retired_prettygrasya

Hi all, i am about to embark in a lower league career for the first time in FM. Until now i have always enjoyed going championship teams but im now keen on starting at the very bottom and building a club up from nothing.

I would appreciate any advice anyone could give me to get me started. I havent picked my club yet either so suggestions are welcome. Any advice at all from coached to affiliates to tactics to club selection would be great. Really aything you can think of.

Please dont name players that i can or should be signing though as i will find out that stuff from my own mistakes. I am particularly interested in affiliate clubs though and which ones people have had most success with.

Thanks folks. Look forward to hearing from you.

retired_mssa007

Spend a LONG time clicking through free transfers. And I don't mean 5 or 10 minutes. I spent a week searching through. Right-click on free players, and if your coach thinks they would be a "good" signing, grab em as fast as you can. Even "decent" might be ok.

Also trials are handy, they don't cost you money. Give you a chance to cast your eye over them.

Re-train players for different positions to give your squad some depth.
ie. don't buy a back-up left back. Just get a CB to retrain there.

retired_prettygrasya

Cheers Swarf. I will take my time on this one. Im determined to be successful ay LLM.

Im trying to decide which club to go but would love suggestions from the forum readers on this. Anyone??

Emm

Spend absolutely NO time clicking through that list, (in fact don't ever even look at that list).

Employ 2 scouts, send them out to look for players and sign any that look decent.

Perhaps I could suggest you going on holiday for a season and then trying dafuge's challenge and managing one of the teams that gets promoted into Conference North/South.

If you don't mind managing in another Nation then maybe you could ask Frank.

My advice is just take your time and do w :thup:hatever feels natural.

If the "only sign players that you have scouted" rule seems a bit too extreme then simply don't bother. Just decide what you want to do with YOUR game, (but then stick to that way of playing).

Good luck.

retired_mssa007

Fair enough.

retired_w0lfpack1

The biggest key to LLM success is loans-in.

Make use of every loan you possibly can, and try to set them for 0% of wages. The only thing better than a free transfer is a player who is absolutely free! (If you have a feeder club, don't wait for them to offer their Reserves to you, go bid for them! Other than that, follow the "Offered for Loan" list carefully.)

Keep your wage bill low low low. That means, as soon as you've identified a player as deadwood, he's straight on the transfer list. You may need to cut his asking price to ZERO, that's okay, as long as you can get his wages off the books. If nobody'll buy 'em, find out how much it'll cost to offer them Mutual Termination.

You can't afford to have a Reserve and Under-18 team. Don't even bother. Grey players will fill out the ranks, that's what they're there for.

Since your goal is to promote, don't lock up players to long-term contracts unless you think they can do the job at the next division up.

Think of the club as a business. You aren't in the business of collecting Premiership-quality players (yet!). So, like any other business, you need to buy low, and sell high. When an offer comes in that you "can't refuse", don't refuse it! Remember, that value is going to be different than it is as a Premiership club - as a Conference club, I found a £250,000 offer for my best player to be well worth taking.

Lastly, be patient - as anybody who's played dafuge's challenge will tell you, success isn't going to happen overnight.

retired_prettygrasya

Thanks jimbo. Have read some of your posts before so i really appreciate your input. I am looking through Dafuges challenge just now and i think i'll try the holiday thing for a year.

Emm

I wasn't having a pop, but I didn't even know that that list was there for ages and you just sort of get used to living without it.

He wants a challenge so that's why I suggested not using it.

Sorry if I came across a little blunt.

retired_mssa007

I don't use a list. I filter the search engine to suit my requirements. Then I sift through it to find suitable playing staff. This requires patience, but in the end you find some gems. In a way, this is more of a "challenge" I suppose. Rather than letting your scouts do the work. They might not find the players you find yourself. Worked for me.

retired_w0lfpack1

It also depends on him he wants a LLM experience or a LLaMa experience.

Stewart, the term LLM could refer to either - I tend to think of it as "lower league manager", but there's a forum on the boards called the "LLM Forum" which really play by LLaMa rules.

Those rules are outlined here: LLM Forum Rules and Guidelines

Most of those rules will make the game even more challenging!

So, whether to use them or not depends on your capacity to deal with frustration, setback, and failure - but if you are using them, the entire LLM community will be very supportive for you.

If you're not using them, or approach that forum with a lack of respect, you'll get run out of town.

I tend to play by most of the rules, at least the last time I read them, for my "serious" games, and none of the rules for my "just having a laugh" games.