to have all the teams from one stage of a tournament going through to the next stage. I've never understood why you can't do this.
- the ability to have teams from multiple previous stages of a tournament go through to a future stage. Say I want to have a repechage style tournament. The losers in the first round go in to a mini-tournament, the winners of which re-join the main tournament for the quarter-finals. Right now when I go to setup the quarter finals, I can select EITHER teams from the mini-tournament OR the winners of the first round, but not both. I'd like to be able to do this.
- related to this the ability to implement seeded non-knockout playoffs such as the McIntyre System used in Rugby League. This could give a fun new twist to tournaments.
- The ability to have group stage schedules in which teams also play sides in other groups like in an American sports system. For example, you might play the teams in your group twice, and teams in other groups once.
- More controversially, the ability for competition hosts to assign teams to groups manually. To avoid this being used unscrupulously by managers looking to give themselves a big advantage, after the groups had been assigned each manager in the competition would need to re-confirm their entry. But the ability to do this could allow for fun tourneys. Perhaps one with a group of Liverpool fans who play each other for the right to face the winner of a group of Manchester United fans for example.
- And finally, as a big fan of the gameworldone podcasts, it would be remiss of me not to mention multi-select! I only organise comps for fun, and it gets pretty annoying having to manually remove 30+ teams. I dread to think what it's like for an FA org. Sort it out SI ;)

Next time... Number 4!

The Youth Market - Someone has to be unhappy

This weekend I'll begin a series on features I would like to see implemented in future FML updates. But one thing that definitely won't be making the list is changes to the Youth Academy system. Given the uproar on the official forums here and here you might ask why not?

Well because I believe the current system is about as good as you can get. Yes, there are minor alterations I'd make if i was starting from scratch, but now that academies are in I think the development team's time could be better spent elsewhere. As for major changes, I simply don't think they'll work.

You see, the truth is that the youth system can never make everyone happy. Most of the 1000 managers in a game would like to have youth teams at U17, U19 and U21 with 18 good quality prospects in each (defined as say 3* plus PA). That means they need 9 new 3* grads a year. But the database simply can't sustain this. The database size is 50000, which given a roughly even spread of players over the ages of 16 - 34 means that in each year group there should be about 2500-3000 players. So each season 2500-3000 new youths should be created, and of these I can't believe that more than 2000 will be 3*+ PA. So on average each of the 1000 teams can only have 2 new 3* PA youths per season.

Let's just pause to compare those numbers directly:
The average team would like 9 x 3* PA new youths a season.
The average team can have 2 x 3* PA new youths a season.

You don't need to know a lot about economics to know that demand at 450% of supply is a recipe for prices going through the roof. Before academies this was expressed through massively high youth wages, and so the community demanded academies. Now the supply-demand imbalance is expressed through the building of loads of academies, and people are again unhappy. But with this supply/demand inequilibrium there's simply no way to make everyone happy. Someone has to be unhappy. The question is who should be unhappy:

- under a pure market system (like before) those who can't afford it are unhappy. This on the whole means new players, and so makes them more likely to leave. Not good.
- under some sort of youth draft system (as Jakswan has eloquently argued for) the top teams (who get the last picks) are unhappy. I think this is better than a market system, but if you're SI do you really want to piss off some of your best and most dedicated players? Not if you can help it I would have thought.
- under a pure luck system (a few random PA youths crop up in your squad at the start of each season) a random selection of people are unhappy. Plus everyone who (like me) likes more strategy in their game is disappointed. And indeed anyone who wants to have a youth team without the hassle of having to negotiate to buy 16 players off other managers isn't going to be too thrilled either.

Which leaves us with the option of a hybrid system - perhaps combining some sort of market force of how much money you invest with some element of luck, whilst allowing new managers to bring some promising youths in to the gameworld through their starting squad?...

Oh wait, that's what we've already got...

第二赛季完结

今天第二赛季完结。上海王朝在第十二地位完结。因为最好的十三队下个赛季会在最好的部类赛这是很好新闻！

所以下个赛我们会有很多钱，很大声名！可是我觉得我不会花很多钱因为我应该开始建我们的体育场。这是不便宜可是很重要，将来要是你没有一个大体育场，你的进项不能增加很多的。终于别的队会比起你来有很多钱。而且我想建一两个年轻人的学院，那些不便宜可是将来会成为很重要。已经很多人投诉学院不太好，要是他们关他们的学院我很高兴！

第三赛季开始以后，我会给你别的更新。

Dynasty Qualify for Top Tier! (we think!)

Wow, am I interested again now! It's been one hell of an end to the season. I wouldn't normally blog about it in such detail but for once I think the tension deserves re-living.

When the bad form finally left, we were outside the top-12 that I figure we needed to - by my calculations - reach to be sure of making the top tier of final qualifiers. But we were still in with a shot. The problem was our last five games included the league leaders Little Badgers twice, and third place Auckland FC (who hammered us 4-0 earlier in the season) once.

Firstly Little Badgers away, I changed tactics to go 4-4-1-1, played defensive retain possession and attempted to shut up shop. And it worked! 0-0.

Next up, Little Badgers at home. Stuck with the 4-4-1-1 but went counter this time given home advantage and we sneaked it 1-0! Probably deserved it too - although they had more possession and more shots we created 3 clear cut chances to their 0 and so should have put the game to bed long before the 82nd minute winner that eventually clinched it.

I felt really sorry for Little Badgers manager Nicholas as these two results ultimately cost him the league - he only lost to me and the team who eventually clinched the title SF Cosmos.

Next up a 1-1 draw with Soepurb, AI game this so I can't tell you much about it! So two games to go and it was looking tight between me, Stanmore and Stoke Shadows for 11th-13th. And one of my remaining games is the Shadows. I have AI but decided to play my Auckland FC match first because I know Stoke's manager often comes on later in the evening and a win against Auckland would mean we only needed a draw from the final game.

After the hammering I took early in the season I decided to start the Auckland game defensive, but as it went by and stayed 0-0 I gradually came out of my shell more and more and we did have a couple of great chances to win it. Only for disaster to strike. In the 4th of 3 added minutes their goalie hoofs it long down field, my defence stands still (expecting the final whistle?!) and their star striker who has been marked out of the game for 93 minutes tucks it past my out of position keeper. Lost 1-0. Absolutely gutted.

But still if we beat Stoke we're guaranteed to finish above them, and hence in at least 12th place. Trouble is now I'm on a losing streak, AND 3 players picked up their 5th yellow cards in the Auckland game so they're suspended. But I needn't have worried. A hard fought 1-0 victory wasn't without its scares - one of my CB's could easily have been sent off for a last man foul but was only booked (his DC partner was just about covering I think), and they had a string of late corners. And not only did we win it, one of my off-season signings last year who I'd stuck with all season despite him underperforming got the winner with a 20 yard screamer. Love it!

