we'll let you know Cody.

I'll actually be in Chicago on the 30th sightseeing and then getting home at night and will most likely set myself up for a marathon all-weekend FM-session

the star-rating thing is apparently messed up.

and Pass - the game comes out on the 30th - but I'll be sightseeing around Chicago that day - I don't even think I'll get a chance to DL it until I get home that night.

I'm pretty sure getting the demo is the only way. My computer is 5 stars and it's not that great.

AMD 64 x2 Dual Core 6000+ 3.00 Ghz
3 GB RAM
8600 GT with 256 DDR3

Thanks DT.

Fozzie and Todzilla play a lot of MLS - I myself tend to play in European leagues. They might even have some additional insight into how MLS is in this version...

The Belgian and Dutch leagues are good places to start imo. There are no non-EU limits so you can sign anyone you want within your budget and there aren't so many matches to play like in some leagues (English lower leagues for one example - 46 league games and multiple cups) so you don't have to worry about squad depth as much, your best eleven can play every week unless there's an injury.

One of my favorite careers on CM 01/02 was taking a team from the Dutch second division to the Champions League Final, but it's also fun to take a mid-table team in the top league in BEL/HOL or an Anderlecht/Standard/Ajax/PSV/AZ and contend for the title immediately.

Question about signing limits since Fo brought it up. Is there a central site where you can view the various limitations as far as signing players go in the different leagues? I know that some leagues have age restrictions, amount of experience restrictions, etc. I always have issues trying to sign players from certain regions, only to find out that I can't do so even if he agrees to it. Thanks to anyone who can provide a good place to learn those rules.

Dutch league is definately fun.

France is also pretty fun - there's a definate hierarchy up there at the top with say Olympique Marseille, so you be one of the big boys there are be sure to contend for the league title and make your goal to be to win a CL.

One thing I definately want to do in this version that I didn't end up getting to in 2009 is to start a dynasty as Athletic Bilbao (can only sign Basque players) and see if I can be a credible 3rd team in Spain to rival the big guys. Or at least get myself deeper into European competition.

pretty sure in the game you can see (in 09 you could) on the league screen under rules. by the league screen i mean the same bunch of menus where you can see the league table...

But I'm assuming you can only view those rules once you're in the league, no? I'd like to be able to view all of them. At least in the 08 version, it was a bit tough for me to track down the various league tables.

i think you can view them anytime - least as long as you have the league active.

i also think in 09 there was a league rules chart included in the manual wasn't there? or was that in prior versions?

if there's not one included then sortitoutsi.com will likely have one, and i'd imagine you'll find one linked in the SI forums before too long...

There is a "View" that lists the league rules when you are looking at the "League Table". I've always found work permits to be a pain. I've never found an easy way to see if a player has played in enough caps to qualify.

I think it's somewhat fun that there's varying rules. I just wish I had a better place to view them in a central location. It's a minor gripe on my part.

I asked this in the other soccer thread but is there like a big ole graph or chart that shows you what leagues are associated with what tournaments and such. Like one that would show that the Premier League is associated with the FA Cup, etc. MLS is associated with SuperLiga, US Open Cup, etc.

I remember reading that this years version would process faster, is that correct or am i wrong ?

The one thing i hate about the game is that it takes so damn long to get going, i basically play 1 save game geting like 15-20 seasons in and then the new version comes along.

It´s not like i don´t love all the detail, but i kind of miss the good old days in that regard.


How many leagues and which database size do you guys usually select ?

IMO to make it competitive in Europe into the highest levels you´d need England, Spain, Italy, Germany (well homer pick, might as well be just the top league) with at least the top 2 leagues active, then at least France, Netherlands, Russia, Portugal with the top league active.
All on large database.

Even then at some point there´s top teams with greyed out players on the roster.

How much game time do you need per season ?

@ rainmaker : I´m afraid there isn´t. It´s like 2nd nature to people in Europe and generally not very "interesting" to people in the US unless they happen to play FM ;)

You just have to figure it out on the go, it´s propably not rocket science really if you browse through the league rules and look at the standings.

England is a special case really, other than that most European league systems are extremely similar to each other but every nation has a couple of rules applying specifically there and things like "who qualifies for which international cup" can vary over the years.

Just pick a league and then ask i´d say.

The demo goes faster and the match engine stutters far less often on my laptop, we'll see if that works in the full game as well.

For number of leagues I always pick the top division from USA, Italy, Spain, and England at a minimum. Sometimes I'll add the top divisions from some of the following: Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, and France. The Russian league is getting better, I might start adding that in when I get the new game. I only add one or more lower divisions in the country I plan in playing in long-term, I like to keep the game processing quickly as possible. Large database, all players from USA loaded. This might expand by quite a bit when I build a new desktop in the coming weeks.

The in-game timer isn't accurate for me since I'll leave the game open and go browse the web or something while it's processing so I'm not sure how long it takes me to get through a season. It's certainly many hours and very much the opposite of my quick simming ways in OOTP and FOF, but I've grown used to it.

At best when I get a game established and have an established rotation among players and a steady roster and everything, if I'm having a power-session and i'm relatively undistracted I can probably bust through a season in maybe like 10-12 hours?

but that's without making very many gameday changes or dipping into the transfer market really

I remember way back in the day (1998? 1999?) there was a nice folded chart that was included. That was very helpful.

I have a question about the back room advice. Every game so far, my Assistant Manager disagrees with the feedback from my other coach on all of the feedback. Do others see this?

yes, every time so far

Last time we did that was either CM00-01 or CM01-02 (can't remember which) - it was a fold out chart which was HUGE, proved quite popular at the time BUT we only had about half the leagues in that version which are in FM and it'd most likely be rather impractical now I'm afraid.

