Championship Manager update thread - do not read if you hate football and/or computer games

Aside-do you find being specific with tactics work in CM? I always find it to be a bit random (though marking a player can help, on occasion).

Tom feels he's taken Inverness as far as they could go - 4th in the SPL, and into the Scottish Cup final, knocking out Rangers on the way. Without the funds needed to improve the ground though it's hard to see how he can build on those results. He was bitterly disappointed at the lack of serious management offers and so the game in question is currently in limbo, though not for long as the lure of a UEFA place is a strong one.

Yet to find any loan signings who are any good, even at this level, though in another game I got an absolute star to come to Torquay - Brian Kerr of Newcastle, who averages over 8.

Hoping AFC Wimbledon will be promoted to the Conference at the end of this season, and that they'll be looking for a manager...

Ronan, I applaud your will-power. And your commitment to academic excellence.

I must have a go at the 2002 close season some time.

I played for a bit, it made me wish I hadn't played it's previous incarnations so much, I've sort of been-there-done-that with CM. And with Vice City new on the D drive along with my ongoing Desert Combat and C&C Generals dalliances I really don't need another free-time-eater in my life.

Of course, I don't know too much about the teams or players, but it's pretty fun... I just shouldn't play too much till I take the LSAT exam, eh?

But when I do play, tell me what team I should pick!

Managed 9th in my 2nd season with Woking, mainly thanks to Kerr again. I've been away for three weeks, so it'll be interesting to get re-acquainted.

Anyone else want to update us?

I want to play CM4 again but the squads are all old...

Here's a question for you - how random do you think the CM engine really is? Are there really tricks to management or is the whole thing a sham? I always found training a waste of time, for example.

CM team made Football Manager 2005, it's supposed to be the shizznit.

I don't seem to have the time to commit to CM nowadays.

In the golden age of CM games I could win things with all teams, I wasted so many entire days on it, the images would be burned onto my eyes sometimes. Those were fine times, at the age of 15, managing Spain and Real Madrid.

it was fantastic. I remember players you'd never heard of then like Thomas Gravesen were amazing. Tommy Svindal Larsen, 200,000 and he was incredible.

And reincarnations! made the game easy but so much fun.

One time there was a 3 way game with me and 2 friends, and 2 of us secretly made a German player called GULL IBLE, who was amazing in 4 or 5 positions, because our other friend always bought young German players.

He never noticed until we told him.

TOP player.

I made a Norwich team of great Hollywood actors. Burt Lancaster was our star striker, Sean Penn in goal...

However, could the Northampton Town board be any more fucking unambitious? No money for players, for wages, and we're playing in a 7500 capacity stadium in the fucking Championship! Jeez.... Third season below the topflight now, and I think this is when we finally retrn to League One. I've half got my eye on the Leicster job, they've been a sleeping giant too long for me.

Michael Chopra is a god on the game, though.

xp-I'm getting it!

off the top of my head, reputation never improving no matter how much you win, player of the year awards and manager of the months completely fucked, impossible to sign players, like absolutely impossible to afford them, while nobody will pay anything for your players.

I'm sure there must be more.

Also, reskin it from www.sortitoutsi.net. There's a lovely skin called "Elegance" that makes it look a peach.

Also, Freddy Guarin is a good buy as well. £2 mill from the Columbian leagues, and he's frankly world class. Any team below the level of Champion's League contenders would be improved by him.

FM2005 is really, really good. They've had to change a fair bit with CM5 coming out as well and I get the feeling that the next incarnation will be THE BOY. There's a few things that are only slightly implemented or are hinted at that look promising. Elegance skin also recommended, and are the various other odd bits you can get such as Subbuteo players for tactics icons that are niiiice.

The sound youth buys on FM2 are Guarin, Kompany, Van Den Borre, Adu and Holm plus 2 Liverpool and 2 AC Milan U18's (it's random which ones are good). Although most of them will get homesick if you buy them straight away. As well as them the game will randomly make a few youngsters very good - get dem scouts on da go. Also - hire a billion (good) coaches. It works.

I'm on 2014 with a long-standing game based on my girlfriends assertation that some rich steel magnate should pump 10 mill into Sheff Wed (giving you about 4 mil to play with after cancelling the debts - after 9 seasons the bank balance now at 50mil or so). I've not touched it in a few months, but oh yes, Champs League glory has been ours. Inter Milan, we score in the first 5 mins then defend like unholy Gods for the remainder. We've now done 5 seasons at 4th or 3rd in the Prem, but we're not really title contenders. Chelsea just buy the best 3 players in the world every year and Man U and Arsenal perform just as well as currently with the piss-poor players they've since bought. In fact, we're majorly fucked from next season onwards as the German attacking-midfielder regen genius that is Mirko Barth is dead set on leaving (avg. 8.17). I've scouted everything to the high hills and there's nothing that comes close to him. And my new dogs-bollocks AMRC wants to go home already. Whiney cunt.

Although, we still have the other regen Godhead - THE BUTTY (he is now even better than this screenshot 3 years on).

http://www.coastaltown.nildram.co.uk/porl/butler.jpg

He is very good at things.

Also, FM05 is good but doesn't include Anatoli Todorov...

read what the testers are saying on the myspace blog as well, also siiiick

Jimmy

It would be great if, just like in real life, a footballplayer or ex-fp dies, and it is shown on your news. Like george Best, feher,... To make it all just a little bit more realistic

Posted by Jimmy on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 at 8:22 AM
[Reply to this]

____________________________________

Sports Interactive

we can't have anyone dieing in the game for legal reasons.