So we're 11th, it will probably be 12th by the time Stanmore have played their last 2 games, but right now I don't care. Top tier 3rd season gives me more prize money, higher rep, and a shot at the top leagues. Give us something to play for - we cried. Man did we get it!

The Bad Form Bug Strikes

6 games without a win. 2 draws, 4 defeats. Our place in the highest tier of qualifiers in Season 3 is now seriously in doubt - especially since we still have to play some of the division's big boys. I'm normally one of those who thrives in this sort of scenario - I get cross but I enjoy the challenge, I spend lots of time thinking about it, play some practice matches, work on tactics, scour the forums for tactical tips and so on.

But this time I feel strangely disconnected. I'm completely out of ideas and consequently I can't be bothered to log in that much. I've varied my tactics a bit, but I have two main ones that have worked well before under this ME and against the same opposition, and given that changing tactics too much has a negative effect why change all the time? I've rotated the squad and brought in a couple of players who are slightly better than what I had before, but that hasn't helped. I've got players back from injury now but that hasn't helped. So I'm a bit stumped.

I don't want to be one of those who whinges on the forum about how unfair it is, how the ME picks on me etc. I do believe the ME is as good as you'll get, and there probably is something I can do to turn this round. So I'll try to keep this constructive!

The problem I have is that the game doesn't give me much feedback at all on how to do that. There is no method for tactical feedback and the "form" information just gives me statistics I already know. And that's before I get started on "morale" which is probably my biggest bugbear. In the squad screen it only gives me an arrow, and even then it seems that given my team started the season well nothing is now going to shift those arrows out of green so I can't pick up on who is really struggling. In the match I can see slightly more - but what on earth does "player x is looking angry" actually mean?

So there is a real lack of information here. In the ideal world this could come through the community - and there is for example a tactics chat room where I can discuss that element of things. But (a) that's not always very helpful, and (b) it doesn't help with how to deal with the form effect or morale. In FM10 I can get detailed reports on a player's character, I can get backroom coaching advice and I can interact with my players (even if that's sometimes a bit naff). Why can't I do any of these things in FML?

Because right now, I can't figure this out. I'm not a brilliant player and as I say I'm sure there's an answer. But I've been on FML for more than a year now with some success and I have played FM and CM since 1994. What would a new player make of it?

Vollernomics: The Success Gap

Here's a question to start with. How much was the financial difference between finishing top of your first season qualifying league and bottom?

If you answered "£1.65m" go and stand in the dunce's corner. If you said "we can't be sure exactly, but it could be as high as £3.21m" then congratulations - have a gold star. Huh, says the dunce, that doesn't make sense. The top prize money for season 1 was £2.2m, the bottom was 550k, the difference is £1.65m. But the truth is that figure can be almost doubled by what I term the success gap - the difference that inflation has made to the squad values of someone who at the end of last season was able to put together a top rate squad, versus the person who couldn't.

Let me explain, using my data (read more about this sample here and feel free to disagree if you like). As Season 1 drew to a close, MVs were almost exactly equal to AFs. A quick off the mark manager at the bottom of a division could in theory have pulled together a team of 11 players with 12-14 in key attributes of their positions for a total of £373k. Today that squad would be worth £957k, an increase of 584k. Meanwhile, a quick off the mark manager who finished higher up their qualifying league could have in theory have nabbed a team of 11 players with 15+ on key attributes in their positions for a total of £1.48m. Today that squad would be worth £3.63m. An increase of £2.15m. This second manager has experienced a rise in their squad value by £1.56m more than the first manager, purely as a result of inflation.

The £1.65m extra prize money the league winner earned was exactly that - earned. We can argue on the forums until the cows come home about whether that is a fair amount. Personally I think it's fine, in line with "give us something to play for" it's awarded to those managers who managed to perform well in season 1. But they have not done anything to earn the extra £1.56m - all they've done is sat and watch the MV go up and up and up, sometimes every few hours.

This - in a nutshell - is why inflation is bad for a gameworld.

Mid-season mid-table mediocrity

It's been a busy few days for me IRL so I haven't found time to finish the final article in my Vollernomics series. Apologies - it will be coming soon but in the meantime a quick update on the team.

So far in the league we are P21 W8 D5 L8 F22 A23 Pts29. You can't get much more mid-table than that! I'm reasonably pleased though: it's a tough division and despite my supposed buy buy buy strategy I haven't bought as many players as others - still waiting for the right guys to come along. At the end of the season roughly the top 13 will go in to the highest tier for the final qual season, but given that there's always the risk some top teams from other FAs might decide to transfer in to the TFA I'd like to make sure I finish top 11 to be on the safe side. It's going to be a challenge though - I'm missing several key players through injury including my star CB for 15 games.

In the cups I've traditionally either lost in the first round or gone really deep in the tournament so when I picked up some early wins I got quite hopeful. But last 16 defeats in both means we can "concentrate on the league" from here on in.

With being busy I haven't actually logged in all that much since the bank holiday, so many of these outcomes have come from my match plans. I've spent quite a lot of time setting up the plans and I think it's been time well spent. Whilst the interface is a pain, the functionality of the match plans is really great. I remember a time when if I couldn't log in for 3 or 4 days I'd be very nervous logging back in to see how far back I'd fallen. It felt like I was punished for having a life. Now I can set up the team the way I want, and consequently am really curious to log back in to see how they've been getting on. Of course the downside is that when they fail I only have
myself to blame... ;)

Vollernomics: Inflation estimated at 313%, youths over 450%

In the second of this series on the economy in GW Voller (if you missed the first, find it here or just scroll down!) I look at the headline figures on inflation.

And they're pretty shocking. 313% over last season means a player is now worth more than 3x what he was a season ago.

Before we go any further, disclaimers are important. I can't be certain in my sampling methods. The last post outlines why. In addition, to produce an inflation figure I ought to have prices from last season to compare to. I don't, because I hadn't thought of starting to collect the data then. However, at that time I remember that MV was almost always exactly AF or just a few k higher. And whilst AF's have risen slightly in the last season, they're not hugely higher. So I am using current AF figures to estimate player MV at this time last season, in the expectation that these two factors will more or less cancel each other out. Finally, I had to decide how heavily to weigh the 33 categories I sampled in my inflation "basket". In the end I decided that all 11 positions should be weighed equally, and that superstars should be considered to make up 20% of the basket, core senior players 50% and youths 30% - this was based on a pretty arbitrary estimate of how many transfers in the past season have fallen in each category. Oh and finally the system relies on MV, which some think is a load of rubbish. Actually I don't think it is, but even if you do you can't blame me for that - blame SI!

Now, the figures. As mentioned the headline figure this methodology produced is 313%. But the broken down findings are also quite interesting. The inflation rates on superstars (245%) and core senior players (256%) were very similar, indicating that the very top players aren't experiencing an enormous spiral in prices beyond others of a lower quality. But there is a big difference with youths, where inflation was at 455%. Indeed youth goalkeepers were the most inflated area of the market as a whole, coming in at a whopping 503% - i.e. costing 5x more than they did a season ago.

