Football Manager Live Tip, Tactic, Cheat or Exploit

If you doing ok in FM Live you can often get to the next level by a litte hack / exploit. Pretty much move FA's which will often result in you being put in the lowest tier. More often these division contain the lower ranked teams this will mean:-

[+] You will win more games
[+] Average Ratings of your players will be higher
[+] Reputation of your players will increase
[+] Reputation of Club will increase
[+] Higher chance of winning senior honour
[+] Overall Money will increase

On the downside
[-] You will recieve marginally less prize money

More than one way to make a point :)

The Teams

Shearer - 4th in The AEFA Premier League was a pretty decent finish not jaw dropping but it's a decent job. I was quite surprised at the youth performance winning the AEFA Cup and finals of the GW Youth Cup. Two players I'm leaving go are Alcides and Ashkan, Ashkan has done 11 seasons with us, I know it's just a databse entry but you can't help but become attached. Think I'll rename a stand.

I've sort of got a policy where I'm not signing anyone unless their at least twice as good. It's a bit lazy really as I think if I sold the youths coming through and signed 30+ players we'd be rocking. I'm quite happy chugging along here if someone jaw dropping comes up the cash is there.

I did buy a 17yo with a wage of £5k, grrr silly mistake there although he has £65k Aq Fee and very solid Av Rating even at Senior Level. My shotgun apporach to U17's seems to work out ok, 16 or so £200 a day jobs and manage to keep around 3 for U19. By the time their U21 only 1 or 2 survive, it's cheap but seems to work.

Beta - Whilst most of my time is spent in Shearer (normally shouting at U17's :) ) it's a very simple Galacticos approach in Beta. The market slightly inflated means I'm forced to buying 28+ aged players in their prime, it just seems the cheapest way of bringing in some class.

Raktic ticked this box quite nicely and now with Household names costing £40k + a bid of £44k secured his services. Ok he's 29 but I should see 3 seasons out of him, if it was 1.2 it would be 5 seasons :) Still he's a little bit good.

Ended the season with One Div.1 title (which is like 3rd Premiership Live world) and the FA Cup and Mid Season Open.

Clough - Well the Org in the EFA is fantastic, must remember to email him thanking him for his efforts. Good updates on what is happening in the FA and seems to put the interests of all members first. It's why I moved this account here.

The activity rating has finally risen so I can stomach playing games again. Really enjoy it, it's a bit strange not seeing world class players but it's still 11 men etc.

We'll be lucky to finish in the top half of the table but the games are competitive. Mostly I'm playing with an eye for next season and wage auctions.

In an really strange twist it's quite good to be bargain hunting and not rejecting players off hand as their not triple A.

What is a player worth?

I thought I'd try to come up with a definitive guide to player prices or at least try, it's very complex but it should at least give you an idea if you being ripped off or not :)

Ok lets start with a theory.... It's safe to say that if you can get 11 World Famous players on the pitch then your going to do ok:)

Your baseline cost for a world famous is around £30k a day wage. The cheapest you could acquire one these players is Aq fee + Sign On Fee = £1m. That's rough I know but lets just use it as a baseline.

Players don't last forever and unless your talking wonderkids players seem to obtain this rep / performance from 27-28 years old. Even with players declining faster in 1.3 they still do the business until 32/33.

So say £1m minimum for five years that's £200k per season which is £7k a day. Worse case scenario is £1m for a 30yo £500k per season £14k per day.

So if we work backwards from worse case here are guideline prices for players that are world famous on wage demand:-

(Assuming retirement at 32 with no resale value these are the MOST you should pay for World Famous)
23 - 9 Seasons £3.5m
24 - 8 Seasons £3.1m
25 - 7 Seasons £2.7m
26 - 6 Seasons £2.3m
28 - 5 Seasons £1.9m
29 - 4 Seasons £1.5m

Make adjustments for wages in prices.

I guess we could take this youth prices as well (although your average FM Live manager becomes star struck by a youth with the odd good stat).

So regens lets try and apply some sense to their prices, you take your chance on if their wonderkids. Lets just remind ourselves on wonderkids... these are players that peak very early and play like men despite their age. Very often they don't actually improve so much they just play at their peak for longer, 23 and world famous is wonderkid territory.

So 16-22 is seven seasons. So the most you should pay a regen is....

