Football Manager 2013

the ai wise up on your tactics. and random streches of suckiness do happen.

The AI does not wise up to your tactics. This has been confirmed numerous times by the devs.

What the AI does do is react to your sucess. As you perform well, your reputation increases and therefore the AI will think your team is stronger and set out more defensively against you. This is particularly significant if, whether intentionally or not, your tactics are built around counterattacking and exploiting the space behind the oppositions defence, as the AI will start to be more cautious and drop deeper, often rendering such tactics rather impotent. It's not a deliberate response to that tactic, it's a general response to sucess. Tactics less reliant on exploting attacking opposition will have less trouble as your reputaion increases. That's not to say that counterattacking based tactics are bad, just that you should undertand their limitations when the opposition begin to regard you as a strong opponent.
 
My Eastleigh game has been a rollercoaster. I dragged my arse back into contention after being 10 points behind. In the end it was last match of the season stuff. I was two points behind Barnet. A victory was a minimum requirement.



Made it :)
I will be in the football league for the first time next season! Woop!
 
Nice work Quackers :)

Now watch it as your board slash your wage budget and give you no transfer funds :p
 
The AI does not wise up to your tactics. This has been confirmed numerous times by the devs.

What the AI does do is react to your sucess. As you perform well, your reputation increases and therefore the AI will think your team is stronger and set out more defensively against you. This is particularly significant if, whether intentionally or not, your tactics are built around counterattacking and exploiting the space behind the oppositions defence, as the AI will start to be more cautious and drop deeper, often rendering such tactics rather impotent. It's not a deliberate response to that tactic, it's a general response to sucess. Tactics less reliant on exploting attacking opposition will have less trouble as your reputaion increases. That's not to say that counterattacking based tactics are bad, just that you should undertand their limitations when the opposition begin to regard you as a strong opponent.

What I do (or rather did, in FM2012) was every once in a while modify my tactics very slightly.. usually nothing to do with counterattacks, but every once in a while it did.

I noticed that when I went on long winning runs, the AI would "catch on", in a way, like you said. Every once in a while slightly changing my tactics seemed to counter that rather well, although I'm not sure why, given what you've said above. Luck?
 
PhroX said:
Nice work Quackers

Now watch it as your board slash your wage budget and give you no transfer funds

Thanks :)

My wage budget has already been a victimised by the accountants. Fortunately it was a tiny nick which won't affect me much. I don't have any money to -buy- players though! The thought of it! The Eastleigh way is crazy. We're in debts of over £1m at the moment. In the short term two promotions may have been detrimental to the balance sheet considering the two costly stadium upgrades.

I looked at the top teams in league 2 in the season just past and they all seemed to use the loan system. I think that is my new transfer strategy, the days of quality free-agents is over!
 
There are usually players at that level you can sign on a free that will be good enough for what you need them for.. I'd look for younger promising players who don't mind playing at that level... .. but cast your net wide. Loan deals would work too like you said.
 
I'm a big fan of going through every young player released by Premiership clubs when I'm managing in the lower league. You can usually pick up a few good freebies. Also, try to get your scouts looking for youngsters in Wales and Ireland. I've found some decent cheap regens for lower league teams.

IIRC, in my Eastleigh game, League 2 was where I broke even, but it wasn't until League 1 that I began to really repay my debts (which, thanks to a couple of sales, only took a season).
 
The AI does not wise up to your tactics. This has been confirmed numerous times by the devs.

What the AI does do is react to your sucess. As you perform well, your reputation increases and therefore the AI will think your team is stronger and set out more defensively against you. This is particularly significant if, whether intentionally or not, your tactics are built around counterattacking and exploiting the space behind the oppositions defence, as the AI will start to be more cautious and drop deeper, often rendering such tactics rather impotent. It's not a deliberate response to that tactic, it's a general response to sucess. Tactics less reliant on exploting attacking opposition will have less trouble as your reputaion increases. That's not to say that counterattacking based tactics are bad, just that you should undertand their limitations when the opposition begin to regard you as a strong opponent.

so maybe they don't intentionally wise up, eh. they still are cognizant of what the human player is doing and, in my case at benfica, play jesus tapdancing christ-ly deep, where they're essentially protecting their own six yard box. that's annoying. so i, like warpus, sorta, have different tactics i use. it's funny how playing attacking football is best against good teams (as they don't defend like hell) and defensive is good against mid/bottom tier teams in the league.
 
