My Favorite CM Story

[Blackadar]

This is a good place to tell your favorite CM story.

Mine is the season of '05 - '06. I had taken the Stevenage team from the dregs of the Conference up to D2 in 3 short years. Promotion after promotion, I had them marching forward. However, in D2, I started seeing a patern that I didn't like. Frankly, the board's expectations were out of whack with the resources they were providing., My salary and transfer budgets were tiny and in D2 there were individual players making more money than my entire team. The board continually rejected requests to expand the stadium and training facilities.

Well, after a helluva fight, I managed to get promoted to D1. I figured the board would HAVE to relent on the size of the stadium. No go. So I issued an ultimatum, and they reluctantly agreed to expand the stadium to 7,000 seats. Big whoop. However, they expected me to place in the middle of D1 with a salary budget that didn't even reach 1,000,000 pounds. So I issued another ultimatum and was promptly sacked.

Angry and jobless, I quickly joined Norwich City, a minor D1 team. They had a much better stadium and a modest, but workable, budget. They also just wanted me to steer clear of relegation - an easy goal. I went out and got a few good players on loan, sold my 3 most expensive (and valuable) players and got a bunch more talent. I was the bargin shopper of the year - I bought players low, low-balled salary offers and stocked my team with talent that fit the 4-4-2 formation I was using. My team continued to surprise and started to climb the ladder.

To make a long story short, I finished as the runner-up in D1 and was promoted. I now have a $4,000,000 (up from $1.3 mil) transfer budget, a $9,000,000 salary budget (up from $3 mil) and things are looking up. They also improved my training facilities.

Stevenage? Well, they managed to win 5 games, scored only 28 goals and finished dead last in D1 with 23 points. Me? I beat them 5-0 and 4-1. Revenge is sweet. I hope I get to play them in the FA Cup this year.

[illinifan999]

That story still brings a tear to my eye. ;)

But my favorite story was from CM3. To get used to the game/soccer I picked the only team from which I knew any players, Man Utd. After awhile, I resign from there and take a national team job. Norway was kind enough to accept my application. So I guide them from tieing a country I didnt know existed to winning the World Cup in 6 years. A lot of hardship in between there, but it was a challenge and nothing was better than beating England, Germany, and France in the same year.

The real part of the story lies in the World Cup final. Denmark, like Norway had built up their National Team, so it was a Scandinavian final. They beat Brazil, I beat Italy. During the game, a brawl breaks out among the players. I had one player sent off, they had one. Then I get two injuries to my strikers. Since I ran a 4-3-3, I now had my starting strikers either injured or sent off. Then the game goes to penalty kicks.

My first guy missed, second scored, third guy missed. Their first 2 guys scored. Third one missed. The last two guys for me are defenders who dont have very good ratings at penalties, while their last two are their strikers with pretty good ratings at penalties. At this point I'm dissapointed that we won't be beating them. Then the unthinkable happens. My fourth scores. Their fourth guy misses. Then their fifth guy misses. Now it is all up to the youngest player on the team. If he makes it we win, misses it, surely no more miracles. I wait for what seems to be an eternity to see if he made or missed it. Then the flashing starts that he made it, and Norway wins the World Cup.

[oykib]

Yup. That's what's missing with most text sims. You just don't get that feeling of immersion.

It's too bad that I don't know dick about soccer...

[Chief Rum]

Wait a sec...you didn't know the country of Norway existed?

Chief Rum

[andy m]

it says he tied a country he didn't know existed.

[Chief Rum]

Ah, yes, you're right. Glad that was the case--I mean, I have read those reports of American kids not being able to find Brazil on a globe, too, but you never really believe it until it slaps you int he face. :)

Glad I can continue in the illusion that American kids all know where Norway is. :D

Chief Rum

[andy m]

you have globes that slap you in the face if you can't find a country on them? scary!

[Chief Rum]

If that would teach American kids to pay attention to them, I would patent that sucker right now. :)

Chief Rum

[condors]

my favorite was cm3 where rushden was in the conferance

i went staight up to the premier league but once there was unable to conquer europe with a 14k stadium i was able to win the champions league in my 8th season and twice more before the 18th season when i got the sack being 14th in the permier league (stinking ingreats)

playing rushden was almost like cheating in that version 99 i think it was

[QuikSand]

Hmmm... just to add something to the mix of frothing-with-praise that we usually get into with CM around here.

Does it strike anyone else that these sound like the hallmarks of a game that is simply too easy?

Yeah, I took over this groupof mopes, and in a few seasons we were battling Real Madrid for the Euro championship... Yup, I took the reins of the team from East Timor and we won three World Cups...