£17k

Lets just do that in slow mo.... £17k * 28 * 7 = £3.3million.

That's for a wonderkid a more normal devolpment would mean the player wouldn't get to World Famous until 24/25. In this scenario that's 10 seasons.

So unless your CERTAIN of a wonderkid the max you should pay is

£1,230

Slo mo.... £1.23k x 28 x 9 = £3.1million. Dam I'm paying too much :(

I think might try to fine tune this, time to fire up excel.

Football Manager & 1.3 Match Plans

This is a really comprehensive feature, I've never really been much of a tactics monkey but I thought I'd show you a few screens so you'll know what to expect.

Above is the second screen of the create match plan wizard.


It continues



You can always forget the wizard and go advanced:-



You can set up the default match plans for the various squads on the squad page:-



Finally the ultimate tools, set them up for upcoming fixtures!

Negative Nelly & Many Other Things

I think the guys at Gameworld One in the recent podcast, Football Manager Podcast, did bring home how much of grumpy old git I may have come across recently.

I feel like Billy No Mates, I do hold back a little on criticising SI and the community but more often than not end up going off on one due to feeling passionate about it.

FM Live is a great game on it's way to being one the best games ever made, hopefully.

1.3 does bring some interesting new things to the game, match plans, CPU Teams to name but a few. The match engine isn't without it's faults but come on name one other game that even remotely gets close.

The database is the killer, players despite being little dots seem to have massive depth and character.

But.... I want it to get better, it's all very well saying how jolly wonderful everything is, but your never going to get anywhere that way. So back to mad rantings of a bald Welshman:)

I heard another idea about controlling youth wages (not my idea) introduce a youth wage tax, but, having tried to champion Youth Wage Budgets as an idea clearly the community just wants academies.

Random > Controlled it seemes.

In saying that much like the now planned, rep = what you won, change (I'd prefer lots of prize money) it's still a massive improvement so the game is going in the right direction. Depends how it comes in but if it's region based then you could see distinct teams, e.g. German based Academy = German based seniors eventually.

Miller & Shearer Season End - Miller overall have had a good season, took one of the Div.1 titles, FA Cup and Mid Season Open. Not a bad haul for an ageing team. Shearer looks like top 3 could be on in the Premiership after a decent run of results, the youths have started to pop as well, FA Youth Cup, 2nd spot in youth leage and runners-up in Gameworld Youth Cup. Youth U21 Wages = £20k a day.

The wage auctions in Miller are well under way and I'd like to sign either a right back or DC but it's all about the calibre of the player and price. As things stand we do lack a little 'oh la la' but it's a solid ish team without getting anyone. I fancy we'll struggle to stay in Div.1 for any length of time as things stand.

Moans next, must keep my grumpy git rep up!

Onto Clough well it's always going to be hard and my own fault really I should have entered a few million comps just to keep activity levels up:-



Luckily I have eight days worth of holiday, so see you in eight days!

Give Us Something to play for

I wanted to follow up a post that the Gameworld One chaps did entitled 'give us something to play for'.

Perhaps best done in pictures.

I knew a long time ago that we were not going to win the league, and even if I did.......

Mmmm it's bit of cash....

But there again maybe not:)

Not really likely to implode on the playing front either.


In fact none of these guys are:-

It's stable we're in Season 11 it's not a race any more, we need to have something else, something to aim for, if it's not cash make the UFFA comps more important somehow, someway :)

Fluff and Stuff

I must say I did laugh in Clough, we're in Division Five and my young striker burst through for a 1v1 on the keeper from ten yds out, he almost hit the corner flag :) Later a long ball forward which my DC seemed to completely miss left their striker with a 1v1, I think he actually did hit the corner flag:) Good fun, although I'm getting injuries now, Grrrr.

Still not sure what's going on with regression, currently I'm seeing regression slightly more severe than it was in 1.2 but not as harsh as it was, the older players remain very effective though. I've already said that if it does come in and increases the turnover of players it will be a good thing.

If you look on the forums regens are shit, the transfer market is shit and the regression is shit. Yet logically if you tweak regression then it effects the other two issues.

Some nice stuff going on in 1.4 it looks like it could be one of the best updates yet, not sure how much I can say! One thing I'm not yet convinced about tokens I'm sure they'll come up with some fluff that I find appealing.