In real life you would need to play different tactics depending on the opposition. I might try a more attacking approach the next time I play a good side as generally I struggle a lot against the best teams.

@Quackers, congrats on back to back titles, how did Lincoln do in the playoffs?
 
Nice work Quackers :)

Now watch it as your board slash your wage budget and give you no transfer funds :p

I got a team promoted to Conference Premier. Club promptly got bought out by new owners, who immediately turned it pro and cut the wage budget. I had to spend less, while paying for full-time contracts instead of part-time.

That was a frustrating game.
 
I'm a big fan of going through every young player released by Premiership clubs when I'm managing in the lower league. You can usually pick up a few good freebies. Also, try to get your scouts looking for youngsters in Wales and Ireland. I've found some decent cheap regens for lower league teams.

The best time to send out a scout to look for regens is right after they've all been generated and before other teams have had a chance to evaluate them and sign them. Each country has a different regen date, so I'd look those up and send out scouts accordingly. Sometimes there is nothing, but every once in a while you strike gold.
 
The best time to send out a scout to look for regens is right after they've all been generated and before other teams have had a chance to evaluate them and sign them. Each country has a different regen date, so I'd look those up and send out scouts accordingly. Sometimes there is nothing, but every once in a while you strike gold.

I've seen that mentioned elsewhere however it seems like a bit of an exploit.
 
I've seen that mentioned elsewhere however it seems like a bit of an exploit.

Perhaps, but I've only been able to get a couple solid regens that way.. Usually my signings come from other strategies.. It's just that you might as well scout at that time, you might hit gold. There is still the work involved in screening all of your scout reports and figuring out which players are actually worth signing.
 
@Quackers, congrats on back to back titles, how did Lincoln do in the playoffs?

Cheers, Lincoln failed in the play-off final. They aren't doing too well at the minute, 17 points from 17 matches.

Anyway I'm 15 games into my League Two season. I'm 10th with 22 points. I won't get anywhere near the automatic promotion slots (top three), however I have an outside chance of the play-off places.
I recently altered my diamond to a weird 4-1-3-1-1 formation. I have three super fit centre midfielders giving me a vital foothold in the middle of the pitch. It has served me well, in the past five matches i've managed three wins, a draw and a loss.

Had quite a crazy time in the beginning of the season. Two days before the season began my keeper was out for 7-8 months with knee tendonitis :lol:. I quickly had to sign a replacement who only came in after the first game.

Also I'm getting 375k bids for a 17 year old midfielder i have. So bloody tempting to take the money but I reckon I can get him on a new contract and sell him for three times that figure in a season or two.

My loan transfer strategy pretty much failed. Nobody wanted to send their players to me. The media predict I will finish 24th which is the bottom of the Football League :lol:
 
In my game I've now played Chelsea 12 times and lost every single game. They are the dominant team in the league but its a bit disappointing that I haven't been able to take a point off them.

The fourth season with Lincoln went well with us finishing 7th in the league and reaching the FA cup final which we lost to Chelsea. Hopefully next season we will be able to cope better with European football as last time round we couldn't cope with the extra fixtures and ended up finishing 12th in the league. Three of my U21 team should be able to feature next season.

Off the pitch the stadium was upgraded for a second time which was completed just before the start of the season so the capacity is now maxed out at 31k. It gets filled every game but I don't think it can be upgraded further. Its a little odd though that Nottingham Forest have been in the premiership longer but get lower attendences, it seems like the AI attendences don't really grow in the same way as human managed clubs.

The biggest news is that the club was taken over towards the end of the season so my wage budget has gone from 750k to 1.5 million a week. Has helped already as I've been able to give a couple of players new contracts.
 
Hmm...so my first year in the Premiership was going OK after 8 games, picked up a couple of good away wins at Liverpoool and Tottenham, along with disappointing home defeats against opposition I really should've at least drawn with.

