AI Squad Management in FM 2013

I believe the biggest problem in FM 2012 is that the game gets really repetitive and boring after some seasons as while you are improving your squad every year, other teams do not compete against you.. They don't buy quality players etc and it's very normal to win the leagues consecutively.

I usually start in Turkey, take a medium team and after 2-3 years, i can win the league and after resigning from post, i can apply and be appointed as a manager of Inter , Real Madrid etc. where in real life this would be almost impossible. ( I choose the lowest reputation to start) .. And once i go for these top teams, then it's a matter of how many times you are winning something consecutively....

Yes, i know that this is a game but i really would like to play the career game for years and years.. But after 8-10 years, i start having the need of closing the game and not play again as i win all the time. This is what happened to me in FM 2012 and i have not opened the game for more than 4 months now.

I really would like to look forward for the release of 2013 but i would like to know if AI Squad Management will be taken care of in the next game so that the game would be so much competitive and fun to play with.

It's something they're continually working on, and something that's difficult to get right.

At the moment, there are two big problems:

- The AI does not focus enough on developing young players

- The difference between managers is not big enough, and managers too often do not support their favoured playing style with the right player types throughout the squad (great managers also adjust too poorly and too little, tactically, in games)

It's something they're continually working on, and something that's difficult to get right.

At the moment, there are two big problems:

- The AI does not focus enough on developing young players

- The difference between managers is not big enough, and managers too often do not support their favoured playing style with the right player types throughout the squad (great managers also adjust too poorly and too little, tactically, in games)

They also don't buy good players although they have the budget. And that's why the gap increases every year and my team dominates the league by far..At my last career game, i usually get few draws and sometimes not even 1 loss in whole season which really sucks.

It's something they're continually working on, and something that's difficult to get right.

At the moment, there are two big problems:

- The AI does not focus enough on developing young players

- The difference between managers is not big enough, and managers too often do not support their favoured playing style with the right player types throughout the squad (great managers also adjust too poorly and too little, tactically, in games)

I think the problem is more a combination of the following:

* There is no system in place that enables the AI managers to get rid of players in order to free up space and money, before strengthening the team.

* The reputation-based transfer system is too limited. There is only a narrow band of reputation where a player could consider moving downwards, causing for instance many good free agents to retire at a young age not because no club wants them but because they don't want to go anywhere.

* The world club economy is too safe because just about every chairman in the game cashes out the debt every year, so no club is in such a dire economical situation that they need to sell, sometimes pricing their star players higher than the value of the club.

* The AI managers auto-renew player contracts.

* Players are too comfortable in the reserve team and on the substitute bench.

* Players have no self-insight. They simply have no idea what their CA is compared to the other players competing for the same place in the team. This is because the whole game is reputation-based, as mentioned above.

Yeah, I hear this a lot that once you've got a top league/Champions League winning side, it's total domination from then onwards. One way forward when this happens is for the game to focus its resources on a few big teams 2 or 3 in your league and 2 or 3 abroad in order to rival your own. So those teams get extra computation time for team management and for acquiring transfer targets that will fit tactics that can give the human player's team a hard time. A bit like an end game scenario as they call it in the world of role playing games. If you get sacked or move to a lesser team, the game switches back to normal. May be...

Yeah, I hear this a lot that once you've got a top league/Champions League winning side, it's total domination from then onwards. One way forward when this happens is for the game to focus its resources on a few big teams 2 or 3 in your league and 2 or 3 abroad in order to rival your own. So those teams get extra computation time for team management and for acquiring transfer targets that will fit tactics that can give the human player's team a hard time. A bit like an end game scenario as they call it in the world of role playing games. If you get sacked or move to a lesser team, the game switches back to normal. May be...

it should do that for the whole country you are playing in at least, the way you described it would almost mean that no other club has the chance of rising to the top besides the player and the guys who got the extra time, thats not fun

I believe the biggest problem in FM 2012 is that the game gets really repetitive and boring after some seasons as while you are improving your squad every year, other teams do not compete against you.. They don't buy quality players etc and it's very normal to win the leagues consecutively.