Team Update

Clough - Activity Rating 1 for senior and now 4 for youth, I haven't played many seniors games due forgetting enter a million comps, doh! I did enter a load of youth comps though although that's gone a bit pear shaped. For two reasons 1) bunch of cheap kids and 2) with a low activity rating I've always got 5/6 youths out. Best advice is to not play when you start off due to wonderful injury system which PUNISHES casual managers:)

Shearer - A left winger who's 31 got a 2/3 day injury and with no cover coming from the youths on the left I found a 22yo £130k Aq Fee high potential for £500k. I had my eye on 1.3 really and the effect in the short term future of the 30yo, I don't know what is happening now as this has tweaked. Good job for 1.3 as this kid now gets senior football surrounded by world famous players, a player who I wouldn't even bother to sign normally.

Mostly though this is mild entertainment as we're not in the running for league or cup, there are a few of the mickey mouse comps (i mean Super FA comps) but overall season lasted a weak before I became Fulham once more.

Beta - This is still the most fun, fingernail job, trying to stay up, a 1-0 in a six pointer secured our safety for another stage, phew. I know it's fairly artificial really as despite pumping in as much as I could to the ladder your only playing for an extra £20k a week. To give you an idea the prize money is normally split roughly like this:

Division One (Runs four times a season)
1st - £160k
2nd - £155k
3rd - £145k
4th - £140k
5th - £135k

Division Two
£110k - £100k

Division Three
£80k - £75k

Division Four
£60k - £55k

So winning a title is just for the glory of winning a title the real prize is getting promoted. Regardless of who you are or what you've got in your team you can easily get relegated. The wins and loss's are spread so if your a top team your just as likely to have as many loss's as a bottom team.

AI is set at 80% with 80% penalty.

It's all very exciting every game feels like a 6 pointer. One day will we'll have ladders coded in properly and the game will be saved! :)

Teams in Beta, Clough and Shearer

Shearer - Very much as expected inconsistent, we have lost 5-2 and won 5-1 in the space of few games. Had I kept Falcoa then we'd be knocking on the door of the top10 maybe but then M'Villa never gets his chance. Of the million or so FA comps we're in we doing ok.

Beta - Ladder Leagues are in my opinion the most exciting every four days we're battling relegation with some top teams in the FA. The current stage started and a glorious 1-0 over the current champions eased those fears a little but the next four games without a win means the pressure is on. Very enjoyable though!

Clough - I was quite shocked at prices in this world (very high) so it's a long old haul to get anywhere. I've done the best I can a few long shots & oldies, we're not going to do much first season. The annoying thing is that I'm once again forced to play established teams to keep the activity level up so I log on and see 'defeated by' 20 times. I shall log on play the FA games and do the best I can.

I suppose the Clough issue might be helped by AI teams when they come in I do like the 1.3 feature of being able to create a comp invite AI teams and just let it run. I don't think it counts towards Activity rating though, still great for youths.

Barre Bank Breaker

It's odd isn't it to listen to some you'd this game was a spreadsheet game:) Anyway wonderkid call him what you will this is the kid I spent £2m+ on.

Reputation Overhaul

Well it's on the forums now that Si are considering overhauling the reputation system. I tried my best to get them to look at the FA's but no one was playing with my ball so I went home:)

Millie / Jordan kicked of a thread some time back 'Give us Something to play for', smack on I thought and Ov was very keen on the concept of Competition = reputation. Not a bad idea and pretty realistic, e.g. Burnley has more rep now their a Premiership team.

I did some figures:-

Diff Stadium 3* 1,372 3.5* 1,078 4* 1,176 4.5* 770 5* 490
Diff No Stadium 3* 392 3.5* 238 4* 350 4.5* 280 5* 266

Just to explain that the 3* Stadium figure is the increase in income from the 2.5*, so by reaching 3* you'll get an extra £1.3m a season plus current prize money (not much) subject to having a suitable stadium, £392k if you haven't done anything to stadium.

The stadium figures are based on an efficient one, i.e. high cost low speed of return items Exlusiv etc.

It doesn't quite do it, I think there should be one than one route to the top. Say your a new team to a GW do you expand the stadium or do you go for it and try and generate revenue from results then expand the stadium.

The figures show that if this system comes in will remain in the same situation results mean nothing, upgrade the stadium then get the team, ala one route to success.