[Bee]

Originally posted by Chief Rum
Ah, yes, you're right. Glad that was the case--I mean, I have read those reports of American kids not being able to find Brazil on a globe, too, but you never really believe it until it slaps you int he face. :)

Glad I can continue in the illusion that American kids all know where Norway is. :D

Chief Rum

Norway is one of my favorite cities in Africa.

[Bee]

Originally posted by QuikSand
Hmmm... just to add something to the mix of frothing-with-praise that we usually get into with CM around here.

Does it strike anyone else that these sound like the hallmarks of a game that is simply too easy?

Yeah, I took over this groupof mopes, and in a few seasons we were battling Real Madrid for the Euro championship... Yup, I took the reins of the team from East Timor and we won three World Cups...

Especially from a bunch of guys who know next to nothing about soccer. :D

[condors]

well the problem with the older versions of cm3 you could create super tactics and get very good players for next to nothing, there were stars waiting to happen for free or under 100 k with rusden you could get your starting 11 for under 1 million that could take you to the permier league but once there you had to manage your finaces carefully in order to challenge for the champions league but its not too hard to put a midtable premier league team with the right players and tactic

thank goodness this is not the case with cm4 though(later versions of cm3 also improved on this)

[Ryan S]

Originally posted by andy m
it says he tied a country he didn't know existed.

Scotland often loses to countries I have never heard of. :(

[Marc Vaughan]

"Too easy?"

To a certain extent possibly - however a lot of this 'ease' comes from people restarting the game and using their knowldege from previous games to their advantage, think how much better professional coaches would do irl if they knew which youngsters would grow up to be superstars for example ....

(if you're think you're good at CM (any version) then try turning off real-players and see how you get on ... its a lot more difficult)

[BreizhManu]

Originally posted by Marc Vaughan
if you're think you're good at CM (any version) then try turning off real-players and see how you get on ... its a lot more difficult

Thanks Marc, I'll remember that wan answering questions about the difficulty of the game on some french speaking boards :D

[QuikSand]

I, for one, never had any interest in playing with real players - for all the reasons implied by your suggestion, Marc. But it's a good point nonetheless.

[ice4277]

Originally posted by Marc Vaughan
"Too easy?"

To a certain extent possibly - however a lot of this 'ease' comes from people restarting the game and using their knowldege from previous games to their advantage, think how much better professional coaches would do irl if they knew which youngsters would grow up to be superstars for example ....

(if you're think you're good at CM (any version) then try turning off real-players and see how you get on ... its a lot more difficult)

Bingo...I especially loved going to the SIGames messageboard and reading some of the stories from players who bought the top ten young cheap players, took the best financed team in the lower divisions (often Rushden) and jetted to Premiership success in five or six years. The kicker was they often thought they accomplished some minor miracle by doing so. Do the same thing with Shrewsbury using lower league rules and we'll talk.

[CAsterling]

My favourite Stories are from CM 93/94 (when there was only the English league version and a different game if you wanted to play CM Italia)

Took over Cambridge United (bottom English division)and decided to play a 4-2-4 formation as that had 2 talented young wingers (Fowler and some other guy whom I can't remember).

1 central Midfielder I had was a guy named Simon Livett, he looked average, but as he was young I listed him for loan. Got off to an average start to the first season, and hit an injury crisis in central midfield, so I was forced to play Livett.

He dominated the division and I won it - but I was afraid that if I removed him from being available for loan he would never be as good - stupid superstision but hey it was working.

Next two seasons, Livett played in every game and I got promoted to the Top Divison, still playing 4-2-4 and Livett was dominent.
I managed to keep Cambridge in the top 4 all season (and considering I had little money and couldn't attract good players this was a challenge), then about 10 games from the end of the season the Man Utd became available. I could see the writing on the wall, 3 of my best players were leaving to go to play in Europe at the end of the season (transfers to Europe were handled differently in that version) and I had little hope of keeping the side winning the next season.
Took the Man Utd job and my first transfer was to get Simon Livett from Cambridge. I went on to dominate with Livett being my best player, and i watched Cambridge slide back down through the divisions.

For the next few versions of CM I always purchased Simon Livett, but he never again repeated such great performances. To this day as soon as I see his name, I immediately think of that Cambridge side and the great performances he had.

Simon Livett was God like.
---
Also CM 93/94.

In that version, it was really difficult to get players to join you from abroad. i was playing my first season as Sheffield Wednesday (at that point a weak club in the Top Engish division).
I couldn't get any consistancy from my side, and about half way through the season it looked like we were going to be relegated.
Luckily I managed to purchase Gary Lineker from a Japanese side for 250,000 - Lineker in real life being a great English striker, he played for Tottenham, Barcelona and at the end of his career went to play in Japan.
For my side, he was incredible he scored in almost every game and I finished that season mid-table and won the FA cup, with Lineker being the divisions top scorer even though he only played half of the season.
Unfortunately he then retired at the end of the season, and the next year I was relegated and fired from Sheff Wed, but for that one season as soon as he joined nothing would go wrong for me.
He was the best purchase I ever made, and now in real life he is a TV personality and sports pundit in England, every time I see him on TV I immediately think of that one great season.

