How Are You Meant To Issue Tactics To Your Team If They're Unfamilar With Them All?

I've noticed that FM 2012 has a feature called "Familiarity" as shown in the screenshot below.

Based upon what type of team you're facing you're obviously going to need to change your tactics around a bit either before each game or during. Now the problem is, whenever I change my tactics even slightly, they become unfamiliar with them, so it's almost as if I'd be better off just sticking to my default tactics as they are familiar with them. But then again, what am I supposed to do if I'm being beaten and need to change my tactics around to score a goal. Or perhaps if I'm leading and want to hold on to the lead, so I change my tactics? Even if I issue touchline instructions or change anything ingame (such as telling them to retain possession, go on the counter attack, play wider etc etc) their familiarity just lowers and they seem to perform even worse as shown below.

I'm fairly new to FM, so if I could get some help here that'd be great.

Thanks.

Thats why you're allowed to train 2 backup tactics as part of your match preparation. You can be completely familiar with 3 totally different tactics or 3 variations of the same tactic.

It's just when I get midgame messages from my Assistant Manager telling me that I need to play more direct or use shorter passing, be more cautious etc, then if I go into tactics and do what my manager has advised, they're just unfamiliar with them & tend to play awful.

Would it be worth having 3 completely different tactics and just change around based on what type of team I'm facing? For example, I could have something like:

4-1-2-1-2 (Balanced Mentality)

4-5-1 (Attacking Mentality)

4-2-3-1 (Defensive Mentality)

After a while my players would become completely familiar with those 3 tactics I'm sure. The problem is though, what if I want to play 4-1-2-1-2 but with an Attacking or Defensive mentality? Will I be able to do it, seeing as they've only been learning 4-1-2-1-2 with a Balanced mentality? And vice versa for the other 2 tactics aswell.

that is correct..

ideally u need to have 3 setups for different situations..

ie

1) default

2) against stronger opponents

3) against weaker opponents (that u have high chances of winning)

then u choose the appropriate formation and stick with it until either u concede a goal or 2 or grab a goal or 2.. in game shouts are gonna mess up the preps badly if u make too many shouts to ur team.. (understatement actually)

So when is the best time to use shouts and how many is the maximum that should be active at any one time?

So when is the best time to use shouts and how many is the maximum that should be active at any one time?

You can use shouts any time you want. If you've identified the right one(s) to use then the gain is almost always better than the slight loss in fluidity.

As for the formations, Use one at the beginning of the pre season. Use a very high work load for it so that your team gets familiar with all it's aspects as quickly as possible. After that set up another one maybe two (depends) and change everything.

For example if you went 4-4-2 Control and default in every other area (passing, pressing, marking..) make the second one a totally different formation and change the other variables. Change everything again with the third formation (if you want).

Ideally, by the third of the season in you should be fairly fluid in 3 different formations, 3 different mentalities, 3 different passing modifiers, 3 different pressing assignments, 3 different markings ... etc. At the point you'll be able to change into one of

three formations and whatever style you want while retaining complete fluidity.

Hope this helps.

You can use shouts any time you want. If you've identified the right one(s) to use then the gain is almost always better than the slight loss in fluidity.

As for the formations, Use one at the beginning of the pre season. Use a very high work load for it so that your team gets familiar with all it's aspects as quickly as possible. After that set up another one maybe two (depends) and change everything.

For example if you went 4-4-2 Control and default in every other area (passing, pressing, marking..) make the second one a totally different formation and change the other variables. Change everything again with the third formation (if you want).

Ideally, by the third of the season in you should be fairly fluid in 3 different formations, 3 different mentalities, 3 different passing modifiers, 3 different pressing assignments, 3 different markings ... etc. At the point you'll be able to change into one of

three formations and whatever style you want while retaining complete fluidity.

Hope this helps.

That's a great help, really! Thank you very much, I'll get to work on that.