I usually start in Turkey, take a medium team and after 2-3 years, i can win the league and after resigning from post, i can apply and be appointed as a manager of Inter , Real Madrid etc. where in real life this would be almost impossible. ( I choose the lowest reputation to start) .. And once i go for these top teams, then it's a matter of how many times you are winning something consecutively....

Yes, i know that this is a game but i really would like to play the career game for years and years.. But after 8-10 years, i start having the need of closing the game and not play again as i win all the time. This is what happened to me in FM 2012 and i have not opened the game for more than 4 months now.

I really would like to look forward for the release of 2013 but i would like to know if AI Squad Management will be taken care of in the next game so that the game would be so much competitive and fun to play with.

i agree on this

AI squad management has always been poor, one of the reasons why I would rather stick with a small team and build them up than to keep moving to so-called bigger teams because my squad is usually better than theirs already.

But after being successful with one team for a number of years it's always a good challenge to quit that team and move to a slightly weaker team, re-build their squad and make them challenge your old team. Once they are good enough, quit them and try another club.

AI squad management has always been poor, one of the reasons why I would rather stick with a small team and build them up than to keep moving to so-called bigger teams because my squad is usually better than theirs already.

But after being successful with one team for a number of years it's always a good challenge to quit that team and move to a slightly weaker team, re-build their squad and make them challenge your old team. Once they are good enough, quit them and try another club.

I also think it is quite enjoyable to add a new manager, take over big clubs which are struggling and buy them a new team. I did that with Liverpool in my 2023-24 Bradford game and they went from an anonymous mid-table side to coming fourth and securing a ECL place.

We've been complaining for years, here and in testing. It's barely improved, and I see no encouragement that it ever will substantially improve.

OP is right. AI needs improving off the field.

The reputation-based transfer system is too limited. There is only a narrow band of reputation where a player could consider moving downwards, causing for instance many good free agents to retire at a young age not because no club wants them but because they don't want to go anywhere.

I dunno, in my game Arsenal are now proper contenders, Chelsea and City have fallen away from the pack with City making plenty of big signings.

Newcastle are (annoying me) rising up the table and proving stiff to play against, Huddersfield of all teams are in the Prem while Villa and other teams have fallen away.

Seems about right to me so far, it's just random on which team gets the set up right and which teams blow it all. Maybe I'll change my opinion in another ten seasons or so I guess.

I've found that the majority of the time the AI squad building is poor but not every team is hopeless every time. In my save Granada don't have a ton of financial muscle but they keep buying young and promising players in relevant positions and despite not forking out for any player they are close to challenging for a CL place. Admittedly this is rare to find and it is a shame that it's not quite up to the standard that we all want. Hopefully soon we'll have the squad building more detailed rather than just working off reputations

I usually start in a second division portuguese team and its quite hard to move up (club wise). i manage to get them promoted by the first, second season, then i try to get them to the champs league, europa league, and eventually, if i can't go to a better club, i win the first division title. In this year's game I managed to go to Schalke 04 after wining Liga Zon Sagres (and only then) with Portimonense. I won two Bundesligas, and a Europa League. I got a job offer by Tottenham and won the Premier League by the first full season.

Ten years into the game i'm getting tired. Despite noticing some improvement in Squad Management by the AI from FM11, namely by the bigger clubs, that have a lot of money to spend and eventually get some signings right (Man City and Aston Villa pay absurd salaries to their players that I can't match); most clubs have some pretty bad teams. In my opinion, there is a lack of regens to go around for everyone (specially in some positions, the lack of decent fullbacks in the game is ridiculous - my letf back is probably the third or fourth best one in the game, but in 2011 he would be decent at best). Teams just don't develop young players and don't have the coaching staff to do it, as a consequence Portimonense and Shalke 004 are two of the best teams in their respective countries and will be for a very long time. And if the game doesn't have the 0-21/15-21 bug fixed in the next installment (FM13) there will be hell for those who oppose me and my baseball bat while triyng to get my money back, it just ruins the game after 7-8 years (and i usually go for 15-16)

Still, the game addictive has hell but it can be improved in a lot of ways.

