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How do you play your season?


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In one way it is fast as I holiday through matches, but in others it's slow because a) I agonise over transfers during the off season and January, and b) I have limited time to play each week. I'm in the pre-season for my 3rd year and have been playing for about 6 weeks.

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I used to take as long as you. Then i made two changes:

1) Edited the comps.fmf and made every league round robin (teams play each other once instead of twice)

2) Set the "Continue Game Timeout" to 5 seconds (only stopping when something interests me)

Now i can get through a season in a little more than a day (not playing all day, of course!)

EDIT: I've seen some people post that they holiday "until next match." DONT DO IT!

I tried this, and the game holidayed through a Cup match that hadn't been drawn yet! To explain, i holidayed right after a cup win, holidaying until next match, which was a league match in a week and a half. During that time, the next round of the Cup had been drawn, and scheduled for a couple days before the league match, so i missed it and lost!

Continue game timeout is much better, as it won't continue the game if a response is required (for example, you have to submit your team for an upcoming match, or you have a transfer bid waiting). You can even set it to "instant," which is essentially holidaying until next match, because you can't do anything before Continue is pressed automatically.

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Chas, even on instant you can stop when it scrolls through your inbox. The biggest issue with instant is you can lose your staff. I also change processing to "can't be interrupted" in preferances. Matches are by far the most time consuming for me. I only holiday from the last match until start of transfer window.

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Blimey Marty - only 15 hours per season?! It probably takes me that long to get through the closed/pre-season, what with friendlies/tours, transfers/contracts, scouting internationals.

I'd say that I take about two or three weeks for a season, minimum, and that's with spending a lot of time on the game.

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it all depends on the team i am playing with. In my current save i've given a lot of thought to how i want to setup my arsenal team. They're not favorites to win the league so a little more attenion is required...this can be scaled up for instance when i managed Brighton in an earlier saved game, and scaled down when i managed Barcelona. All depends on the team and how hard the challenge is. Although i never holiday through matches no matter how easy the game is...mainly due to being a total control freak but more to do with not wanting to lose points or exit cups through the stupidity of my ass man.

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Guest avine

it depends. i play some matches, i read, watch irl matches, i even watched a lost match in fm full length recently. Takes about 15 hours of gameplay a season when starting a new save.

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I'm in November of 2012 and I've been playing that save since late November of last year. The total game time is 24 days, but that also includes a lot of dead time when leaving the game running while away etc. I do play incredibly slow as I spend a lot of time scouting for and monitoring youth prospects and potential signings. In addition, I also manage the youth squad to better manage playing time. It adds a lot of additional enjoyment to see them succeed, and I am much more attached to them than I would be otherwise. I do also watch most of the games in full replay, unless it's a blowout in which case I switch to just key highlights.

If I stopped checking my shortlists and looking for transfers constantly, I'd probably take around 50-60 hours to run through a season, with a large chunk of that being spent actually playing the games.

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Blimey Marty - only 15 hours per season?! It probably takes me that long to get through the closed/pre-season, what with friendlies/tours, transfers/contracts, scouting internationals.

I'd say that I take about two or three weeks for a season, minimum, and that's with spending a lot of time on the game.

Made a mistake there as that is estimated match time at 15mins a match at an average of 60 matches a season. It is probably more like 20 hours including off season. I holiday through friendlies as they are for fitness only. I set my scouts up at the beginning of each season and then when the windows come I just look at their reports and decide if I want to sign anyone. Other than agent offers, which I scout, I don't look for any other players. I don't use the player search function as that is what my scouting network is for. "Why have a dog and bark yourself" as they say.

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Chas, even on instant you can stop when it scrolls through your inbox. The biggest issue with instant is you can lose your staff. I also change processing to "can't be interrupted" in preferances. Matches are by far the most time consuming for me. I only holiday from the last match until start of transfer window.

Yeah, it's the same the 5 seconds, which is what i use. It's essentially hitting the spacebar over and over, so it "reads" all your news items for you too!

The only time i stop it often is at the end of the season when i want to make sure i sort out contracts/new signings/friendlies/etc. Otherwise, i just hit Continue and browse other windows until i remember i was playing FM...then go back and see that the game is waiting for me to submit my match day squad :D

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Yeah, it's the same the 5 seconds, which is what i use. It's essentially hitting the spacebar over and over, so it "reads" all your news items for you too!

The only time i stop it often is at the end of the season when i want to make sure i sort out contracts/new signings/friendlies/etc. Otherwise, i just hit Continue and browse other windows until i remember i was playing FM...then go back and see that the game is waiting for me to submit my match day squad :D

Yep. Thats the way to do it.

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I'm playing only one match a day (but I watch whole match).

So I'm playing a season over a month. Sometimes longer.

