Archive for the ‘Tactics’ Category
Touchline instructions are a new, dynamic way to influence your players without the need to fiddle around with sliders in the tactics screen. You can keep watching the match and in a couple of clicks you can move from a defensive strategy to an attacking one, bring on a substitute, specifically target an opposition player or simply tell the lads to push up a bit. As we did last week, here’s a brief run through the options and how you can use them in the match. The “Shouts” or “Touchline Instructions” These are the little modifiers that can make a big difference. Each shout changes something about the way the team plays, but can be very effective in…
1.2 has (finally) gone live, despite the unfortunate server crash on opening night. Still, those of you logging in today will probably be wondering what’s gone on with tactics. There’s an awful lot to get through, so, over the coming weeks I’ll be trying to show you how the new system works, what you can do with it, and later how to get an edge on your opponents by using it. Listen out for the podcast this coming Wednesday too, as we’ll have one of the development team on the show discussing all things Football Manager Live, including tactics. And, on top of that, Richard Claydon, the brains behind the ever-popular Tactical Theorems and Frameworks on which the…
Player Reputation The ‘consistency’ or lack of is often blamed on the match engine, but more often than not it comes down to tactical approaches or player choices. The reputation of players is a very good indicator of their consistency; it’s one of the main factors in determining a player’s reputation. So take a good look at the highest reputation players in your team, are they in the right areas to produce quality football match after match? Do you have enough players of a high enough reputation level to maintain the level of football you expect from your team? By asking and honestly answering these type of questions you may find your team is unbalanced, or…
Some of the most negative posts throughout the forums are based around perceptions of match levelling factors and pre-determined results. Quite simply these things do not exist. Some of the issues here I have touched on before, but let’s take a closer look at the match engine and try and find some possible causes for these results. The match engine (ME) currently used in FML is basically a hybrid of the old FM08 engine, improved many times. The big advantage of FML is it allows the developers of the ME to collect massive amounts of information on a whole range of effects and factors that aren’t seen in general testing. People have imaginative ideas on how tactics…
Most people have heard of and regularly talk about the “corner exploit”. It is seen as one of those bugs in the FML match engine which people can regularly exploit. By focussing corners to the goal area and leaving your tallest players at the near post and challenging the goal keeper, many teams can use this cunning little ruse to grab a number of key goals. But you didn’t need me to tell you that. And if you did, then you would have found out soon enough anyway. What I want to talk to you briefly about is how you can reduce the effectiveness of teams using the corner exploit and how you can try and keep goals from these set pieces down. The reason the…
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is often proclaimed by computer programmers but has never been proven under scrutiny. The Turing test, essentially an expansion of the imitation game, is still the most valid test for artificial intelligence and although some programs have performed very well under strict guidelines, nothing has passed it fully. Quite simply Artificial Intelligence is a myth. However the ability to pass such tests is often based on the questions asked, and the greater the limitations of the questioning the more likely the program is to appear intelligent. This creates a problem with any claim of artificial intelligence. Essentially it is more often the…
According to the FML development team at Sports Interactive, more skill points have been spent on tactics skills than on any other. So, they must be important, right? Well, I suppose that all depends on when you spend them, why you’re spending them and if you’re spending them in the right way. Jordan, here, doesn’t have any tactics skills and he’s flying at the top end of his game world. He’s managed to put together a reasonably cheap, American side with pace to burn in a classic 4-4-2 formation. He lets the players do the talking, allowing them to run themselves in to the ground and nicking goals on the blistering counter attack. The defaults work for him…
When Michael Lowes was in the “studio” a few months back, we discussed some myths about FML. We didn’t have time to put the discussion in the show, but one thing we looked at was the 4-5-1. As 1.1.x reaches the end of its run, the hope is that the new tactical changes may break its dominance. However, in the mean time let’s take a look at the formation and ask why it has earned its reputation as an “exploit” tactic. “IRL” The 4-5-1 has become a staple of away sides in England and has been popular on the continent for many years. Consisting of a flat back four, a midfield five and a lone striker, it’s the perfect game killing counter-attack tactic, allowing…
