No problem. I think the barrier to entry is much lower with a little multiplayer assistance, although I also spent a lot of time in singleplayer and still do from time to time. The open league requires no commitment, and there’s always someone around.
The average game has 16x4 minute turns, plus friction leaves you with 1.5-2 hours at a time. The open league also has the option for 2 minute turns, which speed things up at the cost of making things more chaotic, but it is a viable option if you want a quicker game once you get the basics down. It is turn based, but rarely do you feel like there’s down time as the opponent’s moves are just as tense as your own. Avoid blitz mode like the plague, that’s the stupid pc only variant that no one plays; everyone is in classic mode.
Because the game is designed with a detailed handicap system, it’s not a big deal to play a team of yours only infrequently. The two cup leagues typically have one game per week. Both the winner and the runner up from season 1 in the Euro league were beaten in the playoffs season 2, and the runner up this time was an entirely new team from a new coach (relatively). None of that happened because the winner and runner up were unqualified or played poorly, but rather because the game has enough chance and skill balance so that most every game is anybody’s game.
I really have no idea about the board game, do you need football knowledge to succeed?
No. It has far more in common with chess, poker, and strategy rpgs. The football part is very basic stuff, and indeed if you play it like Madden you will lose, horribly.
Is there a rating system and enough of a playerbase that a noob can do ok?
Yes. Each team has a team value rating based on how experienced their players are and how many extra assets they have; as the less skilled team, you get access to a menu of handicaps and extra players relative to how big the gap is.
Or do you have to learn the hard way by playing against experienced players?
You can do a little bit of everything, but I would say that playing experienced players in low stakes encounters in the open league is actually the easiest and most fun. In a handful of games, especially if you use steam voice or skype, you can figure out the kinks in the UI and the basic strategies to get you on your feet, as well as getting a feel for the different teams.
Here’s a link with what I believe to be the compiled wisdom of qt3 on the topic. All of it is optional, apart from looking at the starting rosters on bbtactics.com so you don’t start playing in singleplayer or whatever with an inherently borked team (ask my first team that I made with no rerolls).
