Just played the CM demo...

For start, I want to say, I have always been a FM fan so that, after the split with Eidos to be honest, I haven't even never checked the CM game. But this year after I saw the anouncement from SI and with the things that I have heard and see in the web about CM made me wonder and make a comparison to FM for the first time.

Below you can see my points on some areas that I have noticed.

About the new FM; personally, I quite like micromanagement in the games. Well, that's true but seeing the in-match interventions that I saw in SI's anouncement really made me worry about the game a lot. I think that may put really too much micromanagement and I thought this improvement may effect the match results so that it shouldn't affect that much.

Yeah yeah, I created conclusions in my mind before even seeing the game, I know. But we'll see...

Anyway, I wanted to give a shot with CM this time. 'Who knows?' I thought, my days with FM would be over. I saw the 3D images of CM in the forums and they REALLY looked nice to me comparing to FM. Much better...

Then with a guilt inside I have downloaded the demo:

My very first impression was the UI. It was hard to navigate between screens. Must say, you guys in SI have done a PERFECT job concerning UI. Every info & screen is very very easy to reach in FM. Then I started playing.

POSITIVES:

- 3D is impressive. Even though the players have stupid moves sometimes, clearly Eidos is much more ahead in 3D graphicwise.

- Also I have enjoyed the media. Different newspaper headlines about transfers and such. I think that was a small but a nice touch. In FM, we make the press conferences with always the same questions and aswers, don't we?

- One of the things I have liked a lot is the player knowledge ratio. In CM, you can see the players' informations(attributes) by percentage. This means when you don't have let's say above %75 info about a player, you may not have the accurate information about the player's attributes. What you already know, may be wrong...Really a nice touch again for me.

And this makes scouting more necessary IMO but in CM the scouts don't give any idea about the price range to buy the player which was a downside thinking the playability. Plus in general scouting is slow in CM...

- For teamtalk in matches, you can give seperate remarks for defenders, midfielders and forwards if you like. I found that quite useful and nice.

NEGATIVES:

- Transfer budgets. I had good amount of money available for transfers but almost 0 for wages in my QPR team which has prevented me to bring new players. In FM you have found a good solution called 'budget adjustment'. There is not such a thing in CM.

- Concerning UI again, I realised that you have made such a wonderful job. In FM you can pick your team anywhere in the squad screen which is very easy and useful. In CM you need to go to tactics screen you should click to the position you want to pick and then you see a new pop-up screen for that position then you pick someone. It's like taking off a plane in flight simulators...No drag and drop, nothing. Navigation between screens, likewise.

- Also one of the biggest advantage in FM is the player positions. Integrated in FM2006 I think, players have unique positions where you can see in the positions screen. CM STILL has the i.e. AM/F LC thing where you can play the player in all these positions. Yes, better than for example CM 03/04 because there are new positions now like WB, WG but way backwards than FM.

- I don't even mention the almost perfect FM database.

- In CM on the history screen of players (I like that screen) you can see the players past history but in which league, it is not indicated. Only the country is mentioned.

- Training is different in CM, I haven't digged on that a lot, but there are some fixed practices like attacking / defending corners-freekicks which you pick your players as you like and see what they do for real on the training pitch. But don't think that's a good thing for FM though. A non-necessary improvement for me.

Well about my some points in CM, I may be wrong since as I said it was the first time that I have played after the split but in the end I have put '+' s and '-' s on the table and I saw that FM is much more ahead even though the latest improvement anouncement which I have found not satisfactory.

But hell, maybe we will see the best FM ever when we really have and taste the game...

stick with FM

these guys always get it right in the end

Could you explain more about the percentages of knowledge for the players attributes?

I understand the concept etc.

But what about for your own players, are they all 100% knowledge on them or what?

I haven't tried the demo so, I'm a bit clueless about it.

Could you explain more about the percentages of knowledge for the players attributes?

I understand the concept etc.

But what about for your own players, are they all 100% knowledge on them or what?

I haven't tried the demo so, I'm a bit clueless about it.

When you click on a player let's say in Chile, on the player screen there is a section which is called player knowledge (or something like that). There is a percentage written there. If the percentage is not above %80, what you see about the player's attribute may not be accurate. If that's below %25, you can't see the results for some of the attributes like FM.

I have read on the CM forums that, there is a range for the attributes. Something like 1 - 20, 20 - 40, 40 - 60 , 60 - 80 & 80 - 100. (I think you know that in CM attributes are evaluated from 1 to 100. I hated that...You can switch from 1 - 20 though) When you don't have enough knowledge of the player, what you see in the screen may differ on the range.

i.e Let's say you have %50 knowledge on someone. And you see finishing as 65. Actually it may be between 60 to 80 as far as I understood from the CM forums.

Yes. You have %100 knowledge for your own players. Naturally...

What bomma132 said.