This was before the Manager Journey DLC so I was with the same team the whole time. I think this was season 12.
When I got promoted out of the Championship to the Premier League I had about 4,000,000 in the bank. Then a couple seasons on the EPL Gravy Train just blew the bank balance through the roof.
Picked this up during the sale and wow - what a perfect little distillation of turn-based football. I think I’ve seen similar game mechanics in Dreadball, but their distillation of those game mechanics into something that reflects football this well is pure genius.
Though playing this, can’t help thinking about how one might build something Blood Bowl like that is equally elegant.
Just started this and only played a couple of matches. I’m a huge FM fan though I haven’t purchased it in the last few years (just a time thing.) I don’t yet have a “feel” for this one, but one thing that really throws me is the bizarre formations it defaults to. Are there buttons somewhere to set the team to more standard formations?
I haven’t messed around with formations, but I think you can drag the players around to put them in a new formation before the game, maybe at halftime too?
You can set the formation in the Club view and before a match, within the positional limits for your team.
There are gameplay reasons for many of those weird formations, though. The limited movement and passing range means you usually do not want to spread your team out too much. Also, you want bodies between their forward and the goal - especially before your team has any skills.
Like @strategy said, the formations to use are driven by the skills of the players (the special skills, not the accuracy or passing stat). If you set a formation before hitting the match button, the formation and players becomes your default. If you adjust the formation after, or rotate players after hitting match but before starting the game, then that formation/roster is for that game only. This helps have a default starting lineup and then you can adjust it based on what you think the opponent’s strengths and weaknesses are.
I’m in my third season, I think it’s great. It’s not FM20XX, but once the tactics start to click, it hits a lot of the same buttons.
Yep. If the opponent has a “weird” formation, it’s usually because they have some players with skills/classes that are going to rip your team apart. Unless of course you counter it tactically.
My interest is piqued. Am i missing much if I just get the base game? I’m not sure what the DLC includes but for the price of the base game I’m interested.
I was sucking at this with no scorers and lots of defense. Worked up to the next league and then after a couple seasons of draws and losses, I was relegated. I should have started over, but I had acquired so many young players with potential.
I worked my way back up and got promoted back and I think I am on like season 16 and am only now about to get promoted to the next one, but now my guys are in their mid twenties and about to take the world by storm!!!
Or I am just a glutton for punishment and won’t give up on my boys.
yeah, I’ve already got about 60 hours in this in a week or so. Still ticking all the boxes for me with 10 minute games, numbers going up and dice rolls giving me improbable wins and soul crushing defeats.
Yeah, boy. Quickly promoted to the second league after just two seasons in the third with zero losses and only 2 goals scored againts me the whole season. My patience, though dumb and a waste of time, is paying off!!
I have played nothing other than this all month. It took me 30 seasons to work my way up to the Premiere league and I didn’t care. In my 38th season I’ve now one it several times along with a several cups.
I have 230 hours in this game. It is some mixture of being in my wheelhouse and the weird way some of us can fixate on a game that gives us the right amount of dopamine while not requiring much input to learn anything new. You can tweak and try things, incrementally improve and that’s enough. I can play and zone out and still get a strategy fix that seems better than time I feel I am wasting on many iOS and cliecker games that are a bit more shallow.
It’s kind of inexplicable how I have for the most part played the same game over and over for however many games that is in 38 seasons with only slight variations in my turn-based actions. The additional DLC, which I got when I first purchased it, most likely adds just enough extra sticks and carrots that I’ll get off work today and play for another hour and get in 5 or 6 more games.
It’s a weird thing when I have so many new games on Steam and maybe 15 I have dowloaded on game pass and have touched none of them. Happy to stick with this because I am guessing once I go to something else, I won’t be back for a while if ever.
I’m weird or broken. Most likely both. :)
I’ve played a fair bit of this over the past month as well.
I’m in my tenth season, which is my third season in the premier league. Currently sat in second place with 7 matches to play and through to the semifinals of both the national and European cups.
Last season I finished second in the premier league on goals scored (being the second tie-breaker after points and goal difference). I was third going into the final match though, and needed other results to go my way to have any chance at all. Turns out I needed to win it 2-0 instead of 1-0.
It’s great finding game to get into so much. Enjoy it while it lasts! I need to start a new game of this. I have the first DLC, which looks like it is the more favorably reviewed one. I really enjoyed my time with the demo.
My last season I had no losses and only 2 goals against with 5 draws. I should probably start fresh. :)
OK, I bought this and bounced off of it. Maybe because I used play at a NCAA level and I used to be obsessed with Football Manager and played it for years and years. I’m so used to setting up real world type formations and tactics that the weird formations make NO sense to me and I just have no idea what to do with them.
Won the double that season, missing out on the premier league title thanks to an equaliser at 90+2 in my final match. Ah well. I’m going to try to be done with the game for a bit now.
Yeah, there’s nothing much realistic about how the formations and tactics work. The core of the game comes before the match starts, when you look at the opposition team and formation and work out how they’re going to try to score against you and how you can work effective opportunities to score against them.
This naturally takes some experience of how things actually play out in a match, and you’ll need to build up a team that has enough tools to find answers to all the questions thrown your way.
[quote=“rho21, post:56, topic:77794”]
Yeah, there’s nothing much realistic about how the formations and tactics work. The core of the game comes before the match starts, when you look at the opposition team and formation and work out how they’re going to try to score against you and how you can work effective opportunities to score against them.>
This naturally takes some experience of how things actually play out in a match, and you’ll need to build up a team that has enough tools to find answers to all the questions thrown your way.
[/quote]
Yep. The formations, including what the AI chooses, are heavily dependent on the skills of the players. SO, many formations end up being non-traditional.
I won the America Cup, the National Cup and the Premiere league Championship with no losses, 7 draws and 3 Goals Against. I don’t think I have anything else for which to shoot. :)
My daughter keeps saying, “How do you keep playing that same game over and over?”. I don’t have a good answer any longer. Maybe for me it is the perfect Comfort/escape/life avoidance game. :)
That may be why this bounces off of me so hard. It would be like having an American football game, and when you set up your offense, say, you put 6 people in the backfield and 2 linemen and 3 receivers all near the right sideline. And your tactic is to just lateral the ball back an forth down the field. Or a baseball game where you set up your fielders with 3 infielders in front of the pitcher, a line of 3 fielders right behind them, and a single outfielder right behind second base. That’s what I feel like when I’m trying to get into this game.
Yeah, that makes complete sense. Sometimes there’s a sticking point in games that take you out of it and no matter what you do, that thing will always been in the way of enjoying it.
Maybe mod it and pretend they are Orcs and Dwarves and Dark Elves and it’s just a weird Blood Bowl spin off. :)