retired_kellyk

Understanding how everything fits together

This is usually the hardest part, but lets begin by making things historical. Success was easy and cheap in early FM games, all you had to do was play with attacking mentality, short passing, high tempo and high closing; knowing when to use "gungho" was too powerful a weapon. As the game evolved it was AI payback time. The game is now much harder for anyone who wants to be attacking 100% of the time. Attacking mentalities and playing at high tempp will sap your conditions and leave you open for counters late in the game. If you want to take it to the AI you really need to know when to do it and when to ease up.

Creating chances in a game happen with more creative freedom and a higher mentality. A player with a higher mentality is more likely as well to risk an attacking option over a defensive one as well.

How about probing football? In this case Mentality needs to be neutral, you should also play with a lower tempo and to some extent use direct football, as you knock the ball about and look for an opening. The higher your tempo is the quicker you will move the ball around, a lower one implies more patient buildup. You can always play a short passing game on a low or a quick tempo. How you move around is governed by your mentality as this sets the attacking conditions for your team.

Fine you have a lead and now you want to play all 11 men behind the ball. Then move everyone on the team to the lowest notch on the mentality slider.

Remember the individual instructions always over-ride team instructions on the sliders.There are reasons for leaving those two extra notches on the mentality slider too..though they never say ideally why. All I do know thus far is that those two over-ride the individual instructions.

What about using arrows. Remember with and without ball. Well the arrows do just that. They tell the player where to go with a ball and where to go without a ball. Farrow(With),Barrow (without), the sarrow or the horizontal arrow is a hybird of the two so a player is likely to play either way.

Creative freedom is one of the "risk sliders"...increasing it upfront gives you more options, reducing it gives you less. So use it for people who need to move around. They can do this and create space for each other.


Defensive line only works when the opposition bring the ball into your half that was the case in FM2007, it may not even be a straight line, with fullbacks being higher up than DCs



Creating Tactics - A Reasoned Approach

Contents
1. Getting started

1. Getting Started
There are 2 general ways to set up a tactic, by far the most efficient - get players for the tactic. The other
way of doing it is to set up individual instructions for players based on attributes, and this in most cases is
much more harder to achieve and it can unbalance a tactic.

I'm currently using West Ham, we're not exactly the best side in the league so my approach was straightforward. My personal goal was top four finish. To do that I knew a simple tactic always works best with these kind of teams. In fact simple tactics work well for all teams, and help you gel the team faster.

First things first....I look at all my training schedules..its pre-season..so I set up specialised training schedules, then I begin my hunt for the right coaches and then I set the tactic up. Though I have 2 more formations on standby as well. The goal is simple, have 1 or 2 attacking tactics and one with a DMC perhaps 2. For now this will do.

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre"> ST ST | --MC MC MC-- DMDL DC DC DR</pre>

That's my tactic, I call it DemonsEdge. Its actually quite simple. The tactic uses short passing in midfield with the central MC on mixed passing, the rest of the team is on short passing of 1. The reason why I do this early on is ensure we hold the ball up. Width is set to normal(H) and narrow (A), tempo is set to slow and defensive line is set to normal-push up at home and normal at home. In the middle my players are expected to tackle and win the ball. All 3 MCs are important, the central one is key because he will receive a lot of passes to spray around and he should create a few goals. The two outside midfielders are expected to cross but the danger comes from their forward runs. They have been set to RWB normal, but cross often and FWR often. The cental MC is on RWB often, no cross ball, often TTB. This tactic has two driving forces the DM and this MC. The MC is expected to come late into the box and be on the end of a few layoffs. So one of the strikers needs to be strong and be able to act like a good holdup man.

The fullbacks have forward runs on normal, if this team was any stronger I may venture really attacking fullbacks, their mentality is normal and they will cross balls often and from mixed. They should do some strong running down the flanks, though I do not need them to make it to the byeline. I have considered making them tightmark along with the 2 outer MCs, this should make them a very tough unit to break down. The goal with this tactic is to force the AI to take pot shots from distance. And to make sure they don't get easy long shots, closing down will be heavy in midfield.

Mentality has been set to 10 for the 2 DCs, I will employ manmarking with the two of them..I'll have some is on, mentality is normal for the rest of the team and attacking for the attacking group of players. Once my team appears settled I will start toying with other formations. My team will take around 10 matches or so before they start gelling as a unit and then once they are settled I will endeavour to use more exotic formations.

