DrizzitD

It might not fit your play style but if you want to try it out as a learning experience I would set some rules for yourself. I like moving around and i like the initial struggle to get a team going with what I got so I usually go by my own rule of not staying more then 1 -2 seasons no matter what. If I get offered a new position from another team I usually take it and If I havent been offered another job after 2 seasons I resign and start applying for new Jobs again. Can also help to speed up your play style a bit if you want that. Because you dont plan to stay more then 1 or 2 seasons theres alot of long term things you simply dont have to care about if you dont want too. Youth facilities are bad, no problem i wont be here long enough to use those Youth players anyway. And 1 season loans are great, no need to work for that 3 year contract if you only plan to stay for 1 season and so on. I kind of see myself as the temp short term solution to try and get the club going again. Once I do that im on to the next one... or i get fired trying, that happens 😁 In the end you will probably land somewhere in between the styles but it can be good to shake it up a bit to try new things.

Very much up to personal taste. Obviously using masking will make it harder so if you want more of a challenge go for it. Personally I want to play lots of seasons in different leagues and find masking just makes my progress feel too slow for my taste so I dont use it. Its hard enough to find decent players who actually wants to join you in LLM even if you know their stats so adding a few extra hours of scouting to every season is just no fun for me. I usually dont stay very long in every team though as I like the moving around part and i very rarely play in top teams/leagues so if you plan a take a small team to the top kind of play through it might get too easy once you start getting into the top levels. As for advice its been said before but make sure you load as many leagues as you can as playable. Will make it slower of course but gives you more options especially when you start out. If there are no lower leagues loaded you wont be getting any realistic job offers with 0 rep. The game will eventually shoehorn you into a team anyway in my experience but it doesnt make for a very good experience as no one will listen to you as they all got higher rep then you.