2 player game - is there a bias?

Would appreciate anyones opinion on this.

Im now in the fifth season of a two player game my friend is hosting. We started off with Championship teams - he took leeds, i took middlesbrough.

First season went very well. His leeds team comfortably won the Championship while i finished second with Middlesbrough after a tough season. Ken Bates pumped about 25million into leeds transfer budget in season 1 which meant my friend had a bit of an advantage.

Second season, after some major ups and downs, my Middlesbrough side rallied to squeeze into a very respectable 12th place in the Prem.

Leeds finished 6th and were looking like contenders for Champions League places for a while.

Season 3 - My friend takes over at Tottenham while i accepted the Liverpool job.

Liverpool typically cannot find any consistency and i can only just trundle them into 8th place.

Tottenham win the league. At a canter. He signs Ronaldo for 20 mil and Tottenham are pretty much unbeatable all season. they lose out in the Champions league to Barcelona.

Season 4 - i get offered the Barcelona job which i take, but despite a mammoth transfer budget and a top top squad of players, i come second in the league to Espanyol who just dont drop points in their last 15 - 20 league matches. Im comfortably despatching top teams 6 and 7-0 and then inexplicably drawing at home to mid-table teams. Cant find consistency.

My friend again has the Premiership wrapped up by christmas and this time, strolls the champions league too. He now has Ronaldo, Rooney, Hazard, Nani, Suarez, Llorente, balotelli and a load of other top names on his books. Tottenham are unplayable.

Season 5 - he takes the Valencia job.

My Barca team continue to perform well and are battling it out with Real Madrid, hampered only by our inconsistant results. Only the battle we have with Madrid is for second place. His Valencia team have played 20, won 19, drawn 0 lost 1 (to Madrid early on in the season). Valencia are now unbeatable. Last season, before he took over, they struggled to 4th place.

Heres the thing. It would be easily explained if he was just a better manager than me, but thats not really the case. Truth is, we both let the assistant take training, match preparation, speak to the press. He lets his assistant do team talks, whereas i do them myself. He plays the same tactic every week - pretty much all out attack. I play a very typical barca tactic of 4-3-3 which i adjust slightly for tricky away games. If anything i reckon i put more time and effort into my tactics than he does, but everything he touches seems to turn to gold.

Im looking to see if anyone has experienced something similar? My single player game has provided me with much more success, but less lucrative job offers. We both started out our game with Automatic reputation. I have been playing FM since the Domark days and i am particularly disillulioned by this 2 player save. Would love to hear some feedback.

why dont you swap round

We're considering starting a new save after this season with me hosting. I just wondered if anyone else has experienced similar results in multiplayer games.

I really doubt there's any bias built into the game. I'm assuming his tactic is just good or he's better at making in-game tweaks or managing morale/condition/fitness. Or at finding the right players for his tactic. You seem to be having the more realistic/normal experience, so it's probably something he's doing very well.

The "bias" explanation tends to pop up when/if no other explanation is discerned, but I don't think it's there. We're just missing something practical that is handled differently and need to look harder for it, even if it's just a better assistant doing the team talks or what-have-you.

Cheers Scab, my own ego tells me theres a built in bias, but in truth i would like to discover (and i think he would to) what he is doing that is bringing so much success.

I do wonder if your rep builds quicker with multiplayer games though. no way did i deserve the Barca job.

But he's signed Ronaldo and Rooney so sometging must be going on or he's just lucky and pays massive fees over 48 months

Yeah how did he get Ronaldo for £20m?

Ronaldo went to an AI controlled Chelsea in the 2nd season of my game for £23m.

Do you watch your friend's games? I'd have a look and see if he gets lots of goals from corners aimed to the near post.

Kenco, whys that? Is there an exploit he might be using?

He only paid 6.5mil for rooney as well and then signed him again at Valencia.

I noticed only last night that he has made 263 database changes. We did agree to shuffle things to put Celtic and Rangers in English Prem, but 263 changes seemed steep to me.

Ok i think your friend is cheating, £6.5m for Rooney? Is he taking the same players with him to each club? I would imagine he may have upped certain players hidden stats and boosted some players consistancy attribute.

There is a corner exploit out there, perhaps he is using that. I'm not sure of the exact details but you can probably find out by doing a search. To see if he's taking advantage of it, just look at the league team stats and see how many goals he gets from corners.

You should also query what the 263 changes are and whether he is using a real time editor to alter values of players and sign them on the cheap.

There is no bias, so you should check what he is doing different from you- whatever that may be

FrazT, im starting to wonder thether the editor has been used to create one though.

Cheers for the feedback guys. He's agreed to start a new save with me hosting. If the same thing happens again, i'll know he's just better at the game than i am.

Wow, friend possibly cheating... Thats never good. The thing is, its hollow accomplishments when you have altered PA and hidden attributes. I remember a FM10 save I had where I bumped up a few prospects PA (because I had got attached to them, and then been 'let down' when I checked their PA with an editor) and when they became world beaters I was kind of like "Oh... Well, that was fun. I wonder how good they would have been if I hadn't touched anything."

Suffice to say, in the FM11 save I am STILL playing, I have not edited PA or hidden attributes whatsoever (although I did heal the occasional broken leg/foot early in the save).

263 changes is very steep. I'd be skeptical if anyone i played with had that many database changes