Positions wise inflation was fairly uniform. Defenders (300%) lagged slightly behind midfielders (323%), goalkeepers (325%) and strikers (329%) but I reckon that is probably almost within the margin of error of my samples.

What does all this mean? Well, there's good news and bad news. Firstly, the good news. I think it tells us that the database is fairly well balanced. If there was a real shortage of quality strikers for example, we'd expect to see striker inflation much higher than other categories. It isn't. There is a very slight bias against wingers and wide midfielders (inflation 309%) compared to central midfielders (inflation 336%) but I had expected this might be a much bigger gap given the popularity of narrow formations under the current ME.

The outlier figure is obviously youth. However, I think this is at least in part temporary - explained by it taking a while for academies to churn out the full quota of youth players the game expects. But in part it's probably down to the bias of many managers towards youths. That will probably sustain but even so if you're not already in it, youth certainly doesn't look to me like a good route to go down just now. The market is valuing even a fairly standard youth at 3.5x AF (16k v 55k) so you'll pay through the nose for your purchases, and as supply from academies increases I think there's a fair chance those prices will fall back again.

So on the whole the database is balanced and consistent, and apart from the current situation with youth and the trickle of unlocked players I think supply is fairly constant. The bad news is therefore that the new system has failed to control rises in demand adequately, and consequently prices have been pushed up hugely. This was entirely predictable because of the extra £975m in prize money that is flowing in to the GW this season (compared with last season) as a result of Season 1 performance, and without many more ways of it flowing out of the GW - wages have stayed pretty much stable, and no-one needs to do serious stadium work yet. More bad news is that next season prize money will increase again. However, higher team reps may cause greater wage rises and incentivise higher levels of stadium investment. Plus anecdotal evidence suggests a lot of teams are in debt right now, so they may choose to use increased winnings to pay that down. I will have a small wager that next season we will see significant inflation, but that it will be (just) under 100% - i.e. we won't see player prices doubling.

Ah but, I can hear you say... why does this inflation matter? In fact, isn't it good that teams have more money, it makes the game interesting by encouraging transfers and the community activity they provoke. Well whilst those are indeed good things, I think the damage caused is much greater. I'll outline why in the next post. If you can't wait until then, go and read back the forum posts by myheadhurts whilst discussing the post-reset economic model. (S)he was spot on...

Vollernomics: Introducing Vollernomics

Over the course of the next week I will be publishing a series of pieces on the economy in my gameworld, GW Voller. I'm doing this for two reasons: firstly that economics is actually something I know a little bit about so I may be able to contribute more than my usual rambles; and secondly that I believe the economy is actually the single most important thing to a smoothly functioning game that retains players over the long term. Basically everything that people discuss on the official forums that isn't moderation or the match engine comes down to economics. The problems of FML v1 were almost exclusively economic - unofficial money comps, the sudden introduction of stadiums and of course inflation. This series of articles will focus largely on inflation, because - for reasons that will become clear over the week - I believe it is the greatest threat to the otherwise excellent FML v2 succeeding.

"Numbers Mrs Landingham, if you want to convince me, show me numbers." - President Bartlet, The West Wing

Lots of threads on the forums have discussed various aspects of money in the abstract, I hope to add to the debate by showing you some numbers. They won't be perfect, I don't have access to the same kind of data that SI (I hope!) do. And of course they only apply to one gameworld - others may be different, although I suspect they won't be.

The rest of this post will set out the methodologies I've used so that those of you who are more numerically focussed can pick over it and decide if what I've found is going to be worth anything. My own view is that this method is far from perfect, but it's a good start and enough to give us a reasonably accurate impression.

Over the period 30 April - 2 May I looked at a sample of over 600 players across the gameworld. To select the sample I first looked at 11 of the common player roles (Goalkeeper, Full Back, Wing Back, Ball Playing Defender, Stopper, Ball Winning Midfielder, Advanced Midfielder, Wide Midfielder, Winger, Target Man, Poacher) and picked out five key attributes for each, using largely those selected in game but tweaked somewhat to reflect what I think many managers look for - for example only one of the roles above lists pace as a key att in game but it's something that I know a lot of people look at so I added it to several other roles as well. Then for each role I looked at three types of players:
(1) the senior (aged 22-31) superstars who have 15+ in each of the 5 key attributes
(2) the senior (aged 22-31) core squad players who have 12-14 in each of the 5 key attributes
(3) the youth (aged 16-21) players who have 10-13 in each of the 5 key attributes. I deliberately capped this at 13 to avoid a few wonderkids distorting all the figures.
So 11 roles and 3 types of player gave me 33 categories. In each of the senior categories I then picked a sample of 20 players, drawing 2 players from each "year group" where possible. For each of the sampled players I looked at their AF and their MV. On occasion to get a proper sample for the superstar category I had to drop the attribute requirements slightly. Where I did this I then multiplied up the AF and MV proportionally to reflect how much more better quality players might cost if there was a linear progression (I'm sure there's not, but this was the best I could do). For youth the sample size was 18, with 3 players from each "year group" from 16 up to 21.

I worry that the sample may be a bit small, but frankly I didn't have the time or inclination to do a bigger one (have you any idea how tedious it is?!) and where in a couple of categories I experimented by taking several samples I found the results came out pretty similarly. So I hope the results I have found are fairly accurate.

Comments on this methodology are very welcome. I will try to repeat this process every season as the series of data could be quite interesting. However, it is a pretty time consuming task, so any volunteers to help would also be much appreciated.

In the meantime, I hope you are interested by the results, which I will start posting tomorrow.

Shanghai Dynasty: The Second Generation

Introducing the Season 2 Shanghai Dynasty...

GK Sebastien Martens. Returns after a good first season. Nothing to
write home about but solid and improving all the time.
DR - Yildaz Emrah. Not been as good as his atts suggest he might be.
Looking for more from him this season.
DL - Lukas Koci/Mikko Sinisalo. One taller, one quicker, so I swap
them round depending on the opposition. May well be my top target for
a position to improve, but with so few sides employing wingers these
days it seems a waste to spend big on full-backs.
DC - Sorin Ene. A bit inconsistent, but has the right atts and two
good games for every dodgy one.
DC - Erwin Tol. A rock. Signed on a 2yr deal which will take him past
30, at which point few other managers would want to sign him so I
suspect he'll see out his career with us.
MC - Albert Cuenca. My biggest offseason signing. Wages of 12k/day are
higher than I'd like but he is on wage demand (no-one else is
interested in a 29y/o it seems...) and a very talented ball winning
midfielder. With influence 20 he is also this season's captain.
MC - Kenneth Paul. Now 22, Paul is starting to grow in to the player
he should be. He does still tend to go missing in the big games
though, and will likely be the one to miss out if I decide to switch
to a 4-4-2 at some point.
AMR - Giuseppe Costa. Surprised me in a good way last season. Has a
habit of making great late runs to the back post and tucking the ball
past the keeper. More please.
AMC - Luis Carranza. For some reason his MV is only 120k but I rate
him much more highly than that. Scores and sets up goals. A bit
streaky mind.
AML - Oleg Shevchuk. The Ukrainian wonder started last season really
well but tailed off towards the end. Could use him in top form this
year.
FC - Sergey Kokoev. My 750k signing at the end of last season. His MV
today is 625k but I reckon I could get double that for him so I
consider it a good investment. He's only 5'10 but strong and good at
holding up the ball. Plus he's a clinical finisher, when he mangages
to find space, which isn't as often as I'd like.