Ah such great memories, even if they do make me sound like a sad git ;)

[Bee]

Originally posted by QuikSand
I, for one, never had any interest in playing with real players - for all the reasons implied by your suggestion, Marc. But it's a good point nonetheless.

It doesn't really matter to me if I play with real players or fake ones since I don't know anyone in any case. :D

I'm thinking about restarting my career since there were so many bugs in the initial release. I'm going to go with fictional players just to avoid any potential advantage I might have gained playing through three or four seasons.

[GoldenEagle]

Stop these stories now!! Your making me one to start a new game!!!

[andy m]

all my favourite CM stories relate to CM92/93. things like doing "the line" (being top from game 1 to the last game of the season - so called, because when you look at the league graph...) two seasons runnings, when Michael Staensgaard played his 1000th game for me (in real life he retired at age 20 something in real life), when one season the top 13 teams in the premier league had all been managed by me at some point in my career, when my friend Ian had a £100m bank balance as manager of Wimbledon (money was sparse in old CM), when i signed Nii Lamptey (almost impossible), and when there was a penalty and it came up "Noam Shoam blasts it home".

[Critch]

Going back to the bit about playing with real players turned off, there's a couple of things that bother me about this option. It's better in CM4 than it was in CM3, but if you know enough about a particular league, you can still spot who some of the players were before they became unreal.

I just started a Scottish league with real players turned off, became manager of Rangers as I would have been if my life had turned out to plan :) I've got two Scottish international fullbacks, one who has AZ as his favorite team, the other has PSV. In real life it'd be unusual for Scottish players to be diehard supporters of Dutch teams, but in real life Rangers' fullbacks are Dutch. So Bobby McDonald and Alex Douglas are really just Arthur Numan and Fernando Ricksen in disguise. I can spot who 15 of my non-real players actually are.

Looking at Celtic they've got a central midfielder who likes Motherwell, Dortmund and Celtic (the teams that real life Paul Lambert played for), a Czech forward with Malaysian 2nd Nationality (in RL Shaun Maloney is Scottish/Malaysian), a Russian star who supports Helsingborg (Henrik Larsson's team).

Basically all I'm doing is complaining about a minor problem, and asking that in a future EP you change the process of turning off real players to include removing or changing their favorite teams and second nationalities.

p.s. my favorite memory of CM4 is winning the Scottish Premier with Rangers despite having to play the nearest challenger Celtic three times at their ground and only once at home. So that's a problem with the Scottish league scheduling as well :)

[Marc Vaughan]

Real/Fake players - We retain the flavour of the teams (ie. the nationality mix etc.) and I have to admit have never changed the 'favourites' for new players however.

If you see a player who you believe is a 'past' player then this is most likely just a coincidence because we try and retain the flavour of a team in this manner .... he isn't reallly 'Paul Lambert' for instance).

We could easily turn it so that these flavours weren't kept - but I like the fact that Chelsea remains a retirement home for aging European players etc.

[ice4277]

Originally posted by andy m
all my favourite CM stories relate to CM92/93. things like doing "the line" (being top from game 1 to the last game of the season - so called, because when you look at the league graph...) two seasons runnings, when Michael Staensgaard played his 1000th game for me (in real life he retired at age 20 something in real life), when one season the top 13 teams in the premier league had all been managed by me at some point in my career, when my friend Ian had a £100m bank balance as manager of Wimbledon (money was sparse in old CM), when i signed Nii Lamptey (almost impossible), and when there was a penalty and it came up "Noam Shoam blasts it home".

That's one thing I greatly miss about CM4, the chart showing your position throughout the year. And 100 mill at Wimbledon? That's frickin amazing!

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally posted by ice4277
That's one thing I greatly miss about CM4, the chart showing your position throughout the year. And 100 mill at Wimbledon? That's frickin amazing!

You can do this in CM4, click on the 'position' button on the league table and this will then be visible (and you can compare your progress against another team by selecting them from the table on the right of the screen that appears).

[Poli]

I nearly bought CM4 for the PC today at the mall here in UAE. However, I was afraid of some PAL type problem and I thought I recalled some type of patch that needed to come out.

I'll stick with HT until I get home. Then maybe I'll split between HT and CM4.

[Ryan S]

I would not worry about PAL problems. PAL is a tv standard, and it only affects console games.

If you buy a PC game, it should work anywhere in the world