When playing in Russia it was clear to me the AI would very rarely give youth a chance, and would always favour old players. This led to a lot of promising young Russian players being released aged 18/19, and a whole lot more being on the transfer list. When you consider that teams have to field 5 Russian players at any one time in the Premier Division, this was very poor management.

I'm guessing the players' reputation not being very high caused this, but also the AI seems very short sighted when it comes to potential. On FM2007 the AI had x-ray vision when it came to potential, but the game has gone too far the other way now.

There's also too many good players of all ages who are released and never find a club before retiring. The AI seems to fail to recognise these, or the players themselves aren't accepting moves.

The reputation-based transfer system is too limited. There is only a narrow band of reputation where a player could consider moving downwards, causing for instance many good free agents to retire at a young age not because no club wants them but because they don't want to go anywhere.

True. The latest example I saw was Marc-Andre ter Stegen retiring at 25 despite the fact that I was offering him a fantastic contract which was everything he wanted except I didn't give in and give him the £30k clean sheet bonus he wanted.

In reality he'd have had a few dozen clubs begging him to sign.

Bring back FM07. The best instalment yet in terms of AI but with FM12 everything else because bar the AI bug this is by far the best instalment of the series to date. So addictive.

Although I love the games, I would also love the tactics system to be improved. Repeatedly certain tactics win in certain divisions rather than tactics working for the individual teams. For example, my first year, with Blackpool I played a version of 4-5-1 with steven Fletcher target man up front (surprisingly I got him after some good league performances) and probably the best two wingers in the league out wide, with Snodgrass and matt Phillips. I gave it a chance for around 8 games and I could just never win and only ever had around 40% possession, despite it being a feasible tactic in real life and it really suited my team. As soon is I returned to the classic 4-4-2, i had no problems winning despite my team not being anywhere near as strong.

Although to create such individuality in teams would be hard, I think for the 2013 version it would be important to have pre-set tactics that are more reflective of the attributes of the players in your team.

What's the AI Bug? Is there actually a recognized AI squad building bug in this years version?

What's the AI Bug? Is there actually a recognized AI squad building bug in this years version?

There is no bug but the AI seem incapable of buying good players in the first 7 or 8 seasons, but i find that they usually start to get better when all the real players have retired and they start to buy decent regens.

There is no bug but the AI seem incapable of buying good players in the first 7 or 8 seasons, but i find that they usually start to get better when all the real players have retired and they start to buy decent regens.

I agree with you. I think maybe the problem is the way FM works with player reputation, beacause me happens the same, when all real players start disappear, AI start buy better players.

I also think it is quite enjoyable to add a new manager, take over big clubs which are struggling and buy them a new team. I did that with Liverpool in my 2023-24 Bradford game and they went from an anonymous mid-table side to coming fourth and securing a ECL place.

I sometimes do this using FMRTE and try to get some competition back into the Bundesliga.

I haven't done this though for like 8 seasons and competition has completely turned to **** I just win every game by 4-5 goals and only rival teams are ever capable of pushing me a bit in games.

So I think it's time to clean up some of the teams in my league and get some competition back.

Bring back FM07. The best instalment yet in terms of AI but with FM12 everything else because bar the AI bug this is by far the best instalment of the series to date. So addictive.

OP is right about this. Though, what kills the last few FM is corner bug, I'm so tired of having my center back score 25+ goals every season.

Also, the game is not playable without FMRTE, you need it to restore some real life & sanity to financial system in FM.