The other player worth noting is Israel Santos, my 19 y/o hot prospect
FC. I've already had an offer of £1m for him but I'm not ready to let
go yet. I reckon by next season he'll be worth at least 1.5m and in
any case with only 3 strikers in the squad I need him. May join Kokoev
up front in a 4-4-2 from time to time.

Buckling up for the inflation rollercoaster

One of the few advantages of not being able to log in much at the
moment is that it gives me more time for cool reflection on strategy
and future direction. I've got a few ideas for further developments in
the game which I may well post on here next week. But in the meantime
I've been pondering team strategy.

Those who have followed this blog from the start will recall my
original strategy was not to have much of a strategy for the first few
years, to see where I came out in the wash and then to implement a
longer-term plan. But that idea has been blown out of the water by
what has happened. Firstly the team has done much better than I dared
expect, and secondly when I investigated the GW finances I found that
lots of cash will be flowing in to the GW over the next few years
without many new ways to spend it. To me this must equal inflation,
and we're starting to see it already in Voller, with prices of player
transfers rising. Yes there was the infamous £3.25m deal, but there
have been lots of other transfers too. As other managers see prices
rising they demand more. A manager who wanted 500k on Saturday for a
striker I was chasing was demanding 750k by yesterday. And as other
managers see their finances graph looking like a healthy green take-
off path they become more willing to pay these raised prices

I think this trend will continue for 3 seasons now, as each year prize
money rises and teams have more cash to spend. It may be worst in
season 2 because wage demand rises will also start to kick in during
the following seasons, but I think it will continue as those wage
rises may well not be as big as the prize money increases. The problem
is likely to be particularly acute at the top end of the market as the
prize money increases will be greatest there.

This trend will only stop after Season 4 or 5 when prize money stops
rising year on year and the seriously big wages kick in. At that point
I think we might even see some temporary deflation - particularly at
the top end of the market where the biggest wage rises will come -
until things calm down and the economy settles in to a long term trend
of low inflation.

I plan to collect data on this in the coming months and see if my
projections prove correct. More of that in a later post...

In the meantime, what does this mean for team strategy? Well, it means
now is the time to buy! With inflation on the way, provided you don't
go crazy now your investment is likely to be worth it as player values
and prize money rise. I paid the 750k for that striker and don't
regret it - he's 24 so just coming in to his prime and already 15+ in
half a dozen key atts, and 12+ in pretty much everything else that
matters. And he's on less than 8k wages with 2 seasons left on his
contract. I predict he'll be worth £1m+ in a season's time. I hope to
add a couple more players soon too - a DM and a LB are top of the list.

The key then will be to pick the right moment to stop buying and start
saving. You don't want to do this too soon, or you'll see other teams
improving faster than you on and off the field. But you really don't
want to do it too late, or you'll find you're still in debt with wage
demands rising and a need to sell players - only your players are now
worth less than they were a few weeks before. The smartest managers
will have actually started saving a while before that point, and have
built up a warchest that will allow them to pick off some of these
cheap buys and take their team on even further.

So I think my conclusion is the following:
- Season 2: Buy buy buy, pushing the overdraft to the limit.
- Season 3: Clear the debt from S2 and start the investment process,
getting cash in to the stadium to yield rewards later.
- Season 4: finish stadium investments and start building the warchest.
- Season 5: keep building the warchest until the market turns and then
cash in.

Sounds simple doesn't it. Of course it won't be. But from the evidence
I think it's the logical approach to take. Jakswan is in the same GW
as me and as an inflation sceptic plans to take a more conservative
approach, so it will be interesting to compare which works best.

Virgin Media ruined my season!

Ok so that's not strictly true, but since when has the truth got in
the way of any self-respecting FML manager explaining their reasons
for losing ;)

My Internet has been down for 3 days so I hadn't been able to log in
until I made it to Starbucks this afternoon and managed to spin out a
large Americano for 90 mins or so whilst I caught up! When I logged
on, I found that all the top sides in the division had finished their
seasons and that we were sitting 6th, 12 points behind the leaders
with 4 games to go. With our GD 4 wins would probably have made us
champions, but two horrific defending mistakes against the 3rd place
side later and it was all over. Two tame draws followed and now with 1
game to go we're guaranteed a 4th place finish.

If you'd offered me 4th at the start of the season I'd have bitten
your hand off - higher qualifiers for the second season, a rep boost
and just shy of £2m in the bank is fantastic news! But given that I
topped the division for a time at the weekend and was still in with a
shout of the title today I ended up feeling quite disappointed. I
guess the best analogy is perhaps Liverpool fans in the 2008-09
season: a good finish (certainly compared to this season ;) but a
feeling it could have been so much more.

Setting aside Virgin Media, it's clear that my main problem has really
been spells of bad form at crucial times. 6 games without a win last
week knocked us right backwards just when we looked like mounting a
serious assault on the top spot, and bottling it today stopping us
breaking in to the top 3. Jakswan wrote a very interesting post on
form last week (not sure how to post a link as I'm on my iPhone but
there should be one on the bar to your right) in which he essentially
argued form is cyclical because as the team wins more and more games
they become more and more confident in a virtuos cycle until they get
over-confident and lose a few, then they start to panic and lose some
more in a vicious cycle until they grind out a win and start the
virtuous cycle again.

So perhaps the key is to focus on grinding out a win - any kind of win
- when things are going badly. In this scenario defensive tactics and
low creative freedom to cut out silly mistakes would be the order of
the day. And then as things start to improve gradually allow your team
to express themselves more and play more attacking football. I don't
know if that will work, but it's a theory I intend to try out if I run
into bad form again next season.

In the meantime, i'm going to stick to blaming my ISP... I don't think
even Sir Alex Ferguson has come up with that one before ;)

Countering the 4-1-2-3

Much trauma on the official forums yesterday about the "overpowering"
effect of the narrow 4-1-2-3 formation, with teams playing through the
middle running rampant on some servers. There are the usual demands
that this is terrible and the ME needs to be corrected immediately etc
etc.

I think this is an over-reaction. Yes 4-1-2-3 is possibly slightly
favoured by the current ME, but there are two big buts:

Firstly, we are currently all playing in teams with not very good
technical and mental players. Physical stats (which these teams are
built around) are therefore dominating. As we get better teams with
smarter players coming through I think they'll adapt better and the
formation will lose it's impact.