Posted by Sports Interactive on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 at 1:52 PM
[Reply to this]

lolz

Ta-da!

i've moved to allay some of the disappointment of qpr missing out on abgonlahor on loan ("seen by some as the new geoff hurst"?!!) by err, signing malky mackay and hoping that will somehow guarantee promotion like it does irl.

i was heading for the sack until the double loan signings of dj campbell and young danny sturridge ("seen by some as the new gary lineker") added a bit of firepower. i never ever like playing with wingers so i've gone with a counterattacking 4132, which has yielded the same beatings i got before with the odd (and i mean odd) 5-0 home win every now and then.

a news item has just come up entitled "RESPLENDENT RASIAK!"

Jerome Watt gets injured for me, so I let reserve team winger Ryan Gilligan have a few games run out. He hits a stunning run of form, three nines in a row, two MoM awards. All of a sudden, Neil "Larry" Grayson, Cobblers' icon of the mid 90s, is talking to the press about how Gilligan is the heir to his crown as Northampton's favourite player. Then Dario Gradi's talking to the press about how Gilligan is the main threat in the upcoming Northampton/Crewe match and how he's devising special plans to keep him quiet. Amazing.

Sure they are.

does everyone else's demo have no sound in it?

I just started with Liverpool, Momo scored a cracking 35 yard goal in my first friendly, while I just sent pathetic Jermaine Pennant home with a cold.

NESTA-TUESQUE!

this apparently means that Alessandro Nesta is quite good at the football.

Cobblers for the Championship baby!

But nice to see Craig Forrest is so easily tempted from his TV contracts to go be a league one goalkeeper coach.

Hvaing had a truly attrocious season I've just kept QPR in the championship on the last day of the season with a 2-0 victory over 6th place Stoke. Kevin Gallen, after a lengthy goal drought, was the hero of the day.

This should not have excited me as much as it has but I am elated!

I'm starting a new game when I get home today with a Conference N or S team. Taking suggestions.

I also plan to play on my laptop and my desktop at the same time because I am currently enjoying my 2-season-in Premier League game as well. And those load times are loooong!

Vauxhall Motors.

It's a struggle, but it's a worthy one.

Ah FM, how I love thee. Mixed fortunes for me - my Liverpool game is going swimmingly (won the Prem in season 2 and got to the CL Final, won the Treble in season 3!) but with Wolves I limped to 15th in season 1 and was sacked in about November of season 2 while second bottom. Poor show.

What a game though, it's basically all I do on evenings in these days.

I need a new challenge soon to reignite my passion, I kinda burned myself out by playing five hours a day from November to March.

Try my hometown club, Ballyclare Comrades, in the Irish League second division! They won it at a canter IRL after being narrowly (and incredibly unluckily) relegated on GD after their own games had finished last season. I started a game with them, finished 5th in season won and started well in season 2, before I got the itch to play with Liverpool. I'll go back to it eventually.

Does this make it time for the first ever ILE FM challenge thread?

Ha my Wolves game was part of a challenge with my mate. He won resoundingly...

is fm2007 any good? the last time i enjoyed any of this series was waaay back to CM4.

fm2005 wrecked my head with the amount of misses from strikers, so i stopped buying them. can ILX recommend the newer ones?

Darragh, I think FM07 is pretty good, yes. It's still almost impossible to sell unwanted players in the lower leagues, but the whole package is pretty convincing.

Yeah, I maybe manage to sell one player every two season... At least, I discovered that you could loan out practically anyone by offering them to clubs (for loan).

FM2007 is a game you need to *learn* before you can enjoy it properly. Hit the official forums and FM Britain for some basic tactic strategy.

good lord, the lack of irony, sarcasm or just plain nastiness in response to a serious request for information.

i'm taken aback! THANKS GUYS!

Ban Darraghmac.

Alternatively: http://www.fm-britain.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=4988

Dom, here's a challenge for you.

Make a placeholder manager, call him Holiday Man or something. Put him on holiday until June 19th. At this point, save, and go on holiday one more day to the 20th. (The save is so you can reload if you don't like your selections, coming up)

Now make a new manager and take up the helm of one of the newly-promoted clubs to the Conf N or Conf S. There should be three new teams apiece. If you don't like those teams colors or something, reload and try again, because it is pretty random in its decision of who gets brought up.

Anyway, lead one of those teams to glory. Here's a pic showing a user in charge of Wimbledon, one of the aforementioned "previously unplayable" teams.

Now _that_ sounds like a challenge. OK, it's on.

I am contemplating the idea of taking a Conf team, giving them a bunch of star youth players in the editor with the names of ILX0rs and making a picture thread showing us dominating the world for the pure LOLs!

Oh, and here's a link, in case you want to read a better description of the challenge (I didn't make it up, this dafuge dude did)

http://www.dafugeschallenge.com/

Problem with having a whole team of stars in the conference - unless they're all on 5 year contracts you'll lose them to prem teams along the way. I imagine also some of them will get pissy at you not letting them leave Aldershot or whoever and follow their dream of playing for Real Madrid, and then team and individual morale will suffer and you'll get fired.

Having said that, you totally have to try it :)

I know this because I created myself as a world class 17 year old left back at Torquay and after one single pre-season friendly, Arsenal came in for me.

That's why you stick them on a contract until 2013 or so in the editor, AND give them loyalty 20 (so they love the team), AND give them ambition 1 (this way they have no overwhelming urge to play high-level football), AND give them max favoured club/personnel stats for teammates and the club.

Oh, and reputation 0, so nobody knows about them in the premier league, except teams who specifically scout the conference n/s (which is none of them, they all tend to focus no lower than L1 or L2 I find)

Anyone tried the new one?

You are expected to invest in new players and start rebuilding the team during this season. The Football Manager 2008 thread.