This game is too difficult.

The ai keep countering my tactics.

My current game I created three and adapted them all to it but right at the very beginning of the second season the ai learns all of them.

Now I am on the verge of the sack again and I have many unhappy players.

How do you get past this?

Do you have three totally different tactics every season?

Also, if I start a brand new game why does it start with my tactic already defeated?

Maybe you should ask this person?

Who are you playing as?

The AI just plays differently against you if you use a tactic that brings you success. I tend to use one tactic a season and make slight changes to a couple of roles every year.

Tottenham.

I have started about twelve games now, got to the fourth season once, sacked in the second season all the other times.

What formation do you play?

I played the same tactic for 5 seasons in a row. Won the league each season. If anything it's improved my chances, I mean, the 5th season I went unbeaten, concede only 11 goals, and scored over 100.

Changed it this season though, as well as selling off some of the senior(but still supremely able) players for silly money, to see if I can find another great tactic. It's working so far, 6 competitive games, 1 goal conceded, 21 scored.

Gone from a 4-5-1 with inside fowards and a trequartista AMC, to a 4-4-2 with 1 winger, 1 inside forward, a supporting complete forward and a poacher.

If your tactic is good enough and your players are good enough, you can breeze through the game. If anything it's too easy.

I was playing back 4, 2 mids, 2 wings, 2 strikers.

Then 5 back, 2 mids, 2 wings, 1 striker. (Away to Man utd etc. but let in more goals).

Next was 3 central defenders, 2 mids, 2 wings, one attacking mid, 2 strikers.

Every time I do well for a while and then I cannot buy a win, I even lose to little clubs 4 or 5 nil.

It seems that when one team learns to counter your formation, every team in the world does at the same time.

First season I did well, 5th with defoe and vdv out all season but now no worries.

Can it always be the same? Do well in forst season and then crash in the second?

Just been sacked the match after I qualified for the UEFA cup group stage.

No warning or nothing, they mention Hughes' job hanging by a thread every week but my job security is kept secret.

Ive played through 3 seasons now as arsenal and never changed the tactics - ive got 2 other similar tactics in my second and third slots, but appart from the odd experiment I never use them. Made the odd tweak to my tactics (introduced a target man and play maker) and change the odd player from support to attack, but nothing more excessive than that. AI never seems to have cracked my tactics.

What most people seem to think of 'cracking' of their tactics is the jump from first to second season. In the first season if you have a relatively low reputation for your league then more teams will play attacking against you. Thus if you have a good counter attacking/ defensive tactic then you can do very well in your first season. come the second season people will pay you more respect and you have to change your tactics to accomodate this. Playing as arsenal people have always respected me and thus I havent had to change the way we play because we have always been favourites for 90% of our matches.

I hated second season drops in previous versions.

I started as Sunderland and used a 4-4-2 with 2 DMC's and finished 2nd thanks to a big bunch of luck. Second season I moved the wingers so one was at AML as an inside forward and one at RM as a winger and got 2nd place again. Third season I moved to a 4-4-2 with 2xMC's and AML and AMR and finished 2nd yet again. I just find a tactic that works and stick with it use match prep on team blend and then just tweak the roles slightly especially on the wingers and inside forwards.

Yet there's people like me, I have a single tactic that I leave unchanged for almost every match and it has worked reasonably well for the past 6 seasons. So either the AI has decided to furiously attack you but it likes me and gives me a break, or, surprise, there's no such thing as the AI suddenly learning how to break your tactics after a certain matches.

The match engine definitely is flawed though. It does try to counter the human team tactics during a match, but since there's always some area where something's unbalanced, you can just exploit those balancing issues in your favour. I don't think my tactic is 100% realistic, I don't see any contemporary side playing like it in real life, yet it works.

If you're curious, basically the concept is that a duo of advanced forwards is highly effective in this version of FM, advanced wingers are highly effective as well, so I just use both. In real life you'd get slaughtered in the midfield by teams with 3 or more midfielders, but I get away with it by using a pair of 2 MC's and the AI doesn't effectively exploit the large central holes between my DCs/MCs and MCs/STs. And in FM2010 the holy grail was to use a trio of strikers instead of wasting your time with wingers. These things are silly, but happen because it's incredibly complex to program a match engine with so many numbers being crunched.

Two DMC's with attacking quick wingers and two advanced forwards is overly effective on this years FM.

Two DMC's with attacking quick wingers and two advanced forwards is overly effective on this years FM.

Oh I seem to be having success with two DMCs, MC, 2 inside forwards and a striker..

Oh I seem to be having success with two DMCs, MC, 2 inside forwards and a striker..

What type? boxtobox or ball playing or?

erm, let me see, 1 ball winner set to defend, 1 deep lying play maker set to support, 2 inside forwards set to support and 1 deep lying forward set to attack.

The central midfield guy gets chopped and changed, sometimes hes attacking, support or defensive, box to box, advanced play maker. Occationally I actually move him into the AMC position and set him to trequarista, but not often.

Would van der vaart be a good trequarista?

Would van der vaart be a good trequarista?

I actually dont know - I have arshavin playing in that role when its needed.

Oh I seem to be having success with two DMCs, MC, 2 inside forwards and a striker..

I have seen a few people have success with that sort of formation. I have never got one striker to work I always find him too isolated up front.

Would van der vaart be a good trequarista?

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/237507-Rafael-van-der-Vaart-The-Dutch-Master-of-Spurs?highlight=vaart

Seems Van der Vaart is great at AMC as an attacking mid. You should take a look in the Spurs thread as well a few of the people in there would be willing to help and a quick read through the thread might show you where you are going wrong.