I did some more figure bashing, if we got rid of media money & daily income and just had prize money these are the figures we could be talking for prize money in comps.

	P	C	1
1st-5th	4m	1.5m	0.7m
6th-10th	3m	1.2m	0.5m
11th-15th	2.5m	1m	0.4m
16th-20th	2m	0.9m	0.3m

Big bucks, maybe worth signing a new player or two for that money!

Finally I do think they need to properly support ladder leagues or at least multiple stages a season. The FA ranking was introduced to bring more importance to FA games, then they introduced the Super FA with a massive amount of games thus in turn diluting FA games :)

I get the idea behind the Super FA allow more meaningful games for hardcore / heavier users but it's just a nonsense.

A 21 Day season is fine if your Casual but the pace of the game is too slow for hardcore if you run the leagues twice / three times a season then the pace of the game changes.

More on Regression

This is pure guesswork so don't take it as gospel. It would appear that 1.3 hits that regression will be handled say every night by looking at players ability calculating where he should be and adjusting. The stats then change according to ability / coaching, with a max change every night of a small %.

So what this means is that although the oldies will become as I've highlighted it'll take a while to work through.

This is why I think it has taken a good while in beta to really notice. It looks as if we'll have a couple of seasons of oldies in retail yet!

Epic Post:: Clough, Regression & Youths

After the nonsense in Lofthouse and a forum post from a Clough Org that the EFA was set up to protect new teams I moved the account there. It's risky as it's strictly a casual account and the EFA has unforgiving AI penalties but a few games a day is ok.

I'd heard that Clough was busy and market values seem high, it's been hard to get a decent squad in a short window as well. The first season is always a write off anyway as rep increase I think is locked to 1.5 / 2 stars.

Normally I go for cheap waged oldies but with 1.3 on the way and a lack of cheap oldies anyway I was forced to look for players that perhaps were underdeveloped. If there was a glut of one thing it was 21yo's high potentials.

Too old next season for youth teams and no good for most seniors, so I got one of them and just did my best with the rest. I was quite surprised that there was some value in the transfer auctions.

I don't think there is too long left on the sub so not only casual but short term as well:(

Regression
The next big fuss is going to be the oldies fading, I think I should explain my perspective on older players and how it will change in 1.3.

There is no doubt in my mind that some stat(s) continues to improve in older players that you can't see on the screen. You, as a team just end up more consistent with older players, on screen a players peak is often 28/29 but due to something the actual peak performance in 1.2 often comes at 31/32/33, even at 34 or 35 it's still very respectable contribution.

In 1.3 the peak performance doesn't last as long, it's still there but at 32 it's over the regression is coming fast. However the stats you can't see must be holding up so the performance doesn't go completely but at 33 even those hidden stats can't save the player, from 19 pace to 13 changes a player quite a bit!

I wouldn't even do 34 now under any circumstances and aged 35 I can't imagine how bad it would be.

Regression Right or Wrong?
It's odd those with older players seem generally to be saying it's totally wrong and the ones without too many old players are saying f all.

Personally I think it's fine as long as we know but the decreases in wage demand / signing on fee's are not enough. As things stand none of my 32year olds will be kept on.

It certainly will speed things up and make it more of a challenge which I think is a good thing.

I've heard the argument that it will drive youth prices up further but I've seen youth players with no pace / acceleration go for £15k a day in Shearer recently. So you have silly, stupid, plain stupid, raging stupid, suicidal, what comes next does it get any worse than that? :)

Their strategy is that their securing players on high wages and then putting them back in wage auction to lower wage. I've heard quite a few managers state they will bid high but not enough to secure on all high wage youth auctions to force this to fail.

On regression I've heard various thoughts on it, again much like the wage demand saga there are posts saying that everyone is now going to be screwed and doomed to failure. My team is in trouble in Beta that's for sure but then so are many others.

Youth Academies
I can't talk about this too much due to potential beta news. I'm still in the dark as to how it's going to work.

I've seen a lot of great ideas mostly not runners due to the casual manager advantage thing. I thought I had a definitive solution with a regen youth budget, simply you have a total fixed wage budget of say £10k to spend on U17's once that has gone bids get veto'd.

This wasn't my idea it came off the forums but I thought it was almost beautiful in it's simplicity and solved the issue totally. Lets first frame the issue:-

The issue with youth in the first place is not the system we have now, the issue is with the managers pricing the youth.

