Stamina, Form ETC.

Hmm i am also very curious how the ai responds to all our tactics. Once, i scored three goals under 15 min and the ai immediately started definding in numbers (according to the commentator).

How the AI respond during a match depends on their expectations from the fixture, the needs of the club, the personality of their manager and the situation he's in.

I would guess when you went 3-0 the manager just wanted to drop things from getting further embarrassing and wanted to go home avoiding total humiliation .... some managers do this, especially if they have no faith they can turn things around - some on the other hand might come out swinging and try and get something out of a tie regardless (especially if its a cup game where the level of loss doesn't really matter).

For a while I thought SI was using stamina as a means to address injury proneness as well, but that wouldnt explain why Bale last year would have an 18 stamina, despite his injury proneness the year prior. (They year they would have been factoring in for attributes)

Stamina is how a player 'lasts' physically on a pitch - that is can he work hard after 70 minutes on the pitch or are his hands on his knees blowing because he's knackered ... however the 'condition' in a match isn't just based on that it also depends on the following things:

* How busy is the player? - if someone is potentially hard working but not having to work because of the style of game then he won't tire much, for instance that defender who will press a player around a pitch probably won't be working as hard when you're dominating a match against worse opponents than yourself ... simply because the opposition probably don't have the ball that much.

* What role is he in? - A 'Box To Box Midfielder' will be running up and down the pitch continually so will get more tired than someone set as say a 'Deep Lying Midfielder' where he has a slightly less intensive role.

* Knocks - If a player gets a knock in a game then this will affect his condition, so a player might in best circumstances be able to do 90 minutes at full pace - but if an opposition defender helpfully puts some studs in his calf you might find him slowing down a lot afterwards simply because he's in a bit of pain, this doesn't mean he's 'fully injured' - but it may impair him slightly.

Im just very curious how the attribute is determined, and the greater importance of it in the game, because its seems to be affecting a far greater portion of the game than just that single attribute. (Retirement, injury proneness, in-game fitness etc)

You'll find that there are a lot of things which affect all of these tbh - retirement for instance is heavily affected by training, how often a player actually 'plays' and his professionalism - for an example: unprofessional players tend to train less than professional players and so don't look after their bodies as well and thus will deteriorate physically at a faster rate ...

Also, I would be curious to hear from Marc about form. For example, its been said that the AI can adjust to the consistent use of a formation. Is there any truth to this? If so, how is that determined? What affect does changing a formation have on the teams performance next out? How long does it take for a squad to gel in a formation? And, what if you are using a home and away formation strategy, which is the same tactic, only with a change in mentality (attacking, balance, defensive)? Im just curious how form is handled behind the scenes.

I'm not going to go into huge detail regarding this as I don't want to encourage people to 'game' the system at all - but yes the game does learn about tactics and the more astute managers in the game will adapt and learn as time goes on ... not only from your team incidentally, but from each others.