For example now I’m playing as Wellington Phoenix and New Zealand national team manager (in 2011), so I’m playing 50-55 matches a season (including the league, final series, Asian Champions League and international matches). So now for me the season = almost two months of playing (i'm playing my career from September).

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I think I do a season in about 10-15 hours. I don't sign any players (use youth only) and play my matches on the second (third maybe?) highest speed. If I'm knocked out of Europe I sometimes use commentary only and get the second half of the season done in a couple of hours. It's the first half of the season that always takes the longest.

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Continue game timeout is much better, as it won't continue the game if a response is required (for example, you have to submit your team for an upcoming match, or you have a transfer bid waiting). You can even set it to "instant," which is essentially holidaying until next match, because you can't do anything before Continue is pressed automatically.

How do you activate this continue game timout? and is it classed as holidaying?

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my speed depends on how many tactical changes I need to make, transfer, contract offers etc. I never holiday though. as for game, I watch the key highlights during the game with it as one click off top speed

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I play it way too fast and it really hurts my results, every time i start a new save i say to myself, okay now i'm going to play this one on detail but always end up rushing things..

Does anyone else happen to rotate a goalkeeper for europe/cups and then forget about him and leave him on for an important match? This happens to me all the time.

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I play it way too fast and it really hurts my results, every time i start a new save i say to myself, okay now i'm going to play this one on detail but always end up rushing things..

Does anyone else happen to rotate a goalkeeper for europe/cups and then forget about him and leave him on for an important match? This happens to me all the time.

I always clear my starting eleven immediately after every match. I don't like going into a match not having thought about each position, even in cases where I know I'll pick the same player every game.

I should also point out that I get a slightly geeky thrill out of going through and creating my line-up for each match.

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Takes me approx 30 minutes to play each game . I got the game a week before xmas and now on my 4th season . I prefer to watch the games and make adjustments as necessary to my team . Holidaying through the matches seems to be pointless to me as thats why I play it to actually manage my team .

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  • 3 weeks later...

Takes me around 20 hours, more or less. If it took any longer than this I probably wouldn't bother playing the game anymore. At a pace of 20 hours per season I can get through a season a week if I play a few hours each day and complete a 30-40 season career each FM version. If each version of FM gets more and more tedious I'll probably stop at some point as you'd need to make the game a full time job to have a career journeyman type save.

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I am surprised to see the different camps regarding holidays, the hardcores (Continue Game Timeout), the devout (no vacation) and the slackers (vacation through games).

I can't watch every game in full because I will get too frustrated and probably start micromanaging/start changing tactics too quickly. Watching key highlights I always feel that each highlight is trying to tell me something, that my team is doing well, that a player of theirs is getting the better of us, etc. I consider it the same as having my fingers on the pulse of the game. If the opposition are getting forward in number then I don't ask myself "Is that smart of them?" I just immediately switch to the Counter, and 'Get Ball forward'. Works a freaking charm. I was never a fan of long ball tactics, but now the smart long ball is one of my favorite passes to witness.

I tend to scout A LOT. Not just for future players, but scouting the opposition. I want to know all the top players in the game (its 2034 so its not Kun and Messi and Hazard and co. any more), and I like to think about why it is that those players aren't on my team (usually because they lack one key attribute, top 5 in general are determination, decisions, anticipation, pace or strength, or they are aging). Then I think "what do I have to do if I face them?" Watch out for a pacy striker, hence defend deep and don't man mark him, watch out for a star midfielder, neutralize him by playing my best physical midfielder against him, exploit their LB, RB, CB with no pace... You can't tell how the opposition will line up 6 months ahead of time, but you can look at the opposition and think, what squad would I select, if I was their manager? Who would be crucial to the teams success?

Teams have started playing 4-1-2-1-2 against me a lot, probably because most teams have better AM (and 2nd strikers)than wingers in general. And my team plays a little more than average width, an asymmetrical 4-3-3 (LW, CF, CF). But I have so many Mf who also play Dmf that when someone lines up 4-1-2-1-2 and their star players are the front three, I just immediately plug one of the mids into Defensive midfield, and its like putting a plug in a drain, their offense basically stops functioning!

So yeah, for me, thorough scouting of my opposition and potential transfers is a big time consumer, my next favorite is player development (only downside is my squad can get a bit too big) and seeing players reach their prime, after usually what, 4 or 5 seasons of grooming! I love looking back at a players career, and seeing "Oh yeah, I signed him at 18 for $4m, and I considered it a tad expensive!"

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I spend a lot of time on scouting our newgens and future prospects, ensuring my youth and reserve team players are playing and developing the way I hope they would. Match wise, I just use the commentary as it is more fun in my opinion as it takes me back to the days of CM2.

In terms of a season, it usually takes me around 25-30 hours as I can only really play after work and it's usually when the football is on tv so always have my eye on that at the same time

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