Youth in my opinion is the best part of FM Live, it's stress free from my point of view as I don't tend to really care about winning, it's about finding the players. I think you find more out from a defeat than a victory and I like being the cold manager going 'no ain't got it he's gone' :)

I've always said that FM Live Managers want to win more then anything, and winning at youth is easier than winning at seniors. The problem arises when managers armed with senior sized budgets use that budget to secure youth players.

The senior managers maybe looking to dabble at youth naturally value a youth relative to their senior team and are amazed at the money being thrown around.

The budget system pretty much forces a max value on a youth and prevents senior sized money being thrown at them. It is drastic but would result in a system that would have no basis on luck but need a lot of skill to find the good regens. You would no longer be able to bid £20k after the first one.

Sadly it looks as if that's not going to run but we are going to see academies, the big question for me is, how much? Currently I spend £4k-£5k a day on the U17 squad in Shearer, their hand picked normally 3.5star potential.

I can't see academies being that cheap, just to recap they need to the same quality as a hand picked bunch squad of regens for £5k a day.

It seems to me like it's going to end up being a lottery, do you want to buy a ticket?

RAGE! In true T-Bag Fashion

Doh T-Bag's blog is down I think he raged it down, pity it was awesome. Anyway it's my turn now. I haven't mentioned this team in some time, Hotshots FC the one's that moved from StJohn to Lofthouse.

I haven't used my own name and kept a low profile, Shearer is the main team and org in Beta so a very casual GW this. If I hadn't paid for a year (stupid boy!) I wouldn't be there, I've a scary amount of accounts.

A quiet first season trying to keep wages low I found the FA's were being restructured so for some mad reason we had to play Qualifying Leagues. So no sense of progression here I suppose, a Qualifying League has random teams so it's going to be mid table at best most likely bottom of the table. Oh well never mind next season we're back to tiers so that's fine.

I've been careful in this GW Wages £65k ish and a world famous a high profile and a collection of well knowns. Lock down was last night and I'm really looking forward to it.

I'm expecting to be in the 3rd or 2nd Tier, we should be pretty competitive and the league will either be a fight for promotion or relegation....

First a sense of dismay


Wow look at all that prize money I could win.

Calm, I say to myself remain calm it's not the prize money, it's the sense of progression and after all if you do well, team rep goes up, player rep goes up, progression.

Well in the third tier so we should have a hope of going up maybe.



That's bloody strange, this is the third tier. I check EVERYONE ABOVE ME HAS apart from one has sodding jumped FA's.

That's just stupid. Here is the Championship:-



Ohh come on, one team from the top 150 and the tier below has half the league in the 150.

I mean if I made this up you would not believe me.

COME ON SI SORT THIS RUBBISH OUT, jeezus, this doesn't need a roadmap, a meeting, coding, the FA's need to be run better simple as.

To think I'm actually paying for this!

Spending Spree

Armed with the knowledge that 33yo's are as good as useless to me I'm now glad I fired up the youth system a couple of seasons back!

So I'm back doing the thing I always liked best about FM Live anyway!

Basically my system is a cheap method of getting youths lower potential than the 5 stars but try and find the hidden gems. Don't get me wrong I'd prefer 5stars but loons pay £20k a day so no chance I'm paying that.

Just to give you an idea M'Villa was 5star or 4.5star and for a top 50 team he was a waste of time until 24/25. Ok he's doing it now but eesh that's a lot of wage to get him there.

I do keep my eye out for additions to the squad but stay focused on the bottom line, the aim of youths is get senior players cheap. If they start becoming expensive why bother.

Should a youth start picking up Aq Fee I'll often try him out in the seniors. Most of the time it's 'blah' but sometimes eyebrows raise and you get a pleasant surprise. One game isn't enough but a run is required. I think I have found John Terry, a 6.93 Av Rating might not be jaw dropping but bear in mind 7 of those are from the bench as a DC, that's impressive for a 28yo but a 20yo, wow.

ALSO NOTE THE LOW POTENTIAL:)

The spending spree went on two players, I was getting nervous about my young ish Goalie, his stats were great and a 7+ av rating but I was starting to think he was a great shot stopper.