Secondly, it is possible to counter this formation, and I suspect many
aren't getting it quite right. Like any tactic the counter is not
perfect, but I've had some success with it. And since I've benefitted
from community help in countering previously "overpowered" tactics I
thought it only fair to share my thoughts this time...

(I usually play a wide 4-2-3-1 (so with AMR/AMC/AML) but I'm fairly
sure this can work with any "wide" formation ie two players on the
left and two on the right.)

As always when trying to counter something you need to look at it's
strengths and it's weaknesses.

The main strength of this tactics are:
(a) Three central midfielders (1xDM, 2xMCs) means they can dominate
the centre of the park. You can play a wide 4-3-3 to counter this
whilst retaining your own width but I don't think it's strictly
necessary. What is important if you don't though is that you tone down
your midfielders' closing down (at the very least do not use the
Hassle Opponents shout) as a good trio will be able to just pass and
move round your two. The one exception to this might be if you see the
opposition has one player who is weaker on the ball (first touch in
particular) in which case you might want to use a specific OI to see
if you can nab it off them sometimes. Otherwise your aim here is not
to stop them but to hold them up and crucially cut off their passing
lanes. Remember they are going to be looking to pass through the
centre 90%+ of times so if your MCs sit back they can cut out these
passing lanes and leave your opponents stuck going nowhere in the
middle of the park.
(b) Three forwards can overrun your two DCs. Counter this using a
specific marking system. Set your RB to specifically mark their FCL
(tight yes), your LB to specifically mark their FCR (tight yes) and
one of your CBs to specifically mark their FCC (tight yes). Then set
your other DC - preferably the one with better pace and positioning -
to zonal marking, tight no. Although you don't play him in the
position or the role he effectively acts as a sweeper, mopping up when
one of the forwards breaks away from their man marker.

This should tie up the middle nicely but the chances are the
opposition will still look to find at least a little width. In my
experience this will probably come from their full-backs. If so,
counter this by giving your wingers specific marking instructions
against their full backs. However you should set tight marking to no,
when your side gets the ball you don't want your wingers right next to
their full-backs as this will stifle your own attack. Some on the
forums have said they've seen the width provided by the two MC's
breaking out. I've not come across this but logically the best
response would be to set your MC's to man marking so that they'll go
with them.

So that's their strengths hopefully contained for the most part. What
about their weaknesses? Well clearly their big weakness is in the wide
areas, but in my experience just using the 'play wider' shout doesn't
really cut it. Two other methods I've found work better.

One is using a counter strategy and the 'Exploit the flanks' shout.
Basically this works on the idea that if their full-backs join the
attack they have no defensive cover down the wings at all, so your
wingers can get in to these gaps. Using the 'run with ball' shout or
just setting your wingers to run with the ball more will help exploit
this fully.

However if you're not playing a counter strategy I've found 'exploit
the flanks' less useful. I think this is because your attack is longer
in the buildup their full-backs have had time to re-position
themselves before your wingers get on the ball. So if you're not
playing counter using the 'look for overlap' shout is a better bet
here, because by bringing your own full backs in to play you are
doubling up against their full backs, giving you maximum chance of
securing a good cross in. Of course you then need a good headerer to
get on the end of it so a tall FC with good jumping is a big boost here.

And so there you have it. As I say it's not perfect, and I have still
lost to a 4-1-2-3 narrow playing this way. But with this setup I think
you have no more to fear from the 4-1-2-3 than from any other formation.

Hope it proves useful. Let me know in the comments how you get on.

Hate to say I told you so...

Sorry for the lack of updates this past week. Whisper it but as I have been busy in real life, I haven't had much time to log in. This is clearly a horrendous crime for which I must be punished, and if SI's previous policies of docking money and relegating teams for having their AI play for them didn't work it can only be because they aren't tough enough. Perhaps a knock on my door in the dead of night from Marc Duffy and Ov Collyer carrying a plank of 2x4 would do the trick better...

Even when I have managed to log on though, things have not been going well. It appears my prediction in my last post that things were bound to take a turn for the worse was at least half right. It happened, but not because of a run of injuries as I expected, just a horrific run of form. We couldn't find the net consistently for ages and ages and then when we broke out and scored 3 in one game, our previously best in the division defence went and conceded 4. We're now winless in 6 league games.

Now with 11 games to go in the league season we're sitting in an uneasy 9th, and although we have games in hand most of our remaining matches are (a) away from home, and (b) against top sides so it's not going to be easy. I think maybe it's time to roll the dice and bring in a new player. I haven't found the right one yet, but I'm on the hunt...

Still really enjoying the season though. The truth is, as Jordan Cooper said on the new gameworld one podcast that FA matches now feel like they matter. When I win I'm delighted, when I lose I get cross. I'm now re-considering my strategy with 11 games to go in the season - do I hold back or take a risk with my budget? This is how the game ought to be. Long may it continue. Just please let my poor run of form stop soon!

So far so good...

Hope I'm not tempting fate by posting this but things are looking pretty good right now. In the TFA Qualifying League D (which was called Qualifying League 4 until it was changed the other day for no apparent reason!) we have now P21, W11, D5, L5. Lots of the matches have been pretty tight and a couple of those wins were rather lucky, but then a couple of the defeats were pretty unlucky too. Latterly though we've broken out and have won a couple of games by three goal margins. We're in 7th place in the league but have games in hand on all the sides above us, and on projected points (not necessarily a reliable guide!) we're joint top!

After last week's discussion about the amount of prize money on offer in Season 1 I did think about spending big to try to claim a top 5 finish, but I'm holding off for now because it looks like we might just get there anyway. There is a little cash in the bank though if things start to head south.

So all in all feeling pretty good. Surely it can't be long before something goes wrong?! I'm just waiting for that 25 match injury...

Number Crunching the RevSaint's prophecy

By far the most interesting thread on the official forums over the Easter weekend has been this one started by RevSaint.

In essence the "deal" of the new income system (with a greater focus on official competition performance) is as follows: the top teams *can* earn a lot more than the bottom sides, BUT
1 - they will have higher wages to go with this, so will have to live on the edge financially
2 - there will be fairly steep drops in prize money at the top end, so a bad season will see your team earn a lot less the next year, and given point 1 this may lead to you having to sell players and dropping back down the rankings
3 - gameworlds will be low inflation environments so the teams who do well early will not see their assets increase in value so fast that 1 & 2 are irrelevant.

Some of RevSaint's critics seem to think he doesn't like this "deal" but my impression from his posts are that he does, but he thinks the way the start of a gameworld is now structured is not going to allow the deal to function properly. In particular, the teams who do well in the first season will get so much more prize money than the others that they'll quickly be out of sight. Let's look at some numbers on each of these three points to see if he's right...

1 - Higher Wages
It's hard to say whether this will be true, because some of the best players are yet to be unlocked, and we haven't had the first round of contract renewals yet. From looking at the wage auctions from the players who have been unlocked in Voller so far, it seems the average wage paid out is around twice their base wage demand. But I really don't want to stress too much on this because it's simply too soon to say - the other two points will be much better indicators...

