changing formations

I just got this game a couple of days ago. Its OK for a football manager game, but it does get some stuff badly wrong. The most important issue I have is with formations (442, 541 etc).

The game calls formations tactics. They are not.Taking short free kicks and shooting around the wall would be a tactic. Using a 442 formation and playing agressivly is a strategy not a tactic. This is not just semantics, there is a big difference.

Players should have know several tactics for free kicks, corners and such and be able to use them with any formation. Tactics can be switched during the game easily. But getting a team to work together in a formation takes quite a few games and a lot of practice, so that everyone knows what everyone else is going to do.

The formation a team uses should really be a longer term decision that a manager sticks with. The way the team plays would be practiced before the match on the training ground.

Yet in this game the ai changes formation a dozen times in a game. It starts with a 4231, switches to 442, then uses a 541, then a cristmas tree formation, etc. And I think Im supposed to be countering this by switching my own formation. This is just nonsense. None of the players would know what they were supposed to be doing and there would be no team work.

If you think FM is just "Ok" god knows what you make of other sports simulations.

That said you've only had the game a couple of days while a lot of us have been playing for years so I would guess you've only just scratched the surface of what the game has to offer.

You are being really picky over your choice of words and to call something a strategy rather than a tactic is ridiculous. If you look in a thesaurus it would offer strategy as an alternative word to tactic and the meaning of both can cover a variety of options.

As to your point on formations though. It does take time for players to get used to a formation within the game but that doesn't mean that switching isn't beneficial during a match. Personally I don't see myself or the AI switching formations anything like as often as your post suggests.

Well maybe you are frustrated, but tactics in this simulator is the most advanced on the market. You can make it easy or very complicated. Formations need time to set in, during a game AI might change formation as well as you when the results require it.

Yet in this game the ai changes formation a dozen times in a game. It starts with a 4231, switches to 442, then uses a 541, then a cristmas tree formation, etc. And I think Im supposed to be countering this by switching my own formation. This is just nonsense. None of the players would know what they were supposed to be doing and there would be no team work.

hapens all the time in italian football, its pretty common to see atleast one of the teams playing change shape during a match