I could be wrong but having played teams with no goalie and say a DC in goal it's odd what happens. You'll win by a lot but most of the goals don't actually come from mistakes by the goalie, it's just the confidence of the team goes completely and your team seems to gain confidence to such an extent they become Brazilian :)

So I was starting to think that the young low rep Goalie whilst getting a great Av Rating was making the defence / team nervous and it just looked loose. With the stadium done and dusted it was time.

I looked around a lot, I wasn't going to repeat the most glorious signing of them all Sebastian Frey at 34 for £200k. There were 30 year olds £1m Aq Fee but £2m asking price in view of 1.3 was a stretch.

I found a £200k 30+ for £400k on auto but really was that much better than what I had already?

There was a 25yo Regen(?) £650k German GK with 3.5 rep up for £1.5m. That's a little steep but £4k wage.... Really a player like that in wage auction would go for £15k, so that's £800k with signing on fee, there there is the extra £10k wage, at 27 he'd stay on that wage, maybe would lower it at 29...

So here is the math:-

Pay £700k Premium for a Goalie which will do the job for 7 Seasons = £100k a season
£800k for same but extra £10k a day wage = 28x £10k = £280k a season.

He's a Jakswans player now:)

I always keep an eye for youths and a young 19 year old Right Winger caught my eye, he had a £6k wage but Aq Fee £220k and nice stats to suit, 5 star potential and a bit of rep. Clearly kid well on his way, what price.... £220k! Nice deal, I've always found it most odd that regens go for £10k a day and young players well on the way go for what is effectively peanuts:)

It's not exactly filled with glory but we've had a good run. Now I've got the youths going again I'm right back into it. Maybe youth academies will mean you don't have sacrifice youth so much.

Why Transfer Auctions are a Waste of time

Out of 6 players four are a rip off and two, dependant on size of club, might be worth a punt.

1.3 - Oldies - Nerfed

I didn't want to start another forum thread, the pitch forks will be getting blunt :( So I thought I'd post here. Now as luck would have it I have the same player in beta and in retail.

As luck would have it we're top 30 ish in Beta and Shearer and play in the top FA comps in both worlds. So quality of the squads is pretty much the same. In Shearer this player I'm going to show you is 34 and in beta he's 33.


As you can see, he's not a world beater but does a decent job at 34 no signs of decline either. If you were strapped for cash then could probably do a job next season as well.


Yikes a year younger and the stats are going, the performance seems to go as well. I suspect the CA fades and it takes a while for the stats to catch up that is what it seems like. So the decline is very quick.

It's fair enough but it' is handy to know about it in advance. Previously I'd been pretty confident of using players at 34 sometimes even 35, I think players are still ok at 32 but now the downturn is so quick their a liability at 33:(

Casual Users and Hardcore

Well this how my record looks on Company of Heroes, LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL, can I add a few more. LOL, nuff said not to keen to play anymore. The ones left playing now are pretty good and I most definitely am not any good at all. Back to playing the AI, as a casual user it kind of reflects FM :)

On the forums I've been busy starting two epic threads:) First one was my amazement at SI's aiming the game at casual users. Seems to me you just as well try and sell the game to a bunch of rugby fans. If you read the history of FM I do kind of get the idea (originally touted as Fantasy Football using the FM engine / database) but we're long past that.

The second thread was as a result of a number of things, the blog carried a warning that wage demand was going to change, then my wages as a result of a few auto extends bounced up in beta. I then looked a bit deeper and found a big big change:)

Naughty Jak for bringing it up:) All doom and gloom in typical fashion from the forum community. I don't think I'm so popular with SI, it's most of the reason I chose not to be a mod (I like to shoot from the hip and can't really be arsed with being politically correct). However, I do think I have the games interests at heart so mostly don't agree with the forum community either, Mr. Popular is me.

I find the forum community is made up of the top rankers who really only give a shit about themselves, the order of the day is 'hey SI do / don't do this so I'm ok'.

Coming back on point and to the wage change then it could level the playing field a little tiny bit, I think the big change though would actually be to starting in an old GW. It is VITAL to keep inflation low, if inflation is low then you can basically plan, get X many players of a certain rep whilst building stadium. You can then progress, if inflation is high then it feels like your never getting anywhere.

It looks as if SI might actually bottle it a little such is the rage but in fairness to them their pretty solid when they set their mind to something.

I just as well update the teams....