2 - A danger of falling backwards quickly
This really isn't going to happen much in the qualifying seasons. Winning a season 1 qualifying league = £2.2m. Even if you come last in the season 2 qualifying league I believe you're in for about £1.8m. So 90%+ of the top teams will receive more in prize money during season 3 (from their season 2 performance) than they do during season 2 (from their season 1 performance). And given that any newly unlocked player signing in season 2 is likely to have fixed (one-off) costs of 400k (AQ fee plus signing on fee), this means that provided that your projection with the new signing's wages included looks fine in season 2 it will also be fine in season 3, regardless of how badly your team does. So you can afford to push the boat out in season 2 with no risk at all. And if you do push the boat out you'll be able to price the weaker teams out of the wage auctions.

3 - A low inflation environment
Ok this is where we get really mathematical. Inflation of player prices will occur if more money flows in to the GW (through prize money, stadium income etc) than flows out of it (through wages, stadium investment, academy investment, AQ fee signings on free agents etc).

Incoming: In the first season the 1000 teams in a GW each receive 400k in prize money, so there is total of about £400m flowing in. However, each of the season 1 qualifying leagues has a total of £2.75m prize money per 20 teams. So 50 of these leagues for 1000 teams means that prize money flowing in next season will be £1.375bn (£1375m), an increase of £975m over season 1. In addition there will be small rises in stadium and general income to go with the rises in team rep, although I estimate these will be fairly small increases from looking at the miniscule increase in stadium income that comes from being a Level 5 rep team as opposed to Level 1. For the sake of round numbers let's say this increase will be £25m, bringing us to a total of £1bn (£1000m) extra flowing in to the season 2 economy. So unless an equivalent amount then flows out of the economy we're going to see inflation.

Outgoing: A big source of outgoing money will be the players who are unlocked in Season 2 - AF's, signing fees and wages will all flow out of the GW economy. So I took a look at the players due to be unlocked in Voller during Season 2. Their combined acquisition fees come to £96.7m (leaving transfer neg skills to one side for a minute since I don't know how many people hold them). If every player goes for their contract wage demand this will be a further £122.8m flowing out of the economy in signing on fees and wages. This brings us to a total of just £219.5m. In a more realistic scenario where these unlocked players go for twice their wage demand, we're still only looking at around £350m flowing out. So where does the other £650m outgoing come from? Increased wages? Yes, a little, but given that teams have such low reps in season 1 player rep isn't going to rise that fast so I'm guessing wage rise demands will be modest. Stadium expenditure? Yes, a little, but given that with Rep 5 you only need a few hundred more seats than with Rep 1 I can't see many teams spending big here. Youth Academies? Yes, a little, but there are already *loads* of YA's in Voller so many will not see it as a good investment, and in any case many teams don't have the ability to build more than one. Unless wage increases are much bigger than I have anticipated, I just can't see where we're going to get to the £1bn of outflows from.

And if we don't, particularly if we miss by a long way - the scourge of inflation will haunt the new gameworlds in the way it did the old. I have no issue with the teams that do well in season 1 being in pole position to sign the top newly unlocked players in season 2 (heck I hope to be one of those sides myself!), but if those players' values immediately skyrocket those teams' assets are going to increase by far more than the £1.2m differential in season 1 prize money between the best and worst sides. Hopefully this won't be forever; when the full tiers begin and the top rep teams start to see massive wages, they should be pulled back a little. But by then they top teams will be well ahead, and probably sitting on good size cash reserves. So I think we're talking about at least five seasons down the road. Will other managers stick around that long to wait? History suggests they won't.

He may be called RevSaint, but his prophecy of doom may yet be spot on...

New Injury System: Right but too soon

Progress in the last few days has been encouraging - through to the
3rd round of the TFA cup and 7 points out of a possible 9 in the
league. But now we have hit our first injury crisis, with 3 of the
regular back 4 and one of our wingers all out, so the next few games
will be tough.

In general I'm trying not to complain because I believe the new injury
system is on the whole a good thing. Before there were too few
injuries and as they were time based when you got them the best
strategy was just to log out and wait for them to go away. Now that
injuries are match based this is no longer an option - you are forced
to suck it and see what happens with your reserves for a while.

The new system adds several additional areas of strategy to the game
(always welcome in my view). Will you build a good-sized squad of
solid players or risk a few superstars but not much depth? Will you
use up one of your two skill specialisations on physio to minimise
injuries and recovery times? These are good strategic questions but...

In the first season the strategy of squad size is not really an
option. You simply don't have enough money to build a big squad so you
have - at least to an extent - to go small and risk it. And since
every team is roughly the same standard, having to bring in your 17y/o
youth who's never played senior games before can be the difference
between a win and a loss. So my concern is that whilst the system is
good in the longer run, for a manager's first season or two there is
too much luck and too little strategy involved. Yes if you carried
over bonus skill points there is still some strategy in terms of
whether to spend them on physio or not but this only tackles half the
problem, and in any case new managers joining in future won't have
this luxury.

So whilst I think the new injury system is good I think we need its
provisions to be phased in for new teams. Something like one-third the
normal chance of picking up an injury in a manager's first season in a
GW, and two-thirds the normal chance in their second season might help
managers bed in more smoothly and make it less the luck of the draw.

Otherwise full marks for the new system - despite the effect it's
having on my team!

Shanghai Dynasty: The First Generation

Since the lag is making it almost impossible to play matches tonight, thought I'd give a quick rundown of my starting team for season 1.

GK - Sebastien Martens. A Frenchman, nothing spectacular but has seemed (touch wood) solid enough so far.
DR - Yildiz Emrah. Turkish RB picked up in wage auction, considerably better than either of the two I had in my initial pool (although that's not saying much!). Nothing spectacular, but has high pace, positioning and stamina - three key skills in this position I think.
DL - Lucas Koci. Brought in to my initial squad after out-performing the other LB from my initial pool despite lower attributes. However lower atts now starting to shine, he may not be around too much longer.
DC - Ivan. Brazilian. Has done a creditable job, but has a tendency to get found out by good strikers, so I try to swap my CB pairing around to make sure he avoids the best ones.
DC - Erwin Tol. The best player from my pool with an AF of 95k. Almost didn't sign him owing to 7k/day wages, but my defence looked so leaky without him I couldn't resist in the end.
MC - Rob Coward. Veteran (32 y/o) English man, brought in to provide some experience and physicality to the midfield for one season. I tend to think it's a sign the team's playing well when I don't see too much of him in a game...
MC - Guillaume Petitjean. Has had a stunning start to the season. Technical atts are ok but crucially he's quick and fit and covers a lot of ground in the middle of the park. He therefore provides a nice counter-weight to Coward who doesn't move around a lot these days!
AMR - Giuseppe Costa. Average but no better. Will probably look to replace after a season, or sooner if the 16y/o almost-wonderkid who will replace him during the injury he has just picked up does well.
AML - Oleg Shevchuk. The most creative player in the side, capable of scoring himself, putting in crosses or cutting inside to set up others. Only 21.
AMC - Kenneth Paul. Like Shevchuk just 21 and with some promise. Not quite as creative as I'd like in this role, but he's quick and makes helpful runs that confuse defenders.
FC - Paul Thomas. A veteran Welshman I picked up unchallenged in a wage auction (possibly because of the age/nationality combo ;) Nothing incredible but crucially has a bit of everything; pace, strength, finishing, creativity. This makes him versatile, and in fact I'm still not sure I've found the way to get the best out of him.

