silvercharms

Ok well i decided to write this after wrestling with the FM demo for the best part of 3 days.
Now first i should explain why I do this and my situation. IRL im a Norwich fan ( not that this has anything to do with it ) but i always like to play FM in the prem conf and build my way up from there.
For me getting a U21 international player is as exciting as winning the Champions League, and i personally see no point with playing a Prem team.

So the dilema is this. I now need to pick my team from the conf and spend hours understanding who the stars are and who the dead weight is.
In the past ive played as Southport, Cambridge, Aldershot and Stevenage.
For Fm08 i fancy either my place of birth, Salisbury City, or my uni mates actual team Aldershot( being hes the only person i ever met who actually supports a Conf team ! )

So your given a big old rooster of names your not familiar with. Its not like going into a world class team and instantly knowing whos good and whos not.

Now my first mistake was to read coach reports. This had me umming and erring over some real donkeys just because my ass man rated him.
So I came up with a simple strategy of sorting my team.

Step One
Push all reserves into your first team and all YTH back into the U18. This helps add perspective.
Go to your first team and select view mental stats.
Select via Determination.
All players with a Determination bellow 10 should be pushed down into your reserve squad now. How ever take a look first, make sure you havent got wonder boots who just happens to have a determination of 9. Just dont look at the coach report period and try to be objective with these guys.

Step Two
Set up the following new Short Lists
- Goal Keeper
- Defender
- Wing Back
- Midfield
- Striker
- Youth Potential
- First Team squad
- Active Transfers

Now go to the first team squad and set filters to Include own team. All your players will now show up.
Now create a new filter and define what characteristics you want in each position. Normally keeping them at 10 with maybe 1 or 2 specially on wingers i find set at 8.
Save this filter.
Apply the filter to your First Team shortlist. Obviously all players fitting this criteria will be met. Make a note on thier page just saying they meet the criteria.
In most cases you will be lucky to have 1 or 2 people meet this, so drop your filter search down a bit and create a bare minimum requirement filter. Again save this , and apply to your first team.. noting who fits the bill.
Now go back to your first team page and reserve anyone who didnt fit the bill for your minimum requirements. Obviously be smart, some players may just miss the requirements and after spending time to mess with this you will be accustomed to spotting a ok / awefull player. I sometimes keep people who have 18 + determination or who are only 1-2 out or are U17.

Step 3
Take the filter and make one for every positional you require. When your done with your first team choice. Transfer list anyone in the reserves you fancy and if you have high wages or want cash maybe your highest earner OR most valued.
Now go to player search and add the following
Transfer listed or Listed for Loan
Value Max : ( i set this to 5k just incase i find a steal )
Apply it and look at the prospects available.. DO NOT filter out unrealistic targets because the ass man will remove some potential players who just need convincing.. obviously your not gonna get the likes of Stephan Klos to move to Cambridge though !
Add anyplayers to the selected shortlists.


Step 4
When shortlists are compiled see what you need and make the bids. Dont forget to always click onto the Active Transfers shortlist before leaving your short list page. Other wise the catogorisation will be messed up when ever you bid. IE: you leave the page open on youth prospects and bid on a 32 year old goalie without adding to shortlist or a follow up bid, he will be added to this list creating a mess. This Active Transfers shortlist is generally used just as a short term name dump which i clear whenever i go there.

Play around with it, it may be usefull to you


Dunno if this helps anyone, but the whole procedure helped me troil through my new team on day 1 without getting to lost.

Obviously people should adapt it a bit and some people may find it to labourious for them !

retired_saltnppr

Thx! Yeah, its a bit hefty but i'll surely give it a go when I start with Bishop S.ford. :thup:

retired_holland102

Sorry I'm quite new and I do not understand step 2 onwards.

silvercharms

No problems mate.

Short list tab on the left menu or on your manager page.
Go to that. Bottom right is a button, create shortlist.
You can create as many of these as you want. I just gave the names of the ones i use. Some people just have 1 giant short list, depends on what you want. In this case i found it easier to have multiple lists so i wasnt confusing myself.

Filters is in the top right. These allows you to mess with requirements eg: filter out all players with shooting less than 18 or w/e.
On this page you also have 2 options very clear on the bottom
Ask ass man to filter unrealistc
Filter Own players

A lot of these terms should be in a faq somewhere !
Notes pages, all players have these... fm08 has the links to Note all over the place.


FM is a bit of trial and error and learning the interface really, but there are usually some good faqs, i suggest you dig around and get comfortable with the game first... maybe even pick Chelsea and mess around for a few hours figuring out how to play.

retired_aefrb

A nice method!

I've played lower league before and it can be hard trying to sort out your team on day one, coach reports etc do tend to be crap but aren't they supposed to be improved for FM08? Maybe they could help a little. Good post. :thup:

nch - The concept is really sorting players by stats. So for example, in step 2 you would filter the goalkeeper section by looking for characteristics such as handling etc. This would help see who is best suited to be your first choice keeper in this case.

Step 3 is all about getting rid of the deadwood and moving them into the reserves for transfer. Then looking for new players to fit into your team judged on your filters. This leaves you with your completed shortlists of current/potential players.

I think that's it anyway.

silvercharms

yup thats the general idea dm_gers

retired_aefrb

Maybe some of this could be implemented into the FAQ at the top of this forum.

Just to give a general idea on how best to approach a lower league team as there has never been much on LLM in this forum.

retired_holland102

Hmmm ....

I sorta get it now so do we first find one whole list of young goalkeepers for example and use this method to choose the best one for us?

P.S. I played Chelsea, well its super easy and I am thrashing all the teams

retired_holland102

Sorry misread

So Step 2 is for identifying which players in your squad are good right?

silvercharms

Yup, but save the filters.
Because you can just re-apply them to your player search in Step 3.

Re: Chelsea.
Yeh i wont take it away from anyone, play the game how you want !
But for me I find the game pointless to just play as a big team and just create a super squad. I prefer finding that 16 year old from Lowestoft Town and molding him into something that Bristol City want for 500k
And its even more fun when you win the champions league with Cambridge in the year 2009 :cool: ( this was CM3 )