Beta - We were looking loose and going through a sticky spell, the high rep players though are terrible for not really doing the business in non FA games. Division One kicked off and as a result of a few late goals meant that we quickly secured ourt position in the next stage of Div.1. There is an outside chance of winning another title but the main event is staying up and I think it's mission accomplished.

Shearer - A ropey start here and I still think I'm risking it with Clement in goal. We went down 2-1 in our first league game so it didn't look great. In saying that we then played Nick Hopkinsons Amogen who are pretty solid always, ranked in the top 15, it wasn't easy but bagged a 1-0 win. Clement in two games 7.2 av rating.... We played Scott's Freemantle (ranked 7th) and lost 2-1 away but it could have gone either way, for a time in the 2nd half we were literally just walking through his defence but no end result.

I'd be happy to spend another £50k on wages if I could the players but the asking price is too high to justify. In light of current events I think I'll sit on the cash for now:)

Beta 1.3 Wages Snapshots

Shearer Season 11

Clement - I forget that Sebastian Frey left also this close season, at 37 it was time:) If you ever get chance to sign him he goes well even at 37! Anyway this young goalie has come through the youth ranks. Stats are great Aq Fee very low. Still gets at least a 6.8 average in proper FA games (often more) so it's time for him to either do it or leave.

Barre - Left Back, triple A player, young, rep, stats, Aq Fee Average Rating all there.

Alcides - Nothing too fancy here but another season left in him for sure.

Pique - Although 31 and a wage auction signing when I had watched the games v's Real Biezers and they were losing it was always Pique that looked immense. I'll be happy with two seasons from him so he'll likely leave at 33.

Tetteh - Another youth no nonsense right back really, might swap with Mariano.

Tardic - I've lost count how many times he lays a through ball for Danny Welbeck seems to be his thing. Few seasons left for him as he's only 29.

Husejonivic - To be fair a little in and out of games would like someone who's deadly a little more often but has enough moments

Schniederlin - Well quite simply the best DM I've ever had, in his prime which I think is 90% of the reason.

Dejagah - Signed at 22 in Season One, always a threat and very hard working.

Welbeck - Sort of a Ian Wright type player, gets it, scores.

M'Villa - Sold at 19 bought back at 22 for more or less the same cash, time he starts to have an impact. Lots of green now. Really considered keeeping Falcoa on for another season. Didn't for a few reasons what is the point finishing 10th in the Premier League or 3rd = £50k, Falcoa is £1m a season. If I keep Falcoa then M'Villa can't progress.

Expectations
Well this is what I normally do....

Look at members in the league sort by wage and that is my target, last season we had the 6th highest wages but finished 3rd so happy with that. Falcoa is yet to leave so take £30k off wage bill and target is now going to be mid table somewhere.

Current form isn't great but with Falcoa not playing an Pique just signed I kind of expect a wobble. I could afford to spend a lot more but unless you try some of these youths your never going to know. So that's the aim this season see what they do.

I'm not sure why SI don't colour code the history....

Who to Buy....

I was sitting on a lump of cash in Shearer but I let Yussuf (World Famous DC) and Falcoa (World Famous FC) go this close season.

I think it's time for M'Villa (FC) to show so I was quite happy to roll the dice with him this season. The DC I had lined up was a young 20 Year Old, I watched a game against a top 20 team.

We won 3-2 but the two goals we conceded the young DC whilst not to blame really should have got his foot in.

Who to buy.... the young DC was doing a job and clearly has what it takes. I felt it was pointless getting a £250k Aq Fee player is it would result a minimal improvement over what I already had.

Gerrard Pique was on the transfer list for £2m, at 31 this was too high a price. He was in wage auction today though £30k wage demand. Sorted, top drawer player for two seasons, by which time the young DC will be knocking on for 23.

Back to RTS

As a real time strategy player I make a good FPS player (i.e. I'm useless) but I have enjoyed the odd blast at RTS games.

I never really got to grips with Command and Conquer until Generals came along, One of the issues that does occur in the genre is the tendency for turtling, staying in base and not moving forward until a few thousand tanks / troops have been created.

This was solved with Company of Heroes, which even now some years after it's release remains a very popular game and support from Relic is top notch.

I saw it on Steam with one expansion pack for £16.99 and bought the dam thing again!



Have watched some of the Videos over on Gamereplays and then trying to play v's Hard PC it makes you realise just how bad I'am :) Still I shall practice, lose a lot and just try and get better.