Warming the subs bench I have three other strikers; a beanpole target man, a more direct replacement for Thomas and a promising 18 y/o. If I decide to stick to 4-2-3-1 all season I may need to sell one of them, but for the time being I'm hanging on to them all whilst things settle down.

Youths wise the aforementioned almost-wonderkid da Cruz looks like a real talent, as does the young striker on the bench Santos. One or two others who look reasonable in the U-21 squad but I don't want to jump to conclusions as I haven't even got initial assessments on them yet.

The official season has started ok, with a win in our first league game and through to the second round of the TFA Cup. Out of the GWC at the first time of asking though.

So in summary, Barcelona we ain't. But hopefully we can have a respectable season.

上海王朝：第一个队

这是我们第一个赛季的队

GK. Sebastien Martens. 法国人。 他是不特别可是也不错的门将。 我希望他能停很多的滥。
DR. Yildiz Emrah. 土耳其人。原来他不是在我的队，一个很好的薪金拍卖签字.
DL. Lucas Koci. 不太好可是别的LB 很老！我希望下个赛季以前我可以找到一个新的LB.
DC. Ivan. 巴西人。跟Koci一样，我希望我能早日唤他。
DC. Erwin Tol. 我们最好的人。很贵（每个天7000)可是很重要。
MC. Rob Coward. 因国人。有点老（三十二岁）可是还不错。
MC. Guillaume Petitjean. 很聪明的球员，他可以很快看机会和问题。很有用的技！
AMR. Giuseppe Costa. 不错的右边队员，可是已经他有腿疼，不能替四个比赛。
AML. Oleg Shevchuk. 在将来我觉得他会最好的人。现在他是二十一岁，已经他是很好，在左边很快！
AMC。 Kenneth Paul。另外二十一岁人。不如Shevchuk好，可是不错。
FC。Paul Thomas。三十一岁维尔兰人。我买他在拍卖，别的经理不要他可是已经他给我三个篮。

一共我觉得这是不错的队。已经我们赢了两个比赛，失败一个。我会写常常报告！

New Gameworld Resolutions

When the reset was announced, SI talked about having elite gameworlds. That idea was put on ice, and right now it's not hard to see why - put all the experienced managers together and it's pretty damn competitive anyway! Two pretty heavy friendly defeats in Voller have already sent me scampering back to the tactical drawing board. In the past I haven't minded being rubbish at the start of a GW because I've thought I'd come in to my own once all the people with unsustainable finances have had to tone it down, but this time my wages (at 42k/day) are actually above average. It's going to be tough.

Consequently I'm setting myself some "new gameworld resolutions" - things to stick to in order to make sure I'm maximising my chances.

(1) Play the numbers more. The new fml by numbers blog has got me thinking about using proper analysis to look at my players and the economy. One key area on this is youth academies where systematic analysis of the quality of players produced in different countries and the number of academies in that nation should maximise the potential returns. Jakswan argues that YA's are a lottery. I know what he means but I don't think the analogy is quite right. Really they're more like a series of tombola tables at a primary school fête - some will have loads of good prizes but also loads of people going in for them, others may not have many good prizes but fewer people. And, from the looks of Voller so far, some will have a surprisingly low number of prizes but many entrants (*cough* Portugal *cough*) So it looks like even just a little analysis is already paying off!

(2) Watch my players' form more closely. A stint on FM10 has taught me that this ME loves form, and since at the start of a new world most of the players are of a similar quality, playing someone with slightly weaker attributes but good form could make the difference. So I intend to keep a closer watch on how my players are doing to make sure I maximise their good streaks and minimise the bad. This will be especially important since in the end I opted to specialise my skills in finance and infrastructure, not coaching.

(3) Do more pre-game analysis of opponents, at least in major matches. Again this comes back to the teams being fairly evenly balanced quality wise. If I know that the opponent's squad are a bit on the short side I may start the game with instructions to my players to put in lots of crosses. Or if I see their #1 goalie is out injured and they're going to have to play their 17y/o backup I'm going to ramp up the long shots. So often I see a manager (and it's often me!) accept a match challenge then submit their team and click kick-off within 30 seconds; clearly without any analysis. Of course, if your team's good enough you can pull this off but when everyone's of a similar standard I reckon some tactical research could provide the killer edge.

So anyway, there are my three resolutions. Let's see how long I keep them :p And in the meantime, do leave me a comment with your suggestions for new GW resolutions.

Voller: Day One

Very briefly because it's late...

Seems Voller's off to a promising start - 400 managers online at 8pm! Long may it continue...

More details tomorrow but my starting pool is a bit of a mixed bag. Some reasonable defenders, and some promising youths (as far as I can tell without having watched them play yet) but a distinct lack of firepower up front which doesn't bode well - when the transfer market opens I'm sure strikers will be in big demand...

Two other interesting things to note:
- Classic FA and Vintage FA (the two "regular format" FAs) both filled their 200 places within 6 hours. Other FAs all less than half full. Glad I got in there early!
- Loads and loads of Youth Academies being built already. In 6 hours enough academies have been built to provide 1500 graduates a year! (bearing in mind the GW only needs about 2500 in total...)

Oh, and SI lost four million of my skill points... grrr...

Voller: 第一天

很短因为现在太晚了...

今天是新的 Voller 比赛世界第一天。很好玩儿和很忙- 八点的时候我们有差不多四百经理踢网游！可是也很奇怪- 已经太多的 'Youth Academies' - 每个月电脑给我们差不多两千五百新的年轻人；已经经理们建造一千五百的毕业'slots'!

明天我再写，介绍你我新的队...

Starting Skills - How to keep the options open

In my last post I argued that in the new look FML it might be a bit dangerous to have too fixed a starting strategy, and that flexibility would be the key to long-term success. However, I noted that there would be a difficulties in taking a flexible approach for those of us who have bonus skill points to spend - how do we spend those usefully whilst retaining the ability to flex our strategy later on? In this post, I'll look at the different skill areas, and talk about which I'm considering specialising in to gain the maximum benefit for my chosen non-strategy strategy!

Everyone will want physio skills to a certain level, but I think to specialise in them is only really worthwhile if you're going to be a serious contender at the top of the pile. With injuries only going sticky in "major" games, youths are pretty much unaffected, and for a mid-table team you could bring in reserves of a similar quality to your first team reasonably cheaply, and use squad rotation when injuries occur rather than trying to avoid them in the first place. So a physio specialisation is only really a big bonus to a small group of the top teams. Consequently, as I'm not going all out to be top of the pile early doors, I won't be specialising here.

