Barnsley FC

A guide to trying to beat the match engine


DISCLAIMER

Like many of the people that post on this forum I have played this game since the early Championship Manager’s. I have had loads of frustration with the recent versions as it has increased in difficulty and maybe put people off playing. I want to say a big thank you to everyone that has posted explanations of how things work (Faeron, Rashidi, Law Man and others) -–big thank you to you guys!!!

I would like this to be read along with other great threads on here and ask people to have patience with what is a fantastic game – I should say way of life really!!! I do not want negative responses to this thread as I am just trying to pass on information to help people because, believe me, I was one of the frustrated players for quite sometime.

I have been using Man Utd for template testing and match engine tweaking – do not be put out by this as I am hoping you will take some of these tips and adjust them to make your own tactics and enhance your gameplay experience. As a last thing I will apologise in advance if I repeat anything here that has already been mentioned in previous topics.

PREGAME IDEAS

You all know what team you want to play as and I base my squad selection on looking at fitness, stamina, strength, composure and bravery. The reason I do this is my thinking that they can run for 90 minutes and stay steady under pressure.

On the flip side of this it can work against your opposition when they are weak in these statistics. When the team selection screen is on and I am looking at the opposition I look for composure and bravery of 12 and below and look for players that are not fully fit with low fitness levels. What I have found in gameplay is that hard tackling on these players works wonders – the players with low bravery just don’t want to know when the tackles are flying in. The players with low fitness attributes don’t seem to recover well from injuries during the game and then is the time to target them for some rough treatment as well. Doing this seems to take the player out of the game which can only help you.

I am playing with the second beta patch and hardly get booked – as a matter of fact there seems to be a lack of red cards handed out or penalties given – might still need fixing on the full patch.

When looking through my team I also look at the player preferences (eg dives into tackles, runs down left side , etc). If I have a player with good tackling attributes and no mention of diving into tackles I place them on hard tackling – if they like to dive in I set them on normal in the hope that they think about it prior to committing themselves.

OPPOSITION TACTICS

Defensive tactics – 442, 4141 & 4222 all with no arrows seem to be the most common one’s that I have seen the AI use. I have tended to go slightly more attacking / counter attacking against these sort of tactics depending on opposition.

Counterattacking tactics – 4411, 442, 41212 & 4312 with short arrows are again common one’s. These seemed to catch me out if I went too attacking and are best dealt with using counterattacking / normal mentalities. You may find that if the scores are remaining level then the AI will over commit and you can score – something the AI is very good at doing to you towards the end of games if you are not careful.

Attacking tactics – 424, 415 and 442 with long arrows tend to kick in from roughly 70 minutes onwards if the game is tight. This can be defeated by taking any forward runs / runs with ball off of the fullbacks, man mark with your two central defenders and specifically mark the FL and FR with your fullbacks. Go wide down both flanks, maximise your time wasting and make the tempo and passing as slow / short as possible and you will probably find you even nick another goal. I have never tried to use these tactics myself as it seems suicidal.

The AI does seem to opt for counter attacking to start with unless they are cannon fodder for a large team when they will start defensive.

RERANKING

As far as I can tell your team is reranked halfway through the season and at the end of the season. If you are doing well then more teams will try to play defensive and leave one man up front for breakaway goals whilst you are piling on the pressure. Be aware of this when setting up your defence.

TEAM INSTRUCTIONS

This is all down to personal preference but I tend to try going relatively short on passing in the attacking half of the pitch and a bit more direct when getting it out of defence. Tempo – slow is the new quick – if you go slow the accuracy of passing and shots will increase (good for away games because you might not get that many chances to score). More direct, faster play is all right at home when wanting to run down the opposition whilst playing it slow and short keeps possession.

I set up my tactics depending on player tendencies – for instance if they want to try long passes I tend to let them. Creative freedom and closing down is set by myself according to Faeron’s thread which is working well. I then look at giving more creative freedom to players that can handle it. The way I set my gameplay is to close down every opposition player – the closing down post patch is great.

I think this is where composure comes into play as by closing down I am finding that the opposition players with low composure make mistakes. I make every player play onto their wrong foot as well.

MATCH ENGINE

Keep an eye on what is happening with regard to your player’s stats, the opposition’s formation and substitutions. When the AI makes a substitution be ready to set up closing down etc on the new player. You will soon know if you are making mistakes because the engine can deal out some punishment. Whilst I was testing these theories in one game I was whipped 7-0 by Portsmouth (top six finish this season you watch!). Be ready to repel all boarders in the last 15 minutes unless you are massively ahead at that time.

If anyone has any questions please fire away – these are my impressions of what happens so give it a try and see what happens.