Then I get offered the Ajax job.

Decisions, decisions....
 
In my game I've now played Chelsea 12 times and lost every single game. They are the dominant team in the league but its a bit disappointing that I haven't been able to take a point off them.

The fourth season with Lincoln went well with us finishing 7th in the league and reaching the FA cup final which we lost to Chelsea. Hopefully next season we will be able to cope better with European football as last time round we couldn't cope with the extra fixtures and ended up finishing 12th in the league. Three of my U21 team should be able to feature next season.

Off the pitch the stadium was upgraded for a second time which was completed just before the start of the season so the capacity is now maxed out at 31k. It gets filled every game but I don't think it can be upgraded further. Its a little odd though that Nottingham Forest have been in the premiership longer but get lower attendences, it seems like the AI attendences don't really grow in the same way as human managed clubs.

The biggest news is that the club was taken over towards the end of the season so my wage budget has gone from 750k to 1.5 million a week. Has helped already as I've been able to give a couple of players new contracts.

Which are you finding more difficult, the campaigns in the lower divisons or the attempts to win silverware? With such little money it is impossible to buy established stars and compete with wages with the big clubs. A system geared to globally scouting wonderkids and playing them is the only option IMO. It is going to be amusing when Lincoln City rock up in the CL..you'll be that club which ends up in the group of death :lol:

Hmm...so my first year in the Premiership was going OK after 8 games, picked up a couple of good away wins at Liverpoool and Tottenham, along with disappointing home defeats against opposition I really should've at least drawn with.

Then I get offered the Ajax job.

Decisions, decisions....

Any further progress? Did you take the Ajax job? I've practically never changed jobs I always struggle to deal with the mess the AI made :lol:
To confirm this is your Eastleigh game?

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As I shared with you fellas the glories of last season...here is my latest end of season review:
Spoiler :




I'm very disappointed. I thought I could break out from midtable and move into the final play off place but it never happened, i went completely backwards. At one point I was sinking like a stone and managed two points from 11 matches. Thankfully, the boys realised we might get relegated (think of those relegation wage cuts!) and started winning again.

Pre season plan: shift out the deadwood and start afresh.
 
Must have been a nervous end to the season! I guess after two promotions in a row, the second promotion was a bit too much for some of the squad. Will be interesting to see if you can promoted next season or if its a season of consolidation in the right half of the table.

How do you find managing Eastleigh compared to Dynamo Kiev?

Which are you finding more difficult, the campaigns in the lower divisons or the attempts to win silverware? With such little money it is impossible to buy established stars and compete with wages with the big clubs.

From my point of view it seems harder to move up the premier league than to get promoted in lower leagues as its taken 4 seasons to be close to getting into Europe via the league. The player rating system seems to have a big impact as initially I could only sign players with leading potential, then star and now finally world class.

The takeover at the end of the season has meant that wages are no longer an issue so I'm hopeful that this season I can be competitive in Europe and in the League (I've qualified for the group stage of the UEFA cup). The first team is slightly better and the squad is much better.

An irritation at the start of this season has been the Olympics as Argentina and Brazil called up 6 of my players between them so for the first game of the season I couldn't play them and some need a rest. Pre season was a bit bizarre as for several games I was without a first choice right back (international call up plus injury to backup). Also I'm yet to have an outstanding player come through youth recruitment so I've had to sign them instead.
 
I signed this guy when I first got promoted when he was 18 for 5 million which was more than I wanted to play but his CA was already close to premiership standard.
Spoiler :

Happily the player above has continued to progress so at the start of the fourth season he became the club captain and is my second best player (I have 1 star player and lots of leading players in terms of reputation). He also got in to the team of the year at the end of the season but didn't get called up for England, who finished bottom of their group with 0 points.

This season I signed my first 5 star potential player, a 16 year old defender. First game of the season against Liverpool he came off the bench for the last 10 minutes and scored the winner in a 1-0 win to make an impressive debut and become the clubs youngest ever scorer. Liverpool had played the second half with 10 men.
 
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