The idea strikes me that you could make a webpage with that information and people could access it that way.

Just found out you can customise squad views - cool! Now I can get the info I want all on one... no... three screens as it turns out :D

That's a good add.

Although a screen you set for the 1st team squad can't be used when viewing the reserves or youth from their base tabs by the looks of it, only by using the filters from the 1st team screen

Strange decision, but an easy workaround

what was the deal with the occasional BSOD when exiting the demo?

That'll be Windows letting you know you're still its bitch.

hahaha

no i thought i saw somebody say something about it either here on the SI forum

i've now played 2 complete 6-month demo seasons...ready for the real game!!!

Quick, when was the last time you a) ate b) slept c) used the bathroom?

a) about an hour and a half ago. i'm overweight...i eat plenty
b) about 5 hours last night (same as every night)
c) i had a really nice #1 right before lunch - got out all the coffee. As far as #2...it was probably last night when I got home from work?

It helps that I don't have anything else going on in my life to occupy my time all night like all you married/in-relationship dudes.

OK, just checking, man. It's just a game - not worth pooping your shorts over.

:D

What - you don't wear a poop sack?

DAMNIT BONNIE...YOU LIED TO ME ABOUT THE POOP SACK!!!

something i'm wondering about - in the touchline shouts when you scroll down the list of tactical tweaks there are two "play more cautiously" and "take more risks" that always seem to be greyed-out...when will those come into play? anyone seem them be selectable?

Bios will be generated for newgens

Oh, and if you click on the dot on the "analysis" screen for a shot/pass/tackle/whatever it will show you that highlight...

Those are for the two extreme choices (contain and overload) on the starting strategy setting, I use them when up or down a goal in the last few minutes of a game. It's a way of making your tactics even more extreme than the two extremes, to either totally go into a shell or have every player bombing forward.

aaaah okay.

so you can't use them with anything in between "contain" or "overload" then. Gotcha.

I've used contain and overload to hold leads or come back, but i hadn't ever gone in to see that those two tweaks were active at that point.

good to know.

i've got a match report saved i should upload - i played defensive against ManU at Old Trafford in the CL and came away with a 3-2 win (was 3-1 till a late PK goal they got).

Thank god for that - thought you were going for a new picture set for a minute there...

What's a match report? Is it just the line for line play-by-play text? Team stats? I've played the last few years and have never noticed such an option.

Just a reminder if you are using touchline shouts, they wont do anything if you gave a player specific instructions. So if i told McGeady to cut inside on his Instructions, the shout for hugging the flanks wouldnt have any effect on him. At least thats how it seems.

i said "match report" when i probably should have just said "match"

my bad. i saved the match file

The 'match report' is the commentary in game in 'past tense' - ie. like you're reading the summary commentary which shows up on bbc.co.uk for most English matches.

In the game you can save down a 'packed match file' (.pkm) which contains all the data about the match. This allows you to load up the match and watch it, examine stats, report etc. at you leisure, email it to a friend and say "Watch this cool goal" ..... or more likely email it to me and say "My *@!* keeper let this trickle past him is that a bug?" (and no it isn't he was recovering from the previous save he did a second earlier and was off balance and unable to recover in time, work on your tactics ;) ).

Its if you use 'ye olde style' tactics that the shouts are ignored - if you use the new tactics interface (ie. .assign a player a role) then they'll be listened to.

Using the old style player instructions is tantamount to giving specific individual instructions to a player to fulfil a role during a match - ie. they're individual and as such he's focused on fulfilling that during a match and will ignore any vague shouts or arm waving from the sidelines during a match.

i like what you said in the second paragraph - everyone's always complaining about things that trickle past them or goals that seem "weird" but i always try to build a little story for it that's believeable in my head before freaking out that it's weird. i don't think enough people do that.

Could there be a way to signal when a player is off-balance, or any other states that should otherwise be visible, maybe similar to the green cross or a yellow card?

QFT

I'm not still sure about that as i have read mixed thoughts about that in SI forums, even from different SI staff.

My understanding is that the sideline instructions would work only for those who just use general tactics without individualized instructions for each player (that in the game means, to those players who do not have that individual instruction checkbox checked).

My question is, when you set player roles... aren't you just using an interface wizard that auto adjusts that player particular instructions the same way you could manually if not using the wizard? If it works that way, it would also be auto checking the individual instructions for that particular player, so the sideline instructions wouldn't affect him either for those instructions.

I'll rummage in the code to double check later on tonight if I remember (I didn't implement this area I believe Kev did) - but I'm pretty sure what I said is correct.

Thats what I tried to say and how I understand it works.


Yes you are BUT its presumed that if you've over-ridden someones instructions then you have a particular job in mind for them so it doesn't over-ride those players.

This is important because if you have a reckless defender who is always getting sent off and you've told him not to be a prat then you probably don't want his attitude changed when you tell the team to 'get stuck in', same idea if you have a winger who's told to stay open so that the team can use him as outfield distribution frequently - if you tell the team to pressure the opposition you don't really want him getting close to the opposition and losing your offensive outlet.

This sort of 'call' in the games design is always a 50-50 one tbh, it always makes some people very happy and others a little disgruntled ...

(hope that made some kind of sense and didn't confuse things further ;) )

Yeah i underestand it, in some situations it would be a good option to override individual intructions, and sometimes it would be a mistake, so maybe what we need for maximum control would be a checkbox for each player to set if we want sideline options to override his individual instructions or not.