What would you do?

Having endured a tough opening season at Vicarage Road, my Watford side began the campaign reasonably well. On the back of four straight wins, we sat 3rd in the Championship, an impressive start considering the media had us down as relegation contenders.

I loaded up my game a couple of days ago and continued where I left off, easily dispatching Brighton (3-0), Leeds (2-0) and Palace (4-1). This is when disaster struck: having not saved the game since I'd opened it, my computer inexplicably crashed and all was lost.

Or was it? I then faced a huge moral dilemma. Feeling angry and frustrated, I passionately told myself that I had earned those three victories and deserved for them to remain. I had almost convinced myself to load the game back up and 'cheat' to ensure I retained the nine points (when I say cheat, I planned to keep replaying the matches until I'd got three victories, saving the game after each win). Then that nagging voice surfaced, telling me that what I was about to do was wrong.

In the end, I decided that, having played FM since 05, I was not going to start cheating now. Wins over Brighton and Leeds followed, but, with an injury to Danny Graham collected in the Brighton match (an injury that did not occur originally, I hasten to add), I slipped to a 1-0 defeat at Selhurst Park. Those three points could cost me come the business end of the season, but I think I probably made the right choice.

Just thought I'd pose the question: what would you have done?

Whenever this has happened to me, I strangely get the same result when I replay the game but I'd play the match one more time and stick with whatever the outcome of the last one is.

cheated, then regretted it.

its not good to cheat you will always have that horrible feeling

It can work either way. Sometimes it works for you, sometimes it works against you (and that can leave you pretty hollow especially when the difference is dramatic such as in this case).

I would think best practise - if you want to avoid cheats/exploits of any sort - is to write off the games between the last save and the crash as having gone into the void, try to pretend they never happened, and continue from the save as you normally would. Although I personally wouldn't judge you if you did try replaying once with the hope of not being quite so unlucky - remember that one season is just one season, and like Roy DeMeo says, once you 'cheat', even in the mildest way, you can't really 'uncheat' down the track and it may change the way you feel about future successes in the game.

Well I did this once and tbh would not do it again ..no matter what.

A few years ago I was in my 1st season of the premiership with Ipswich,my goal to stay in the league,I was doing rather well until both my keepers were injured,1 for long term and 2nd choice for 2 months,my only option was my 17 year old youth guy,I then went 5 games with pretty ugly defeats so decided the game had cheated me and reloaded an old save,the keepers never got injured again and I finished mid table ...it was bitter sweet and I never played that save again.

It will play on your mind for the entire save regardless what you end up winning.

Use the three rolling saves on a daily basis..this game saves very quickly and you dont even notice.