Newbie - Happy, but with questions

Hello everyone!

First of all I want to say, that my English isnt the best, I am from Germany.

I play football managers for about 5 years. Until now I played nearly every "Fussball Manager" from EA. But now I decided to load the Football Manager 2010 Demo and I must say: I am quite impressed! I already read a lot about this game, about more realism than in EAs manager game and so on. But before I get too happy with this demo and want to get the game, I have a few questions, to get sure, it is really the better manager game for me:

1. I saw the german league in the game, but I cant play with a german team, is that correct?

2. Has anybody experiences with german patches, because here in germany the game will not be sold.

3. What about balance and realism? I heard, that the football manager would be very advanced-to-use and you have to work hard to get a good team (and thats what I want from this game and also expected from the EA game -.-). But I played for 3 hours and won my first game (Liverpool - Aston Villa) 2:1. That shocked me a bit , because I didnt know the game until now and my tactical knowledge isnt too big. And is it like in the EA game, that after a few years you have a very good team and win nearly every title? I do not hope so.

Thank you!

1) There is no proper german national team no, but it is also frowned upon talking about that here, SI dont have the license for it.

2) i think they do patches for various different countries and languages when they release them

3) realism is great in this game, you will be amazed with how realistic it is at times, also when your first starting it can seem a bit much to all learn at once, but once you master the game it will consume you.!!!!!!!

What lawsie said ^^^^

Also, dont be afraid to come on here and ask questions. You can bet your bottom dollar there will be someone on here with an answer

Wellcome to the forums Blade!!! In terms of point 3) the realism is second to non! I would say it is just one result but Villa finished 6th in the EPL last season so they are a decent team!

1) You can manage a German team, no problem. Out of the box, though, the German national side does not use real players.

Yeah, in Germany you can manage down to 3. Bundesliga out of the box. And if you're like me, you'll be amazed how many more clubs are put into the game. Here's to you a German Football Manager community: http://www.meistertrainerforum.de

3) you can have a good tactic, but the computer managers will work out how to beat you eventually, so do not worry about it being too easy. In previous years, the computer managers were poor at finding new talent for the future, but this year seems to be a lot better.

Okay, but I have to ask 1 thing once again:

How does the balance look like after a few years in the game? Do I have an unbeatable team, or is it a long-time adventure to manage a good team (like Liverpool)?

And to the german league: But I saw in the stats the german teams "Bayern München" and "Leverkusen" and so on WITH licensed player names (for example "Klose" or "Mario Gomez)?

Teams like Liverpool and Manchester United or other teams that carry heavy debt, it is imperative you carry on being succesful to service the debt.

Teams in Germany do have real players such as Klose, Ribery etc. Its just the German national team that SI aren't licensed so it is filled with "greyed out" players. These are players that the game makes up to compensate for not being able to use real players in the neational teams.

Have a quick google on the subject. Its generally not supposed to be talked about on these forums but there are ways around it. PM me for details (right click on my user name and select "send message to").

Okay, but I have to ask 1 thing once again:

How does the balance look like after a few years in the game? Do I have an unbeatable team, or is it a long-time adventure to manage a good team (like Liverpool)?

And to the german league: But I saw in the stats the german teams "Bayern München" and "Leverkusen" and so on WITH licensed player names (for example "Klose" or "Mario Gomez)?

I'm on 08 still and whilst I'm not exactly some kind of tactical genius myself, I once managed Bayern Munich for a couple of seasons - and merely won the title twice in five years. I'm not really that familiar with Bright Future's current games, in fact my last Fußball Manager dates back to the 03 version. But compared to this signing big players can be a challenge in and on itself here. For instance, second season I wasn't able to sign Baros who told me via his agent that he wasn't interested in moving to Germany - which probably also had a bit to do with a reputation bug, but still, signing and keeping your key players can be a challenge. Players and clubs pursue interests of their own.

Now as any other football management game working with a fixed database, you can make it easier by taking a look around the forums. I'm sure there's many a thread with player recommendations around, the biggest yet-unheard-of-talents and the like. Plus is you're an avid football fan yourself, you might know about a hot-shot yourself or two. But there's also an option to start the game with a complete fantasy player database. If you want a bit of an extra challenge, try that.

Above the added realism and challenge there's another key factor that makes FM a different game from almost any football game on the markt now, and you might have noticed this if you hadn't set your match engine to "highlights only": the match engine of Football Manager doesn't hopelessly try to cram a full 90 minutes sports into 10 minutes of play or something, but it goes pretty much all the way through. It's not quite there yet, but it's getting there, and in any case, watching it you'll quickly notice that it's the closest a computer game has come to the real game as of yet.

In my experience, the long-term balance of the game depends on your starting setup.

In the demo, you don't have the full range of options you get when you click "Start New Game" on the real version.

With the real version, you are asked what kind of database you want (Small, Medium, Large), and which leagues you want to have active (e.g., Germany, you could set to "off", "view only", or "Playable". If you choose "Playable", you can set it so that the top Bundesliga is active, or 1. Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga, or all the way to 3. Bundesliga. ... and the same for other nations.)

A smaller database and fewer leagues should give you a quicker game .. a larger database and more leagues will give you a slower game as the game has more Artificial Intelligence decisions to make: more AI teams making decisions about scouting, coaching, and signing .. more AI players making decisions about contracts, media, etc ... and more matches to simulate.

In my experience, if you select a "Small" database, and the league structure of only one nation (e.g., England), you do eventually become the best team and have no trouble repeating titles both domestically and in European competition.

However, if you select a "Medium" or "Large" database, with at least the top league of about 7-10 nations selected, you get a very rich and detailed game world, which is very difficult to achieve an "unbeatable" team in.

I recommend the following setup, if possible:

Medium or Large database

Top leagues of: Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain active

Pick two or three nations which you "like" and might enjoy managing the national team of, and make those active as well. (For me, that's Holland, Portugal, and U.S.A.)

.....

But, as to the question, SI's FM or EA's FM?

You've found the right game. Once you get it, you won't ever go back!

Amaroq - would you say that a game set-up like that is better for a long-term save than, say, a game set-up consisting of only European leagues, even if the player never intended on managing in Argentina or Brazil?

I remember something being said about the quality and diversity of regens, am I right?

That's my theory, yes - that having Argentina and Brazil active helps generate regens in South America.

That's based mainly on observations from a game with merely England active, though; I haven't actually checked to see how many transfer targets a top scout finds in South America with a Large database but no active South American teams. I suppose that's a test I could do on FM'09.

Why would you do it on FM09? Surely it would serve more purpose to test the theory on FM10

Sure enough .. but as I don't have a copy of FM'10 beyond the vanilla demo '09 will have to do.

1) There is no proper german national team no, but it is also frowned upon talking about that here, SI dont have the license for it.

2) i think they do patches for various different countries and languages when they release them

3) realism is great in this game, you will be amazed with how realistic it is at times, also when your first starting it can seem a bit much to all learn at once, but once you master the game it will consume you.!!!!!!!

I hope that SI gets a license for the German National team in FM 2011! Without this license, the game seems so incomplete!

So i see we cant talk about the solution for licenses ok