Scouting skills I see as being the reverse, only really helpful to a youth manager - and at that only really helpful to one who intends to sign youths from the free agent list rather than youth academies. JP will be much less powerful in general, and if you're using academies if needs be you can assess the players manually by watching their attribute progression and watching them play in youth matches. Some JP will still be handy, but you can get 3* easily now, and over time even without specialising it should be possible to get 4* - that will do me. So I won't be specialising here although I may get some scouting learning skills to enable me to develop this area quicker in future.

That leaves three areas and I'm seriously torn between them.

Coaching will always come in handy. If you've got a youth team it'll help the youngsters develop more (or does it just help them develop quicker - I've never really got how it works, leave me a comment if you know!), if you've got a team of veteran world beaters it'll help keep their attributes higher for longer. There's also a lot of different coaching skills so you get good value for your specialisation. But the benefits are quite intangible, and I like my skills to produce something I can see. Nonetheless, definitely one to seriously consider.

An Infrastructure specialisation is in many ways the ultimate hedge - one strand of it can be used for building a stadium if you're a successful team with a rapidly rising rep, another strand can be used for building youth academies if you're not so successful and need to go the youth route. Either way it's useful, and in very tangible ways - you can't build more than 1 YA without Academy Operation 5 (basically impossible to get unless you specialise), and 25% off stadium building costs is a major boost for building all those exclusif's. Whether you're succesful early on or not you'll get real benefits from an infrastructure specialism so I'm sorely tempted by this.

Finally, and perhaps most complex of all, come finance/management skills. Finance itself is not that amazing, even at 5* it only gives you a slight boost on your interest rate which is no big deal - indeed in an inflating GW the value of players will still rise faster than the value of cash, so it's not much use at all. But it's what it opens up that is interesting. Historically, people have got excited about the commercial skillset, and with good reason - it has provided big boosts that have sustained many a top team. But with the way finances work post-1.5 I don't believe it's a big boost any more. Commercial 5 costs you 3.16 million skill points on top of those needed to get you Finance 5, for a 25% boost in your general income. But general income is now only around 15% of your club's income - for the best sides that means around 45k a day, so the commercial 5 boost will be around 11k. For a reasonably good side the boost is likely to be around 8k a day. Handy but nothing to write home about especially given the cost.

No, the big prize behind the finance door now is Contract Negotiation 5, which can secure you a whopping 25% off what your players demand if you choose to auto-renew their contracts, as well as the same reduction when signing players in transfer auctions or private deals. Given that 1.5 has raised the wage demands of top players at top clubs this will represent a serious saving (just think, what would be a 250k/day wage bill, will be less than 190k/day with CN5!), and may well mean that if you're a high-flying side you are able to auto-renew players you would otherwise have had to let go to wage auctions. But there are big benefits for someone building up a team from youth as well. If your senior squad isn't doing that well, your rep won't be very high so money will be tight. But as any superstar youths you may be fortunate enough to develop start to break in to the first team and perform well, their wage demands will begin to skyrocket. Contract Negotiation 5 could be the difference between being able to keep them (at least for long enough to sell them on for a huge fee) or losing them for AF.

So finance, coaching and infrastructure all look like good specialisation options at this stage for the manager with skill points to burn but who wants options open later on. I still haven't decided my final two though - I'd be interested to hear your views in the comments...

And my grand starting strategy is...

Now that the old GW's have closed, everyone is giving lots of thought to how they are going to approach their new world. Many people have been discussing starting strategies from Jakswan to Rik Stewart to a long discussion on the official forums about skill specialisations.

So I thought I'd use this post to reveal that my grand starting strategy for my new GW will be... (drum roll please)...

Not to have a grand starting strategy.

Huh, I hear you say. Well, let me explain. When I first stumbled across FML in January 09 it was just after the initial retail launch, and the game was full of beta testers who were used to starting new GWs over and over and over again. All the strategy talk was about how to start in a new GW to give yourself the best chance of doing well. And therein lay one of the big problems about the old FML - too often it was all about being in the know about how to start a new world and get ahead. If you did that right, you didn't really have to take any strategic decisions further down the line - you were set up for life. So the only strategy to discuss really was starting strategy.

Now SI have tried to make it different. They don't want it to be about the first week or even the first hour; they want the game to be a long-term one where you're constantly faced with strategic decisions. Hence the initial squad pools, restrictions on cash for the first few seasons, and higher wages for top teams later on. Yet all the discussion is still about what the best grand scale starting strategy is. I think that's dangerous, because I think that this time if you start off with one strategy and stick to it rigidly you're going to come badly unstuck. So I plan to be flexible.

All that said, you still obviously need a bit of an initial strategy. Mine will be to be fairly cautious for two seasons, not spending prodigously but building a squad with some reasonable players and hopefully at worst making it in to the middle tier of the final season of qualifiers. After that I can judge where to take things - if I've been more successful than expected I'll want to build my stadium and use the cash from that to buy top-end players. If I do worse than expected, I'll start flinging up youth academies across the globe and try to build for the future.

However, the one catch that I see with my non-strategy strategy is the fact that I'm carrying over some 11.4 million bonus skill points. These need spending, and with the new system of specialisations I'm going to have to pick before I'm really ready to which skill areas to focus on. Ironically, if I were starting from scratch I could use my first two seasons to build up to 3* in every skill area, and then decide where to specialise after that. But I'm too greedy to give up my skill points ;) So the question becomes, for a player looking to hedge their bets, which skill specialisations leave most doors open for you longer term? I'll look at that in my next post.

欢迎欢迎

欢迎欢迎，请进请进！这是我新的FootballManagerLive 网站。 我希望你觉得是很有意思。要是你说普通话， 请给我一个"comment" - 我想知道 FML 有多少会说普通话的经理。 我也想你告诉我什么事我写错了- 现在我的中文不太好！可是每天我学习所以我希望早日我的水平提高了。

Yes, it's another FML blog...

Oh no, not another one I hear you cry...

But I do hope this one will be slightly different. For a start I plan to do some of it in Chinese, which I believe (correct me if I'm wrong in the comments!) will make it FML's first English/Chinese dual language blog. Good news for you if you speak Chinese. And even better news for me, since you can correct my many mistakes ;)

But if you can't, I hope there'll be something here for you anyway. I don't intend to dwell too heavily on the minutiae of managing my team, frankly I'd rather be getting on with it and I'm sure you'd rather be dealing with your own teams too :) Instead I intend to focus on strategy, analysis and future ideas for the game. I quite often post these over on the official forums but I hope that doing it here too will mean we can get some good discussions going. And my own blog provides a good forum to reply in more depth to some of the really interesting stuff out there on other community blogs.

So I'm all set. Now all I need is a gameworld to compete in...