The players
Looking at the Hammers, its not such a bad team, I'll just go get myself a new DM and a young upcoming AMC. I'll also set up to add players to my pool so all filters are set to:

Defenders
Pace 12,Jumping 12, Tackling 14, Anticipation 12, Determination 12 Bravery 12

Wingers
Pace 14, Determination 12, Crossing, 14, Passing 12, decisions 12

Strikers

Finishing 16, composure 12, first touch 10

These are the very basic settings I will accept, I then filter out and look for strong forwards and better players. The approach is simple and I'm off.

Gameplay

Football is meant to be simple. You pass the ball around and when you don't you make it hard for the other team to do the same. In order for me to achieve all that, I need to set up Defensive lines, closing downs and play around with width and tempo.

Defensive line and mentality are linked. The further apart your players are in terms of mentality, the higher you push up DLines, the greater the chance you will expose yourself. Closing down instructions are fairly simple to get your head around. You can close down progressively higher from the front and keep the backline low. But, link players shouldn't close down too heavily or they will be poorly positioned for counterattacks. Personally I like my fullbacks on 8 DCs on 5, wingers on MAX and leave the central MC on low. The rest are set to high. Yeah..that's what I like to do...however the closing down hasn't really worked that well so tightmarking needs to be empployed to. So far it appears to work.

If passing has been set to low, I don't really want to play with too wide a formation, a normal to narrow should suffice. If I were to choose a high tempo set up then I would make the passing normal for most of the players, perhaps keep the passing for the LMC and RMC on 1.

Use the defensive line as a tweak to push forward for goals or to sit back and soak up. In both cases remember to tick the offsides and counter attacks on for the respective situations.


So far I've been playing simple football and that has helped me do quite ok..as The Hammers Table Thus Far

We had to prepare for Liverpool so I elected to play with a 4132, home to Liverpool, this will be a formation that will be played narrow, we'll pack the defense and make it hard for them to find space in the centre. I have 2 good outlets upfront and an AMC that will push up from midfield. I don't expect to have too many shots on goal but the variety of attacks I have should allow me to have good shots on goal...tadaaa
The Pool Onslaught gets turned away


Ok been playing with a 433 a 4132 and now I'm going to toss in what I think I can afford to be very attacking. We've had a good string of results, morale is high, I already have 2 decent formations now that I can fall back on in case my adventurous spirit gets a bit of dampening early.
Villa samples Scramjet II

I dunno if I should be experimental..we've had a good string of results, as I've spent a great deal of time preparing for each and every match by studying the team reports, scout reports and also being very selective of who I play. Well we have a big match coming up..

Hammers prepare for chelsea


Well I'll try and go into more detail later, this is a compilation of a few games with West Ham, I just haven't had the time to fire up the game as much as I would like..when I do get the chance I'll update more..and the next few ones will be more indepth. And no I won't be uploading a single tactic/

retired_kellyk

My gfx are nice eh? ;-) I have their chants too..LOL.

For the next couple of matches, I'll just be trying formations here and there..I have a target or making another 3 more. A 4231, diamond and a Xmas tree

retired_mthead

Would definitely be interested in your ideas for 4231. I'm playing that at the minute with Man Utd and it's doing well.

I find the AMC position is very effective - my AML and AMR aren't too consistent though and I haven't as yet figured out why. My guess is the pitch width and my own team width has an impact on how well they play - would like to hear your thoughts on that one...

retired_elpata

Nice post Rash :thup:

retired_nsample

For anybody reading this who, just like me didn't have a scooby what conjuration means, here is the definition Conjuration

Am I any the wiser?? MMmmm!

retired_Cat1123

I think Rash meaning of it is "bringing together"?.

retired_lswearne

nice one rashid1 :thup:. do you always play with a defensive mid like me (and my friend). KUTGW.

retired_lanebo

Rashidi:

Don´t you find conflicting giving a player Run with ball often and try through balls often?

retired_happydawg

rashidi1,In the FAQ and hints and tips, under the" Avoid conflicting instructions". It reads "giving a player RWB often and TTB often is a conflict". Then, in your Demonsedge summary you say the following. The central MC is on RWB often, no cross ball and often TTB. How do you reconcile these two?

retired_jwash

I think it is possible for a player to have both RWB and TTB on often. The different options represent the options a player has when he has the ball, apart from forward runs, which seems to affect off the ball runs. A player with an instruction of rarely will look to perform that action maybe only once in every 10 times he picks up the ball, whereas a player with an 'often' instruction will look to perform that action much more frequently.

Therefore players with TTB and RWB set to often will be more likely to perform one of those two actions and take up positions which allow them to do so. What they end up doing with the ball depends on their decision making attributes. Take Gerrard as an example - more often than not, when he picks up the ball he will either run with it or try a defence splitting pass.