Pre-programmed events?

Are certain transfers or player unhappiness pre-programmed?

When you start off a game, there are obviously some players, whether at the club to start with or bought in by yourself that you consider integral to the on going success of your club. An example of this is from my most succesful game on Championship Manager 00/01 where I was West Ham. Joe Cole was obviously the best player, and had a good ten years at the top ahead of him, but from the start of the game top clubs were hovering around him. I luckily managed to keep hold of him, even though at times he was unhappy, and then after a couple of seasons of mediocrity, I started to become a top club myself, and became the best club in England, maybe Europe, if I do say so myself. This made Joe happy, and he stayed with us through his career.

Point of that example is that, if succesful, hopefully you have a chance of keeping your top players. If you aren't, then I can understand them wanting to leave. I know there are other reasons, like 'wants a new challenge' (I hate that - so vague) and so on, but you'd hope in the majority of players cases success would bring happiness.

When playing FM08, long term injuries that were known about, such as Eduardo for Arsenal, were pre-programmed and so happened in the game. No problem with that. But when starting a new game, the same transfers kept happening too, even if they didn't in real life. Every game I played, Adrian Mutu signed for Arsenal. was this pre-determined?

My question is, if, for example, I started as Man Utd, would I be destined to lose Ronaldo to Real no matter what I did? Or at Arsenal, after a season or two will Fabregas pine for Barcelona, no matter what I do? I know there are hidden attributes for loyalty, professionalism, ambition and so on that will have an impact on this. But are some events bound to happen no matter what? I'd like to think that I have the chance to keep any players I wish to, providing I bring success and good man management to the club, rather than the player just goes off while I stare hopelessly after him. Yes, before you say it, in real life it does happen, but it would be nice to know I can still help to change the players mind, and it won't just occur even if I wildly over-achieve in my first season.

One further question while I'm here - whats the latest date SI can put transfers/injuries etc into the game? Like if a club signs someone two weeks before the release date, will they have time to put that move into the released version of the game? I'm just curious.

I have no idea why Arsenal like to spend 20 mil+ to buy Mutu in all of my games.......

whent he game starts up, you'll notice a stage that says "creating manager shortlists"... this is the AI managers identifying their targets, and getting them onto their shortlists, so, therefore, some transfers do happen a lot more frequently than others ie Modric to Chelsea, Mutu to either Arsenal or Liverpool etc

Chelsea always sing Modric or Pandev on mine!

I wouldn't have thought you'd be destined to lose someone. I'd like to think that if you started two games with the same club maybe in one he'd like to go, but in one he'd love to stay.

No, you are not destined to lose certain players.

One further question while I'm here - whats the latest date SI can put transfers/injuries etc into the game? Like if a club signs someone two weeks before the release date, will they have time to put that move into the released version of the game? I'm just curious.

No, that wouldn't be in. Any transfer that is made before the game goes gold will get in. The game will go gold around 2-4 weeks before release, I would have thought.

There's nothing pre-programmed, but the clubs are all starting off with the same squads, which have the same deficiencies in them. They have the same transfer and wage budgets, the same managers and chairmen in charge and they have the same scouting setups. It's not in any way suprising that some events do happen quite often early in the game. In fact, it'd be more suspicious if they didn't.

The Eduardo injury wasn't programmed in. :confused:

Eduado had the injury on the game I recently started - maybe its just in the latest patch. That was just an example though. Thanks for all your replies

I would be more worried if Arsenal didn't sign the same players, it shows consistency and the AI are consistent!

Eduado had the injury on the game I recently started - maybe its just in the latest patch. That was just an example though. Thanks for all your replies

Was that with Weegie? If so, possibly, but he shouldn't have had it in 8.0.2.

Was that with Weegie? If so, possibly, but he shouldn't have had it in 8.0.2.

Don't know what Weegie is, but I just got the patch from this site when it was available.

It says he is out with damaged cruciate ligaments, and it happened around the right time. Could just be coincidence I guess.

Reading your post it reminded me of FM07 Palermo, soon as the game began several players would request a move (Grosso, Barzagli, Zaccardo, Barone if I remember correctly) but it wouldn't happen ever time. If I re-started the game the player may or may not request a move and then a 50/50 chance that if he did and I urged him to stay he would.

Seemed to be highly likely that one or two of the players would request a leave but was always a decent chance that they wouldn't.

Why do Arsenal buy Mutu for excessive funds and why do Man Utd always sell Ben Foster? In my games this always happens.

I think the managers start every game with the same players on their shortlist, thats why they sign the same players a lot of the time.