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.
Wednesday 31 March 2010
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！
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！
Tuesday 30 March 2010
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.
Wednesday 24 March 2010
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...
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...
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...
Monday 22 March 2010
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...
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.
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。
Sunday 21 March 2010
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...
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...
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